In the middle

      No matter how high we rise in our society, there tend to be always people who are above us, to whom we look up. At work, most of us have subordinates, we have clients and we have superiors. We can say we are somehow in the middle. 

    There is a tendency to focus our efforts on pleasing the people above us. That is not an easy thing to do. People above us, want to "help" us improve by fault finding and criticism. Just like quite often we do with the people below us. 

    I have seen so many house officers and junior medical doctors being close to nervous breakdowns because they get scolded and criticized for the 2 mistakes they made while no one talks about the 98 good things they did. And the weird thing is that those above them, criticizing them, think they are merely helping them to improve. 

    If we shift the focus of our efforts to please the people below us, we enter a wholly different realm. Instead of working to please the "boss" we start to render service to those who need it. There is so much peace and so much job satisfaction to be found in rendering service, seemingly selfless service. In the case of junior docs, if they focus on going the extra mile for their patients, on helping the docs that are still junior to them, on being friendly to nurses and attendants, Job satisfaction will be their part, They will have peace, that will not be easily disturbed by any toxic comments from whoever is their senior. 

    Somehow that is how we were made. Rendering service give peace of mind and happiness of the highest order. Many of us do not know this, or are not consciously aware of this at most of the time. We look for the highest form of happiness in places and achievement where this type of happiness cannot be found. Pleasure was meant as a means to help us survive. Peace of mind and true happiness were meant as a means of becoming a human being with a purpose and contributing to the betterment of this world :)

Let us focus on the people below us. Give them a helping hand and find perfect joy in it.