Value

Taking things for granted is probably the biggest mistake we commit. When I was in school, the kids used to maintain pin-drop silence in a teacher who was a tyrant. The one teacher that relaxed all the rules and was more in the mode of "I'm-not-your-teacher, I'm-your-friend" never got the assignments in time for correction. Her class was never quiet. Her instructions were never taken seriously. At work, the boss who shouted at every one was taken very seriously. People were extra careful to come in time and finish their deadlines in time. When it came to the boss that was more lenient, there were unexplained late arrivals, unfinished tasks, unruly work hours and unapproved leaves.

The friend who understands you more is often neglected. "She'd understand" we'd presume and ditch her on the date to a movie. The one who'll be mad and throws a tantrum will never be ditched on a movie date or any activity for that matter.

Is it not unfortunate that we walk all over people that are nice, understanding and easy going while we suck up big time to the ones that are the exact opposite?

I know a person with a huge (I mean huge) attitude. The person would neither have a genuine smile on nor would value any thing or anyone. The conversations are usually condescending. The humor is more like " I am laughing at you, not with you". And to top it all, the person would bring up the most delicate topics to converse just in case the person would decide to converse in the first place.
I have one word for such people - Duck Odd. ( I know I mix up my "f" and "d"s) but unfortunately there are many people that yearn for a validation from that person. And the most pleasing and pleasant person around would not even get a second glance. "He/She is nice" we'd think "He/She would not mind if we are not nice in return!" Yeah, sad! Yeah, True. So we continue to pull the leg of the person who never ask us to duck odd. We arrive late to dates with him/her. We never return the things we borrow from them and we seldom treat them with the niceness and warmth they treat us with.

I hope that people will learn to value nice people. The smiling sales person will often get cribs about how poor the service was. The one that has a poker face will not even be approached. Right?? The adjusting child will not get attention, the demanding one will never be ignored.

So we seem to have a choice here...We should either stop giving all that 'bhaav' to undeserving people and shower it on the ones that are really nice, like being silent in the nice teacher's class and finishing the work of the nice boss or may be being attentive to the nice, undemanding spouse or child. OR we should just be jerks so that others cease to be jerky with us....

May be it is time we act and value the things that are valuable!