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384. Moral Attitude to Work

The ordinary man is often an adored member of the society. He is hailed as a model man. Such a man will follow all the social rules, and never transgress the social boundaries. He will conform to the norms of the society, honour his own conscience and be held up as a perfect gentleman. Such men during their school days win all the GOOD BOY prizes. This is all right; but this is not all. Some children are gifted, while others are unruly. The precocious children will always be found NOT to fit into the society at one point or the other. Should one be born a prodigy, the rule is his life will be miserable. The genius has always suffered at the hands of the family, society, government, etc.

The rule of the moral man is, 'He who is not a friend is an enemy'. This is not true. Society consists of both friends and enemies but also a great mass of people outside that. To consider one who is not a friend as an enemy is a dangerous attitude. I am not concerned about the rare individual who is born a genius. Now that India is free and education more widespread, more and more children are born with a WILL of their own, and are less eager to conform. They suffer at the hands of parents who have a well-defined MORAL attitude. "My child does not obey. He is a bad boy." A parent must have a sense of whether the child is evil or good. Out of ten rough children, only ONE will be bad. Even there it is the violence of the ununderstanding parent that makes him bad. There are occasions where the parent needs to congratulate himself as his child is out of the ordinary, if not outstanding.

Reading about the lives of many achievers who are not geniuses, one sees how much the child suffered because of lack of understanding in the parent. Churchill was at the 30th rank in a class of 30 not because he was dull -- he was a genius - but because his mother cruelly neglected him, thinking his poor performance in the school revealed he was dull. Churchill was considered a bully at school. Is it a sin for the child to be born with a broader mind than his parents? Now a days, that is more the rule than the exception. A very rigid MORAL attitude to work is likely to inflict an undue punishment on the child. Personally I am a sad witness of many such children whose suffering is avoidable.



story | by Dr. Radut