DATED – 22nd October 2016

Have you gone through this – though you had seen a movie earlier, when you watch it again, you notice a few scenes, dialogues, locations etc., which you had not noticed before? Something similar happened to me when I was watching the Bollywood movie – PK starring Aamir Khan and Anushka Sharma. When the movie is just about to end, there is a live debate between PK and Tapasvi Maharaj. During that debate, PK tells the audience that Tapasvi Maharaj had put a wrong number (wrong information) in Jaggu’s mind that a Muslim will always cheat and hence she called off the marriage. The dialogue and movie continued, but I got stuck.

EUREKA, I thought! Isn’t that how each one of our mind works? Someone somewhere plants some information (wrong number) in our mind during communication. The communication can be one-to-one, marketing messages, TV ads, hoardings, email forwards, YouTube videos, etc. That information becomes the basis on how I think about someone, my perception about a community, the way I look at a country, my opinion about a profession, my view on the future and so on. Let’s look at a few ‘wrong numbers’ given to our minds, which we start trusting and accordingly change our perceptions/way of life –

• When someone tells you that your friend is a big cheat and swindles people’s money, does your way of relating to him change?
• A teacher tells you that there is no future in sports and asks you to focus on studies to become someone in life.
• Parents tell you to follow their instructions and not think too much.
• The economy is very slow and so is business. It is tough to survive the competition.
• The kids have to be fed in front of the TV else they just do not eat.
• The boss is very ruthless. He will never understand even if I have a genuine reason for a leave.
• My business is very traditional and can never become an online success.
• Brushing teeth with neem, turmeric and lemon will spoil our teeth. We start using MNC brand toothpastes.
• Until you drink a particular brand, you are not supposedly COOL in college.

Since we are bombarded with thousands of modes of communications throughout the day, we tend to start believing things as they come, without actually going to the depth of it, especially the ‘wrong numbers.’ For things, that really don’t make a difference to your life, it is fine. But for things that are important, you must go to the core of the issue yourself.

While the world can keep feeding us ‘wrong numbers’, we must give ‘right numbers’ to ourselves. Right numbers like – I need to talk to him before jumping to conclusions about him being a cheat; even if I am not good at studies, there must be some special skill God has given me – let me find out; my parents are telling me for my good, but let me also use my intelligence to handle situations; the competition is intense, so let me think how I can stand out from the competitors; I will plan my day in such a way that I am free when my kids have to be fed; how much ever tough a person looks, there is always an emotional side to them; if no one from my industry is going online, I can become the Amazon of my industry; etc.

The list can be endless. The mind is a very beautiful instrument. It will multiply anything you give it. If you give it complaints, your complaints will become more; if you give it tragedies, it will show you even more; if you give it negativity, it will definitely doom you. On the other hand, you look at the good in a person, it will show you better people; if you remain happy irrespective of situations, it will teach you to be happy for others; if you choose to look at positives always, it will elevate you to unimaginable peaks.

Vis-à-vis my life –

Fortunately, the people with whom I have been with have made me into a person who invariably registers ‘right numbers’ and shoos away ‘wrong numbers’. There have been enough people who have tried to put in wrong numbers about myself into me, but I have not paid heed to them. I can proudly say today – my mind has been trained to register ‘right numbers’ and is strongly shielded against ‘wrong numbers’.

Registering ‘wrong numbers’ continuously is convenient and easy. Challenge lies in allowing more space to ‘right numbers’ and eventually filling the mind only with right numbers. Are you ready to accept a positive challenge? Now here is a ‘right number…’