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Rule Vs Purpose of rule – Religion Vs Jesus way

This speech was so much inline with the post that I could not ignore posting the video on Youtube (which is against the rules, just hoping that many will benefit from it).

Religion Vs Jesus way


It says, “if people ask you about following Jesus and you come up with 100 do’s and don’t then seriously you have messed it up ….. if coming to church becomes more important than loving your wife/children/neighbor then you are missing something … Sabbath is made for men but not men for sabbath” …. Do see the video, it teaches you so much about religion vs Jesus.

What is rule vs purpose of rule?

Do you remember my post http://www.seoforclients.com/hr/break-rules-often/ (Why do I break rules so often?)? I will give you a simple example: When a company starts, it starts with almost no rules, people come at any time, work anytime and return back anytime. Everybody knows what others are doing and most of them are fully committed to work but as and when the company grows you will get people manipulating the timings and there comes the rule, 9 to 6 rules. You need to come to the office by 9:00 else you will be marked half day and so on.

Now look at the scenario? There is a person who did not get enough sleep till 3 am and in order to be in office at 9:00, he need to get up at 7:00. He will feel much better if he can sleep till 9 am and comes to the office at 11am. If he comes to the office at 9am with just 4 hours of sleep it will neither be good for the company nor for himself. Now the rule says “9 am”, purpose of the rule says “work effectively” … the owner of the office will certainly agree about the person coming at 11am and finishing his work effectively but the keepers of the law will kill his day for coming late. What if the person always comes late but is going his job (this guy has problem at home and can’t sleep early, I faced it with some people).

Why we don’t allow exceptions in rules?

Simply to make sure that people are not misusing the exceptions. Though rules are not meant for everyone but it should be followed by everyone for the SAKE OF NO-Partiality. I had always been a partial (Showing favoritism) leader. I showed partiality based on the performance irrespective of what the non-performers say. When the performers go out of their ways to help the company, why can’t the company go out of the ways to help these performers. HELL with non-performers who check on what I got and what other got. I have seen that performers are too busy getting the thing done and hardly bothers about what others are getting. He/She should get what he/she deserves :).

Some people will never change

Even after the rules (which are meant to correct the bad people), the bad people will never change, they will find loopholes and will keep manipulating the system. In a society we are not able to throw all of them off and are forced to have laws but in an office we can certainly go with minimum laws.

When it comes to religiously following laws, it becomes dangerous

Some people follow rules religiously and are after everyone who doesn’t follow it. Example: “(Debatable) Women are suppose to cover their heads while praying. At times some of our new members don’t do it. The people who did not cover their head are praying sincerely and the religious people are thinking and looking at the person without the head cover judgmentally. They messed up their prayers by just being judgmental. Also they made an opinion about the person with a non-religious label. BUT DIDN’t Bible also say “Don’t Judge others”?“.

There comes the community, community of religious people based on rules. “We don’t do this so we are separate from others, we come early so we are the most sincere employees, we brought a card for mom on valentines day so we love mom better and so on ” BUT WHAT ABOUT THE PURPOSE OF THE LAW.

(Once Jesus was asked) “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew- 22:36-40

It is important to follow rules

It is important to follow rules but more important to understand the purpose of the rule and follow the purpose of the rule.

Understand rule from the context

Always remember the context of the rule. When was the rule made? What was the purpose of the rule? Who made it? etc …. There are people wearing white on Sundays (thats great), it started in a part of India as that was there culture, white was official. You follow the rule but don’t make it rule above the purpose of attending church. “Don’t make it uncomfortable for others who are not in white”.

Inspire don’t force rules

People do a a better job when they know why they are doing it. So inspire others not force on others. “If celebrating valentine day is bad for Indian culture then come up with the reasons, inspire your fellow brothers and sisters not to go for it BUT WHY THE HELL YOU NEED TO FORCE ON THE PEOPLE. Isn’t you breaking the bigger law of hitting your own brothers and sisters.”

Rules are subject to change, add exceptions

There is no rule that is perfect. There are purposes/themes that are perfect. “You need to work sincerely for your office” is a perfect theme but you need to work from 9am to 6pm is an imperfect rule. There are times when you will need to add exceptions to make the rule more effective and easy on performers. 9am to 6pm atleast 15 days of the month, you can come late with the permission of the team leader, star performers will get exceptions in the rules etc etc.

Enjoy the rule but do understand the purpose of the rule 🙂

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What is more important, Personality or Character? Unprepared is the key

This has been a big debate for years. Personality gets the thing done, character adds the sincerity to it. (Please don’t confuse it with the moral character of a person :))

Let’s take two example to understand:

  1. Giving one speech: Person X can just memorize the speech, get the speech from someone else and practice it enough to look it really real. Judges are judging it on the basis of Person ‘s presentation skill (personality) irrespective of whether Person X feels a damn about the words spoken. Character is when the person puts his opinion that he/she feels is correct. Person Y may have worked in the field has a lot to say from real life examples and so on. (Who will win the competition?) (Probably Person X, I have written many speeches for people, when I write, I write it from my feelings but when the person says it, it is merely the presentation.)
  2. Donating food to poor: Person X is very well dressed in white and is put all the things to be labeled as the best spiritual leader. He distributes the food as he was accompanying a friend. Person Y is also very well dressed but he is doing it as he feels about the poor. (Was there any difference between feeling for poor and just showing off? Probably not)

In both the above example’s Person X and Person Y has used their personalities to do the work. The inner feeling can be termed as Character (motive/feeling behind the action). So is personality more important or character?

Now lets take Person X and Person Y again.

  1. Surprise Speech and Q&A: There was a surprise speech on a similar topic. Person X fall short of words and ideas whereas Person Y is more comfortable with the speech. Even in the Q&A, Person Y does better than Person X (assuming that none of them prepared for the Q&A sessions)
  2. Need volunteer for regular food distribution for poor local organization Who will volunteer for this poor local organization? Probably Person Y as Person X was doing it without much feeling and Person Y feels about poor.

    So what is more important personality of character?
    I always advocated for both. Personality is required for a short term with short conversation impact whereas without character personality can fade out soon. At many times you don’t need character level work (Example: Presentation on goat (assuming that you are not in a goat business)), you just need to prepare enough so that you can score good marks in this presentation.

    But you will have to learn at character level for your related topic. When a student of marketing put a presentation on niche marketing, the purpose behind the presentation is that the person learns niche marketing really well, he/she will have to learn it in deep. Even after the presentation the person should go back and learn it at a character level. If the student doesn’t learn it at character level then later in some stage he/she will face a surprise question on niche marketing with some goodies for effective answers. For the presentation you may not be able to learn niche marketing at character level, for the presentation you just need to do enough at personality level to get enough marks.

    What is personality and character?

    Personality is the part of action that gets the work done. Character is the part of action that works behind the action. Some important points about personality and character:

  1. Personality is what makes the character: When you visit the orphanage you may not feel anything but your personality (where you went to orphanage) helps you see a lot of things, experience a lot of things and then teaches your self (Character part) about the importance of working with them. When you visit again and again, you may start feeling it from inside. Another example is: When you read a book or topic, you may not understand it but reading it again and again can make you a master of it. Reading is personality and understanding it is character.
  2. Character alone is useless: What if you feel for poor (Character level) but never takes an action (personality) to help them. What if you understand the subject like nobody else (Character level) but can’t explain it or use it (personality level).
  3. Personality alone is dangerous: A girl with great make up without original beauty can surprise her admirers when seen without a makeup. Doing makeup is good (personality level) but take care of things like health, drinking water, eating habits etc (that makes the beauty) is required for long term and true beauty (Character). So one will have to do makeup when required but one must be more careful in there day to day activities to develop a true beauty.
  4. Character doesn’t need preparations: When you know the subject and you have good presentation skills (Presentation skills again has to be at character level, not just for one speech but for any speech, it is developed slowly slowly), you can present yourself without any preparations.
  5. Character is the difficult part of both: Personality can be achieved quickly whereas character takes a lot of time to develop. You can learn how to distribute food to poor but make you feel for poor is a difficult and time taking job.
  6. Character is more desired: Character is more desired as a man with character can be taught the personalty but not vice-verse.
  7. Don’t be discouraged for character: I don’t feel good about the subject so whats the point in learning it. This is a common question. We all went through this at times but after reading it for a while (without much understanding) we started feeling it. There are many who comes to Church/Temple just for fun but someday the start feeling about it. There continuous actions (personality) taught their inner self(Character). So never get discouraged about not having the character just keep working with personality and keep focusing on developing character. When we worked in SEO field, at times we did not understand what we were doing, we just did what was instructed to us. BUT WE WENT BACK HOME AND LEARNED THE WHY PART OF WORK. So slowly we started developing the character.

Final word: Personality is very much required to get the work done. Character is very much required for long term and for unprepared times (Unprepared is the key, so keep developing everything at character level)