Friends, the species on the Earth, on whom we rely blindly. They are our family, our caretakers and our partners in mischief too. There are many jokes, and teasing that go on between friends and do constitute a crucial part of our relation with them. Not only with friends, but with colleagues, classmates, relatives and in all our social interactions, teasing, playing pranks and funnily joking around is a definitive part. Mostly it is harmless and stress relieving. But it also happens that joke for one person means insult of another. We also see in today’s T.V. shows also, without insulting someone, no joke can be formed. Can’t there be fun without looking down upon some other individual? And it is also not uncommon to see someone taunting against some other person and packing it in wrapper of joke.
It is not too rare to come across a situation, where others do not understand our individuality and make a comment on us, that has power to scar us to our soul...! Certainly, we all would have faced such situation at one time or other. And that moment sometimes takes us by surprise, sometimes hurts us, sometimes makes us angry. Range of emotions come to us at that point. What should be our stand when we face such an incident..? To ignore and continue relationship or take a stand for ourselves..!
Many of us choose to ignore the comment and continue our companionship thereby avoiding any conflict, but the right thing to do would be to take a stand. Each of us has an individuality, which many of us value most; and those who do not, should. And taking a step for protecting our dignity must be our first priority. There are moments in our life when somebody tries to hurt our individuality, whether intentionally or unintentionally. And often, the ones who hurt us are our close ones, so much so that they refuse to acknowledge our independent existence, an individual personality, and moreover our sentiments. At some times, they are the one of the best people in our life, but at other times, they do hurt us.
In my view, the first thing to do to deal with such situation is to not lose our head and restrict ourselves’ from yelling and shouting. Because, if we do this, it might look to others as our weak point, a way to tease us, and that would in-turn enrage us more; and yelling and shouting may even cost us the relationship. It is better to talk through the situation, and keeping a firm point that the comment had hurt us, and that such talk should be avoided in future. The best guardian one can get is oneself. And if we don’t have friends that can respect us, then we should not refrain from cutting out on gatherings with them. There is no companionship at the cost of one’s dignity.
Nobody deserves to get hurt, not even from his close ones and not even jokingly. Many a times joke for one is equivalent to a sword for another. And we should also keep in mind that any of our joke or prank does not hurt anyone else. After all, dignity of each individual is important. Thus if we don’t tolerate some kind of behavior with ourselves, then same should not be done to others. As the saying goes, “Treat others as you want to be treated by them.”
-Rusheel Shukla
-Rusheel Shukla
