Reduce Stress Thru Unlearn

Note: The issues mentioned here can be used by one and all however is more so applicable for the employee and executives of Call centers, BPOs or other IT and ITES companies. Any specific question resolving complicated issues are always welcome.

Growth and Stress

The developments, which were witnessed in the Western countries, took more than 100 years to mature. The long period of 100 years provided enough time for individuals to unlearn and make changes. They remained comfortable unlearning and learning new things over a period of a few generations.
But the kind of development, Asian countries are witnessing or shortly will be witnessing in the Information Technology era is hardly giving time to individual in one life-time, forget about generations. Practically facing the situation is really mind-boggling. That is where, the importance of unlearning is vital not only for individual growth but for the growth of society, state, country and humanity.
The changes are not affecting million but billions (As per estimates of 2004, 1.1 billion people live in extreme poverty). The development estimated in next few years has potential to bring many towards a much comfortable financial situation. However, handling situation on personal and social level will throw a huge challenge to all of us. The new kind of stress related syndrome can be witnessed in the growing society.

Unlearning is key to Stress Management

The skill for unlearning has to be acquired, harnessed and innovated. The NGOs and other charitable organizations have to come forward to take up these Herculean tasks of eliminating social gaps. The human rights activists have to initiate their activities in these directions. Unlearning has to be converted into mass movements.

Areas where Unlearning mandatory

The following areas deserve mandatory appreciation and understanding.

1. Living Style – We have to forget to live a poor life. We can not hate rich. We have to create and cultivate habits of the rich. In every aspect of life we have to see how we can improve our lives. We have to work out the means and process by which we can be in a position to provide the basic amenities to every one. It is next to impossible to provide today’s basic necessities to slums or road-side houses. We must create societies to provide the basics amenities. And for this we will have to unlearn slums, road-side and other related living habits. We should never look towards SEZ or Singur as a threat. Rather, they are the options to unlearn.
2. Family structure – The family is a very important constituent of an individual life. The concept of joint family in today’s knowledge world is a curse. In a joint family, the biggest sufferer is the individual, especially the girl child or female who faces the brunt of the rotten system. She loses her identity. She is taught to sacrifice all her desires, ambitions and aspirations. In the old times, a joint family was support for individuals to grow, but today, the individual needs all sorts of different infrastructures to grow including good food, efficient institutions, reliable connectivity, time for creativity and so on. Individuals should have the privilege to live their own lives. We will have to unlearn many prevalent traditions and follow new rules.
3. Eating Habits - Good health is a very important aspect in life. Good health in the long run is achieved by good eating habits. These habits are not available ready made. One has to learn good eating tactics but before that bad eating habits and associated fears have to be unlearned. Eating habits should be created based on expert advices rather than trivial preachings. It should never depend on old traditions. Bad eating habits consume a lot of time. Without improving eating habits, it is not possible to keep healthy, it is not possible to have creative time, it is not possible to enjoy life, and it is not possible to become developed.
4. Global Language – Every educated individual and policy maker of the nation should think about the language issue. We should not keep the regional language for the poor and deprived people. We should provide equal opportunities to them to learn a global language. All government-run schools must teach English from primary school to bridge the gap between rich and poor. The government rather than talking about the first claim on resources, should provide equal opportunities to learn modern education and up to date wisdom. The poor should not feel it as their duty to force their children to study the regional language. We must learn and ensure that others learn the global language. Knowledge of the global language will pave the way for a very bright future of a developing nation.
5. Religious Faith – One recent study confirms that people are very religious in nature. But we need to understand religion for the benefit of human kind. Rather than generating blind faith, we must create a religious environment where people are respected and no discrimination exists in society. Religion should make us better individuals rather than crippled and burdened ones. We must restrict religious activities to generate a good life. We should never allow ourselves to think that God will do things for us. God is not going to help anyone unless a person tries to improve her own life. God has given us everything and we have to create our world with growing knowledge and sustained effort.
6. Understanding Self – It is very essential to understand oneself with all human frailties. A person knows herself best in this world. No other individual knows her better. She must take decisions in life according to her basic necessities. She has to make herself healthy, happy and knowledgeable to make this world a happier place. Without keeping yourself happy, you can never think of a happy world. We must unlearn other teachings to realize the importance of self. Self is essential and important. If you cannot understand and take care of yourself, you can never take care of anything else.
7. Education – Quality education broadens the views and vision of a person. It helps us to understand the world better. It promises to make life and this world a better and enjoyable place. One can have any amount of assets and resources but enjoyment and success come from balanced understanding. Understanding develops from good education. We must unlearn that education is necessary for a job only. Education is essential for a balanced happy life. Education should never mean that children are forced to study a particular book or epic. In that case, the purpose of education gets defeated. We must allow our children to get education on the subjects which open their thinking skills. Education must enhance constructive creative mentality. This will ensure the growth of humanity at large.
8. Entrepreneurship Skill – When we are entering the era of the developing domain, it is important to understand the needs of the time. We should never depend upon the government agencies to help us, but we must generate innovative ideas to create an environment where a large section of people get benefited along with self-development. In this Innovative Century, entrepreneurship skill with the right aptitude and correct unlearning skill can do wonders.
9. Working Culture – We must create a good work culture in our blood. We should forget and unlearn the old work ethics. Now as we are going to be a part of a developed world, we should feel proud and privileged in our work whatever and wherever we do it. We should create a work culture like China or Japan. People should not turn their faces on visitors during working.
10. Social obligations – We cannot be happy in isolation so we must try to fulfill our social obligations. We must take some time to think of our society’s development. We must see how people around us grow. We should try to create better and healthy surroundings. We should work hard to develop parks and other recreation centre in our neighbourhood.
11. Social Interaction – Technology is the biggest tool to interact with the world. We should be open enough in our thinking and action to exploit the privileges of this era. We must interact with all human beings on this earth. We must unlearn earlier interaction instincts, which were mainly based on caste, language, region or religion. Society has suffered heavily because of caste and religion-based interaction in the last century which should not be allowed to prevail in the new era.
12. Eradicating Discrimination – Social discrimination has been a critical and prominent part of the human civilization until just a century ago all across the world. However as society developing and education and prosperity increases, the discrimination between humans is vanishing. But, discrimination is still the biggest challenge to human civilization. It is like a cancer to humanity. We must make a policy so that all human beings are considered equal. There should be no need of reservations. Has America ever thought of reservations for the Blacks to eradicate the drawbacks of black society? Is China doing anything like this? Indian political bosses also should take a lesson and find some substitute for reservation for backward classes, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, Muslims or even women. We must eradicate discrimination by removing reservation. Why educated doctors, engineers and other professionals have to face police atrocities to eradicate this discrimination in society? We should take other steps so that all humans treat other humans equal. Reservation remains a biggest source of discrimination.
13. Natures responsibilities – Once we are on the way to becoming developed it should be our responsibility to ensure that the atmosphere around us remains healthy not only for us but for future generations too. We should be ready to take hard decisions to make our air clean and healthy like Jagmohan took tough decisions as a Cabinet Minister and implemented CNG in Delhi. Supreme court moved polluting industries out of the city.
14. Global Thinking – We should not restrict our acquaintances with people of one country, rather we should move across the world. We should be ready to accept calibre from any part of the earth to improve life. We must unlearn the old missionary phobia. When Bill Gates of Microsoft Corporations can fight to remove ‘visa’ restrictions in the United States of America, there is no reason why we should not enhance the system and improve infrastructure to attract brilliant minds from across the world in various fields.
15. Global Family – We must consider the whole world as one family. We should cross the barrier of religion, region, caste or creed in relationships and marriages. Generally, we were content with meeting and marrying on the basis of caste, language or region. We should stop marriages based on caste or region. We must learn from Hema Malini and Amir Khan. The time has come when we should openly welcome and institutionalize the entry of people from across the world. We should stop asking people their caste and region to form an opinion or have a companion.
16. Democratic Behaviour – The time has come to accept basic democratic behaviour in our personality. It is next to impossible to have a prosperous world if society is built without the contribution or sense of involvement of each and every individual rich or poor, male or female, educated or illiterate, without caste barring, believers of any religion or faith, etc. Democracy cultivates a sense of involvement.

Many views with typical solutions appear in media to counter emerging stress in society, but in my view, the above mentioned points need specific attention from all the concerned people to combat stress threat.