He who knows my darkest secrets is my biggest fan

FROM THE EXECUTIVE EDITOR’S DESK

We all have secrets that we aren’t necessarily proud to share. Some of us may have treated a colleague in a way that s/he did not deserve to be. We may have betrayed the trust of a co-worker or gone ahead and created some mischief in a fit of jealousy or rage. At some stage in our work-life, and with varying degrees, we’ve all been a little manipulative, sneaky … even treacherous at times. Things of the past, we tell ourselves — things that we’d all like to put behind us and move on. And not talk about them — ever. Most of us actually do a fairly good job of keeping those secrets, well, secret.

Come to think of it, we are that ‘one person’ who knows all of our secrets, including the deepest and darkest ones. And come to think of it, more often than not, we hold ourselves in the highest esteem — more than anyone else. We are our lives’ protagonists and in our own judgment, we are the best, aren’t we? Now that’s just a little ironic, wouldn’t you think? In our hearts and minds, we all have proper justifications, explanations and excuses for each one of our follies and, over the years, we’d have come up with a mechanism to ignore, forget or forgive our indiscretions.

If only we’d be as forgiving to some of our colleagues and co-workers about some of their errors of judgement and lapses, this world — or at least our respective workplaces — would be a much better place to be in. And why just the workplace? If we were to employ the same yardstick and the same standards to measure everyone else around us, friends and family included, we’d realise that we’d be letting go of a majority if not all of the grudges we hold against them. We’re human, yes, but so are those against whom we may be harbouring a little bit of bitterness or enmity. The next time you feel critical of someone, just remind yourself that you’ve done worse and forgotten about it — and you’ll be doing yourself a whole lot of good by getting rid of that bad blood.