PROJECT 2 - I MAY NOT BE PERFECT

I May Not Be Perfect


“I have so many wonderful qualities; it’s easy to overlook my few disgusting habits”, said Ashleigh Brilliants the famous author.

Toastmaster of the Day, distinguished guests and fellow Toastmasters,
A very Good Evening to one & all!

Perfection is not a concept that applies to humans. We tolerate one another’s faults and annoying habits because they are only a small part of the total person.

A well rounded person naturally has more than one side and it’s not always possible to be viewed from the best side of our profile. No matter how diligently we stay on our guard, someone will catch us on a bad moment.

One early morning as a joke my wife took my photo when I sat on the bed with the sign of my incomplete sleep with semi-closed eyes and an yawning mouth. I don’t know how you look like when you wake up in the morning but this is how the camera caught me………………

Now, I ask you, is that what I really look like? You bet it is! But only when I wake up in the morning – for a few seconds. You know what that means? There are over 50000 seconds every day when I don’t look like that!

Sometimes a bad impression is the first or even the only impression we have of someone.
Years ago, I recollect taking a bus from Mumbai to Mahad. The driver was driving very rashly and sure enough near Panvel he hit an auto-rickshaw. Instead of stopping he sped away and stopped at the Panvel bus-stand. Suddenly realizing that the auto-rickshaw was reaching the bus stand, he hurriedly asked us to board and again sped away. Now the passengers were very annoyed with him. They started shouting, asking him to stop.
He stopped,
Drive slowly!
I will drive as I want, if you want to travel, alright or just get off!
This was a real bad impression on me. I never saw him again, but I’ll always remember how rude and impatient he was. Maybe he was a rude impatient man - or maybe he was really a nice man under lot of stress and having a bad day.

It’s so easy to make judgments based on one incident in a person’s life without knowing why they are acting that way. Sometimes they are simply reacting to something that we are doing.

I will never forget the day I was judged by a stranger who visited my cousin’s residence, perhaps he was known to my cousin. Everybody was watching an exciting cricket match on TV and I was deep asleep in the same room. Due to the loud voices I could not sleep and I woke up. Sitting on the bed I was trying to catch the status of the cricket match. Later on I came to know through my cousin that the guest enquired about me and when my cousin told him that I am working as an IT Professional in kemco, in reply he commented “He doesn’t look like an IT professional”. I still could not make out how an IT person should look like when he is just gets up from a deep sleep?

Now I would like to share a success story! During my last vacation I met my very old college friend Shakeel. We exchanged our visiting cards. I raised my eyes when I found that he is working as a sales Manager in an international firm in Saudi Arabia. I was surprised, how an ordinary graduate person, being average in studies could become a Sales Manager of an international firm. I tried to recollect and found that Shakeel was not that good in studies but he was the champion in communicating with other people. Almost every year in the college he was elected as a Class Representative and in our last year of graduation he was elected as a General Secretary of the college. He was always having a good rapport with all the professors and the fellow students. Looking at his activities I used to say that he is wasting his time in the activities other than study. But now it was proved that his leadership skills and art of communicating was the reason of his success.

We are inclined to live up to the image of ourselves that we see reflected in another person’s eyes. The positive people in our lives look past our shortcomings and see us as the person we should be. This helps us to become that person. So if we look for the best in people they will usually respond by rising to meet our expectations.

Of course we will always have some faults and annoying habits. It’s all part of being a human being. But don’t let the little things stop you from seeing the good side of people.

As Ashleigh Brilliants says, “ I may not be perfect, but parts of me are excellent”!

Over to the Toastmaster of the day!