If someone imposes something on us because of their ego or authority, what can we do?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so if somebody imposes something which is not good on us because of their ego or their authority then what do we do at that time yeah life in some ways is like a tennis match in a tennis match sometimes we are serving and sometimes we are returning now when we are returning at that time the player who is returning has relatively far less control the player who is returning may be very good in the forehand but if the serve comes in the backhand the player has to return for the backhand which height the serve will come, which velocity the serve will come which direction the serve will come, there is very little control that the player has at that time so when they are returning all that they have to do is make sure that they touch the racket to the ball and get the ball back eventually their time to serve will also come that time they will have much more control, much more initiative so all of us will go in life through different situations so sometimes we are in the position of returning that means the control that we have is very limited so we just have to do the best we can in that situation and while we are doing the best that we can in that situation because somebody, now why somebody has imposed that that’s a different issue, right now there is a restriction for me so I have to operate within that restriction of course we can work to counter that restriction also but the fact is if that person has the authority or that person has the ego whatever, the restriction is there, operate within that right now keep operating within that, keep getting the ball in play and eventually things will change so that constraint, that limitation is not going to be forever there although sometimes at that time it can appear that it will go on forever so we will all, rather than looking at that this person is imposing it first we can understand this principle that there will be times in our life when our control will be limited and it’s important to learn that skill of operating within limited control also even when our control is limited how best can I function within that limited control sometimes we feel this person is suffocating me so much that I can’t do anything it may be like that but we are never that powerless no matter how bad our situation is we can just do this thought exercise no matter how bad our situation is we can always make it worse you may say who wants to make it worse it’s already bad no that’s not the point, the point is that think of the worst situation in your life that you are in can you make it worse, obviously you can say if you are not done well in a particular exam and then I decide I will not study for the other people well in that you get poor marks, here you get no marks it will be worse, so if every situation that we are in if we have the power to make it worse then that means we are not entirely powerless if you can make it worse, you can also make it better now how much you can make it better that’s variable so sometimes some tennis players actually they win grand slam championships primarily based on their returning skills most players will do well on their server but what defines them, what helps them win matches is their excellence in returning so when we are put in constrained circumstances how well we operate that is also a valuable skill and learning that can stand us in very good stead in future, for example in this class when I was giving the class I was serving now when you are asking questions I am returning I don’t know what kind of question you are going to ask whichever question comes I will answer to the best of my capacity now some people may like the class some people may like the question answers so it depends on some people, I know some speakers they are known especially for the question answers so there are different, even within limited control we can actually develop expertise and I was in Singapore so there was this they have a forum of business people so I was addressing a group of CEOs over there and after that we were talking there was one person he said I was an engineer and I never did very well in my engineering but then at that time when I had to do my project our project guy demanded a very difficult project to do so we had very talented people in our team we had very talented students but they couldn’t get along with each other because they were all talented they had their own demands and he said I was not talented at all like them I could barely scrap through my engineering but somehow I was put in the project with them and I felt horrified so they are all brilliant and I can’t even pass my exam and they are toppers how will I function with them but then I found that I could actually massage all their egos and make them work together and the whole project worked out very well and that’s the time when I discovered that my talent is not in engineering but is in team building and that’s how he was an engineer but he went into management and now he has become a big CEO so he was put in a situation where he felt I don’t know even one tenth of what all these people know but he tried to learn in a constrained situation so we can see an opportunity over there to work within a constrained situation and apart from that we can try to find out what is the way in which we can influence that person sometimes when they are in a domineering mood they may not listen but later on they might be in a reasonable mood at that time they might listen to us or sometimes if there is some other person whom they respect and we talk with them and through them we try to influence they might listen and sometimes some people have to learn through experience you do it your way and when you see it doesn’t work then that’s why they will learn so if somebody has that ego we have to find out how to work with that so either we try to help them understand or we get others to help them understand or then life will have to teach them any other questions?