by Gopal Prasad Bashyal
People easily point fingers at others for everything gone wrong, but it’s difficult to recognize own faults. People are very little self-reflective. They intend to be appreciated and flattered. However, unfortunately, they do not offer others what they expect from others. Such kind of greed becomes a quality that makes people blind to their mistakes and think everything is alright in their part. This leads to a complex stubborn mental position of a person; the great misfortune is that the person believes himself or herself alright; and, as a consequence, persistent misbehaviors become the characteristic traits of the person. Literally stubborn means ‘having or showing dogged determination not to change one’s attitude or position on something especially in spite of good arguments or reasons to do so’. This is a mental illness.
Human beings live across various circumstances and experience some positive and negative consequences. Many people get entangled with these empirical feelings. Some people find them being isolated or neglected; or there is huge unexpected loss in the family or personal life or career; or experience an unjustifiable severe torture or harassment. These unfavorable situations might result a twist in the life journey which is mostly disgusting that the individual feels losing recognition but can’t accept the situational consequences. There is always a conflict that leads people of such experiences either towards depression or towards forceful war against unwanted situations. These people understand the society from very personal perspectives (as they are rejected in public), and finally become stubborn.
The individuals need to know the easy symptoms of becoming stubborn although it’s very difficult to do so. The stubborn person keeps insisting on doing or proving something as once said even though he or she believes it’s wrong and no one is doing this. The patient gets easily angry or frustrated; and pays always a little attentions to any situation he/she disagrees with. It doesn’t happen innocently though the patient can’t compromise to the situation, rather intends to control and win the situation as the deep-rooted personal willingness. The conflict arises when the patient neither compromises nor surrenders, rather wishes to take revenge or fights against the situation. Compromise is possible only if the disputing parties realize that the rival is not in profit. For this, the advantage of the consequence of compromise must give equal profit to all.
A huge question that requires careful attention of dealing with the situation and making decision fairly has been always keeping human beings at crossroads. The appetite of looking number one has been important for survival as human beings compete for. Generally, people believe the children are stubborn, which is wrong. Until four, children behave fairly- equal share to the self and the others; say, they share foods or fruits etc. After that they learn some sort of preferences and watch adult make unfair distribution, they begin questioning on their existing behavior (making fair distribution) and try to understand what it means to prioritize the self-first. The adult behaviors teach children to address the self-interest first. Do you help a stranger to pick up goods spilt in the street and miss your bus? Certainly not. The children observe such behaviors of parents and learn to ignore public concerns at the cost of personal benefits.
The life experiences build personal traits (or beliefs) which are transferred into public traits since people interact and accumulate offensive social attributes. Man is a social being, i. e. man is a social construct. Therefore, the existing human behaviors are to some extent the products of human beings the subject interacts with. The other factors include genetic qualities, experience with nature, and the out of control situations. However, the erroneous social upbringing in the family is the major cause of stubborn behavior. Thus the stubbornness is not personal entity; it’s produced by the interaction of multiple personal and public traits. So, when stubbornness is analyzed as an individual’s property, that’s a blunder.
There are possible remedies of overcoming stubborn. One of best way of becoming fair and avoid stubborn is being active listener. People generally tend to ignore listening to others because they presume that the speaker is simply trying to justify themselves. This is not advantageous to either side. When you listen to someone, you have opportunity to understand the context in the bigger image, and at the same time, there is chance of changing your mind and clicking something advantageous for you. The next idea of avoiding stubborn can be openness: stop thinking that there is only one way of action, and begin to explore alternatives. Flexibility is always worthy to practice. The third idea can be admitting mistakes. Making mistakes is natural. But people generally do not accept the mistakes. The solution is that everyone needs to be accountable to their actions which definitely make them do everything right. Similarly, everyone should know that even a right action needs suitable context to perform. This means we need to wait for appropriate time to execute every action. These ideas are not easy to follow. However, for the real change you need to be ready to sacrifice your dream or possession for achieving bigger dream and privileges.
July 21, 2021