The eternal question which baffled many a historian, many a wise person and most
probably the first question for any child, “Why is it right?”
I always was baffled by this question on how to distinguish between right and wrong? I
have always got varied approaches to solve this. My school teaches used the authoritative
approach, where you feared questioning back and accepted the “truth” because the teacher
said so. My mother used the persuasive approach, where you tend to accept the “truth”
because you do want your mother to feel bad that you did not accept her wish. My father
used the belief approach, where I tell myself that it has to be the “truth” because father said
so, after all how can you first hero of your life be wrong. My brother and friends used the
“Play by the rules or else you will not be accepted in the group” approach, whereas my
wife uses the “Do it for me darling” approach. All these approaches are good in molding
my moral determining system but none of the approaches answered the basic question,
“Why is this right?”
All through my childhood I was taught to be silent, respect everyone, read regularly, pray
diligently and that was exactly how I started my schooling. The end result being that I
turned out to be a silent guy, scared of talking loud, scared of people, places, in fact scared
of everything. Imagine a 10 year Old’s horror, when he realizes that all his childhood
photos were taken in frocks and skirts because his parents wanted a baby girl and out came
a baby boy. I was that introvert nerd whom good friends know as talkative but for the rest
of the folks, was as good as dumb. And the fact that owing to my father’s occupation, I had
to shift schools/town every couple of years did not help. And slowly the same scared guy
grew up and took tiny steps to walk into the corporate world. This was where I realized
that all my fears were my own creations. This was where I realized saying NO does not
mean that I am going against someone. It just means I don’t see the solution provided as
viable. I realized that I don’t have to say sorry for every silly thing except when I know I
am truly responsible for the issue.
This change in my behavior system also triggered a good many questions within myself. If
