Who is the one person we must impress?

Looking at a small child trying to impress all the adults around by showing off each new skill they acquire is an important indication that we seek approval of people around us right from birth. And it is a logical conclusion of the observation that “human being is a social animal”.

While in school we constantly try to impress our teachers. I can still remember how my classmates competed to answer questions asked by a teacher, raising the hands as high as possible. A mathematics teacher who taught me in primary school had this technique - he would write a problem on the blackboard and the first two or three students who solve it and show it get a V.Good (Very Good) in their notebook and the next three or four would get a Good.

As we walk into the workplace as a fresher, the first people we try to impress are our teammates. We wish to gain the respect of our peers and try to fit into the team and seek a sense of belonging. This could be the reason we make friends with those that join the organisation along with us very easily.

Then comes the manager whom we must impress to give us that great increment or promotion. Career growth takes the path of impressing the managers, their managers and the entire hierarchy and finding champions among them who would support our growth.

Thanks to the social networks we also need to impress a lot of people whom we don’t even know.

But, I believe, the one person whom we forget to impress and whom we actually must impress is oneself. We forget to ask ourselves if we are proud of what we do and how we do what we do. Looking back at life do we feel a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment seeing where we are and who we are. I think this is the problem of life today. We are so busy playing the game, we hardly ever get the time to reflect and rejoice in it.

At the end of the day the only person we will have to live with forever is ourselves. And if we cannot live with ourselves, all our efforts are in vain.

Think about it!