Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Stand up. Be counted.

For those who have trouble understanding the above idiom, you can follow this link.

But let me make life simpler for you.

The meaning of that idiom is to let yourselves be heard. Whether it’s an opinion or a support or a statement.

In our modern society, a lot of Asians are still not willing to stand up for themselves. That is why the Western world branded our stance as always being non confrontational. In simple words, we don’t like to confront people, about anything for that could cause trouble or a scene.

We always choose to keep things to ourselves and best not to be heard by others for fear of shame or respect.

If it were for the reason of respect or professionalism, it is clearly understandable, but up to a certain point.

For instance, although bosses give stupid commands and you disagree, it is deem unprofessional to shout back at his decisions. That is acceptable, as it is widely seen all over the world. But if you do, you’d notice that bosses will stand up for their decisions.

However, things that affects us personally, we have to stand up for that. May it be for such a small matter as a short change or something so huge that it would damage your reputation as a person.

Sure, there are those who may say it’s a childish act to try to defend yourself, but I say, everyone has their pride and their dignity.

If we’re being trampled over and we just let it be, we’d forever be cowards and will never learn to express our opinion as a person who has rights to do so.

I was just reminded of a programme on the radio the other day where the deejays called up an upper class departmental store to enquire regarding their personnel’s arrogant attitude towards customers. They even made such a big fuss of it by contacting the company’s head office to complain to the customer service manager. Everything ended well when the manager took action and gave an apology statement to the deejays publicly.

Some people just don’t like causing a scene. But if we’re always afraid of that, we’d never learn to expect something proper. Something just as simple as a service or a debate.

Sure, we might ruffle some feathers, but it has to be done.

Only winners learn to defend themselves and react. People who are always afraid or think it’s inappropriate to voice their opinions will always end up as losers and be trampled over because they never learn.

It’s a modern society. Opinions matter. Without your own opinion, you’d never stand up and be counted. Like someone once said, you would just be like dead fishes going with the flow.

Learn to stand up for what you think is right and have your say.

Are you going to be a winner today, or a loser?

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