Hello friends,
hope Wednesday treats you wonderful.
I’ve been living in the eastern culture for almost the same amount of years to the time I have spent in the western culture and there’s something very incredible that I’ve noticed which I would like to share with you today.
I am aware that in the western culture religion plays its role and it’s the same in eastern cultures but what if I tell you that not everyone in either culture (I’m sure you already know this) is religious. For example, there are many families compared to mine where we believe there’s a higher power, we believe but we don’t let religion dictate our activities. Sure, we do two or three traditional things, respect certain days in the culture or the religion but we’re solely driven by the holy spirit.
(Laughing) I know it sounds ghostly… Boo! No need to worry, Halloween is over.
There are so many concepts that could refer to the holy spirit, i.e. your intuition, or your inner voice, your individuality… where one often follows their higher-self allowing every person on this planet to make decisions according to their own will.
There was something I kept asking for a while when I went travelling and eventually, I received those answers through many people I’ve met and experiences that I’ve had. I was asking this, “Why does it become acceptable for old people to only ask for forgiveness or make peace with all that they’ve done in their old age and for young people to go on doing what they do without wondering about their consequences?” Sure, money can help you escape from the consequences, but the question is, for how long?
So, I kept living my life, and every now and again I would meet someone older than me that was out of line, I could also compare that to the days when I grew up (only because they were older in the Hindu culture which was what made it feel as if they were correct). You know, being a Hindu girl who travelled alone does bring with it a lot of judgement or let’s call it people’s illusion of how someone who is “decent” moves overseas whose “behaviour” changes. Now the reason why I put decent in inverted commas and behaviour in inverted commas is that everyone has their own meaning of what is “decent” and what “decent change” is so to me the whole thing was morbid. I simply wanted to live in a world and be me, in a world where there are just too many definitions for everything, like the titles you read in my blog posts, too much political correctness. Who lives like a perfect human being? … When I find baby Jesus, I’ll be sure to point you to the North Star (oh! You might get lost), I’ll give you his address and you can get the cabman to put it down in the GPS. I don’t think you have to fly to Bethlehem; I think Jesus is going to be born in the Bronx this time or even in Ibiza. Although I think “Jesus from the block,” will make a cool song.
Sorry, I got taken on a “Camino de Santiago,” for a brief moment. Where were we? Oh! Yes, I’ve taken a lot of judgements and thank God I didn’t need to be around for the majority of them. What living in the United Kingdom and my initial years in Spain has taught me that stuck with me ever since was that this, “I got to rectify my error if I did do something unethical as soon as possible.” I was lucky to meet really really nice people who showed me the importance of being nice in general. I met people who communicated honestly and vulnerably (I was only twenty-one years of age when I went to England) and I was lucky to have met people who showed me how to do my job correctly and point out what was unethical about the way I’ve perhaps carried something out, most of all I believe I’ve learnt this in one of the jobs in Spain where I can tell you for sure that I had one of the best Directors ever running the show in my whole working life. I will not ever forget that awesome job where I and my teammates all succeeded in one way, shape or form. Hey what can I say, I was only twenty-nine years of age when the economic crisis hit, I knew nothing about entrepreneurship back then.
Learning to rectify oneself made me realise how different the people in the Hindu culture were, heck, even people around the world were, in fact, most who were living from their comfort zones. This is what really hit me, i.e. take the moment for the moment. If you’ve made a mistake rectify, apologise and let it go, but make sure you learn from it. This really helped me move fast through life, accepting mistakes, forgiving me, the mistakes of others and learning, but when I met Gujarati people, the way they carry their mistakes, and the games they play, it was a whole new toxic Bollywood drama. Honestly, truth be told, in my whole nineteen years abroad I can honestly tell you that it was the Gujaratis and the Indians from India who played the toxic drama game. I can’t talk for Jamaicans or other foreign races in Britain because I haven’t met or worked with many of them. I had no idea that a game was being fabricated, I just continued as me, when it exploded it exploded in their faces, then they had to find someone to blame, i.e. me. I apologised because things were pointing my way even though I didn’t realise how. So, what then? I accept, I forgive me, I apologise, learn and let it go. Boom! Moved on and then month’s later things begin to unravel, and I’m starting to see a bit more, then I’m like, “Wait a minute!” Then angry, and furious because the truth finally surfaces. Then I’m being asked for forgiveness months later or even a year later, not only that, but there’s also a confession along with finding out the extent people went to be spiteful or sabotaging in the job or on a personal level. Now, this is the important point I want to make which led to the title of this article. I asked, “Why should I forgive people on their sweet time and why won’t they just rectify themselves in their current actions?”
Why?
I basically started thinking about the differences in the western healthy ways compared to the eastern negative ways. Why in the eastern culture people seek forgiveness mostly when they’re in their retirement age, why do they only realise and accept their faults only at retirement? Sorry, I think it’s pretty selfish for the pain caused needlessly especially when others are trying their best to rectify their wrongs straight away. So my thoughts were always this, “So I will forgive instantly after I recognise my mistake, I would appreciate it if you could ask me for forgiveness as soon as you recognise your mistake, hopefully, you’ll get the epiphany pretty soon,” but no, now because one is on their death bed, old age we have to go back in the past and give them their uttermost desire. The heart to forgive, many many years later. This really bothers me; I don’t know about you? Isn’t it selfish, especially cruel to have gotten away for so long treating people this way, ruining so many beautiful things that people are trying to create for themselves and others?
I’m just telling you what I see in the Hindu community for so many freakin years all around the world that maybe it’s possibly the reason why I felt clean spiritually, i.e. mind, body, spirit and soul in my western lifestyle. There was by far less toxicity to deal with, less inner demons of mine and others to deal with even if one is a foreigner having to deal with much politics, paperwork and patriots, at least the damage can be controlled. Working in a job with Indians in one company (I have had two of these experiences when I went out into the real world, and thank God, I kept them down to two for very good reasons), there were so many demons within people let alone in how the job got sabotaged that really made it not a very nice place to work in and one day in one of those two companies the mother company called for an investigation into the Indian company (outsourcing company) which created an unwanted outcome for the Indian company.
I really believe it’s time Millenials, Generation X, Gen Z to begin changing how we as Indians are being perceived in our current world and the way we’re doing things. Why? Because our Indian people who could be potentially honest workers overseas are paying for the negative image created by other Indians who did not do things correctly in many parts of the world.
Stay tuned for my article tomorrow which will dive deeper fully into the last paragraph of this article.
Quotes
It is unfortunate that so much of the history of Africa has been written by conquerors, foreigners, missionaries and adventurers. The Egyptians left the best record of their history written by local writers.– John Henrik Clarke
I love the Twins, … I bleed the Twins. That’s all I know. If I go anywhere else, I’d be a foreigner. – Torii Hunter
Yours sincerely,
T. Dench Patel
Thank you for the comments and support. Thank you for offering to donate if there was a donate button on here. I prefer not to take donations. You can support by purchasing my books (Paperback or Kindle), The South African: True Colours, The South African: Roamer or my children’s book Light. These books can be found on Amazon mainly and other sites in your country.
The audiobook for The South African: True Colours is available on iTunes, Apple and Audible. The South African: Roamer and Light will be released soon.
Note: Do keep referring back to this site as much as possible, as I grow, a more profound perspective may form and so I will always come back to each of these articles to re-evaluate them.
