Reservations

I know the title seems all controversial but this isn’t my political stand on Reservations. Just plain thoughts that are triggered by the word.

Reservations have a different meaning for all of us but the baseline of each perspective remains the same… “something that is kept aside for someone and can’t be accessed by the others”.

We come across reservations all the time. Some reserve train tickets to go see their family on Raksha Bandhan or Diwali. A table is reserved at a fancy restaurant for the perfect date leading to the perfect proposal, conference room reservations for the game-changer business meeting and last, but the most controversial, political reservation of seats in jobs and educational institutes.

The one thing that doesn’t fall quite into place on this topic is the reservations we hold against people. Most often our reservations arise due to what we see or what we hear.

Someone who owns an iPhone or Mac must be rich and have things easy. If a guy smokes or drinks, I should stay away from him. If a girl has had more than 3 boyfriends, one shouldn’t mingle with her. And let’s not even get started about the reservations people hold towards the LGBTQ community.

Most of us tend to develop a hesitation towards a person judging by just one aspect that we see. Trust me, even I do.

Since birth, we are continuously developing something known as “psychological goals”. It basically refers to what we think we “should” or “shouldn’t” be. Since childhood we’re taught to choose our company wisely and are told that we become like the people we’re surrounded by. For a lot of us, this instills a fear in us, the fear of developing a habit we find unhealthy and so we tend to start distancing ourselves from the person in question. This may lead to attributing more negative characteristics which we might be afraid of or look down upon. For example, smoking usually goes with drinking, dressing sense usually defines the character of a person, a person’s frequency of attending parties may be associated with the quality of grades.

Euler’s axioms in Mathematics say “the sum is greater than the part”. A person is more than what one characteristic of his/her. Being a great speaker, a non-smoker and non-drinker didn’t make Adolf Hitler a great person. Consuming alcohol didn’t make Bill Gates or Nelson Mandela any less of leaders. What marked these people were their deeds.

In most cases, reservations arise from judgments which in turn come from one’s conscious or subconscious ego. We mostly judge people to make ourselves feel better. It gives us comfort to think that there are people much worse off than us and we in some way are better than them, more hardworking, more down to earth, much more responsible, much more healthy or even much more good looking. In a way,  our reservations are mere reflections of our insecurities and fears. Somewhere deep down, we’re all Regina George from Mean Girls, but this is when we must remember that blowing out someone else’s candle isn’t going to make yours burn brighter, calling someone else stupid doesn’t make you any smarter, calling someone else fat doesn’t make you any thinner.

Lastly, people lack trust. Imagine what a beautiful place the world would be if we could read each others’ stories. No Judgments then. No reservations. You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide. If your conscience is crystal clear, nothing can ever taint it (not speaking philosophically but psychologically).

Will Smith once said, “Never underestimate the pain of a person, because, in all honesty, everyone is struggling. Some people are better at hiding it than others.” Trust people, take chances and stop reservations… in all senses (would really love to eat at a fancy table at a new restaurant without having to book it in advance).