Too much of a good thing

Tweeting is a good thing. Your tweet can influence people. It can enlighten people. It can provoke people with no fear of immediate physical attack. And many more such things. But too much of it may do you harm as well. After reading today's news paper I can't agree more to this. With millions of followers and having tweeted in multiple thousands of occasions, one is at the risk of losing his job and more importantly his wife, mainly because of his tweeting.

If you have too much of a good thing, pleasant can become unpleasant. Not only for you but for others as well.

I have an uncle who is very particular about taking care of his guests. “Atithi Devo Bhava” (“The guest is god” in Sanskrit - a language which is now studied more by foreigners than us) is his key principle. Once I enter his house he will point me to the sofa to take a seat. As I am about to decide on that, he will say “or you sit on that couch which will be more comfortable”. Once seating gets settled, the next question would be whether I would like to a have a cup of tea.  The moment I try to open my mouth, he would assure me that coffee is also available.

“Why are you bothering him so much, he will ask what he wants no?” my aunt reacted once. Uncle got upset, really angry and went to his room.  He didn’t speak for 5 minutes. He was back with a smile “Do you need some clothes to change ? lungi or shorts ? aunt can provide you all that”. This goes on and on. It will not be in the order as I mentioned above. It can be at random, one overlapped with other and with many repetitions.

He doesn’t mind if you say no to his continuous offers. If you are not aware of that, then you are asking for trouble. You would have drank coffee black/white 5 times, tea for 5 times, enjoyed the breeze of  ceiling fans of different make, would have changed clothes many times, would have sat through almost all upholstery in his house, would have slept at odd hours of the day. All this in a few hours time.

I am pretty sure that at least 2 of my FB friends will be lol (“laughing out loud” not “ lots of love”) while reading the above as they can relate this well. Lol -  I learnt from my daughter a few days back that I can use known, popular acronyms  while chatting with her in whatsApp. I thought I will extend it here too.  I knew only a few conventional ones like RSVP, RIP, RAM/ROM, CPU etc. Now I am quickly adding new ones like lol, jk, cu, idk, myt, sux  etc to my vocabulary. Don’t I need to be relevant in this internet savvy, fb hooked, chatty world?  Is it not advantageous to use as many acronyms as possible? Using those I will be able to write a blog of this size in half page or even in less space, don’t know what the reader will do though!

I had a colleague who likes helping others. If he helps a person someway or other, he gets a high as if he had gulped down one or two pegs. [ “STATUTORY WARNING: Consumption of alcohol is injurious to health”].  Once we were going out for lunch. The restaurant was a couple of miles away; I thought I will walk down to have some exercise. My colleague approached me, “even I like walking but I can take you in my car”. I said no, we shall walk down. As we were downstairs and about to exit office he asks “do you want me to hold your laptop, its rather heavy for you?". I had to give a nasty reply to shut him off till we reach the restaurant. He puts forward these kinds of unsolicited offers to others with occasional success in getting opportunity to serve. I should mention here that these are selfless, honest offers with no returns expected, but highly irritating.

We had an HR manager who used to teach us soft skills. He had a good sense of humor, yes a good to have quality. We always loved to sit in his class. His every fifth sentence would be a joke. His idea was good, adding some humor helps while teaching a boring subject.  But the humor content used to be so high, if somebody asked us what were a few things we remember from the class; it would be Santa/Banta, Dilbert, Little Johny etc. nothing on the soft skill side. 

One can have a good quality but too much of goodness may make self or others uncomfortable or can be counter productive. Should I write more !