'Quality' is quality

Lal FONSEKA

"Quality is not an act; It is a habit" - Aristotle

Like me, I am sure you too have a desire to improve the quality of your life, earn more money, get a better job, have a good house and find someone to love and finally to have a better married life with a few lovable kids.

My problem is that how many people are or were able to achieve the above stated quality of life. Some people get what they want, many others just dream about a better life and a few try to do something about it. This is a very pathetic story. Those who failed in this aspect read books, attend seminars and participate in workshops and courses, with the hope that counselors or trainers will help them. Do you believe that all the information that you have collected had helped you to achieve your goals. No argument, reading and attending lectures and courses are great, since they teach you some real stuff. Unless you put this stuff into practice, nothing will happen. Knowledge is useless, unless you use it. You can read millions of books, accumulate a lot of theoretical information and understanding, but your life will not change unless you put the knowledge into action.

Quality and human life are interbound. There is no debate. This is the reality. This is mainly because one cannot separate the two concepts because quality is centre to human life. People need quality and they live by quality. We always want quality food, high quality jewelries, quality wears, houses, etc. Those who live on things below quality do so not because they love to live in the way but probably because of low income or high expenditure that had dug into their income that they just decide to go for the-below-quality products. In fact, in the midst of all that, they are still careful to select the best of all the counterfeits in the market.

Peoples' health is one of the most valued aspects of peoples' life. Surveys in many countries consistently found that people put health status, together with jobs, at the top of what affects their living conditions. Peoples' health status matter in itself, but also for achieving other dimensions of well-being, is such as having good jobs and adequate income, being able to participate as full citizens to community life, to socialize with others, to attend school and adult education.

Human nature is created in that manner, quality-oriented, cultured, configured and conscious. It is widely believed that some people or categories are more quality conscious than another. Lots of organization had been set and are being set up to monitor the quality of what are produced, what we take and put on.

World without quality or quality regulation could be described as a world where living dead beings exit, where corpses are seen - on every corner that is just everywhere one can think of. It means having a world where one can come up with saturated gutter water labeled as pure water and sell to the people. It means living in a world of the above nature is terribly pathetic. In fact, I am sure like me, you would not imagine in living in such a world. But in real life, it is happening. Junk food is sold as good quality food. Is the world comprises of highly cruel people?

It means one could take drug and drop dead without anyone saying a word. It means we are reduced to counterfeit or nothing because our composition would have being totally fake - fake shoes, clothes, jewelries, fake currencies, services, etc. As I have said, by our nature, we, human beings, are quality-configured such that even the mad person on the road would still sometimes prefer better things.

Quality is quality and anything beside that is not worth selling or marketing or living. It is very unfortunate that today, there has been high rate of counterfeit selling, the hit and run business of the crime-oriented people who called themselves all sorts. Kudos to all quality regulation organizations for job well done, both at local, national and international level. However, the good fight and war against counterfeit selling must be the responsibility of all and sundry.

Let us all be quality conscious at all times and be ready to fight against fake things wherever we find such, at any time. We look forward to a world where quality is the basis for everything. Human qualities are something that cannot always be taught. When our parents and teachers brief us about it in our childhood days and try to instill these qualities in us, it is also up to the individual to imbibe them at the same time. In today's fast paced world, many of these human qualities are left far behind.

Does that mean this is forgotten once we step out of school? How happy are you with your current situation? When was the last time you actually helped a person by making an extra effort from your side? Do you have more friends on your social networking site rather than in reality? Well, the more you are a part of the rat race, the more these things take a backseat. And somehow, humans do not really act like humans but turn into machines. Here is a concise list of qualities to help you reach out to people on a personal level and be a good human being.

Essential Qualities of a Human Being

Sympathy

One of the most important of all human qualities is sympathy. Right from our school days, we are taught to be sympathetic towards others. Love thy neighbors. Sympathy for others would mean sharing one's feeling of sorrow. Counseling is another form of showing sympathy towards others. Unless being sympathetic and having a very good quality of listening to others, you cannot perform as counselors. Being sympathetic towards a person in difficult times would help to lend that emotional support need in that period. A sympathetic word or a kind act will help a person to build courage, which will go a long way. People come to me seeking help whenever they are confronted with severe difficulties in their day to day living. I have developed this most important human quality in my life. I do always to try showing my sympathy towards these innocent people.

Empathy

Having empathy for others is a great human quality you can have. Empathy is nothing but experiencing the pain of others. Unless you get into others' shoes, you will never be able to experience their pain. For an example, bus conductor is a person who is very unpopular in our country. Have you ever thought about the difficult times that he passes in a day while trying to serve others? It is not an easy task to perform. If you get into his uniform and shoes and perform his duties, you will experience the agony he faces every day. Showing empathy towards a person would require you to be open minded and compassionate enough to experience the pain of what somebody else is going through. To instill this quality in you, you would need to let go of your own selfish needs and pay attention to someone else's suffering as if it were your own. This great human quality would help you to establish a deeper connection with people who really need your love and support.

Trust

Loving someone is to trust someone. Doubting is a serious crime. Begin to trust people you love more openly and watch the difference in your life! Your spouse is the best person to do a research on this quality. If you trust him or her, you will enjoy the rest of your life. If you have slightest doubt, that will be the beginning of your agony. It is reported in a research that a percentage of 65 to 70 percent of the married couples in the country is living unhappily though they are living under one roof. The only remedy to come out of this serious problem is to not loose trust that you have developed at the beginning of your married life.

The more you develop the ability to trust people, the more complete you would feel! Having faith in a person and building up the trust between people would surely give a whole new meaning to one's life. Often in this rat race, we lose our ability to trust people for our own personal fears.

Morality

To be a good human being you would also need to have your sense of morality intact. However, this is yet another quality which is often forgotten in our daily lives. To have the quality of morality would make you capable of distinguishing between what is good and evil. It is about practicing the right ethics in your personal as well as professional life. Having your sense of ethics intact would always make you a more responsible human being.

Sense of Humility

To be humble is a virtue and knowing about this fine human quality and practicing the same in your everyday life would help you to reach a sense of fulfillment. Humility means being humble towards others, no matter what the proportions of your wealth or your achievements. Just because of being humble towards others, you should not bend your back in front of all the people. You are a human being. You could distinguish people from bad to good. When you meet an evil, if you could convert him to a good person, why not you try your best? Humble person is known by the greatness of his/her acts in helping people rather than harping about materialistic achievements in life.

Forgiveness

This is a very rare quality you could see from the living people. "Making mistakes is a common act of any human being but forgiving such mistakes is an act of a god." To forgive someone's mistake would take a lot of courage and open mindedness from your side. Forgiveness towards others for theirs selfish and hurtful acts, which may have disturbed you, is a very fine human quality one can have. To forgive such people would give you complete peace of mind instead of nurturing ill feelings towards that particular person. Besides, if a person would ask for forgiveness, it would always be better to forgive a person to keep you happy from within. You will definitely have healthy long life with a peace of mind.

When you forgive, you get your life back. When you forgive, you free your mind. When you forgive, you can continue to put your energies on your priorities, and not pettiness. When you do not forgive, you do not act the way you normally do, but you act according to your bitterness. In so doing, you allow your un-forgiveness to keep controlling you.

Forgiveness can lead to reconciliation, if the other person is repentant, but do not drop your standards to reconcile with people. If you do, they will hurt you again. Forgiveness does not mean that you condone what they did--forgiveness is letting go of the offense they caused you, so that you can have your life back. However, when you forgive people, you can still remember what they did, but you stop blaming them, because you know that everyone can make mistakes.

Above all, compassion towards each other is essentially needed if you wish to be known as a 'human being'! Compassion for others would only get you more love in return.

Love is what would make our life complete and create stronger bonds between family and friends. If you practice having all these qualities in you, chances are, you would always be known as a good human being wherever you go!