10 Negative BUT Important Vices for Life: Being Mean

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I can say, it has been ages since I was sitting inside a classroom and within a lesson our teacher suddenly shifted his focus to an out-of-syllabus question. He asked, "Do you know the importance of knowing a common language?" The classroom waited in awe and wonder. He kept strolling from one end of the classroom to the other end: from the backbencher wall to the front-bencher blackboard. After three or four such rounds he said, "it brings an instant connection between two people". Then, he expanded his theory by giving an example and saying "most of you sitting here, have their mother tongue Bengali, right? All of you are classmates. But then..." he pointed out to six boys sitting in the fourth and fifth benches from the back, "... you six are friends, you have made a small group of yours because you identify your family background as the ones who speak in Hindi." 

Mind you, sir was not being racist or a communist here. He was just bringing out our unconscious choices. Then he said, "It may not be the same for all in this room. Let me give you a broader example. Suppose you are in a foreign country," To break the monologue of his ideas he asked the boy at my back, "what is your favourite country outside of India?" He looked around and said "Spain". Sir caught his reponse and went on, "So imagine you are working in Spain for a few years and communicating with people there in English or Spanish. Suddenly you hear Bengali there." 

Sir did not have to speak anything after that. The classroom knew the power of a common language. It can make a stranger in a strange land, your own. 


Common languages are easy to understand. Your mind does not have to translate it. Your brain does not have to interpret it. A language that you know and are aware of, you can respond to it in seconds. That is how our brain is wired. The same goes for people who are mean, rude and meagre. They do not understand kindness, goodness and generosity. Their brains are not wired to those emotions and actions. This is why, when a person is being mean to you, be mean to them. Be bold to their stern behaviour and let them know that their mean attitude towards you does not flinch you. 

If you think that good things do not happen to good people, it is because you are wasting your energy in serving people who do not deserve you. Mind you, good people, kind people, and generous people would share and amplify your energy. Even on worst days, they wear a smile. Their smile is their superhero cape. Good people would choose to be good to you. 

Are you a good person? 

And are you hurt by the stern face of a mean friend who keeps leaching on your one-sided efforts?

You know, there is one species of people who do not care for your good and kind behaviour.  Then there are the mean leach species who respond arrogantly to your kindness. Mean people do not understand the language of goodness. Their brains are dysfunctional and pale in that area where they are supposed to respond to kindness with a basic smile. Thus, as my teacher had said, to crack a connection and leave an impact on this strange species, you would need to speak in a tongue they understand. Mind you, this would not hurt them. They are mean people. Being mean is their mother tongue. When you are being generous to mean people, you are speaking Spanish to a Bengali native or let's say, generosity is Greek to them. They do not care, and here, you can imagine the face of Joey Tribbiani. 


I know you were taught, be good, don't be like them, blah_ blah... 

Being mean to people who are mean is like giving them a comfort zone. It is like giving them a taste of their own medicine. Not everyone deserves your share of smile. Some people who have nurtured vices in them in greater amounts would naturally feel sick to doses of generous behaviour. 

Why waste time? Theirs of course!

Being mean is a vice. Being mean is a bad advice. But, as I said, it is one of those vices of life that are negative but leave a positive impact. There is absolutely no reason and no justification to you sulking in a corner, suffering in silence for the prolonged mean and meagre behaviour of a person. And letting go is not always an option. Sometimes, when you let go of the bad reactions, your mind keeps replaying the incident and hurls the mean words at you, you thought you had let go. 

Being mean is a vice. Being mean to mean people is a 'mental peace'-advice. 

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