Mind your business !

‘Actually you can help me excel in my business, by minding yours.’  I had paraphrased these lines and have used as a tag line after my email-signatures for some time.  Maybe I lack the courage to call a spade, a spade.  But I had a number of colleagues who had read, understood, and appreciated the message, shared the feeling and even enjoyed the expression.

‘Mind your Business ‘, as I remember in my younger days was kind of an abuse one would get if one teased or adversely commented, imitated an act or behavior of the other. Now, it is a strong statement many of us would want to make but hold ourselves from the effect it would carry.  Be it in the work place or amongst friends and relatives, over-indulgence into another’s business has become a common phenomenon.  Little do we realize that invariably such acts result in a cruel waste of time and energy in terms of focus on others’ acts, resultant comments, flow of emotions, exchange of words, which together deprives focus on one’s own actions, damages to relationship and otherwise the good terms that could have been maintained.  When not expressed, such emotions run as undercurrents to further undesired acts or behavior.

I get frustrated and concerned when I think of the magnitude of the problem of not confining one to one’s own work. This problem of peeking into another’s domain is so wide spread that it is not restricted to one facet of life, but it is existent everywhere.  At the work place, instead of mastering their respective trades, colleagues are more comfortable with advising another colleague on his trade skills even if it is totally disconnected or irrelevant to his role.  Similar is the case with relatives and friends, who take the relationship and friendship for granted.  There is a familiar statement amongst armed forces brethren, what Advice is like; one irreverent part of our body, which everybody has – meaning, therefore, do not give relevance to it.

I am not against teaching or sharing knowledge; but want to communicate that we should first better our skills within the boundaries of our own roles before rendering unsolicited advice.  It can cause serious hurt to the subject in terms of damaging his productivity, professionalism or motivation or self-esteem when it comes to the work place and influx of emotions, damage to the relationship as a whole.  It is always better to stay firmly placed in one’s own domain first than jumping helter-skelter or going about preaching what you could not practice. So, abide by this rule, without overdoing and ruining your rapport by over-indulgence, mind your business.