Towards the end of last year. I attended a farewell
dinner for a teacher retiring after long service in one of the local school is.
Three or four persons delivered the usual after dinner speeches packed with
praises. And educationist. And fellow teacher -- these were some of the samples
of praises and endearing terms showered on that modest and demure person. Much
of course to his surprise and embarrassment.
Were those speeches genuine praises or were they
affected flatter Hey few” people realize the difference between genuine praise
and flatter. Genuine praise is a sincere appreciation of some real merits.
Flatter. On the other hand is either excessive or false praise.
To my mind those speeches were line displays of the
art of flattery because not even a single ‘speaker ventured to make a rational
approach to the assessment of the character of the person concerned by” at
least showing some of the simple. Innocent weaknesses in the character of the
person Is there a man whose character has no dark sides?
The person concerned felt uncomfortable and
embarrassed. He gave a cautious reply, with quiet reserve, ignoring the
flattery heaped on him.
We could draw certain conclusions from this
ordinary event. Unrestricted flattery is more often than not administered with
an admixture of insincerity. To a mature person this could be a source of
embarrassment. Very often such people shrug off this form of flattery or
tacitly ignore it.
Many people indulge in a form of flattery with
ulterior motives. It may be to gain some material reward, or to work into other
people’s favor, or to create a halo of good opinion around their personality.
Flattery is a business undertaking with no material investment but the rewards
are great. Flatterers come near us with their month and glorify us with their
lips.
Only the thick headed or puff-head persons received
flattery unabashedly. Vain glorious persons derive immense pleasure when
subjected to flattery. The obstinate fellow swallows the bait of flattery as he
abhors even rational criticism of his conduct and actions. He cannot go wrong.
That is what he thinks. Criticism, therefore. Irritate him. Flattery enlivens
him.
Does this mean that is wrong to praise other?
Should we not feel pleased with such praise? When we perform a piece of work in
an efficient way, our employer is pleased and he expresses his appreciation of
it in a few commendable words. This is quite natural. It is normal to feel
pleased when we know that others appreciate our work. In schools, when children
do hard work, it is only right for teachers to express genuine words of praise
to spur them on to better performance. For children to feel pleased on hearing
such words of praise is natural.
Withholding praise from persons who deserve it
amounts to selfishness. When we notice something good ‘in another person we
should complement him for it. We owe this to our fellow beings. Some people
fail to perform this task as they are too jealous to acknowledge merit in
others. By recognizing and appreciating the merits to good work of others, we
encourage them to nourish and urinate similar merits or perform similar tasks;
this is the positive pact of giving praise to others.
One of the basic weaknesses in us is that we get
flattered on hearing praise. Sometimes we even flatter ourselves. We begin to
show signs of arrogance and over confidence. We should guard against this
tendency. With humility as one of the anchors of our character, we could mellow
the feelings or arrogance and over confidence inspired by praise.
False flattery is a form of deception. Genuine
praise is something we owe to our fellow beings. Not to get un-balanced either
by flattery or genuine praise is what we should guard against. A sound axiom in
life is not to expect or encourage flattery.