When you are surrounded by stolid personalities, who do not express themselves enough, who hardly put up a smile, but at the same time are nice at heart, it is difficult to stick to your natural jovial and ebullient moods. You know that they are nice human beings after all, but unfortunately have not been bestowed with as much expressions and elocution as you have been. You cannot walk away from them, because compunction stops you. In a nutshell, you are caught between the proverbial “Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”.
Interestingly, another unique characteristic among these people is that once they start feeling comfortable in front of you, they start speaking and joking very spontaneously. However, the challenge is to make them open up by your friendly nature, by your openness and candour. When I face such kind of people in my life, I always try to be very free with them. I crack jokes, sometimes even about myself, so that they can shed this hesitation and come out of their shell expressing themselves. If you can give them a feeling of assurance, through your way of talking and gestures, that you don’t feel bad even at the weirdest of jokes, you can really transform even the most expressionless minds, albeit for a couple of hours at least. In the process you also get a friend/well wisher.
Initially I used to find it very difficult to talk to such kind of people. I used to get very agitated and irritated when people were lukewarm to my expressive style of speaking. With age, and maturity however I learnt that some people, even though they are very kind at heart, cannot express their feelings properly. So you have to dig their minds up for them. To be honest, I have really enjoyed doing it. From whatever I have seen of life, there is no such human being who does not like a jovial time and who does not like jokes at all. It is only that they may not take it the way you do. In that case, you have to use your oratory skills, which you have been blessed with, to understand their psyche quickly and make them express themselves in front of you.
My father was very expressive but my mom is very introvert. Both shared a very happy married life however. Similarly I am very talkative, but Kuhu is on the quieter side, although it must be said that she also possesses a very good sense of humour. There are times when she just keeps quiet for a long time over the phone, and I have to figure out words to break the deadlock. There are also times however, when we just keep on cracking jokes, keep on laughing perpetually at each others comments. If you can make a quiet guy speak up and enjoy your company, there is nothing else that is more satisfying.
At the end of it all, I feel that people having the skills to talk, laugh and to provide others with a comfort zone, should continue doing so. Who knows, you might be making the day for so many people around you, making them smile, lightening up their moods and shedding their grief. In fact, if I can make people smile, I take it as an opportunity bestowed upon me by God. Hope I can continue doing it in the years to come.
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