Writing Feedback / "Honesty is the best policy"; Is it good to tell the truth always? [3]

"Honesty is the best policy" is the first proverb I remember leaning. In every holy book, people are asked to tell the truth and some believe we rid ourselves of curses when we do not lie. I too was into this belief until I read this story about a drunkard thrown out of his job.

After being drunk and jobless for about a month, Carlos stays hungry. A lawyer comes to know about his story and pities him. He gives the man a job of chopping woods for the kitchen. Having lost all strength he is unable to chop the wood pieces. On the first day, the cook, Malina throws towards him an axe but soon realises chopping woods is not within his capability. She chops the timber every day and swears at him while he keeps earning the thrift penny. Then a day comes when he is nowhere to be found. Years later the lawyer traces a similar face in a case on the state's minister's murder. The man with the familiar face walks up to him and shakes hands, introduces himself as Monsieur Carlos, the President's assistant. When the lawyer doesn't recognize him, he says "I am the drunkard who chopped woods for your kitchen six years ago". On asking how he became what he was, he said "the money you paid me is what you owed to your cook and not me because I never chopped the woods, she did and that is the reason I am what I am."

Here, Malina's lying turned a drunkard into a responsible man and yes it does contradict the moral stories we learnt and our young ones are learning. This made me believe telling the truth is good but lying for a good reason is better.

Writing Feedback / "Learning starts with failure; the first failure is the beginning of education." [4]

Every one of those who have gone through the process of learning will certainly agree with the novelist John Hersey's assertion that learning starts with failure and the first failure is the beginning of education. All of us when born are like flower buds and if not kept under favourable conditions might not bloom properly. Thus, even those who are born with a lot of skills are supposed to be under proper guidance to blossom their own adroitness. The truth of this assertion is evident when we go through different personality's life starting from singers to cricketers to scientists and the richest person on Earth. Every learner goes through different adversities, failure etc but if they hold on their will to succeed and not let failure's darkness come into their path, their failure becomes their pillars of success.

Learning in a living being's life starts from the moment one is out of their mother's womb or the protective egg shell. One of our first education in life is learning how to walk. It is not possible until a baby is born with super natural power to walk straight just like a man with 40 years of experience of walking would at first. I am sure the fastest man on earth, Mr. Bolt would have tripped a number of times when he first started walking.

How about William Shakespeare, the immortal fellow whose plays and poetry still stand a challenge to every poet and play writer on earth. He surely did not have any idea about even the basic alphabets when he was born but he endured the failure of training himself and then became what he is. This proves that failure is the pillar of success at least when one is into the process of learning and it is my belief that between birth and death, every individual is into the process of learning.