Guard your TIME fiercely. Its all you have (Chapter 2)

What do you do when someone promises you something but later either denies or ignores you?

You feel cheated, right? In May 2025, a similar situation arose at our Kurla (east) centre. The centre in-charge promised a particular desk to one of our students Samay (name changed), whenever that seat becomes vacant. The seat eventually became vacant and remained vacant for a couple of days. Later in the week, the desk was allotted to a different student without asking Samay if he was still desirous of the same desk. When Samay discovered that the desk had been allotted to someone else, he felt disregarded and insulted. After all, not once but at least five to six times, he had requested that desk. This enraged him, and his emotions took charge, and possibly rightly so. After all, he also pays the same fee as any other, then why has his request been disregarded?

At the spur of the moment and rage, he went before the centre manager and confronted him. He said everything possible (under the influence of heightened emotions) to the centre manager, including delivering physical threats. Matter seemed deteriorated with no hope of reversal since no amount of explanation could soothe Samay for the bruises he received on his self-respect (at least he thought so). For the centre manager, expulsion seemed the only option, and possibly a report for the threat of physical harm, as such behaviour from students is totally unwarranted and disturbs the discipline.

The matter reached me, and I thoroughly checked the scenario. This mistake happened because of a lack of communication between the two centre managers. When the seat became vacant a few days back, the evening centre manager marked the desk as vacant, and it remained so for a couple of days without the first centre manager noticing. After a couple of days, the desk was allotted to another student by him only as the desk was marked vacant. Interestingly, in the interim (when the desk was vacant), the student who requested the desk was absent. But the mistake had already happened.

You may be wondering what else could have happened. It was possibly the only way things could have been as both were hurt and needed justice (in their senses). Here is the lesson for you. A great deal of problems can be avoided and time can be saved if we understand the concept of "Objective-based communication" when the need arises. This communication methodology can be easily learned and practised with a little effort.

Be reflective, not impulsive. A reflective person analyses the objectives of his/her communication, especially when it is thought to be a difficult one. This methodology aims at meeting one's objectives rather than winning an argument that leads nowhere. Start with giving the benefit of the doubt (possibly undue too). Try understanding what could have gone wrong and the ways you objectives can be met (like asking the centre manager politely in the case above to request the other person to shift somewhere else- and who knows, he might have said "yes" to it). Discuss ways in which things will not be repeated from hereon. You can have any emotional outbursts (righteous or otherwise), but never let the situation go out of control, which could translate into loss of your life's most important resource - your TIME. You can fight your battles later or even choose to lose such battles (strategic decisions) since you are aiming for the WAR, which you cannot afford to lose, but will most certainly lose if you let your time, mental peace and energy slip from winning small and mostly worthless battles.