ENVIRONMENT - Alok Benjamin

I was having a discussion today with the students of our free bhavishya employability program on the subject of foul language/verbal abuse. They all are underprivileged teenagers and some are not only underprivileged but are also in conflict with the law. All of them confessed that they learned to speak foul language at a very early age from their peers and some of them even said that they learned right from their homes. Two of them stated that they have stopped using foul language, so I jovially said ‘oh yes since when… this morning ?’ they replied ‘since we joined this program’. I said to them that I neither discussed this topic with you before nor I asked you not to speak foul language to which they said that we were spending most of the time here in this program so that changed our environment and we carried the same conviction even when we went back to our houses after the classes. 

To say I was overwhelmed to hear that would be an understatement. Given the right environment, people can get a positive transformation. There has been a normalization of the negative things in our society in the name of trends and coolness. A belief that if more people are doing it so it is ok. So if you are struggling in any area, just consider giving yourself the right environment and surrounding yourself with the right people and you will be surprised by what you can achieve.