Let us
analyze a bit. Do you realize that most of our decisions in life are driven by
what others do? We rarely take decisions based on self judgment but depend upon
‘mass perceptions’. While this approach has lot of pluses to its credit, this
probably is the single important cause of most perils, in my view.
One of my
blog posts received highest views. I was
quite perplexed since the post does not have anything that makes it so popular.
On some analysis I found that for whatever reason, once this post happened to
get maximum clicks for some time and it reached top of ‘popular posts’. From
then on, anyone who visited my blog was curious to know what this ‘popular
post’ is all about and they clicked it. More people tried that, the post continued
to remain on top and the cycle repeats!
I have seen
authors who openly admit that they themselves buy their own books periodically,
to keep the book on top of the sales ranking. Higher the sales ranking, more
people will be tempted to buy it and the cycle continues! Same is the case with
‘sponsored reviews’.
On a larger
perspective, most governments in many democratic countries come up not because
the leaders have proven track record, but purely based on the mass opinion they
have managed to establish. Especially in countries where political awareness is
low, people vote a party not because they have full information about the
leaders in that party but because everyone else does it!
So, what is
the magic bullet?
"Enable one
to judge himself/herself rather than depend on other’s opinions"
That will
be the single most important contribution one can make to bring in a phenomenal
change. Teach them to judge rather than
to follow someone else.
