Thin Walls

This is a real story of a friend named, Justin < fake name used to protect identity>. Life is a great teacher if you analyze your experiences. Every experience that you face in your day-to-day life teaches you something. Life taught Justin a very important lesson of life where the thin walls haunted him once again. What goes around does indeed come around.

Long time ago, Justin was bright young student, pursuing his studies at a reputed University in California. His light heartedness and jovial nature made him a very likeable figure. He had a lot of friends. This is one point at which I still argue with Justin. Were they friends or just acquaintances? After almost a decade I can say I am right, as Justin does not have many friends. While Justin was a liked figure there was a dark side of Justin that got exposed by the THIN WALLS of NATURE. At time he would badmouth people behind their back. He would make fun of them, tease them and unnecessarily speak badly about them. He did not wish ill for anybody but would indulge in disrespectful conversations and modern day gossip about certain individuals. One fine day Justin was studying in the library with some of his friends including me. As a group they decided to pick on a particular friend <Sam> who was not around. One of the other friends <Nick> gave a crank call to another acquaintance. They used rash words and the mocking laughter, which kind of made me uncomfortable, but I did not speak a word. I kept a face smile on my face and chose to do nothing about it. Nick finally hung up the phone. I thought it was over but Justin continued speaking badly and teasing Sam. This was totally unnecessary. It was a mockery and just gossips. About 10 minutes had passed when Nick realized that he forgot to cut the phone call and potentially Sam has heard the entire conversation. This is when Justin felt really uncomfortable. I could see the guilt and scare in his eyes. Never the less, we went home. Justin reached home late night. He tried to sleep but could not. At 2:30 AM he hears a knock on his door. He got a little scared to hear the knock at this hour. He peeped into the peep hole and saw Sam ! Justin told me at that time he had skipped a beat. He would have preferred a robber over Sam. Never the less, he opened the door and saw Sam with tears in his eyes. Justin tried to fake it and made small talk with Sam. “Hey what’s up Sam. What are you doing here at this hour. Do you need anything?” Sam had a smile on his face with tears in his eyes. The first thing Sam said was “Justin, brother I did not know that you had so many problems with me. Why did you not tell me earlier? I thought we were friends?” Justin was stung and shocked. He did not know what to say. Justin hugged Sam and all he could say was “Sorry Sam”. He apologized several times. Sat on the staircase with Sam. Gazing at the stars, he said “Sam I got carried away. Its not that I have problems with you. I spoke behind your back. Yes there are about 10% things, which I wish I would have told you in a clean manner but the 90% was just an extension of 10%. These words could have been avoided, as I did not mean them.” Sam was a good person. He smiled again and said, “Next time if you have any problems with me, just come straight up and talk to me before it gets too much”. He also jokingly taunted Justin to switch off his phone before dis-respecting and gossiping about anyone. The THIN WALL of cell phone taught a lesson to Justin. Justin learnt to be respectful to people and the importance of not indulging in talking behind the back. He shared this experience with me and I could feel the pain that Sam might have gone through. Sam and Justin are not in touch anymore. It is not due to this episode but its just that they were never friends and only acquaintances. While Justin learnt a lot from the experience he could not completely give up his bad habit.

The Thin Walls taught Justin a lesson again. A decade has passed by and my dear friend Justin shares another experience with me. Thin Walls haunted him again. This time he was on the receiving end. There are people around us who are our true well-wishers, but there are also people like how Justin was before. FAKE ! They put up a show in front of you but talk behind your back and disrespect you, judge you, gossip about you. Justin was in his office. He says they have solo rooms for phone meetings that go long. Justin hopped in to one of the solo rooms where he did not mean to attend a phone meeting but intended to wrap up his personal work. While he was in the room, he over heard his name 2-3 times. He started listening to a conversation happening on the other side of the wall between his colleague and his boss. They were bad mouthing Justin. Justin was shocked to here his name being taken multiple times. Words like “incompetent”, doubts on credit, jealousy and much more was very evident from the conversation. A lot of the comments being made were baseless as Justin says he had a very fitting reply to the conversation that was ongoing. Justin was in a very fragile state of mind and could not believe that his colleague, who wished him and greeted him everyday, would be the one who speaks such nasty words behind the back. Influences others and internalizes his thoughts and jealousy behind the back. Justin remembered what he had done to Sam. Even though Justin’s intent was harmless, this time he became a victim of his own medicine and the intent was vicious. The boss is a peer of Justin and is an insecure person who would get influenced easily. Justin has not yet confronted his colleague and his boss. Justin does not know if he should do what Sam did. At times Justin just wanted to walk up to his colleague and talk it out. Recently Justin came upto me for advice. My advice to Justin is to wait for an appropriate time and moment to share and honestly confess that you was exposed by the THIN WALLS. Its time to talk openly. My advice has also been to learn and grow from this experience. Now that he has been on both sides of the wall, he understands how it feels first hand. Never judge people too soon. His colleague made some baseless assumptions. He was not in Justin’s shoes and hence could not think or understand the decision process that Justin went through. Every person acts or reacts due to various circumstances. It is important to give one time and try to give them benefit of doubt. It is important to confront at a suitable time and talk it out to clean up the ill feeling.

Justin says that he is about to quit the company and its not due to this episode. There will be a good time to talk and confront about this before he leaves. I wish him good luck and I truly hope this time around he learns !!. Through Justin’s experience I have learnt to be respectful always, never gossip, never bad mouth and speak behind the back no matter how true you are, never judge too soon, always try to understand the rational behind the behavior. Humans are surrounded by Thin Walls. In an ideal world there would be no Walls at all. But such is life.