How Important is It to Showcase Your Talent?
From an Indian perspective
“Be confident in answering your questions. I have always noted that Keralites are too humble to show their confidence in front of examiners, but this can affect you adversely”, Dr Sreenath Srinivasan, our Associate Professor in Medicine told us prior to our final MBBS practical exams. (My dad would convey a similar statement from one of his professors at medical college too!) Having lived my life until then inside Kerala, I didn’t appreciate the significance of that statement to its full extent. Culturally and religiously, we were taught to be humble - in front of elders as well as seniors at workplace.
As I moved on for my post-graduation, I began to appreciate the importance of displaying confidence. You could do all the right things but get little appreciation because you didn’t look confident! This could be the case even when you knew that you did the right thing, but you wanted to look humble instead of confident. Does it sound familiar? Well, I was one of that type.
Certain cultures value certain qualities more than others. Some value humility more than knowledge and confidence, while others vice versa. So, you need to mould yourself to the circumstances where you live to become “successful”. Extrapolating it to a community or a national level, I have realised that Indians showcase far less of their talents and achievements than the western nations. In the medical field, a patient in India has the freedom to walk into any super-speciality clinic or hospital for a problem that he/she believes should be assessed by that particular specialist. If he/she is not satisfied, he/she could go to a higher centre himself/herself or with the referral of a doctor. Nobody in India would have to wait for a year to get an echocardiogram or a colonoscopy. Or to get an orthopaedic consult or a pulmonary function test. Should we advertise it as an achievement?
The success of your endeavours depends at least temporarily on how well you showcase it. In today’s age your online reputation has serious impact on your success and the western nations know it. What attracts people to travel to other regions of the world are what they see on the media. For example, medical tourism is largely driven by media coverage. As long as it is ethical and honest, I think it is a boon. But it could very well be used to distort reality and gaslight the people. You can say that ‘‘We’re using advanced technology’’ and let humans speak to bots on a helpline who finally end up hanging up out of frustration. You could save money without installing streetlights and say, “We’re avoiding light pollution”. You see how tricky this can get, don’t you? The trickiest is actually to deny necessary treatment to a patient and call it realistic medicine. Refuse intravenous injections and say that “We’re reducing carbon footprint” (WTH! Seriously??).
I have realised that being true to yourself and having the courage to defend the truth gives you far more confidence than what you could ever build otherwise. Whether Indians should shift their focus on doing what really matters to showcasing their achievements is a matter for discussion. Let me know your thoughts.