You want people to like You?? Try this...

“The gold ones,” She said.

“Why”. Naveen was curious.

“Because they seem cute.”

“Why do they seem cute?”

“They are beautiful”.

“The white ones are beautiful too. They even have finer fins & better shine.”

“But the gold ones swim more smoothly.”

“Do they?” Naveen was always unsatisfied with the simple answers.

The doorbell rang. “Maybe it’s your uncle”. The aunt wiped sweat from her forehead & rushed to the door. Before letting the uncle walk in she warned,“Naveen have a question”.

Naveen is a 15-year-old boy with pale white skin, brown eyes & skinny body. In the middle of adolescence his thin haired golden beard, which matches its color with straight silky hairs of the scalp, covers half of his face. The key quality of this snub-nosed boy is his strong compliance to fundamental duties of every Indian citizen, one of which is, to develop a scientific temper & the spirit of enquiry.

“Which one is your favourite fish?” He burst to his uncle.

“Goldfishes, I guess.”

“Why”

“They seem cute”

“Why do they seem cute?”

“Maybe it is their personality.”

“Personality? What different do they have in their personality that makes them cute, & not the other fishes?”

The uncle ran for cover to the other room. At end of the day, he was tired enough to stand a Chauchat fire. But Naveen was desperate. He approached his cousins, who were as the kids of their age busy on PlayStation. “Hey brothers among all the 8 fishes of aquarium, which one do you like the most?” “The Goldfishes,” they said in one voice.

ImageSource: https://www.smithsonianmag.com

But why? Why? Why do they all like them? What different do they have? What do they possess that others don’t? Their colour isn’t even pure gold, it’s actually more orange. Naveen was frustrated. He observed them the whole day long but in vain. Though they had beautiful fins, there was nothing exceptionally different about them. The aquarium in total had 8 fishes in it. 2 of them were goldfishes, 2 were milky white, 2 were zebrafish, while the rest 2 were angelfish. If it comes to design & fins, the black angelfishes were the most beautiful. If it comes to colour & shine the milky whites were no less than goldfish. Zebra fishes were the smallest one with shiny blue stripes, so they should have been the cutest.

A day went without a solution. Then two. Then three. Nothing different he saw in them. They were different but they were same. On the fourth morning when Naveen woke up & reached to the aquarium, something happened. It was exceptionally different. Something he should’ve seen before. He realized that it’s actually not what the goldfishes are, but what they do that makes them different. It makes them admirable. He noticed it the entire day, on every single moment when he goes near the aquarium, on every single moment when he touches the tank. The goldens didn’t possess something extraordinary in material, but it was rather immaterial, behavioural. You wana know what it was..???

No. I won’t tell you. I won’t tell you this so easily. Let me tease you a bit. Let me enjoy every piece of it. Before telling you the quality of golden fishes that made them different from the crowd, let me ask you a question. You know of all the human expressions, which one is the most beautiful?? Which one is the most attractive?? Most admirable?? Most balanced?? It’s a “Smile”. A smile means that you are neither too joyous nor in sorrow. It’s indeed the most balanced expression of all. The ideal manifestation of satisfaction, of a peaceful state of mind. The expression of ‘siddha purusha’. But a smile when made on seeing someone depicts likeness & pleasedness on seeing that person. It depicts that the other person is welcomed, esteemed & accepted. While explaining the importance of Smile, Dale Carnegie in his famous book ‘How to win friends & influence people’ said that “the expression one wears on one’s face is far more important than the clothes one wears on one’s back”.

You know what.. Goldfishes did the same. They welcomed every single person. Of course they didn’t smiled, being just Carassius auratus they couldn’t. But they reacted. They showed the person near the aquarium that he is accepted. On seeing someone near themselves these fishes quickly start swimming towards the wall of tank. They started rapidly opening & closing their mouth as if they want to talk. When someone puts his hand on the tank they further start a more rapid movement towards the hand as if they want to break the glass & kiss it. It is this “reaction” that every human being craves for. The feeling of “Feeling Important” is the most desired feeling of all. Goldfishes were admirable because they fulfilled this desire, while the others either remained unreactive or hid behind the water purifier.

Image Source - http://www.lbc.co.uk

On that day Naveen learned one of the most important lesson regarding human relations – if you want someone to like you, to admire you, to accept you; first like, admire & accept that person. Greet him with the most pleasant expression you can make. And this expression shouldn’t be fake, it shouldn’t only be muscular, rather it should come from within, it should be true, emotions should be involved in it. Do this with every single person you meet & you will wonder that people will crave to meet you. They will love you for what you gave them i.e. ‘Importance’. 

"To influence, Be influenced"