diviyapura | දිවිය පුරා

Few months back, our organization had taken the initiative to conduct 5S / productivity based workshops for all of it’s’ employees irrespective of the grade, department or the scope of work. I am not going to discuss the effects or the adaptivity or the importance of the programme. Although there were significant changes which could be visible in the organization, they were not practiced/monitored for a long time. Anyways it’s the initiative that counts.

What struck my mind was the initial question raised by the trainer.

Why do people live in this world?

Or rather

Why should people live in this world?

Well, it is somewhat of a question without a straight-forward error free specific answer. There was a large no. of answers from the audience. But, the speaker himself provided the answer, which was the most simplest of reasons with an uncommon/unexpected reasoning.

1)     People live to be happy.

2)     People live to provide some sort of service to the world.

The first answer needs no explanations.

But, what does the second reason imply? Are we here to provide a service? I mean, what kinds of service exactly? We observe that some do and some don’t. What exactly does he mean by that? Is that charity? Well! I don’t think so.

The case of a bus

The private/public transportation bus will load passengers and offer the transport service for a cost. In the case where there are less passengers, they tend to wait for the bus to be somewhat filled with passengers. (At least in Sri Lanka though) Say, if there is only one passenger in the bus, they will probably cancel the journey delaying or making the passenger unable to complete his journey.

So, is there any solution for the passenger? Yes, if he agrees to pay the ticket price for all the other passengers, the bus might be willing to carry out the journey. Ultimately in a public transport, what we have been doing is sharing the cost of the bus journey. So we have unknowingly offered a service to our fellow passengers. This is what we should live for.

The same is the case for a formal public gathering. There should be people to applaud. If I am receiving an award or being recognized, there should be people to appreciate the work that I have done in order to receive such. Therefore, they are offering me a service by appreciating me.

The price of king coconut

In recent times, the Sri Lankan king coconut has been recognized with immense value, since many have realized it’s Redbull like (much more healthy) features and nutrition. Offering a king coconut for a traveler, is considered the utmost treat. Not to mention its value for curing hangovers. Even the advert based on a king coconut managed to attracted many crowds, where this urban young gentleman offers the king coconut trader a king coconut for his wise words on life’s struggle.

During the above training session, the instructor requested the participants to never question or bargain for a king coconut. He went on to say that the king coconut does an amazing job by pulling water from the soil, drop by drop and carrying them to almost 7-10 feet. Then the trees adds more nutrition/healing powers to the water, conserves it and provides you ‘life’ itself.

So, never ever bargain for a king coconut.