Al-Jazirah newspaper

I was having a conversation with a friend who insists on having long arguments about the solutions that she has for all of the world’s problems and what others can do to be successful in life. In the beginning, my friend got mad at me for sending her a video about an Indian philosopher who talks about a tea farmer who likes to criticize everyone while offering customers tea that is not drinkable.

She considered the video as an insult to her. After that, she decided to forgive me. Maybe she did so because she found an excuse for me or maybe she did not. She then decided to forgive me, as any good friend would do.

The case of the tea farmer is similar to what we have in our society. If you look around, you see a lot of people who underestimate the success and efforts of others. They might even judge others as failures without paying attention to them. When we think deeply about this matter, we notice that we do not have enough experience that qualifies us to evaluate or criticize people’s work and efforts.

A few days ago, I wrote a tweet praising the General Entertainment Authority for organizing 5,000 events in over 56 Saudi cities. I mentioned these numbers since they do not lie. I also tweeted to encourage other ministries to follow suit.

There were responses from people who underestimated this huge effort by the General Entertainment Authority when in fact if they were asked to organize one small event they would not be able to do so properly.

Those who fail to accomplish what they want in life run from these feelings by underestimating the efforts and successes of others in a way that might, sometimes, lead to hurting them or speaking ill about their personal lives.