THE IMPORTANCE OF STABILITY

The general practice in employment is that if an employee goes on leave without notice, it constitutes a break in his service record. He will lose seniority and will have to return to the position he held earlier. The same principle applies to the larger history of an individual. A person who frequently changes his place of work is one who has had a ‘break in his history’. When a person stays at the same place over a long period, he builds up a history there. But if he keeps changing his place, his history becomes fragmented and he will be cut off from his own history. A person projects an image in his environment because of the history of his experience. By frequently ‘breaking’ his history, he will project a broken image or no image at all. This principle is very serious from the practical point of view. Just as a person without a history is like a rootless tree. A rootless tree has no place in the garden, similarly a person without a history has no permanent place in society. o Learn from everyone Knowledge is like a great ocean: faced with its immensity, no one can be a self-sufficient person. The process of seeking knowledge has to be a mutual venture, in the course of which everyone gains something from everyone else. Here the taker is the giver and the giver is the taker. Everyone plays both roles. Just as a rootless tree has no place in the garden, similarly a person without a history has no permanent place in society.