Copycats

What you see is what you…learn. Qualities that you see and admire in others do not take a lot of time to creep into your system.  Knowingly or unknowingly, we are copycats. We copy what we like. We like someone’s style of dressing, walking or talking and we emulate it. We buy the latest fashions because that is what we see on screen or in the pages of glossy magazines. The basic human nature of being copycats is illustrated in the following examples.

Example #1

The discipline in an office kept dropping each day with the employees regularly coming in late. Not a single day went by when the workers arrived on time.  The boss decided to keep a register where they had to compulsorily fill in the arrival and departure timings (before automated swipe  cards  came  into  use).  For the next few  days  all employees were on time, but old habits change hard and they started reporting late all over again. The boss wanted a better plan so he came up with the idea that  employees would have to mention the reason for their delay if they entered  15  minutes  later  than  the  scheduled reporting time.  Once  again, for the  next few  days  all  employees arrived on time. But they soon discovered an easy solution – the first one who entered late jotted down his reason and the others marked “ditto” below it. One day a woman employee was the first to enter the office, late as usual. She wrote her excuse, “Visited my doctor to discuss my pregnancy.” All the other employees who entered after her wrote “ditto” below that line. They didn’t even look to see what they were copying!

Example #2

A king who was the disciple of a great spiritual teacher was  so  impressed  by  a  grandiose  religious  ceremony arranged  by  the  guru,  that  he  later  tried  arranging  a ceremony  exactly  like  that,  on  a  similarly  grand  level. Everything  was  almost  perfect  except  two  cats  were needed to complete the setup. There were supposed to be nine cats tied to a pole on the eastern point of the worship ground, but only seven cats had been found. He ordered his men to set out in all directions to find two more cats, but after several hours, his men returned to him emptyhanded. The king was disappointed; time was running out. He ran to his teacher to ask for a solution. “Oh great Guruji,” he pleaded, “please save me.” “What is wrong?” asked  the  spiritual  teacher.  “I  have  arranged  for  the religious ceremony just like yours. All the preparations are completed, except for two cats. What can I do now?” he grieved. “Two cats?” asked the spiritual teacher with astonishment. “Yes, Guruji. I had noticed that you had kept nine cats tied to a pole facing the  east.” “Oh, those cats were disturbing me, so I had them tied up,” replied the guru. By default, we are all copycats, knowingly or unknowingly, logically or illogically. In most cases, our money blueprint is an exact copy of the money blueprint of our parents.

This means we deal with money in more or less the same way as our parents dealt with it. We may think,  act  and  dress  differently  from  our  parents,  but where the monetary blueprint is  concerned, we  cannot change it; it has been formed in our minds by seeing how our parents dealt with money matters.