American psychologists have conducted a study between married couples, and asked the spouses to note how they contribute to “home management”, from taking the garbage out, to bringing children up. The amount of their contribution should have been noted with percentages. You don’t doubt that the sum of the percentages always amounted to more than 100, do you? That is, if, for example, the wife estimated her contribution to be 55 percent, then it was not that her husband would “undertake” 45 percent of the responsibility. No, the husband, in turn, thought he had 55 or even 60 percent of the contribution. Psychologists call it a preconception for responsibility.
We cannot objectively evaluate our contribution to “home affairs” at workplace, in public and state life. When you talk, for example, to former officials, and their every second word is “I decided”, “I ordered”, “I forbade”, “I was reported”. Moreover, he could have not been even the highest echelon official, but the inflated image of his own “role and significance” was stamped upon his memories.
Of course, it happens that people simply lie about their investment, they know that they have not actually done anything, but for some reason, they tell a lie about their “heroic efforts” (for example, at least 10 thousand people “have liberated Shushi”). But the aforementioned psychological test is not about it: we consider the case when a husband, a company employee or a politician is really convinced that his “contribution” in this or that case is enormous. For this case, I suggest giving up thoughts gratifying self-esteem, to take five minutes a day to think whether their participation in this or that matter is so decisive. And maybe it’s worth thinking about not receiving laurels, not about taking, but giving and remaining unnoticed.
In the moral (not legal) viewpoint there is no “copyright”, what is created is created by the joint efforts. Those who work on television know this very well: the fact that my face appears on the screen does not mean I’m more important than the director, the editor, the operator, the editor, and the others. I think this is a good example of the fact, that for succeeding in any business, it’s often necessary not to stick out, but to merge, to be a member of a team, to be dedicated to a common business. That’s true, especially in the case of state affairs.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
