You are hopelessly incorrigible, Rohan! I'm fed up. Can’t you understand one simple thing?” Rohan sat across the dinner table, eyes down, as Karan, his father, yelled at him.
Every day, the moment Rohan sat down to eat, Karan would ask whether he had washed his hands. Usually, he hadn’t. Karan would then warn him about dirty hands spreading germs and disease. Rohan stayed unconvinced by what he couldn’t see.
When alone, Rohan didn’t care to wash his hands; with Karan home, he rinsed them reluctantly—to ward off scolding, not germs.
One day, his uncle Ram, a microbiologist, invited Rohan to visit his lab. When Rohan asked about the photographs on the wall, Ram explained they were magnified images of harmful microorganisms and how each could harm his body. Ram then showed him tomato skin and onion membrane under the microscope—each a teeming invisible world. Eventually, Ram asked Rohan to place his palm under the lens. Rohan was shocked to see his “clean” palm teeming with an invading army of the same creatures he had seen in the wall images.
At lunch, Rohan asked for the wash basin. Ram smiled, “Your father isn’t here.” Rohan laughed, “I know. I still want to wash.” He lathered thoroughly for the first time.
Years of scolding failed to move him an inch. One afternoon of seeing the truth with his own eyes changed him forever.=
MIT neuroscientist Mriganka Sur notes that nearly half the brain’s cortex is involved in visual processing, giving messages arriving through sight far greater impact on emotions and behaviour than those through other senses. No wonder, change expert John Kotter argues that lasting change follows “see, feel, change”—not the assumed rational sequence of data, analysis and strategy, which lacks emotional fuel. Real change ignites only when what one sees makes them feel that the pain of the status quo outweighs the pain of the effort to change.
The Illusion of Goodness
Most “bad” behaviour is not malice but blindness; we all act within the limits of our awareness. Those who hurt us remind us that we would have acted the same way had we walked their path. This recognition excuses nothing yet expands compassion.
Criticism does the opposite: it shrinks compassion and blocks change. When we attack mistakes, defensiveness rises, learning shuts down, and the very change we seek slips further away. Next time you see wrong behaviour, pause before criticising, and ask: What is this person unaware of?
From Criticism to Awareness
Once, when a colleague stole my idea, I saw insecurity, not malice, in his eyes. Anger rose, but I stayed quiet. In the days that followed, I boosted his self-image by appreciating him more and by sharing stories that showed that joy matches the effort one invests in creating something. I gave him what he didn’t have: awareness of the link between one’s own effort and the joy of accomplishment.Years later, it moved me deeply when he acknowledged in his farewell address that those interactions had been a turning point in his life.
All human progress has come through shifts in awareness: moments when questions pierced old assumptions, cause and effect came into sharp focus, and lived experience turned abstract knowledge into deeply felt truth. Moral shifts occur when we see how it feels to be on the receiving end of questionable practices. Such seeing awakens empathy and fuels change.
When a woman confided in her teacher that her husband was mistreating her, the teacher's next meeting with the couple began with a quiet question to the husband: “What do you wish for your daughter when she marries?” “Love, respect, empathy, and understanding from her husband and in-laws,” the husband replied. The teacher turned to the wife and asked, gently, “Are you getting all these?” No accusation. No lecture. Yet the husband got the message. The question raised the husband’s empathy and awareness in ways that criticism never could.
Effective feedback stays objective, targets behaviour rather than the person, and relies on inquiry instead of judgment. Karan had knowledge and good intent but lacked a way to make Rohan see and feel the need for the change. Moreover, instead of focusing on Rohan’s behaviour, he judged him subjectively as a person. Ram, by contrast, raised Rohan’s awareness so he could see and feel the need for the change himself.
The Light Within
Raising awareness is slow; people guard their habits the way a mother protects her child. Yet keeping your heart open when others close theirs and persisting with love eventually softens even the hardest hearts. Each evening, recall one moment when you were unaware—when you judged, snapped, or misread someone. Not to punish yourself. Just to see. Greater awareness in any area is not a licence to judge those who lack it and feel relatively superior; it is a call to serve them and others by spreading the flame of awareness.
Criticism may win arguments, but awareness wins hearts—multiplying light like a flame that ignites every candle it touches without dimming its own.