Susan Shapiro – My Reflections and Views

Susan has very high integrity, moral sense and duty consciousness. She is idealistic
and committed. She values “Others “higher than Self. She shows this by staying
back during the war. Her personal sacrifice might be due to strong sense of her
Jewish Identity (Israel trip, Following Sabbath), but her hospital work, the Kibbutz
stint and her final moral dilemma suggest that it is developing into a more universal
identification with mankind.

But, there seems to be rigidity in her worldview and impatience. Emotions play a
stronger role than her mind i.e. heart rules the mind in the end. Leaving Parke- on
the basis of one incident shows the shallowness of inquiry, poor emotional control
and reasoning. Quitting research itself as a wrong place for an angry and violent person
reconfirms this and impulsiveness in decisions and actions. She should have
persisted there. Switching to a Corporate career where conflict is more worse on
just emotional basis offers stronger proof

There is very little awareness and appreciation of other people’s point of views and
situations. Everything is still too black and white for her. The greys are missing;
The people working there know about Benzene’s effects but may be considering
exposure as a trade off for a secure job This strong righteousness is true of young
and smart people, But, her approach reveals the lack of social skills and poor
knowledge about society. Academic Smartness and moral righteousness will not
protect her from this weakness.

She ignores the plant tour‘s learning potential beyond chemistry and the actual
organisational information and the exposure value for other newbies who come
from non chemical backgrounds. This mind view if persists for long causes poor
learning receptivity and she will stagnate very soon.

. Her Superiority complex and subtle ego ( I am from MIT and sacrificing my
Career for the weak and society good) is too potent mix and can cause more
damage to society as she has neither broader societal knowledge nor good logical
and unemotional reasoning skills.

She retains a naivety and un-worldliness which is endearing but might lead to her
being easily exploited or sidelined from the mainstream. This immaturity can be
just because she is yet unexposed to industry and actual corporate work places.

Her strong minority upbringing has given her a unquestioned Belief system which
is not her own and unearned by her reasoning, introspection and broader world
experiences She has little flexibility of mind and she is wearing Her World View
Glasses handed to her by her childhood.

She is still in the adolescent stage in this area. However she shows good promise
of generativity and once matures can reach the sixth stage of Kohlberg if she
corrects herself by enough introspection.

She does have disempowering beliefs of strong Negative Mental Filter of jumping
to conclusions and emotional reasoning (Quitting first job) and avoiding
difficulties and challenges (Thinking of Quitting Marketing now)

I would have probably stayed back like Susan in the war and do not agree with her
in the rest of her decisions. But I am as guilty as her in behaving irrationally.

Being blinded by emotions and sympathising with underdogs and always being the
nice and submissive guy has always been my downfall. This emotional weakness
and clouded decisions has been my failing and I too am trying to overcome.

My advice to her is she is still young and can afford blunders for some time, but
she has to get aware of her shortcomings. As she is smart and her heart is in the
right place, she will do very well in any social cause once she learns right thinking,
right beliefs and right knowledge. This will lead automatically to right decisions and
right actions.

Some correction of her belief system has happened to her and she will be beaten
by life further. This Automatic Life Correction Mechanism and Wisdom Teacher
which everyone gets once you have lived long enough starts first softly, and gets
harder louder and harsher and violent till you finally learn.

I hope she learns earlier than I am and can look back her life with integrity and
satisfaction.