'Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir'

 Sri Lanka has to suffer today due to yes sir no sir, three bgas full sir' mentality. I recently came across a very powerful instance of resistance of power and it shook me to the core to re-assess my own identity and ideology and quite interestingly what it means to be a successful professional. Sri Lankans are masters of 'yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir, for a variety of reasons. They are:

1. Sri Lankans have a wierd sense of gratitude and indebtendess. A person who get supports from someone else or a person who gets assistance from someone should forever cow down to the donour. Same goes wih the people who hire you. The hiring manager who hired you is a god and cannot question or challenge him/her at any point.

2. Incompetence: we are a lazy nation who believe that sucking up to someone or not gettijf trouble into whatsoever is the way to go other. Sacrificing our time and energy to develop our professional skills and concentrating on professional growth are sins. Why bother to invent the wheel when you can go places by just being a little bird.

3. Sri Lankans have a wierd sense of power and authority. Everyone wants to yield power but they do not want to accept it upfront. They want others to think that they are so naive and down to earth. We also think that  questioning and challenging power hierarchies will always get us into trouble and Sri Lankans go to any extent to avoid troubles!

4. Lack of confidence and intergrity: we are also coming from a cultural background which views brimming with confidence is always negative and being forward or outgoing is always frowned upon as negative trait ( pandithaya or playboy if you are a male and if you are a4 female, worse a nattukari or malakolama). We, Sri Lankans are not ready to accept that being coy, soft spoken and dekata thunata-namenafying is bad. We like to break the bone of the person who is ready to spill out the beans and to clap anyone  who dances to the tune 'yes sir, no sir, three bags full'


Sigh!

Hail all the troublemakers and all who have courage to say no or cannot when those two words are what matters the most!

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