Humanist Manifest

I do not know where the hell the world is going. I do not know whether we are human as required as to change the World to end up in peace, justice and equality for all living beings and the world itself. I am in sorrow watching the children dying under the bombs, dying because of politics, diseases, hunger, lack of clean water.. all kind of reasons. I am also in pain hearing about soldiers dying because I do not believe that all of them meant to kill civilians.

The wildness in world is like in a rush..  terrorist attacks, wars for nothing, police violence directed by politics, racism, discrimination.. Why/for what?! I could never find an answer for this question.  If you have one, please let me know!

And the next question, who might have something to say? Who can awaken the goodness (if still exists) in human beings?  Religious people???  Then which religion? I have never seen such a powerful discrimination in the world! I can list thousands, millions, billions of crime committed in the mean of religion. It sounds like religion is not the castle of goodness anymore but a cover to hide or justify violence in the world. Politicians??? Do we expect them to question their own behaviors? You and your conscience are the only one who can tell the truth to yourself.

I strongly believe that when we are able to eliminate any kind of discrimination in our minds and be fair to everyone, we will be close to solution. I am reading comments in social media calling Hitler back or thanking him what he did to Jewish people.  Could you please explain me what is the responsibility of innocent people who are killed in Nazi era for the violence in Palestine now? This is not the mindset to solve international problems. This mindset is what makes the problems endless! What will you say if Palestine kills civilians after 10 years? Then will you thank to today’s Israel for what it is doing now? There is no way to come to an end with this way of thinking. If you are thinking like that there are not much difference between you and Shaked. Who is responsible what is happening in Palestine today? Just Israel? Or also Europe discriminated Jewish people in the history? What about the Ottoman Empire, UK, France, all countries had power in the region in the past? What about US? What about Judaism? It is impossible to fix all the mistakes in history and religions. It is time to settle down and be fair to living people not to history!

And how to protest Israel? By not consuming products originating by Israeli companies? Ok, fine! So I can trust all of you that you will never eat KFC, BurgerKing, McDonalds anymore, will not use Unilever products, Polo, Diesel, Cacharel will not be your favorite brands anymore and of course you will never drink Coca Cola again! I appreciate all of you but to be honest I have at least 20% of the brands listed in my home now. Boycott is a way to protest but are you sure it is just the coke you did not drink today but will drink again starting from tomorrow or more chemicals, high-tech, diamonds that can be boycotted at country or even global level? There were protests in front of Israeli Consulate in Turkey. I support that. But again could you please explain the reasoning behind damaging Coca Cola trucks passing through the road? You think Israel will be doing war budget planning again because of these trucks. There is also another possibility which sounds me more realistic. The driver, who is most probably Turkish and Muslim and even maybe fastening, will be scold because of causing damage to company truck. We are all modern slaves. Our anger is like flash in the pan spread with no target and even to wrong target. If you do not believe, we can discuss further next month drinking our cokes or Nescafe’s. Can you think of how many people are working in Israeli originated companies located in Turkey? And could you please also consider the suppliers for these companies? Do you believe in your government to support domestic investments to provide jobs to all of these people?

Poverty is managing our actions, or turn around the coin, prosperity is governing the world. Please be realistic to yourselves. We are like in a helix, thinking as we are taking the lead and going forward but actually we are just turning around and sinking in a hell with the directions of invisible criminals of modern world. When we are surrendered by imaginary prosperity and made feeling them as our needs, we are falling behind of our natural ego. Our id is very open to external stimuli. When we are not able to build up our ego to handle all these expansion in our pleasure and need definitions, we are turning into modern slaves. This is not much different for decision makers doing all these violence in the world. Hope we will be able to control attacks to our id or improve our ego to handle all this expansion and finally find out the natural humanity inside.

I am sorry but you have overconfidence problem!

Why overconfidence is risky both for you and your organization?

As a new member in business life, you have specialities make you better than other people. But be ready to face the reality! Everything is different than theory in practice!

You have graduated from one of the best universities in the country?

You got an A from the course on this topic?

You attended to a training or workshop?

You have heard people talking about this topic?

Your previous company did a similar project?

You have an internship experience?

You read an article on this topic?

You have an idea?

You have competence?

...

The list can continue forever but "so what"? None of these excuses or explanations make you an expert on a specific topic. You might have tendency to learn and develop more than other people but still you have to give effort and practice. It is time to gather knowledge and experience for you now, not to pour the single drop you have. If an expertise is a glass of water, what you can gain with experiences listed above is just a single drop which can hardly reach the mouth of glass to impress a real expert. So do not be arrogant! An expert can easily understand your level of knowledge and your attitude towards the topic.

The single drop you have is the chance you can benefit to obtain new chances to gather additional drops. By thinking as you are the best on something and being arrogant, you lose your single chance to improve yourself. Instead of listening people who are trying to teach or explain you something, if you claim that you already know what they are explaining, you express an attitude as "closed to learning". People who come across with this attitutde will stop trying to share knowledge with you. At the end of the day, you are alone without any support and actually with nothing in your glass. On the other hand, if you have an attitude as "know something but need to learn more", people will try to share all knowledge they have with you and you will start to fill your glass very easily and quickly. Do not hesitate to say you do not know something and ask questions even the most silly ones. People will forget about your unexperienced period when you start to fill your glass.

You might still think as "I realy know a topic and why not to tell that I already know?". If so, again listen people and make additional comments on the topic. If you just say you know it but cannot express your knowledge in your comments or outputs you produce, I am sory but you have overconfidence problem!

In the first sentence of his article "How to Handle Your Investing Overconfidence" in TheNewYorkTimes, Carl Richards states "overconfidence is a very serious problem" and followingly he states what is tricky about overconfidence as "the people who are most overconfident are the ones least likely to recognize it". I strongly agree with this idea. I am aware about assurance from past success might lead overconfidence and long term experience might cause business blindness. However, if you are smart enough to control your confidence and instead of focusing on what you have learned, if you try to imagine what else might be staying still to learn, you will be on the safe side. I strongly believe that as people gather knowledge, they become more aware of how less they know and how much knowledge still exist to learn and can prevent themselves from overconfidence problem.

You can find some examples how overconfidence is risky for companies and economy in Richard's article. Different than direct economical risks I want to focus on risks on company brand and other employees and how they might have indirect economical impacts. If you are especially working in a proffessional services firm (e.g. in consulting) and reflect your overconfidence to a client, they will start questioning expertise and quality level of your company and you will possibly cause loss of new business. Additionally, when your colleagues notice that your glass is empty and not in a way to fill up, they will start to think that their knowledge and effort to improve further are undervalued by company and they will change their jobs. In the long term, this will create a cycle going worse and worse and affect the human resources quality of the company. I am sory but a proffessional company does not retain such a risk so all these might be a risk for you to lose your job. 

No matter what you did, no matter what you succeed. there are still vast of knowledge around you that you will never be able to know them all. Be self-confident about your ability to learn and enjoy pleasure of learning new things even though your self-satisfied level of knowledge, which is actually a single drop of water which will be dried trying to reach mouth of glass ;)