Though Eva looked puzzled, a smile was thinly stretched on her lips." Have you read the recent research done by Dr. Elin, the famed psychologist, the one that won him the Jer-Weeg international prize for psychology?"
"Really? What does it say?"
"Well," her scholarstic brother continued, with the proud air of a teacher handling a totally ignorant set of students. "It validates the point I just made now. That is, messy personal habits are directly connected to a high level of intellect."
"So you are trying to justify dirty habits? I'm not so surprised."
"No, no," Ken appeared thoughtful for a moment. " I'm not justifying it. What I mean is it is a side effect of a high intellect. All that a person in that situation can do is to improve his personal habits, but a complete erasure is impossible."
Eva roared into laughter and was about to reply when a voice said from behind,
"No, a complete erasure is possible, his eminence, professor of phsycology, Cambridge University. You are at it again, making what I would call a poor though intellectual defense of your bad habits. The time would be better spent in making efforts to change."
It was their dad, Professor Dan. He was just arriving home from the University campus after a tiring day of work and research. He often teased his younger child, his son, about his intellect by calling his a professor.
Professor Dan sat down tired on the sofa while Eva took his briefcase in and brought him a glass of cold water, while he drank the conversation took a more serious turn.
It ended with Professor Dan telling his son,
No, any habit, natural or acquired can be changed, if only you can muster the discipline. Take me for example, I used to be incapable of love, like I was not so much inclined to caring and feeling for others, but all that changed when I married your mum. I began to learn what it meant to love and be loved. Her very sweet dispositions and her manners and her constant demand for affection, all played a part. The professor took a sip of water and continued. "Like you I used to defend that bad trait I had until I encountered a situation that presented me no choice but to change. The same may happen to you son. Until you encounter such an optionless situation, you may find all the arguments in the world to defend that bad trait.
With that Prof. Dan retired to his room.
Ken's change came sooner than anyone expected. He was part of people that took a scholarship exam. But unknown to the participants, the examiners also took the dressing and grooming of the participants into consideration. That day, Ken was not very well dressed. He had rushed out of the house with the excuse he was already late for the exams, ignoring the protests of his parents. And now. Well now.
The long and short of it is that Ken was dropped from the list of those that passed despite his excellent and high scores, and the examiners explained that to him.
And the reason the situation had a very sad dimension to it was that Ken had been dreaming since childhood to attend the school, especially as a scholarship student. It was the most elite of schools in the country. And scholarship students were treated as gods in the school. And now he had missed out of a very crucial dream because of, of...he wept like a child that day in his room, before his mum came to comfort him.
"You will stop arguing and change now, won't you?"She asked.
And change Ken did. Just as his dad had said that day he had argued with him and his elder sister in the living room: "You either change a bad habit through iron-willed discipline or you change it, this time, unwillfully when an optionless situation that demands you change presents it self to you."
This experience proved to be a major game-changer in the life of Ken. Of course the arguments dropped and with time and the exercise of a gritty will he became an epitome of neatness.
As it happened, his parents, then aged, smiled broadly sitting in an academic event when he was introduced as the neatest and best dressed Professor of the best university in the world (Harvad university or course).
Thanks for stopping by.
