Triple Filter Test

A few hundred years ago, there was a very learned scholar in Baghdad, who was also famous for his great character.

One day an acquaintance met the great scholar and said, “Do you know what I just heard about your friend?”

”Hold on a minute,” the scholar replied. “Before telling me anything I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Triple Filter Test.”

”Triple filter?”

”That’s right,” the scholar continued. “Before you talk to me about my friend it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you’re going to say.

That’s why I call it the triple filter test.

The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”

”No,” the man said, “actually I just heard about it and..”

”All right,” said the scholar. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not.

Now let’s try the second filter, the filter of goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?”

”No, on the contrary…”

”So,” the scholar continued, “you want to tell me something bad about him, but you’re not certain it’s true. You may still pass the test though, because there’s one filter left: the filter of usefulness.

Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?”

”No, not really.”

”Well,” concluded the scholar, “if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?”

Dear Reader, how many times do we come across these kind of situations. Share your experiences on how to avoid such kind of useless talks like backbiting & gossiping..

Some thoughts on UK riots and responsibility.

I was thinking about the issue in some depth; initially the obvious answer that came to mind was education- to solve the matter of responsibility; ie the more educated and qualified you get, there are better prospects of jobs and you join the 'working' class. Naturally, vocational courses were developed for those that were not capable of doing the whole education system. (too add: a good friend of mine works in a vocational college, where there are many mature students - backrounds coming from prisons and many having criminal records etc: my friend generally describes them as animals - he told me of 2 recent events which are pretty normal at the college (1) a couple of young male adults completely trashed a lift in front of the camera! my friend enquired why they were not kicked out, response from management was 'we would lose money from gov. if we de-roll these students and we can claim back from insurance' (2) a young mother of 6 months, had been beaten so badly particularly to the stomach, which caused severe bleeding all in front of the teacher, whom in the end pointed the finger to the girl as being responsible for provoking the guy initially, all because he was scared of the guy who was a gang leader and the teacher knew there would be trouble if he didnt comply!!! the response from the young girl to both the teacher and the gangleader was, 'if I had any brothers I would've got them to stab you up' ---my point obviously there are SERIOUS issues in such institutions too).

These growing number of young people just do not see or are not patient enough to gain from the very long term benefits of education, by the time they reach young adults its engrained in their minds that it is a game of 'them and us..as its always them pumping in money and benefits for us to be better...'. and this mindset continues till they become parents, 'they will take care of my child, as I have no right over my child' so the children grow up with the evolved mindset they can do anything...they will be always taken care of. And not to mention how cool it is for them to collect points when they get away from Police and earn more respect from their homies if they get caught and spend time in prison....and these are the role models that young kids look upto. Yes they are not taught about civic responsibility, and when surely a time comes to take it - its too late and frankly they do not care...