How I embrace my name and yet practise detachment from it
By: Wisdom Writer, Kanwaldeep Singh
Tags: Pride, Detachment, Names, Embracing Yourself, Shame

What is in a name? — Everything / Nothing Or Both??!!

Our name is one of the dearest things to us. We scribble it everywhere, we label all our things and our ears prick up when our name is called. No wonder people loathe it when this dear darling name is miss-pronounced.

Fiza Pirani’s recent post on medium got me thinking on my own relationship with my name. Just try pronouncing my name (Kanwaldeep Kahlon — hint the n’s are silent) and you will understand. 😂

Hurriya Burney is another writer who writes about having a Starbucks Name here.

As a kid, i remember trying to correct the mispronunciation of the nasal half silent ’n’ in the middle of my name. As there is no provision of a silent ’n’ in midst of a word in English, technically, my name is miss-spelt. Data has been lost in converting from Hindi to English.

When I realised that I also misspell other people’s name then I had peace. It’s not done deliberately and if a person can avoid it, they would. But they are unable to for reasons like:

The sound doesn’t exist in the native language set of the person pronouncing the word. Even if they learn the correct sound, due to lack of regular practise they will again miss-pronounce. Sometimes, there is no time to correct. Imagine calling someone on stage for an award.

In short, I don’t consider that the other person is being rude. They would be rude only if the decide to call you Friday (or whatever), instead of your regularly pronounced name.

If the other person is not being rude then what is the actual problem?

And this subtle question can unleash a depth of understanding about human behaviour and help us realise that ever escaping sense of peace. The problem is that:

We are attached to our name When our name is miss-pronounced, this attachment triggers deep emotions in us One type of emotion is of resentment and anger related to the person being potentially rude Other type of emotion is a feeling of inadequacy and self-blame that there is something flawed in us. This emotion causes us to blame ourselves and this is what Fiza was talking about in her post. The last emotion is related to lack of energy when you have to correct people again and again. This happens when you are staying in a Foreign land. This leads to a sense of resignation related to the above two emotions finally leading to the conclusion that this foreign culture is rude or there is something flawed in me. If allowed to continue, all of the above leads to a regret about our name — the one thing every human identifies with most.

And as you can see from above, it all starts with the attachment to the name. But is this attachment incorrect ? This is where flawed thinking takes over and what I call Mayaatic Pollution (i.e. confusion or lack of understanding) starts.

For as with most of our life, the solution is a contradiction — Be proud of your name and yet not be attached to it. In short:

Be proud of your name — for that is where your strength comes from, the identity of you. Be not attached to it — for there is where your energy can be wasted — in correcting a false representation of the world, that is: (a) the world is either being rude to you or (b) you are not worthy of the world.