Beliefs

Scriptures reiterate that it is the mind which is the cause of our freedom and also our bondage.
In one sense, our beliefs are  nothing but rules by which we live. Beliefs, most of which are not ours in the true sense, but are what others have made us believe as truths. Most of our beliefs are what we picked up during our lifetime from what we heard or read or saw on the tv. Early in life even before the mind has become capable of deciding for ourselves, we have been told by our parents and teachers and friends things which we have blindly accepted as truth . At that age we are not capable,nay, permitted to put the matter to the litmus test of truth. More often than not , these well meaning instructions and truisms are something that they themselves had not put to the test. Socrates the greek philosopher clearly instructed his students not to accept anything till they found the truth for themselves , even his own instructions. Blindly believing in anything ,without analysing  or verifying the truthfulness to our satisfaction will lead to becoming dogmatic.
Many of our strong beliefs are formed early in our lives.Oncestart believing in something , our subconscious takes over  and starts to filter our perceptions with a view toreinforce our belief. Any information that repudiates our beliefs are conveniently over looked or discarded as untruthful. Over a period of time these beliefs create our habits and thence it becomes our character. We alll have been brainwashed into believing things about religion,good and bad, people of different ethnic groups etc. In fact almost everything. Most of them are not true. They are just opinions of other people which we made into our own.Many of these beliefs are counter productive. They tend to make our lives to be limited . We loose our ability to be open thereby missing out on many new experiences.
We cannot change the way we behave until we change our beliefs.  We have to learn to introspect and become aware of our thoughts and actions. The next step is even more difficult. We have to identify the belief that drives the action. The cunning mind will try to rationalise  and give several good reasons but we have to persist till we are able to identify the REAL reason , which will lead us to our underlying beliefs.
The next step is fairly simple. It is to test the veracity of the belief. Is it true. Could it be wrong. How can we be sure. Can wefind away to settle it one wayor another . It needs enormous motivation and commitment. Think it is too difficult? Nobody said that transformation is easy!

Until you make the Unconscious  conscious , you will be ruled by it and call it Destiny.  Sigmund Freud.

In your last paragraph, you sounded frustrated by the iniquity of people  climbing up the corporate ladder purely on things other than merit. Assuming that this is true, where does Destiny come into it. It is just the law of the land. (Like reservation in India.) We may not like it, but it is what it is and have to accept it. We can argue about the right and wrong of it, but that is not going to change anything. If you are passionate about it , you should be willing to do something about it. Are you willing to put your life on hold and campaign to change the law like Mallala did. Nobody is saying that it is not unfair to you,but that is your perception. The citizens who benefit , will not see anything unfair in it.You have drawn a datum line and from that point of view you you think that you deserve more. May be true but still it is your expectation. Suppose your superiors don't thin k so, then law or no law you may still see someone else being chosen. Citizenship may be one of the things, He may be someones pet. On the other hand if you accept things as they are , you will be much less stressed and be able to rationally look at the problem. Unless the mind is free of preconceived beliefs, likes and dislikes, entitlements etc, we cannot  look at things as they are and thereby may miss good opportunities.

You are better off than millions of other people in India and the world who will be willing to kill to be in your shoes. Still you are unhappy you feel that you have been discriminated against. Only because you are comparing your position with someone else. In absolute terms there is nothing to complain but in comparison to another person there is cause for complaining and frustration. Do you see where this is going? 

Again this does not mean that you should not strive to do greater and greater things. That would be a loser's mentality. If you want to buy a bigger TV , it should be because you want it not because your neighbor has a bigger one. We should always try to compete against ourselves. I was like this yesterday . Can I be better today. How can I contribute to the society? These must be the driving forces in life. Kurt Goldstein calls it self actualization.Trying to live to our full potential. It is also the last step in Maslov's needs hierarchy

Advice to a friend

: It is said that you can not step into the same river twice . what does it mean? The river is continually flowing,it is not static. The river is continually changing and evolving into a new entity every moment. In life we interact and network with so many people. Sometimes we judge a person and label him as so and so, and react to him in the same way as before. The person is also evolving and changing and not the same person. Every time he is a new person and we should be open to see them as such. However this does not mean that you completely forget their earlier basic characteristics.You should give them the benefit of the doubt by keeping an open mind. How about ourselves. We too are changing moment to moment; The same story when heard again will trigger a different meaning. This means that you cannot say that you have heard the parable before, because the person who heard it earlier is not you. It was an earlier edition of you. The new ( now ) you will get a totally different meaning