CONSTRUCTIVE TEMPERAMENT
A constructive temperament ensures the progress and success of nations. Conversely, a society in which individuals only think of themselves can never achieve significant improvement.
Dr. Abdul Jalil from New Delhi visited Japan in 1970 and stayed there for six months. In a meeting on October 14, 1984, he recounted an experience: he was residing in Tokyo and would regularly travel to a particular destination, a fifteen-minute journey by train from Tokyo.
One day, Dr. Jalil boarded a train in Tokyo as usual, but after fifteen minutes, his desired station had still not arrived. When the train stopped at a station, he checked the board and saw it was the wrong one. Concerned that he might have boarded the wrong train, he noticed a young Japanese man standing nearby. However, there was a language barrier; Dr. Jalil didn’t speak Japanese, and the young man didn’t understand English. Dr. Jalil wrote down the name of his station on a piece of paper and showed it to the young man.
As the train had just started moving but had not left the platform, the young man immediately pulled the emergency chain, stopping the train. He then guided Dr. Jalil out of the train and, without a word, walked him to a train that was going in the opposite direction. He sat with Dr. Jalil on the new train, which departed shortly. In a few minutes, they arrived at the station Dr. Jalil was trying to reach. The young man then saw him off and continued on his journey. Throughout this entire incident, there was no verbal communication because of the language barrier.
Dr. Jalil shared another instance: he witnessed a minor accident on the road where two Japanese cars collided head-on. Both drivers got out of their vehicles, bowed to each other, and one of them said, “It was my fault; please forgive me.” The other replied, “No, it was my mistake; please forgive me.”
This is what is known as a constructive temperament, a trait that ensures the progress and success of nations. Conversely, a society in which individuals only think of themselves and disregard others can never achieve significant improvement.
