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The Tibetans have a saying;

You will have to stand for a very long time

with your mouth wide open

before a roasted partridge will fly into it…

It is a rather droll way of expressing high levels of improbability, but nevertheless useful, in reminding us that some things that we may pine and hope for are simply ‘unrealistic.’

The fact is that we could stand outside ‘forever,’ with our mouths agape and there is no way in the world that a ‘roasted partridge’ will ever fly in!

The odds are completely against this ever happening and it is like this also with a lot of things that we may cling very vehemently to as aspirations, hopes, dreams and wishes.

This is not to say that we should not have any. It is only to point out that it is wiser to actually get out and take the needed steps that would enable an ‘outcome’ to eventuate.

We must measure our wishes against our ability to create the causes that will engender the hoped for ‘conditions.’

When we wait too long, the chances are we may miss out altogether.

If you are into ‘roasted partridges’ it makes more sense to scour the markets.

There is a huge advantage in learning to ‘surrender’ to life and accept what actually ‘is.’ Instead of dancing through our days like animated ‘puppets,’ tossed about here and there, in a relentless cycle of ‘hope and fear,’ we can simply learn to relax and allow our attention to fully greet exactly whatever arises before us.

Most of the time, we do exactly the opposite. Our ‘attention’ is fixed elsewhere; any where, but right ‘here’ and right ‘now.’

We need not live our lives as slaves to longings, hopes, desires or fear. We ALWAYS have a choice.

We can do ourselves the greatest possible favor and recognize the treasure of the ‘present moment.’

The ‘present moment’ deserves our closest attention, gratitude and even devotion.

Take the hint and look again more carefully at the very thing that you routinely take for granted. Things are seldom ever quite as they ‘appear’ to be.

This present moment, when it is just lived out for what it is, provides us with the supreme opportunity to discover an incredibly important truth.

If it were not for the present moment we could not exist at all.

Truly this present moment is precious indeed!

An employee negotiating his/her salary may often feel a complete lack of bargaining power. If the employee lacks alternative jobs, and thus cannot make a credible threat to quit or take another job, it is easy to feel that the offer made by the employer is a take it or leave it offer which the employee cannot influence at all.

The employee or job seeker can however take advantage of the laws of human nature to increase his/her leverage when negotiating the salary. One of these laws says that every human being has an interest in being recognized as a worthy member of society. The only chance to be recognized as such a member is to show that one is willing to comply with the basic norms of society. Not to comply with these basic norms is to put oneself outside society, a condition that is unbearable to most people.

The most fundamental norm of society is the norm of reciprocity. According to Wikipedia, the norm of reciprocity is “the social expectation that people will respond to each other in kind — returning benefits for benefits, and responding with either indifference or hostility to harm.”

The power of this norm can be felt in most bargaining situations. Assume a buyer and a seller are haggling over the price of a car. The seller starts out with a bid at $24,000. The buyer finds this offer unacceptable and makes a counter bid at $15,000. Now, the seller lowers his bid to $20,000, i.e. he makes a concession. In this case, the buyer will most often feel inclined to increase his bid, maybe to $17,000. The reason why the buyer will feel this inclination is because of the presence of the norm of reciprocity. This norm now demands that the buyer responds to the seller’s concession with another concession.

The norm of reciprocity is so powerful that it can be taken advantage of in almost any bargaining situation, even by a party that otherwise completely lacks leverage. This norm is a most powerful ally to the employee or job seeker negotiating his salary – if correctly appealed to.

The norm of reciprocity will only work if it is very clear that the employee makes a concession or gives something away to the employer. This can be made in several ways. If, for example, the employer has worked over time for months without any compensation, he can say “I really do like this work. That is the reason why I have spent hours and hours of overtime here. I think it is only fair that I get some kind of compensation for my efforts for this company.” Another way is to start out the salary negotiation by making a high but reasoned salary claim, from which a concession can be made in the next round.

With the norm of reciprocity in his toolbox, the employee or job seeker negotiating his salary will have dramatically increased his leverage.