I have been extremely generous and provide lots of financial support, yet she doesn’t allow me time with my son and I have tried everything I can to explain to her how her actions are having detrimental effects on his future but she seems ‘blind’ to anything I explain, which is always done calmly yet all I receive is anger, resentment and blame, whatever approach I take.

If anyone has any helpful advice, it would be greatly appreciated, so my son has the opportunity to receive the love and time with his dad that we both desire and ensure his future happiness and security.

People are constantly put down, ridiculed and publicly humiliated until their spirit breaks, leaving them dejected and often broken for the rest of their lives. This is why Kerala has a very high suicide rate in Asia, even if they boast they are one of the most progressive 'ethnics" in India, they are not.

Same thing can be found even in countries like Australia and New Zealand, where most people came to escape the british class system.

But in places like New York or California it is quite different. An overachiever is singled out, encouraged and even promoted. He is seen as an asset. This explains one of the most successful nations for migrants or achievers is the United States and some other countries.

Crab mentality is a dangerous deadly attitude that destroys the calling and hope God may put in an individual. It is not up to us to restrain a person or destroy his future by damaging words. We will be held accountable by God one day for a lifetime of missed opportunities and destroyed hopes.

I am from Kerala, India and I lost my younger brother to suicide. He scored 98 percent in his studies and won a scholarship to study in the U.S., but he was torn down repeatedly by people around him, including my family, In the end he hanged himself, joining the statistical rate of the highest suicide rate in Asia.

Today, I warn entrepreneurs and others to avoid Kerala or dealing with Kerala ethnic groups and focus on dealing with other Indian races or beyond. Rather than sit and change a culture that is deeply rooted in this, we focus on reaching out to others who will recognize our talents and reward us fairly. One has to take a stand for oneself.

Now everybody accuses me of being distant, shallow, avaricious, etc. telling me they haven't seen me in "about five years" despite babysitting their kids all summer, "moving away from everybody" so that I can go to a university 30 minutes away, etc. Obviously a result of my selfishness.

I find it curious how everything was fine and dandy when I was studying to be an accountant, and then when I changed my mind to become something that will actually improve society, and allow myself to help people, while going into a higher socioeconomic class, my personality idiosyncrasies (which I'm sure Freud would have agreed are a result of my parenting) are now my problem, and horrible flaws that need to be attacked whenever possible.

My mother especially feels the need to condescend me whenever necessary, implying how old I am, even though I'm going to graduate with a BS five years earlier than she did. My dad told me on Thanksgiving that "I'm not like Sigmund Freud, and neither are you" as as ostensible insertion into an irrelevant conversation. Too bad my profound and lucid introspection and intuitive grasp on the way people think/interact with others makes me much closer to the way Freud was than any ignorant member of my family ever will be.

My HS Sociology teacher told us the same story. Pretty much all of his friends and a lot of his family ostracized him following his decision to go to college (grew up in the hood). I can't believe how many weak minded people there are out there who believe that it is their duty to make sure that those who have the ambition and motivation they don't, aren't able to use it. If anything, it just goes to show how material our world is, when people are willing to cast out their "loved" ones based on the simple fact that they have self-actualized, and no other reason.

Instead of all working to get out of the bucket (and potentially all of them living), the crabs instead pull each other down--including the ones who have been to the top and gotten pulled down.

It's very indicative of the "me-first" and "it's not my problem" nature of many societies.

One thing that describes it, is the scene in Good Will Hunting. The professor's aide tells Will in the office one day "most people get convinced they're stupid" and that they never reach their potential because of it. I remember reading somewhere also about a story of a girl whose peers convinced her she was stupid, until she took an IQ test in a psychology course in college and found out she had an IQ of 160.

I have witnessed a similar phenomenon in the workplace, called "tall poppy syndrome." Look it up online. The jobs I've had where somebody asked if I was in college (of course in an environment where nobody has a college education), I have been ostracized, along with one other guy who, you guessed it, was also in college.

I've actually had people say "you seem pretty smart. Why do you work here?" among other subtle forms of the indignant question.

Gee, I don't know. because By mother kicked me out of the house in the middle of a 15 credit semester, citing "I changed my mind (about my children living at home as long as they pay for their education and general living expenses) as the reason, and since the government doesn't have any sympathy for independent people with profound intelligence, I have to pay the bills somehow?

I can't just waltz into NASA and say "Hey look man. Now I know I don't have what you guys like to call experience, or a lick of formal education in a related area of study, but I have an IQ of 138. That has to count for something, right?"

But hey, might makes right, right? Majority rules, right? If only they had made Atlas Shrugged mandatory reading material in school. The world would be a better place, I believe.

When I returned back to my province, my father was shocked when he saw me in my new appearance.

He began saying something ugly and full of nonsense and he even pissed off the course I took. He even recommended me to "shift" to another course because my present course is full of nonsense.

Grrr. I hate him. Crab mentality can be also paired by insecurities as well. People will really try to pull you down when you're already happy with what you have. Crab mentality can also occur inside the family.

In my work, i used to have friends, but after the training program, they've changed. They became strange and very competitive even though there is no competition. I went ahead of them and they think I'm stupid.

Do you have any suggestions? or any activity that will help get rid of the crab mentality thinking of other members of the team?

Father Tony Martin was the founding father of two of the largest & most successful cooperative institutions in the Philippines, the Visayas Cooperative Development Center (VICTO) & the National Confederation of Cooperatives (NATCCO).

At the height of his career in the Philippines in 1979, he was struck down by his former colleagues who wanted to take his place.