Open letter to my Kids - 2

Dear Bachchoos,

Last time I wrote an open letter to you was over 4 years ago (Link Here) when I wanted to tell you a lot but knew you were too young to understand any. Hope you read through these open letters when you grow older. 

Today I want to tell you about the biggest paradox of life. In your 20's you will have energy and time but will be short of money. When you get to 40's, you may have money and a bit of energy but won't have time and when you get to 60's, you will have money and time but not the energy. 

The entire world is functioning on this paradox and the shocking fact is everyone believes this is normal. I have been trying to break this mould and I want you both to push the envelope further because we don't want to repent on our death beds.

There is no single formula to break the mould but can be achieved by a lifestyle based on some set of values and facts I want to share with you today:

1. Respect people

You would meet many people at every juncture of your life. Tring to create a positive impact on as many people as possible should be your way of life because if someone associates you with some positive experience, they will remember you for life. Do not build good relationships just as some business investment but be genuinely interested in people. Respect them, like them and tell them how important have they been in your journey. Creating and developing positive relations is a superpower. Trust me, that took me to places.

Yes, you would also face many negative, thankless people who take your respect for granted but they will be far outnumbered by good people. Afterall the world is a beautiful place.

2. Don't be arrogant

Pop culture has somehow turned arrogance into an attractive trait but there's a huge problem with that. Arrogance means confidence beyond one's abilities. If you throw around your weight without backing up with capabilities and skills, you would be loathed and things would turn downside at some point.

But how about building skills and yet keeping yourself grounded ? Isn't that more attractive.

Also there is a difference between being bold and reckless. There is a difference between being straightforward and harsh. A subtle thin line you need to know how to tread on.

3. Tackle Low Self Esteem

Lot of people lead a luxurious lifestyle disproportionate to their paychecks. They want to buy entry level cars of some luxury brand because they want to flaunt the brand, they buy expensive handbags which would be more worth than the cash or debit cards within. Such people want to show they are rich because they want to impress and seek validation from others. This is a low self esteem issue.

Never ever do anything to attract, impress others especially when you do not have the means. A simple rule is that you should never buy anything you can't afford to buy twice. Being rich is important, looking rich is not.

Another classic case of low esteem is taking extreme pride in their religion, caste, favorite actor and some group identity. If someone identifies themselves more with the group than their own abilities, they lack self esteem. You do not have to be ashamed or defensive about your roots or your favorites but make it clear that your future self is your favorite and you are your number one hero. There is nothing to take pride in someone else's achievements just because they belong to your demographic set. 

4. Help Others

Try helping others within your means without any expectations or virtue signaling and see the reaction in their eyes. That's precious. Simple biochemistry says that when you make others happy, you generate oxytocin and dopamine which are the hormones related to love and pleasure. These will generate positivity within that could do wonders in your thought process and confidence. So help others for yourself and not for them.

But the worst thing you can do is to expect them to acknowledge your help or return the favor. 

5. Controlled aggression

Aggression is important but that should be within you not to be shown around. Your aggression should be channelized into something worthwhile. If you have anger or aggression within, begin a new task and prove it to yourself.

There's a funda that your life will be good if you start something new every month. Again that's possible only if you are surrounded by correct set of people.

6. Don't be busy

Many people earn money but they trade their time instead and when they look back, all they find is their hard work and bills they paid. Life is a sumtotal of experiences and money should only be a catalyst not the destination. Money is of course important but if you miss all the fun in your pursuit of money, it's not worth it.

So how to earn money without being busy ? By being efficient

7. Be efficient, not perfect

Perfectionists would never be happy and there is no end to perfection. If you need 10 hours to do a perfect job to earn $10 and if you need 2 hours to do a mediocre job to earn $5, which would you pick ? You would be a fool if you picked the first option. Invest minimum effort and time to generate as much as you can and use the saved time in some other initiative. 

There is one more secret many won't tell you: You will attain perfection by repeatedly doing the same mediocre thing again and again. So don't wait for perfection to begin anything.

8. High pressure mindset

Some people find my working on multiple projects surprising. But there's a secret to that. They see me working on 5 projects but actually I would have initiated 25 projects and end up with 5. Human mind is an amazing machine and if you subject it to high pressure environment and make it work on multitasking, it gets sharper and shrewder. It's very similar to the muscles that grow upon subjecting to exponential overload.

So get out of your comfort zone and take up multiple tasks. Even if you do your 9-5 job, your mind and body can still accept lot more pressure, just that you need to surround with right kind of people.

9. Be communicative

If you ask me one skill that changed my life upside down, that's communication. Not that I am exceptionally communicative, but I can manage to explain my thoughts lucidly to my listeners and this helped me in both personal and professional lives. And no this is not something I was blessed with naturally. I slogged for it.

There were days when I dreaded seminars and public speaking but it took me years of writing, reading, listening, building vocabulary that started reaping rewards now. You would be doing a great disservice to yourself if you believe things will fall in place for you. You need to work for it and communication skills will take you a very very long way. So buckle up.

10. Letting go

Life is a series of battles. You will win some battles and will lose some. You will lose loved ones too at some point. Sometimes letting go is as important as holding back. 

There is a 2 year rule that says if a loss does not bother you anymore after 2 years, it's not worth clinging to. The only thing that will affect you beyond 2 years is your health, money and family. Everything else will have an expiry day. Brace up.

More gyaan in the next letter. Hope it doesn't take another 4 years.

Love

Let me body shame you !

Now that I caught your attention with that offensive subject line, let me tell you this article is not about humiliating or poking fun of anybody's weight or appearance. Whatever I'm writing shall not be applicable to those suffering from any medical condition or those who are facing weight issues despite trying hard. I wish you the best in your journey and let's hope you progress well.

This is for all those 'woke' and 'body-positivity' clique who wear their obesity on their sleeve and believe that is normal, something to be proud of and to those who say they aren't ashamed of their over weight. And this is also for those naïve people who do not understand the gravity of what their bulging tummy can pose for them. 

For those who have seen me personally and felt I looked fit, actually my body fat percentage is close to 20%. Anybody with body-fat more than 25% are considered obese and I am not too far from that. So it goes without saying that if I do not care about my lifestyle and eating habits for sometime, I end up in obesity category and my risk of dying through heart diseases, cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure increases by 30% over other fit people. 

Time for you to retrospect if you fall over 25% body-fat and if yes that means your bulging tummy is a ticking time bomb and no body positivity would come to your rescue. By the way do you have a family to support and kids to raise ?

Everybody knows that the two major ways of cutting down body fat is by lifting weights and by reducing intake of bad foods (white salt, white sugar, white rice, white flour - all white witches). Should we avoid all these foods for good ? Our life is all about biryanis, sweets, deep-fried savories and hence we can't get rid of those completely. But the bigger question is...should we have all these thrice a day or even better question, should we have any food thrice a day, everyday ?

Did you wonder how to handle hunger because you feel hungry every few hours ? The joke is on you because hunger is a feeling triggered not by lack of food but by your brain which tricks you to eat. If you fast for long, brain would divert itself to tap your belly fat for energy but we usually don't let that happen and keep satisfying our hunger pangs.

I made a one hour video about bio-chemistry and what happens within the cells of your body when we eat and what happens when we do not eat. But my wife reprimanded from sharing that online as it was a bit too preachy and I gave up. 

Anyway, if you thought body fat only castes heart diseases, let me give you more possibly consequences: Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, blindness. Cancer is aggravated by presence of high body sugars. We wonder why our grandparents suffered from health related diseases as they grew old. Unfortunately, they were not told how to lead a healthy lifestyle as their entire diet was full of white witches.

But at least they had an active lifestyle. And lets compare theirs with our sedentary lifestyles sitting in front of computers for 8 hours, another 4 hours in front of TVs. We could die much earlier and I won't make it politically correct. Do you hear about those young men in 30's and 40's dying of cardiac arrests or are you in your own dangerous bubble ?

'Breakfast is the most important meal of the day' is the shit advertised by cereal companies. Do they care about your well-being ? Hahaha. To my surprise, doctors told my diabetic family members that they should not fast because the diabetic medicines would reduce body sugar levels and hence they should eat 'well' to increase their body sugars so that medicines can do their job. They do not want the sugar levels to be reduced naturally by fasting. 

If you lose your weight and get healthy, the corporates lose their money, healthcare industry crumbles, pharma companies lose and none of them encourage limited eating. We live in a world of consumerism and hence we need to back one another. Read about 'autophagy', 'ketones' and how prolonged fasting before lifting weights will make you stronger, sharper and how eating diminishes the results. But we were conventionally told that eating makes us stronger and healthier. Nothing can be a bigger scam. 

I personally follow 'one meal a day' on all weekdays and my detractors ask me if that's healthy and nutritious at all ? I am amused at that question because I do not understand if we need to eat thrice a day to get those milligrams of vitamins, minerals, carbs and protein our body needs (assuming they all eat only nutritious food every time). Won't I get that nutrition from one healthy lunch ? Weren't early humans made to hunt and eat once in two or three days ? Don't lions and tigers eat once in three days now ? None of the animal species eat thrice a day and humans are made the same way too. We just eat way more than what our bodies need and hence all the extra food would be stored as belly fat for future energy spending which we don't spend anyway. 

We just can't stop ourselves from eating 'tasty food' because we let our brain and hormones like dopamine control us. Not controlling intake of food is as addictive as smoking, drinking or doing drugs. More dangerous actually as we do it thrice a day.

Few people eat healthy and few others who can't control their mouth burn the calories in gym through weight training. If you don't do either or if you talk about body-positivity to hide your insecurities, let me touch your raw nerve by saying you lack discipline of controlled-eating, and you are lazy enough to hit the gym. 

If you are fat and if your clothes don't fit it, if you are not motivated to groom well, yet you lack self-discipline, you are a bad example and influence on your kids because they learn this very lazy lifestyle and habits from you. You are not only ruining your life but also people around you. And you don't need anybody else to body shame you, because you are your own enemy and you will see your life crumbling in front of your own eyes. I repeat - your fat body is a ticking timebomb and it will catch you up sooner or later. Deal with it.

Getting Rid of 'Self Importance'

Few days back we had a party with our close friends and family to celebrate our anniversary when I attempted to sing, play guitar and dance in a party though I'm extremely mediocre (to bad) at those fine arts. The main reason for my attempt was to surprise my wife but there was another reason which I haven't shared with any. Here I'm pouring my heart out about why was that important for me to perform before 170 people and publish it on Facebook where hundreds more could judge me.

I wanted to break the shackles of self-importance that clutched me, that compulsive need to appear good and correct at all times, I wanted to get rid of my fear of criticism or judgement by others. For once I wanted to be myself without getting hindered by how and what others thought of me if I fail...Eventually I failed in performing well but I won over my internal struggle with narcissism.

Thanks to my second season of academic experience in the last 2-3 years I have met over 500 people who were miles ahead of me in intelligence, success and talent in every way. They were enterprising, always thinking out of box, breaking cliched rules, working to set new paths throughout. But more fascinating was their attitude towards life and society. One common thread I witnessed among all those was the conspicuous lacking of an inflated sense of self importance or urge to look correct.

On the other hand I know scores of ordinary people considering themselves superstars with whatever mediocrity they achieved (or sometimes without any). I remember my uncle, a distant relative, who never worked in his life because he didn't like 'being managed by others'. Talk about self-respect and self-importance !

I just had to juxtapose these two sets of people of either ends of the spectrum to see where I wanted to be and I knew the answer.

Self-importance or ultra-egoism or in psychological terms called as 'narcissistic personality disorder' is a mental condition in which people have a deep need for admiration and extreme self respect. But behind that lies a low self esteem that even a slightest of criticism can hurt, they feel the need to defend against any criticism. Those suffering from this condition usually pollute their internal energies, strain relationships and hinder their own growth prospects

“Self-importance is man’s greatest enemy. What weakens him is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of his fellow men. Self-importance requires that one spend most of one’s life offended by something or someone.”~ Don Juan

Though it's a mental blockade, it has a very easy solution. And it is 'GETTING OUT OF THE COMFORT ZONE". If you ever feel shy, unduly self conscious, unnecessarily embarrassed or awkward about yourself, you must realize that your self-importance is at work. The mental block is not allowing you to try something new for the fear of failure and/or looking bad and your low self-esteem requires you to only look good before others. Dear friend, that is a perfect situation to REVOLT & REINVENT yourself. Just say 'hatt teri ki, jo hoga dekha jaayega' and make up your mind.

Nobody would hold you for your perceived failures forever. Nobody has time or patience to think about you as much as you do. Don't be a prisoner of your own ego. Let others judge, the same people will initially laugh at you, then mock at you, question you and will eventually follow you.

On the flip side, getting free of self-importance doesn't mean leading an ascetic or austere life. You must know how to celebrate life, dress well, travel, grow socially, occasionally collaborate, share your success stories to those who love you without seeking attention and admiration.

Stop loving yourself so much and start loving the world you are in. A lifetime is not sufficient to experience the world, cultures, arts, languages, places and people around you. Don't let yourself ruin it for you. Break the shackles.

PS: I admit my own Facebook updates are seemingly narcissistic though I always tried to use the medium only as a journal of my travel escapades, personal milestones and opinions in form of blog posts. However starting 2018, I'm considering curtailing of my Facebook activity and if possible deactivate the account too in order to walk the talk.

Using Haters to Your Benefit

Without giving too much of gyaan, let me put it down simply that whatever you think or feel about yourself, there will always be swarms of haters all around. If you watched Quentin Tarantino's "Inglorious Basterds", the Nazi colonel played by Christoph Waltz reminds that though rat and squirrel look alike except their tails and carry same kind of diseases, people loathe the very sight of the rat but not squirrel. So we are programmed to hate rats over squirrels without any fault of theirs.

So regardless what you do, act, behave or not, SOME PEOPLE LOVE TO HATE YOU. You can't do much about that but to take their hatred into your stride or ignore them or hate them back with more vigor, based on what are you made up of.

The problem usually won't be with those random chronic haters, but the other group who actually matter; those who loved us at certain point, were close to our lives, part of our journey and then turned into closet haters. The reasons for their hatred could be anything from vicious to ludicrous and could be because

• they don't like you not living as per their suggestions, guidelines and expectations
• they believe you don't deserve the love or success you experience
• they don't want to acknowledge your contribution to their well-being
• they can't accept you could do better than them in life
• they feel better about themselves by belittling you
• they can't tolerate you surpassing their predictions about you
• they simply can't stand your tastes or behavior or attitude or identity
• et al.

Some people hate and develop a grudge against you and some others stoop to slander, denigrate, manipulate, exploit, gossip, waiting for you to fail, pretend to help, humiliate to feel greater etc. 

When somebody indulges in negativity against you, that automatically generates negative energy, anger, outrage within. Now what to do with this energy decides what are you going to do with your life.

Anger Management:

You can find hundreds of articles in internet how to manage anger and how to use humor, self-control etc to ease out the anger in the best way possible but very few articles propose how to use the negative energy to your benefit. 

While retaliation sounds to be the most natural reaction, a moment of pause to know if that would impact your life in any way takes you miles ahead. If that does and if you can afford to invest that energy, time and mind to do so, go ahead and retaliate, react and respond. But if you want to react only to protect your ego, my friend, you are making a grave disservice to yourself.

Ego tussles often go in vain. Even if you win, you'll face another person doing that exact thing sooner or later. So life will be a series of retaliations and when you grow older, you'll only see yourself as that clueless gladiator indulging in imaginary fights.

Also when you react to every non-entity you are only giving credibility to their rant. You can instead rise two notches above and pretend they don't exist than getting into a dirty duel. Also you can save yourself from uttering some nonsense which can potentially haunt you in the future when you mend your fences with them.

So the simple solution is try to avoid them and cut them off from your close circles gradually without matching their vileness and channelize all the negative energy to do something more creative and knowledgeable. Though it sounds too much of a text-book strategy, it works. It worked for many. 

Take this as an example: What would you do when you haven't opened a book in the entire semester and you have an exam the next day ? The fear in you generates high pressure concentration resulting in extremely high efficiency and productivity. Same when you know you haven't maintained any accounting records and you get an out-of-the-blue audit notice, court notice etc.

Fear and anger work on your brain similarly. If you are angry, you can easily channelize all your negative energy, rage, temper and fury to thrust yourself with multi-fold momentum. This is the exact state of mind when you must take up learning a new language or say, a technology, enroll yourself into some sport, club, gym or start writing articles, blogs, books. The result will be of astonishingly superior quality.

Those who are financially stable can afford to buy a meal to the homeless every-time they are upset or sponsor an unfortunate kid learn something and then see the difference in their state of mind. If you are not easy on money, write something really nice to your loved one. Your unconditional, unexpected gesture of love will overturn the entire world around you upside down and will earn you more love. The best way to handle each hater is to express love to 5 people you adore. As cliche as it might sound, expression of love always trumps hatred and viciousness.

Though the article is more about how to handle hatred and negativity from others, proper care need to taken not to turn yourself into a hater of somebody else and especially of those who love you. In the world brimming with negative people, finding those who like you unconditionally and look forward to your friendship is rare. Hold them tight and winnow the rest like the chaff from wheat.

Ignoring unwanted people is an art. Be an artist !

Don't be Perfect !

Oscar winner Daniel Day Lewis (actor of Gangs of New York, Lincoln) is notoriously perfect to the tune that he lives his on-screen character even off-screen during filming. While filming for a certain paralyzed character, he reportedly remained on wheelchair even while not shooting and expected his staff to lift the wheelchair around (!!!) - all in the pursuit of perfection. And he is not an odd man out in the world of such lunatics.

Some real live examples of perfectionists I encountered:

1. One of my friends reads entire "terms and conditions" in websites before clicking on "I agree". LOL !
2. My cousin demanded amendments to some very insignificant condition in a job offer letter for a lucrative and challenging dream role he aspired for. The company rather chose the next guy in line.
3. Some of my relatives spend entire festival day cleaning, mopping, brooming their houses because for them festival is all about cleanliness. By the time they lay down, it's already bed-time.
4. My ex-colleague always wanted everything so perfect that he never bothered missing client deadlines in his attempt to make a "nice" document.
5. Some trainees I teach spend months together to research on a simple topic enough to write a PhD thesis, just to understand the outline. Crazy souls !

I have never been perfect in anything I did and that was not out of choice; I just can't be perfect, I'm not made that way. I'm disorganized, a bit clumsy, lazy. I seldom sport clean-shaven look at work, often go on a pair of jeans to meetings, procrastinate things and am everything diagonally opposite to being perfect, but things are fairly working out for me because I aim for efficiency, not perfection - totally different concepts.

My simple doctrine about why perfection is bad:

1. Perfection makes one lose focus - If you have to achieve or reach a target, you should know your priorities and let go few details which aren't integral to the journey. The key point is "letting go".
2. Perfection is unattainable - Perfection has no limits. Even if you are perfectionist and put everything very perfect, there would be somebody somewhere under the sun to show you that something else needed to be done. So perfection is subjective.
3. Perfection means under-achievement - Perfection demands intricate detailing of everything which strategically means underachievement because more emphasis is laid of the process instead of the result.
4. Perfection is against creativity - If you have to create something or establish a business, you have to try many things - most of the initial few attempts would be failures. So one can't work forever on each attempt to reach the final version.
5. Perfection is anti team-spirit - When a team works towards a common goal and one person cribs for perfection in unnecessary details, it obviously leads to tension and conflicts in team
6. Perfection is overrated - The word perfection sounds elite but a lot of times, perfect body of work is grossly over-looked. Nobody actually cares how perfect the product is and what kind of effort went into it. So perfection is overrated. Rather get things done quickly and efficiently and chill !
7. Perfection causes depression - Perfectionists are often lonely and suffer from anxiety and depression because of their zeal and passion they put and for good or bad, most of the times their success is inversely proportional to the passion and expectations.
8. Perfectionists are judgemental - More often than not, perfectionists are the first among equals to judge others' ways of work. That adversely affects human relations
9. Perfectionists can't deal with failure - Perfectionists are usually hyper-sensitive, pessimistic and their nature is propelled by the very fear of failure. In the attempt to avoid failure, they lose valuable time and resources. Same result !
10. Perfectionists are always busy - In an attempt to be perfect, perfectionists more often indulge in slogging over-time whereas clumsier peers when efficient do things much better in a shorter time 

Bottom line - Know the limit, set a deadline, draw a line and let few things go. I repeat LET GO !

English Vinglish - Lost in translation

I agree that Sridevi's comeback smash hit "English Vinglish" is all about spectacular triumph of determination, grit and character over much overrated flamboyance or elitism, but this blog-post is not another movie review.

The flick was not a hit just because of flawless acting or impeccable direction, but majorly because it provided an escapist pleasure to an overwhelming majority of Indians who were made to feel inferior, neglected or humiliated in some way due to their inability to communicate in good english; and all said and done, they form a humongous majority despite India ironically being one of the biggest english speaking workforce.

My own experience: Back in 1997, when I moved to Kurnool to pursue my engineering studies, I had to hesitantly share accommodation with 3 localites who hailed from telugu medium education. That world was completely alien to me because like everybody else in my society and times I was raised with the notion that convent education was the nirvana and everything else was inferior.

I was mildly shocked when I learnt all of them got EAMCET ranks below 1000 whereas I got 4 times that. And a bolt from the blue was when I started feeling like an idiot in any topic of discussion, both in terms of education or otherwise. They were supremely knowledgeable and I felt like a midget. That was an eye-opener for me. But unfortunately none of them could make a career they deserved. Blame it squarely on the corporate world and the anglo-aristocratic mindset of hiring managers.

Also later in my career, I've met quite a few people who were fantastic at their core competence and who could have brought much to the table but had to confine to mediocrity thanks to their achilles heel, the language. Those were the times when I saw the relevance in the famous saying by Albert Einstein that if a fish was judged by its ability to climb a tree, it would spend its entire life believing itself to be stupid.

Later in my career till date, I've been meeting people day in and day out who are better communicators, presenters with better vocab, more flamboyant, dapper than me. I realized and admit that am not a good english speaker or writer but thanks to my reality check of engineering days, I strongly believe that english language or the associated flair is just a channel of communication and the real essence lies in the gist or content; once this was clear, everything else fell in place. I have been trying to mask my weakness by channelizing strengths in core areas and that seemed to work.

If this piece of advice could bring solace to anybody else in my shoes who feel out of place communicating in english, just fix it in your mind that communication is all about injecting your thoughts into other persons' minds (or vice-versa) in a way that they understand every bit of what you say and language is just a medium.

Education System Vs Entrepreneurship

3 Idiots is one movie which I can watch any number of times and it never fails to fascinate me with it's simple undercurrent lampooning the irrational education system prevalent across the Nation (and perhaps beyond).

It's said that a person spends first 10 years playing, next 10 years gaining education, further 10 years settling in career and getting married and reaps dividends thereafter. So it infers that whatever education attained should be implemented in a right direction so as to establish a comfortable career to live happily ever after. But the million dollar question is that if our education system is well structured to make lives ?

Primary and middle school is and will be crucial and helpful for everybody as it teaches us basics of the world, civic sense, ground sciences, languages which we would use throughout our lives. High school and post secondary education onwards the system invariably and gradually drifts more towards competition, entrance exams, grades and ranks and unfortunately lesser emphasis on practicality of knowledge gained.

More focus of bookish definitions (chatur ramalingam style), cut throat competition among students on the verge of cannibalism, peer and societal pressure, failure anxiety clogs the way towards gaining excellence in the subject. Everybody learns pythagoras theorem, electro-magnetism, organic chemistry just to vomit that on answer sheets during exams. Neither educational institutes nor students themselves (majority - exceptions are always there) think out of box to understand or try practicality.

Not to miss, many education institutes have practical classes but the students end up working with colorful chemicals in chemistry lab, vernier callipers or screw gauge in physics lab. Are they kidding me ? Can anybody vouch they have ever used these apparatus or pipette, burette and all that crap ever in their life ? or did they atleast dream about those ? Is that practical experience ?

EAMCET, IIT JEE and other entrance exams lay emphasis on those very subjects to gauge if a student is good enough for engineering course. What is the percentage of EAMCET state rankers who later work on hybridization in chemistry or any hi-funda concepts of physics ? All the jokers who clear these exams in flying colors end up working in software industry or financial services industry eventually and again undergo training and probation from their employers where they will be taught "real-life" working ! So why did they prepare for EAMCET or complete their bachelors course ?

Pursuing post secondary education just to crack entrance exams, technical or higher education either to crack GATE, GRE or grab a well paid job, slogging at work under the disguise of professionalism to get under boss' good books and to get perks and promotions, getting used to mediocrity because at that point of time, they can't afford to take risks after getting married or having kids...and living thereafter happily. THAT'S MEDIOCRITY encouraged, entertained by the education system and mindset of the mental and emotional bourgeois.

Sadly, entrepreneurship is not taught or imbibed in the education system and unfortunately not even in B schools. MBA doesn't teach street-smartness, passion, grit and a way to establish a business. Mgmt education mostly caters to applying best principles and as the name implies "management" of business. And most of blue eyed MBA graduates work for some companies rather than creating opportunities, wealth and jobs for themselves and the society.

Earlier today, I was reading success story of Ronnie Screwvala of UTV who started a cable tv business and with sheer grit expanded into a multi million dollar conglomerate which was acquired by Walt Disney. Dhirubhai Ambani, Sunil Mittal, Lakshmi Mittal or even global wealth creators like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mark Z, Steve Jobs - classic examples of phenomenal successes who rose beyond education. None of these people ran behind grades or initial pay packages. They gained knowledge or had an interest in which they invested their time, passion, perseverance and the most important thing, they TRIED. They jumped into entrepreneurship with a proper vision. Education system DOESN'T inculcate these qualities in pupils.

Entrepreneurship is not just about making money or social status. It's a gift to oneself. Work life is an important part of the life which we can't afford to spend just working 9-5, letting seniors grab credit of our work, indulging in petty politics for one-upmanship, staying late to impress managers, waiting for month-end for salaries. Even if we work with passion and killer instinct, we have to understand the basic pretext that if we show the same instinct in converting our hobby into career, we would be much more satisfied, richer and above all, after few years when we look back, we will have a legacy created by us for the society. Even if we fail, we wouldn't regret that we haven't tried enough !

Life is all about living on our own terms. If you are good at something, you should not do it for free, if you are great at something, you should turn that into your career and if you are excellent at something, you should not do it for others - simple mantra of entrepreneurship.

My earlier post about entrepreneurship - Be an Entrepreneur !

Handling Criticism

Every person / thing / place / object in this world will have fans and critics. Managing life and maintaining relationships is all about handling admiration and criticism one constantly receives from the society.

This post was long overdue and should have been written immediately after the one about handling admiration (Read: Handling Admiration). But better late than never.

No two persons in this world look alike and neither do they think alike. Even the simplest and most straight forward concepts vary in perceptions between people and that's the basic human nature. For example, few people utterly dislike a very popular song or actor just because they can't understand why all others like him/her/it :)

Another example: For middle east conservative countries, US is a shameless, culture-less country where PDA is way of life and women dress outrageously. Will an American agree to that ? No, on the other hand, they consider Arab countries as barbaric stone age nations. As far as Indian and American cultures are concerned, there is extremely polarized views about family system, education system, lifestyle, sex life, PDA, religious affiliations and even usage of toilet paper. Now who is right ? Nobody, because that's how they were brought-up and they are made to vehemently support, defend their points of view.

If we like a particular cuisine, culture, lifestyle, taste, social values, ethics - just understand that those are our choices and not necessarily be applicable for the entire world and vice-versa. If we understand this basic principle, then handling criticism would not be a big deal.

Here are few quick principles to handle criticism:

First principle:  If you don't like criticism, don't criticize others because

1. The other person will definitely have his point of view and that's why he has been following or doing something - regardless of his point being valid or not.
2. Even if he realizes he was wrong, he wouldn't want to admit that (human tendency) and hence can hit back, some times with harsher words

If somebody criticizes you,

Second principle:  the first thing you should do is to understand and realize that the other person comes from a different background and a different set of values (may not be superior or inferior  - just different).

Third principle: Don't retaliate, abuse or confront with vengeance especially if you want to continue the relationship with that person. Conflicts of opinions are temporary, relationships are more important.

Fourth principle: It may be because that person doesn't like you and hence he would not like anything you do. So don't try to appease. Just leave it as it was.

Fifth principle: Don't blindly change your point of view. May be, you were right.

Sixth principle: Some people don't mean their criticism. Understand whether their intention was lost in choice of words and communication medium. May be they were expecting better behavior or attitude from you.

Seventh principle: Don't invoke your ego for judgments passed by others. Don't make it a prestige issue for every criticism. Some issues are better addressed by silence.

Eighth principle: Don't assume that there is just one right and one wrong way to do something. Whatever you do or think or follow, there would be somebody around who would definitely criticize. So you can run, but can't escape :)

Ninth principle: Just understand, you may be liked by somebody for the exact reason you are hated by many. So judgement is not universal.

Tenth principle: Don't blindly go with your point of view. May be the criticism is valid and changing your ways can do good to you. So think from the critic's point of view. Still you are not convinced ? Good for you.

These ways of handling criticism should be well-balanced with ways of Handling Admiration

Dealing with DEATH - Steve Jobs way !

Steve Jobs' death shook the entire world with a rude jolt. 10,000 mourning messages per second in twitter explains how much he is adored by digirati, gadget freaks, movie buffs, music lovers, mactards and residents of virtual world. Despite countless articles about his innovation, gadgets, his contribution to the world is still under-rated, because he was a freaking brain behind a concept called GUI computer (computer with monitor and mouse) without which our lives would have been diagonally, ruthlessly and helplessly different. 

As somebody said innovating atleast one among Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad would have made anybody a legend. This man created all and hence can't be considered anything lesser than God ! A man behind alltime hit animation movies like Toystory, Finding Nemo, Cars has contributed immensely to the entertainment industry. Can you remember anybody else like him who single handedly influenced, indulged, changed lives of millions (er..billions), may be just Thomas Alva Edison or Albert Einstein. But this blog-post is not about his technological advancements, business acumen or marketing genius.

I think Steve was a bigger philosopher than anything else. He understood and explained life and death with incredible ease by setting an example. Born out of wedlock, adopted by somebody else, he slept on floor, walked miles to have a free meal - his life has been a long fight and he always won, except for the last time. A college dropout turning from rags to riches could only be a good fictional story, but for Steve. By 30, he was a head of a company which made him a multi-millionaire, something very few people can ever imagine, forget achieving.

But the real fighter in him emerged when he was fired from the very company he built. How many of us could get back from ashes to build another company and achieve a status and success to make same people who fired him begging him to come back. That needs real kickass conviction, belief, talent, guts and attitude. Not that he was always successful, but he knew how to come out of those failures unscathed to achieve bigger heights. Only REAL HEROES can do that. That's lesson of life, he taught the world by example.

Rejoining Apple was only the best thing to happen to the techie world. Still he lived, worked by his own terms which only Rajanikant could do in his films. He never dressed in a typical corporate style (atleast I never saw him in suits, blazers, tie, clean shaven look - which is being followed by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg too). His focus was concentrated only on innovation and excellence, success just followed that making Apple richer than US Government (it's not a joke :p). He implemented what our favorite 3 Idiots proclaimed. That's some real heroism !

Now the tougher part: Death; When he was diagnosed with Cancer in 2004, he was given a deadline of 3-6 months before death. A billionaire, an icon for millions, "the" most successful innovator of the generation, a real life fighter-winner, a hero, a conquerer - became vulnerable to a disease at 50. How would we react if we were in his position ?

At Stanford's commencement speech at 2005 (an youtube video gone viral), he expressed satisfaction that his cancer was cured and confessed that he wanted to live more, atleast for few more decades (today, it was so difficult for me to stop dropping a tear or two when I saw this part of the video). He spoke at length about death, utilizing time sensibly before we see the deathbed. He didn't sound like a technocrat or a celeb innovator. He was just human, hellbent on turning everything in his favor, even death !

Most of his quotes are being forwarded, presented on web for the last 2 days, but my most favorite one was when he asked if we would continue doing the same work if it was the last day in our life ? It knocked me off my feet. As a person who witnessed death from such close quarters, he subtly but effectively presented the importance of time and life, which we take for granted. He didn't take life for granted both before or after his diagnosis. 

Eventually he had to come to terms that countdown to his death has begun; he famously said that he felt everyday was his last day as if he was waiting for his death. He also happened to read his own obituary accidentally published by some over-enthusiastic publisher when Steve was still alive. He planned his farewell dinners (:O). How strong should one's heart be to handle the looming death, languishing health, obituary messages, succession plans and invitations for farewell dinners? But even then, he chose what to do, whom to meet, how to spend his last few days (!) Mind-blowing. I saw this temperament in Gitanjali movie, nowhere else.

His birth, life, success, failure, death - none was ordinary. But he managed everything extraordinarily. Though we are talking about him because of his success stories, his life and death are motivational stories in itself, notwithstanding his professional success. I repeat, he is the best philosopher and a story-teller I've known who showed the world how to live and how to die - with an example that only legends can set.

May be, I should not get so melodramatic or sentimental about a public figure, but I genuinely feel the loss of this enigmatic, charismatic epic called STEVEN PAUL JOBS !

“I want to put a dent in the universe.” – Steve Jobs

Handling Admiration !

However stupid or moronic a person could be, he will have admirers for sure. However practical or disinterested the person could be, he will get affected by admiration and respect he receives, period !

Our social behavior depends on how seriously we take admiration shown by others, how emotionally we connect with our admirers and how grounded we can be despite positive attention. This makes a hell lot of difference in public perception and self confidence too. So handling admiration is as important, if not more than handling criticism (handling criticism will be addressed in my next blog post).

Admiration - taken seriously:

Admiration or liking is often unilateral or one dimensioned. Except immediate family members and close loved ones, nobody likes us for whatever we are. So if others express their admiration, its only because they like certain talent, behavior or physicality in us. Such admiration should be wholeheartedly thanked, appreciated but can't be construed as unconditional love because if those admirers are exposed to us as a package, their admiration may (!) turn into resentment :) The best way to handle such situations is to enhance, develop, project traits or talents which are admired without letting the success affect our behavior in other areas.

Perfect example for this is political entry of Chiranjeevi. People flocked to his movies because they liked him onscreen. But he took the popularity way too seriously and rest is history ;) Most of the celebrities undergo this syndrome and unintentionally become susceptible to their ego and over-confidence.

Some people may genuinely like us but that can be due to misinterpretation or false projection. Virtual world including internet, facebook, twitter, instant messengers made easy for people to selectively and subconsciously present themselves to the world and there is ample scope for online buddies to misinterpret what is said, written, shown or projected. Any admiration based on such misinterpretation is always short-lived.

(BTW, there is a popular joke gone viral that nobody is as good looking as their facebook display picture and as ugly as their drivers license. LOL. Don't know about others, but that's apt in my case :P)

Time changes. So do opinions and tastes. Those who like us today may not really have the same feeling tomorrow. So unless and until the admiration is consistent, it can't be taken to head. Some people say good things out of courtesy which doesn't mean we should go overboard and start imagining ourselves to be on the top of the world. And not to mention, there will always be people who admire us with a preset agenda / hypocrisy. So always take flamboyant praises and lavish paeans with a pinch of salt before succumbing.

Connecting with admirers:

The first thing to do is not to take anybody for granted just because they expressed their liking towards us. Their liking or admiration can be temporary but the respect we can earn by reciprocating love by some genuine affection by smile, hug and other gestures will be permanent.

World is brutal and finding people who like us is not always easy. We may or may not always get close to those we like, but we always have an option of becoming friends and build relationship with those who like us. No two ways about it. We can't choose blood relations, but we can definitely choose friends, soulmates, 3-am-buddies and whats better than building up such relationships with those who like us. huh ?

But another aspect of connecting with our admirers is to project ourselves as a complete package so that they can decide if they can really tolerate us or not ;) And invariably we will see a lot of them drifting away which is healthy because we can understand whom to take seriously and whom not to.

I posted this status on FB few days back "Life is long enough to meet people who genuinely like us. Experiencing love from them is boon ! World is big enough to find people whom we genuinely like. Expressing love towards them is bliss !" and I meant every word. Just that we should identify who like us and whom we can like. Its not easy, but its worth !

Letting go of people who don't share positive feelings anymore is equally important. As mentioned earlier, times do change and subsequently people do change; circumstances and situations change. We may have to face days when somebody who admired us the most drift away; we should be large hearted to let go because they may have a lot of reasons to revisit their opinion and in that case cringing to retain the "impression" or opinion is futile and meaningless. Don't take it too personally. If some go away, new people come into your life (remember: life is long enough and world is big enough)

Being Grounded:

The direct and immediate consequence of being admired is steep rise in confidence levels in a positive way and ego in a negative way.

Whenever somebody expresses their admiration, try to think about all our negative traits and then analyse if that person can like us despite knowing those traits or not. This exercise will invariably keep us grounded even in case of the most mellifluous and liberal praises. Arrogance would give way to channelizing and streamlining the admiration into building confidence and maturity.

Though I don't receive a lot of admiration myself, all those who consistently liked me ended up being my favorites too and I treasure them and the bonding I share with those special people;

Slaves to Accent !

Just imagine yourself mispronouncing any english word or a white guy's name or speaking english in a desi accent; what would be the impression bestowed upon you ? You would be unanimously seen as a yokel.

Now imagine an english guy pronouncing your (desi) name or any hindi or telugu or Indian word. or even worse your fellow desi mispronouncing or "trying to" mispronounce desi names and words; now what would be the impression conferred upon him ? A westernized, modern, stylish etc.

I don't disrespect English language. Infact I love the language; my whole life, like most of my peers', revolves around english and most often I think in english. I know the importance of the language in contemporary communication, presentation and I completely subscribe to the idea of enhancing english skills out of love and necessity of the language. But does that mean that all those who are good at english are intelligent and all those who can't are mindless creatures ?

Mani Shankar Iyer, Indian cabinet minister recently ridiculed his cabinet colleague Ajay Maken that the letter written by him (Maken) contains complex english words and hence the letter could not have been written by him as he studied in so and so college (!!!). This is heights of snobbery and psecudo-elitism. English speaking or pronunciation is never a yardstick for intelligence or success. Did Anna Hazare speak sophisticated english to capture the imagination of India ?

Blood boils when some telugu anchors of Gemini TV, Maa TV shows talk telugu in "accent". I don't really understand the influence under which they were brought up, but even if they were completely westernized (which I don't think so anyway), nobody in India gets a firangi accent even if they talked in English at home, period ! But these chicks try to emulate that accent while speaking vernacular languages. That's BULLSHIT and stooping down to the shoes of English masters !

Pronunciation, grammatical accuracy, phonetics make the language sound good, not accent. Accent or slang is something which is developed by social influence especially during childhood. And Indian residents never had/have such society. Celebrated Indian english scholars and authors like JL Nehru too didn't have that. Accent needs a mixture of idioms and slang to sound authentic.

Among NRI's the perceptive discrimination is striking. For immigrants, its a vogue to "sound" like localites and since they can't bleach their skin, they try doing that with their tongue. But the hidden truth that can be applied to most of these neo-firangs is that they desperately want to conceal their inferiority complex of being an "Indian English" speaker.

Heights of inferiority complex: Some NRI parents never let their children learn their mother tongue and take pride in telling their relatives and friends back home that their kids are completely angrez and don't know their mother tongue. Pity on them !

The fact that most new immigrants don't realize is that white guy's accent is not uniform. In US alone there are almost ten accents and people of one region often find difficulty understanding others'. There is a brooklyn accent, south accent etc. Canadian accent is different, British accent is so much different. All these people take digs at each other's accent and we guys try to copy them, but we don't know whom we are copying among so many tribes :D

Italian-english is well acknowledged, east-european english too has its flavor. Unless and until italians or east europeans were born in US, they don't really change their accent or way of speech. Indian- english is unique too and is well acknowledged. There are certain words only Indian english speakers use, for example: doing the needful etc. But that's perfectly fine boss, every dialect has its flavor ! Nobody is a shakespeare !

English is important, but so are other languages. So when a white guy pronounces my name as "Shraawt" or "Churot" (yes, they even wrote this, once) instead of "Sharath", I don't really take offence because I know they are not made to pronounce Indian words, that's how they were raised in their society and that's perfectly normal. I would be confused and puzzled if he addresses me like my Indian friends. We should also share the same equation. We are not made to speak english (or hindi or telugu) in westerner's accent and that's normal and hence any artificiality only reflects desperation. I just agree that our pronunciation and phonetics should be right so that others can follow our speech, nothing else !

I've been an NRI for last 5 years and I didn't get a bit of accent and neither will I in another 50 years. Because that's something I can't get and don't want to get either. But I take pride in the fact that my english is better than 90% of those who try to ridicule desi accent-ed english and also many indigenious english speakers. I take EQUAL pride in my knowledge of my mother tongue (telugu), it's grammatical nuances like sandhulu, samasalu, chandassu, alankaralu and also in my conversance with my national language (hindi). I'm not ROOTLESS !

From Boyhood to Manhood

When I was in my teens and early 20's. I thought anybody who crossed 25 was an oldie and now am 31 but I feel this is my prime-time :) Amidst all hectic schedules, hullabaloo and struggle for existence thingy, I found some time to ruminate over gradual transition and development of "me", my thought process, values and attitude towards life. This post is just a reflection of what I understood as my transition from boyhood to manhood.

At my current phase, I can clearly and unambiguously categorize my post teenage years as 19-23, 24-28, 29- present, as my opinion about world and myself witnessed a paradigm shift with age.

19-23 for me was, like in anybody's case, wild, volatile and unstable phase. I was a boy subconsciously trying to behave like a man. With newly found freedom, exposure to the world, situations demanding and teasing my decision making prowess - that was an age which forced me to defy all rules and norms of society; ironically that was the age when I didn't know much but aimed at taking over the world. It was sheer ambition and rage of fire in the belly.

Superficial knowledge and limited exposure combined with unlimited arrogance is a lethal combo but that combo conferred upon me this attitude which some people refer to as devil-may-care-attitude. The obvious set of traits like carelessness, negligence, headweight, irreverence, idiosyncrasy crept into my head. Though I don't like this kind of attitude in others, I unknowingly fell into the same bracket at that age. When I see kids of that age group behave similarly, I see my old self in them :)

With age comes knowledge and a tinge of knowledge was bestowed upon me in the next phase i.e., 24-28. This is usually an age of revelation and confusion and I see people belonging to this age group consider their younger lot as confused and ignorant while they themselves fall in those traits :) and that's quite normal; I was no exception.

I was expected to be more mature, responsible and take decisions which shape my life forever. Diplomacy, machiavellianism, chutzpah took the place of innocent arrogance. I thought I could manipulate anything in the world and impress anybody with my smartass attitude; Always tried to impress everybody around with whatever I could, tried to take undue credit for every damn thing that happened around me, resisted any kind of value addition or pieces of advice from elders and more experienced. That's where confusion started, but the other side of the coin is that transition in mindset was initiated.

24-28 is also an age where people get settled in terms of life partner and career. These are the biggest factors that could / can affect any damn person to get back on the right track and understand what "life" is. Anybody who has not settled in either of these will remain confused for sure and if it doesn't happen till late 20's, the situation will become psychologically and socially worse and the worst thing is they never realize the effects.

Life before marriage is like a flight on runway. Until it takes off, flight can't be considered operational. Marriage makes a person more responsible, wise and stable in every way possible. Balancing life, balancing feelings and respect towards parents, life partner, understanding their insecurities and providing the much needed support to loved ones will throw any person into altogether a different world. But this transition doesn't happen in a day. It takes months and years to completely get into the idea and understand technicalities. It only comes with experience and once you are a pro in this, life seems to be totally under control. This happened to me and I feel so much lucky that my parents and my wife made this transition smoother than what it would have been for most of the people. Read: Whom to choose between parents and life partner

24-28 is also the phase when we tend to understand the difference between a job and a career, money and job satisfaction, vulnerability and stability, importance to professional and personal lives and a lot more. The kind of exposure and situations around will make a person more mature and thoughtful. Again, I'm no exception.

In this way my 24-28 helped me, exposed me to lot more situations, pulled me out of my boyhood and kept me in a staging or transition stage before I could become a man. It was a confusing stage as I had to come out of the shell created in my early phase and understand the reality of the world.

29 - present for me is a golden age, perse. As mentioned earlier anybody above 25 was an oldie for me but I believe I got my senses and controls back only after 28 :) By then I knew what the world was, faced many dire situations, knew how to handle stress, pressure, could handle any kind of offensive. I am now mentally and emotionally stronger.

With age also comes wisdom and I believe am much wiser now. I again broke the shackles of manipulative attitude and understood how important it is to be loved and respected. Human values, principles, social responsibility have become vivid. Everything in life is as clear as crystal.

The difference in attitude was that in early 20's I didn't care what others thought about me, in mid 20's I tried to impress others with smartass knowledge and kickass attitude but now I realize that we just need to be ourselves and be expressive and people will automatically love you. Life has mellowed down and eccentricity has given way to thoughtfulness.

This is also a phase where for the first time, I got close to a lot of people who are either much elder to me or younger to me. This gave me a 360 degree view of how life is perceived by people of all ages at the same time. I could see how people 10-15 years elder to me defied all rules of age and are living a life of their comfort. They never took their age seriously and behaved the way their heart wanted. They now do everything which a 22 year old guy can do (except flirting and courting though :p). And guys and girls younger to me showed me how world is getting faster and ruthless. I see teenagers and young adults with awe and feel good when they share their knowledge, ideas, treat me with respect which I never did in their age :) I know the times are changing and it has encouraged me to keep up to the world.

Most of my hobbies, travel, extreme sports happened in this age. I started interacting with more people now than I did in my mid 20's. I'm getting more compliments and appreciation for what I do; I'm garnering more respect when I'm not trying hard. I am clear as how to deal with negativity and worthless people (Read: Dealing with Negativity), deal with failure (Read: Dealing with Failure), how to be happy (Read: Rules to be Happy). My family life has been blissful (touchwood) with the only concern that my parents are not with me (which will be addressed very soon though). My parents, wife, sister, brother in law, parents in law, sister in law love me unconditionally. My word is well respected among all my family members and they all know I love them and care for them. 

This phase of age witnessed my complete settlement in career. I have no insecurities or qualms about making money. I'm in a stage where I have gained knowledge, experience and right attitude to sustain myself; I'm more than satisfied with my work, I'm happy with the kind of educational background I have and the way I'm putting it to use as well. Am the happiest when more than 200 people approach me and say I'm in someway responsible for their career. Bliss !

So I'm wiser, more intelligent, more enterprising, happier, richer, respected, more secure than I ever was. In short I'm happy with how my life is going on and can definitely say that this is the best phase of my life compared to younger days. This is the reason I don't miss being a teenager or younger.  I know I'm a MAN now, not a boy anymore and I'M LOVING IT. I believe my life in coming years will change further and am all game to take it into my stride.

How to deal with FAILURE !

Depression, disappointment, fear of failure, worry, tension, nervousness, anxiety....all these negative emotions are results of a simple fact that we always want our life to go according to our plans, decisions and simply rate our success or failure based on whether we could do what we planned or not.

If you study yourself or the people around you, you will realize this. Somebody would be sad because they lost money (which they did not expect), some others would be dejected in life because they could not marry their loved ones (again against their expectations), some would be disappointed because their boss took away the credit deserved by these poor souls (they expected the credit and recognition), they went unnoticed (when they tried hard to impress somebody), their plans got delayed (career, marriage, childbirth - which they expected to happen in certain time frame) or take any instance of disappointment, the underlying point is THEY EXPECTED SOMETHING WHICH DID NOT HAPPEN; and they hence came to the conclusion that they failed in something or they were incapable. So the basic definition of success and happiness have been completely misunderstood

SOLUTION: Just ask yourself, if something didn't happen accordingly, what is the worst that can happen ?

• Money: If you lost money or incurred huge losses, what will happen ? Your lifestyle will be affected a bit, but whats the worst to happen ? You will come to streets. Nothing more can happen due to lack of money. If you come to streets, then what ? You will have to start everything from scratch, can't you ? You can, because you are not 75 yrs old, you have an entire life ahead of you and you can build your life again with whatever knowledge, talent you have. May be if you invest 5-10 more years, you will again settle in the life and can spend some 30-40 more years after that. Can't you do that? This is a worst case scenario which usually wouldn't happen. If there is a solution even for the worst case, why are you so petrified of petty losses. Loss of hundreds, thousands or even millions is not a big deal, if you are made of will of steel. Read: How important is Money ?
• Relationships: Do whatever you can to save a relationship, but if it is not working whats the worst to happen? You will lose the relationship, rapport, love and affection. That's bad but will our life end with that ? Definitely not. The pain will linger for maybe days, months or years in some cases. But life is much longer, unpredictable. Even if you take 5 years to heal from a bad relationship, that's perfectly OK. You will have 50 more years during which you will find people who will love you or care for you better than those you lost. Read: How to cope up with bad relationships
• Humiliation: If you lose respect or importance or get humiliated before the whole world, then what ? Do you think the world around you is obsessed about you to keep thinking about you and how insulted you were ? They would remember your humiliation only when they see you the next time and tend to forget after you meet them 3-4 times. Even if they changed their opinion on you. SO WHAT ? In the lifetime to come, you will meet many more people, situations, circumstances where you would be appreciated and loved too. MOVE ON. Read: How not to care others' opinion on us !
• Career: Do your best to succeed in your education and career. But what if you couldn't make it big. The world is so big and enterprising that people of every background and success levels have ample scope to live happily. Happiness is not directly proportional to educational qualifications, kind of job you are doing. The richest, most powerful, most educated people have their own set of insecurities, problems to deal with which you are not aware of. Read: How to make an entrepreneurial career !
• Marriage: Most of the cases, the people subject to late marriages or childbirths are more worried about social pressure than about the reason itself. Do you know anybody in your vicinity who didn't get married for life (unless planned for celibacy or bachelorhood) ? NOBODY. Everybody will definitely get married and make babies whatsoever at some point of time. Sometimes it gets delayed by days, months or years but IT WILL HAPPEN with very few exceptions. Even if you fall under those exceptions, just come to terms with the reality and realize that the society will raise that topic once or twice, not every time you face them. You will have many more ways to compensate the issue, if any.
• Death: You may have to face trauma before death and the duration of trauma depends of the kind of death. BUT the duration will definitely not be a lifetime. The maximum can be a couple of years. When you are expected to live some 80 years at an average, why worry much about those inevitable 2 years especially when you don't know when will that occur. So when it happens, you will not have a choice but to face the situation, so don't even acknowledge this factor and as Facebook status messages say "learn like you will live forever and live like you will die tomorrow". 78 remaining years are fun-filled.
• Others: Now if you are ready for worst case scenarios in terms of money, love, career, marriage, kids, respect and even death. is there anything else that can worry you ??? :)

Just take a chill pill and live your life king (queen) size. Read: Rules to be Happy !

Now that we discussed about dealing with supposed "failures", lets have a sneak peak at the lsome success stories:

Do you think Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook aiming to become a billionaire ? Do you think Columbus discovered USA expecting it would be a superpower today ? Did Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mandela, Anna Hazare etc start their agitations expecting nationwide support ? You can take thousand more examples of inventions, discoveries, corporate powerhouses, success stories; most of them were unexpected "MERE ACCIDENTS". So success is very overrated. Overconfidence, arrogance, conceit are bad byproducts of overrating the concept of success.

Thomas Edison had to face hundreds of failures before he could invent a working model of electric bulb. When asked if he is disappointed with so many failures, he said, each time he failed, he understood the way to avoid in his next attempt. In this way he avoided 99 wrong ways to reach the right way by implementing rule of omissions. So realize failures are very important for us to know what not to do, keep us grounded, make us tougher. But failure is often underrated. Depression, disappointment, nervousness are bad byproducts of underrating and overemphasizing failure.

In this context, I would use a quote shared by one of my cousins:

"Do you remember the things you were worried about an year ago? How did they work out? Didn't you waste a lot of fruitless energy on account of most of them? Didn't most of them turn out all right after all?

No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be a better tomorrow. Don’t be too long crying over anything. Things you’re crying about right now maybe things you’ll be grateful for late...:)"

Bottom line: Success is overrated; failure is underrated and overemphasized. So after every failure ask yourself  "so, whats the worst that can happen ? don't I have age enough to start everything again ? can't I deal with that ?"

Why People Dislike Me !

I guess I'm lucky to have people who like me unconditionally for what I'm and who never see anything bad about me but I must admit there are equal number of people who are not really fond of me and who ran into some sort of strained relationships with me because of mutual discomfort. I'm writing this post to list down why I end up having problems with some people, what qualities in others I can't get along with and why some people don't like me.

First I present a list of qualities which I don't like in others and then another list of negative qualities in me which some people dislike :)

Usually if I don't like some quality in others which I don't like, I just ignore that and stop acknowledging the very behavior or sometimes the person himself/herself. But sometimes I can't escape when their behavior affects me directly. Here is the list of such irritating qualities I can't somehow tolerate:

• Harshness: I love soft-spoken people even if they talk tough with convictions and reasoning. But I so often face so called self proclaimed straight forward bums who talk harsh and call it being straight forward. I have written an article exclusively on this topic (Harsh Criticism)
• Backbiting: One of the reasons for my flaring temper. There are morons all over who can never take me on directly and hence resort to backbiting, hypocrisy, double crossing, faking and propaganda. Most of the cases, I stop acknowledging existence of such people.
• Me too syndrome: A rather funny and miserable set of souls. These people have sharper tongues than ears. They don't even wait for me to complete my sentence before saying "me too" and start bragging about themselves to prove they are more worthy or talented than I'm. Good if they are, but conversation with such people is often worthless and annoying.
• Exploitation: I don't mind people using me for their benefit. I don't even expect them to remember what they got out of me but there are certain section of people who try to take undue advantage and try to manipulate me to their tunes which I get livid with. This is something which I'm completely intolerant about.
• Loudmouths: I abhor loudmouths who always depend on their coarse and undignified behavior to prove their point. I don't see any point talking to such people and want to be away from all such menacing illogical brats.
• Scheming: Another set of morons who always see an opportunity to play dirty politics even when  not necessary.

As I mentioned earlier, I don't tend to acknowledge or react to most of such people whom I don't get along well with unless and until their behavior affects me directly. A previous write-up as how to deal with such negativity (Dealing with Negativity)

Now the big topic. Just like a coin which has two sides, there are qualities in me which people dislike, have problems with or sometimes simply hate. I don't mind putting these thoughts across the table :)

• Temperamental / moody: I'm called short-tempered and moody by quite a few people which is somewhat true. My mercury levels shoot up rapidly but I seldom express my anger and when I don't want others to get hurt, I just get silent, stop reacting to them which makes me look moody :)
• Arrogant: Lot of people said this including my mom :) May be I'm but I don't remember rubbing my arrogance on anybody or denigrating / belittling anybody. I just feel proud and good about myself but never speak derogatory about others. So my arrogance is harmless :)
• Argumentative: This strained my relationships with quite a few. Be it political, religious, economical, behavioral, managerial, professional, personal or any damn thing, I have an opinion on almost everything and I don't really follow something just because others say so and hence some people dislike me. But I never tried to appease this set of people :)
• Indisciplined: Serious charge but true. My wife hates this. I don't like going to bed before 3 am, don't like waking up before 10 am, don't like working from 9-5, my productive work starts after 10 pm, I never follow balanced diet or any regimens and disregard a lot of other social and moral ways of life which people usually associate with discipline. I somehow couldn't synchronize myself with some rules and have found an alternative to compensate every indiscipline.
• Show-off: Rather humorous allegation but I don't mind showing off something which I'm proud of. I usually show-off to people whom I love and who take pride in my success, possession and not to impress somebody who is not so important for me. So if somebody feels insecure about what I do, I try very less to make them feel comfortable :)
• Dominate: Some people allege that I dominate, but I never assert my authority or control over others, however close they could be. I just don't like others exercising any control over me and in that sense, I'm brutally independent, but don't believe in dominating anybody. This is a misconception which was brought to my notice a lot of times but I didn't know how to shed this image.
• Careless: Another quality which my mom always complains against me. Yes, I'm careless and negligent to lot of things, tasks, people though I don't always mean to. May be this is a manufacturing defect :)
• Bad at maintaining relationships: I guess this is my only negative quality that I'm shameful about. I'm worst at saving relationships despite seeing increasing gaps or drifting rapport. People mistake it as my ego, but I somehow am not good at saving relationships or friendships turning sour. I lost a lot of loved ones due to this one reason which I always repent.

There could be many more negative qualities in me, but these are few which I could narrow down after analyzing why some people dislike me. The reason for writing about these negative qualities is not to explain or convince anybody who doesn't like me, but to present my other side to those who like me so that they can decide if they still want to like me or not :D

Laws of Favour

Favour (Favor), as defined in dictionary, is any act or deed in which help is provided without expectation or reciept of anything in return. Going by this definition, I haven't done any favor to anybody in my life because I always got something in return (sometimes more than what I've done to others in return).

On the other hand, I have many people in my life who went out of their way to help me out in my bad times just to see me happy. I feel very humbled and obliged by the very thought of these people though I seldom express that in person. I try to do everything in my capacity for their benefit though I don't mean to balance or repay their timely support.

In this post, I'm trying to sum up how people ought to behave when they take or do favors to others. This is a the simple analysis of day to day situations I saw in the world around me.

LAWS OF FAVOUR

When you take favors from others:

1. Never measure the value of the favor you took. Don't calculate how much time, effort or money did the other person spend to help you. What all matters is that the person gave you a helping hand when you needed it badly regardless of how big or small the favor was. The noble intention which led the person to help you is divine and you should remember that forever.
2. Never neutralize the favor taken. Don't assume that the favor somebody did for you is cancelled just because you do something else for him later. Its your basic responsibility and duty to support those who helped you earlier. That doesn't undermine the help you have taken because today you may be in the position to help him just because of the favor you've taken earlier. So no balance sheets in favors. Its not barter trade.
3. Never live in hypothesis and assumptions. Don't ever feel that if this person didn't help you, somebody else would have done that. Whatever were the alternatives, you took somebody's help at that point and that's it.
4. Acknowledge the favor taken in public. Some people tend to thank the person who helped in private but never acknowledge the reason for his well-being in public domain. Not that the other person needs any publicity, but it shows your respect and humility in accepting the help taken in public. It only elevates both, the helper and the receiver.
5. Success is not proportional to one's talent. All talented people don't get successful if they are not supported by a lot of people. Identify those people and show gratitude for whatever they have contributed to your success and well-being, regardless of what you do to them.

When you do favors to others:

1. Never expect anything in return for the favor you do. If you expect them to do something in return, its not wrong, but your favor turns into investment. In that case you should not expect the respect and gratitude which you otherwise receive.
2. Understand the thin line between duty and favor. If doing something is your official or moral duty, don't name it as "favor". If you are being paid money, products, services, effort or any kind of contribution as per the predefined arrangement, its not a favor anymore. Some people who claim to be "serving" customers are ludicrous as what is "service" when they are being paid for their duty. Its strictly business.
3. Don't ask / expect the beneficiaries to remember the favor and behave in their benefit forever. Though it's the responsibility of the beneficiary to behave in such way, the person who helped should not really exploit the situation. Again respect is at stake.
4. Just because you helped somebody, don't get under the feeling that you are omnipotent. Even the most powerful might need favors from weaker people. Humility defines the person, not conceit.

These laws of favor if followed, will elevate the relationship, mutual respect and admiration between those who helped and those who received favors.

Money...Honey !!!

"Dhanam moolam idam jagath" - A sanskrit phrase which means money is the root cause for everything in the world. That's true in sense that money can buy comforts, luxuries, power, prestige, respect and even happiness to some extent. And hence everybody wants money, but the question is HOW MUCH DO THEY NEED ?

I know there is no answer for this question as nobody will have an upper limit set that they just need that much money for being happy. That's human nature. But one has to understand that the significance of money varies from time to time, phase to phase and there will be various factors that will have to take backseat or frontseat vis-a-vis money at different stages of life.

A simplest example: Freshers out of college usually consider three parameters to select their jobs. Parameters being: salary, branded company, job profile. Lucrative pay package and comfort some job-offers provide will be so tempting that the job profile will take the backseat initially. But only after 5 years of working can one realize that they have sufficient money but they didn't learn much to grow further and it would be too late to start a fresh career. I've witnessed many people who are in such situation today.

I also know a lot of people who compromised their everything to get richer. They slogged like donkeys throughout their lives to earn a fortune to provide comfort to their kids. Those kids when grew older didn't realize the importance of hard earned money because they never saw any hardship. They just felt that their parents followed their duty. Alas !

Technology boom brought in the salary revolution and all IT employees became richer overnight, without realizing what they lost in the bargain. Agreed that the money paid to them is significantly more, but they were still paid peanuts in comparison to fortunes those IT companies made thanks to it's employees' bonded labor. On the darker side, workers lost a significant portion of their family life. So while they gained in financial aspect, they lost on relationships and that beautiful time they could have spent with their families and friends.

Entrepreneurs, self-employed, businessmen's case is unique. The more effort they put in, the more money they earn (usually). So their mindset has changed in such a way that the time they spend with their loved ones made them feel guilty as they would have earned more money during those hours. So the bottom line happened to be earning money and materialistic happiness elicited out of that. How about human relations and peace of mind ?

As per statistics, life expectancy has been constantly declining, people are not being as strong as those in previous generations. This generation which is intelligent enough to counter futuristic issues like global warming is not able to comprehend emotional cooling that's seeping in unsuspiciously. Earning money became the biggest goal and everything else lost in the due process is extremely oversighted.

A lower middle class guy wants to slog to fall under upper middle class so that he can drive a car, live in a decent apartment. An upper middle class guy wants to get into elite class to enjoy club memberships, drive a luxury car, own multiple investments. A rich guy wants to earn more to establish contacts and relationships with the powerful who's who in the city. Powerful who's who want to earn more to expand their empire and rule the country's economy. Those kings of corporate world who rule the country earn more to retain their power. SO, IS THERE ANY LIMIT FOR EARNING ? No, absolutely not !

For something which has no end, people are compromising on relationships, few even stoop down to the level of cheating others, breaking hearts, losing loved ones, judging others based on economic status.

Money is an addiction, an unending quagmire, an oasis which converts one's heart into another brain. Theory of evolution says that ape got rid of its tail as it stopped using it. Now the man is the process of getting rid of his heart and hence relationships, emotions, love.

Holding a child's hand, hugging a loved one, shedding a tear for somebody we care for, extending a helping hand, sharing others' griefs, spreading love - don't need money and those who can do all these are richer than the richest.

Money is not everything, honey. Its never too late to realize that !

Harsh Criticism - Symptoms & Cure

Did you ever face people who without any reason criticize and pass unnecessary comments about you, your tastes, your loved ones, your favorite cuisines, actors, movies, genres, cities, habits etc ? I'm sure you did as this is a chronic disease we see in many people in our day to day lives. Common symptoms I noticed in all such souls is either superior complex (coupled with fear of others' superiority) or inferiority complex (coupled with inability to accept their inferiority) which makes them behave in a particular way.

It takes grace, dignity and decency to be polite to others regardless of how close others are and what you feel about them. But being harsh or acidic towards others just needs some sense of mental dysfunction, complex and bad childhood.

Earlier, I wrote an article about so called straight forward people who don't know the difference between being straight forward and being harsh (Read: I'm not straightbackward).

All those who are harsh towards others have the same justification "I don't want to keep anything in my heart and hence am outspoken". This is the most ridiculous justification or argument I ever heard. They don't understand that its not being straight forward but being just plain rude and stupid especially if the opposite person doesn't appreciate the kind of harsh comments. Those who feel being outspoken relieves them from mental tension should understand that while they relieve themselves, they are straining relationship with others who are on the receiving end. That's mere immaturity or childishness and definitely not child-likeness.

Sometimes this kind of immature behavior can be rubbished as their naivete but there are people who belong to a worse category. Those who desperately search for situations to be harsh. These bunch of jokers are incorrigible critics who don't mince a word to be harsh with their acerbic words. Its their inferiority complex and their constant need to make others look inferior to mask their own inabilities. These kind of people are never seen when the whole world appreciates your work or success :)

Every person is made in a different way and has varied interests. This is a basic truth which goes over the head of most self centered nigglers. They follow something and don't think twice before finding fault with or laugh at others who don't follow them, which at times is funny :)

Another category are the talented lot who believe that the rest of the world is bestowed upon at their service. Intelligentsia feel intelligence is the yardstick for respect; those who know a bit of singing or acting or dancing or fighting or blah blah blah take their own skill as a yardstick to respect others and start judging everybody around even if their skill does no good to anybody including themselves. Anybody's success or skill is not their favor to the humanity, but for themselves. Success is beautiful and respected only when coupled with grace and humility, not pomposity, judgement or conceit.

Bottom Line: Spreading hatred is very easy and being harsh to others for whatever reason is the gateway to promote hatred. Empathy is a simple lock for this gateway. Just put yourself in others' shoes before passing any judgement or comments about others, especially if you don't need to.

Limit the criticism to constructive criticism if you want others to improve but if you are unnecessarily harsh to anybody, there will be only two consequences:

• Either you lose relationships (if the other person is sensitive)
• Or you lose respect (if the other person doesn't take your harshness to heart).

Once you follow this kind of Gandhigiri of maintaining restraint in harsh criticism and start being nice, you'd feel you belong to a superior breed of people, much above the pack of nasty organisms !