Developing Habit

I am committing the following changes in my daily routine w.e.f 16-Aug-2019

1. Wake at 5 AM
2. Freshen up by 5:20 AM
3. Exercise - 5:20 AM -5:40 AM
4. Learn New things - 5:40 AM - 6 AM
5. Review Daily plan - 6 AM to 6:20 AM
6. Tennis/ Treadmill- 6:20 AM - 7:40 AM
7. Get ready for work 7:40 AM - 8 AM 
8. Teach Maths - 8 AM - 9 AM
9. Breakfast and pack Tiffin - 9 AM -9:30 AM
10. Work - 9:30 AM-6:30 PM
11. Household stuff- 6:30 PM - 7 PM (water plants, utensils)
12. Learn new stuff - 7 PM -8 PM
13. Dinner- 8 PM-8:30 PM
14. Read a new book - 8:30 PM -9:30 PM
15. Enter logs for what I achieved-9:30 PM to 9:40 PM
16. Planning for day ahead- 9:40 PM to 10 PM
17. Sleep - 10 PM -5 AM

Expected outcome

1. Learning a new skill
2. Preparing for Marathon
3. Reducing Weight by 5 Kg
4. Write a Book

Weekend / Holiday Routine

For Point 9 and 10

1. Learn cooking
2. Learn dancing
3. Learn new stuff- AI, ML
4. Teach Maths

Success

Was just reading back the Subroto Bagchi speech on Success after 10 years. Still relevant

• Success to me is about Vision. 
• It is the ability to rise above the immediacy of pain. 
• It is about imagination. 
• It is about sensitivity to small people. 
• It is about building inclusion. 
• It is about connectedness to a larger world existence.
• It is about personal tenacity. 
• It is about giving back more to life than you take out of it. 
• It is about creating extra-ordinary success with ordinary lives.

Key words that come out for me  are Vision, Imagination, Tenacity and Giving back. What I plan to do for these areas :

• Vision - To leave a legacy by giving back more to people I touch
• Imagination - Use all skills that I have today and in future to help others
• Tenacity - To achieve all goals I set for Social, Health and Financial causes
• Give Back - To society

How it ties up simplistically ?

• Learning Presentation and ML
• Helping more people I meet
• Achieve all the goals I set 
• Give back always

Deriving Purpose in Life

Let me try to answer the below questions to derive my purpose in life

• What did you especially love doing when you were a child, before the world told you what you should or shouldn’t like or do? Describe a moment and how it made you feel.
• I used to read books esp. biographies of national leaders and Nancy drew mystery novels.It was great fun going to Bal bhavan after school for the first book, read it and return before evening time before Bal bhavan used to close. I used to feel excited with the stories and books that I was going to read and unravel mysteries through these books.
• Tell us about two of your most challenging life experiences. How have they shaped you?
• Preparing for competitions i.e. JEE and CAT - It made me believe in the luck principle that is needed along with 100% effort at all times.
• Year 2013-14- It made me more attached to family and be more aligned to them than before.
•  What do you enjoy doing in your life now that helps you sing your song?
• I enjoy swimming and playing lawn tennis these days. Slogging it out helps to make me feel good.
• Common themes - Working alone, unravel mystery, luck requires hard work always
• Purpose - Lone wolf who unravels mystery by hard work

Ruchi's purpose in life -
Create new products that make sense

Explanation - She liked to cook new stuffs as a kid. She hates God related fanatism shown by people and looks for meaning that comes from healthy discussions /outcome based.

3 to 5 years - Product Manger of a Brand
2 years - After MBA,
1 year - GMAT, Kid

Philosophy and God -edx version

• God in Design 

• William Paley gave the argument in 1800s. He argued with examples of Watch in desert and squirrel natural things. Can be contradicted by Darwin theory esp. for squirrel "survival of fittest"
• To counter this Fine Tuning Argument from Roger White in MIT - Why is G constant ? why can't some of the constants change ?

• Against God : The problem of Evil

• Ghengis khan problem - Murders and rapes happened. An omniscient, omni benevolent, omnipotent God would not have prevented the terrible things from happening because although these things were individually terrible,looked at in isolation, these events were awful, the terrible things actually enabled good things to happen.Carbon levels improved because of his killings.1/200 people are his descendants 

• There is no best possible world response

• A world in which terrible things happen and we have free will is better than a world in which no terrible things happen and we don't have free will. Free will is a thing of tremendous value. And if God-- God had the power to make Genghis Khan so that he was a really nice person who didn't go around hurting anybody.But if he'd done that, if he'd created Genghis Khan in such a way as to ensure that Genghis Khan would not hurt anybody, then Genghis Khan would not have had free will. In order for God to create Genghis Khan with free will, God have to give up some of his-- God's-- power to influence the actions of Genghis Khan.
• May be God used these powers of  omniscient, omni benevolent, omnipotent to make the world better. Infinite days heaven logic.

• Pascal's wager

• It is in our interest to believe in God. Its a bet.

• Different options that people have  - Believe in different versions of God, weird God and No God. People select the one with best expected value or utility for them in after life. Its a rational decision and most people take the highest expected value. According to him, people derive the max. expected value by believing in God (Infinite) than not believing in God (Finite value)

"No one has the ability to decide to believe something at will and believe it."

Goals Update -12-Oct-17

Came to blog after ages and this is what I have accomplished after 2 years of craziness.

• Health ( Learnt Freestyle swimming. Backstroke in progress)
• Finance( Home and Car)

What I did not achieve were

• Health ( Exercise, Marathon)
• Social ( Writing a Book)

Extra things that I achieved 

• Finance (Vacations to Maldives,Mahabaleshwar, Goa and Singapore)

So the new goals will be 

• Health (Lawn Tennis, Learn remaining Swimming strokes, Running Marathon)
• Social (Writing a Book, Improve Communication)
• Finance (Switch, Add new skill for the market) 

Keep a Journal

This HBR link suggests that keeping a journal is one good things that leaders can do.

Idea in summary

• Buy a journal. 
• Commit to reflecting for 15 minutes a day. This is by far the most difficult step. So if 15 minutes initially seems impossible, start with three minutes. But start somewhere.
• Find a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted.
• Choose the right time, preferably the same time each day when you won’t be disturbed. Pick a time that works for you, but keep those 15 minutes carefully guarded in your agenda as an appointment with yourself.
• Write whatever comes to mind. A journal’s blank pages invite you to hold an honest conversation with yourself every day. In the journal, you can say anything. So give yourself permission to follow your stream of consciousness without judging, censoring, or trying to direct where your thoughts might take you. In my best reflection sessions, I feel like I am peering over my hand, just waiting to discover what I’ll write next. And don’t worry about grammar; however you express yourself is fine.
• Don’t share your journal with anyone. Your reflections are yours; they are not for anyone else. They bring you what all the world’s experts, advisers, and executive coaches combined can’t offer you: your own unique perspective.

If you find yourself not knowing how to begin when you’re facing the journal’s blank pages, here are some suggestions:

Ask yourself a trigger question, and capture your response. These are some of my favorite questions:

• How am I feeling right now?
• How am I feeling about my leadership?
• What deserves my highest-quality attention…
• in my leadership?
• in my life?
• in the world?
• What is the most outrageous (or fun or novel) idea I’ve heard in the last 24 hours? What do I love about it?
• What is the most exciting initiative I’ve heard about this week that is happening outside of my industry or in another part of the world?
• What contributed most to my happiness this week (or to the happiness of my people)? How can I have more happiness in my life?
• Let art ignite your imagination. Art invites leaders to go beyond the frantic busyness of life. Viewing paintings and other forms of art offers possibilities to experiment with new perspectives. If I really focus on a painting, what do I see? If I connect what I’m seeing with my current situation, what new vantage points does the painting reveal?

Using Art

• Choose a painting (or other work of art). Let your eye rest on a work of art that attracts you for any reason whatsoever (because you love it, you hate it, or for a reason that is unknown to you).
• Observe the painting uninterrupted for at least three minutes. Time yourself! Three minutes may feel like a very long time.

• Strengthen your ability to see. Describe the painting: What did you see? How did it seem to change as you viewed it? What were you able to see at the end of the three minutes that you didn’t notice when you first chose the painting?
• Ask bridging questions. What new perspectives does the painting reveal? For example: How is the current situation in the economy (or in my company or team) like this painting? 
• How does the painting’s complexity reflect the hidden complexity in our recent tri-continental merger?
•  In what ways does the painting reveal opportunities we are missing in transitional economies? Let yourself be surprised by the insights that emerge.

My reflections and thoughts

• How am I feeling right now? - Good about what I did and happened to me in last few weeks
• How am I feeling about my leadership? - I have reached my strength zone in terms of an individual contributor and need to take to next level
• What deserves my highest-quality attention…
• in my leadership? - people around me
• in my life? - family
• in the world? - any good knowledge nugget
• What is the most outrageous (or fun or novel) idea I’ve heard in the last 24 hours? What do I love about it? - Sachin's biography
• What is the most exciting initiative I’ve heard about this week that is happening outside of my industry or in another part of the world? - An Indian making the Olympics gymnastic team
• What contributed most to my happiness this week (or to the happiness of my people)? How can I have more happiness in my life?- Time spent at work and home with Ruchi

Love

Love is a stimulus and not something to stop you in your journey.
--- The Alchemist

I have started blogging more than I did 5 years ago on this blog.Probably its one of the happiest time for me.
I realized true love recently.It is a wonderful feeling.Completely unconditional ,caring and full of empathy.Its a divine feeling and something that's very difficult to explain.
May be a hug or a kiss shows it externally but the internal thoughts are more difficult to describe.

Thanks Ruchi for being there all the time.

The Uber Experience - Pune

After coming to Pune, I have been a frequent user of Uber cabs.

Reasons are simple

• It comes on time ( Convenience)
• It charges equal to auto charge minus an haggling ( Pricing)
• It helps me reach office / home on time ( Time saving)

Recently I met the Top Uber cab driver in Pune. Some of the simple consumer insights that he gave are worth following in other industries as well :-

• Ask water to consumer once he is on boarded
• Keep the car clean
• Uses Google navigation effectively
• Eulogizes Uber like anything as if it made his life better ( He used to drive Shivneri bus Mumbai to Pune for 5 years)
• Gets the best rating and gives the best rating to most clients
• Continously checks for daily feedback and finds if there is any area of improvement
• Maintains a track record and his observation on what the customer might rate him

His rating had gone below 4.7 on 26th January and he brought it near 4.8 in one month time after talking to his wife.He does not have FM yet but plans to keep that different by his talks and might use CD player in future.

He also told my wife on how he keeps looking young because he has tomato, milk and home cooked food stuff.

For him his moment of recognition came with the diary that Uber gave him and recognized him in Novotel hotel ( one of the mid size good hotels here) along with his family.

But the most important part of the conversation was his self confidence and can do it attitude once his rating had started to drop a bit. May his tribe increase.

Lessons for me :-

• Every customer touch point is important
• Self confidence takes you a long way along with self talk
• Never get into the over confident zone and keep track of self performance

Learning to learn

The rules of learning have changed. Please refer the  HBR link
You need to be more aware, have curiosity like a kid and be vulnerable ( fail and fail fast).
One can become more self aware through self talk.

Self talk
The trick is to pay attention to how you talk to yourself about yourself and then question the validity of that “self-talk.
To become aware, one needs to have more self talk and question self and other person Point of view.This is also one of the key parts of being emotionally intelligent and improve creativity.

Emotional intelligence

I recently attended a 2 day workshop on Emotional Intelligence by Satish Mandora. I could connect more with it since I had received a feedback in October 2015 that my mind, body and soul were not in sync. I was also asked to improve my communication skills and be more aggressive. I think they meant to make me more assertive as I can never become an aggressive person to show anger and fire people. In the past, I had received feedback on looking for role clarity and becoming a facilitator as next level of growth for me. I am thankful to all my senior colleagues for all the feedback I have received in last 1 year. This was much more than I received in my previous roles probably because my knowledge has taken me to places I have been. It’s now upto creating the right attitude, skills, habit and strategy to take me to the next level. Its also important for me to do a lot of self talk to help my cause.

1. The 5 areas of EI are: Self Awareness, Self-Management (Self Regulation), Self Motivation, Social Awareness (Empathy) and Social Skills.
2. The Ice berg model has 4 levels, from top to bottom they are: Results, Behaviour, Feelings and Belief
3. The 4 classifications of Emotions are: Intolerable, Tolerable, Pleasurable and Too Pleasurable
4. In the equation A*B=C; A is Activating Event, B is Belief and C is Consequences.’
5. The learning that we have is in 4 phases (Learning cycle) :-

a. Unconscious incompetence ( don’t know cycling)

b. Conscious incompetence (know parts of cycle i.e. brakes, handles, etc.)

c. Conscious competence ( know cycling but less confidence at turns)

d. Unconscious competence ( complete knowledge and think other things while cycling)

6. 4-box model of Skill Will Matrix and the leadership styles

Things that I intend to do in future with the learnings

1. I will have a face to face interaction with colleagues to understand their “Iceberg model” of (his beliefs, feelings and behaviours”) and explain the results I expect from him.
2. Have “Expectations “clearly defined with roles and responsibilities and objectives
3. Share “concern” ,demonstrate “Confidence” in Colleagues abilities ( be in Pleasurable and Tolerable zone) and bring more Optimism in his behaviour
4. Treat colleagues with empathy during the discussion. Listen to him empathetically, appreciate his achievements and try to understand reason for his shortcomings /complaints without preconceived notion.
5. Try to guide Colleagues and improve his will and skill by guiding him
6. Use the 5 golden pairs i.e. ( Goals to set priorities, Consequences with different alternatives, discuss problems instead of blaming, discuss the person instead of behavior demonstrated and not labelling and regulating self behavior)
7. Move from becoming the big “I”(know it all), dot(know nothing) , small “i” (know something) to bundle of I’s ( know emotions)

I have decided on 3 goals related to health (exercise, marathon, swimming), finance (home, car) and social (writing book) outcomes that I will try to work in the coming days. Will keep updating the blog as I progress.

Fighting D

This could be the most challenging time for anyone and always comes in everyone's life.There was some big article on fighting depression on Time's Life today.I just skimmed through it as it was more about celebrities and not normal people fighting it out.

But what made me think about it was couple of interviews I took today.

1. Interview 1 - The guy has just left his job 20 days back and is happily defending his decision on what his true calling could be.
2. Interview 2 - The guy tells he is a positive thinker and is still talking of some of things from past that he was not successful in.He will get into something and will still be unhappy about it.He has read "The Secret" by Rhonda Bryne 10 times.

I really don't know what could have happened to the 2nd person.Probably he has not ingrained some of the words of the book into his own sentences and is being quite honest.

All he needed was a positive attitude towards life and I would have definitely selected him.

To start with positivity, my takes are the following :-

1. Have a goal/ purpose of what you really want to do
2. Understand your strength and weaknesses.Avoid revealing everything to the third party in question.Be more pragmatic about it.
3. Assess where you are today
4. Find the direction of reaching the goal from where you are today
5. Always bring as much positive thoughts with people around you and to yourself
6. Avoid any kind of talks which takes you to the negative
7. Keep noting good things happening to you keep the +ve bank up and running.
8. Probably do some sorts of exercise to keep yourself fresh
9. Keep assessing yourself every now and then. 
10. Never compare yourself with others and the path that they had taken

Enough gyaan for now.I hope the 2nd guy will definitely find his true calling and be more positive the next time he goes for an interview.

Visualization and Biographies

While walking through the Crossword Magazine store, the only intriguing fact for me was the Biography/ Autobiography section is getting larger.Perhaps its part of the fact that people want to read, visualize and empathize with the protagonists more than ever before.

There was another thought on TV that made me visualize that came from Amitabh Bachchan's story about his father.He had won the award of best actor in school and next year could not participate due to measles.His father sat with him in what could have been the parallel time of the school event for 3-4 hours.He said "If what you think happens, its good.But if what you think does not happens, its even good." This is because in the second scenario, God wanted something better to happen for you.

Another important biography with impact is about J R D Tata in "Beyond the last blue mountain".The fact that National interest could be so important part of the business intrigues me.

But the auto biogaphy which is currently ruling the charts is that of Sachin Tendulkar. Released recently, it shows how dedication and devotion for the game made the person be called as "God" of the game.

Taking all the above 3 in context of visualization, I think Sachin would have visualized his innings like crazy (eg. Perth test when he scored the century), JRD would have visualized the enterprise to be still in the greater good inspite of various conflicts with the politicians of the day and perhaps Bachchan with age has visualized that acting as his forte will take him to new levels of recognition.

Creating a mental image of where you want to be down the line helps in focussing the energy and attitude in the right direction.But one should not get the mental image as wishful thinking but a belief system for which one is constantly driven to achieve.

Hence its critical to visualize first and make them happen next.

Being SMART

Goals must be SMART is the first thing they teach you for any Process Improvement projects as well as annual appraisals.

S = Specific
M= Measurable
A=Attainable
R= Relevant
T= Time bound

It helps you to be efficient at all times while providing and receiving information.

For eg. W4H if applied to real life situation helps us in basic actions to winning deals :)
It helps if you have an exact goal and you reach exactly there and not surpass or get beaten by it.Setting improbable targets will lead one to nowhere.

I had thought at the beginning of the previous year to start running a Marathon.This year I realized that there is no point in running it.It was all there in thoughts with no action attached to it.

All I wanted to do was remain fit and loose the extra flab.So I reduced the target to a 1 km walk or run based on the time permission.It has helped to some extent that I now practice something that I believe is achievable.With time permitting and I becoming more regular, I might decide to improvize on the health goals but for now this looks like the best attainable goal to start somewhere.

From knowledge perspective,I had thought of no targets once I completed my MBA.This has left me to become a static person with very little content to talk of.Since I somehow behest loose talks and sycophancy, I will not reach anywhere.Hence I have a self fulflling prophecy to start for a Phd or do some certification.Let me see how I take it from there.

Cell Phones and Intelligent devices

I first saw the cellphone or the hand phone in 2004, a big one, with few friends who used it to talk with their family.By 2005, I had it as my birthday gift.I had never imagined that over the next 10 years, the device will undergo so much change that from connectivity it will move to the level of experience everything.

The first few phones I had were stones to be more precise and were used more for talking to everyone and moved on to listening to music as well.The last phone had some internet facility so I could check my mails at times.But the current Android phone has taken it to a different level with Whatsapp being the toast of all.

You are connected all the time get any information on the go and can be omnipresent in whatever sphere of influence at any point of time.This has reduced the attention span to enormously low levels and the human touch is missing everywhere now.

The idea now is it take every device to Internet of Everything.Create intelligent devices and they will understand what is required from them.Devices like these will have everything except the human ability to understand the problem.If they get to the level of understanding every problem, a lot of solutions will start generating and they will procreate to the level of "Matrix" thereby questioning the very existence of humans.

Since Change is the very essence of nature, if an idea has been created, it is possible that Inception and Matrix will happen in the near future, the timeline of which is to be ascertained.Till then we must enjoy every progress that Technology is making.This is at the expense of certain people who are rendered worthless and have to relearn the new skills for survival.Being a hunter - gatherer was never ever ever a bad option :)

The Writer

I started writing essays from Class 6th since that was the only competitive thing to do then.I had a terrible stage fright and would get tense on speaking something which was written somewhere and not what I had thought of.I wrote a terrible essay with a superlative bad handwriting in Hindi back then on our freedom movement.

In class 7th, I won a prize for writing something on Energy conservation and from then I started taking writing as a serious form to express myself.One of the best essays that I would have written was on the role of education in class XIth with an awesome handwriting in Hindi.Essay writing also helped in improving my self confidence in speaking as well as Quizzes in the small pond of Shaktinagar. It was an important aspect to have structure with introduction, content and a good conclusion forming part of them.It helped in improvising answers one wrote in exams as well.

I do not have a good handwriting and I lost touch with the handwriting after class Xth. Whatever good would have remained was lost in the computers and now Whatsapp.

During engineering, there was ample time to explore the KNIT library and Tanda library for reading whatever novels were possible. Preparing for CAT was an add on motivation then.After joining Hell and reading so much stuff to levels that you would have already concluded your thought process by end of 1st para of the case study into a framework.This created an attitude of stereotyoing certain things.This is good in some ways but kills the very creativity at times.

I used to have a bigger canvas to think when I started blogging in 2006.I would write on any topic I felt I should be sharing my views on.With age, all this has gone and being a born spectator has taken over the being.In fact, it should have been the other way with acquired wisdom getting added to the knowledge you have.This would thereby had increased "Vivek" quotient.But then the Rashmi rathi lines of

"Jab naash manuj par chhaata hai,
pehle vivek mar jaata hai"

has taken over for no reason.

I believe there are still loads of new things that have happened since blogging started. We have Quora to answer all the random Questions, Wikipedia to provide inputs on any topic of interest and the ever present Google with the Android Apps avataar to help you at any point of life.

But what has happened in all these years is the time spent on reading and reflection has reduced considerably.Probably that's the reason I really like the Caravan magazine I got hold of last week with a fresh perspective and readable essays on topics of interest.

You are what you read has become an important part of the writer's existence.Will try to read a bit more than I have been doing over the last 5 years.Its a never ending journey and becoming blank on topics where you could talk for ages is something to be frowned upon.

So from now on I will try to write about stuffs I had read or will read.The topics will not be restricted to Philosophy as has been the last few posts but also Gyaan on

1. Books I read- Probably a synopsis
2. General Studies as they call in IAS terms
3. Fiction
4. Thoughts that come and go :)

Because you do not become a winner by just one stream of thought.A multitude of ideas sometimes describe a part of what you are and still there is so much for imagination.

Musings when you have nothing to do

Read this really good article on HBR
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/09/how-philosophy-makes-you-a-better-leader/


"SANE” mnemonic, drawing on key questions posed by preeminent Western philosophers: Socrates, Aristotle, Nietzsche, and the Existentialists.

Socrates: What is the most challenging question someone could ask me about my current approach?
Aristotle: What character virtues are most important to me and how will I express them?
Nietzsche: How will I direct my “will to power,” manage my self-interest, and act in accordance with my chosen values?

Existentialists (e.g., Sartre): How will I take full responsibility for my choices and the outcomes to which they lead?


Took me to the most important definition of Existence precedes Essence :

A central proposition of Existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which means that the most important consideration for individuals is that they are individuals—independently acting and responsible, conscious beings ("existence")—rather than what labels, roles, stereotypes, definitions, or other preconceived categories the individuals fit ("essence"). The actual life of the individuals is what constitutes what could be called their "true essence" instead of there being an arbitrarily attributed essence others use to define them. Thus, human beings, through their own consciousness, create their own values and determine a meaning to their life.

Dreams and Destiny

“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."
                                                                                         - The Alchemist defining Destiny

"Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep."
                                                                                             - The Wikipedia taken from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. 2000. Retrieved 2009-05-07

So just like the chicken and egg conspiracy, dreams and destiny are also quite interlinked and its difficult to predict what comes first.Dreams have been subject of study in philosophical and psychological contexts.It has also been part of "Visioning" or "Day dreaming" that a lot of men do and succeed in.

"He believes in his dream for, ‘It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting"

On the contrary, there is also a Freewill  theory that states that Character is non deterministic. So probably dreams and destiny are also not related.One of the key lessons for me in destiny had unfolded last year leading to a life long tag.This was not something that I had dreamt of but probably some one else had already conspired about it.And all the universe conspired in achieving the goal and help it in making part of my destiny.Probably it was all about freewill.

These have been moments of doubts, lack of self confidence and a lot of detachment.I don't know if and when will I be back to normal.But going into a down time brings a lot of courage in you and makes you relate that in the end its only between you and God.

"Courage is the most essential to understanding the Language of the World…"

No one will remember you for the colleges you went or the companies you worked for or PPTs you had made or the happy family trips or the functions /get togethers you went to.

"Don’t think about what you have left behind, everything is written on the Soul of the World, and there it will stay forever…"

Its about the journey that one takes and has to take with courage. Dreams and Destiny will always conspire to take you to the next station and probably even further in this never ending learning of life.Not everything in life can be planned and surprises will happen.Else life will be too monotonous for any dream to be achieved or destiny to be realized.

"When the old man says, “The Soul of the World is nourished by people’s happiness. And also by unhappiness, envy, and jealousy. To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only real obligation. All things are one.”

And now even the below lines start making sense to me :-
"You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny. If he abandons that pursuit, it’s because it wasn’t true love".

“If a person is living out his destiny, he knows everything he needs to know. There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: The fear of failure."

Probably last year this time, I was overconfident of doing everything right at being at the right place at the right time and all that. I had no fear of failure and then came the shock that was to change everything.
                                                                                   
There were 4 failures that the Alchemist had referred to and I have probably experienced all of them to some extent - >Fear of thinking the dream is realizable,Fear of losing love when its the stimulus,Fear of failure and Fear of realizing the dream when its near.

And inspite or despite of these failures we continue to work towards our destiny for there are so many things that life has to offer and one cannot stop living just because there are so many risks all the time.So just believe in the omens like the "boy" and work your way to destiny.

The Agenda for Development

As per the article in Times of India today, there is a stronger correlation between getting reelected due to economic growth in the 2000's compared to 1990's.This explains why every political party cannot do away with the growth factor,although the inclusiveness, the way its portrayed,the way its executed and the way its analyzed by the "experts" will always be questionable.

Another important aspect of growth has been the lack of resources.There are statistics to prove that places with lesser resources to support growth have better economic growth like Japan.Also, places with good natural resources have less growth with examples of Indian states like Jharkhand,Chhatisgarh,Assam,etc.

So while growth of a state might be a factor of several conditions like natural resources, political conditions,skillset of man power in the state, set up of manufacturing and service units,state bureaucracy support in helping the set up etc. the net sum of growth or lack of it will affect the future of the country in general.

One of the most crucial aspect of growth which is never said is "Hard work" that people put in to gain the efficiency and economies of scale.One of the reasons for the growth of IT and ITeS sector in India has been this.Tomorrow if people will become lazy, the initiative will move on to another country.

Probably this explains what has happened to US and Europe in the last decade and if not planned in the years to come.This also explains what happened to India in the past centuries and if not planned will continue to decrease the growth rate.And surely this explains the fact that Germany,China and Japan progressed in the last 2-3 decades compared to the same position that they were with India post 2nd world war.

So the only way to get growth will be to continue the "Hard work" and the results will follow.Bringing any politics and games around it will only weaken the agenda for development unless there is some "Hard work" there as well to support the economic factors and people who want to grow..

On Freewill !!

2 years back, influenced by Dr. Himanshu Rai, I had posted that Freewill exists for human beings as we can plan suicide.However,me and Parankush had a heated debate for taking the statement for granted.He had argued that so many animals who are living socially (like ants) can also be construed as part of the Freewill theory and human beings are not different.

This discussion as well as the discovery of the "God Particle" this year led me to a journey of the different ideas that has been found to be present in Wikipedia.I was surprised to read that things are not as simple as we make them to be.Here is the graph and link to the Wiki page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will

So there is a theory that says that Free will is impossible and we are living a Deterministic paradigm of life ( Cause and effect is necessary and determined).The Incompatibilist go a step further and even say that we have no control of choices and results we have in life.

I am probably inclined to agree with the Compatibilist argument as a lot of phenomenon can be explained by them.However the thought that we can create something out of nothing like the "God particle" or "Bootstrapping of human body on waking up" is something that intrigues me.

So if the first particle came from nothing ,there had to be something external ( like the Large Hadron collider made in CERN labs) to initiate the process for all things in world to start. Or something in the brain cell to reprogram the state from which we had left our thoughts/memory before sleeping.Until these answers are not provided, I believe the incompatibilist have some arguments in their favour.

I will end the post with a thought in the same Wiki page from Swami Vivekananda :-

A quotation from Swami Vivekananda, a Vedantist, offers a good example of the worry about free will in the Hindu tradition.

Therefore we see at once that there cannot be any such thing as free-will; the very words are a contradiction, because will is what we know, and everything that we know is within our universe, and everything within our universe is moulded by conditions of time, space and causality. ... To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this universe; it cannot be found here.

However, the preceding quote has often been misinterpreted as Vivekananda implying that everything is predetermined. What Vivekananda actually meant by lack of free will was that the will was not "free" because it was heavily influenced by the law of cause and effect—"The will is not free, it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect, but there is something behind the will which is free." Vivekananda never said things were absolutely determined and placed emphasis on the power of conscious choice to alter one's past karma: "It is the coward and the fool who says this is his fate. But it is the strong man who stands up and says I will make my own fate."

Being happy..

Thanks to Sunny Jindal for this awesome link on being happy.

http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/9-daily-habits-that-will-make-you-happier.html?goback=.gde_79568_member_198397241

My take :-

1. Starting with a purpose 
2. Planning
3. Gifting something to every one (smile included )
4. Deflect partisan conversations (Detachment)
5. Assume people have good intentions
6. Eat good food slowly
7. Not worrying about results but job at hand (Message from Gita)
8. Turn off the background noise ( Detachment )
9. End each day with gratitude

I liked the last line and from now on will just pen down one wonderful thing that happened to me.

So for today, it was giving gyaan on why LUCK is not important.
I realized that while the moment when LUCK could be attributed as a strong factor for me, it was also the fact that I was trying to achieve the goal really badly.And probably "The Alchemist" message helped in the process.

In the last 2 years, I have not been able to have a concrete set of goals and hence have been just wandering around for the omens to come.Probably its part of the journey called Life.The below link is quite motivational in that aspect :-
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/08/the_disciplined_pursuit_of_less.html

Reaching the highest point of contribution ( Talent ,Market and Passion) is what I was selling in Delhi in 09.Though the terms were (Aptitude,Interest and Personality). I had taken market forces as just a factor and not as a strong influencing factor during the sales and probably that's the root cause of the failure of the product.