Courage

"To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle."

Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)

After all said and done, courage does not matter if it is not accompanied by sound planning and timing. Tactless courage is suicidal. Courage used without proper timing is also suicidal. Without paying due attention to timing and planning, courage comes to nothing. We have seen so much courage and human potential go waste when we act in spur of the moment without taking time to count at least 10. It would be better if we can count 1000.

At the risk of sounding selfish, it is also necessary to listen to WIFM (what is in it for me?). Giving one's life, sacrifice etc. sound good but what is it worth to you. If you are principled enough to fall prey to the bullets of a terrorist when you see a bunch of terrorists committing atrocities, by all means go and confront the terrorist who is armed to teeth and you with nothing. People with smart courage wait for right timing. In this case, smart courage means to make a mental note of as much information as possible about the terrorists and surroundings, committing it  to memory and then informing  authorities so that they can use your valuable information to act smartly.

Gandhi is one of the best examples I can think of for sustained courage. If Gandhi were to act in a foolhardy way, he would have met the same fate of Bhagat Singh or other freedom fighters who chose violence as the means to get the freedom. They made one or two big bangs but by using their courage in a wrong way, their life was cut short. Gandhi followed a meticulous way of nonviolence. He would not give up but would not use violence to create a wrong public opinion of his objective. His courage changed the world opinion and turned winds against British empire.

Take more recent example of 'Intifada' or struggle from common people in occupied territories of Palestine. After PLO had retreated to Tunis after being driven out of Lebanon and before that  from Jordan, people who were facing real problems took the struggle into their own hands. PLO leaders living outside of Palestine were out of touch. To make things worse they were  getting only bad publicity by staging occasional acts of  terrorism such as hijackings and bombings. Intifada was a struggle fought  with rocks. It was not something as sane as Gandhi's completely non-violent struggle. But, considering that they were only using stones and rocks to fight Israeli army was a big shift from their terror tactics and yielded better results in less than 10 years than what armed terrorism had not yielded in 3 decades.They won  the world over as the world could not approve of heavily armed Israelis using their fire power on people of all ages using only stones to fight for their cause.

Courage is good. Use it with right planning and timing to make the best use of it. "Planning without action is futile. Action without planning is fatal."

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Reflect and succeed

"We should every night call ourselves to an account; What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift."

Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)

We have some many fabulous experiences during the day. It is too bad that we do not take a few minutes to reflect on them to make  most out of our experiences. We may occasionally think about the experiences. But, it is not very focused. Many times our thinking  about the happenings  becomes very subjective and swings between extremes of likes and dislikes.

Some people make it a point to maintain a daily diary or journal. It is one of the most effective ways to make most of your experiences and learn very effectively from good and bad experiences. When we start writing, our thinking becomes clearer. That's why they say - "when you start inking, you start thinking." Whenever we are confused, we should simply start writing. We may not go very far. But, at least, the questions start becoming clear. It is never easy to make initial progress because with every line you write, you will come up with 10 questions that need answers. You have to get answers from 20 people and they are not all available at the same time. But, it makes sense to capture all those questions rather than giving up work. Slow and steady is ok. Giving up in exasperation is not.

It is very important to reflect on our achievements however small they may be. There is no better way to boost our confidence. We can be humble and at the same time be proud of our achievements and our ability. It does not hurt to act confident till we are really confident. Most of the people suffer from similar self doubt as we do and in  many cases many times worse that we do. Knowing this, when we act confident, things start falling in place. People like to be around people who come across as confident. Even if we have to admit some mistakes or some lack of knowledge etc., we should do with confidence. Confidence is the belief in ourselves that we are up to the task.

It is also important to remember and feel good about bad habits we have reduced or given up. It can be physical habits such as smoking or drinking or over eating. It can also be psychological bad habits such as anger, hate, greed etc. Even if our conscience warns us when we feel those negative habits, we have had a small victory. We should celebrate them. It only strengthens our motivation.

Some people use 10 minutes before going to bed to reflect. That is a great idea, if you can follow. Writing a diary or journal is the best idea but requires a lot of commitment and time and perseverance to make any sense. As such we have very little time. It takes good 20 minutes to write something completely and meaningfully. Doing it day in and day out is not something that is easy. But, those who write daily and refer to those writings from time to time reap huge benefits as they can go back refer to lessons learned at their will and keep fine tuning their personal improvement plan.

Some people hesitate to write daily journal because of privacy issues. That's true if you think your writing can be used against you. It all depends on how well and how objectively you can write. If you record every small detail and focus more on actual details than the crux, it misses the point and can cause issues. It is possible to record one's day-to-day activities without making it too personal. Write like they report in news papers.

Important thing is to start maintaining a journal. Forget privacy concerns for a while. Why do successful people keep saying that their lives are like an open book? Are they not worried about their privacy? No, they are very secure about themselves. They know that even if they reveal everything, nothing can shake their security. If Gandhi were to feel like us, we would not have been lucky to read his 'My experiments with truth' in which he bares open himself and his idiosyncrasies. Although it can be awkward, if we are really secure and do not mind getting some remarks, living like a open book should not bother us at all.

Cheers!

Resourceful simpletons

How often are you thankful to your steady and able hand that has served you for years? or to your car or to your doctor or to your admin or to many other things which hum ceaselessly to make our life comfortable.

Why is that we fail to acknowledge the value of things when they are doing just well? Why do we fail to take a moment to say 'thank you' when it is long overdue for a job done as expected?

What we do when something that has been working flawlessly for years  fails suddenly for no fault? We just blow up and curse 1000 times more than we should have praised when things were going just fine.

"I did bad once and was blamed for ever. I did good many times and was praised never."

Not recognizing people and things, when they are doing well but without much fan fare, is one of the most important habits we can cultivate. It only makes them to deliver more. It always helps to have a small thanksgiving time everyday to list and say thanks to everything that we can come up with for that day to be thankful for.

It is an irony that quiet achievers get less recognition than pyrotechnicians everywhere. Have you ever seen a quiet, enterprising, meticulous, hardworking, dependable person getting praised as much as he should to be? Very very rarely. On the other hand, how often we have not seen people holding organizations to ransom because they are the only ones who can save the organization from crisis at that moment. In fact, in many cases, pyrotechnicians are the very reason the crisis started in the first place. If they were to cooperate with people who were planning and executing well, chances are this situation would not have happened. These are pyrotechnicians. They create all snafus because of their unwillingness to plan and execute meticulously and when things blow up in the face, work long hours, weekends to extinguish the fire which if not extinguished can take the organization down. Over time, these people tend to become more important than the organization itself. No rules apply to them. These kind people can be found in all levels in the organization. When these people become managers they create negative leverage. There are 10 people wasting their time because this hero manager is trying to do everything on his own which is making it impossible for him or her to spend adequate time with his or her people. Without the boss spending adequate time, people get frustrated to say the least and that's how you get negative leverage.

Many smart managers recognize the importance of not starting the fire in the first place. Jack Welch, legendary ex-CEO of GE, praises these worker bees a lot in his books. Ram Sharan and Larry Bossily titled their best selling book "Execution. The art of getting things done." These are excellent books. Both highlight how important it is to have people who may be intellectually mediocre but once you tell them what to do they can do it so well that it comes with all t's crossed and all i's dotted. Celebrate such people. Do not embarrass them as most of them are quite humble and shy. First learn whether if there prefer to be praised in private. Regardless make those people feel important at least a few times even when they are just delivering what is expected out of them. You can immediately see dramatic improvement in their productivity. It also helps the team.

These are also the people who need to be protected from corporate bullies. Like other people worker bees also make mistakes sometimes. But, when managers come down heavily on these poor souls  for their mistakes, they lose confidence in their own abilities. That is really criminal. All these people had was their superb execution skills. Lack of confidence introduces diffidence and these people start thinking more and more before acting. Paralysis by over analysis is what follows and careers are destroyed and lives are wasted.

Always remember - ideas do not move mountains. Bulldozers do. For every good idea, you will need 10 solid executioners to realize it. Corporations need more and more flawless executioners. With people working hard and smart, you can achieve great leverage from your visionaries who are your idea factories. They deliver solid ideas by dozens and you have an army of flawless executioners who can get the things done.

Take time to be thankful to all those people and things which if stop humming can literally mean end of life for you.

How often we are thankful to our heart? If it only errs once, we are dead or almost dead.

Slow and steady wins the race. We should celebrate people who win the race.

Heroes create big splashes. Many times their splashes accomplish nothing more than getting people around them soaking wet. How often such people are a wet blanket on rest of the team with their bad attitude, lack of team spirit, my way or no way attitude? Many smart managers have gotten rid of such people even when it meant short term pains. You have to amputate your leg if is infected with gangrene. Otherwise, for the sake of leg, you would lose your life.

There should be a 'world worker bee' day.

Cheers!

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People, problems and attitude

"Separate people from problems. Solve problems. Help people to help themselves."

"Fix problems. Not blame."

What is an attitude? It is our conclusion about certain aspect of a certain person. Bottom line is attitude is a conclusion supported by one or more instances of a specific behavior. What gets termed as bad (or good) attitude is the conclusion we reach about certain set of behaviors that we experience about someone.

So, it is important that we pay attention to behaviors before reaching the conclusion. Like others we are also conditioned to extrapolate on certain patterns of behaviors and jump to conclusion that becomes our definition of certain attitude in a person. Many times it has become associate 'attitude' with bad attitude such as 'he has an attitude.'

Even when we try to change the attitude, we have to change the conditions that motivate the person to change his or her  behavior that would help us change our conclusion thus changing the attitude. It is a long drawn process. We will be looked down or not treated with respect if we can not come up with specific examples of behavior that led us the conclusion of a certain attitude regarding person. "Innocent until proven guilty" is the principle practiced by many. If you accuse someone of some bad attitude, better be ready to support your accusation. Otherwise, we will be told in no uncertain terms to shut  up and put up.

It is more than often that when we start thinking about so called bad attitude, we struggle to come up with enough instances when the specific behavior was exhibited. This problem of ours starts pointing to something in ourselves that is judgmental and too self-willed. Someone else's behavior was not something we expected and hence he has a bad attitude. On very few occasions we can pin point to specific behaviors which are considered generally not acceptable by good majority of the society we live in. That does not make it an appropriate or inappropriate behavior. But, if we have chosen to live in the society, then we can safely make the mistake of coming to a conclusion that a person has bad attitude because of nonconformance to behavioral standards as imposed by the society. Herd mentality. But, if we want to be part of the herd, it does not hurt to have herd mentality, sometimes at least.

It helps to remember that people are not what they look like or speak like or walk like or dance like or sing like. People are not their opinions. People are not their intellect.  People are not their background. People are not anything we perceive to be as people. People are all divine. People are all one. We have to cultivate this attitude to retain respect and compassion for everyone at the most fundamental level. Once we have this feeling that we are all one at the most fundamental level, everything else seems superficial. As we can brush off dust from the surface of an object, we can solve problems or differences which are on the surface. However, we have to first realize that dust is not what is underneath. We have to realize that dust is not our focus but a precious diamond masked by dust is our focus.

While trying to address problems between people, body language and non-verbal cues become very important. It makes a big difference to gather on the same side of the table even to discuss a problem on which we have  differing views with the other person. By being on the same side of the table, we feel that we are on the same side and the problem we are trying to solve is our common opponent. It even helps to have the problem clearly written on a flip chart which is on the other side of the table. On the contrary, by facing each other and having a table in between, we  make each other an opponent. In the process we will end up addressing everything except the problem.

Always be ready to compromise in the interest of bigger good. It goes a long way. By yielding an inch now, you tend to gain a foot later just because the leverage you gain from something called 'goodwill'. The power of goodwill is simply immeasurable. It only compounds with every small gesture. By compromising on things that are not key to your objective, you will yield only a little but something that is so important to the other person. He or she develops a strong sense of indebtedness to you. Even if the other person deserved what you gave up, you could have really made it very difficult for him to obtain it. You could have made the person spend so  much energy and resources to get what he deserved by being an obstacle. By giving up easily, you helped the person conserve his vital resources. Is he not going to shower a fraction of that on you next time? You can bet a farm on that.

Another law of good will is - "best way to pay back good will is to pass it on."  Many times, it is not possible to return the goodwill to same person from which we received. The person may not need it or he is not someone who can be helped in ways we are capable of  helping. But, there are other people who can benefit from what we can offer. It is like  how a candle can pay back to the match stick that lit it. Only reasonable way for candle is to help light millions of candles that be lit from this candle and leverage the power of the single match. Same applies to us and how we can leverage the goodwill.

Same law applies to forgiveness. If we mature even a bit, from time to time, we feel a strong need to seek forgiveness from people and in some cases even animals for all the wrongs we did to them. As in the case of good will, it just is not practical to go back and seek forgiveness from exact people because some of them may be dead or some may even consider us idiots as it did not matter to them at all and they did not take it that way at  all.We can feel good about ourselves by forgiving some of those who are due for our forgiveness.  Is there any dearth of such people in our lives? It is only a ever growing list of people against whom we nurse grudge or resentment etc. By forgiving, we are helping ourselves in two ways. One is  by being forgiven for our sins and other is by feeling  a sense of relief that comes from letting go of things.

Cheers!

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Patience / Gentleness

"When you encounter difficulties and contradictions, do not try to break them, but bend them with gentleness and time."

Saint Francis de Sales (1567 - 1622)

"Lucky are those who are flexible. Inflexible are damned to be bent out-of-shape." We seem to become inflexible on things that are not important to us but which matter to our solely to inflated ego.

It indeed is worthwhile to stand firm for things we truly believe. But, standing up does not mean being obstinate and thus risking bent out of shape. Standing up means  firm resolve to achieve the end goal even if that means letting go of a few things on the way. "Pick  right battles to fight if you want to win the war." "Life is a war won by choosing intelligently battles NOT worth fighting." "Marathon runner focuses on 26th file and not on first 100 ft".

With time and patience, everything works out. Not that we have to become complacent and do nothing. But, trying something too hard to achieve instant results does not work. It is like  trying to lose 50 pounds in one week.

It's amazing to observe how rich the rewards of the habit of not giving up and plugging along pays of eventually. In a survey they found that a large percentage of high level executives did not reach that position because of their IQ but because of sheer perseverance. That is not to discount the importance of IQ but over certain threshold what matters is being able to patiently wait for opportunities to make a killing. "Good luck is the perfect timing of preparation meeting opportunity."

Some of the highly successful investors simulated their trading strategies for years before they invested a single penny in the market. They would apply complete rigor of the investigation and all analysis as though they were investing millions of dollars. It just is not easy to develop that kind of seriousness.

The above quote also talks about gentleness. What does that mean? First of all gentleness is being gentle to ourselves first. It is very easy to get into self-guilt, self-pity in no time. Some hard skinned or confident people may be able to defer feeling inadequacy and hopelessness little longer than ordinary mortals but despair does not spare them as well. If we have to be
able to have any energy left to carry us thru temporary problems, we should make sure that we do not become victims of despair. Every time we despair we suck up all the energy that we desperately need to remediate the situation.

How do we avoid being despaired? There is no better alternative than being able to do something you really like. I think Dale Carnegie mentions of a person who used to smoke cigar leisurely for a couple of hours when serious worries hit him. Okay, ignore the cigar part as using nicotine to fight stress is not a good strategy at all. But, the essence was that he was
purposely defocusing from the problem at hand to think about other things so that subconscious could work on the problem

Even those who are doing admirable things such as meditation and yoga etc. to get mastery over physical and mental responses, need to be careful not to be too harsh to body and mind. I think Buddha says somewhere in 'Dhammapada' or
in one of the jataka tales that he practiced severe austerities for several years which only made him terribly weak and hindered his spiritual progress. Same goes with mind. It should not be over elated using nicotine, caffeine or other drugs. It should also not be over depresses ed with  brooding, sense of failure etc. It should maintain a status quo. Buddha recommended 'madhyama marg' (middle path) which emphasized moderation in everything to attain your goals.

"This too shall pass." is not the attitude of a lazy person. It is the attitude of a mature battle scarred person. You can make out the wisdom content by two things 1) who is it coming from 2) what experience this person has with the situation that he is commenting about that this too shall pass.

Cheers!

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Consistency

"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

Is consistency creativity killer? If shoved down creative people without due consideration, it can certainly be  a deadly killer of creativity.

This is very visible in big corporations. A bunch of creative people start a skunkworks project in dark and when it comes to some stage, it does become visible to management. If the management is not creative, they impose all sort of process on creative people in the name of consistency. They have a point too. Without due process, it makes several things unpredictable and that is not comfortable to people who are responsible to shareholders and other external entities.

Clay Christensen, a professor at Harvard Business School, developed a full theory around such phenomenon called disruptive technologies. Christensen shows how beneficial such disruptive projects are and how to manage them. He gives a framework to encourage innovative projects within existing companies and how to make best use of them. The trick is to treat skunkworks as a small incubating company and leave them alone and give them a lot of independence and treat them as a black box. Give them enough budget, recognize it as R&D expense, isolate them from corporate bureaucracy and let them turn some new stuff.

Biggest challenge occurs is when these skunkworks team develop something useful and it is time to turn them into mass production for company's financial benefit. Instead of imposing already working process, it makes sense to take a critical view of the process and see if still makes sense for this product. If not, it makes sense to revise the existing process for that new creative product line. More importantly people who worked on skunkworks project are indeed a creative lot and should not be restricted to follow process. That is the time for formal handoff from creative to consistent people and let creative people start to work on something new. That's the way companies can continue to innovate and survive.

Christensen's several books are really useful for managers struggling to manage disruptive technologies which are important but hard to manage.

Is consistency unimportant? Not at all. "Ideas do not move mountains but bulldozers do." For every creative person, you  need 10 high quality consistent people to attend to minutest details to make the product successful in mass market. If the creative person is the idea, these consistent folks are your bulldozers.

When the product matures, to introduce incremental benefits, process needs to be fine tuned. Consistency scales better than creativity. Smart mangers know how to manage both aspects of product life cycle and how to staff them.

Cheers!

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Excellence

"I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business."

Michael J. Fox (1961 - ), quoted by Lorne A. Adrain in 'The Most Important Thing I Know'

"Do your best. God will do the rest."

The most dangerous effect of striving for perfection is not that if you fail you deliver  substandard work but it is very much possible that you will become immobile and do nothing thinking that nothing perfect will come out of you. It is irony that it is those sensitive souls who are prone to this perfection syndrome. Those go getters do not care. They just start banging around and somehow generate something close to Homers's 'Odyssey'. We worrying about perfection produce nothing and keep staring when the works of people who did not worry rise up to  win all laurels.

Get started. Do something. Give your best. Excellence is bound to follow sooner or later. Perfection like everything else is in the eyes of the beholder. Many things in life are so hard to judge that even we are not able to determine at the end if what we made came close to our own definition of perfection.

What else is in the eyes of beholder? Beauty is one. Contact lens are also in the eyes of the beholder :)

Cheers!

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Courage

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear."
  --  Mark Twain

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."
  --  Ambrose Redmoon


Courage does not mean foolhardily taking on challenges without thinking or more importantly without planning. "Planning without action is futile. Action without planning is fatal."

Courage means there is a overriding goal which prompts us to keep that in the sight and rest all on the side. We consciously decide that the goal is worth the risk that we are going to take. All the wood that we put behind that arrow is the courage. Courage works best when focused. As ordinary sunlight when focused using a lens generate enough heat to burn a paper, same thing is true with courage. Courage scattered is no courage.

Does being courageous means inflexible? Not at all. Courage means being focused on the goal not on the means so much. The means have to be right of course. Once we have made sure that means are right, we do have to be flexible about the means. If we are not flexible, all the courage might come to a naught.

Courage is not fancy rhetoric such as "we are willing to die for our cause." Courage should be able to take objective a look and be able to say "I will kill for my cause if required."

Some of the best examples courage come from the biographies of decorated soldiers. One that comes to mind is by veteran Israeli commando Moshe Betser. Betser was part of many daring operations including 'spring of youth' in which crack commandos burst right into the bedrooms of top Palestinian guerrillas in Beirut and killed them in retaliation the role those people had played in Munich 72 massacre. Another operation was that of rescuing hijacked plane which had been routed  to Entebbe, Uganda. Betser describes  both operations so meticulously and makes several good points such as what was real courage and what was sheer foolhardiness.

Cheers!

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Egg to Omleette while preserving egg shells!

"You have to break a few eggs to make an omlette."

If our end goal is to make an omlette, then by focusing on that goal, we realize that if necessary we can make an omlette with least breakage to eggs. We have seen people doing intricate artwork on egg shells. How they do it? They make a smallest hole needed to get the contents out of the egg shell, dry it  and seal it back to prepare the egg shell for artwork. The contents removed can be used to make omlettes or cakes or whatever needs egg content (yolk and white).

Above mentioned quotation is a way of saying that you need to harm (or sacrifice) some people or things if you need to achieve something useful. It may be true. But, if preserving egg shells is also a concern along with the goal of making omlettes, then by being little careful, considerate and ingenious, we can achieve the goal and address the concern.

Do we have to alienate people just because we are trying to achieve something? Say, a project. Every project goes thru tough stages. Do you need to break eggs (people and relationships) to get the project done (make omlette)? Egg shells may be disposable but people are not. As we can extract contents of an egg by carefully making a hole, we can similarly extract best out of people by being careful and sensitive to their needs and emotions. This is not exploitation. It is what is called true motivation. It is the art of making people do what you want them to do. By creating such motivation, you let people want to do it and there is no other way to get the best out of people.

When we can ignore the rule and break some eggs? Actually, to make a good omlette, you need to separate rotten eggs from good eggs. Once you have identified rotten eggs, it does not matter what you do with them. Anyway you have to dispose them off. It is up to you how less of a mess you want to create when disposing  rotten eggs. Applying this to people and projects, it is unfortunate that some of your people have become rotten eggs. It may be due to you or due to factors beyond your control. Nevertheless, in order to reduce the stink from rotten eggs, you need to get rid of them ASAP if you want good eggs to last and if you want to enjoy the omlette in a stink free environment. This is to say that you have to get rid of people who are not working out despite your best intentions and despite your having made all the facilities available. They may be successful elsewhere and not with you and your place. Now comes the question of getting rid of the rotten eggs with least mess. If you are not careful, you may drop an egg or two during the disposal. If that happens, it is a big mess. Stinks bad. This is to say that if you do not get rid of your problem people carefully, legally and in a humanitarian way, you are going to have a lots and lots of problems. How do we avoid that? We need to have a good system of performance management for everyone for whose work we are responsible from the beginning. Keep good records. Manage performance continuously. Performance management serves two purposes. It helps you to improve the performance if the person is receptive and cooperative. On the other hand, it lets you get rid of the person correctly as the documentation required to terminate a person is nothing more than what you capture during continuous performance management process.

Terminating people, working on performance problems are last things we all want to worry about. Isn't life challenging as such without these unwanted distractions? Yes, but life does throw curve balls once in a while and we need to be able to deal with them. Just make sure that all your people interactions are compassionate, human and worth emulating.

If you have to make omlettes and if you have good eggs, do not break them to make omlettes. Just extract the contents  and use shells for good use. If  you have some rotten eggs, dispose them off gently without creating a mess which you would regret later. One last time to repeat, motivate people to want to do what you need them to do. Get rid of people who are not working out and make it a win-win for both. Chances are you and your non-working people were never meant to be together.

Cheers!

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Memory malady

"Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it." - by Michel de Montaigne (1533 - 1592)

Is it not common that we think more about things (or people) we dislike, fear, hate? It is hardly once in a blue moon we remember people who we like so much. Even this remembrance starts with some bitter incident and suddenly we remember this person we like so much and how s/he had acted in the past which had made similar bitter situation whole lot better.

By thinking more and more about things that we wish to forget, we drive it  deep into the subconscious. Once a thing gets into subconscious it lives there for a long time. It is also hard to take out. What is the purpose of subconscious? Subconscious exists as an area to store all that we can not deal at the moment. When something becomes overwhelming for the conscious, it simply pushes it into subconscious. It does for a reason as it temporarily gets rid of the problem. But, deep rooted feelings in subconscious keep raring  ugly head from time to time. It is like something bad in our system that our system is trying flush out but it has to go thru conscious and as soon as it reaches conscious, conscious dwells on it, feels agitated and in order to feel temporarily good, it pushes it back to the subconscious and the cycle continues.

This may be one of the explanation for why bad experiences from childhood impact  for a long time when much worse  experiences later in life do not even bother us. Say, something really bad that happened when you
were 4-5 years old, may bother you even today. But, something even far worse happened when you were, say ,25-26, you hardly remember. Even when you remember you tend to dwell more on that much older experience than the one in the recent past.

During childhood, our ability to bear harsh experiences is very limited. So, conscious pushes harsh experiences into subconscious in no time. As we grow older and experience new things, our ability to squarely face things  increases. With this, less our conscious pushes things into subconscious and more it deals with it then and there. The damn experiences that are there in the subconscious haunt us for long time. Many of us remember chastising and scolding and humiliations we got from elders especially the ones that we really did not deserve or was far too much for a small mistake or was delivered in front of many people which was way too much for us. This is what becomes childhood trauma if it gets out of hand. People with untreated childhood trauma grow up to have all sorts of mental problems. Spilt personality is an extreme case of that. Split personality is not a fancy behavior picked up to look different or escape from legal system  It indeed is a mental transformation and a genuine problem.. Watch the movie "Never talk to strangers" starring Rebecca DeMornay and Antonio Banderas. It is one of the finest movies depicting some effects of split personality.

If the thing that we trying to forget goes only deeper into subconscious, how do we avoid it? Thoughts operate in a common framework. Only way to replace a thought is to think another thought. Power of substitution. Substitute a thought with something else. Use techniques such as repeating a holy name, getting into something physically engaging etc. That's the only way to stop the mind from idling. Shut the devil's workshop for good.

Cheers!

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Useless

"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean
it's useless."

Thomas A. Edison (1847 - 1931)

History is full of inventions which ended up being used for entirely
different purposes than originally intended.

Let's start with a bit of humor. Viagra, the virility increasing pill for
men, was developed because the drug composition showed promises to address some
heart ailments. During the development, things changed. It started become
clear that this drug was not going to be very useful to treat heart ailments. Some
innovative souls experimented and found that it could treat some other
'organ' very effectively. They changed the direction of their research.
After a few year, viola, one of the most successful drugs in medical
history to address some real problem of certain people.

Other example is "Post It" notes that have become so ubiquitous. The adhesive
that is used at the back of "Post it" notes was considered as a failure as it
did not meet the required criteria when developed. It did not have enough
strength. But, lack of adhesiveness was exactly what makes "Post it" so useful.
3M company created a long lasting cash cow.

After having realized these kind of things, some companies such as 3M,
Rubbermaid, Google and many others encourage people to try out a lot of
things even if they do not seem to be in line with company's strategy. It is
also not uncommon among drug companies to have a plan B for intended use
right from the beginning. It only makes sense as the money goes into new
drug development is in billions of dollars.

Always look for utility value. Recycling everything possible should be the
motto.

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Useless

"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean
it's useless."

Thomas A. Edison (1847 - 1931)

History is full of inventions which ended up being used for entirely
different purposes than originally intended.

Let's start with a bit of humor. Viagra, the virility increasing pill for
men, was developed because the drug composition showed promises to address some
heart ailments. During the development, things changed. It started become
clear that this drug was not going to be very useful to treat heart ailments. Some
innovative souls experimented and found that it could treat some other
'organ' very effectively. They changed the direction of their research.
After a few year, viola, one of the most successful drugs in medical
history to address some real problem of certain people.

Other example is "Post It" notes that have become so ubiquitous. The adhesive
that is used at the back of "Post it" notes was considered as a failure as it
did not meet the required criteria when developed. It did not have enough
strength. But, lack of adhesiveness was exactly what makes "Post it" so useful.
3M company created a long lasting cash cow.

After having realized these kind of things, some companies such as 3M,
Rubbermaid, Google and many others encourage people to try out a lot of
things even if they do not seem to be in line with company's strategy. It is
also not uncommon among drug companies to have a plan B for intended use
right from the beginning. It only makes sense as the money goes into new
drug development is in billions of dollars.

Always look for utility value. Recycling everything possible should be the
motto.

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Humor

"Humor is a rubber sword - it allows you to make a point without drawing blood"

Mary Hirsch

When used effectively, humor is indeed a very good tool to make your point.

Although it may act like a sword that does not draw blood, do not ignore the
fact that it may cause more hurt to emotions and sentiments which can last
longer and more painful than a sword wound. External wounds heal faster.
For internal wounds, time is the only remedy. They only heal with time.

Best form of humor is to make yourself the center of humor. Nobody is going to
feel hurt if you do that. Some of your near and dear ones may get upset with
you for making fun of yourselves. Other than that, it is pretty harmless. If
you have some idiosyncrasy or a drawback or a handicap, is it not a good idea
to bare it open rather than someone speculate and make fun of you in your
back? We have to make sure that we do not take it to extreme and keep
deprecating ourselves on even things that people won't even notice.

One of the best things I had read somewhere was - once a person going to the
interview got soaking wet when rains started unexpectedly. It was not
possible to go back to get alternate set of clothes. It was a very
important interview too. He showed up and said, "nature probably thought I
needed another shower before the interview. I really did not but did not
have a choice.". That's the spirit.

"It is better to make fun of ourselves and rather than let others do it." In certain
societies, humor can be very personally attacking. Making fun of ourselves
when we find ourselves in the midst of a group in which we know there is
at least one person who can use humor to attack us personally, we may want to
crack one or two jokes about ourselves thus taking away any ammunition from
that person. After that, chances are, other people will shut that person up
when he tries take jab at you.

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Manager v/s Leader

What is the difference between a manager and a leader?

There are several ways to look at this and come up with several distinction.

Some interesting distinctions are worth taking a look.

"Leader do right things. Managers do things right."

"Leaders are effective. Managers are efficient."

"Leaders are strategic. Managers are tactical."

"Managerial success means being able to climb to top of the ladder as quickly, as safely and as efficienlyt as possible. Leadership success means making sure that the ladder is leaning against the right wall."

Are managers and leaders mutually exclusive? IMO, all leaders have to be at least somewhat good managers if they want to be successful leaders. Managers having leadership qualities do well. But, we all have seen many efficient and successful managers who had absolutely no leadership qualities. You would not follow them at all let alone following with full faith.

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Worry

"What's the use of worrying? It never was worthwhile." - by George Asaf, O Magazine, October 2002

One of the best quotes to illustrates the worthlessness of worrying goes like this -"worrying about a problem is like trying to solve an algebraic equation by chewing on the pencil."

Another great quote which highlights how expensive worrying goes like this -"worry is like paying interest on a loan that you never took."

Does worrying solve any problem? Not mere worrying. Little bit of initial worrying about the enormity of a new challenge is normal. But, worrying about uncertainties and all probable consequences is not useful at all. Hurry, worry and curry is a deadly combination. Fire burns a dead body. Worry burns a living body.

One of the best ways to deal with worry is to set up a worry register and worry time. Worry register can be a simple notebook that you can carry with you all the time. Size does not matter.

Whenever a worry strikes you, do this. First do not dwell much on it. All that you should spend is to develop as clear understanding as possible about the worry. Impose say 5 minutes limitation on the act of developing the definition of the worry. Once you do that capture your worry in 2-3 sentences. If you like, put date, time and write briefly the state of your mind. Then try as hard as possible not worry. If you can not stop worrying, start documenting worries about the worry not worried. You should stop writing only when you realize that writing about worries is no fun or less painful than to worry..

Then, set up a fixed 'worry time'. 1 hour per week is optimal. But, in the beginning it is just not possible to stay away from worrying that long. If it helps, set up 15 minutes per day to begin with. During the appoint 'worry time', you go thru your notebook and review every worry that has not been dealt with.

Take one worry at a time and see if it is still applicable. It is impossible that you would laugh at yourself for having worried about something that is no longer a worry at all. With practice a lot of worries vanish this way. Cross each such proudly with a red marker to symbolize the ceremonial slaying of the worry. This ritual helps and fun. This not necessary but if it helps, go for it.

To get best results, your "worry time" should be as spaced out as possible. This is because in a week's time a lot of things change. A lot of new facts emerge which change the definition of the worry. This will help you to address the problem. You will be able to crystallize a better definition of the worry. Don't they say "problem well stated is problem half solved"? This also applies to worries. When you can really put you finger on what exactly worries you and are able to phrase it, solutions naturally emerge. It takes good amount of work by your subconscious mind to mull over the worry to hint a solution. Let the subconscious do it for you and you stay away from worries.

Always carry the worry book, promptly record worries, limit worrying to worry time, promptly slay worries, plan responses for worries which have become clearer. This is a good framework to manage worries.

Of course, we all have to mature to realize that there are something about which worrying or doing anything does not help. "If there is a solution, find it. If three is not one, then do not mind it." "Grant me the will and courage to change things that I can. Grant me patience and fortitude to put up with things that I can not change. Grant me the wisdom to know the difference between the two and act accordingly." (May not be exact wordings but close enough)

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Right response

What can we learn from water in a pond?

We notice but do not think much about how the water responds when we drop anything into it.

If we can term the response, it is certainly a 'measured response'.

The amount of disturbance in the form of ripples is very appropriate to deal with the action (such as dropping a stone). If we drop a bigger object, more and wide spread ripples lasting longer and if we drop a pebble, small ripples that disappear quickly.

Can we take something from this to better our lives? We certainly can. We should examine ourselves if we respond with a 'measured response' appropriate for the action. More often than not we 'over react'. We do not even respond. We just react. In the hope of neutralizing the threat (many times our perception), we react with more than required power.

Take for example - someone disagrees with us. This is an action. 'Measured response' in this case consists of first to acknowledge their action and second is to weigh what it means to us. Rest should follow based these two points. Many times, our reaction to disagreements is to become very volatile or completely withdrawn depending upon our nature and circumstances. Both of these are certain extreme overreactions and do not help to deal with the situation.

There is also a huge difference between a response and a reaction. Response is normally an act which has been thought out with pros and cons reasonably well understood. Reaction is more often what we call a knee jerk reaction and is more instinctive than anything else. Of course we can not plan a response for every conceivable event. That will lead to "paralysis by over analysis". However, we can certainly develop a framework which enables us to develop and deliver a response. We can adjust the framework to suit the conditions. If there is not much time to develop a detailed response, framework will allow us to provide at least a poor but timely response (may well be close to reaction) with full understanding of the circumstances under which we responded that way.

We do not recognize harmful effects of over reaction because its effect are slow but lasting. Many effects are not good for us. Frequent overreaction leads to ultimate nervous breakdown. Some sort of allergies are attributed to tendency to overreact. High blood pressure has become very common in people who react in a volatile manner to every small thing which goes against their grain. People who become withdrawn also overreact in a different manner. Such people have been found to develop all sort of gastrointestinal disorders because of the effect of repressed emotions on the system.

So, if repressing emotions has harmful effects, should we go ahead and express emotions and feel relieved? Most of the negative emotions such as impatience, anger, hatred, fear, greed etc. have negative impact when repressed. They have even worse impact when expressed as being very expressive with such emotions is the surest way to alienate the world around you. So, what do we do?

Answer is harnessing the emotions. Emotions are energy. How do put it to use is up to us. Transform negative emotions to positive ones even if we have to fake it till you make it. Famous prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi is a great one to repeat so that we can always remember that it is possible to transform negative emotions to positive ones. We can pray to Lord using this prayer to empower is to effect such a transformation. This Sri Easwaran's favorite prayer or one of the favorites.

Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.


O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

http://www.catholic-forum.com/saintS/pray0027.htm

So, always respond instead of reacting. By responding you are in control. We can not control what is hurled at us but we can control our responses. Always plan to provide a measured response. Conserve the energy wasted from over reaction. Transform negative emotions to positive emotions to have best of both worlds.

Cheers!

Gaza Strip

From www.netflix.com:

The embattled Gaza Strip is the setting for this stirring documentary from American filmmaker James Longley. Initially intending his film to be a straightforward look at the Palestinian intifada, Longley headed there in January 2001 for what he thought would be two short weeks. Instead, he stayed for three months, logging over 75 hours of film that tracked a number of momentous occasions, including the election of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Nice documentary movie capturing the details about 'Intifada' movement that was a grassroots movement started by Palestinians living in occupied territories after they became disenchanted with their leaders living away in Tunis and ignoring their plight. Their action plan was to pelt rocks and stones at every possible moment at Israelis. It was difficult for Israelis to use heavy force on people using such crude and comparatively less harmful arms. Moreover, children were so actively involved that any violence on children worked against Israel.

A newspaper boy is the central character in the documentary. His day-to-day life has been captured very well.

3 stars.

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Showing up!

"80% of success is just showing up to play the game."

Although remaining 20% determines who wins or where we may be placed among everyone who have shown up, first 80%. where 80% of the competition vanishes.

But, importance of hauling ourselves to show up to play, in the first place, can not be downplayed.

How often we see people with far less capabilities having all the success? We only feel envious at such people. This feeling of envy is directly proportional to how unprepared we were not to show up when these lesser mortals (as we thought, incorrectly, of them) went to on play and won.

80% importance is placed on showing up for a reason. It is much harder to motivate ourselves to get started than to maintain the momentum once started. We all know about inertia. The term  inertia which once was limited to physics has now come to all areas. Organizational inertia, individual inertia etc. Object in motion continues to be in motion unless there is something to stop it. In ideal world, it continues perpetually.

Remaining 20% decides our success and to what extent we succeed. But, as we can recall from many of our experiences, we normally do an outstanding job of leaving no stone unturned in this 20% once we get started. We are motivated to do our best as soon as we pass 50% mark of 80%. Sheer momentum keeps us going.

Not motivating ourselves to show up has serious consequences. How often we have commented about someone else that they are not making best use of their potential. We have to be careful with passing such  judgments because some people may not aspire for things that we think they should. But,when we find people who are plain lazy, complacent, full of negative energy, we are saddened to see such a great potential going down the drain.

It is not easy to motivate ourselves to show up to play. This is especially hard after we have experienced some setbacks and disappointments. Those people are truly blessed who are able to pick themselves up over and over again as though nothing has happened. For normal people, some downtime is expected and it reasonable that we take some to recharge. But, spending rest of our life not trying anything just because we may fail is sheer wastage of God given potential.

"Past only bothers to the extent we have NOT learnt from it." "People who do not learn from the past are dammed to repeat it." Let's learn from our past experiences, do a thorough and honest post-mortem and move on.

As said before, it certainly is not easy to recover from a setback especially if it is a big one and has caused significant grief (financial or other). We have to walk when we can not run and we have to crawl when we can not even walk. One step at a time. Even if  we have to take a break after every step, as long as we remember to take the next step, it's only a matter of time that we are cruising at our full capacity.

Taking next step in our endeavors amounts to doing the next logical task. When our mind is clouded by a recent defeat, determining what is the next step itself can be a big problem. Easiest thing  to overcome such lethargy is to develop a habit of constantly asking 'what is next?'. David Allen's "Getting things done" is great book not only to improve  productivity but also to get out of inertia. It's a great book and certainly recommend for reading over and over again.

Good luck in motivating to show up. Remember by just showing up you have eliminated the good chunk competition (i.e. all those who did not choose to show up). Now it is time to play our best game and leave the rest to God. If it is good, we will get it. If we don't get it, it was not meant to be.

Cheers!

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BLUF in Communications?

What is the last thing we want to do if we want to have effective communication? We certainly do not want to bluff. But, there is a different kind of BLUF that is very useful for effective communication especially in written communication.

BLUF stands for Bottom Line Up Front. This is same as the phrases people use cut the crap, cut to chase, coming to point etc.

In BLUF, you mention the most important thing first and then provide clarification. If the bottom line has shock potential then you can prepare a bit but still must get to the bottom line quickly. Once you communicate the bottom line and then time to provide explanation, explanation sinks better than it would if you spend a lot of time in the beginning to explain and then provide the bottom line at the very end.

Picked it from one podcast from www.manager-tools.com. This a great source to gain a lot of management insight. Two people who host these podcasts have accumulated a lot of knowledge from experience and from several sources. It is  like getting nice summary extracts from all good management books. Check that out.

Cheers!

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Darna Zaroori Hai

Darna Zaroori Hai - Hindi movie from Ram Gopal Varma camp. RGV and his disciples make a sequel to 'Darna Mana Hai'.

Decent movie. 6 stories. Spooky ones. Some nice ones and some not so good. The ones involving Rajpal Yadav and Randip Hooda are really gripping . Others so so.

Photography and editing which have become the highlight of RGV productions are good in this too. They know how to capture in right angles. In one of the last scenes when the last kid is desperately trying to get out of the spooky house, camera alternates between frightened kid and a haunting balcony at the top floor with a single light. That is simply mastery.

Time pass. 3 stars.

Cheers!

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36 China Town

36 China Town - Hindi movie with big star cast - Shahid Kapur, Kareena Kapoor, Payal Rohatgi, Paresh Rawal, Akshay Khanna, Upen Patel (debuting).

Abbas-Mastan, directors, disappoint. They try to create a mystery where there is none. They nail some totally impossible people as perpetrators of some crime which nobody can understand how it happened.

So, what is left in this? Nothing much. Upen Patel, of course. Looks like he is building a nice golden bridge from modeling to movies. Smart thing to do as dudes do not last long in modeling. In movies, they last little longer.

Music - first song is good. Otherwise, do not know what Himesh Reshimiya these days itna-bhav-kha-raha-hai.

Waste.

2 stars!

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Lemonade from Lemon

"If life deliverers a lemon, make lemonade out of it."

Following two stories illustrate best lemonade made from some of the bitterest lemons life delivered to some people.

Both of these are found in Dale Carnegie's timeless classic "Stop worrying and start living".

In Arabic there is a term that is often used. That is - "Maktoob" meaning "(It is) written". If an Arab loses a big bet in a casino, this is what he exclaims raising both hands to sky. It is used to mean - "it is all God's will". People tend to mistake this for fatalistic mentality. But, people who use it, use it differently and most effectively.

What is the first thing necessary to recover from a setback? Recognizing that some screw up has happened is indeed the first thing towards recovery. Without that realization, we are in denial about the mishap. This realization is not all easy to come because what has happened defies all rational thinking (or what we call rational thinking at that moment even if it is utterly irrational). So, saying 'Maktoob' or "it was all God's will" helps us to transfer all the responsibility to God and take some solace that since it was God's will, it must be for eventual good.

Once we calm down after saying 'Maktoob', we can set out to take some remedial measures. Dale Carnegie quotes an incident related to nomadic Arabs wandering god forsaken desert in northern Africa with their one and only asset - sheep. Once the caravan was caught in a severe sand storm. Most of the sheep were dead when the sand storm subsided. Arabs were sad for a moment that they had lost good 80% of their assets. The leader exclaimed famous 'Maktoob' and the rest knew what to do. They systematically slaughtered the sheep which had not yet deteriorated. They smoked and processed the meat so that they can use it in the future. After that they moved on with their nomadic journey. This is one case making lemonade if life deliverers you a lemon.

Second incident, again from Carnegie's "Stop worrying and star living", involves a man in Florida.

Do you know there is a place called Rattlesnake in Florida. Follow this link to see for yourself - http://www.pburch.net/Genealogy/burch-fisher-Pages/Image19.html

There is a amazing story behind how this place came to be called as Rattlesnake. Long ago, a man bought some land around this area. He had some plans for this land. But, it was infested with rattle snakes and only rattle snakes. This man was perplexed. He had purchased the land with some idea in mind. He had not noticed rattle snake menace and now he was in this predicament. Land was useless. He hit upon an idea. Why not make lemonade from the lemon? There were abundant rattle snakes. Put them to good use. He developed a complete industry around rattle snakes. He farmed them to extract venom for vaccines. He started a meat processing plant to package rattle snake meat (yikes) and what not. Over time, he became famous, rich and an example for all those who got lemons and made lemonades out of it. This man did not get any ordinary lemon. He got bitterest lemon and made lemonade out of it.

So, always remember to say 'Maktoob' and set out to squeeze that damn lemon. Lemonade shall be made. That's God's will.

Cheers!

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Gangster

Gangster - Hindi movie starring Shiney Ahuja, Kangna Ranaut, Irfan Hashmi etc.

What a nice story line? But, they have botched it up thoroughly. Entire cast is immature to make a great movie on such a great story line. Characters played by Shiney and Kangna are loaded. They need someone who can really act. But, these two people simply can not do justice to their respective roles.

Director Basu disappoints. Poor cinematography. No idea what's up with Bhatt camp films. But for some strange reason they process their films to look really poor. So little light. Everything seems to take place under neon lights and in dark back ground. "Kalyug" was like that too. Only if there were to shoot and process in more brightness, it would have been lot more bearable.

Supposedly based on the story of gangster Abu Salem and his girl friend actresses Monica Bedi. Even if there is any, there is very little connection.

2 stars

Ability

Ability will never catch up with the demand for it.

    -- Malcolm Forbes (1919 - 1990)

There is a saying which goes something like "better you get, you better get better". As we get better at something, we are awarded a new challenge. If not for this we never evolve out of our comfort zone. It is also true that with right preparation we are presented with right challenge which is indeed a stretch but we can accomplish it if we put little more.

Lord is a master goal setter. Lord knows more about stretch goals than we can afford to set ourselves. So, instead of wasting time setting goals and sizing ourselves up if we are adequate or not, we should take challenges head on and chances are we succeed if the end and the means used to achieve it are just and right in the eyes of Lord.

Sri Easwaran's  writes in of his books -"we all have right amount of burden to carry. Not one pound less than we are capable of carrying or not one pound more." To begin with, our ability to carry this load is miniscule. But, with some years of life, we come to realization that we have a large load of Karma to carry and get rid of. We preferably want to accomplish this as much as possible in this very life. That way we can complete as close as possible to the final goal or God willing even achieve it.

What is the way to manage more load than we are capable of carrying? Magic word is leverage. We use it without much thought in every other aspect of our lives. But, when it comes to carrying our load of Karma, we forget that we can leverage that too. Our most efficient lever is the grace of Lord. Use him for your support to carry Karma load and you can immediately gain tremendous leverage. That's why it is said -"belief in God is the surest sign of wisdom."

Cheers!

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Success

Men are born to succeed, not fail.

            -- Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

Nice quote about success from Thoreau. Many other quotes can be found at -http://www.quotationspage.com

"Men are born to success, not fail." - this quote reinforces that regardless of what we are today and what we many have encountered in the past, we are bound to be successful.

It is a different matter if the state that God finds as success does not match our definition of success. When it does not match, we curse our luck. We have a very limited view of the life as we see it and not necessarily as the life really is. So, we think this or that is good for us and that indeed is success. When do not get what we want, we forget to take minute to see what we may have gained in the pursuit. Invariably, there is something to gain for every experience. Even when we do not get, say a coveted job or a position, something is being said about the whole thing. We may brood for a day or two or sometimes even entire lifetime for not being successful at that particular endeavor.

However, God chose that it was not the best for us at that moment of time. This insight is very hard to come before we have had some experience in life. Not at all easy before 30's as it takes around 30 years to see one cycle which can be thought to be something like a mini life cycle. If we live for another 60 years or so, we can expect basically same cycle to repeat in a different form. But, we can reflect and mend our ways so that remaining one or two cycles end up being different and better. This fundamental notion that we are all born to succeed to should help us reinvigorate ourselves and pick ourselves up from minor deviations and move on.

Sometimes, we all lose our ways and take a wrong detour. Sooner we come back to the main road, more gas we will have left to complete rest of our journey. It does not matter even if we develop this insight very late in life.No need to regret that we have only 10 or 15 years left at the most. We are all assured by the Lord that he would preserve our good deeds in this life and help us start exactly at the point where we left off. It is like Lord taking us and positioning us at a particular point on the running tracks so that we are given credit for the distance we have already run. So, without despair, we can set out to do what we want to. If what we want to do is just and right and is good for us in the eyes of God, we will be blessed with that. If not, take heart and understand that it was not meant to be.

In Bollywood, they have a saying in hindi -"waqt se pehele aur naseeb se jyada kisi ko kuch mila hai aur milega bhi nahin.". This means - "no one has got anything before the time is right and no one has got anything more than they deserve." This should not be viewed as a fatalistic mentality. It is a realization that follows after some years of getting some things and getting sheer disappointments in  pursuit of things that were not meant for us. But, good thing is that, when this insight comes, it comes along with a lot of discretion as well. We also develop insight to pursue things that are good for us relentlessly rather than giving them up at the first or second minor obstacle.

Cheers!

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Incredible experiences - Bhagvadgita

Two incredible experiences. Seem to come straight from Ripley's believe it or not. (http://www.ripleys.com/)

1) This is from someone I know very well and full trust. So, no reason even to suspect anything here (at least for me).

This person developed unusual fascination for crocodiles ever since he saw one very first time when he was 10 years old or so. First sighting was not unexpected or scary as they were boating in some place which was known to have crocodiles. He says after that he was always yearning to see crocodiles at every opportunity. But, he never got to see crocodiles, at least, in natural surroundings. He remembers having seen them a couple of times in zoos. But, that did not interest him much.

This fascination with crocodiles turned into something very different after a few years. He started to have dreams in which crocodiles appeared in or the other way. He had dreams of crocodiles at least once a week. Sometimes, almost daily. But, one thing he remembers very well is that despite having read many crocodile attacks on humans and other scary stories, crocodiles never did anything to harm him in his dreams. So, none of those dreams were nightmares or unduly concerning. Crocodiles used to appear either lazing in the water or basking in the sun or in some weird dense formation in a very small pond or something on those lines.

Dreams continued for some year. His interest about crocodiles also kept growing. He spent time searching for crocodiles stories on the interment, books and from people who had anything to share. He became a walking encyclopedia on crocodiles and many interesting incidents from all over the world. He had to since there was probably no publicly available information which he had not read. He was so intrigued by few clipping of crocodiles attacks posted on national geographic web site that he watched them over and over in awe. Once in a while he used to get concerned about this strange obsession. However, since it did not affect him negatively anyway other than taking most of his spare time, he did not care much.

Once he picked up Bhagvadgita, one of the holiest scriptures of India, and got interested in it. He read one or two pages everyday. He says although he enjoyed Gita, there was nothing remarkable that happened while he continued to read Gita till he landed on that part of Gita where in a few verses Lord Krishna describes his different forms. He does not remember that very well. But, there was something that hit his consciousness and transformed. Lord Krishna while explaining his different forms says among aquatic creatures he is crocodile. This person says he had never experienced anything more strange and spooky than the moment this revelation of Lord Krishna as crocodile registered in his mind. For a couple of minutes it was like a non-stop blinding lightning and deafening thunder and he kind of passing out. Not painful but not comfortable either. The effect lasted a few minutes. More funny thing happened afterwards. He says it's been more than a year or so and he has not had even a single crocodile dream. This story is simply mind blowing. After this experience, this person's life changed for better. He developed a better perspective on life. His obsession with crocodiles stopped and in his own words 'he sees a flicker at the end of the tunnel'

That particular verse is 31st verse from chapter 10 of Gita.

Pavanah pavataamasmi raamah shastrabhritaamaham;
Jhashaanaam makarashchaasmi srotasaamasmi jaahnavee.

31. Among the purifiers (or the speeders) I am the wind; Rama among the warriors am I; among the fishes I am the shark; among the streams I am the Ganga.

(Note: In the Bhagvadgita posted below from http://oaks.nvg.org/ys6ra8.html, 'makara' is translated as shark which IMO is incorrect. Anyway, in the book that this person was reading, it was mentioned as crocodiles and that's how it is in most of the other books too.)

2) It would have been difficult to believe in the above mentioned miracle story if it were not for another similar incident documented by V.M. Joshi who is said to have been part of Late Subashchandra Bose's INA (Indian National Army) and fought in certain battles. This story is referenced in spiritual discourses of Sri Bannanje Gocindacharya, an eminent authority on spirituality. Sri Bannanje's spiritual discourse in Kannada are one of the best. They can be found at - http://www.kannadaaudio.com/Songs/Devotional/home/. Search for 'Bannanje' and I think this specific reference is in his discourse on Gita or 'yoga jivana'. If you understand Kannada, all his discourses there are worth listening and in the process you will also see him referring to V.M.Johsi's experience.

V.M.Joshi writes in his book about an air crash that he happened to see. This plane had crashed and everyone had perished. People who were scouting the accident site suddenly heard a baby crying. They were very surprised to see that a baby survived when everyone else had perished. Due to some divine intervention, the baby had landed on thick grass and that had saved it from the impact. But, the shocking discovery was the fact that there was a book which was resting on baby's chest. Regular sized book. First amazing discovery was that the book was Bhagvadgita. When they took the book from baby's chest and glanced at the page, first thing that they saw was one of the most famous verses in Gita in which Lord Krishna assures his devotees 'yoga kshemam vahamyam' meaning "I will take care of your well being." Bannanje wondered how incredible is this story for this to happen. Who knows what good deeds the baby had done in its past births and what Lord wanted to convey. But it is very hard to brush either of these stories as myths or imaginations.

The verse is from chapter 9 is given below.

Ananyaashchintayanto maam you janaah paryupaasate;
Teshaam nityaabhiyuktaanaam yogakshemam vahaamyaham.

22. To those men who worship me alone, thinking of no other, of those ever united, I secure what is not already possessed and preserve what they already possess.

Now, ask yourselves if these two incidents are anything you can see at Ripley's. Listening and pondering over these two stories has been like a life changing experience for many of us. Imagine the experience of those blessed ones who experienced it first hand.

God Bless!

Following are the verses from Chapter 9 where Lord Krishna reveals his different forms.

28. Among weapons I am the thunderbolt; among cows I am the wish-fulfilling cow called Surabhi; I am the progenitor, the god of love; among serpents I am Vasuki.

Anantashchaasmi naagaanaam varuno yaadasaamaham;
Pitreenaamaryamaa chaasmi yamah samyamataamaham.

29. I am Ananta among the Nagas; I am Varuna among water-Deities; Aryaman among the manes I am; I am Yama among the governors.

Prahlaadashchaasmi daityaanaam kaalah kalayataamaham;
Mrigaanaam cha mrigendro'ham vainateyashcha pakshinaam.

30. And, I am Prahlad among the demons; among the reckoners I am time; among beasts I am their king, the lion; and Garuda among birds.

Pavanah pavataamasmi raamah shastrabhritaamaham;
Jhashaanaam makarashchaasmi srotasaamasmi jaahnavee.

31. Among the purifiers (or the speeders) I am the wind; Rama among the warriors am I; among the fishes I am the shark; among the streams I am the Ganga.

Sargaanaamaadirantashcha madhyam chaivaaham arjuna;
Adhyaatmavidyaa vidyaanaam vaadah pravadataamaham.

32. Among creations I am the beginning, the middle and also the end, Arjuna! Among the sciences I am the science of the Self; and I am logic among controversialists.

Aksharaanaamakaaro'smi dwandwah saamaasikasya cha;
Ahamevaakshayah kaalo dhaataaham vishwatomukhah.

33. Among the letters of the alphabet, the letter "A" I am, and the dual among the compounds. I am verily the inexhaustible or everlasting time; I am the dispenser (of the fruits of actions), having faces in all directions.

Mrityuh sarvaharashchaaham udbhavashcha bhavishyataam;
Keertih shreervaakcha naareenaam smritirmedhaadhritih kshamaa.

34. And I am all-devouring death, and prosperity of those who are to be prosperous; among feminine qualities (I am) fame, prosperity, speech, memory, intelligence, firmness and forgiveness.

Brihatsaama tathaa saamnaam gaayatree cchandasaamaham;
Maasaanaam maargasheersho'hamritoonaam kusumaakarah.

35. Among the hymns also I am the Brihatsaman; among metres Gayatri am I; among the months I am Margasirsa; among seasons (I am) the flowery season.

Dyootam cchalayataamasmi tejastejaswinaamaham;
Jayo'smi vyavasaayo'smi sattwam sattwavataamaham.

36. I am the gambling of the fraudulent; I am the splendour of the splendid; I am victory; I am determination (of those who are determined); I am the goodness of the good.

Vrishneenaam vaasudevo'smi paandavaanaam dhananjayah;
Muneenaamapyaham vyaasah kaveenaamushanaa kavih.

37. Among Vrishnis I am Vasudeva; among the Pandavas I am Arjuna; among sages I am Vyasa; among poets I am Usana, the poet.

Dando damayataamasmi neetirasmi jigeeshataam;
Maunam chaivaasmi guhyaanaam jnaanam jnaanavataamaham.

38. Among the punishers I am the sceptre; among those who seek victory I am statesmanship; and also among secrets I am silence; knowledge among knowers I am.

Yachchaapi sarvabhootaanaam beejam tadahamarjuna;
Na tadasti vinaa yatsyaanmayaa bhootam charaacharam.

39. And whatever is the seed of all beings, that also am I, Arjuna! There is no being, whether moving or unmoving, that can exist without me.

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