Choose for 2013

All these time, I had only known that our life must be filled with happiness. The ideal expectation from life of each individual is ‘happiness’. But recently I read out an article mentioning about another aspect of life which is called “meaningful life”. I want you to realize that there are two ways of living our lives, happy life and/or meaningful life.

These two are bit confusing and overlap. One might wonder both are same. But they aren't!  There are subtle differences between happy life & meaning full life. While writing down, I tried to explain the difference but its complex. So I picked the points from the below link and have tried to summarize:-

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-12-09/news/35689605_1_meaningful-life-happiness-florida-university

Those who don’t have enough time to go through that long article in link can refer below summary :-

Happiness is about having one's needs and desires fulfilled. It may be about small things and/or big thing. You can be happy about finding a lost book, you can also be happy that the India won cricket match. You can be happy about meeting your old friend after a long gap. Happiness is largely rooted in the present and about here and now.

Meaningfulness is more complex. It is about the long term. Purpose is a very important component of a meaningful life. Happiness is more short-lived. One can be happy in the morning and sad in the evening. But meaningfulness is considered more lasting and permanent.

Friends and family play an important role in shaping a happy and meaningful life. At its heart is the fact that happiness is positively related to one receiving benefits and being a taker. Meaningfulness is about giving. This also means that helping others boosts the meaningfulness of life but has little impact on happiness.

There is a subtle difference in the way friends and family affects our lives. According to the study, spending more time with friends is positively related to happiness but not to the meaningfulness of life. Spending more time with one's family is significant to the meaningful quotient but not so to the happiness level.

Here's an example: taking care of children requires one to downplay one's self and devote oneself to caring for them. For parents, the more time they spend with children the more meaningful their lives are, but this does not have much relation to happiness. If anything, it tends to reduce happiness. It throws light on the parenthood paradox: most people want to be happy and want to be parent but these two goals are often in conflict, says the study.

In this modern era, where money has become like breathing air, it is not difficult to earn sufficient money and lead a happy life .We can all do that and that’s what we all are doing right now. We are choosing happy life. We are not bothering for the meaning. Just being happy is what has become important for us. But truth is happiness doesn't lasts for long time. So choose for the meaningful life.

Again, the meaning of the ‘meaningful life’ varies from each & every individual and bit hard to figure out. But if you give a deep thought on it, you can work it out to realize what makes your life meaningful.

Keep in mind; Healthy people are happier than sick ones. But healthy and sick people can have equally meaningful lives! Think about it and figure out the difference between happy & meaningful life. So beware, it may so happen that you might be happy with someone/something/some stuff but before committing/enjoying/using just think, whether it makes life meaningful!

So finally, December 21^st is nearing and since past few years there were lot of speculation from several mythology that, world is going to end on this day. Honestly, I want it to happen but I don’t believe it will happen. Anyways, we are all going to see 2013, a fresh New Year.

By wishing you an advance happy new year 2013 I would suggest you to choose how you want to live your life from 2013, happy life or meaningful life. Choice is completely yours.

Workplace

Instead of concluding the blog at the end as I do every time, this time lets go in a ulta way. Let’s conclude the blog initially and then begin to dive into the reason of conclusion.

All that I want to conclude in this blog is: Be efficient at work. How to be efficient at work is all about the science of action (which I’ll try explain later in this blog). "How efficient as a whole you are?" starts molding up from the efficiency you show at the workplace. So the workplace is where it is most relevant. It does not matter what work you do, but with what efficiency you do.

According to me, you have many roles in life to play, and one of them is as 'worker'. You can play only one role at a time. Do never go at two or more roles at a time. Give your all to the role you play at the time. That way you do maximum justice to the role you play at the time. This is as I call, self-power (SP), which is my term for dedication. This SP will vary for each individual. When you play one role, whatever role it is, bring your inbuilt self-power out and concentrate. You will be efficient for sure on whatever you are doing.

For example, Sachin Tendulkar while playing role of batsmen in cricket, he should only bat. That is his only job in that role, to bat well. He should give all of it thus doing maximum justice to his role. When he plays the role of the batsmen he should not share concerns of his other roles - bowler, fielder, father, brother, son, son-in-law, nephew customer, manager or any other (there are several other roles he plays). If he does concern about other roles then it is like splitting himself into many roles at a time and thus diluting his Self-Power. (If you are harry potter fan, then you'll know, the one who cannot be named, will be splitting his soul into 7 different pieces & hide them so as to be immortal. Splitting soul will happen by killing another person & it is a great SIN). So conclusion is splitting yourself into two or more roles by diluting the dedication is very inefficient. The problem with Sachin these days is, he has one more new role to play, MP. So while playing the role of cricketer he shouldn't be concerned about his role as MP & vice-versa.

When you play the role of worker, be just the worker and not the father, mother, husband, wife or anyone else. The weak minded cannot dedicate themselves to the role he plays at the time and concentrate. He gets distracted. So, to be efficient at work, cultivate strong mindedness. This is as I said, SP (self-power).

Key point of cultivating this strong mindedness is to unconcern for the fruits of your actions. Consider it as just the part of efficiency at work. When the fruits of action weigh heavy upon you, you are distracted and your dedication is unsteady. You do not do justice to your role. Thoughts of returns should not burden your actions.

A mother who doubts that her children, when grown up, might not reciprocate her love and care cannot love & care for them with motherly nature. A farmer who doubts that he might not reap profit from his crops cannot farm with complete dedication and do justice to his role. An employee who is unsatisfied over his pay cannot give his all to work and do justice to his role.

Only those who work unconcerned with fruits can work with complete dedication and do justice to their roles. So cultivate this attitude. Do not look at the returns. Just love your work and do it lovingly just for the pleasure of doing. Even when working for wages don't equate yourself with the wages. Stand above wages. Let not the thought of wages weigh you down.

Let not the thought of gain or loss or success or failure distract you. It important that you play the game well. Give no care to win or defeat. Keep your spirits high. Don't trade it off for the fruits of work.

If you act just for the boss in the workplace, you cannot play your role with dedication. Act not for the boss in the cubicle but for the Great Boss within, YOURSELF.I say, act always with yourself in mind. And when you act like that in mind, fruits for your action will be taken care somehow. TRUST ME :) 

Respectometer

There is an instrument to measure temperature - thermometer, there is an instrument to measure electricity - electrometer, similarly by wondering in my thoughts, i invented a meter to measure 'respect', which i call it as  "respectometer" ;-) sounds fun, isn't it? So this is an imaginary instrument which will measure the respect. Lets see, what exactly do i mean by measuring respect & how did this come into my little mind?

According to me, in a way, this whole big world runs on 'respect'. Respect, is what is driving our day-to-day actions. Including the big-big business deals at corporate level & big-big relationships like marriage are built on respect to each other. Without respect, its hard to imagine our lives.

According to me there are basically 3 types of respect.

1. Mutual Respect

2. Self Respect

3. One sided Respect

Let me give bit detail on these 3 types of respect. But before that, i'll try to define 'respect' according to me. I struggled a lot to put the definition into sentence & finally this is what i penned down :-

"Assume yourself or your friend or colleague or parents or a superstar or your manager or your teacher or somebody you know. I hope you believe that there is some kind of 'feeling' or 'something' between you both which  makes you believe in each other. According to me, that is what is respect."

Mutual Respect :-

This kind of respect is between two or more persons. For example, you and your friend share a mutual respect with each other. That is what is driving your actions among each other. You respect him and he respects you back. In the sense, you believe in him & understand & agree & follow him and the same he does back to you. No need to mention further, i hope you might imagine what i mean by mutual respect. Consider any other individual (brother, teacher, driver, colleague  your doctor anyone) or group (your team, your class) whom you respect & most important is that he/they should & must respect you back then only it is called Mutual Respect. Respect should be to'n'fro to become mutual.

Self Respect :-

This is, as the name suggests, is the respect with your-self. Your own Self. That is, how much you believe understand, agree & follow yourself, your own thoughts. This kind of respect is very essential for each individual's personal growth.

One sided Respect :-

This is kinda fun. I never imagined there can be this kind of respect too. Initially i had written this whole blog with explaining only first two kinds of respect, but then while trying to figure out more accurate definition of respect, i come with this new type of respect. Like one sided love, this is one sided respect ;-) Then i re-wrote the blog with 3 types.

Well, one sided respect is like, you respect some person & that other person might even doesn't know you at all. In the way, they cannot be able to respect you back, but you respect them a lot. Let me give an example to clear this out.

Consider my favorite hero, SRK. I certainly have a lot of respect for him but obviously he doesn't even know me. So no chance of SRK respecting me back. This is what i define, one sided respect. Respect in the sense, i like him, i believe what he says on shows/movies & sometimes i do try to follow him.

Well, i'll come back to this point later about SRK, but consider another example.

How many of you remember, shaktimaan? :-) That was all children's best-est serial on DD1 in early 90's, which use to air at 11:30AM on Saturday's (and repetition on Tuesday night 10:30). At the end, shaktimaan use to give some tips to children & almost all try to believe him, trust him & use to follow his words. That is the one sided respect. Example might be silly & old but someone for sure will be there for you in your real life with whom you share one sided respect.

Well, enough about types of respect and back to my imaginary instrument, respectometer, which by end of this blog, i'll be handing over to you to measure and use by yourself.

In our daily day-to-day life, to get along each & every day, we need to respect so many people around us & get respect back by others. Not only just keeping & getting respect, we should also maintain the respect earned & do our actions so as to increase it. By doing so, our daily actions are smooth. Other person's respect on you makes your work/action worth doing by him & similarly your work/action's worth is based on the respect upon other. Among so many people with so many deals & relationships around us, its very hard to judge whether the person is showing genuine respect or just faking. In this cunning & competitive world, people might fake or play around with your emotions as though showing respect to just get the work done out of you. Its hard to find out whether the person is acting or whether he's having genuine respect. Personally i struggled a lot during past couple of years in understanding this.

But recently i have found out a simply way to figure out the scale of respect what other individual pays to you. You know according to me, second person is proportionally respectful to you as how much he listens/understands/follows your words/thoughts into actions! Kinda hard to understand but you can pick up the lines slowly what i'm trying to convey.

Measuring respect is observing whether other individual is trying to translate your thoughts/words, which you genuinely express, into actions. For example, Suppose i asked my friend to get Barfi movie in pen drive & he promised to get it tomorrow. If he slips or think doing something else is important than keeping his promise to me, then he may not be having too much of respect on me. Probably he might think, he can lie me that he didn't get time & will get it next day. My respectometer will read very low measurement for him. But even if he was busy and since he had promised me, he took out 5 mins out & brought movie in pen drive & gave it to me tomorrow, then my respectometer will read a high reading. Even if he doesn't get it, but told honestly the reason for not getting, then also reading will be high.

Example given may sound silly but catch the grisp of my respectometer instrument here. Apply this in serious matter, it might be useful.

Also once you turn other individual's thought's into actions by showing respect to them, then the other individuals respect for you also grows proportionally. Example, in our office, there are two cabs for going back to home. One at 5:15PM & another at 7:30PM. Suppose my manager assigned some work & asked me to finish asap. It depends on how much do i respect my work & him which will decide whether i finish off work by staying late & going by 7:30 or do i think, "manager will be telling to finish today, that's his work but i'll do it by coming tomorrow morning" & choose to leave by 5:15. If you choose 7:30, then respect from manager to you would increase proportionally, which might help you while getting leaves/appraisal ;-)

Examples which i give in my blog will be simple & silly to understand the basic intention. Please don't judge just on that. Realize & apply the same concept around you, in your own surrounding, then you'll appreciate the idea behind the thought.

As i said, it depends on the genuine concern which you express & the particular action for that genuine concern will measure the respect. For one thing, don't try to judge by telling too many silly things & expecting them into actions from other individual! Its insane! Use this for genuine & real concerns. What i mean is, don't keep saying silly things to other individual & judge them since they didn't turn them into actions. Don't use respectometer instrument for judging silly things & blame me back that my idea of respectometer is faltu :-P

So coming to measuring self respect  my respectometer will help you to analyze and know yourself about "how much do i respect myself". Simple thing is just note down your thoughts, what all you want to do. What you speak off daily & think about of doing. I'm sure there will be several. If you turn your thoughts of doing what you intended to do into actions then my respectometer will read high value for you. Very simple example is long time back, i had thought myself that, every month i'll be writing a blog. Whatever may be the subject, however bad it may be, but i will not stop writing. This is my 10th continuous blog. Since past 10 months i'm following my thought & my respectometer is reading good value for me in this matter. Simple evaluation. Another example where my respectometer would measure low for me is that i had also thought of writing dairy daily, but i always fail to do so with one or the other excuse to myself. 

Similarly you can judge yourself with respectometer about your self respect.

Finally coming down to measuring one sided respect. I don't know, whether my respectometer would be a good instrument to measure this, but i would like to continue a small note on SRK from where i had left. As i said, SRK was my fav hero. I had great respect for him. In a way, respectometer use to read high value for him ;-). Recently when he started KKR or somewhere during that time, suddenly my respect for him fall down. I don't know why. But the strange thing which i want to highlight here & which is limitation of respectometer is that, when i had respect for him, even if he did something bad or mean thing, i use to over look that fact & use to like him, but once he lost respect, even if he did great things, i wasn't able to look at it and always think of -ve points about him. Example is on SRK, but similar thing would happen with your respect on somebody too in your daily life. Be cautious.

One more thing about one sided respect is that, you see lot of commercials these days with big & leading actors anchoring & promoting them. The marketing people use the one-sided respect upon the celebrity as business factor to sell their product. I hope by now, you got my idea.

You know, i can go on & on & on but the length will increase & it gets boring. So i hope you catch, what i'm trying to convey. Respect is a very essential & vital part of us. Do understand this fact & use my respectometer as now you are also equipped with it.'Handle with care'  ;-)

Real Happiness

Since past one year, I was starving for something good to happen. One major event, which I was very much desperate to let happen, is gouri getting job. I was really worried about jobless days passing one after other for her. People use to say her, it won’t be enough difficult to find job in IT industry as your brother is anyway working in IT company. He will be having enough contacts/colleagues/friends to get an opportunity. In a way, I too felt it right.

But last year, it was a kind-of hard core recession for freshers. No openings at all. During my time of job search, after completing engineering, it wasn’t too hard for me to get job. So I had never tasted the desperateness to find/get a job. When I started the task of looking fresher openings for gouri, I started to taste it. There is no single person I know in my life, to whom I haven’t asked a favor/help to get gouri placed! I tried literally with everybody, every single person I know. Before making up this sentence, I have recollected very hard, whether there is somebody who I know & haven’t asked for this favor. I found NONE. At least every person, i know use to know that i am struggling hard for fresher openings for gouri. What I want to justify here is that, I was so desperate & needy for gouri to get job that I haven’t left anybody. In fact, even if I didn’t know somebody but found out that person is having potential for getting an opportunity then I use to make that person to know me. Then immediate next day I use to forward resume!

Gouri not getting job had made life dull & sad. Before planning each and every huge decision, all things use to boil down to postponing them until gouri gets job. I use to sit & wonder for hours like when that time will come. I was sure that when that time comes I’ll be pretty much happy. I’ll be happy infinite times, jumping all around! But even after trying so hard, nothing was happening. There was no sign at all about her job opportunity. 

As most of you already know, last week finally after 15 long & hard months, gouri got break through into a company called “continental”. Although it is just one year based contract job, but indeed it was something what I was waiting for so long. All these days, I had waited for this happy day to come. To tell you honestly, when finally I got to know the news that she got a job, I wasn’t happy as I had expected earlier. It was really strange! So what is this? I started to think. My ideal real happiness was to finally hear this news & to know that gouri too has job like me. I was happy indeed, but not like jumping and all which I had imagined & dreamt off.

Then slowly I realized that real happiness is not in just hearing the great news of achievement, which we will be waiting for so long desperately. But instead the real happiness lies in the path of achieving it. For example, when you are too much excited about going to some place/destination. Journey will be more beautiful than destination. May be because, during journey you'll be imagining, thinking a lot, hoping a lot about what you have heard about the destination. So this thinking,hoping, imagining makes the journey much more beautiful than just reaching the destination.

To clarify and on the similar lines, if I look back all those people to whom I had forwarded resume of gouri & asked to refer or try get an opportunity, those people during that time showing concern & trying to help by forwarding resume use to make me ‘happy’. It use to give me a little hope. Indeed if I summon all those small-small moments (when somebody referred or emailed an opening & put some hope in me during that time) then it will sum up to infinite happiness and will of course be more than the happiness of just hearing that she finally got placed.

So I would like to take an opportunity to thank all those who made this journey to fill with small-small happy moments which collectively today I’m realizing as the “real happiness” and I will miss those moments from now on. You know I also need to mention that among all, few did take extra mile to help in getting gouri job. That was really appreciable and so kind of them. I’ll never-ever forget all those things which you people did during such a hard time. Hats off. Rest few didn’t go extra mile but they sincerely tried to help. Big thank you for them too. Rest few didn’t had time but just kept telling they are trying & I would like to thank them too. Few others just use to ask, did gouri got job. Thanks for them too for remembering & asking each time when we use to meet. Finally thanks to all who made this whole journey, a fun filled roller-costar, which will be memorable. Even you people might forget what you did, but I’ll never ever forget.

To conclude, I’m just happy now to know that finally gouri got a job. She is becoming independent, self-capable and I’m really proud of her. It is just beginning of learning A,B,C. Still lot more to go. She should complete 26 alphabets, then should start forming words out of it, then should start making sentences then should start writing paragraphs then should start writing essays then finally poetry, literature etc. Uffff.. Lot lot more to go. But i'm happy now that she begin with A, B & C now. :P

And this all credits goes to the people who are reading this blog, coz as I said, there is no person whom I know & doesn’t know about my struggle for sister’s job  :) Thank you all once again.