Consolidate the mess

I am, by nature, a terribly unorganized person.  This hurts and helps me.  

My strong disinclination to disciplined pursuit of plans - be it daily schedule, or work priorities, or even product strategy - also helps maintain my tendency to continuously question and rethink radically.  That usually helps.

What hurts is the physical impact of this tendency.  That is where I am most closely aligned with entropy, especially when it comes to my work spaces.  In these, one could find a small sample of the universe - varying actually from paper pin to paper plane, from sugar sachets to microcontrollers - littered in every colour of the spectrum.  This hurt because the clutter affects my brain, which just stops working, thereby driving me to CCD or even Pondicherry to get think space.

Thankfully, this is now in the past.  I have found a sustainable solution, which might possibly help you.

I realized that cleanliness is as infectious as clutter.  Cleanliness inspires cleanliness.  And cleanliness inspires creative thoughts.  But cleanliness is tough to achieve and maintain.

So I selected a small area, and decided that no matter what, this space shall always remain organized and clean.  Let everything else be a mess.  That was easy to do.  I gradually expanded that clean zone, and consolidated my mess into mess zones.  "Gradually" is very important here - one must give time to sustain each expansion of the clean zone.  Over a few months, almost my entire workspace - at home and Peach - are clean.  "Almost" is also a keyword here - cuz this effort is asymptotic - one might even need some mess zone to remain.

Today, I remain unorganized at heart, but every time I create a clutter, it is so small that it stands out, and I feel compelled, irritated, to fix it - or when time does not permit, move it to my mess zone, which, fortunately, is physically restricted in space.

Happiness for Success

A TED Talk (Shawn Achor: The Happy Secret to Better Work) that I watched recently gave me a unique realization - that it is not that success causes happiness, as is traditionally believed - rather, it is happiness that causes success.

This makes good sense.  The speaker clarified that success for the sake of happiness usually tends to inspire us to only create higher goalposts, which we never eventually reach, and thereby always have reason to be dissatisfied and unhappy.

Happiness inspires us to do good things for the world around us, and that in turn creates well-wishers for our success.  Happiness helps us identify our passion, what we will naturally want to work hard for and excel at.  Happiness will make our efforts and life in general more enjoyable and livable.

But how do we start?  How do we attain this happiness without success?

Happiness (or lack of it) is, to the most degree, a state of mind.  Only a small part of it is determined by reality; most of it is a result of our perceptions about the reality - our worries, our excitement, our anticipation, our guilt, our pride.  We can choose which feelings to experience, and which bad memories or unpleasant information to weed out, especially if they do not affect our next actions.  Should we choose to focus on the good, and be happy and optimistic, we will be inspired for action and success.


Link to the TED Talk:
https://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work

Neatness for inspiration

I have observed that keeping my workplaces organized has a clear effect on my desire to work.  Likewise, finding my personal spaces in neat shape lifts my moods.

I assess that the total amount of new papers or stuff we receive or process on any given day rarely requires more than a few minutes of sorting and placement.  Should we organize them before leaving for the day, we get to enter an inspiring workplace the next morning.  Else, we create a back log, which we naturally try to ignore and let pile on.

The story is much different at home.  Here I find that maintenance is far more difficult than messing things up.  Only a few of us may have the luxury of a dedicated housekeeper.  And thus I find the sights of messy bedrooms and quake-hit dorm rooms in quite understandable.

Even so, I think there exist some compromise solutions.  We can club room organization with other activities, such as watching TV or talking on the phone.  Major overhauls can be put for weekends.

My personal experience dictates that it is more than worth the effort to keep our surrounding environment in good order - makes work more enjoyable and increases our happiness index.  I suggest giving it a try.

Smarter Phones, Dumber Me

It seems like the smart phone, supported by social media, has taken over me, and most of the world around.

I get shocked, in the brief moments of detachment from this supplementary smartness, how it has invaded every part of my routine.  The easy access to information it gives me creates a desperation to know what is going on - curiosity is supposed to be a good thing - except that it is useless information that we are overdosed with.  Rarely are we updated about new technology advances and interesting philosophical opinions of wise people.  What we rather get to see are the latest controversial news stories and selfies of friends and celebrities.  This noise by far outweighs the little useful wisdom we may argue that it provides.

The overt access to easy information has also eliminated many pleasant pursuits of the good old days.  Ranging from collecting clippings of our favourite celebrities to writing thoughtful letters to people we care about, these pursuits connected us with our inner identity, which is beautifully unique in each of us.  Being well-read does not matter - if we need to know something, we look it up specifically - but we forget that only by gathering wider knowledge, even that which seems irrelevant, can we identify the trends and derive lessons.  Today, we are fast evolving into a single kind of useless zombies, with no real value to contribute, driven by the new breed of celebrities and media manipulators who tap into our desperation to be updated.

Finally, I hate the way the smart apps have invaded my privacy.  Instant email alerts imply that I am liable to respond to every communication quickly.  WhatsApp pressurizes it even less subtly.  I do not appreciate Google finding out where I tend to go on weekends.  And if I wish to purchase something, I will look for options, rather than be alerted four times a day by e-commerce apps.

It is not going to be easy controlling my addiction to smart phones, taming it to tell me only what I want to know, restricting its role to a "mobile" phone that gives only my loved ones immediate access to me.  It seems losing 10 kg of weight might be an easier pursuit - and yes, a zillion apps will help me in that too.  But I will try nonetheless to succeed in this resolution.  So let me find a few good apps that help with resolutions! :)

Four levels?

I'm often confounded by my observations of happiness people - I find underprivileged people, such as our watchman kaka, happy most of the time, despite facing every challenge / disaster in the book - and I find healthy and financially fit people complaining all the time. Why is this so?

I analyzed, and found that there seem to exist four levels of intellectual maturity:

1. Subhuman - they seem to have a reduced degree of sensitivity to bad events, probably as they're accustomed to tragedies, and hence small gestures can also make them happy. They hardly know any philosophy or geography or what exists outside their world. They usually believe in God and miracles, which is why they don't simply commit suicide realizing their hopelessness.

2. Transactional - they get happy and sad as reactions to events around them. Their memory is weak enough to let them quickly get over some displeasure by the next material gain. Their interactions with God are also mainly transactional. Their world revolves around themselves, and they don't care much to know beyond.

3. Worried - they (think that they) know about the world, and realize how terrible it had become. Some believe they can improve it, others find those efforts futile. They may show faith and religion, but inside aren't so sure if God really exists. They all have every reason to remain in pain - be it financial insecurity, weight gain, family fights, corruption in the system, bad state of education, global warming or even piracy in Somalia. They mock the ignorant yet envy their bliss.

4. Buddha - those who attain this state enjoy every aspect of the world around them. They know beyond economics and geography and politics - they have and seek spiritual maturity. Faith in God gives them security. They find the variety in human behavior and challenges in the world to be creations of God and delightful means to learn. They seek and find pleasure in opportunities to serve others and enrich the world around them. They practice the true form of nishkam karma. They are always happy.

What do you think about this classification?

My Precious...

I am a bit shaken up by an interesting situation that took place two days ago.  I am probably more shaken up by my response to it.

I was just about to park my car at home at lunch-time, when I saw a rabari-style clothed person walking on the road close to my home.  He had a child, presumably his son, on his shoulders.  Based on the way he walked, I judged that he is a beggar, and will ask me for money should he encounter me as I got off the car.  Not wanting to be approached, I didn't drive in, but drove around the block and returned from the next intersection, just so he may pass by my house.

As I drove past him, I observed that he didn't quite seem to be a beggar.  His son had worn a smart school uniform, yellow shirt and grey shorts (yes, I can't even remember what I wore yesterday, but I can't forget this image) and had a bag on his back.  I observed that the father was walking oddly (thereby leading me to judge him as a beggar) because he seemed to be trying to entertain his son.  The two seemed to be having a good time as they walked in the afternoon heat.

I immediately felt guilty for being biased about a fellow human being.  But my fault and guilt didn't end there.  I felt bad about being who I am, having the ability to drive home in an air-conditioned car for lunch.  I felt pathetic being possessive about "my" financial resources, which in reality I can claim only by virtue of being born in a reasonably gifted family - even whatever I may claim to have earned on basis of my "abilities" or "skills" is similar, for I could gain those qualities only because I was gifted a platform by birth.  Yet I was selfish enough to try to outsmart someone deserving from having a small fraction of those gifts, of which I must be at most, a trustee.

I realized the supposedly obvious fact that the love of parent and child transcends all sections of the society.  There is not enough love in our world, and if we want some of it, we must nurture what exists around us.  I had the power (try to see the term beyond my arrogance) - the power to be nice to the duo, respect their love with a smile, and even help should the gentleman actually be a beggar.  I was clearly more gifted than the duo, and no excuse can justify my refusal to make a small act of kindness.

I think the lore of God appearing as an underprivileged human to test our character is common in the scriptures of all major religions.  God probably appeared as the duo to test me, or better yet, to suggest an improvement, a return to the values that I should cherish, so I may enjoy this life better.

I see good analogy of money in "The Ring" of Lord of the Rings - we somehow seem to increasingly resemble the pitiable-yet-greedy Gollum, losing our health and mind and happiness over what we term "my precious".  We scheme, we don't love, even as we want love.  We hide and protect the resources given as a platform to pursue efforts to further beautify the world.  We find reasons to doubt and feel insecure about people around us thanks to money - when God actually places them around us to give and seek love and joy.

I hope this public confession will help my realizations last beyond these couple days, and drive me to be a better human being. 

Rules of Expectations

I have been quite obsessed with the feeling of love lately.  While I have received love in abundance all my life, and still do, it is in giving love that I have had many realizations.  And so yet again, you rare reader, I will torment you with another blog about love yoga.

Papa suggested yesterday that expectations seem to be the taxes on relationships.  People have greater expectations from the ones close to them.  Expectations seem to put a toll on the innocence of the relationship, maybe even test its strength.

I see many cases around me where people expect their spouses to do or achieve or deliver certain things.  Parents expect their kids to perform and later maintain them.  One of the causes behind these expectations is possessiveness.  Possessiveness can lead to insecurity, which raises some of the worst expectations - husband not letting wife meet guys, wife nagging at husband, parents comparing their kids.

It is easy to relate expectations with love.  But I disagree with this seemingly obvious relation.  I think true love raises only one noble kind of expectation - to make the loved one act in his/her own (loved one's) interest.

Let me elaborate.

True love, by definition, seems to be the act of putting the loved one above oneself.

Ergo, my expectations cannot matter more to me than my desire to see my loved ones happy and healthy.  There is therefore no way that I will want to tax a loved one - that is, expect him/her to do something against his/her interests - and do something that I want.  Or, I am violating the definition of love, and not actually loving that person.

If you still do not get my point, you might wonder here, will this not actually lead to chaos in relationships?

Quite the opposite actually.  When I love my loved ones, I will make sincere efforts to ensure their well-being.  In line with karma yoga and love yoga, I will do so only to derive my own pleasure - I am not obliging them.  Now given the fact that they are humans, one of the supposedly smartest breeds on this planet, it will not take them much time to realize my sincerity.  Most of these smart beings will feel like reciprocating this feeling, even if for the most selfish reason of ensuring that they continue receiving my devotion.  And eventually they will discover that it is fun loving me - so I get the bonus advantage of receiving more love.

I think this can be the most beautiful competition of sorts - people trying hard to make their loved ones happy - people trying to put others before themselves.  Indeed, we can be expressive enough to clarify what makes us happy and what doesn't, but that is only to help them love us better, and only if they feel like it.  Nobody loses in this effort.  Nobody needs to compromise.  There is infinite scope for expansion in caring for others.

Another point I wanted to cover - addressing the "rights" over loved ones.  We may find it wrong when people use their supposed rights to force people who love them to restrict their actions, or do things they want.  And I disagree there also.  I think we can judge this force to be right or wrong only based on the end objective.

Should we apply this force to derive our own satisfaction or to strengthen our sense of security, we are being stupid and our love is adulterated.  We are then risking the loss of our loved one's feelings for us.  But should we apply this force to protect our loved ones, to stop them from hurting their interest, to help them achieve greater well-being in ways they do not agree with at the time, I find nothing wrong, and find no limits applicable.  We most naturally do this for our kids - why should we compromise in our feelings for adults?

Adults may find it suffocating and intrusive.  They may even use their wisdom to judge that we're being selfish or foolish.  But then, we do not make such efforts to become popular with them - our objective is only their best interests.  Therefore, so long as we continue having feelings for them, we have no reason to back off or give up in our efforts to make them do what we find right for them.  Of course, we must adapt our expressions to be more effective at convincing them, and we must always be open to realizing that we might be wrong.

I base these thoughts on what I have seen and known Papa and Bhai (my grandfather) to be doing.  They have repeatedly been "stupid" to trust the people who try to fool them, act in interest of people who disregard them.  They enjoy one-way relationships or unilateral care.  They do not mind if people "use" them.  This is what makes me put them up close to people who I consider great - in line with Gandhiji and the Pope and JRD Tata and likes.  This is why I find them respected and loved by pretty much everyone who knows them.  This is why I consider them truly successful in life.

Love yoga

Yes, I'm in love.  In love in almost every conventional way - enjoying my career, crazy about my family, and daydreaming about my childhood sweetheart, my soon-to-be wife.  But then, I'm also quite madly in love with the feeling of love.

I think love is one of the most beautiful manifestations of karma yoga.  True love is unconditional and infinite - you care for your loved ones no matter what they do or become - you regardless keep working to protect them, keep praying for their health and happiness.  What is this but nishkaam karma?


God did not give us the iPhone and Xbox as part of our birth package.  He gave us our family and nature for entertainment.  Nature that is full of resources and variety, giving us abundant scope to learn, relax, and care.  And family that will go to any extent to ensure our well-being.  Somewhere along the way, he also gave us an interesting sensation that makes us (even nutjobs like Gaddafi) love these people close to us, without even having the thought of expecting returns for this love.  As we grow up, we get into increasingly transactional relationships, initially dilute with friends and teachers, but clearer as we make lab partners, colleagues, suppliers, customers, etc.  For many, even their marriage is an agreement with implicit terms & conditions.  And yet, we get another reminder of this unconditional love - when we have kids, and when we feel no achievement, no wealth, no property in the world matters more than their health and happiness.

This instinct of true love is our innate quality as mammals.  It resides deep inside us, something we may try to ignore in our worldly pursuits, but yet keeps us incomplete and dissatisfied when we do so.  It is equally present in the rich and the poor, the educated and the innocent.  It is immensely powerful - it can drive us to take actions beyond our own expectations of ourselves, achieve feats that seem to defy the laws of physics and biology.

It is in recognition and ultimate surrender to this spirit that we can find true joy in life.  Like I have mentioned in my earlier posts, nothing gives us more pleasure than the effort to make others happy.  We can always find ways to love our kids, spouse, parents, siblings, friends, etc.  As we realize this joy, we will feel like expanding this circle of love, applying the karma yoga of love on everyone around us and all creations of nature.  I find role models all around me - from Gandhiji and Vivekananda and Mother Teresa and Pope Francis to people close to me, like Fr. Hector and my teachers and parents.

Love empowers us to rise above our temptations and weaknesses, and experience heaven right here on earth.  Love was our first gift from God, love is what he continually showers upon us directly and indirectly, every day, every moment.  Offering our love to him and his creations seems the easiest and most natural route (yoga) to unite with him.

Analyzing hard work...

I wonder why it is that some of us succeed at the same challenges where others fail.  I do not find lack of talent to be the root cause.  Several talented people fail when people with average IQ succeed.  I tend to agree with the commonly quoted explanation that hard work, put in a disciplined manner and the right direction, is the determining ingredient for success.

This is standard advice and common knowledge, and yet we rarely apply it in life.  So I feel like digging a little deeper.  Why do people work hard towards certain goals and not others?  Why does someone enjoy exercising hard, and another avoids it, despite needing it badly?  Why does the latter not mind working hard on some other goals?  Clearly, the ability or will to put in hard work does not seem to be an innate characteristic of an individual - everyone seems to possess it and use it at times.  In fact, the same person often has different choices about putting in or avoiding effort for the same issue in different conditions.

That leads me to wonder - Is hard work simply an input?  Should we consider it our credit (or guilt) if we choose to put in serious effort on an issue?  I think it is not as simplistic as that.  I think the choice of making effort is an output, not an input.

It seems to me that we choose to put in effort under influence of a variety of factors.  These may include:
- Desperation (for survival) - e.g. the routine exercise done by patients of diabetes
- Prospect (of pleasure) - e.g. muscles built to impress a girlfriend
- Fun (of making the effort) - e.g. working out daily just to feel good about oneself

The first (desperation) seems to be the strongest motivation, effective on almost every kind of individual, yet it works only for short spurts of hard effort.  Work driven by desperation causes exhaustion quickly, and should we not succeed before we get exhausted, we may even choose to quit.

The second (prospect-driven) seems the weakest, across the board.  Sure, we all feel like putting in some extra effort to improve our lifestyle or treat ourselves with something we covet or just add numbers to our bank account, yet this feeling is weak, and we do not mind compromising the effort every so often.  Our entropy, our natural inclination to relax or get disoriented, inhibits this effort very easily.

The third is what seems to drive people who put in sustained effort.  Most people I look at as successful in various aspects of life have put in effort because they enjoyed the effort itself.  They did not just work out of love for the goal - they worked because the work itself was fun.  Steve Jobs liked making good gadgets.  Warren Buffet likes to apply his brain to analyze and make smart choices.  Arvind Kejriwal likes trying to remove corruption.  They are not being martyrs by sacrificing watching movies and afternoon naps for their career - any day they will choose their career over these supposed luxuries, for it is more fun.


These "successful" people may not be successful at all aspects of life.  Quite like the rest of us.  Yet, they are different because for some reason, they could identify the area of effort that their mind resonated with.  I think we need to introspect a little to find out what work inspires us to deliver excellence, inspires a thirst in us to learn and progress.  We will be successful, every single day, if we identify that area of work and choose that as our career, because that will ensure that we work hard and that therefore we succeed at it.

The Quiet Mind

My friend, the things that do attain
The happy life be these, I find:
The riches left, not got with pain,
The fruitful ground; the quiet mind;

The equal friend; no grudge, no strife;
No charge of rule nor governance;
Without disease the healthy life;
The household of continuance;

The mean diet, no dainty fare;
True wisdom joined with simpleness;
The night discharged of all care,
Where wine the wit may not oppress;

The faithful wife, without debate;
Such sleeps as may beguile the night:
Content thyself with thine estate,
Neither wish death, nor fear his might. 

- Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Sustained Satyagraha

I went to watch Satyagraha today.  I found it quite interesting for the most part.  It got me thinking on the issue - and I guess that means that Prakash Jha has not done a bad job.

Now, the movie is a lot about idealism, popular agitation, and so on, so we can't expect it to work as well as Chennai Express or Singham.  The movie did seem to inject a shot of inspiration in some part of the audience, but we all know well that this inspiration won't sustain, for it is not "practical".

So I was left to wonder, what exactly will motivate us to leave our daily humdrum and make effort towards common welfare?  Or should we understand that such a "revolution" is impossible?

I can say for sure that such a revolution is not impossible.  Gandhiji proved that, in a much more challenged environment, with poor communication systems, no voting rights, illiteracy, and social class discord.  Egypt, Libya, and Germany proved that people can get sick of the establishment and bring about a change.  So why do we not see such a revolution in India today?  Is it because our problems aren't really serious?  Is it because we are too selfish to look at the common cause?  Or are our politicians smart enough to keep us too occupied to think of our issues?

I like to think that the problem is our stupidity or immaturity.  Our immaturity prevents us from seeking action unless we are directly affected.  Our immaturity makes us hypocrites - stupidly lighting candles and sharing facebook posts and participating in rallies occasionally, without any sustained or planned effort - just like we say Jay ____ (fill your "God" here), and practice Faraali or Roja or Paryushan so that God overlooks our daily nonsense.

Most seriously of all, our immaturity makes us blind to the opportunity to find pleasure in bringing a positive change.  That is, we fail to see the obvious fun in working towards making the world more wonderful.

These initiatives and movements fail because we do not participate with the right mindset.  Some of us participate as a reaction to negative or irritating experiences we may have faced.  Some participate looking at these as ways to "contribute their share".  And of course, then there are the more stupid cases that seek fame or pursue hidden agenda.

I think we need to stop looking at this as a fight of good v/s evil.  We are all mixed people, with our share of compromises in character.  So are our representatives and public servants - it is just hypocrisy to expect them to be ideal or perfect.

We need to look at this as a long-term effort for self-improvement.  We need to seek perfection in our character.  We need to learn how to take principle-centric decisions even when they are inconvenient; we need to maintain loyalty for our conscience; we need to learn to ignore irritations (of negative experiences) and avoid reactions.
We need to acquire the patience to understand the people we conveniently declare as villains - see their good side, love them, befriend them by being their true well-wishers, and motivate them to change (primarily in their own interest).  We will do this naturally when we develop a strong, genuine character.

This effort for self-improvement is not so hard - in fact, it is fun.  We all enjoy upgrading our homes, our offices, our cars - we will find nothing as enjoyable and sustainable as upgrading our character.

The revolutions in Egypt and Libya seem unlikely to succeed.  The one in Germany did.  As did Gandhiji.  He succeeded because he sought to love everyone (as he enjoyed doing so), not discount anyone as an antagonist, understand and learn what "the right" might be, pursue that, seek improvement, and enlighten others to do the same.  His autobiography speaks not of his achievement of "kicking the British out", but of his efforts to strengthen his character, his efforts to define and pursue "the right".

The great thing about this attitude is that it is sure to deliver sustained happiness.  One pursuing environmental improvement through self-improvement need never worry about chances of his/her success.  Because speed and success in self-improvement is always in our hand, and we can get started with that "revolution" anytime, from any situation, including now.

Some Simple Principles

What is religion, but a collection of principles that help us navigate happily through life?  I am trying to figure my own such principles, and am considering settling with these:

(1) Believe in God (wholeheartedly).  Trust his plans, abilities, informality, and intelligence.

(2) You are your mind alone.  Life is a God-given opportunity to experience happiness.  The world is here to teach you, entertain you, and provide opportunity for you to work and love.

(3) Your happiness, your love, and your efforts are entirely in your control.

(4) Enjoy loving every aspect of the world around you.  Love sincerely and unconditionally.   Let this love motivate your efforts to improve the world.

(5) Make no efforts except those that are aimed to improve your self and your surroundings (a.k.a. the world).

(6) Enjoy these efforts naturally, for you are working for something you believe in or people you care about.  Don't bother about results and reactions, except for fine-tuning your efforts.

(7) Work very hard.  More efforts => more fun.

(8) Appreciate and use every opportunity to learn and improve.

(9) Focus on improvement (of self and efforts), not perfection or achievement.

(10) Take decisions based on natural principles driven by your conscience.



A few negatives, for those who didn't get the message clearly enough:

- Save energy from religious compulsions and explicit efforts to please / attract attention of God.  How can he be petty enough to need attention and pleasing, foolish enough to ignore your reality, yet powerful enough to perform miracles?

- Save energy from lying, faking feelings, acting without inspiration, or justifying wrong decisions.  Enjoy integrity and innocence; win them back if you've lost any.

- Avoid distractions of money, power, fame, relative success or failure, and anesthetic entertainment.  It's plainly stupid to choose the illusion of pain over the reality of a beautiful world.

Deviation from detached effort - our ultimate stupidity

"Nishkaam Karma" is perhaps one of the greatest contributions of the Bhagvad Gita to world philosophy.  It seems to be a sure-shot model for living a pleasant life.  Yet our religious gurus and self-help books rarely preach this vital concept; in fact, they go to the extent of misinterpreting it in models such as "work and you will definitely be rewarded" and creating the notion of a gullible and corrupt God.  I wonder why this simple concept has become so rarely practiced.

On some reflection, I feel that we have been built physically and mentally only to work, to contribute.  We require food and shelter, so we may have energy to work.  We are given the ability and desire to learn, so that we can contribute better, work more efficiently.  We have been given the sense to identify excellence or laxity in our work, so we may ensure the former.  We have been given the sense of liking and choice, so we may identify what kind of work we can be best at.  And finally, we're gifted a conscience, which ensures that we choose a positive and constructive area of work.  Nature has clearly built us to work and contribute to the world in our own positive way.

Executing this right and duty to contribute seems to have no negatives or challenges.  Working keeps us fit to live and continue working.  Improvising on our efforts exercises and satisfies our mind.  Remaining synchronous with our conscience, and detachment from results ensure a mind free from anxiety, free to be innocent, intelligent and creative.  We can be our real selves, free to trust and love everyone, unhindered by the baggage of their past actions.  Our positive contributions, our trust and love deliver happiness to the world around us, which thereby becomes even easier to work in.  I find it hard to see any flaw in nature's design for us.

Nishkaam Karma builds utopia for us wherever we are.  We have the ability to pursue it regardless of age, sex, wealth, or location.  We can find Nishkaam Karma practiced by people across religions - the famous ones range from Mother Teresa to Warren Buffett to Gandhiji to Albert Einstein to Peter Drucker's grandmother (read his autobiography sometime).

Yet this practice is almost extinct in our world today.  Despite longer lives, excellent technology for convenience, and stronger world peace, we are not at peace with life.  We worry about wealth, security, reputation, what not!  We look for opportunities to feel hurt, rather than opportunities to serve.  Rather than take moral judgments through our in-built conscience (which only gets stronger through practice), we outsource them to religion.  We observe religious practices with zeal and lack of logic matched only by that of OCD patients.  While nature gives us friends and colleagues and family to love innocently and contribute positively to, we seek importance and superiority.  We deliberately choose not to trust people and find it wise to be "shrewd" and protect our possessions - wasting energy securing ourselves from many who may actually desire only our well-being.  Seriously, are we this stupid?!

Organized religions of today reinforce our deviation from happiness.  They ask us to bypass our conscience and sense of logic, and outsource judgments to their "one-show-fits-all" illogical rules, many of which were actually defined to be practical centuries ago.  Our religious leaders interpret and even evolve our philosophical heritage for their convenience - it is much easier to tell stories of demons and family feuds of Ramayana and Mahabharata, than to teach the concepts behind the Upanishadas and Vedas, or guide us in figuring the principles that should govern our lives.  It is obviously easier for them to sell the idea of a "Transactional God" - a Being full of limitations, who punishes and rewards, who can be bribed and fooled, and who we can distract through daily pujas and offerings.

I am not against religion.  True religion is nothing but philosophy.  Religion offers suggestions about life.  Hinduism is not the only religion talking of detached service - Jainism is not merely about wealth offerings and paryushana, but rather absolute detachment (which is now merely symbolic and ignored); Buddhism is about a quest for spiritual awareness and a benign life, not the creation of gold-plated Buddha statues; Christianity is not the set of rules on abortion and gay marriage - it is about seeking "to understand, not be understood; to love, more than be loved".

It seems plain stupidity of us to go against our natural inclination and choose a life of misery over happiness.  My preliminary analysis says that our tendency to learn from others (who currently practice this stupidity) makes us defy our natural inclination and logic.  This has strengthened over generations, and here we are.

Fortunately, we can reverse this any day, very easily, by changing our choice.  It is also on us to make sure that we do not distract the still-innocent next generation from following their natural inclination, right and duty to only enjoy making positive contributions throughout life.

The Weakness of Positive Emotions

I was giving a pep talk to my colleagues yesterday, when I had an interesting realization - we fail at achieving our positive targets because of the weakness of our positive emotions.

Interesting words, "positive emotions" and "positive targets"...  Let me clarify.  Negative emotions include anger, vengeance, fear, desperation, etc.  Negative targets are the targets we seek being driven by our negative emotions - say the desire to hurt someone, desire to save someone, to escape from a scary place, and so on.  Positive emotions include enthusiasm, care, ambition, etc.  They are usually propelled from within us, and not by some negative situation around us.  Positive targets, ones that emerge from these positive emotions, include the desire to grow, improve, become slim-n-fit, help, etc.

We all know the story of the lady who, on finding her infant trapped, gets a miraculous bout of energy out of nowhere, and succeeds in saving her child.  We know countless stories of weak people exacting revenge on big villains.  We ourselves get driven when we are desperate - when we are chased by a dog, or when we have to give a critical examination - we know no fevers, no ailments, no tiredness.  Yet we do not have this desperation when we work for our careers, our products, our pro-active fitness plans, and so on.

For most of us, positive emotions are much weaker than negative emotions. People who can strengthen their positive emotions - who can maintain a resolve even when no desperation exists - end up succeeding.  I read once that Azim Premji and Narayana Murthy work 70-80 hours a week.  The President of the United States puts in no less.  Follow Mukesh Ambani or Bill Gates - you will find no difference.  It's not that they won't survive if they don't work this hard - they have far surpassed levels of achievement that most of us dream of.  They succeeded, and continue to succeed, because they have reinforced their positive emotions.

It is uncommon to find positive emotions succeed.  When we try to build our careers, we allow social occasions, travel excursions, health issues, family problems, TV shows, pretty much every little thing, to distract us.  We therefore fail to achieve great successes of the scale that people tend to reach through fear or vengeance.  And it is therefore unsurprising that positively successful people are also uncommon.

We need to ask ourselves - why can we not wake up at 4 AM and put in 12 or 14 hours of work even if we don't have external pressure?  It is fine if we accept that we are not serious about our positive ambitions - that we wish to achieve them by fluke if at all - rather than apply halfhearted efforts that are bound to fail.  Let the serious amongst us realize this common weakness, and choose to apply thrust towards their positive targets no less than the miracle energy we tend to receive under duress.

Empower politicians to make a better India!

It is commonplace for us to complain about poor governance in India.  Projects are not completed in time, promises are not kept, benefits do not reach beneficiaries.

I believe the solution for improving this poor state of governance is in empowering our elected representatives and expanding their number.  I realize that this might be quite contrary to the prevailing (fashionable) mindset of disgust towards the incumbent politicians.


I believe that the key cause of inefficiency and ineffectiveness of governance is the fact that essentially nobody is responsible for good governance.  Let me elaborate why:

Our first reaction towards poor governance (failed projects, sustenance of corruption, etc.) is to hold our elected representatives responsible.  But the reality is that they hardly have any power.  Even Narendra Modi, with all his supposedly dictatorial mgmt style, cannot choose his team.  He must work with the same bunch of IAS, IFS, GAS, etc. officers that Gujarat has been bestowed with (by a body that reports neither to him nor to us the people).  He cannot fire them; he cannot hire them; he cannot penalize or reward them with real performance incentives - he just has the limited ability of transferring them and maybe threatening them with pathetic assignments or dummy cases.  He does not even have the ability to choose his ministers in charge of various departments - the finance minister must be an MLA popular in some constituency, while even a Nobel laureate in Economics is disbarred from being appointed!

The team given to ministers and the CM has lifetime job security.  They will not even face any penalty for performing badly - in fact, they can indirectly threaten the minister to lose his department (and constituency) by choosing to ignore his directives.  These "cadres" themselves form a power center, protecting each other from other layers, while within their layers, create a merit-less hierarchy.  Seniority and authority must be given through age and time spent in service, and not on basis of effectiveness or service delivered.

It is not that these cadres have any authority either.  Even the seemingly all-powerful IAS officers are forced to work with a team of much older and often motivation-less deputies, who are appointed entirely without his say, and also enjoy a lifelong job guarantee.  Very often, the best an officer can do is insult or humiliate his subordinates, hoping (in vain) that  maybe that the perceived fear might motivate his team, but his team is too smart to fall for that.

The ensuing result is that anyone in the chain can stop an initiative from succeeding, a project from completing.  So the best our helpless-yet-responsible politicians can do is make some money at it while hearing their constituents' curses.  We force them to make promises that they can't possibly keep, and them blame them when the inevitable happens.  We do not give them authority, we do not pay them decently, we despise them and blame them for things beyond their control, and then we expect them to be honest and magically effective - are we that unrealistic and stupid?


Another reason for poor governance is the way authority is distributed.  The city of Gandhinagar got a Municipal Corporation recently, but this corporation has hardly any authority to serve people - they cannot enact local laws, cannot spend for public welfare beyond a tight budget supported by meager taxes, cannot improve police security, cannot promote industries.  How can this body be considered the authority over Gandhinagar?  No wonder we never bother to remember who our councilor is!

In fact, given the deadlocked system, how can we even expect those councilors to do anything in our interest at all?  Think of it, what motivation can these people possibly have?


I feel particularly disappointed at this situation because it has a simple solution, which we fail to follow - a solution proven and sustained over centuries at other countries, like the US:

The solution expects us to recognize the fact that we are a democratic nation.  By definition, being a democracy implies that we must govern ourselves.  We (through our representatives) must have complete direct authority to define our policies and priorities.  We cannot be taken for a ride by a select few that passed a UPSC/GPSC examination.  In fact, we must have authority to elect all senior officers - in the US, not just lawmakers, but even judges, public attorneys, police chiefs, heads of several departments, etc. are directly elected.

Hence the first step is to increase the range of positions that require getting elected to.  Note that this need not be costly - these elections can easily be consolidated with others at fixed intervals by setting a chain of replacements.  The US, over the past 200+ years, has not once required an emergency election of Congress or the President.

Thereafter, we must focus all executive authority to one Chief Executive.  This CEO must be able to choose his/her team, ways of managing the team, ways of reporting, ways of managing projects and responsibilities, and so on.  We must ensure that the CEO gets all the necessary flexibility and authority required to successfully fulfill the role we entrusted him/her.  With this CEO in place, we are no longer victims of lack of accountability.

Next, we must set up systems to ensure that the CEO doesn't take us for a ride, say like Indira Gandhi did, or Narendra Modi might as some fear.  We must maintain a set of basic guidelines and principles that our CEO cannot violate, and cannot modify without our direct and wholehearted consent.  This set is what the "constitution" is supposed to offer.  We must also set up checks to ensure that our CEO chooses appropriate people as senior colleagues - the way the board may have a say in appointing CFOs and EVPs and Presidents, an independently elected board (aka "legislature") (and not a politically appointed governor) must approve the CEO's appointments.

And finally, let us keep it our own business to determine the laws and objectives that the CEO should enforce and attain - the way shareholders elect a board to set the direction for the CEO, we should appoint this independent legislature.

At lower and more local levels, let us again set up similar structures, like say a council of directly-elected representatives that decide priorities for the city, and a CEO mayor that executes those priorities.  Let us hold the board responsible if it charts bad priorities, and let us hold the CEO responsible if he/she fails to achieve the targets.

At the top few levels, we can maintain a decent critical body, like the shadow cabinet in the UK, or simply the opposition in the legislature, to continually monitor the role of the CEO and point out flaws that might go unnoticed.  In today's age of information technology, the media can play that role even better than the opposition.


The system I have proposed has been proven to work and sustain.  It will increase our faith in our representatives, because now they will be empowered to actually represent us.  It will help our executives do their jobs, because they will not remain bound by rules (or appointees) that nobody really wanted in place.

Those of you who have bothered to read this write-up entirely: I ask you why we cannot or should not switch to the model I have suggested, and if you agree with me, suggest how we can manage this transition.

Hope to have your inputs!

Greatness

It's only by seeking simplicity and service, and by shunning all pretensions of greatness, that we can achieve true greatness and lasting satisfaction.

We often think that money, fame, power will deliver success and happiness, and we keep chasing these, always unsatisfied and lusting for more. Hardly do we realize that not one of the great people that we admire from history - be it Gandhiji, Einstein, Lincoln, Tagore, anyone - looked for such kinds of success. Yet they are quite alive and matter to us even today. Even if Bill Gates or Tata get into history textbooks, it will be not for their wealth, but their creations. Why just history, even our fictional heroes - Superman to Singham - are admired for their service, not their self-centered achievements, like making a big house or a hefty portfolio.

Let us pause in this stupid race and reflect if we have chosen the right road to the right destination, and correct ourselves if we're just running after mirages and imitating the wrong models.

New Year Resolution: Be important!

Happy new year, folks!  It's once again that time of the year when we make resolutions, with full confidence that we are not going to follow any of those through... ;)  Just kidding!  I hope you are better at pursuing resolutions than I am, cuz I have one resolution to suggest today, in case you might want to take it up.

The resolution I propose is: "Be important".  Kinda catchy, isn't it?  Let me explain:

I keep feeling that most of us tend to ignore, and therefore fail to use, the wonderful gift of getting a life as a human being.  We just try to survive, spending away the precious 70-80 years of our lives in our routine chores.  We learn in order to earn, we earn in order to maintain our family (people who will also learn / earn), and by the time we think we've learnt and earned enough, we're done with our quality time on earth.  We are no different than ants and pigeons and dogs, who also live lives just around their daily food and instantaneous pleasures / pains.

I think this is a pretty pathetic waste of the opportunity we've been given: to enjoy life as humans.  We have been given the awesome power to change the world by using our brains.  We know that we will find great pleasure in bringing about that change and seeing people happier, yet we ignore/forget that.  We justify not doing this with our limitations of time and money.  I see this especially in case of NRIs and professionals: despite their better abilities and financial position, they spend their entire lives in the same old cycle.  It's so pathetic that we don't find time to do what we are made to do, what will give us the most happiness - immediately and in the long run.

So, friends, resolve to discover and use the human potential inside yourself.  Get up and change the world around you!

You'll have opportunities to make a difference almost everywhere you look, I'm sure. Guide and influence someone's career decision.  Change someone's way of thinking.  Bring education within reach of someone who can't afford it.  Make a product or launch a service that serves an unfulfilled need, or raises our standard of living, even if by a teeny weeny bit.  Find ways to utilize hidden or unused potential in people, say housewives and senior citizens.  Train people to deserve employment.  Agitate to bring about a change in a law.  Spread awareness about some good health practices.  Help your friends make money in the stock market.  Build houses.  Solve a family feud.  If nothing else, just find time to sit and listen to people who only want your attention once in a while.

Be someone who matters.  Don't be yet another ant or pigeon, whose presence or absence will make no difference to the world.  Touch and uplift the lives of people around you.  Be someone who made the world a richer place.  It will make you feel important, one of the feelings humans crave most for, right since infancy.  And you will earn lots of good wishes, which I consider as the main raw material for "luck".  Most of all, it will give you sustainable satisfaction, for you will be living a meaningful life.

Our days and years are too few and too precious to waste away in daily crises and efforts to survive.  Let us resolve to use them to make a difference to the world around us.

Once again, my best wishes for a fun-filled yet meaningful year ahead!

What do we really want in life?

What do we really want in life?

Now that's one FAQ without a single clear answer, isn't it?

Nope, I don't even claim to have the answer for you.  But I wish to share my thoughts here, and hope to know yours, and probably offer a single answer applicable to all.  And let me modify the question - what should we really want in life?

The most likely object people seem to be seeking is wealth.  At times people don't acknowledge it openly, but you'll find that money and material assets are the most popular objectives.  But that doesn't make sense to me.  I've hardly ever seen anyone satisfied upon having achieved this objective.  Firstly, rarely does anyone achieve his financial objective, cuz it keeps moving.  And then, even as he crosses his original targets, his discontentment remains the same, if not increases.  This is because we seek to be richer (than X, Y, Z), not rich.  It's a relative target, not absolute.  And as we upgrade ourselves to financially richer social circles, we find our new friends to be at our own or higher level, and obviously we again aren't rich enough.  As a peon toils hard to become a clerk and rise within his social circles of peons, he realizes that his new world is full of clerks, and he's hardly ahead of them.  I don't think we consciously think this way, but it seems the obvious explanation to the behaviour of many of us.

Satisfaction with wealth also hardly seems to give any satisfaction in life.  It doesn't assure that our kids will stay with us as we grow old.  It doesn't ensure the longevity of our marriage or even life.  It doesn't give us the social importance we crave for.

Well, maybe then a happy family is what we're looking for?  I guess having a warm and caring family surely keeps us happy, but it expects very little ongoing action or maintenance.  As intellectual beings, we need to keep doing something.  If a happy family is our end objective, I think we'll feel pretty incomplete or blank soon after we reach that level.

Social respect, or importance, or fame, is also something many crave for.  We seek attention from the day we were born.  Even rich people seek to get noticed by building and showing off weird-looking skyscraper homes, or naming universities after themselves.  Gangsters are also probably just fulfilling their internal desperation for some importance.  Politicians, after amassing enough wealth for tens of generations, still seek power, for power gives them the feeling of importance.  Some social workers do stupid things to stay in the limelight even after their causes have succeeded or crashed, because they're addicted to getting attention.

I am not sure if importance or attention will give us satisfaction.  It is addictive, for sure, but having it seems to cause more desperation than contentment.  And as I see in people who I think as successful - like Ratan Tata, or Peter Drucker, or Dr. Patt - they shun attention so that they can enjoy life more.  Their sense of importance comes from within only.

I think what we really should seek is sustained happiness.  I think this one is the winner.  This is actually the primary objective - it is for happiness that most seek wealth or fame or power.  Yet I don't think we realize that this is our real objective, because to achieve these superficial objectives, we compromise happiness very easily.  We easily give up the pleasure of listening to the sweet songs of birds or the coos of a sweet child or the smile of a customer, so that we can attend to professional priorities.  We do not realize how a kaka sitting outside his hut in a remote village can be happier than us, without having any iPad or laptop or even electricity!

So how can we achieve sustained happiness?  I believe we can do so by seeking happiness of others.  There is no pleasure greater than that found in making others smile.  Ramola teacher and Fr. Hector and Dr. Patt may not be as rich and famous as Mukesh Ambani, but they have inculcated knowledge and character in countless students.  Peter Drucker and Stephen Covey offered ways to be more effective, and win together by empowering and teaming with others.  Ratan Tata and Bill Gates and Steve Jobs delivered products that changed, elevated, our lives.  Interestingly, most of these received fame and importance, though they never sought it, still don't.  They enjoy seeing the effect of their work in people's lives.  They enjoy being in sync with their natural compass or conscience.

I therefore believe that we will find long-lasting satisfaction and happiness in life only if we make it our life's objective to see others happier.  Small acts of thoughtfulness and kindness and generosity, pleasant surprises to our friends and family, can lift our spirits every day, as our conscience gives us a thumbs up.  People who want more than a live-by-the-day approach can identify noble causes they believe in, and make that their career.  That may be building educational products for children, or researching effective management theories, or fighting the green house effect, or finding the cure to cancer - there are countless options.  Some professions have contributions built-in - doctors save our lives and health, pharmacists find cures to illnesses, civil engineers and architects build magnificent structures to serve our future needs, musicians create tunes to please our senses.  In fact, if we remain conscious about it, we can redirect almost any professional career towards making a positive difference in the lives of the people around us.

I am more confident than ever that people seeking others' happiness will be the most successful of all.  I hope you're one of those people!

Weekends & Productivity

My latest management experiment at Peach is the two-day weekend.

I have always wondered how people in the US and other developed countries, despite working just five days a week, deliver amazing output, at very predictable speeds.  I do realize that better education, superior management, different social traditions, etc. may be more influential in bringing about this efficiency; however, I have a feeling that a two-day weekend also plays a good role in improving productivity.  And, in fact, I feel that a two-day weekend is more necessary here in India than elsewhere, given our cultural tendencies.

I believe a weekend is supposed to be a break for us from the daily work routine.  The break should give us time to relax, reflect, and recharge ourselves for the next week.

Now I guess a typical professional here uses a one-day weekend to contribute at home (which is obviously tough on weekdays given exhausting work hours and the daily commute), spending time with family, buying groceries, eating out, repairing breakdowns in the house.  Add to that our countless social events - marriages, birthdays, engagements ("ring ceremonies"), katha, mundan, besna, what not...  In four months of the year, hardly a weekend goes by without a marriage to attend (btw today I have to attend two).  Now, a weekend is also the only opportunity we have to meet friends, cuz they're also lost in their careers.

Many of us manage to squeeze these priorities in a Sunday, but at a high cost - I find people more exhausted on Mondays (that's when I have maximum absences - we call it "Monday fever") than even on Saturdays.  Forget about getting relaxed and recharged for a new week.  Forget about reflecting on the week, and introspecting how we can do better, or learning something new.  Nope, it only adds to our exhaustion.

My hypothesis is that the two-day weekend more than doubles the effectiveness of a weekend.  And we deliver better output in a five-day week than in a six-day week (assuming, of course, that people are sincere).

I believe so because the two-day weekend is clearly more than sufficient to handle family priorities, social occasions, and fun plans.  We get so much time that we're forced to relax or think up work.  And that is the type of time we need for learning, enriching ourselves, and planning ahead.  Even an hour of sitting on the swing doing nothing, or a lazy afternoon nap, recharges us, as it erases the exhaustion of the previous week from our minds.

Work is also unlikely to suffer because people come refreshed on Monday, well-prepared for the week ahead.  Sincere professionals have time to simulate their priorities before they come.  As that they had enough time to handle personal and family priorities in the two-day weekend, they can focus on work without getting distracted.

I have initiated two-day weekends (on even Saturdays) at Peach, and intend to observe the difference in productivity in my own self and in my colleagues during the odd and even weeks.  This was the first such weekend, and I personally feel very rejuvenated, and am looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow.  I hope that more of us feel the same way....

Return to Innocence

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine shared her concern that maybe she's too innocent for the world.  Someone at work had warned her that it's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and someone might just make her a scapegoat if she trusts everyone, and she started wondering in what ways might people cheat her.

That warning might sound like common sense to us.  But I feel actually disturbed to realize that we find sense in being skeptical and distrusting people.

Actually, we must realize that this distrust is probably the worst feeling a human can have.  This distrust has killed millions in the past century alone - Stalin with his paranoia of even his own partymen, Hitler with Jews, and Mao with every intellectual in China.  It is not only stupid, but quite dangerous and destructive to distrust.  And it is quite contrary to our own natural instinct.

I think we were designed to be innocent, right from birth.  Babies do not know doubt.  They do not seem to worry who might hurt them, and go to anyone who radiates love and entertains them.  Not many babies end up getting cheated and hurt, do they?  We all know that babies mean no harm to us and have no hidden agenda to screw us.  Their innocent coos and smiles can only make us happy.  So our conscience prevents us from even thinking of hurting them.

We, foolish adults, ask them to unlearn this innocence, which keeps them happy and even protects them.  And then we teach them that the world is a nasty place and they'd be fools to continue trusting people.  

I strongly believe that we will not go wrong if we choose to lead lives of innocence.  Though this might take some effort initially.

Given that we're adults and not cute babies, there is a decent chance that someone may try to screw us, and their conscience might not try hard enough to stop them at first.  But that is when we should have the wisdom and maturity to tell them what they did was wrong, forgive them for it (infinite times if needed), and then trust them again.

Faith in God is also something that can help us maintain innocence.  First, God (as per most religions) has awesome abilities, including inspiring our thoughts, helping us through difficult times (generally cuz it's he who creates them for some purpose), etc..  So if someone screws us, it's just part of some plan, and we should take it easy.  Another way of looking at it is that God programmed us with innocence when we entered the world, so innocence is what we were meant to have.  Sure, we try to format that out, but his programming of our conscience at least tends to sustain longer.  We need to have faith that he maintains the same conscience in the people around us; nobody is intrinsically mean.  We need to have faith that he means well, and so will inspire only the right thoughts in people, so long as we follow our conscience and always intend well.

It may take a while for people to see the baby-ish innocence in us.  But when we keep trusting them and keep trying to do the right things, they will love us and respect us and care for us.  They will feel good and confident about themselves because we trusted them.  They will feel a sense of responsibility as they realize that we depend on them.  In process, we are strengthening their conscience, and tomorrow, we might even end up inspiring them to become innocent again.

As you can see, innocence demands some effort and a lot of character.  But it will make us feel good.  It will make the people we trust feel good.  And it will make the world around us beautiful in a sustainable way.

So let us resolve to love and trust people around us, like babies do.  Let's resolve to be innocent again!

:)