Introspect

Its been 8 years since my last post but today when I had an off day and had time to introspect I didn't want to go to Facebook and post it as an international problem rather felt at home on my blog.

Major part of the last 8 years has been career, marriage, relationships and touring the world. 

How do you confront someone when you are supposed to make a commitment that you know is uncertain yet assure the other person that it is a 100% done deal?. How do you start on something from -100% to 0 to 100%? I can understand starting from 0% to 100% in any situation. To create something out of nothing is genius agreed but how to create something when there is less than nothing, i.e you create a small component for a larger picture but it is snatched out at the infant stage against commitments you have already made.

From what I gather of the US culture of individualism we have the situation where to make your mark you have to get off everyone's shoulders including your parents. But I believe it varies from person to person.

My father and grand father had an ideology of life though they had very different approaches to it in principle they were same, they had made many great achievements by the time they reached the the age I am now. Am I in any pressure to pick up the mantle like they did when they were my age No. Do I want to do something that would make them happy Yes.

Am I analyzing too much and missing the action, can I afford to go out and do what I wish with responsibilities I have?

Spiderman said  " With great power comes great responsibility" and also what my Dad says all the time "Absolute Power Always Corrupts". So do i want to be the hermit renouncing everything? No.

I heard something peculiar when I came across a colleague who said "I am a Winner" this is commonly used in positive context to refer to the capability to compete and win in situations in Life.

In the context we were running against a tough timeline it was merely meant to motivate the group but for me it did not have that impact.

I was surprised at myself as to why I was reacting in such a manner, I was focused on surviving and existing for too long. Then I understood that why "I am a Winner!!" didn't make sense, because I was a Fighter and not necessarily a winner. I will fight with every challenge posed to me, winning or losing is merely a side affect.

Coming across people who have told me they have never failed in life, I believed they either convinced their failures were not their mistakes or were unable to see it when they failed.

I have always felt I have been honest about my failures in life and there have been plenty of them to chose from. I believe I learnt this from my Dad, no matter the challenge faced in life he has always stood up and faced not necessarily implying bravado but by not being bogged down by the circumstances. 

Every person carries a shade of his or her parents in manners most unlikely, I believe this is what I have from my father and I am proud to be a Fighter and not a Winner!!

Idle brain is a Workshop of Intellect.

Well this is primarily inspired from looking at life with a positive attitude. Generally the saying we use that idle brain is a devils workshop we miss the point that idle brain is actually a workshop and not idle in the process. As soon as we realise this just imagine what do we do when we are in a idle state and what the popular so called "thinkers" do. At any point of time a thinker I dare to assume plays back where as scenarios in his and others life. This visualization actually gives them an opportunity to evaluate various situations. Thus these thinkers either become people who become very calculated astutes who rarely put a foot wrong but a flipside to this would be that in an effort to find the response to any situation that would be idle they would not react only thus making them inert. This is actually what happens when people are introverts or reserved. Actually these people should be writing books on personality development as they would have visulaised many scenarios for people to act and react. Thus there is a lot of activity happening in an Idle brain which we fail to realise. Another strong factor contributing to this is the invention of the Idiot Box whihc people say is the primary cause of Devils workshop but even when we watch the Idiot box people have the habit of surfing through channels and even watching 2-3 movies parallely this indicates the ability to understand and assimilate data quickly. Though overall this might reduce the ability to concentrate on a particulat aspect it fits into the skill set of Learning quickly. Now in the Devil's workshop coming to the Devil's role I feel it is the strategy of people or rather prima movers in society to discourage other people from lower strata from using their intellect and not detect the ways they were being exploited. This has traditionally been the school of thought across cultures anything that questions tradition is considered evil. Thus they stem teh process of questioning by stopping the process of thinking. Be idle keep thinking and question everything. Hence I say "Idle brain is a Workshop of Intellect."

Dream Companies!!!!!!!!!!!

It has been 1 year and 3 Months since I have joined my MBA and some how the entire world seems to be revolving around one thing that is "Placements". I have seen people who havent been able to sleep, relax and enjoy life just because they are worried about what is going to happen in placements. Supposedly the best minds in the country when they feel so insecure about themselves it is suprising. At the same time there are people who are indifferent to such things yet their strength is miniscule compared to the others who are abundant. I am agnostic even in the sense of Placements I guess even if somebody offers me 1 Crore or I get a very mean job I wouldnt rejoice on both occasions as I would be equally confused on both occassions. Students come to institutes with brand name with a highly imaginative expectations and believe that they should get what ever they expect. Literally there have been instances where I have seen students who without even getting admission into the course come and ask us that "These three are my dream companies will I get a placement there" !!!!!!! what answer do they Expect.... you will eventually if you are worth it and work towards it.
Also there is a very apparent dichotomy for MBA's here is a course which teaches how to manage business yet the very scant few actually take to Entrepreneurial Ventures. There are MNC's promoting entrepreneurship or intrapreneurship but all more in their own interest. Yet somehow our brillaint MBAs are more interested in working for a huge Multi Billion Dollar Package than start a venture or start up which might provide sustenance for another million people or if not that much atleast give them the satisfaction of doing something on their own.
So the very scenario when the answer is so obvios is that the only Dream Company that anyone can have is the one that you own or are a partner yet people carry the false belief that there is a Dream Company in the List of Companies that appear in the Colleges placement brochure.

Me, Myself and My Three Mistakes

Quotable quotes from Jab We Met "mai apni favourite hoon"-Sikhdi from bhatinda
That should explain about me and myself and my mistakes are as follows:
Mistake 1:- I think
I have this rather unhealthy habit of thinking, thinking and thinking. By the time I realize that its the time to act it would have long gone. It is just that though I have acquired a huge amount of physical mass still feel nimble at my thoughts and these thoughts have no destination or goal and rather are like a radio station playing a track from Shri 420 to Love Story 2050. This wide variety though gives me lot of food for thought yet there is no "focused approach" to heavier things in life like "career,ambitions". Unfortunately I cant even call it "living the moment" as the moment would have passed in the thought process.

Mistake 2: I Introspect.(...I do a post mortem...)
Any action is always followed by a series of invasions by my first mistake(thinking) over and over again untill I am convinced that there were definitely 10 better ways then what i did. This introspection ...ahhem ...rather post mortem acts as a primary feeder for my first mistake and keeps the vicious circle running. I can here safely take the shelter of the society and the great pressures put by them on me due to which I have to do this post mortem...(this is where the MBA kicks in and helps cover my tracks)...

Mistake 3:- I Preach (... I guess this does it for everyone!!!...)
To compound the already confused upper compartment of my physical being whatever non sense that comes to my mind it just doesnt stay with me and has to be transferred to a third party and for this i prefer the dumb ones. As they are well trained from childhood on how to portray themselves as attentive listners. Fortunately this sought of writing medium helps my preaching to a great extent.

So effectively i have broadly identified my three mistakes and now again enter the "MBA(Must Brain-wash Anybody)" . As we have learned that "always try and convert your weakness into your strengths", a statement that is generally said as easily as it is difficult to do, fortunately for me I guess I have achieved it.

This is how I propose to become "focussed, ambitious and career oriented"

• Study other people.
• Post Mortem their mistakes
• And Preach on how they have screwed up things.

This infact would be the next big thing in Personality Development literature or PR Gurus. Thus I have aligned my "goals" to my "competencies" and not competencies to goals.

Before a branding strategy of Cynic kicks off around here let me sign off on this note " A person who knows his compromises for life and accepts it is a cynic and a person ignorant of these is known as an optimist". And now i declare campaign open officially "cynic cynic ......."

(The last couple of sentences was a post mortem(mistake 2) and this whole episode was a sermon (mistake 3) and I am still on with the first one)

Working Harder to make life easier

Always in life human beings are never satisfied with whatever we have. We are always striving hard for a better tomorrow in this struggle to make our life better in the future. It is often in this respect that we think that if we slog today we will be better off tomorrow. We want to work for 18 hrs a day so that in future we will in a better place with a better salary. So we deduce mostly everybody ruin their "today" working for a better "tomorrow". Would we be happy if we don't do this. Lets take Mr X who is from a middle class or lower middle class family who has no better ambitions or aspiration but wants to just lead a better life then whatever he has at the moment. So in the routine of life Mr X studies hard makes to be a engineer or doctor or any other professional course then finds an entry level job for a medium salary. This Mr X would not be satisfied with this life he would have achieved as he wants more so either he sees alternatives or works harder so that he can jump one step up. He wants to jump the maximum number of steps in his own lifetime for himself or family. Eventually he ends up covering the distance he wants but he never really has the time to wait stop and look at what he has already achieved. I think this is what may be most of us miss in ur daily slogging for a better tomorrow.

Vision, Mission and Goals

The buzz word for all corporates nowadays is what is their vision & mission. So most of the organisations have formulated their vision and mission without an understanding whether that is necessary for them or suitable for them. The worst part of it is that some of the companies believe that employees goals or appraisal should be linked with the companies vision and mission.
Consiously every individual knows that this is an unlikely scenario in todays job market where job loyalty is almost non existent. Exploitation is the underlying value nowadays. The employee wants exploit the chance given by any big corp to improve his CV and the employer is in search of employees who will give 150% in effort at 50% the cost.
Among this to develop a conducive environment for working is almost impossible. So to emotionally black mail employees we have concepts like wotk ethics and values which in actual are almost non existent. When the motivation is different for both the employee and the organisation they simply cannot work towards the same goal. The employee is either motivated by money or forms of respect like designation but either of these are not directly related to organisational growth.
So is it justified in having such vision goals and values that dont carry any significance? Well for one they atleast seem to help the company remain its identity and portraying politically correct images.

What's in a name?

My name is XYZ. I dont understand why such an answer doesnt satisfy people especially in India. It will be followed by a string of questions. What is your surname? What is your caste? Are you vegeterian?
I know it is the characterestic of Humans to be curious but not to the extent that it is really mean. I generally have the habit of saying only my first name but some how people cant accept it they ask “XYZ and what?”…. And my foot how does it matter to you. I feel that all fathers should remove their names from their children’s names. Though some may think what is the issue with an innocent question like asking surname? The ends meant for these questions are unfortunately not so innocent. The whole sole purpose is to find out whats your caste or from which region you belong. Then these people try and become smart by saying that i just knew that you were from that place.All crap most of these people have huge casts in their mind for people from different backgrounds or castes so they think that every person should fit into a mould and unfortunately if somebody doesn’t then they are outcasts or crazy.
In fact most of them use the same logic for arranged marriages. If we marry in the same caste or region then people can gel easily on both side. They miss the point that this logic has failed miserably several times in the past. I believe there is an equal chance of failure in marriage be it arranged or love its just that if people are willing to make it work then it might work and that is the only way.