What if we don't think of Changing?

Change!

Almost everyone wants to change himself, others, all also want to change particular service, services and many more things, was of doing things, beliefs, perceptions, way of perception. This list actually grows by leaps and bounds. Extremely rare cases of these change driven individuals are willing to change themselves.

What if we left the thought of changing. What if we think of keeping things as it is? The grass in lawn is as high as it was yesterday, color of the house or college or Empire state building is as it was yesterday and the day before that and before that? What if the water in the bottle on our table is same dawn to dusk? What if Obama remains as president in 2025?

You already guessed it right its impossible. Everything changes even if you keep a bottle of water on your desk. Some ml of it may evaporate and then get condensed on part of bottle uncovered by water or at least few molecules of water will interact with plastic of the bottle and the taste will change.

Everything is changing, air, river, see, trees, volcano, even us. Who wants to change something, the person eventually guiding the process of change that is inevitable. Let us guide some changes in to the end which help other human, animals, birds, nature, in turn helping ourselves.

What you think? please share your views in comments.  

A book review: So Good They Can't Ignore You - Cal Newport

You liked one book, you read about somewhere on the web. You send an email to your librarian suggesting to buy the book. Ten days after that you receive an email, "We have bought a book for you, Please Come and collect it."  This is my experience at NTU.

Just finished reading the book mentioned above. The book is named "So Good They Can't Ignore You". Cal Newport is an MIT graduate and Assistant Professor at Georgetown University. He writes a blog 'study hacks'. This is the first book of the kind(Career advice) I have read, which changed my view of career advice books. Now, I do feel that career advice book can also be good.

The BOOK:
'So Good They Can't Ignore You', such a distinctive title is an absolute head-turner. As a knowledge worker, after reading first page itself you understand these are not just stories but a research study. Cal keeps the spacing between the real world examples to the best possible.

If you have got any success in your life, you can relate with parts of book. If you have failures engraved on your past, you can connect with this book too. Here, I used word life because though Cal speaks all about career by my experience most of the prepositions from the book applies to life too. Examples in this book are vivid, encompassing more success stories than failures. The key point which separates this book from a lot is, it decodes success of the individuals. Success is shown as a step-wise ladder. [In real life we get to see overnight achievements, as we are unaware of efforts before that.] I think I liked it more because it has minimized the factor I don't believe in, the LuCk. No stone from a wall of success is formed by luck according to the author's research.

He has formulated four rules which take you to the freeway of Loving your work from heavy traffic of finding work you love. I will try to explain those rules in brief.

Rule #1: Don't follow your Passion
Here, he has argued [the same theory which he had already argued on his blog study hacks] that passion is rare. Every individual doesn't have it. Even Steve Jobs didn't had it, he proves with an elegance of a researcher. He went on to explain why you should not fall into trap of sudden passion finding or Job hopping[in search of an imaginary dream job]

Rule #2: Be so good they can't ignore YoU (Or, the importance of skill)
Cal proposed some terms which may not be familiar to many who don't read his blog, such as 'Career capitaL' and 'Craftsman mindseT'. In simple words it is giving utmost importance to every to every minute detail of your work. Example of guitarist Jordan Tice makes craftsman mindset clear. Craftsman is knowledge gatherer generating a bag full of experiences, career capital. He summarizes every rule with how to actually do that.

Rule #3: Turn down a promotion (Or the importance of ControL)
He explains how control is important, once you reach some plateau. once you have enough career capital, he terms control as a dream job elixir. At this plateau level if try to gain more control over your work everyone will resist from bosses to family and friends. They will set up traps so lucrative that you may sacrifice a control. Rule ends with a way to avoid those traps.

Rule #4: Think small act biG(Or the importance of mission)
Here, Cal comes down to explain what is mission and why it is important for creating work you love. What fuss can happen if you just think big without gathering a career capital. How you should take small bets to testify your missions viability and your capabilities to go for it or to change mission.

Overall, its a very good book for anyone who is developing his career or willing to improve himself.  

Thank You for reading.
Please share your views through comments.

Meeting Effectiveness?

Remember the last time you came out of meeting room saying,"This was the good meeting !"

Rare quality observed in our public/ associate relations is an arrangement of good - focused meeting. Meeting arrangement is an art. Similar to arrangement of notations, perfect arrangements realize intended emotions in the mind of listener. Perfect meetings will pass on the very acute pointing message, pushing the attendees to work towards the goal, towards excellence.

Let us discuss how the foundation of the meeting is layed out, how meeting is happened and how it ends. Let us discuss how bad meeting comes into existence stone by stone. 

1.  Meeting is not scheduled well in advance. (If you call upon a meeting in 10-15 min, and don't have any subject of high emergency then participants are frustrated. Participants will try to avoid future meetings with you.)
2. No Agenda- This is the worst thing when you schedule the meeting. Its the ship without the captain. Well defined agenda provides some frame of mind for all the attendees which in turn gives head start towards the goal of the meeting.
3. Punctuality-If your meetings does not start at the given time then on future interactions nobody will show up at the given time. This is called recursive effect and it will eventually pull down your reputation. Punctuality is not just about starting on time but also finishing on time. Yes, if you can't finish on time then that's BAD. Time is precious for everyone, some of the meeting attendees may have appointments. That means, If you extend your meeting by 10 min and there are 10 people attending the  meeting. This means you are forcing 10 people to postpone their appointments. And now if these 10 people delayed their meetings by 10 min with 100 people, and effect continues. Consider how many people are losing their punctuality because of you.     "Please start your meeting on time and FINISH it on TiME."
4. Wavered- Fluctuating from  the main agenda would cost losing attention from attendees. Its difficult job to concentrate(appreciate it!), if you fluctuate from the points then people may lose interest from what you are saying. (Do remember.) Also this causes extra time, hampering your punctuality.
5.  Meeting minutes- In 'Life Of Pi', when Pi reaches Mexican sea shore he says,"I was expecting a final goodbye from Richard Parker.(the tiger)" Yes, We indeed expect a goodbye from everyone. Meetings too should not end abruptly. There should be a smooth end. You can end meeting with meeting minutes and corrected by others if something is wrong. These meeting minutes can be a good starting point for next well aligned(with overall goal) meeting.

Wish you for better next meeting on Monday!

Please share your views. Don't hesitate to criticize.

Rape

The only consistent news I have read, since started reading the newspaper is sexual assault against women. The number of times I had seen the rape news is uncountable. But when it comes to the news I read about rapist booked by the jurisdictional system , the count hardly reaches 10. Delhi incident on 16 December 2012 and link of the events after that brought the sufferings of rape victims to the front page. My mind raised many questions to myself. I tried to give the appropriate, manipulative unsatisfactory answers to those.

Some of those questions were,
1. Is there a single secure women on this earth?
2. Those who say that she is the one 'who can create' (the best artist giving birth to new human), are they believing in what they are saying?
3. Where should I live, so that my girl child will get a safe and healthy social life?
4. If my to be first child is boy, am I supposed to be happy and content with it?
5. Why do men look at every other woman who pass by them?
6. They are not objects, they are humans. How should we teach our children to instill this message in their mind?
7. Many articles have said that Men should change? How can we achieve that? (How to change men)
...

One of the aftereffects of Delhi gang rape and link of events is that now in India at least some more rape cases are getting reported. Why did I say that, because the NGO's working to help victims of sexual assault often mention that the number of reported cases are the tip of the iceberg. Though we can't say that all the cases are getting reported now but at least some of them got media coverage. Media coverage have helped the victims to file an FIR or register a complaint against the rapist/s.This is the sad truth of police department.(I can't comment on the police departments of other countries)

I don't  know the answers to any of those questions. I know that if we men continue to do this then there wont be human race but something else. That something else would be similar to commercial chicken farm where some chicken only lay eggs, some chicken eggs are allowed to hatch because those chicken gain weight faster than its other counterparts. Similarly, human race will be converted to a men race where women are caged for reproduction and for entertainment. Are we going towards that kind of society?

We live in 21st  century. Most of the countries have officially accepted that men and women are same. They should be given the same rights, in greater part of the world they have same rights officially. Every women should know her rights and use them for betterment of herself and the society. You may connect this to education but studies can prove that no matter what is the color of her skin, no matter how much educated she is, no matter how poor or rich she is, no matter which side of the war she is supporting, no matter which country she is from, she is being raped. The worst form of global equality by human race.

Why women don't fight with the person who misbehaves with her, who tries to play with her dignity. May be they can't. Way of upbringing need to be changed. Why does she feel that she don't have power, She can withstand the labor pains.

Should we do these to protect our child from any kind of sexual abuse,
1. We have to teach our children the fighting skills like ancient times at very early age.
2. We must respect identity of our children as an individual.
3. Nobody should be allowed to touch them without their consent.
4.We should try to maintain a good communication with them that they don't need to hide anything from us.

Still I don't know, why does someone rapes another and how can they?

Please share your thoughts about the issue. If there are any mistakes in writing don't hesitate to point that out.

Performing live: pride, happy, nervous and blank

Live performance. My first live performance in front of 1000 people. Performed as Chinese drummer in Chinese new year ceremony. I am member of Chinese Drum club at NTU. Being a student of new musical-physical art I.e. Chinese drum.

Indeed it is difficult to learn new things. But this is surely an enjoyable journey. You create something soothing, astounding,  miraculous, easy to view but difficult to do/ create, beautiful, curvey, sexy, heavenly etc.

Last but not the least you may earn your bread with your art, once you are good at it.

Say NO !

Would you like to have an HIV virus?( In some other way, let's have unprotected sex sweetheart, unknown person offering this to you.) 

This may seem to be unrealistic, highly exaggerated sarcastic example. Its often observed we are forced to do things which we don't want to do. Your first can of alcohol or first cigarette or anything you never thought will dominate your livelihood. These are some of the examples of the situations where you wanted to say no, but you couldn't and then that scruple moment take its toll on you for many years thereafter.   

Particularly I liked the film 'Yes Man'. The character portrayed by Jim Carry is pale, sullen and alienated from all friends, family and his love. And one motto, one ritual proteges him to the bountiful of experiences, adventures and his altruistic behavior. The one motto was say YES to everything that comes to you. This ritual can turn out to be a camera that captures picturesque of ecstasies. Though saying yes helps it is impossible to generalize and quote that it will help every one. Every individual has his own identity, his own way of living and importantly specific solution for his problems, the solution in no way similar to solution for anyone else. 

Consider a person who has diversified experiences, which means he has already said yes to enormous number of opportunities. He is not in need of any ritual to open up. But this ritual may serve as catalyst for someone.

Even if this is the case we often end up in situations, where we wanted to say NO but to save money, time, relationships we said YES. And then we regret that decision while talking to either self or others. So here my solution is why not say whatever one want to say in the first place. Because if you gonna regret some decision(which you know in advance) then common sense says you should go the other way. For example you helped a stranger( lets say you lend some money), after that you feel 'should I ask for money or he/she will give by herself?' In such event this confusion scratches your head and the other party is sleeping sound. So instead of crouching your head ask and close the file.

In such situations our mind forces us to think what others would think if you do this or that. Primary function of your mind should be think what you will think not others. There are innumerable examples of this kind of behavior, I would mention just one more. Recently I read an article by psychiatrist, he mentioned one of her patient continuously thought about others and she was so frustrated that she didn't keen on continuing life with thinking for others, rather thinking of suicide. 

In case of hesitation confront your hesitation and do whatever you want to or don't want to do!  

  

lost in tension

There is a saying 'Be happy while you're living, for you're long time dead'

Why think of running every now and then, working for accomplishment of aims, Converting nights into days to achieve goals in time. These goals become reason for tensions. Attending deadlines. Not having kids.(Sometimes having) Car loan repayment, home loan repayment, non working new year resolution.By chance you achieve your goals then what?  become happy for moments, if goals are huge, become happier for days.

After that again comes new goals, new motives, new ambitions. Work like a beaver. No time to look anywhere else, one has to work, work and work. We lose innumerable sweet moments in this work goal cycle. Alas! left with achievements.(Only!)

We know we have reap that what we have sowed. With all that tension comes many free gifts some physical, some psychological. All that work, work and work mentality causes many problems. First lost health, a lot of tension and most important of all weak links to family and friends.

Achieving goals is quite possible without having tension. Try it !

 

Passion, Is it compulsory to have it?

"Passion: an intense desire or enthusiasm for something", Oxford Dictionary. 

Few words always have an mystic aura around them. These words usually have N number of meanings and seeding to N more. Simplest way to look around might be to find a dictionary or dictionaries. Does it solve your problem? Does it help you to come at some conclusion about the word? Sometimes it Does! But once in a while you are more confused about the word than were ever before.

 Passion is one of such word, I encountered quite a few times in recent past. For the sake of discussion lets consider the meaning of passion is something that is intensely desired. Children often go havoc to have some goods and parents feel annoyed about it. Does it mean child is passionate about that particular thing? Most of the time it is not in the sense we consider passion now. Today we consider passion as urge to achieve and this urge is not temporary, but its a long term urge we are talking about. Here I would like to mention that passion is  far different than liking for something. 

Lets not stray ourselves from main topic of discussion which irrupted due to all discussions of 'passion and work'.   

Lately I have read and heard a lot about passion.  Most of us are under the misconception that you need to have passion for going big, achieving top heights. I have experienced that many of us give advice as "You need to be passionate about something.  If you are not, you ain't gonna end up good." 

Is there any way to find out what I am passionate about? Whats the guarantee that if you followed your passion you will achieve fame and glory. Can any of those advisers put their word on it? No. 

Passion is not an object falling from sky. You won't get to know what you are passionate about  in a dream. The passion is one mystique word which is very difficult to explain. One thing is sure following passion wont be the good option to opt for. Rather we should opt for an option where we have some mastery of the subject. That would give much more satisfaction over the period.

So, If you have passion for something its good follow it thoughtfully. And if not don't be dishearten its not the only key to unlock your future, you can unlock it yourself with perseverance and excellence.