Abey George - My Musings

Price of Cleanliness

In the midst of a global pandemic, with heightened new considerations of sanitation and hygiene, there has perhaps never been such an advantageous time to impart upon the public psyche the need for cleanliness. There was a time when cleanliness was largely attributed to the human body primarily and to the clothes they wore. However the focus has now shifted and is now on surroundings.

While bodily cleanliness picked up its lost importance during the pandemic, the importance of clean surroundings have really picked up steam. One area of focus has been the disposal of household, commercial, industrial and most importantly medical waste. Over the galloping decades of development over the last century, one thing that was forgotten was, how to deal with the unwanted leftovers of development, not to forget what came out of personal use.

While we had always been scrupulous about the organic waste, we had conveniently forgotten the inorganic, indestructible like plastic and glass. These litters took up valuable space and made large tracts unusable. The smelly nature of the organic decay made us deal with that, not quite realizing that these in due course would become manure, and feed the richness of the soil. However, not so the inorganic wastes. Having said that, we have to realise that plastics are here to stay and the catch word is reuse, recycle and manage. Because, without plastics, not only industries but even individual life will grind to a halt. Let us not forget that the day started for you and me, with a plastic toothbrush.

The need for personal cleanliness, had taken a back seat over the last few decades. A culture of dirtiness had caught the fancy of a younger generation. Unwashed clothes, unshaven faces and unclean bodies, even gained the fancy of a whole new generation. It took a global pandemic, with a death toll to match, to bring to fore the importance of personal cleanliness. Though not fully back to the clean old days, there is a marked appreciation for the need to keep oneself washed and fresh. Another thing that people started noticing was the need to manage medical wastes. It is through these wastes that countless epidemics spread and unscientific disposal of these have been one area that had not been looked into.

Today, we, at least in principle, accept the need for a close watch on cleanliness, bot external and internal. Let is ensure that we pass the vital message on to the coming generations.

We certainly cannot afford another pandemic!

Being Realistic

This is a world of unrealistic expectations! Whether it’s the expectation of one complete satisfaction or gratification, conflict-free relationships, success in all we do, or being happy all the time we all fall prey to the sneaky lure of unrealistic expectations. So let us step into the fascinating realm of expectations and their duplicitous influence on our lives.

Expectations loves to set the bar impossibly high and make you feel like a failure for not reaching it. You will say things like, “You should have done better,” “You could have done more,” or “You’re not living up to your potential.” And if you listen to him, you might burn out trying to achieve the unachievable or never be satisfied with who you are or your accomplishments.

Realistic expectations, on the other hand, are grounded in reality. They are achievable and take into account our personal circumstances, limitations, and the complexities of life. While realistic expectations motivate and inspire growth, unrealistic expectations can lead to frustration, disappointment, and even negative impacts on mental health. In our fast-paced world, we want everything now, now, now! But life doesn’t always work that way

You unfortunately can’t control everything! Trying to control external circumstances or people often leads to frustration and disappointment. Likewise you can’t control what others think of you. To burst a large societal bubble, life has its ups and downs. Expecting constant happiness is like expecting Calgary weather to be sunny all year round: no snow, no clouds, and no smoke. Society loves to dictate what’s “normal” or “ideal.” This may be looking a certain way, having a specific body type or choosing a specific career and plan for your life. But guess what? You get to define your own standards.

Relationships are beautiful and wonderful, but they require effort and compromise. Expecting a conflict-free utopia is like expecting free ice cream every day. Relationships have struggles and conflict is inevitable. Having healthy conflict, however, can bring a couple closer; whereas unhealthy conflict can cause serious relational harm.

Another realm of expectations is change. Change takes time, effort, and persistence. Expecting overnight transformations is like expecting to become a pro golfer after one swing. Some typical examples of this is maturing as a manager, or parent; this maturing process takes time, effort and investment in education and practice.

As we begin to recognize potential unrealistic expectations in our lives, Let us look at the dark side of these unrealistic expectations and the havoc they wreak on our lives. When our expectations don’t align with reality, we’re often left feeling disappointed, frustrated, and unfulfilled. The weight of these emotions can take a toll on our mental health. Unrealistic expectations often set impossibly high standards, leaving us feeling inadequate and unworthy. Our self-esteem takes a hit as we constantly compare ourselves to unrealistic ideals.

Expecting perfection in our relationships can lead to constant disappointment and strain. Unrealistic expectations can put undue pressure on our partners, friends, and family members. When we hold ourselves to unrealistically high standards, the fear of failure becomes paralyzing. We may avoid taking risks and challenging ourselves, hindering personal growth and development. The relentless pursuit of unrealistic expectations can leave us feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. The constant pressure to meet impossible standards takes a toll on our mental and physical well-being.

Letting Money Carry You Away

A wise man once said, “It is not someone who has little, but him that craves for more, that is really poor.” Perhaps the best saying that reflects on the spirit of a reckless modern society. How many of us understand that money is only a mode of transaction and is in no way the purpose of life. Many of us voice the same opinion, but society has seasoned us to believe otherwise, within our minds. We believe that money brings happiness, success, pride and everything we desire. The truth is that more people today are subject to all sorts of unhealthy stresses in order to earn more, and this is a lot commoner than you would choose to believe.

There are six very visible symptoms that you are obsessed with money.

You constantly think, talk and discuss about money
You fail to see money for what it is and instead consider it as the end target of everything you do.
You keep comparing your finances with that of others.
You think of money to the point that it truly disturbs you, and you fail to realise that.
Your expense patterns are extreme, overspending and underspending being the pattern of your spending
You have more than one relationship, broken for money or with it in the background.

Why does money have such a grip on some human beings?

Since the concept of exchange of value via a form of currency was invented, money has occupied a very powerful spot in the hearts, minds and lives of human beings. Some have lived and died never having had much of it, some have literally given their lives in the legal or illegal pursuit of it, while others have lived and died with more than they could ever have spent in their lifetime and have still felt they never had enough. The reason that money holds such a power over people is that it provides them with power – to do what they want to do, whatever that may be.

Some people feel money gives them a sense of personal worth. They feel if they don’t have much money, they are not worth much as a person and if they have a lot of it, they are indeed of great worth as a person. That’s why many people associate the accumulation of wealth with the accumulation of power – the more money you have, the more powerful you are. And when people have a low sense of their personal power, they have an overwhelming urge to amass large sums of money quite out of proportion to their needs. No matter how much they acquire, it’s never enough. This approach also aligns with greed. A greedy person never has enough, no matter how much he or she gets.

Money, sex and power, have preyed on the integrity and claimed the lives of thousands of great men throughout history. We see that even here money leads the pack. Money itself is not bad nor is the desire to make money. Money is a necessary part of life, it’s just the way the system works. It’s a tool, and tools are neither good nor bad; their value rests in how they are used. Many people misquote the Bible as saying, “Money is the root of all evil.” But the verse actually posits that it is “the love of money” which is the problem. The man trap begins when we start defining ourselves by our material possessions – believing that money and its trappings are the answer to our happiness. It’s a small, but deadly twist in our natural desire as men to be providers and industrialists.

The problem with defining ourselves by what we have is that we never have enough. There will always be someone that has more money, a bigger house, a newer car and cooler toys. We convince ourselves that if we could just have a few of those things we would be happy, the race would be over and we would be content. But, it never happens. Even when we get the house of our dreams, soon a new neighbor moves in next door and builds a castle that would make the Royal Family jealous. And the cycle continues. Soon we find ourselves consumed by money, the slave, rather than the master.

Be Careful – Money is powerful. Its allure can lead men to do things that breech their integrity and eventually ruin their lives. So it makes sense to be on guard. Being careful involves consciously monitoring your attitude towards the money in your life. Are you feeling desperate to earn more, constantly anxious that you don’t have enough, or jealous of others’ success? Your heart might be going down a slippery slope. As much as we try to be aware of ourselves, it is always best to have friends and family that can act as mirrors for us. Ask those closest to you to tell you when they think your attitude is changing in regard to money and things. It may not always be the most comfortable question to ask, but it’s much better to catch a problem early than save your pride and fall hard later.

Do not let years age you

When we started forgetting the joy of being surprised by small things, lost the tickles of the silly joke, when we let go of the hope of the unexpected gift – that was when we lost our childhood. In every kid’s mind, there is always hope for tomorrow, unlike the fear of the next dawn that we adults carry in our minds. The unbounded happiness that the kid feels when he or she get a gift or a word of appreciation, was replaced by the sardonic disdain that adults feel, somewhere on our way here.

Researchers say that a child stops being a child, sometime close to his nineteenth year. They have given us myriad reasons for a child’s unique behaviour, justified their quick learning skills or ability to acquire skills and adeptness in shifting gears in accordance with situation. They have put their fingers on the right and left side of the brain, given a thousand biological reasons. Yet they do not quite have the answer to the simple question, “If the child brain is so vastly better, why doesn’t nature keep it going for the rest of our lives?”

Out there are a few amongst us, who keep being the kids, for all their lives. The zest they carry in them, every day of their lives, is truly unbelievable. The way they see things a normal adult wouldn’t, find pathways none would even think of and find solutions to problems with ease, matches that of the child, in its innovativeness, mixed with sheer simplicity. But the point of envy that drives me to the heights of jealousy, is the ease with which the fall of yesterday, stops hurting today and is forgotten tomorrow, and the joy they carry into the next day. I would not belittle it with the scientific rhetoric or waste time determining which side of his brain is at work.

In the words above, I feel, lies the answer to their ability. I do not have the research skills or scientific know how, but common sense tells me that it is the simplicity and rejection of all complications. They see things as they are and do not add the confusion that comes with experience, knowledge and “wisdom”. Perhaps if we were to do the same, without donning the caps of our own creation and discard the pretenses, we could give the researchers a run for their money, along with their all so un-understandable concepts.

Do not let your years submit you into aging.

When we forgot to dream

Haven’t we all forgotten to dream, asleep and wide awake? Dreams were part of our nights, sometimes as nightmares, and invariably as part of our wakefulness. We saw so many fantasies when we were sleep and theses in turn gave us a million possibilities while we were awake. As we grew up we saw, what we choose to call, “realities.” The myriad possibilities all disappeared and our “knowledge” and “common sense” took over our minds and imaginations. Suddenly, we had very few chances.

Dreaming is a natural and normal part of children’s lives as they grow and develop. Vivid dreams can appear in children as young as two or three years old. Many pre-schoolers between four and six years old have frequent dream recall, and occasionally terrifying nightmares. As children develop cognitively and socially, their dreams become longer, more complex, and more varied in content. Adolescence tends to be a time of intensified dreaming, reflecting the dramatic changes happening in their minds and bodies.

What about their day dreams? Day dreaming in kids is often seen as a method of escaping reality. However not many realise that these day dreams are the building blocks of the child’s future. There have been so many children, who had to take counselling to “save” them from day dreaming. Yet how many of these experts understand that, it is these day dreams that made us choose what we have become today – good or bad. So the importance is to induce a child to see creative day dreams.

As adults, we have no time to day dream. We have nightmares at night. We have forgotten that beyond the table with the countless pending bills lie a wonderful world full of beauties. It is when we get bound by the bill laden table that we fails to see the million new chances around. No we have left it for the night when we have horror dreams about the unpaid bills and the embarrassments of those. Most of us dream when we sleep at night but not all can remember what happened in the dream fully. Maybe a bit of it here and there but very few can remember the dreams in their entirety. In case you are among the fortunate few, you must be wondering what it means. Is it a sign from the Universe? Does it have any significance for me in the future? Is it a warning of some danger? Or is it a heads-up of some good luck I am about to experience? Your mind must be bursting at the seams with questions like these. Nobody can blame you for this. It is natural.

But let us first of all understand what a dream really is., Your mind is made up of two parts – the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The conscious mind, as the name suggests, is the part of the mind we are conscious or aware of. The other half of the mind, the subconscious mind is a database of everything that ever happened to us. It is a collection of all your memories, most of them removed from your conscious mind. Besides these deleted memories, the subconscious mind also collects and stores snippets of information, images, and videos that your conscious mind has never been aware of. This is something similar to peripheral vision – things that you see out of the corner of your eye without actually looking at it.

When you sleep, only your conscious mind shuts down. Your subconscious would still be active most of the time. Based on something that was on your mind just before falling asleep or even during the day, data is retrieved by the subconscious mind. This is similar to Google Search results. Every snippet of information even remotely related will come up in your mind. Sometimes, things unconnected also turn up. It can be information, image, or video. Your mind strings all these together in a story-like fashion to form a dream. Sometimes, you see these as they are – disjointed and not making any sense.

It is then left to you to decipher what you saw and use it to help you in your progress. Never run away from your dreams. They are precious.

Have we stopped learning, when consider ourselves educated

“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.” ~Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein through his quote is giving us an important life message. While in school we learn two type of things. First are facts and second are social and moral values. This would then translate to key social and professional skills. Later in life, even if we were all to forget those factual teachings, the moral values and key skills are expected to reside in us. Now it is up to us to take decision on moral and ethical grounds and use experience for natural course corrections. One thing should be kept in mind that there is a marked difference in acquiring knowledge, and having the skill to apply them in real life.

Learning, when institutionalized becomes EDUCATION, and is best described by the paper that certifies it. Like your degree certificate or diploma. A certificate of degree or diploma are documents issued by an educational institution, such as a university, testifying the recipient has earned a degree or has successfully completed a particular course of study. However it does not certify that the person who completed it is capable of applying what was learned into result yielding action. This then is the basic flaw in what is called education.

This quote from Albert Einstein is of immense importance in Indian, especially in the Kerala context. Kerala is the first Indian state that claimed one hundred per cent literacy. However there as some who claim, with irrefutable facts that, from that day, we have stopped learning. Learning, unlike education, is about what has become part of applicable skills, based on the knowledge acquired. As part of education you may do a post graduate course in a language, something your certificate will testify. However in reality you may be incapable of delivering one sentence without error. This has been displayed, sometimes rather embarrassingly, on multiple, very visible public podia. On the other hand, there could be a young man or woman, who learned the language through interactions and practice and who would speak flawlessly, without the need for certification.

It is time for us to draw the line between education and learning. Education should necessarily encompass true learning and not be confined to the words written on answer sheet. Let what is learned, or more ideally what you have chosen to learn be certified by your application. Let the answer sheet be but one among many reflections of your learning. Not the final statement.

There is comfort in darkness

Many of us associate darkness with fear. Darkness is foreboding and unsighting. Fear often is the expectation of something unknown and untoward awaiting, without our knowledge. Through evolution, humans have therefore developed a tendency to be scared of darkness. In the dark, our visual sense vanishes, and we are unable to detect who or what is around us. We rely on our visual system to help protect us from harm. “The unknown” is an inherent association that humans make with the colour black, as it prevents them from seeing distinct shapes and veils potential threats. This notion is imprinted on us from the time we’re children, she said.

However, thanks to modern technology, we’re now able to turn on the light and continue to have fun even at night. It also has in some manner, it has increased our fear of dark. It may be worth remembering that in a living setting, even rural, there is always some light in the background. There truly is never absolute darkness. Hence when the light go off, there is suddenly, a deep fear engulfs you. Thus darkness is still fear.

But not for all. Darkness can also be soothing. It is when you are not deterred with the disturbance of a myriad colours. It is when glares don’t distract you from your thought. It is when your eyes are at rest and so your mind can truly take over.

According to sleep experts, darkness helps to stimulate the production of melatonin, a hormone that helps you fall asleep quickly. It also helps to keep you asleep until you complete all sleeping cycles. Additionally, darkness also promotes relaxation which helps you fall asleep quickly. It is peaceful and quiet. After a long and busy day with a lot of sensory input, sometimes it helps “recharge their batteries” to just sit and relax, especially those of us who are introverts. If peace and quiet in a dark room is your idea of paradise, we have bad news: too much time spent in a dimly lit room is negatively impacting our brains.

It is worth understanding the fact that love of darkness or night; finding relaxation and comfort in the darkness. is different from insomnia. An insomniac is someone who has difficulty sleeping at night. Insomnia is a physical condition, whereas love of darkness at night, “nyctophilia” as it is called, is a psychological condition. Exposure to light during night time can mess up the naturally programmed increase of melatonin levels, which slows down the body’s natural progression to sleep. In addition to regulating our melatonin levels, sleeping in complete darkness helps lower the risk of depression.

Prehistorically, people would have been more at risk of being attacked by predators or by enemies when in the dark, he said. Through evolution, humans have therefore developed a tendency to be scared of darkness. In the dark, our visual sense vanishes, and we are unable to detect who or what is around us. In the real world, darkness often evokes thoughts of vulnerability, threat, and danger, and may automatically precipitate emotional responses consonant with those thoughts.

Life should be a mix of both light and dark. In light the knowledge, in dark the comfort.

Importance of Attitudes

Your outlook can greatly impact your health, social life, earning potential, productivity, ability to overcome obstacles and more. With a positive attitude, excelling in these various domains of life can become a much simpler endeavor—creating enormous benefits that can significantly improve the quality of your life. Comparatively, if you maintain a negative or skeptical attitude, you may not be able to access the same benefits.

A positive attitude may enable you to reduce your stress level, cope with challenges in a healthy and productive way, achieve actionable goals and maintain overall mental and physical wellness. Therefore, it’s important to purposefully seek methods of maintaining a positive attitude throughout your interactions with others, time spent at work and in your personal or recreational time. While this can be a challenging task, especially in the face of life stressors, it can help foster noteworthy advantages in your daily life and lead to increased satisfaction in your career, relationships and more. Maintaining a positive attitude can sometimes feel challenging, especially when you experience stressors or come across obstacles. Despite this, being purposeful about cultivating positivity in your life can lead you to experience significant benefits, such as professional success and increased overall life satisfaction. There are a number of concrete strategies available which you can implement in your life to nurture a positive attitude and potential growth.

Beginning your day with purpose is an incredibly powerful way to cultivate positivity in your life. Instead of rushing out of the house without eating breakfast, try to wake up earlier in the morning and use the extra time to make it one of the best parts of your day. You may choose to start your day with any activity that brings you joy, relaxation and energy. Participating in exercise, cooking yourself a healthy breakfast or listening to an audio book are all strong ways to start your morning. When your morning is more relaxed and productive, you’ll likely head into work with a calmer mindset and the initiative to take on the day.

It can be challenging to stay positive at work if you don’t feel comfortable in your office, at your desk or wherever you spend the bulk of your day. Try to lift your spirits by curating a positive workspace with calming decor, photos of loved ones, flowers or even aromatherapy devices. These items can help foster a peaceful environment, even at work. When you’re surrounded by reminders of positivity in your life, it’s more likely that you’ll be able to maintain a positive attitude as you move throughout your day.

Having an unpredictable schedule can lead you to feel more stress and less comfort in your day-to-day life. To avoid such pitfalls, try to come up with a daily routine that you can follow as you commute, work and attempt to unwind afterwards. Creating regularity in your life can give you a feeling of balance and decrease the possibility of experiencing fluctuating emotions that may lead to a downturn in your attitude.

In your interactions with other people, it can be helpful to reframe your outlook—try to assume the best of others and spread optimism as you converse with them. If you become a champion of others in your life and provide them with generosity in your interactions, it can lead you to develop deeper, more positive connections. Whether it’s with your coworkers, manager, friends or your significant other, shifting your mindset while interacting with other individuals can help elevate your positive attitude.

On a regular basis, try using positive language to describe yourself, your experiences, your aspirations and the other people in your life. Exuding this energy can help promote positivity in all realms of your professional and personal life. Not only will purposefully using positive language make it easier for you to transform your outlook internally, but it can also encourage others to view you positively, too.

On a regular basis, take the time out of your day to reflect on the things and people you are grateful for. From here, try to acknowledge your gratitude by telling others how you feel. Increasing the amount of appreciation you express toward others in your life can be a great way to bolster your positivity. When you visualize and describe the factors of your life that help you experience joy, you can more easily develop a healthy outlook and maintain it throughout your day. Gossip exists as a standard social activity in many workplaces. Despite this, it’s not a healthy or positive behavior to engage in—rather, gossiping leads to higher stress situations where others may feel unstable or unsafe. To maintain a positive attitude, you should avoid getting involved in gossiping. Not only will this keep you from contributing to a negative work environment, but it will give you the ability to focus more keenly on your own work.

Spare the Rod?

If you were to ask a handful of parents, how to handle a child’s bad behavior, and you will get a myriad answers. Parents across generations have tried spanking, yelling, lock in, depriving the child of favourite things or food, threatening etc. This has been a debate since civilized humanity started rearing children. This can be taxing, especially during the child’s late formative years, when he or she is exposed to external influences. It perhaps one of the areas that has merited and received the most amount of research time

Teaching children to recognize and control their behavior is an important job for the adults in their lives. How adults respond to a child’s behaviours has lasting effects on his or her development. It shapes how the child thinks, behaves, feels and interacts with others. It also teaches the child how to behave as an adult. Most researched show that discipline, rather than punishment works better. Discipline teaches kids what is acceptable. When children are taught how to control their behaviours, they learn how to avoid harm.

Punishment might work fast to stop bad behavior. But it is not effective over time as per a large number of researches. Corporal punishment as physical punishment is known by, also has been proven not to work in the long run. Moreover there are a thousand laws against physical punishment in and outside home or school. Today most schools where the use corporal punishment was previously prevalent, do it less because they do not find it effective. Studies show it has the opposite effect. Children who are physically or verbally punished are more likely to use negative physical and verbal behavior.

There comes a time when every parent and teacher struggles with how best to discipline their child or student. Whether a parent is dealing with a screaming toddler or a teacher with an angry teen, it can be sometimes be hard to control your temper. However parent or teacher wants to find themselves in such a situation and the accepted bottom line is that shouting and physical violence never help.

“Parents don’t want to shout or hit their kids. We do it because we’re stressed and don’t see another way,” says Professor Cluver of UNICEF

Rather than punishment and what not to do, the positive discipline approach puts an emphasis on developing a healthy relationship with your child and setting expectations around behaviour. The good news for every parent is it works.

A few guideline that are now being followed are.

Have one on one time with the child. Make sure this time is not encroached by any other concern. You phone, TV or business should wait for another time. This is the time for common activity with discussion going on. Listen and you will learn more that you ever thought you could know of your child.

Be a role model for good behavior. Be the model that you want your child to be. You cannot grow mangoes from a coconut seed.

Set limits and expectations. This is the time for honesty. This is the time where you inform your child of your limitations and to make him or her accept limitations.

Ignore bad behavior. This will surely raise a few eyebrows, but it is important to realise that the greatest accept of bad behaviour is by acknowledging it. It shows the child that his or her purpose has borne fruit, negatively or positively. Ignoring it shows the child that the bad behaviour has no acceptance and will not have any effect on you.

Praise the positives. Children thrive on praise. It makes them feel loved and special. Watch out for when they’re doing something good and praise them, even if that thing is just playing for five minutes with their sibling.

Use Calm Consequences, not fearful ones. Give your child a chance to do the right thing by explaining the consequences of their bad behaviour. As an example, if you want your child to stop scribbling on the walls, you can tell them to stop or else you will end their play time. It is definitely not the time to tell your child that they will receive a bout of spanking for it. This provides them with a warning and an opportunity to change their behaviour.

What is in a name?

“When playwright William Shakespeare asked the question, “What’s in a name?” in Romeo and Juliet, he was referring to the idea that names themselves are a convention to distinguish things or people, but themselves do not have any worth or meaning. While we can certainly understand that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” we do have to be careful with names and their meaning in the world of business, contracts, and construction. “This was a quote from Walter Isler, President of one of America’s premier building companies.

While this quote was a part of the promotional literature of a major project of this company it needs to be noted that a name often is the very source of pride and going forth ego in a human being. If someone were to ask you who you are, you are very unlikely to say that you are a human being. You may not even introduce yourself by your nationality. You will announce yourself, or may I put it as your SELF, with your name. And your family name if you go by the western social system. This is the norm now with a large part of the world.

Why does your name sound so sweet, probably sweeter than any sound in the world? I have certainly felt the tickle that comes with hearing my own name being mentioned. Let us first dwell on the importance that humanity has attached to NAMES. Our names are an incredibly important part of our identity. They carry deep personal, cultural, familial, and historical connections. They also give us a sense of who we are, the communities in which we belong, and our place in the world. This is why mispronunciations, misuse of our preferred names, in some cases even the title that precedes the name, can negatively affect and possibly hurt and impact a sense of belonging. It may even endanger very close relationships. The Mr. or Dr. or in an Indian context Sri. have found a place in our daily transactional and mentions without these may be considered a mark of disrespect or even as an insult.

Wikipedia says ‘A name is a term used for identification by an external observer.’ However to you it is a whole lot more than that. Your name is the holiest sound in your life, the epitome’ of all things important to you. All your relations are linked to the closeness of your name with that of another person. All you own is identified by the name of, not just you but by that of the person, who is your father. Every social, financial, legal and professional transaction you are involved in is indelibly linked to your name. Thus is the importance of your name.

However being overly attached to your name can have some negative sides too. Every identification with your own name is an indication of ego. However a quiet ego indicates healthy self-esteem, one that acknowledges one’s own limitations and is not afraid to show vulnerability and thus doesn’t need to constantly resort to defensiveness whenever it is threatened, and yet has a firm sense of self-worth and competence. But the ego needs to be regulated. The problems arise when it affects your decision making, your mood, or it turns you into a victim, an underdog, or it makes you feel superior to others in order to justify your behaviour. These things make you miserable. Your ego will fight this fact though, it wants to look at the past and the future to find trouble so it can defend itself. It wants to fight. It doesn’t want you to be at peace. Your ego needs an enemy – a situation or a problem to feel bigger or better than. This stops you from enjoying your life and accepting things as they are. You can, however, learn to accept how things are by simply noticing when your ego is interfering and gently bringing it back into line.

Always remember that you are not your mind. Most people fully identify themselves with the voice in their head. Have you ever considered the idea that this is not you, but just one part? This is the danger of unhealthy ego. This is especially so when you get upset, or sad, or angry, or worry, or fear the future. Your judgement will identify with the image of yourself that you carry in your mind, and not see matter for what they are. This in turn leads to a great many problems and finally absolute misery.

Have you ever considered one fact? You were never the person who decided your name. It was given to you by someone else, in most cases, your parents. While they may be close to you, they are NOT you. Sometime I feel that you may help yourself if you considered the option of reconsidering the choice of your name and correct it to fit in with your picture of your real self.

Having said that, tome, my name is still the sweetest sound in the world –to me!

What is in a name?

Having said that, tome, my name is still the sweetest sound in the world –to me!

Honesty and children

Honest two-way communication is key. By having an open and honest dialogue with children, we can expand their world view and understanding of others. Children often witness challenging emotions of others, the processing of feelings, and discussions of tough or contradicting messages. They can see things in their everyday life that we don’t want them to be exposed to. Our instinct may be to protect children from these experiences by lying to them or not being truthful. But by doing so, we can actually confuse them and make it more challenging for them to understand the situation and the people around them. By being truthful even when the issue is uncomfortable (such as death, divorce, therapy, disease, and so on), we can show children how to process these experiences, and teach them that even when things are scary, they can trust you and rely on you.

Never make a child feel as though they don’t deserve to know the truth. Even if they have the best of intentions, parents who lie or mislead their children about their circumstances typically discover later that their children disliked being lied to or misled. When you tell your children the truth, you’re indicating that you expect the same from them – and that everyone deserves to know the truth, even if it’s not what they want to hear. Things are not always as easy as a “truth” or a “lie” in kids’ minds. Make-believe is a very real part of the life of young children and I personally feel that the nature of a “lie” probably indicates how seriously you should take the “trick.” Was the “lie” told to have fun? Or was it to avoid getting in trouble? You would probably address these situations quite differently. If we create playful and hands-on situations to learn about what truthfulness is, before it is needed, then we can help the children distinguish for themselves what “telling the truth” actually means. This way they are prepared with the necessary knowledge when they are faced with a situation in which they are required to take “truth” seriously.

Based on many researches it is seen as interesting to observe the difference between adults and children when it comes to telling the truth. Adults are often quick to hide things, especially if they seem unfavourable or hurtful. Kids, on the other hand, are typically honest to a fault (and sometimes to the embarrassment of their parents!) and speak frankly about their feelings and opinions. What’s interesting, then, is the practice of shielding children from the truth. Not only is it a recipe for distrust, but also problematic on several levels. Finally, age-appropriate honesty is not only necessary but beneficial. By having an honest conversation with kids using words and concepts that they can understand, their world view expands outside of themselves. Kids live in the here and now, and are self-absorbed due to their emotional center. By being truthful even when the topic is kids witness emotional regulation, processing of feelings, discussion of difficult or conflicting messages, and more.

Do remember, children look to their parents as a model and example of appropriate behavior. And often what children learn is from what they observed, rather than what they were taught. This then is one reason why children should always be told the truth.

When time goes past you.

How many time have we been brushed aside by the changes brought about by time? Even when we stay afoot of happenings, time has a way of creeping past us, without us being aware of it. This is especially true in the new realms of technology. Isn’t it disturbing when you discover that the state of the art gadget that you purchased barely months ago is deemed obsolete by your next door neighbour, when he purchased a vastly advanced version of the same gadget, today? This is the trick of technology. The same could be said about information too. What was news yesterday is not even valid today. I daresay, when they come together as Information Technology, the lesser said the better.

However what catches you, in the worst possible manner is the realization that the time you spent thus far, in the sense that time is a resource, has not been well invested. Often people fail to understand that time is a resource because it is intangible and every day, the clock turns the same way. This for sure creates a sense of redundancy of time in our lives. This is a grave misconception of time. Time as a resource is the worst managed and least studied or understood. It is the lack of this understanding that results in the worst investment of time.

We often find ways of making up excuses for the way we spend our time. Sometimes, we do not even bother to do that, with the conceit that your time is yours and needs no justification. Have you ever said to someone “Sorry, I don’t have time”? Yes for sure because without time you cannot do anything. Reason number one, keep time because it is a resource and more importantly a scarce resource. Time once lost can never be regained.

As all resources time is limited. Let us not argue that time has always been there and will be there after us! The time here is our time to live and do things. That time is limited. If you have ninety years to live you probably have only three to four decades more to accomplish all that you want and anything that will come your way. This implies that you have to do the most in the least of time you can.

Reason number two for you to keep time is that time is money. I’m sure you may be asking yourself what is the conversion factor? Or 1 minute equals how many dollars? To understand this, consider people who are paid for working hours. They usually have an hourly rate. Or when you take your car to a service station and they charge you the materials and labour indicated in man hours. This should make you understand the money value of time. This conversion factor is not uniform or equal for everyone. When you need an eminent person for public speaking, his hourly rate is surely very high compared to the mechanic who services your car.

I said earlier that our time is very limited in the sense that the time we have to live is limited and it is the only time we have to do everything we need to do. We look at time relative to our activities at a day’s level. A day is only 24 hours and for sure because sleeping is mandatory we don’t have the whole day for our activities. With the recommended 8 to 9 hours of sleep daily, an active day remains with only 15 to 16 hours. I used to tell my students who often complained that there was no enough time to study that a day will remain 24 hours long. This is another reason we need to make the most out of the little limited time we get.

Let me end up here that time management is a behaviour we need to adapt to be successful in keeping our time. Let us not allow time to pass us by.

Where are the Values we upheld just a decade ago?

We talk a lot about the loss of values in life. We hear people pontificating on the importance of values and the perils that underlie the loss of it. But if you were to be asked, what the true meaning of values is, most of us wouldn’t have a straight forward answer to it. Moral values are the worthy ideals or principles that one follows to distinguish the right from the wrong. In a wider sense, moral values are something that teaches us good virtues, including honesty, truthfulness, kindness, integrity, helpfulness, compassion, love, respect for others, hard-work, co-operation, forgiveness etc.

Today we witness a rapid decline in these value in the modern society. This is especially so among the newer generations. Degradation of moral values among the younger generation is an emerging issue. The youngsters or adolescents are the future of tomorrow. Moreover, youth power is the driving force of a nation. But, now a day’s youth is adversely diverted towards different immoral activities. If we want to see a new world as a well-established and respected one, it is crucial to think over this issues affecting our future generation who is responsible for building a brighter future. The factors affecting this degradation could be, influence of nuclear families and materialistic way of life, breakdown of parental control of children in the families, influence of peer groups, gender bias, attraction of change or modernization, influence of mass media, lacking of learning positive atmosphere at school, lacking of co-curricular activities based on moral values, dirty politics, desire of self-exhibition, lack of academic syllabus related to human values, blind following of western culture, present examples of success in the society lacking moral values etc. Considering these factors and brainstorming against fighting these affecting factors is the earnest duty of every responsible citizen of the society.

Moral values are fading these days. The youngsters are busy preparing for their careers and enjoying their life. They have little concern for social problems or family affairs. The old people are often neglected. We hear cases of young people mistreating their old parents or even throwing them out. Due to the highly competitive life, the small children are neglected. The parents leave them in crèches where they are devoid of warmth and care. The culture is degrading day by day due to the effect of the western influence and movies which often mislead the younger generation. Middle-age people are struggling hard to keep up with their families due to the rising inflation and weak government policies.

Electronic gadgets and mobile apps have changed the methods of learning. Children are addicted to the online mode of education. As the effect of the pandemic is diminishing, they have started attending offline classes. But we see nowadays that they have less regard for their mentors and they are glued to their iPad and laptops. Gone are the days when students valued their teachers and had immense gratitude for them.

Our avarice and greed have led to low ethics and moral values, thus increasing crimes resulting in fear and threat among innocent masses. The divide between the haves and have nots has created a class of rude and arrogant rich class causing animosity between people. People in this information age are busy with their selfish pursuits and lack human values. Those who are fortunate enough to grab good education and a lucrative job, hold top positions and live the affluent lifestyle, hardly feel the pain of others and don’t bother about the problems of even their kith and kin.

In today’s modern world, the decline of morality among our teenagers is very evident. Three main causes were pointed out in this study: mass media, peer pressure, and poor family involvement. With this, there is an urgent need for an effective evangelization, and this is the task of contextual theology, a kind of theologizing that adapts the context of our teens’ culture. The use of contextual theology enables religious educators to use an approach which is characterized by the process of engagement. This process aims to understand first the context, together with the kind of culture that they are immersed and the meaning of expressions that they utter. After engaging, the purification of this sad reality begins by highlighting and integrating the gospel values, which is the life-giving spirit of the teachings of many great spiritual leader. Finally, this paper hopes to provide for future researchers a clearer perspective on how to make an effective approach in addressing this problem. This task is an ongoing endeavor not only for religious educators but also to those who are involve in the formation of our teens’ values. They can enhance and innovate the used theological techniques according to the signs of the times.

Alert! There are too many free riders around.

There are co-operative associations and organizations galore. A cooperative movement isn’t a brand new concept. It prevails in all of the nations and is a well-known idea. It is active in all international locations and is represented in all the sectors such as charity, social & child welfare, universal healthcare, etc. Cooperative movements are formed to protect the interests of weaker sections. It is a voluntary association of people, whose motive is the welfare of the society at large. Well-meaning people coming together to do well unto society, without selfish motives.

However, sometime it is seen more as a chance of making hay while the sun shines on a lot of other hard working and contributing people. It is seen as a chance to be in the limelight without venturing forth. Herein comes the importance of noting the difference between cooperation, collaboration and freeriding.

Collaboration and cooperation are two words which are often used interchangeably, especially in the workplace. Both terms are so overused that their distinct meanings have blended into one. They’ve effectively become buzzwords. But contrary to popular belief, they’re different!

There’s a small but crucial difference which impacts a number of ways work gets done in organizations, including how people associate their work with the organization’s goals, and how they see their work in relation to their colleague’s. Freeriding is, well freeriding. So it’s worth investigating the actual definitions of these two words. Let’s get right into it.

Collaboration is when a group of people come together and work on a project in support of a shared objective, outcome, or mission. It’s a photographer working with a designer to create a cover image, or the technology department working with the marketing team to improve their customer journey. It essentially is the coming together for common good, and not necessarily selfless, In fact it is the motive of selfishness that keeps them going on together.

Cooperation, while is essentially the same, two or more people coming together with a common motive, for greater good. There is an element selflessness involved and it is the objective and not the individual gains that matter here. Even in case of common interest groups, like a farmer’s cooperative union, while it is the betterment of the produce or prices, it is for not just those in action, but for farmers as a whole.

Freeriding is just that. Taking a free ride on someone else’s shoulders. Nothing ventured, all gained. Taking the fruits of someone else’s labour and input and enjoying it to the fullest.

So at the end of the day who gets what?

The collaborators know, how much to put in, and what to take home. They have accurate calculations and carry none to benefit them. Any load they carry will be for themselves. And no free riders get anything freely out of them. They are good for themselves, they take nothing freely nor take anything thus.

Yo! Free –riders. There are benefits of free riding that beats every form of coming together, hands down. The first is the need, not to venture anything, but to be there at the right time and seen in the best light. Of course since they hardly sweat they look the best. And since the ride is on someone else’s shoulder, you are seen first and highest. And at the end of the day, you go home with nothing lost, everything gained. Bravo!

Just a word for those who put in the hard work. You will never be seen, much less known. And in the end you will go home tired, your energy spent, fatigued at carrying the heavy loads of the free riders. Everything ventured and everything lost. May help you if you stayed alert.

Let us instill our values in Kids

Some of the greatest values in the world today have their roots in India. These values make an Indian stand out anywhere in the world as an epitome’ of human values. However it is noticed that these values, while being inculcated by most other countries, most notably the western world, are being forgotten in India. This is inversely proportional to the ever rising incidences of sheer intolerance, violence, misbehaviour and indecent social interactions. The youth of today have no qualms in using inappropriate language at any gathering, with no regard for the elders and women. There is no concern among parents when their children treat the opposite gender and social institutions with disregard. There is a clear decline in the values that made up the Indian social system

It is high time we recognised this and reversed it. Parents and teachers have to take on the onus of correcting this. Parents need to remember that kids start developing their sense of self even as babies when they see themselves through their parents’ eyes. Your tone of voice, your body language, and your every expression are absorbed by your kids. It would also be a great idea to catch kids doing something right and complimenting them for it. Establishing house rules helps kids understand your expectations and develop self-control, thus giving them boundaries of behaviour.

Teachers too can be effective social trainers. For this they need to listen well and be able to spot the strengths, weaknesses, goodness and unsocial aspects of a kid’s behaviour. They need to communicate strongly to the kids, and inculcate a sense and a spirit of collaboration. This will build a strong social base and teamsmanship in children. Another key to engaging students and improving their learning is to treat each student as an individual, by being empathetic and understanding to what may be going on in their lives

And most importantly teachers need to have unbroken lines of communication with the parents and vice versa. The more they communicate the more effective the bond helps in giving guidelines to the kids and correcting them. Listed below are five uniquely Indian social traits that are taking a beating of late and needs to be re-entrenched in young impressionable minds.

Respect for Elders – Respect is one of the greatest of virtues as considered by Indian culture. A child needs to be taught how to give the proper respect to the elders, including parents and relatives. Later in life, they will be more likely to be considerate of others when faced with difficult situations.

Ability to Sacrifice – Life is fraught with hardships. There will be many occasions where a sacrifice is necessary in order to make the best of a difficult situation. A child needs to understand the value of sacrifice. Essentially the ability to give something up for common good.

The need for education – Children should understand the importance of education if they want to become successful later in life. Indian values place a lot of importance on education as well. You should try and make your children understand the value and importance of good education. Develop within them a love for education. Once they love learning, success is going to be an easy achievement for these children.

Love for Family – It is often said that a loving family is the birth-right of every child. However, it is quite common to see children growing up and having a dysfunctional family of their own. This is simply because they were unable to learn how to love and care for a family. Try and inculcate within your children a love for the family by showing them the joys it brings.

Value of Perseverance – As mentioned before, your children will have to face hardships on their own when they grow up. They need to have the strength to persevere even through the most difficult times. If they do not have it, they will end up giving up in every difficult situation. They will never be able to face criticism or hardships.

These coupled with faith in God, Justice System, Democratic Values and Good Neighbourliness can make a huge difference in the social fabric, which unfortunately is taking a serious down turn in the modern world.

Fear Not – “FAILURE”

If you’re experiencing one of those moments, all looks lost, it certainly is the time to recoil. As long as you have the will, hope is never lost. Sometimes losing is the best step to a comprehensive win. One that will bear you through life on its shoulders.

The secret of life is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.” — Paulo Coelho

Let us face it. There WILL be failure in life, big or small. It is impossible to live without failing at something or the other. That is unless you live so cautiously or in constant fear. That means that you might as well not have lived at all. That essentially means that you have failed by default. Risk taking is what life is all about, even your life is just a chance. When you venture to take risks, you do so knowing that there will be times when you succeed, and there will be times when you fail. The true success is in realizing that both are equally important.

“I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” ― Michael Jordan

Failure is a part of the process called life. It is just the first lesson to learn to pick yourself back up and on to your feet again. Even Confucius said that our greatest claim to glory will not be in never falling or ever failing, but in bouncing back, every time you fall. It may be good for grownups to watch little children. Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most of us adults are so afraid, so cautious, so ‘safe,’ and therefore so shrinking and rigid and afraid that it is why so many humans fail. Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure or fate as they would choose to call it.

And worse still are the excuses we find in times of failure. Rather than accept the fact that you just failed, you tend to find reasons to convince others that your failure was not truly due to you but due to unique reasons, beyond your control. This invented piece of untruth will nevertheless shine through and expose you. If you fail, admit you did and add that you had learnt a lesson from it. That makes you, in every way, respect worthy.

Just remember that when you give yourselves permission to fail, you are, at the same time, giving yourselves permission to excel and win. It’s only when you risk failure that you discover things. When you play it safe, you’re not expressing the utmost of your life experience nor your skills and talents. This means that one who falls and gets up is stronger than the one who never tried. Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying.

As JFK rightly put it – “Only those who dare to fail miserably, can achieve greatly.”

Are we all going down a lonely path?

While thinking of loneliness, typically adult loneliness, most of us think of senior people. Even the media typically has focused its attention on the seniors of our community….many of whom genuinely are lonely! Yet there are aspects of loneliness that are truly missed and we are all lonely in the modern world. The reality is that younger adults and midlife life adults all can – and do – face loneliness as they go through significant life changing situations. For some adults one event can create extreme loneliness, whereas for others it’s the accumulation of so many problems or perceived failures that brings on loneliness.

Let us face it, adulthood, especially late adulthood is not easy and it is often a lonely experience…regardless of whether you live alone or among an expanding family. It’s the time you might be facing your greatest relationship break-ups, or the greatest financial problems. As an adult you might be experiencing the greatest fear over your own and the mortality of others, as you see so many people around you critically ill, and dying….some of the hardest deaths being your spouse, parents and your own children. Your significance in the world changes…your best friends, and good colleagues, come and go… and you have perpetual change, beyond your ability to cope at times.

Our hearts do go to those of you in adulthood whose loneliness lingers and often becomes entrenched. What often makes it harder for you to get over your loneliness is that you feel you have to be responsible for yourself and as a matter of pride you don’t seek help. Sometimes you do take “pithy advice” from well-meaning friends, magazines, website articles… and when that doesn’t work, you feel an even greater sense of loneliness…and often failure. One of the challenges of adulthood is understanding your uniqueness – that we are a product of our childhood experiences, our current and past support systems and our habitual patterns of thinking about ourselves and others. Advice that works for one isn’t necessarily going to work for all.

In fact if you truly feel lonely and even if you suspect others might be lonely, and they stoically say they aren’t, it’s worth understanding adulthood and loneliness better. Adulthood is about the following things.

Feeling huge responsibility for the lives of children, spouses, and elderly parents.
Feeling a failure all your friends seem to have better lives and your problems seem forever.
Being scared of the possibility of illness, weaknesses and even terminal diseases and the resources to battle these
Perpetually anxious of the progress in life. It may seem that no matter how hard you work you aren’t making headway.
Struggling with having to make life changing decisions.

Feeling socially isolated occurs when people, are not connected into their communities in a meaningful way. Society, other people and we ourselves unwittingly contribute to loneliness. You feel significant pressure to have achieved more in your life by your current age, and you feel you are measuring short when comparing to others.

You are socially shy and instead of only having people of a similar age and set of situations to engage with, you are struggling to engage with wide ranges of people all at different points in their lives. You lose emotional support from siblings in particular, and other family members or close friends. Another very real reason is your spouse or long term partner leaves you or dies, and unexpectedly you have to transition to a life of living alone.

Another modern situation that is very common is the juggling between looking after your children, your elderly parents and holding down a full-time job. You have been so hurt and disappointed by others that you start resenting people in general.

It may be worth understanding that there are no ready fixes. The only person who can sort this out for you most, is yourself. Take time to give a though for your feelings. Plan new ventures, like a trip to your estranged college friends. Try writing, it helps. And if at the end of it all, it still haunts you, go see an expert. It can get really bad if it keeps growing.

Not all friends are true friends

Betrayal in personal relationships refers to the violation of your trust by someone close to you. Be it a friend or relative, it tends to hurt you. Friends have a great role to play in every life. Friends are important to have for our physical and mental health. For example, science says their caring can reduce your stress levels and gives you a sense of belonging. The longer your friendship, the deeper you feel. However when a friend crosses the line, their betrayal can be devastating. So, it makes sense that a person might not be as open to future friendships after such a hurt.

True friends are usually those who offer you support, improve your quality of life, promote self-confidence, provide honesty and unconditional love, and help you progress mentally. It often takes time and effort to foster deep, healthy friendships. You might find new friends at schools, colleges or workplaces. Most often they are the ones who share your interests and values. Having a real friend can provide comfort, safety, and companionship.

Yet it is when the friend betrays you or puts you in spots of bother, that you feel totally devastated. Especially, if the bondage has held over years and you yourselves have committed a great deal in nurturing it. It is only natural that when someone you have helped and offered support, betrays you, that you feel absolutely defeated. In fact this even affects your physical wellness. Life teaches you a few lessons and I have tried to enumerate a few of them

We have at one point of time or other disagreed with our friends and been angry with them. If we are angry at our friend, we may badmouth them to another friend. That’s understandable. But if a “friend” is talking trash about you with the intention of spreading rumours or trying to change people’s perception about you, buddy, that’s not your friend. If you care about a person, you will never try to hurt their reputation.

Real friends won’t ask you to ditch your wardrobe or change the way you speak just because they consider it unfashionable. Real friends will instead help you be your best self and appreciate your choices. On the other hand, fake friends will make sure you always fit into their definition of stylish and trendy, or within their idea of the perfect member of their social group, or they bid you farewell.

Fake Friends will be intensely jealous of your accomplishments, unless it benefits them. There is even a great chance that they may try to deprive you of it, if they can. This is the kind of friend that you certainly need to watch out for. Remember that a true friend will be genuinely happy to see you succeed and flourish at all times. A fake one will have a sour mind in your presence and a sour one when you are not around.

And the ones to watch out for the most. The ones who come only when they see gains out of you. Fake friends will only contact you when they need you. Keep in mind fake friends will only be only be physically present when they need something from you.

Value of Life’s hard lessons

It’s true that life never gets easier, and we only get continuously better at our lives. Childhood’s lessons are simple. As we get older, lessons keep coming, and though they might still remain simple in their message, truly understanding them can be difficult. Often we learn the hard way. The good news is, the “hard way” is indeed a great teacher. Learning the hard way often involves struggle, mistakes and failure. While these feelings are undeniably uncomfortable, being patient and persistent enough to move through them often leaves us not only wiser in having gained the lesson, but more confident, assured and emotionally resilient. If that’s not growth, I don’t know what is.

If you were to ask people to share their own life lessons “learned the hard way,” and the answers, though varied, all touched on something useful that everyone can probably relate to. Especially those of us who have had the blessing of living long enough to gain a lot of hard-won knowledge. I have tried to enumerate some of the best lessons that all of us either have learned, are trying to learn or will learn soon enough. Reading them isn’t necessarily the same as experiencing them, but there is still some comfort in knowing they are all part of what it means to be human.

Learn to love others, but do not forget that you are a person too. No one understands you as well as you do and the first person who can address your problem is you. So do realise that you need to learn to love yourself. If you don’t, no one else will. This is a lesson that I learned through years of hard learning. Every time I forgot myself, I learnt that everyone else did too.

What stops you from bringing out the very best in you is fear of failure or criticism. This fear can stem from a number of sources. Sometimes it might emerge in response to a specific situation. In other cases, it might be related to your own anxiety. In addition to emotional and behavioural symptoms, people with a fear of failure may even experience physical symptoms. It would help if you set out on something with clearly set pathways and clearly defined objectives. I may also help if you reassessed you strategies. But most importantly do remind yourself that EVERYONE fails. Learn to forgive yourself for defeats.

Always remember that not everyone will like you for doing the right thing. Even the very best deeds done with the clearest of conscience will still have people disliking it. Not everyone sees life the same way, especially when it is done with a far reaching objective. I have learned that the only thing to do about it is to ignore them, as long as you know your way forward is the right one. Your ears can occasionally be given the tine to shut down.

One thing that I remember with vivacity is that time does not heal all wounds. Most days get better but you’ll always have days where you feel it all over again as if it just happened and you can’t do anything about it except to ride it out. Let the tide wash over you and let go of it. Keep it in mind that no sadness or feeling of shame is permanent.

And do not forget your health – physical, emotional and financial are your responsibility. Loss of any can be irretrievable, most of the time. Be responsible.

Life’s hard lessons

Life is not easy when you are pursuing something worthwhile and ready to learn from the best experiences. Most of the time, we learn the lessons from the old and wise as they have already been where we are and have done what we do. But we hardly take their advice in advance. We never think of this as a precaution. We always learn it from our life and rarely does life teach us something in an easy way. It always takes tests and then fails us to learn anything worthwhile.

One of the worst lessons one learns is that of trust. As a new starter one tends to trust those who have been there before. Trust is a good thing if managed with rationale. However if something does not make sense to you, it may be prudent to at least ask a few questions about it. It is worth remembering that you need not necessarily be a welcome guest at every gathering and to all around. There may be a few whispers around you and theses if not met with can be an obstacle on your way forward.

Another serious problem can be discouragements. People usually get discouraged when it takes more time than they thought it will. One thing to keep in mind is that people have to, at this time, refer only to people who have already achieved what you want to be, which most people fail to do. They look at other unsuccessful people and apply those criteria to them even before they take action. Look at any successful person and you’ll notice one thing common in all of them. They took time to learn and mastered their craft like no one else. There is no elevator to success; you have to take the stairs.

Very few people take their health seriously. They know that if their health is lost, they won’t be happy, still they eat junk food and never exercise, keep accumulating fat and keep spending on weight loss programs. Still nothing works. Why? Because they don’t take their health seriously and the real reason behind that is they have got it for free. We spend thousands on cars and take care of them nicely. Imagine what would have been the price of human body if we had to pay for it? And then imagine how well we would take care of it if we had paid a huge amount of money to get our body.

We are too scared to fail hence, we follow the same path that everyone suggests, do the same thing everyone does, take the same career path everyone takes, wear the same clothes everyone wears, and hang out with the same people we work with. Why? Because we are scared. But when you get bored of life, you realize that you are not meant to do what everyone does and that your destiny is different than anyone else’s out there in the world. But the price we pay to realize this is high because it takes a tremendous amount of guts to follow your own trail by listening to your heart.

It's never too late

Life is a series of events and our responses to it. We may respond actively to these or we may passively ignore them. No matter what, it is these events and our responses to them that determine the net results in our life. Then, there are the assessments and valuations of our achievements in life too. We all have dreams and these assessments are based on how far we have gone in reaching the dreams. And then comes the real possibility of us changing our priorities and thus changing the very shape of our dreams. And finally we associate these achievements with our age, time lost and what we assume, we have left.

As the saying goes, “age is just a number,” and it’s actually just a measurement of time lived. We often associate our age as a timeline for our goals. It’s when our goals aren’t met that the instant feeling of failure comes trickling in. The essence of time is not to be used as a set goal but instead as a guideline. Life happens simultaneously and at a different pace for everyone around you. There’s a huge difference between getting distracted by life’s misfortunes and letting those moments define you versus becoming aware of them and finding an alternative route.

There is always the comparison of Time vs. Money. Our reckoning of the money value of our time is often of your own making. We want to reach a financial level that matches our dreams. And when we don’t necessarily match up, we feel disheartened and even use this very shortage as an excuse for doing nothing. In fact most we forget that opportunities are in fact more important than the abundance of money. We often let money dictate the way we live our lives and often let money dictate the way we live our lives.

Another excuse we find for inaction the one of time lost. I had an opportunity once upon a time is a quote that we have heard every so often. This is probably an excuse or way to avoid doing anything now. Starting tomorrow is an even greater setback, and by pushing your personal goals to the side, you are subconsciously letting your brain know that it’s not of importance. Your goals always matter and hold value. It surely helps if you look and see if it’s a particular habit that is preventing you from going forward with your goals or reflect on where you are spending most of your time.

The best way through this self-created trap is to start “today”. Start small and build. You can never never build from the top downwards.

Thus to the dust we will return

As we sinned thus we pay.

There is a time in every year where we remind ourselves the truth that we are less than perfect. We have once been redeemed by the blood of He that was fully human and yet fully divine. Lent is a period when we tell ourselves that all that we hold are not rightfully our own but the bestowal of the One. It is the time when we teach our mind and body that by giving up something that is a source of enjoyment, we discipline ourselves to fit in with the divine plans.

Lent is the season of the church year that follows the Epiphany Season. It is a time we set aside each year to remember the love of God that is poured out through Christ Jesus on the cross in His death; and His defeat of death. It also is about sin and the maker of sin, rejoicing and being wholly beaten in Christ’s death. And most importantly it is about resurrection that brings Eternal Life to you. This season has a penitential character, a solemn nature to it. This is to help us remember to be repentant and remind us of our sin and our mortality.

However, there are some who see this as a period to torment oneself. They see this as an opportunity to drive a bargain with God. There are also some who want to seek approval from others, in their devotion. It may be worth reminding ourselves that Good Friday is thus named, because it is the happenings of that day that saved mankind from the clutches of sin as visited upon us by the evil one. This is why it is not called Sad Friday. So while penitence is the call of the day, torment is most definitely not. Simply because two wrongs do not add up to be a large Good. The Lord asked us to remind ourselves of our mortality, and the sins we have done. Not to kill ourselves.

When you give up a comfort that you love, you are sacrificing an enjoyment. It is a way to tell ourselves that we are all subject to temptations and it just takes our devotion and willpower to escape from these. Lent is observed in almost all Christian traditions in various forms whereby some abstain from meat, dairy products and fish, some from meat and dairy products and some by not eating an entire meal or two the whole day. There are others who abstain from something they otherwise do the entire year round. This could include abstaining from drinking alcohol, and not doing any leisurely activity. Abstinence from something or the other forms the back bone of lent this way. The aim of lent is to make the body starve from something which in some way or the other is perceived as a luxury to the self or which is unavailable to someone else.

This is more in absorbing the message than in presenting it as a ritual that the true essence of the lent fasting lies. Let it not be just a deal with the Divine. Let it be a way to teach ourselves the truth of our very existence.

Let there be light in all our lives.

Why ‘spiritual’ is not always ‘religious’

We live in an era when there is much turmoil in the names of divisive concepts. Much hatred has been spewed forth, in the name of religion and faith. We have chosen to be more insular than ever before and hate them that we rubbed shoulders with, just a few years ago. Places of worship, where one sought peace of mind, have become places where we gather together to learn and live hatred to others. He that made us all, has been given names, and the fight now is about which name is right and which worship is true. We often forget the fact that the Almighty seeks not your ceremonies, but the goodness you hold in your heart. Even the right minded, who still believe in universal brotherhood have started to perceive any form of spiritualism as the first step to hate and discord.

But have we really understood the true meaning of spiritualism, as opposed to religiosity? The fact is very few of us have given this a thought, even the so-called intellectuals. While on one side the war cries ring, the other side abhors all forms of spiritual thinking as bad. It may be worth reminding ourselves that while spirituality and religion are often used interchangeably, the two concepts are different. I, on deep reflection contend that spirituality involves a personal quest for the power of God within you and seeking the meaning in life, while religion involves an organized entity with rituals and practices focusing on a higher power or God. In short, while God being central in both forms, is understood differently.

Religions are based on ceremonies and practices. It is when these ceremonies come as conflicting with those of others it becomes a source of contention and disagreement. This can even become bloody conflict, if the ceremonies of one faith interferes or causes disruption to those of another faith. There has been large scale conflict and bloodshed in the name of these. Likewise the occupation of sites of religious interest by more than one faith, property of antiquity can also be the root cause of violent disagreement. History tell us about killings by wild sword yielding war mongers in the name of religion, always staying in the belied belief that killing for God is a great deed that will be bestowed the blessings of divinity.

In a spiritual pursuit, a man sees himself as a reflection of the Almighty. He understands that by sticking to the narrow pathways as cited in the words of Holy books, he grows ever closer to Truth. Having faith in the goodness within, has been the hall mark of those who adorn the realms of greatness in history. While war-mongers are remembered too, they are seen only as killers and not ideals to be followed. There is a line of thought that history belongs to the victors. History may be so, but never the social system. Society always take up what is the path of least resistance, and without bloodshed. It is here that culture is formed, thus shaping civilization. So while the victor with blood in his hands may be mentioned, he does not shape the life of them that come after.

Reflecting upon one’s own deeds and evaluating its effect on those around is the first act of spirituality. If you feel that your own deed cause pain to other, or misled someone, and you take up the onus of rectifying the same, you have begun the spiritual journey. Reaching out to those with clouded vision and giving them the true vision is the starting of a spiritual sojourn. Regardless of which faith you follow, what name you address the Almighty with, the roots of all spiritual pursuit is the congenial existence of humanity in love and harmony. It is when mankind stood up for one another that we moved forth from bestiality to humanity.

What is surprising though is the fact that, with all the knowledge and technology at our behest we actually have started slipping down and back into the pathways of bloodshed, which we came out of through the centuries. It is surprising that with all the knowhow, we use the same not to save lives and improve livelihood, but to gang up to kill. It may be worth trying to use these achievements to bring the true spirituals together and spread the message of love around.

We can always dream, can’t we?

New Year…. Some reflections

When we get ready to shed the burdens of a year gone by, into the blinding flares and firework, filled with the promises and unseen prospects of yet another gift of 365 days, there are a few things we, unfailingly every one of us, feel we could have done differently in the same number of days gone by. Mistakes that happened, miscalculated steps that misfired or imagined plans of progress and wrongly perceived fears that never materialised. In fact almost every mind that awaits a new year, would choose to look backward with an eye of a critique’. No one really cares for all those things that we managed to scrape out of nothing, those occasions when we crawled out of the pit. In fact we only look at the victorious stand we took on the podium as success, not at how we succeeded when disaster stared at us.

We also look back at those around us and find that there are more complaints than gratitude – back and forth. We look at the pains caused by those close to us with magnifying glasses. This is when one gets reminded of the fable of the porcupine. The Fable of the Porcupine is a tale of the coldest winter ever. Many animals died because of the cold. The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided to group together to keep warm. This way they covered and protected themselves; but the quills of each one wounded their closest companions. After a while, they decided to distance themselves one from the other. And they started dying, alone and frozen. So they had to make a choice. Either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the Earth. Wisely, they decided to go back to being together. They learned to live with the little wounds and pains caused by the close relationship with their companions in order to receive the warmth that came from the others and their togetherness. This way they were able to survive. The moral here is that the best group is not the one that is made up of perfect friends, brothers, sisters and relatives, but by each individual member learning to live with the imperfections of others and yet admire the other person’s good qualities.

We sure were hurt by others but none had hurt us more than we did to ourselves. Most of what came upon us were the fruits of what we did to ourselves. In fact we often forgot what our strengths were and instead of reaping the fruits of those strengths, went out of our ways to fight weaknesses, that we had no control over. And when we lie wounded or tired, most ignored us, pretending not to see. And at least some took chances at poking us, painfully, for easy gains and sometimes just for the sadistic delight in seeing the pains. These we carry forward, vengefully, forgetting that there were a few who came forth with hands of love. The law of nature says that hatred always precedes love, sorrow over happiness and fear over confidence. This is why looking back can be painful, and sometimes not quite useful. And ultimately we forget what we are and what we actually possess.

Each of us is born with something special, a gift that’s only given just to us, a talent or a quirk or a way of seeing life, a knack of finding light amidst the dust. It’s your special little gift that’s going to take you, to the places you’ve dreamed of in your head, it will open doors and bring in souls who marvel at your skills, it will harvest joy and chase away the dread. (Donna Ashworth).

Meaningful words indeed. Let us strengthen our strength and fend off our weaknesses. May we look forward to a year of peace above all. May God gives a prosperous New Year.

Giving credit where credit is due – its importance.

All of us are surely aware of the funny story of the manager who demands ideas from his staffer on cost cutting. The story goes that one young staffer suggests the opening of a FedEX.com account. The manager and the rest stay silent, until the manager repeats the same idea and the whole gathering goes up in cheers. This is a funny anecdote and evokes smiles on the face. Yet it is perhaps one of the best examples of not giving credit where it is due.

Copyrights are examples of where, credit needs to be given and installed within legal precepts. This ensures that your knowledge properties are not stolen by someone else, without your approval and ensures that when used, with permission, you are still awarded the due credits. This holds true for most published work and even published ideas. Any encroachment, misuse in whole or part can be held accountable legally. Thus the law protects such property to the shade of relative safety.

However this is not quite so in the cases of work places and even personal life. An idea or a statement once exposed is immediately the property those who heard it too. This means that a great many ideas are either stolen, which is truly bad, and the cases where they are never ever exposed fearing this, which is worse. An idea that goes to the grave with its creator is indeed an idea lost to the entire humanity. This means, what which could have enriched humankind is lost, that too for the fear of theft. This is a bad reflection on the values of humanity.

These concepts tend to be not clearly defined too. If I were to voice an idea, you could tweak it slightly and present it as yours, thus avoiding blame. This is a common enough happening at workplaces where the head honcho makes hay out of the sunlight that staffers shine. Though well trained professionals tend to do it less, understanding well that these are clear cases of bad team leadership, and there is always an eye kept open for such instances in established firms with enshrined norms of work ethics, such is not necessarily the case in smaller, less established firms. There are more than one instance where the manager changes Alice to Anne and makes the staffer’s idea his own. He get a cheer and maybe an incentive, but rest assured, he had lost the newer ideas from the staffers, a loss the business will dearly pay for.

The worst scenario is in personal interactions. A clear instance is that of two friend, one of whom has a brilliant idea and the other the money to get it to work. A smart man who has an idea would not expose such an idea completely, and will keep vital key elements to himself before the whole idea is put to work in a proper and legally formal manner. He would certainly have to expose the overall idea for sure to get the money to work with, but will keep the key in his own hand until it is institutionalized. But the cases of him exposing the idea, in exuberance, and finding himself locked out after that is all too common. No amount of enmity or expression of dismay would help and what is lost is truly lost. It requires smart wording keeping enough of the idea to yourself to avoid this. Talking bluntly would be a great way to ensure. Friendships or association apart, it would help to remember that business is business.

These kinds of idea, knowledge, punch line, story line theft occurs all the time and there are many loser amongst us. But it need one to remember that for every idea thus stolen, a million have gone to the grave, never acted upon and never wielding to humanity, it fruits. Thus the need for such unscrupulous wheeler dealers need to be curtailed, their scurrilous activities curtailed. There need to be some methodology where in ideas are registered and credits are given where it is truly due.

Advise on Cancer Care – Realities or Pipe dreams?

There was a forward in one of the groups that I am a member of. I found it interesting and probably useful. I just decided to check out the probability to the use of these advices. The answers, even from medical professionals was a shocking “not practical.”

I have listed the summary of these advices below for any reader to consider. This would also give them the choice to make their choice of agreement, disagreement or “not really,” to these. Here is a brief summary. It was the summary of the Medical Conference on Malignant Diseases in Berlin – Germany

Some of the suggestions for those items or actions to be avoided were. I have also added the general user’s, the woman at home, response in the brackets alongside. I don’t add the rest as they may prefer not to be mentioned.

No to reusing oil. (What do we do with the excess oil that is hardly spoilt?)

No powdered milk (We believe that even the packaged milk is equally bad, where do we get milk from? The cow’s udder)

No Maggie Cubes, (Tell that to my son)

No carbonated juice (Ditto)

No processed sugars (How do I know what are processed or not?)

No microwave (Get lost)

No prenatal mammogram, but echomamar can be used (too late, will advise my children and their spouses, not that they will listen)

Don’t wear bras that are too tight or wear them after work (Too personal, not your business)

No to alcohol (Tell that to my hubby)

No to reheating frozen meals (Even unspoilt? No way…….)

Do not store water in the refrigerator in plastic bottles. (PET bottles are considered safe. Also the linings of the fridge doors are designed for those bottles)

Deodorants are dangerous. (Better than stinking)

Cancer cells eat mostly sugar and all artificial sugar, even brown. (So what do we add to payasam?)

A cancer patient who abstains from sugar in his diet finds that his disease has receded and he can live a long life. Sugar = the mortal enemy. (Nonsense)

The Medical Conference also advised us to say yes to:

• Vegetables (Okay)

• Honey in reasonable quantity instead of sugar. (Who will foot the bill?)

• Vegetable proteins like beans instead of meat (I am okay with it but no one would have it)

• Two glasses of water on an empty stomach before brushing your teeth and upon waking by drinking water kept in the room at the same room temperature (Okay, but it will leave an awful taste in your mouth)

• Unheated meals (I am okay with it but no one would have it)

• Anti-cancer juice: Aloe Vera + ginger + parsley + celery + bromelain (pineapple middle).. Mix and drink on an empty stomach. (Okay)

Here are a few things to remember. No comments or responses added as there was none.

Remember that

• When plastic comes in contact with heat, it creates chemicals that can cause 52 types of cancer.

• This message is worth more than 100 useless short messages.

• Inform your loved ones in order to be far from these bad things.

To which I received a blanket YEAH!

Some other important Health Tips that came along with the earlier messages:

• Always answer calls with the left ear

• Do not take the medicine with cold water

• Do not eat heavy meals after 5 p.m.

• Drink more water in the morning and less in the evening

• Do not lie down immediately after taking the medicine or after meals.

• When the phone battery gets low, do not answer the phone because the radiation is 1000 times stronger

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