what would a human being do?

Close your eyes for just a minute and ponder that question. 60 seconds. Now.

You, are a human being.

Every life situation/experience/adventure/problem/question begets a human being's response. Have we forgotten to be human? Is our response to our world human or anything lesser?

You, are a human being.

Yes, even the small things, how do we respond when things don't go our way? how do we treat people? especially the ones who are in some way lesser privileged than us? people who provide us with services? Do I demand to be considered as a human being when I don't seem to be like one?

You, are a human being.

Smart Idiots?

How many fingers? If you are like most people you would answer 3 instead of the rational, visible and correct answer that is five.

Why? Simple because we are always taught to construct our answers based on possible questions we have been asked before. And most of us would have learnt numbers in our kindergarten by being asked to answer based on the number of fingers held out in front of us.

The fact that we fail to understand the above question as a question of how many fingers there are totally (a spatial question) over how many fingers are held up (probability) seems funny considering how smart we are. How did we end up not understanding this simple difference?

There is enough for blame and this time its the brain that takes it all. Our brains are wired to provide rational processes, however our reason or ego within us pushes us to want to appear smarter always, often impairing good judgement over speed. And it is not entirely our blame too, it was always the fastest kid in school with the answers who appeared brilliant to the teacher, the fast answer was the smart answer etc. This is an approach we have carried on with us to this day impairing most of our decisions most of the time.

I call our generation "Smart Idiots". And we are idiots simply because we don't perceive that we are so ;)

And then there was a beep?

true love

Thank you...

for making me a part of your life
for being my friend
for being my best admirer and critic
for pampering me
for being my pillow
for being my shoulder to cry on
for the coffees and dinners
for the rides & drives
for the flowers, chocolates and gifts
for the special mails every now and then
for the hugs and kisses
for the compromises you've made
for keeping the romance alive
for never fighting
for always keeping me company even when thousands of miles separate us
for loving me the way you do
for dreaming that we will make it this far and making the dream come true
for being so cheerful right through it
thank you for the best years of my life.

Love is always always about giving. everything. 

To like or not to like and is that a question?

Circa Feb 2009, that would have been easy, most of us would have responded to the question above with, huh?

But today we are forced with a choice to like or ignore the liking. And especially when I don't click on the like button, what is my emotional response? Not one of dislike, but a status of limbo between dislike and not yet at like! Tough conundrum.

Why do we click the like button that seems to be popping up everywhere now? (I know there's one on the top left hand corner of this blog too :) ) Is it because we want to encourage, or we are amused or we want others to know that we are amused/amazed or is it because its an easier way to telling, i like it but i care less enough to do more than just click on this button.

In our real world (yes there is something like that), we used to like something and then feel joyful, and we would appreciate, share, look forward to more of  it. But does the virtual world hold out the same for us?

My 1 year, 6 months and 21 days old nephew claps his hands and laughs when he is surprised at something he likes. A childlike expression of awe. And then he looks towards us with this look that seems to say, "don't you guys get it? or more importantly, "Like?"

Being positively positive!

 " Unless you have a positive attitude you cannot succeed", this comment at a recent entrepreneurship conference got me thinking. Was that really a positive comment, especially on positivity?

And then the realization dawned, that most of us really don't put too much thought into what we say, compared with what we mean. For we pick choice words that we feel will get people to see what we mean. It works most of the time because people also are used to getting what we mean, till we stumble on some people who we reach without real time contact. Via blogs, status updates, videos…. and then the message seems different. very different.

Yesterday I was at a wonderful family looking at a children's sketchbook. One of the pages had two identical pictures and a question, "Can you spot the 5 differences between the two pictures?"

And the 3 year sweetheart in the family had scribbled on the page, "Yes". And it struck me, that was the question wasn't it? While we as adults focus on the meaning, the children focus on the question. And most of the time meaning comes from context, and sans realtime most context is switched and the message is different. 

Now thats some thinking, and to go back to our title, lets get positive, positively!

change the phone!

I lost my phone at the Dubai airport today. :)# Most of us are accustomed to our phones that we can single handedly use it to talk/text without even looking at it! This does bring to us a lot in question, our familiarity with our phones, also hampers our real world interaction, as most of us do so much with our phones, taking for granted that we know how it functions. Changing our phones, would make us spend so much more time with it, to compose a message, make a call, even turn it to silent mode. And what would seem like a loss of productivity actually makes us spend more time to interact with our real world, which surprisingly is not lost time, but time that we have once again found!

Something as small as changing our phones impacts our real world so much, that it actually gives us a different perspective on many things. Start by not using your phone for certain periods of time, and then switch your phone. Then give up the phone for some time, time will come calling! It has for me atleast :)

Now repeat this exercise with other things* that occupy our lives that we take for granted.

# something similar happened 5 years and 14 days back!

*things not people :)

Freshly ground cement

yep. fresh. ground cement. This was on a billboard i saw today, an ad for a cement company. For crying out loud, its CEMENT.  Not hot coffee, where the freshly ground actually means something. 

Don't advertise because you have to. Don't advertise what you have. Advertise what you have that your customers don't know you have and they need it.

Sandwich men proclaiming the end of the world aren't believed cause, hey if it was really the end of the world why would i be standing in the middle of the road, with a sign that says its the end of the world.

Know. Have. Advertise. In that order!

chuck THE norris

Chuck Norris doesn't react at all the web frenzy around him, cause if he did language would be destroyed for ever!

C'mon admit it, we do admire larger than life heroes, because deep down in our hearts we want to be a little like that. Its no wonder then we come out of a Jackie chan movie wanting to karate anything that moves! Larger than life is cool, and it breeds the luxury industry.....offering a slice of life thats...larger than life.

In between these dreams(yes that one too!) we wake up and shrug them off cause they are too larger than life. forgetting that even though the dreams are larger, we feel bad because we do not act on them, the reason for that being that they were dreams thus falling into an endless loop.

Many of us do have the opportunity to actually become larger than life in our actions, simply because everybody else like us doesn't want to be that. Dream larger and start acting on it. And without your knowledge you would Chuck the Norris out of you!

Pls don't bore the world.

Over 90% of people who post status updates, work on it for a long time, just to make sure its worth reading. They are publishing to the world and they dont want to look stupid, and thats also one of the reasons why people dont post frequent updates till they have a steady source of quotes/wisdom/funny stuff that makes them look learned/wise/humorous. And that is it! but the same people end up doing stuff at work/on the road / at home that suggests the exact opposite.

You are not meant to bore yourself or the world, please we deserve better, and i am not talking about status updates, i am talking about everything we do in life. So make it interesting, not just the updates and the posts but generally you. Leave an interesting impression everywhere, everytime, anytime :)

coming soon!

The goodness manifesto will change the lives of those around you and you as you practice it. watch out for it in the coming days!!!

missing?

Do you feel that you are missing somebody? or some thing? or an experience. The whole feeling in your gut that brings back an unexpected rush of adrenaline and pleasant memories, so much, that its visible over your entire visage.

Well here's news, that entire feeling is not because you miss it, but because secretly you are looking forward to it and you can't bear the suspense of waiting for it.

You are enchanting yourself in the wait! And that is the reason most of us don't miss things, second time around, cause the enchantment was clearly more than the experience itself!

Wish list takeway

photo © 2007 Bashar Al-Ba'noon | more info(via: Wylio)

Wish Lists are for things we want to get, but what about a wish list for things you want to give? many people (beauty contestants atleast) wish that there was world peace, food for everybody etc. Grand wishes, very nice, but all of us have a lot of personal wishlists too, like a better house, better car, new tv, even a cool new dress or book. What about taking that wish list and reversing the intention.

Create a wish list of things that you can give away. Can be material stuff you have, physical or digital, or even your something you are good at doing, like art, or writing, or dancing, or listening. Share that wish list  on your blog/facebook/twitter, why even have a printed copy on your door.

The Great ________(your name here)'s Wishlist takeaway.

Changing your world is fun actually :)

Opportunity does chug along....but

Trains arrive on tracks, but thats not a good place to wait for them!

  by  superbomba 

UnFire now!

Haven't we all loved to fire somebody because of shoddy work. Or maybe we were fired sometime for whatever reason, what if there was an undo option for that? Or more importantly can we unFire somebody that we have fired in our minds already? I am not even talking abt jobs, I am taking abt people and their attitudes. Isn't it time we gave more people another chance. Lets go unFire somebody now!

the art of humility

The seeker asked, "Master, teach me humility."

"I wish I knew," replied the master.

"Humility," said the master after a while,"is the only virtue, the moment you know you have it you lose it."

Full of Beauty

From a presentation at one of my trainings.

Beautiful = Full of Beauty!

I procrastinate therefore I am ..... good!

It has been a need that has fueled the self help book publishing industry and spawned thousands of people who get us to set up lists, write memos, talk in front of mirrors* and do other crazy stuff. Yes, to help us to unprocrastinate# our lives we have been spending a lot of time, effort and greenbacks.

But why do we procrastinate, lets look at this way. If you are not absolutely sure that you will be able to finish something on time, you will refuse to do it. And what gives you the surety that you can do it, is that you had accomplished the task previously and on time too. If anything this ability to think we can accomplish something in only so much time is a pat on our back for prior good job at the same task.

So we are good at something and we know we need only this much time to finish it. Now since we are "Good", lets up the ante a little bit, how about a rush of adrenaline to kick it in? We push the project to the least amount of time that we can finish it, with a deadline on the corner. why? for the adrenaline, how many times have be huffed and puffed and drew a sweat as we managed to just finish something before the deadline? And the sly smile after we handed it! (Hey i managed and just in 2 hours, what I had all week to do, I am good!).

So we have past accomplishments, adrenaline rush and the finally plainly because we are actually good at it. Yes most of us procrastinate because we are good at
1. The task at hand
2. Procrastinating

So there you have it, stop berating yourself and go dump those books on how to beat procrastination.

The only problem is that good is not great or magnificent. It only is what others are also. Good. Now to go beyond that you have get beyond and get to become enchancers. Get a title that says you are Media Enhancer, Creative Enhancer, Industrial Enhancer.... and go enhance the world. now. i meant right away. Get up and get out.







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* I made that up
# Yeah that one too

Human Touch

I often wonder if we have lost the human touch around us. Today, I was at a restaurant, we were 3 of us, the waiter gave us the menu, and while we were thinking about the order, i mentioned that I needed a coffee urgently, he said one urgent coffee coming right away and left to return with a hot coffee and then take the rest of our order.

Wow! Talk about responsiveness, talk about service quality, and yes "the human touch". Was thoroughly impressed with the fella! We all bemoan bad service, especially in India and we often wonder where the human touch is, if there was something like that. We get  pissed when we are put on hold by customer service (hehehe...), government stuff etc. But the real question is are we providing the human touch, at our workplace, in public, when we commute, when somebody needs help (not just when they ask for it)

Human touch anyone?

Confucious says....

Confucious says, "I did not say that!".

If you are like most people*, you would have waited for the punchline, and expected to chuckle at a random fact that makes "zense", because it comes from yonder time, or you would have been prepared to believe the "Zenism" because, you know....its Zen!

Marketers love packaging stuff (not the package it comes in, thats for later to unwrap...), I am talking about packaging facts, that will make you fantasize about meeting your unmet needs and making your current products obsolete. Its the the packaging of the idea, thats makes our current product feel inferior. Tv screens peaked to around 40 inches, and then came LCD & Plasma, and they peaked and then came LED screens. You can see darker blacks and whiter whites more clearly, except i am not using my tv as a microscope,I just want to watch TV, not dust the speck on a 400% zoomed picture of my face.

(Bigger, Brighter, Faster) + (emotion, slow motion, catchy music) + (like button + twitter) = feel miserable, unwanted, unloved!

Confucious would have said, " i told u so!".

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*humans who believe that they are humans