Lessons of life

Spring is past

Summer has gone

Winter is here

And the song that I meant to sing remains unsung for I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument

-          Written by someone whose heart was filled with regret over a life half lived.  He was always getting ready to sing the great song of his life, he was always getting ready to be a dreamer, getting ready to play with the poetic possibility that his life was meant to be but he just got busy being busy. So, he missed out on the great song of his life.

Ideation without execution is nothing more than delusion – Robin Sharma

Please watch 10 minute talk by Robin Sharma on Leadership and Personal Success:

10 minute talk by Robin Sharma

I also RECOMMEND you to read his first book ” The Monk who sold his Ferrari”

 

 

Debate on gender equality – BBC Debate Tapping into Female Talent

I am a big supporter of equal opportunity for men and women in personal as well as professional sphere. The BBC-debate – which was held in New Delhi, India on 09.11.2009 –  is a bit drawn out but reflects somewhat the state of women’s participation in today’s India where more and more women are rubbing shoulders with men on managerial level. Generally, women seem to come out as more compassionate and organized bosses in comparison to men. Women have an innate ability to systematize things better due to having to fulfill so many roles of being a working woman, wife, mother – and in the Indian society – a daughter-in-law at the same time.

I am not concluding that women are better than men in everything but generally it should seriously be taken into consideration that women contribute something which men can’t and vice versa. The capabilities and incapacities of the both sexes have to go hand in hand without one-sided manipulation and dominance. Now, men can more often be focused and goal oriented due to the collective expectations of the society. Men are seen and encouraged to be breadwinners of the family. Despite these existing patterns, there is a shift going on where educated women are becoming – by will or by circumstance – equal contributors in the family. This societal change isn’t spread throughout the rural areas of many countries like India where there is lack of education, societal stimulation and resources to provide rural girls with opportunities which ultimately lead them to choose a life path of their own. They have no other choice than depending on the males in the house.

The girls in rural and some parts of urban India are still discriminated against as they are seen as a liability and not as an asset. The society as whole (urban and rural) has to understand and reap the benefits of the change that girls can bring about in not only the society but also in the prosperity of India. Gender equality is urgent as India cannot progress unless it taps into all its talent.

6 principles of leadership

1. True leadership is inbuilt. It’s a choice
2. True leadership cannot be taught. It has to be discovered on the inside. It is a self discovery.
3. True leadership is serving your gift to the world. Focus on one skill of yours and refine it and serve it to the world. The key is service, it doesn’t mean servitude; you serve because it has value. The greatest is the one who serves. The greatest is the one who serves the best. Don’t copy others; find your own unique power.
4. True leadership is self deployment. We all have been taught to be employed, not deployed. Parents and friends tell us to get a degree so that we can find a job, not to have a business. Don’t follow the convention of the community.
5. True leadership is self manifestation. When you discover and decide to become a leader, go for it. You are not a leader, unless you are doing something you cannot pay for. Leadership demands that you take risk.
6. True leadership is self exposure. Let the world meet the real you (not the one the culture and society produced) before you die. The true self, the one that is inside.

Aman ki Asha id est. Desire for Peace

Photo by ƒreg / Fernando Gregory

Is peace between India & Pakistan possible? Personally, I don’t have an answer. I think nobody has the answer, not even the peace initiators from India (mostly Indians start such peace initiatives and unfortunately it takes attacks like 26/11 in Mumbai for Pakistan to block them).
I don’t think there is anything wrong with such peace initiatives. Indians are intrinsically peaceful people and tolerantly secular if compared to Pakistanis. This is not a subjective view but an objective analysis knowing Pakistanis in reel and real life.
If you go through any Pakistani forum, you will know what Pakistan’s internet society thinks about Indians (particularly Hindus), Hinduism (and other non-Islamic Indian religions like Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism), Indians’ skin color, preference for vegetarianism etc. All of these topics are discussed in an extreme undignified manner with the intent of humiliating and degrading Indians. The Pakistani views reflect a lot of ignorance, hatred, colorism, religious-bias but at the same time a huge inferiority complex.
Almost all forums have comparative threads about which country is the best in any particular thing and 99% of the times Pakistan is declared as the best and India as a loser. I don’t know if such discussions can be termed as a battle for lack of self-confidence among Pakistanis or an identity crisis. I don’t know if they are spoon-fed hatred toward India but it is very hard for me to conclude much from Internet. So, I resort to the Pakistanis I know in my real life and regretfully they aren’t much different from their compatriots on the Internet. I have hardly found anything constructive and positive in most of what Pakistanis write pertaining India.
On the other hand, when you visit Indian forums, you will hardly find the mention of Pakistan, Pakistanis or Islam except the forums which contain terrorism related subjects. Indians don’t compare India with Pakistan but with bigger economies like China, USA and EU. It’s called thinking out of the box and not being stuck in the past, which is good.

Unfortunately, Aman ki Asha does not have much importance in such hate driven minds of people who proudly talk about something called GHAZWA-E-HIND. As for India, Pakistan as a tiny country should have little to no significance in world politics. India gives too much of importance to this country in the region.  It is unfortunate that India has this terror hub in its backyard but India should focus more on how to deal with Pakistan’s anti-India strategists rather than dealing with Pakistan’s ‘civil society’ (if there is any) which has no power whatsoever to change the hostility which exists between these two countries. At most, people to people contact can make it easier for Pakistanis to reap the benefits of India’s economy in doing business, Indians don’t benefit from Pakistanis in any way.

Lastly, I would like to refer to a comment by a fellow Indian regarding this ‘Aman ki Asha’ initiative by Times of India on YouTube:

‘Our ethos as Indians and our culture are as different as chalk and cheese. Their [Pakistanis’] biggest political demand from their government is democracy something that we take for granted. For them religion is the centerpiece of all debates while for us it is economy/education. They take utmost pride on building atom bomb. We hardly talk about atom bomb. For us our corporates, NRIs, Chandrayaan, Bollywood, outsourcing industry are the matter of biggest pride. We are different.’ — vinaydey2006

Procrastination

 

Photo by geoffconet

There are many horrible diseases the humankind has known but procrastination is the worst disease of the human mind we might ever know. It might stem from various experiences we had in the past when we lost our track but it leads us to nothing.
The reasons why we procrastinate are the distractions we experience because of so much happening around us. The moment you want to focus on something, you start thinking of other things which hold no to very little significance at that particular moment. You experience this fear of engaging yourself in what you were about to do as you have been putting it off from so long but you repeat that pattern again and again.
The habit of procrastination isn’t easy to let go of; it takes a lot of time to come back on track. It might start from a setback which we experienced and it threw us completely off track. In the process of feeling frustrated or even depressed we get into new habits of engaging our minds in addictions like the Internet, alcohol, drugs or even staying around people not to feel lonely sitting alone feeling all we don’t want to feel.
The day we consider this habit of putting the most important things off in our life, we might realize that we have wasted most precious days, weeks, months or even years of our lives. Whatever has to be done, should be done in the NOW, no time should be wasted in ‘I will do it later’.

“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” - William Shakespeare 1564-1616, Poet, Playwright, Actor

Loneliness: between the lines

‘Life’ isn’t kind to everyone. Some are born into families where there is love in abundance. Some are neglected or even abandoned throughout their childhoods. Nothing is worse than being born into broken abusive relationships. The neglected ones are the ones who live the life through the prism of insecurities and discomfort inflicted on them unintentionally by the ones who raised them. These people are loners, introverts but as the silent waters run deep, they too know the art of life quite well. They are strugglers or want to stay strugglers as they lack the social ability (or as they think) to convince others to love them. They blame or even feel guilty easily but remain loving as that’s the only hope they have to receive love and acceptance from the world around them. Little do they know that all they are looking from others is inside them…the little neglected child inside is crying for love from the grown up adults they have become, so lonely, unapproachable and habitual of recalling the bad upbringing they had; it wasn’t their fault they say. The lesson they are not ready to learn is that forgiving and letting go is the only way to go…….the blame game will last but they may not if they continue to play this game.