White Forest

People come into your life for a reason

2009-09-01T20:35:00.039+05:30

Sometimes people come into our lives for a reason. They could be someone whom we meet everyday or sometimes friends who are there for a particular purpose to be met and phew they are gone. We don’t even realize they are gone. We don’t need them anymore or all the time.

People who come into our life for a season could be a soul mate or a spouse who may be in our lives for lifetime. Or someone like teacher, master or friends who are there for certain period and they just leave once we are good to go.

I know a friend, we studied in same school till 10th and we studied together for exams I and II PU, and later I don’t know what happened. She just stays couple of blocks away. Sometimes her mom comes to my place and vice versa, but we don’t get to meet. Neither of us have made any effort to meet I guess! I still haven’t been able to figure out what just happened between us. She was my best friend.

People of lifetime relationships are friends or may be ex bf’s and gf’s :) who give us life time lessons but are there for a very short period of time. There may be lifetime relationships for lifetime also, parents and friends who are there to constantly support us when we need them.

I mean...it’s very difficult to classify people this way. I don’t think we ever do...do we?

For us to know what to do for that person, we need to know whether a person has come in to our life for a reason, a season or a lifetime and we may never be able to classify until the person is gone from our lives. We may never realize which category the person is in when he or she is in our life. It looks like some kind of circle to me.

To simplify things…to treat everyone nicely as they long as the person is in your life and don’t regret or grieve when the person is gone - is the message I take from this one!

And as my friend SS says "the key is to make a difference to the other's life and to treat the person in his/her presence most valuably" (Ok... I am totally smitten by this line :P) supported by The story of 3 Questions (Click).

Perhaps I was gone out of blogging only for a season :)

PS: Here is the text played in the video in the left.

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime
When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that person

When someone is in your life for a REASON,
It is usually to meet a need you have expressed
They have come across to assist you through a difficulty
To provide you with guidance and supportTo aid you physically emotionally or spiritually
They may seem like godsend and they are…
They are there for the reason you need them to be
Then without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time
This person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end

Sometimes they die Sometimes they walk away
Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand
What we must realize is that our need has been met our desire fulfilled
their work is done
The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.

Some people come into your life for a SEASON
Because your turn has come to share, grow or learn
They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh
They may teach you something you have never done
They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy
Believe it, it is real. But only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons
Things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation

Your job is to accept the lesson, Love the person and put what you have learned
To use in all other relationships and areas of your life

It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant
Thank you for being a part of my life
Whether you were a reason, a season or a lifetime.

A better New Me!

2007-11-26T09:08:00.000+05:30

What’s the meaning of my life?

I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to behonorable, and to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.-- Leo C. Rosten (1908-1977) American Writer

But I would say it’s all about my values, my goals, my relationship with myself and with others. It’s about where I was & where I am going!

So many people try to influence our lives for some benefit of theirs or for no reason at all. Try to give our life their meaning and also make us believe it as ours! Though it is a positive or negative influence, the ultimate decision should be ours. Only we can give our life a meaning.

Then there is comparison. Everyone tries to compare one with other. I believe the comparison should always be with oneself. If you are comparing yourself with a person who is better than you, it can depress you. If you are better than someone, it can give you a false impression of feel good factor which may be pleasing at present but not in the long run.

It simply doesn’t matter if you are doing better or worse than your neighbor, your friend, or your colleague. Always check how you were last year or sometime back? How you are now? Are you being the better you or the worse you? At least that’s what each one of us should try to be 'The Better Me'. Better than previous every minute, every day, every week and every year. The Better ME! Be the very best you can be, be the best you have ever been!

Everyone gets almost similar circumstances, but why does one person gets through and another a victim of it? Circumstances must never be an excuse.

I guess it’s the response or the choices that you make, the decision that you take, The Attitude...The Positive Attitude that makes the difference.

I dont want to be a Perfectionist!!

2007-05-30T07:37:00.002+05:30

I have received innumerable emails and comments on as to why I haven’t been blogging for so long. Few messages were very sweet and some were compelling me to write. Thanks for all your Love and Affection friends. I apologize for coming up with this after SUCH a long time. Though I was compelled to write something…I simply couldn’t. I blame it all on ‘myself’ for that.

I was into a deep introspection and it was very much necessary at this point of time. What is and who are very important in my life?
Who are the people I need disassociate with who suck all the energy out of you? And associate more with who can add value into your life? Ultimately the time and again asked question … how can anyone forget this question when one is into the introspection?? : P What is the ultimate goal or purpose of my life? What is the strongest ambition that I have?

We all do something or anything for that matter to make ourselves or someone happy. And if someone is a perfectionist like me, he or she will suffer big-time. I never do things which I am not too good at.

I feel singing is something I would love to pursue but I feel I am not competent enough for that! Hence I never sing…except to sing for myself or my friends.

I only realize when my friends tell me that I am good at something …otherwise I think I am futile or no good. That doesn’t mean I enforce things upon my friends and keep asking them to tell me what I am good at and what I am not good at. The least I expect from them is to praise me for what am good at…I am not obsessed with what I have nor I am cribbing for what I don’t have. I feel I have enough and I don’t make use of what I have. Yes, you got it right. I am not tapping my energy and potential right .I don’t start things on my own… I need that initial push as to the momentum that can get me started or even try things which I am not very confident about. But that may not be the case always. I have to understand myself better and be confident, which I lack sometimes due to the compelling nature of being a perfectionist.

I am not boasting about myself at all …These are some of the short-comings of mine that I have realized and I need to work upon. I don’t want to keep this into my heart and crib anymore. I can completely feel that I am not using my potential to the maximum. I am either suppressing it or not letting “myself” out and provide myself the opportunities which can make me realize my potential…wait, wait, wait…opportunities???

But don’t you think there are many opportunities in what ever you want to do?
I am afraid that I will be lost in the competition. There should be some way to kill this competition and the only way is to be perfect in what you do. Back to square one. I am stuck in this vicious cycle of being a perfectionist in whatever I do.

Can someone tell me that “It’s OK. You are a human. You have the right to err.”? Of course yes, but not to repeat those mistakes again!

I thank myself for having few motivating people around me to tell me that it’s OK. Participation is important than being good. Few months ago my company conducted a SuDoKu Championship. I had no plans of participating. One of my colleagues had seen me solving puzzles sometime. He casually suggested me to take part in the SuDoKu Championship. I was hesitant. I always thought I am a Novice. But somehow convinced that participating is no bad I took part in it. I got through the first screening after solving 5 puzzles. 2 were very hard but it had no time limit so I could solve them. Second round had some 15 people short listed. This time there was a time limit and who ever solved first was to win the prize. The competition started, after a while I saw 3-4 people handing over the papers and leaving. I thought I have lost it. There is no need to solve this let me just leave… I am not going to win anyways. But a subtle voice in me told me …so what if you don’t win…there is a challenge here …I want you to solve these puzzles. It had 5 SuDoKu, 2 hard 3 very hard. Somehow I did it at last. I was the 5th or 6th one to leave the room. With the satisfaction that at least I solved the puzzles I left the room. To my surprise I got the 3rd place.

It’s not necessary to be perfect or excellent in whatever you do to WIN. I believe its persistence that gets you a WIN almost ALWAYS. SuDoKu is something that I practice not very often than I practice chess…I guess my passion is more towards Logic (SuDoKu numbers) than is towards strategy (Chess) :P (Practice more?)

I feel like a caged pigeon. I want to fly. Fly like “The Seagull – Jonathan Livingston”. Not to be a perfectionist but to love and enjoy each and every bit of my journey towards being a perfectionist. Love and enjoy each and every bit of my journey from perfectionist to excellence. I hope I will never reach that state of perfectionism or excellence. There is always room for improvement and plenty of room for learning.

This is no END. I have found an alternate way out. Identify all the energy drains…close the caps forever! Do things little by little. Step by step. Enjoy the journey. And the Journey Never Ends… At least not until I am Gone!

Yes, I am in Love!

2007-01-21T00:20:00.000+05:30

Yes, for the first time in my life I am wanting to going back to 1960’s. I wish I were born at that time. Is it too late? Or is it not?? I am not sure!!

When I picked up this book “Icon: Steve Jobs” from a friend, I hardly knew who this person is. Though I was faintly remembering that he is The Apple CEO, at that point when I had that book in my hand, all information about him had sunken deep down in the layers of my memory. I simply couldn’t recall who this guy is. I had to find who he is from the cover of that book!

It was almost a week that I got the book; I didn’t bother to read it in the impression that it is going to be another biography giving the management fundaes. But then to my surprise it turned out to be quite different giving the real picture of a person as he is. After all it is an unauthorized biography of Steve Jobs. I couldn’t put the book down until I finished it. I also got the other book about steve the very next day "The Second Coming of Steve Jobs". It only propelled my love for Steve!

From the time I started reading the book till I finished, I simply felt I have crossed few decades, as if his entire life till now crossed in my presence. I now feel that I am connected to him in so many ways.

I have changed my company before also. But never felt a feeling of greatness when I joined this company. Well this is where Steve got his summer job experience.

When I was in my graduation, I was interested only in participating in singing and not into writing stuff. One of friends forced me to take part in Creative Writing just to give her company. Well I just took it up impromptu. I wrote about two pages on some topic which was given and my friend was writing on and on… don’t know what she could write so much on that. Guess what! I got a second price for that Impromptu Creative writing. I was amazed I could write. That’s when I realized that I have a flair for writing …for Creative writing! This is just one part of my creativity. I believe everybody would agree on the amount of creativity that Steve carries in his little brain and his products prove them! He is The Ultimate Manifestaion & Definition of Creativity!

I was born on the day of Buddha Pournima. I always use to think there should be some reason why I was born on that day. This curiosity always drove my interest towards learning more about Buddha, Buddhism and hence Zen Meditation. I absolutely believe that “enlightenment can be attained through meditation and direct intuitive insight rather than faith”. And so does Steve!

I can just go on with so many other trivial things that connect me to him.

I was tagged sometime before which asked me about my perfect lover.
I thought my perfect lover can exist only in fairy tales with so many adjectives.
But then Steve is simply far, far more than what I expected. The sheer determination, the never, never, never, never, never give up attitude; and I can go on and on writing about him and it is endless…

Well, there are lots of rich people on the block, but why Steve? It’s not about richness or money; it’s about how rich a person is after all the money is set apart! Whether he has the ability to create, to generate!

Anyone but Him is going to be a Compromise in my Life. I know the impact I am creating by making this statement. I am slashing down the whole mass of egoist guys who might want to be a part of my life but not a compromise. But what the heck! I can’t turn down The Truth that I have realized.

P.S. My Today’s Horoscope: Love is in the air now, whether you are in it or want it. Either way, the romantic dream may feel so close that you cannot even tell it apart from reality. The biggest problem with having these fantasies is that the actual situation cannot match up to your vision. Don't set up a potentially wonderful experience for failure before you give it a proper chance to develop.

Just for the people who want to read further!

You've Got To Find What You Love!

This is text of a speech by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005 at Stanford University. I'm sharing it here and hoping that few young souls might find it enlightening... (I was thinking whether I should apply to Stanford or not! But now I guess I will)

"I am honoured to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents’ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumour on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumour. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much."

Passport to Independence!

2006-12-19T18:33:00.000+05:30

I figured out that there is nothing I CANNOT DO. It’s only that there are few things I WANT to DO no matter what and few no matter what, I cannot motivate myself to DO.

I stay close to those very few things I WANT to DO. And DO it, No matter what!

Limitations!

2006-11-10T03:59:00.001+05:30

"Limitations need not restrict us from doing anything we really can do. Accepting our limitations is a matter of recognizing the border between:

- what we can and cannot do

- what we can do and is worth reaching for and what we can do but the value to us would not be as great as the sacrifice

This is not easy to do, and there is no set formula. But accepting our limitations can help us focus on what we realistically can and want to accomplish, rather than wanting to be or do everything."

Trying to figure out what I can and what I cannot!

Getting in Touch with God!

2006-10-31T20:22:00.000+05:30

I couldn’t find a better title than what my brother has given in this article. He had visited this place last year. I visited this place this weekend. He has beautifully described the place and all that I want to say. He has left me with nothing much to add.

Brahmi Durga - http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jul122005/spectrum121152005711.asp

Editing to add this pic..which we took in the cave that is referred in that article.

We went atleast 1 to 1.5 km inside. Indeed a great adventure!!

Common Sense is...

2006-10-12T22:37:00.000+05:30

To See. To Hear

To Look. To Understand.

To Observe. To Reflect.

The Virtue of Selfishness!

2006-09-01T12:10:00.000+05:30

I couldn’t agree more on this with her. Every time I read, re-read and read these lines, innumerable times, I am filled with joy and tears flow out of my eyes without my knowledge.
Hmm here is a piece of text of my most favorite writer….

The virtue of Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one’s only source of knowledge, one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide to action. It means one’s total commitment to a state of full, conscious awareness, to the maintenance of a full mental focus in all issues, in all choices, in all of one’s waking hours. It means a commitment to the fullest perception of reality within one’s power and to the constant, active expansion of one’s perception, i.e., of one’s knowledge. It means a commitment to the reality of one’s own existence, i.e., to the principle that all of one’s goals, values and actions take place in reality and, therefore, that one must never place any value or consideration whatsoever above one’s perception of reality. It means a commitment to the principle that all of one’s convictions, values, goals, desires and actions must be based on, derived from, chosen and validated by a process of thought—as precise and scrupulous a process of thought, directed by as ruthlessly strict an application of logic, as one’s fullest capacity permits. It means one’s acceptance of the responsibility of forming one’s own judgments and of living by the work of one’s own mind (which is the virtue of Independence). It means that one must never sacrifice one’s convictions to the opinions or wishes of others (which is the virtue of Integrity)—that one must never attempt to fake reality in any manner (which is the virtue of Honesty)—that one must never seek or grant the unearned and undeserved, neither in matter nor in spirit (which is the virtue of Justice). It means that one must never desire effects without causes, and that one must never enact a cause without assuming full responsibility for its effects—that one must never act like a zombie, i.e., without knowing one’s own purposes and motives—that one must never make any decisions, form any convictions or seek any values out of context, i.e., apart from or against the total, integrated sum of one’s knowledge—and, above all, that one must never seek to get away with contradictions. It means the rejection of any form of mysticism, i.e., any claim to some non sensory, non rational, non definable, supernatural source of knowledge. It means a commitment to reason, not in sporadic fits or on selected issues or in special emergencies, but as a permanent way of life. The virtue of Productiveness is the recognition of the fact that productive work is the process by which man’s mind sustains his life, the process that sets man free of the necessity to adjust himself to his background, as all animals do, and gives him the power to adjust his background to himself. Productive work is the road of man’s unlimited achievement and calls upon the highest attributes of his character: his creative ability, his ambitiousness, his self-assertiveness, his refusal to bear uncontested disasters, his dedication to the goal of reshaping the earth in the image of his values. “Productive work” does not mean the unfocused performance of the motions of some job. It means the consciously chosen pursuit of a productive career, in any line of rational endeavor, great or modest, on any level of ability. It is not the degree of a man’s ability or the scale of his work that is ethically relevant here, but the fullest and most purposeful use of his mind.

The virtue of Pride is the recognition of the fact “that as man must produce the physical values he needs to sustain his life, so he must acquire the values of character that make his life worth sustaining—that as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul.” (Atlas Shrugged.) The virtue of Pride can best be described by the term: “moral ambitiousness.” It means that one must earn the right to hold oneself as one’s own highest value by achieving one’s own moral perfection—which one achieves by never accepting any code of irrational virtues impossible to practice and by never failing to practice the virtues one knows to be rational—by never accepting an unearned guilt and never earning any, or, if one has earned it, never leaving it uncorrected—by never resigning oneself passively to any flaws in one’s character—by never placing any concern, wish, fear or mood of the moment above the reality of one’s own self esteem. And, above all, it means one’s rejection of the role of a sacrificial animal, the rejection of any doctrine that preaches self-immolation as amoral virtue or duty.

The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that just as life is an end in itself, so every living human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others—and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. To live for his own sake means that the achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest moral purpose.

- Ayn Rand

I have learnt to trust my intuition and my reasoning…and as far as possible not to go by heart. Every time I did that has landed me in trouble. Sometimes even though we know we’ll suffer from our decisions we take them overriding our mind’s reasoning. Eventually we suffer.

We get stuck in wrong relationships, with wrong people, in a wrong job… or could be anything that’s not right. There should be some way out isn’t it?
If only we not take anything and everything that comes in our life!!
We can get that ultimate happiness by taking tough decisions though it may not be always pleasant and what our heart wishes.

How I wish we have limited options just like CAT or GMAT...strike off all the wrong answers you are left with only right answer..Sometimes too many options is as good as no option at all!

Chess & Time!

2006-08-22T14:52:00.000+05:30

Now, what does time mean in Chess? Time is not limited to the minutes on a chess clock. Generally, it refers to this chessic thumb rule: Try to gain time, and try to avoid losing it. Scenarios in which you gain time: If you make your opponent move a piece to a poor square, or back to where it came from, without making any concessions yourself, then you gain time. If you force your opponent to stop his plans and start responding to yours, you gain time.

When do you say you are ahead of time? If your pieces are better developed than your opponent’s, you are probably ahead in time.
If you have freedom and can do whatever you want, you most likely have the edge in time. But of you must wait to see what your opponent is going to do before doing what you’d like to, then cant do what you’d like anyway, you’re probably behind in time.

You also have a time advantage of you can attack and your opponent must defend. Having such superiority that is being able to attack, not having to defend is known as having the initiative.

Can we make time last? Mostly, time flies. And in chess, time advantages tend to be temporary. If you don’t take advantage of them now, the other side is likely to catch up and your ephemeral time advantage will disappear. For example, if you have more pieces out than your opponent does, you should gain something tangible as a result soon. Otherwise, the other side will eventually get the rest of his pieces out and your superiority will dissipate.

Every one knows we all have limited time of 24 hours with us. But some people are always ahead of time! I have heard most successful people saying they have all the time in the world to do what they really want to do. Is this how they gain time??

Chess is one game I never get bored of. I have always applied it to my life and it has saved me with appropriate solution to problems which I have thought to have no solution. Chess has become an integral part of my life now!

Manipulating ?

2006-08-16T11:02:00.000+05:30

Well well well...Here's is somebody who is trying to manipulate me.
Why? : Absolutely have no clue!
How is he doing that: He talks as if he knows me!
How do I conclude he is trying to manipulate me? : If at all he knew me he should have known 2 things about me that I hate liars and flirts.
His very first line contradicts.

Some of you might have noticed my shout box…Here is a sensational and interesting conversation going on between me and the stranger (who calls himself to be “hi”).

Rathna: :)

Chella: Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ! How is it going on Hope u remember me...
[ My friend’s friend with whom I spoke once. But was not able to talk again.
Did Mr. hi take this as a reference point? ]

me: d ya still flirt around?
[So here is comes with his very first line!]

Rathna: ??
Rathna: No blogging till aug 23! every one take care!
roshan: lovely site...
Seema: Hello Ratna are u in log out aux???????

Rathna: Hey thanks Roshan
Rathna: haha ....yes seema...similar kinda Aux
Rathna: Rather i would say...nothing on mind to write...totally blank :P
Rathna: Happy Friendship day to All!
hi: hows ur flirt life? any chance for me to have you on weekend?
[Mr. me comes back as Mr. hi and continues to bother me ]

Rathna: Mr. Ms. hi ....It wont be better than yours ..i am sure
Camy: who is this nuisance....creating noise in your shoutbox ?
Rathna: ha ha ....dunno! looks like from orkut...
hi: Common, give yourself to me for a nite darling
hi: I promise will make take u to heaven remeber the earlier days of your life.
[ Look who’s talking. You own heaven?? Then look for some ghosts. Don’t bother ppl living on earth. ]

Rathna: hey you have 2 options available all the time...try your mom..if not take your sis!
Rathna: If you have none above...then try your dad!
Mitr: Heh Mr Hi...Better dont take panga with v girls...buzz off
Ajay: That was most appropriate reply rathna.. .. keep it up

hi: Can you take roles? : P You BIG B!! I love them...
[Mr. hi if I start taking roles big B will suicide. So I refrain from it. I already have enough roles to play]
hi: Do you have your mom or sissies? Get them all!
[This shows what you are as a person. Keep it up! One day you will be worthy enough to find a grave very soon. If you don’t find it, the grave will find you!]

hi: Who cares of sis/mom whoever these days? Women are Women,Men are Men hahahahahahahaha
[hmm…now Mr. hi is really frank about what he wants.
Mr. hi..I pity your mom and sis.
Are you already tired and bored of your mom and sis ?? that you are hunting for my mom and sis ??
But you know what ??? Eventually you will get tired and bored of them too.
My unsolicited advice to you is…Continue with what you have and Be SATISFIED! ]

Rathna: You sound like a SOB!
[Sound like? You are one, aren’t you???]

Now I am confused as to, do I dig one grave for him or let him dig his own grave??
I am sure if he continues like this; he will dig his own grave and fall into it also!
So, I will choose to let him go catch his breath!

-----------------------------------------------

Friends please excuse me if this was a nasty post.
I believe in one philosophy. I don’t keep anything for myself. I give it right back!
Everyone has a good side and a bad side.
This is my worst side.

Here I end with a personal note to myself:
Rathna, Chill maadi. Calmdown. Declare truce in your mind. You don’t have to worry or think about silly jerks!
You have much bigger things to face in life!

Hey dude ..you are cool!

2006-08-05T23:52:00.000+05:30

I really want to appreciate this guy's Honesty and Will to return my flash drive!

I lost my flash drive 3-4 days ago in office. I only realized it after 2 days. Nobody has dedicated comps here...so more than one person can share the computer.

This guy had left a sheet of paper with his name and number on it. I ignored it thinking it was the similar kind of paper a guy had left few months back that had his name and number to have friendship with me.

Next day I had left a note saying whoever noticed flash drive on this comp.. Please return it to either Rathna … (number) or S…. (Number…. my friend). I had a very important material regarding my GMAT on this and I just couldn’t afford to loose it!

That guy called up S…. also sent a message saying that flash drive was on top of the comp and he was seeing it since 3 days! (Ohh....I am such a fool…how could I not notice it!!?) And that he didn’t leave the message that flash drive is on the comp but left only number thinking somebody else would take it!

I thought I will never get it back and have lost it forever!

No! I have never seen this guy … though he works in the same company as we always were in different shifts!

I simply want to say “Dude ...you are simply so cool!”

A personal note to MySelf!

2006-07-16T17:16:00.000+05:30

I am LETting GO of the uncontrollables and unchangeables in My Life.

I am realistic and rational and accept that I can change only my feelings and attitudes about things which I AM powerless to change.

I accept personal responsibility for my life, thinking, emotions, and actions. I take care of myself better. I stop being martyr, fixer, rescuer, advice giver, and enabler.

I allow my Higher Power a place in my life along with correcting my unhealthy, irrational and unrealistic thinking so that I can better discern what is uncontrollable and unchangeable in my life.

God, your Higher Power is stronger and great source of power to which I hand over things out of my control.

I will control what really matters and work my best in a particular situation.

I’ll cherish every moment knowing that I’m able and good person with my own unique values and I’ll wait eagerly what unknown future destination my life is taking me to.

Why me?

2006-07-10T21:12:00.000+05:30

Hmm..have I told you all that i work for a Contact Center?

What has made me stick to this field for so long?

well...I love communicating to people. Be it with strangers or repeated customers.

I worked with this person (He is the first person in the list among the pastor staff )say 3-4 days back. This issue was very simple. He was not able to visit only one website "Faith-Temple", but was able to visit every other webiste. He is a Pastor in that Church. All I need to do was just disable few add-ons and it resolved the issue.

This person had called us couple of times before and it was just that previous technicians overlooked modifying add-ons.

Today, I happned to make a call-back to this person to check if everything is working fine. I usually make all my call-backs myself.

He was very happy that I was able to resolve his issue...He blessed me throughout the conversation on call and simply made me feel very special and that I have powers to do wonders. He appreciated my smile..he could sense it I belive..We said prayers together..it seems like a Testimony from Bible(I am sorry I dunno much about Bible though)...and he also promised he would pray for me everyday and that he discussed our conversation in his church discussions ...I will never be able to forget this conversation with the person.

He has really made my day delightful.

I thank him for all his blessings and prayers.

Blame!

2006-06-11T19:38:00.000+05:30

The best prophet of the future is the past!

We always see others’ behavior caused by their nature, ours by situation. We always like to take credit for success and deny failure.

We also blame others for our situations.

Who's to blame? Honestly, almost nobody is to blame. That's because almost nobody wishes you ill, even if they were curt with you, careless with your possessions or impatient with you in traffic.

Most people are simply doing just what you are doing...trying to get their business done and thinking about the next thing they need to do. They don't really wish you ill, nor do they wish you well. They are just too busy with their own affairs.

Who's to blame? Only the person who wastes his or her energy finding blame.

Buddha Pournima

2006-05-14T10:45:00.000+05:30

Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed. - Buddha

Every year this day, I will ask only one question to myself.

Why was I born on this day?

Is there some link missing?

If yes, what is that?

Thank you, mom

For all the strength & courage you give me,
For all the faith & Trust you have in me,
For dressing me down when I did mistakes,
For all the kudos from you for my silly and small achievements!

You are my super MOM, I Love You!

PS: My actual date of birth is yet to come :)

Unknown bonding …unknown blessing…

2006-05-09T20:46:00.000+05:30

For a change this morning I had been to temple as momma wasn’t feeling well…She would go otherwise ;)

I am goingto this siddhi vinayak temple from my 10th standard though not regularly.

So what?

Today a strange incidence happened. I was waiting for the priest to come to offer the flowers I had with me. While I was entering, a septuagenarian old man, started talking to me saying why I wasn’t coming to temple often and why I was not seen for so many days. I was initially skeptical with whom was this old man talking to. I asked him: “Are you talking to me?” He said: “Yes, of course you”.

He started talking to me as though he knew me from many years and was saying that I always have seen you when you come here and you never talked to me. But Today I made up my mind to talk to you. I was really surprised! I have never noticed that man observing me. Hmm…I was still skeptical as to why this old man was talking like this? Puzzled look!

We spoke for about 10 minutes, after which he himself said that I resemble his grand daughter and that’s why he wanted to talk to me. He referred me as his grand daughter to the priest also. Me with a relieved look started knowing more about him.

He wished me all the best luck for my GMAT (which is very soon June 28th) and also offered me blessings which was the best part of the meeting. He also told me never to go without talking to him when I go the temple! That was a hospitable meeting that still mesmerizes me!

Lamha Lamha

2006-05-03T17:44:00.000+05:30

I have heard this song Lamha Lamha (both duet and male version) from Gangster for about more than 2-3 hundred times no exaggeration!
Its still stuck on my mind!

Though I dont want go by the context of the movie, I feel the lyrics and song is just so romantic and beautiful.

Abhijith has once again stolen my heart with this song! I was surprised sunidhi could suit this song!

Lyrics:
lamha lamha doori yun pighalti hai
jaane kis aag mein yeh shabnam jalti hai
ho lamha lamha doori yun pighalti hai
jaane kis aag mein yeh shabnam jalti hai
khwaahishon ki shaam dhalti hain - 2
jaane kis aag mein yeh shabnam jalti hai
la la la ...

teri aankhen dikhati hai
hamein sapanen sitaaron ke
ho ho ho
tere hothon pe likha hai
jo tum bole ishaaron mein
ho ho ho
khwaabon ke karwaan mein raat chalti hai
jaane kis aag mein yeh shabnam jalti hain
la la la...

behakti shaam aayi hai
tujhe lekar ke baahon mein
ho ho ho
tujhe chhu loon ke rakhu main
chhupakar ke nigaahon mein
ho ho ho
sharmati ithlaati hai machalti hai
jaane kis aag mein yeh shabnam jalti hain
ho lamha lamha doori yun pighalti hai
jaane kis aag mein yeh shabnam jalti hai
khwaahishon ki shaam dhalti hain - 2
jaane kis aag mein yeh shabnam jalti hai
la la la ...

Wanna hear ?

Thank you, GOD!

2006-05-02T07:08:00.000+05:30

I really want to thank you so much God!

For, you are always on my side,

Thank you for being with me and by my side all the time!

I simply want to appreciate all the grace you have on me.

For, I consider myself very graceful & Safe under your aegis!

My Cab just met with an nasty accident, while coming to office this morning.
Not even a single scar on me or my cab mates and that cab is smashed like anything, but still we are safe.
I am still surprised, I AM ALIVe!
I am glad, I AM ALIVE!

Should I call this my first meeting with Death or a New Lease to life!

Be strong!

2006-04-25T18:05:00.000+05:30

Be strong! The sign of life is strength and growth. The sign of death is weakness. Whatever is weak, avoid! It is death...

If you want to have life, you have to die every moment for it. Life and death are only different expressions of the same thing looked at from different standpoints; they are the falling and the rising of the same wave, and the two form one whole.

-Swami Vivekananda

How can one bad experience completely shake the belief system in a person? Right from the childhood and adolescence we believe many rosy things about love. We feel proud to be in love! An attitude that makes us do anything and everything for a person whom we love.

One fine day one of them leaves the other and just goes off...either gets married to or gets in relationship with somebody else.

What should the person left behind do?
Should one loose faith in love and say love is all crap and that there is no love in this world? Don’t you think the belief system one has since many years has taken a beating?

Doesn’t this show how weak a person is?

One strong wave came and hit the person who is sailing in the boat or say a storm prevailing violently in the ocean destroyed one ship. Will one stop sailing and choose to loose the scenic beauty the ocean and the sun setting in the ocean can give us. Am sure given an opportunity none of wants to loose that sight!

It is the same with not only love but also with other belief system a person has like trust, honesty, etc...

I repeat the question "How can one bad experience completely shake the belief system in a person?”

For that matter "Love" is the same. It never alters itself. It’s only we that add something (may be a good or bad experience) to it and make it divine or satanic!

I only feel that "The sign of life is strength and growth". If one looses wealth...one will try making more money and make sure invests it properly and be sure that the same mistakes doesn’t happen. I know money and love are two different things. But the strategy is the same I guess!

Every person has enough love in him/her. Love can never become less or more. But only the experiences which a person goes through makes a person hide or express love.

Letter to myself!

2006-04-22T19:13:00.000+05:30

Dear Self.

I just want to tell you how much I value you. Without you, I would be nowhere. It is through you that I know God. It is through you that I know others. It is through you that I know my world. It is through you that I know myself.

When all else leave me, who will be there to guide me? When all else lose faith in me, who else will believe? When all others are against me, who will be on myside?

Thank you for being me. During my very short stay on this planet, let's be bestfriends.

Life

2006-04-08T16:51:00.000+05:30

I remember the last time I took life seriously was in my 12th standard. My ambition was to become a doctor and specialize in heart surgery. I really wanted to get a distinction and top the class so that I get a medical seat. On the contrary it so happened that due to the excess tension and peer pressure, I got Low BP and I got dismal score in my exams.

I just couldn't accept this and made my life miserable by thinking about this all the time. But this has taught me one thing. Not to take life very seriously.

My life has become easier now because I got out of my own way; I started to take fewer things so seriously and remember that really very few things in life are in my control. The rest of it sort of happens, and my job is to recognize opportunities and navigate through them.

Happy navigation.!

Trust & Vulnerability

2006-03-22T01:05:00.000+05:30

Do you really trust somebody?

You don't trust somebody until you make yourself vulnerable. Trust is both emotional and logical act.

Emotionally, trust is about giving control to another person, expecting that they will take good care of that control on your behalf.

Logically, it is where you have assessed the probabilities of gain and loss, and concluded that the person in question will behave in a predictable manner. In practice, trust is a bit of both. Whether in a personal relationship or a businessrelationship, trust means vulnerability.

We trust because we have experienced the trustworthiness and because we have faith in human nature. We feel trust.

Does trust start sounding scary? You bet it does! Does the alternative to trust sound even scarier? You bet it does!

Life in Full Circle

2006-03-08T16:17:00.000+05:30

Just a few months ago I met my school crush working in the same company as mine. I thought it’s a mere co-incidence that this happened. But right after 3-4 months after I met my school crush I met my college crush working in my company. I felt as if all my school and college days came right before my eyes and stood still mocking at me to check how much I am transformed.

I was a silent admirer of my crushes. I never expressed what I felt for them. That was simply because whenever I was in front of them I used to feel that weakness in the knees and my face was masked with "Shy". Things that were common in both were that they were very good dancers, they knew how to steal the show and smart.

But when I met them at my work place, I never knew where all that weakness in the knees and shy went off. It was all about a Confidant eye contact with the firm handshake.

There is nothing in this world that stands still be it difficult situations or very happy situations. Everything has to change. We can overcome anything and everything in life. Only thing is it takes time.

Self-Esteem

2006-02-22T08:27:00.000+05:30

You know that you should never let criticism get the better of you. Don't let someone else control your sense of self-worth.

By the same token, don't let praise get the better of you. After all, you alone should control your sense of self-worth.

Of Late, I am getting too many compliments about my voice...usual ones are "your voice is too sexy"...you have a very swweeet voice etc etc…There has to be one or two compliments everyday!

Well, though it’s a very good thing to compliment about my voice...I think I need to have control on my sense of self-worth and not let myself be always on that top of 7 hills :-)

Happy Valentine Day!

2006-02-14T06:40:00.000+05:30

How much can one person love another?

A universe exists in time and space,

Placed within the boundaries of one place,

Pressed into a point far from forever.

Yet love comes to us from some quite other,

Visiting our sorrow with its grace,

Answering our rage with its embrace,

Lending us the wisdom of its wonder.

Even as I say this, you are there,

Nestling in where need undoes the day,

Taking up your small infinity.

Inside my window, you are everywhere,

Nor could I tell how much such love might weigh,

Even were it salient as the sea.

Attitude!

2006-02-06T10:57:00.000+05:30

Loneliness.

Solitude.

Is there a difference?The difference is 100% in how you approach it. Isn't everything in life like that?

Good or bad Holiday?

2006-02-06T08:32:00.000+05:30

4 days and watched 6 movies! Am I crazy? gotta figure it out.. :)
Two weekends and 2 weekdays off...took off to study for GMAT actually...but did only 30% of study and 30% of sleep and rest of the while..whiled away!

Movies I watched: Kalyug, Rang De Basanti, Family(Good decent movie), Aksar, Mere Jeevan saathi, and Jawani Diwani. Last Saturday watched Zinda.....

Well, I am too confused to write any testimonials about movies I watched.

How Is Your Inner Child?

2006-01-30T05:40:00.000+05:30

Your Inner Child Is Surprised

You see many things through the eyes of a child.
Meaning, you're rarely cynical or jaded.
You cherish all of the details in life.
Easily fascinated, you enjoy experiencing new things.

How Is Your Inner Child?

What pattern is your Brain?

2006-01-29T09:36:00.000+05:30

The Following appealed to me the most!

Your Brain's Pattern

Structured and organized, you have a knack for thinking clearly.
You are very logical - and you don't let your thoughts get polluted with emotions.
And while your thoughts are pretty serious, they're anything from boring.
It's minds like yours that have built the great cities of the world!

Your Brain's Pattern

You have a dreamy mind, full of fancy and fantasy.
You have the ability to stay forever entertained with your thoughts.
People may say you're hard to read, but that's because you're so internally focused.
But when you do share what you're thinking, people are impressed with your imagination.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

Happiness!

2006-01-26T11:32:00.000+05:30

I love this quote from Bette Davis:

You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation."

Finding happiness is like finding yourself. You don't find happiness, you make happiness. You choose happiness. Self-actualization is a process of discovering who you are, who you want to be and paving the way to happiness by doing what brings YOU the most meaning and contentment to your life over the long run.

True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
-This famous quote on happiness by Helen Keller

Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.
-This quote on happiness by Samuel Johnson

Happiness is man's greatest aim in life. Tranquility and rationality are the cornerstones of happiness.
-The meaning of happiness according to Epicurus

tagged!!

2006-01-25T08:33:00.000+05:30

Hmm….And here goes tagging ….

For whatsoever reason, this sounds to be an interesting tagging.

Anil, Thanks for tagging me to this. Rules of the game are …

1. The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of their perfect lover.

2. Need to mention the sex of the target.

3. Tag 8 victims to join this game & leave a comment on their comments saying they’ve been tagged.

4. If tagged the 2nd time, there’s no need to post again.

PERFECT LOVER hmmmmm.......

1. He should be handsome, winsome, considerate, intellectual, and smart.
2. He should have a good sense of humor.

3. He should be honest, sincere, loyal, faithful, peaceful, passionate, happy, and prosperous.

4. He should be strong (esp. mentally), powerful, very masculine, adventurous, loving, and successful.

5. He should be disciplined, have a rich positive peaceful attitude, affirmative, assertive, straight forward, and understanding.

6. He should be sensible, knowledgeable, confident and responsible.
7. He should sing/play my favorite Love songs.

8. Last but definitely not the least. He should prepare very good 'Tea'.

Am I expecting tooo much??? Common, he is my PERFECT Lover. But I promise to reciprocate except that I am very feminine ;)

Sex of the target: Male

Hmmm so guys keep up this tagging tradition….
1. Amar
2. Prem
3. Harsh
4. Chandoo
5. Denzil
6. Unknown
7. Coolvir
8. Oxymoron

Nostalgic

2006-01-14T22:37:00.000+05:30

My only best friend S….n is leaving to Mumbai. She married to her sweetheart last year who has relocated to Mumbai now. So she is leaving o Mumbai in few days. She is my school friend. I know her since 7th standard of my school days. But we weren’t great friends when we were in school. I was with a set of other friends whom I am not even in touch of today. Were they just my companions during my school days? Could be…! School days are definitely fun, but I guess the strong relationships can be built during the matured state of mind.

There were so many times when we just fought because one used to score more marks than the other and vice versa. It was all about proving “I am the BEST” than building any friendship.

Sometimes situation used to get simply worse. We used to play pranks on each other and also get scolding from our teachers. Not always though: P

S….n’s and my friendship flourished only after our school days were over.
I joined college but due some personal reasons she discontinued her studies. Well, well, well….she is a talented gal. I won’t be surprised if someday she will be one of the Top 10 Mehendi Designers. My sis is just her fan for her designs.

You bet! There is no topic that we have not discussed. I remember the days when used to crib and crab about everything on earth….which left us light at heart after a while. Well, for that matter we used to get tired and bored of same old cribbings and crabbings :P
So we used to gossip about other things and different peoples. We talked about silly things, discussed of grave decisions that we had to take in time of crisis.
I will miss everything now. She is my only close friend “Till Date”.

Anyways, I guess that’s how the life goes! But I want to tell her that:

I wish her a Happy Marriage and she is a soon-to-be Mamma. I wish her all the best for everything in her life :)

Though she is far away from me, I care for her!

And I would like to tell her that!

So "KEEP IN TOUCH"!

Bad beginning!

2006-01-08T07:06:00.000+05:30

It’s been almost a week after New Year! Nothing is working at my end. I have been fooling around with time like anything.

I had to spend my New Year’s Eve at my work. After my shift was over by 3.30 am in the morning, I was in my cab that drops me home everyday with two other cab mates who were in the same drop route as mine. While we were on the way to home, on the Hosur road, an accident had already happened and the worst thing was we had to pass that accident. It was a horrifying scene that has just stuck in my mind. The head and the body were apart. I have never witnessed an accident or had seen one. And that too on the first day of the year!

I am trying to get out of this now. First is I am trying make myself believe or pretend as though I have never seen that incident. But this scene is horror-stricken in my mind. Just won’t go!

Followed by this was the CAT disaster, which left me wounded with no calls! Then I decided to take up GMAT. And now it’s already a week over from this year and I am just fooling around with the time on silly things which are really of not much importance.

I just hope my quota of bad events is over for the year 2006! I wish I could rewind this and make a new beginning! Anyways, I am looking forward to only good things happenning with me for the rest of the year :).

HaPpY New YEar!

2006-01-01T17:40:00.000+05:30

I'd rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are; because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star. I'd rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far; for a might have-been has nevër been, but a has was once an are.

- Milton Berle, 1908-2002, American Comedian known as "Uncle Miltie"

Resolution 2006

2005-12-26T02:56:00.000+05:30

By closely examining Myself, I found that I am a big-time Procrastinator.

"Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday."
I suppose Don Marquis was just trying to be cute, but who wants to live their lives in the past?

We should always live in the present.

Sure, positive memories can be good for the soul. And it is wonderful to look forward to the future.

But our life is now, no matter how much we procrastinate, so let's live it now.

Today.

This very minute.

Positive Quote Of The Day!

2005-12-26T02:40:00.000+05:30

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control. These three alone lead to sovereign power.

-- Lord Alfred Tennyson

Merry Christmas!

2005-12-24T20:12:00.000+05:30

Merry Christmas!

The Winning Edge - By: Peter Doskoch

2005-12-21T15:50:00.000+05:30

Peter Doskoch is a science writer based in New Jersey, and he is the former executive editor of Psychology Today.

In the summer of 1994, in the tallest of Princeton University's ivory towers, Andrew Wiles was completing one of the most extraordinary odysseys in the history of math. For more than three decades, Wiles had been obsessed with Fermat's Last Theorem, a seemingly simple problem that had stumped mathematicians for 350 years. French mathematician Pierre de Fermat had noted that although there are plenty of solutions to the equation X^2 + Y^2 = Z^2 (for example, 32 + 42 = 52), there is no corresponding solution if the numbers are cubed instead of squared. In fact, Fermat scribbled in the margin of a book that he had "truly marvelous" proof that the equation X^n + Y^n = Z^n has no solution if n is any number greater than 2. Unfortunately, he never put his proof on paper.

Wiles was 10 years old when he encountered the theorem. "It looked so simple, and yet all the great mathematicians in history couldn't solve it. I knew from that moment that I had to." When classmates were flocking to rock concerts, he was studying how geniuses of prior eras approached the problem. He abandoned the quest after college in order to focus on his budding academic career, but his obsession was rekindled in 1986, when a fellow mathematician showed that proving a certain mathematical hypothesis -- this one unsolved for a mere 30 years -- would also prove Fermat's theorem. He set aside all but the few classes he was teaching -- and revealed his quest to no one but his wife. To disguise his single-mindedness, he rationed the publication of previously completed work.

Despite long hours of focus -- his only source of relaxation was playing with his two young children -- the next few years produced little concrete progress. "I wasn't going to give up. It was just a question of which method would work," says Wiles. In 1993, after seven straight years of intense work -- more than 15,000 hours -- Wiles stepped up to the podium at a conference in England and, over the course of three lectures, presented his completed proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.

A media frenzy followed. The shy mathematician found himself named one of People magazine's 25 Most Intriguing People of the Year, alongside Oprah and Princess Diana. But a handful of peer reviewers poring over the 200-page proof found several small errors. Wiles set to work addressing them. After a full year of frustrating struggle, Wiles had the insight that allowed him to fix them.

Wiles' intellect is inarguably impressive; one of his colleagues told The New York Times that only 1 in 1,000 professional mathematicians were capable of understanding Wiles' work. However, the Princeton professor himself attributes his accomplishment not to his brains but to his persistence. "For me, it was the main thing," he says.

It is likely that somewhere, at this very moment, a parent or coach is declaring to a discouraged child that "quitters never win." But perseverance has come to seem like quaint lip service against the tide of interest in talent and aptitude, flashier gifts that nature, or genes, seem to inarguably confer.

And yet grit may turn out to be at least as good a gauge of future success as talent itself. In a series of provocative new studies at the University of Pennsylvania, researchers find that the gritty are more likely to achieve success in school, work and other pursuits -- perhaps because their passion and commitment help them endure the inevitable setbacks that occur in any long-term undertaking. In other words, it's not just talent that matters but also character. "Unless you're a genius, I don't think that you can ever do better than your competitors without a quality like grit," says Martin E. P. Seligman, director of the university's Positive Psychology Center.

Indeed, experts often speak of the "10-year rule" -- that it takes at least a decade of hard work or practice to become highly successful in most endeavors, from managing a hardware store to writing sitcoms -- and the ability to persist in the face of obstacles is almost always an essential ingredient in major achievements. The good news: Perhaps even more than talent, grit can be cultivated and strengthened.

How Much Does Talent Count?

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up," opined Thomas Edison, a man almost as famous for lauding perspiration as he is for inventing the lightbulb. If effort is the bedrock of success, what role do intelligence and other abilities play? "IQ counts for different amounts depending on the task and situation," emphasizes intelligence expert Robert Sternberg, dean of arts and sciences at Tufts University.

Manly large-scale analyses, however, suggest that a mere 25 percent of the differences between individuals in job performance -- and a third of the difference in grade point average -- can be attributed to IQ (personality factors, creativity and luck are said to contribute to the other 75 percent). Angela Duckworth, a graduate student at Penn who, together with Seligman, has conducted several key studies on grit, argues that the precise number isn't as important as knowing that intelligence accounts for only a fraction of success.

If 25 percent seems surprisingly low, that's partly because the hard work and determination that go into accomplishing Something Important are overshadowed by those rare but delightful lightning strikes of inspiration, mythologized as the visit of the Muse. "Unfortunately, no one comes in my window and whispers poems to me," laments David Baker, director of creative writing at Denison University and author of seven books of poetry, including Midwest Eclogue. "Poets work hard. I may work on a single poem for weeks or months and write 60 or 70 drafts -- only to decide that draft 22 was the good one."

Such persistence is vital even for an indisputable genius. Mozart's diaries, for example, contain an oft-cited passage in which the composer reports that an entire symphony appeared, supposedly intact, in his head. "But no one ever quotes the next paragraph, where he talks about how he refined the work for months," notes Jonathan Plucker, an educational psychologist at Indiana University.

Angela Duckworth had studied neurobiology in college and eventually went on to teach, including a stint at a school for low-income children. "It became pretty obvious to me that IQ didn't explain why so many of the kids had reading skills that were four grade levels below their average," she says. "The failure of kids to reach their potential was almost hitting me over the head." Already in her 30s and with a young child, Duckworth was intrigued enough to return to school for a Ph.D.

She approached Seligman, best known for his groundbreaking work on optimism, and together, they began identifying high achievers in various fields, interviewing them and describing the characteristics that distinguished them.

"There were certainly a fair number of people who were brilliant, ambitious and persevering," Duckworth reports. "But there were also a lot who were not a genius in any way but were really tenacious." They began referring to this tenacity as grit -- the determination to accomplish an ambitious, long-term goal despite the inevitable obstacles. Grit clearly resides in the same psychological neighborhood as motivation and self-discipline, but it's on a distinct property -- and no one had ever knocked on its front door before.

Altogether Different

Not that researchers have ignored it altogether. Louis Terman, the legendary psychologist who followed a group of gifted boys from childhood to middle age, reported that "persistence in the accomplishment of ends" was one of the factors that distinguished the most successful men from the least successful. And in the most-cited paper in the giftedness literature, University of Connecticut psychologist Joseph Renzulli, director of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, argued that "task commitment" -- perseverance, endurance and hard work -- is one of the three essential components of giftedness (along with ability and creativity). Indeed, Renzulli says, the evidence that these nonintellectual factors are critical to giftedness is "nothing short of overwhelming."

For the 95 percent of humanity that isn't recognized as gifted, Duckworth and Seligman have an egalitarian finding: Grit has value for people at all levels of ability.

In fact, their initial studies show that grit and intelligence are completely independent traits. Both enhance the likelihood of success, but the brightest among us are no more likely than the dimmest to be gritty. "I would be surprised if grit only matters for the upper echelons," Duckworth says. "One could argue that if you don't have a lot of raw ability, it's doubly important to be focused, hardworking and able to bounce back from setbacks."

The Penn researchers have already found that grit is valuable in a variety of real-world academic settings -- such as middle school spelling bees. And they're looking at its real-world value among real estate agents and Wharton Business School grads.

They've proved that grit is the premier attribute for surviving the grueling first summer of training at West Point ("Beast Barracks"), when as many as 5 percent of new cadets typically drop out. "West Point costs hundreds of thousands of dollars per student, so the military has a keen interest in predicting attrition," Duckworth explains. A grit questionnaire administered to all 1,223 cadets entering the class of 2008 showed that grit is the single best yardstick for predicting who will survive the academy's punishing first weeks. It bested such highly touted measures as high school class rank, SAT scores, athletic experience and faculty appraisal scores. "Sticking with West Point doesn't have as much to do with how smart you are as your character does," Duckworth concludes.

The Power of Passion

Certainly character was a tremendous asset to Andrew Wiles, who says he has a "single-mindedness that I don't see in most other people." But he also had "a special passion" for Fermat's Last Theorem. It is this sort of fervor and fascination that might just be the cornerstone of grit.

The idea that passion fuels perseverance has crucial implications: If grit -- and hence high achievement -- hinges on passion, then it's especially important for parents to expose their children to the broadest possible range of academic, artistic and athletic activities, to maximize the chances that something will capture the child's imagination. Helping children find their passion may turn out to be more important than addressing their academic weaknesses.

Renzulli points to his own son as Exhibit A. From early childhood, the boy was, in his father's words, "an electrical, mechanical and scientific genius." He routinely received As in science and math -- but Cs in English and history. "He would bring home his report card and his mother would go ballistic," Renzulli recalls. But convinced that his son's love of science was the key to his future success, Renzulli wasn't concerned. "I'd take him for a car ride, get some ice cream and say, 'I'm as happy as a lark that you are doing what you're doing. And I don't care about those Cs.'" The younger Renzulli, now in his 30s, has become a highly successful researcher.

Although extremely persistent people are usually passionate about their work, that doesn't mean that the passion always comes first. Perseverance, notes Duckworth, can itself foster passion. Often the most fascinating aspects of a topic (particularly a highly complex one) become apparent only after deep immersion, to a level "where you understand it and are enlivened by it."

Such is the case with Duckworth herself, who says that she decided on graduate school after a string of job stints in neuroscience research, management consulting and teaching spawned a desire to stick with one thing long enough to become an expert in it. "I decided to be persevering," she says. Although she had always been interested in education and achievement, her passion for exploring grit fully emerged only after she had been pursuing it for a while.
For others, persistence may grow from a desire to test one's limits, to see how far one can go -- sometimes literally. Think of endurance athletes, for whom challenge isn't merely an obstacle to accomplishing something but often the spur to action in the first place. Duckworth points to athletes who spend months or years training for a marathon not because they love the act of running long distances but because they want the personal satisfaction or public glory of having run a marathon.

Lance Armstrong entered his first distance running race at the age of 10, because he was determined to find something at which he could succeed. He won, and within three years he was winning swim meets and triathlons too -- anything that tested his mettle. "If it was a suffer-fest, I was good at it," he wrote in his autobiography It's Not About the Bike.

No less remarkable in his perseverance is Chinh Chu, who has engineered some of the largest private equity deals in history. During the 1980s, Chu worked his way through college by selling books door to door, becoming his company's top salesman in a job where 60 percent of sales come after the customer has said "no" and a third come after three "no's."

In his final year of college, Chu used his persistence to land a job on Wall Street, getting his foot in the door by driving eight hours through a snowstorm in order to crash a cocktail reception hosted by Salomon Brothers. As Chu and his friend were about to be kicked out, a recruiter, impressed by their verve, offered Chu an interview. More recently, as senior managing director of the Blackstone Group, Chu has led the grueling negotiations for complex multibillion-dollar deals that literally took years to structure and complete.

Perseverance, he insists, "is purely a state of mind" that depends on one's happiness and level of discomfort. But because people are influenced by their environment, a person's grit may vary as circumstances change. Enduring the rigors of selling books door to door is a lot easier for someone hungry to prove themselves. "I don't think I'd make it if you sent me out today to sell books door to door," he offers. Diligence has not deserted him; it's just moved to a fancier address.

Also in the Mix

Passion may be the linchpin of grit, but it's not the only element. Ambition is right on its heels. For some of us, vowing to organize our closet next weekend may represent the height of our ambition. Truly gritty people, however, tend to set especially challenging long-term goals; one of Duckworth's recent students confidently stated that he planned to become a U.S. Senator.

Self-discipline is probably also an important part of grit, and studies have shown that gritty people tend to be highly self- disciplined. But whereas perseverance implies the ability to keep doing something, self-discipline primarily implies the ability to refrain from doing something -- to stop drinking, goofing off or straying from one's diet. It doesn't embrace the ambition and zest needed to tackle a challenging goal. "Self-discipline is probably necessary for grit," Duckworth says, "but it's not sufficient."

Then there's optimism, a trait that Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California at Davis finds is extremely common among high achievers. "It helps them hang in there in times when they have to overcome all of these obstacles," he observes. "They just really believe in the end that they're going to win, and until they do, they're just going to keep on pushing, keep on making the phone calls, writing the letters, whatever they have to do."

It's this optimism, most likely, that helped Chester Carlson convince someone that the technology he had invented was worthwhile, even after more than 20 companies and the National Inventors Council rejected his work. Carlson called his new process electrophotography; today it's known as photocopying.

Grit at Home

Grit gets right into bed with you, and that may be one of the secrets of successful marriages. During the 1950s, demographer Paul Glick found that high school dropouts were more likely than graduates to be divorced, leading to speculation that people who give up on some hard things, like finishing school, are also unlikely to persevere in other matters, such as marriage.

Although plausible explanations have been proposed for the Glick Effect, the issue remains unresolved. The Penn researchers have not yet examined whether marital status or marital duration is associated with grit, although Duckworth confides they've got something in the works. It seems reasonable that people who are highly persistent in their work would also be adept at overcoming obstacles in their marriage, but it's possible that some highly driven, gritty individuals might be so focused on their career that personal relationships actually suffer.

Grit, most likely, can be taught, or at least encouraged. But one impediment to growing grit may be -- surprisingly -- the seemingly innocent act of parents praising a child's intelligence. In one fascinating series of studies, Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck and her colleagues showed that children who were praised for their intelligence cared more about their grades than about learning during subsequent tasks. And after experiencing a failure, these children were less persistent than their peers who had been praised for their effort. "When you praise kids' intelligence and then they fail, they think they're not smart anymore, and they lose interest in their work," Dweck explains. "In contrast, kids praised for effort show no impairment and often are energized in the face of difficulty."

In another study, seventh graders were categorized according to whether they felt that intelligence is fixed or malleable. Students who viewed intelligence as something that can be cultivated earned progressively higher grades during the next two years, whereas those who had a fixed view of intelligence did not improve. "When you have a malleable view of intelligence, you believe in learning and you believe in effort," Dweck says. "When you have the fixed view, you don't."

Based on these findings, Dweck and colleagues designed a program (the Brainology Workshop) that explains to kids that learning creates new neuronal connections in the brain and that they themselves can foster this process. When seventh graders whose grades had been declining took the workshop, their marks shot right back up. Among a control group that received only the study skills, grades continued to fall. The program is currently being tested in New York City schools.

The data demonstrate the need for parents and teachers to praise effort rather than ability. But it also explains why so many prodigies fail to flourish as adults: The adoration showered upon them in childhood rests on their remarkable abilities rather than on their hard work.

The need for grit is generally hidden from the young until they head off to college or enter the workforce. That's when it first becomes necessary to chart one's own course and set one's own goals. Before then, achievement hinges largely on doing your homework -- and that's chosen by others and assigned to you. Nonetheless, says Duckworth, perseverance clearly matters for kids. Gritty youngsters get better grades than their peers. And, as a study of participants in this year's National Spelling Bee revealed, kids who ranked high in grit were more likely to reach the final round of the competition, for the simple reason that they had worked harder than their rivals to prepare for the event.

Global Grit

Some argue that grit is engrained in the American psyche. In his recent book The Hypomanic Edge, Johns Hopkins psychiatrist John Gartner observes that the U.S. and other countries founded by immigrants tend to have high rates of people with mild mania. These folks tend to be energetic risk takers -- precisely the type of person likely to undertake a bold endeavor like immigration. Moreover, such people "are able to persist when others might get depressed," notes U.C. Davis psychologist Dean Keith Simonton.

Today the Pacific Rim countries may best exemplify grit. Think of Japan's astounding rebirth following its defeat in World War II, transforming itself from a near-feudal empire to a modernized republic and economic powerhouse. Or the long hours and Spartan conditions that welcome laborers in China's many factories. The writings of Confucius teach that people can reach perfection through practice and effort. Many Chinese folktales focus on feats of persistence -- for example, a boy who grew up in such poverty that he couldn't afford oil for his lamp but who nonetheless worked very hard and succeeded in becoming a government official.

Parental expectations are uniformly high in Asian cultures: Even though children in Japan outperform American children on most educational measures, their parents tend to say, "My kids can do better." By contrast, a large proportion of American parents report that they are satisfied with their kids' academic performance, lackluster though it may be by international standards.

Of course, hard work isn't the same as grit, and perseverance in response to parental obligations or social norms doesn't come close to suggesting the lit-from-within passion that drives most innovators. But external motivators like family expectations and internal motivators like passion often work together, in symbiosis. "It's possible," says Duckworth, "to do something because your parents say you should do it but then gradually learn to love it."

When giftedness expert Ellen Winner of Boston College visited China in the late 1980s, she was "absolutely astonished" by an after-school program in which first graders were required to choose an art form such as calligraphy or traditional ink and brush drawing -- and they were to continue practicing it for six years. "I asked a teacher, 'What happens if a child changes his mind or says that he didn't choose the right thing?' She looked at me like I was crazy and said, 'That never happens.'"

At first Winner was horrified that children were expected to stick with something that had been thrust upon them at such an early age: "It was like an arranged marriage. But then I thought, 'There's something really great about this, because these kids are really gaining mastery. And when they see that they're becoming good, they develop motivation.'"

In a global marketplace where innovation is more critical to viability than ever before, there's an urgency to identifying and, eventually, cultivating, the elements of success. Duckworth, Dweck and a host of others are demonstrating that grit is an important contributor.

Another thing they know: This isn't your grandmother's view of grit. The quality Duckworth finds so intriguing has little to do with clenched teeth. Rather, it's a force of motivation so luminous that, as mathematician Andrew Wiles found, it constantly renews itself.

Despite instant messaging, speed dating and immediate gratification, the idea that perseverance pays off big-time is slowly gathering steam. It augurs a far more democratic vision than a culture of achievement that recognizes only talent. No wonder grit is on its way to becoming The Next Big Thing.

Summary: We're primed to think that talent is the key to success. But what counts even more is a fusion of passion and perseverance. In a world of instant gratification, grit may yield the biggest payoff of all.

Are You a Procrastinator?

2005-12-21T15:29:00.000+05:30

We have to start with the definition of procrastination. In general, procrastination is the gap between intention and action. You wake up with the intention to write a report. But for some reason it is aversive, and you keep putting it off. A key point--procrastination involves actively putting something off, not just letting something slide in front of it from a too-long to-do list.
Only you can tell whether you are a procrastinator. It usually involves some negative feeling when you put off a task, like anxiety or guilt.

If you think of procrastination as a trait, then we all have a certain amount within us. It's related to conscientiousness, your sense of orderliness, of dutifulness. People who are low on the trait of conscientiousness also tend to be procrastinators. But for most of us, the "procrastinating" that we do is not problematic. Most likely, we are unduly beating ourselves up for being procrastinators when the real problem is that we live in a world that is loaded with deadlines. And we're just engaging an a kind of after-the-fact task management.

College, for example, makes procrastinators of many people. Or, rather, it brings that trait out even in people who have low levels of it. There are constant deadlines, apprehension about evaluation comes with the territory, and projects are constantly being foist upon students that compete for their time.

The point is, not all deferring of tasks is procrastination. Dr. Pychyl insists that we make the distinction. There is such a thing as the planning fallacy. Most of us are overly optimistic, especially about what we are going to get done. We drag home bulging briefcases for the weekend, even if we know at some level that we can't possibly do all of it.

We live in a world with lots of deadlines. We put things off as a matter of good task management, but we wind up beating ourselves up and mistakenly attribute it to procrastination. When realistically we probably put too many things on our plate.

But the waters get a bit muddy here because true procrastinators rationalize away their own self-injurious behavior by invoking the press of competing demands. Unlike the rest of us they are not de facto prioritizing their activities, they are actually actively expending mental energy to put something off.

Here's another way that not everything that looks like procrastination is procrastination. Like procrastination, depression involves a failure to act. It's one of the things that characterizes depression--lack of energy and motivation. People who are depressed are likely to beat themselves up for procrastinating, when in fact in their case procrastination is the surface symptoms of mental illness. And it must be handled differently.

So before you beat yourself up for procrastinating, check to see whether you make a career out of it. If you don't do it in most of the areas of your life, then probably you are not a procrastinator. Now you really have no excuses -- so get moving!!

Also, another fact is that "Procrastinators Perform Poorly Under Pressure".

Anyone who has scraped by a deadline may believe that they do their best work under pressure. A growing body of research, however, suggests that there is no silver lining to procrastination. Instead, people may procrastinate to stave off insecurity about failure.

Joseph R. Ferrari, Ph.D., a psychology professor at DePaul University in Chicago, has found that procrastinators usually perform more poorly than nonprocrastinators, even when he controlled for intelligence. They also perform more slowly and less accurately when carrying out difficult cognitive tasks under time constraints.

On the one hand, procrastinators enjoy the pleasure that accompanies jittery nerves before a deadline, according to Ferrari. But they also have less self-confidence than their peers. Procrastinators may exert less effort because they want people to think that they're not trying rather than believe that they are incapable.

In experiments reported in the European Journal of Personality, procrastinators completed less of a task than nonprocrastinators when given a strict time limit, but fared almost as well with more time. Ferrari believes that this reflects scaled back efforts under pressure.

Source: psychologytoday

Is the To-Do List Doing You In?

2005-12-21T15:24:00.000+05:30

Many days seem to bring an endless barrage of tasks and responsibilities, all of which apparently must be tackled right away. You spend the day putting out fires, but by the end of the day you haven't accomplished any of the really important things you set out to do.

In desperation, you draft a to-do list — but most days, you can make little progress with it. When you look at the list each morning, a big fat cloud of doom is right at the top — those difficult, complex, important tasks that are so crucial to get done — and so easy to avoid.

Plenty of us create a to-do list to address feelings of being overwhelmed, but we rarely use these tools to their best effect. They wind up being guilt-provoking reminders of the fact that we're overcommitted and losing control of our priorities.

Is there a better way to use the to-do list? Experts on procrastination and efficiency say yes.
There's a right way and a wrong way to do a "to-do." According to procrastination researcher Timothy Pychyl, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, people often draw up a to-do list — and then rest on their laurels. The list itself becomes the day's achievement, allowing us to feel we've done something useful without taking on any real work.

In fact, drawing up the list becomes a way of avoiding the work itself! "Too often, the list is seen as the 'accomplishment' for the day, reducing the immediate guilt of not working on the tasks at hand by investing energy in the list," says Pychyl. "When a list is used like this, it is simply another way in which we 'lie' to ourselves."

It's an example of what's been called the "procrastination field" — we're preparing ourselves to work, we're getting all set to take it on, but we never actually start doing it. Instead, we waste time and make ourselves feel terrible by circling around it.

For many people, that takes the form of attending to a barrage of tiny details and immediate requests. Burying yourself in busywork is an effective way to avoid more important — and more challenging — tasks. Pychyl says that procrastinators typically "binge" on low-priority activities, bustling about with stuff that's second- or third-level priority, rather than tackling the things they really need to do.

If this is your pattern, a to-do list can be a big help — if you use it the right way. If there's one dreaded chore that stays on the top of your list for a while, says Pychyl, that's a signal that you should either tackle it right away or admit you're never going to do it and strike it off the list altogether.

Break it down. In order to make it easier to begin working on big, intimidating tasks, efficiency experts suggest breaking it down into much smaller parts composed of specific, tangible activities. Research has shown that tasks that don't have an obvious action plan or structure are the hardest ones to face.

Make it easier on yourself by listing specific actions and subgoals. Your to-do list will get much longer but, paradoxically, will be a much more helpful tool.
Make a flow chart. This type of list "becomes a 'flow chart' that tells you when to start and when you'll be finished," says psychologist and life coach Neil Fiore, author of The Now Habit. "You create an overview and act like a project manager who is less likely to be overwhelmed or distracted by low priority or urgent tasks."

Each item on the list should have a priority assigned to it, he says. Another way to motivate yourself is to schedule alternating tasks: spend one hour on a number-one priority item, and then "reward" yourself by doing something easier and lower-priority for the next 30 minutes.
Maintain focus. Lists help you maintain momentum. If you're working on an important but difficult task, and a concern or thought bubbles up regarding a different responsibility, jot it down and return to it in a half hour or so when you're done with the project you were working on.

Get real! Fiore says that a strength of to-do lists is that they force you to be realistic about the amount of time you have and to make some hard decisions about priorities. "Realistically, you can't do it all," he says. "But you can focus on the best use of your time now, in alignment with your higher priorities and with the reality of human limits, humbly accepted."

Source: psychologytoday

Shivers

2005-12-12T10:12:00.000+05:30

Ever wonder what a shiver is?
If your body temperature starts falling, one way to heat it up is to get your muscles moving, and if you won't do it by jumping or running, your body will kick-start them in a more desperate fashion.

Ever wonder what anxiety is?
If your life fails to inspire, one way to get things going is to go out and do something, and if you won't do it by embracing new risks, will kick-start it in a more desperate fashion.

Kick-start your life yourself, before your mind does it for you.

Memories

2005-12-11T19:10:00.000+05:30

When you lose all hope, when things seem bleakest, when life seems like it can't scratch you up any more, there is one thing you can always reach for.

Memories of things that did work well. Memories of times you loved. Memories of beauty you have seen or felt. Memories allow you to feel joy in the midst of sorrow. Memories allow you to feel a hug when you are alone. Memories allow you to smell a rose, even when the snow is two feet deep.

Pull out some memories today, and relive the best that life has to offer (so far).

Motivational Quotes of the Day!

2005-12-06T08:14:00.000+05:30

There are three constants in life... change, choice and principles.
-Stephen R. Covey, American Speaker/Trainer/Author of "The 7 Habits ofHighly Effective People"

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was hëre first.
- Mark Twain, 1835-1910, American Writer andHumorist

Values

2005-11-28T18:52:00.000+05:30

What do you get when you mix red and yellow? Orange, of course.

So why do so many of us see the world in black and white. Every one of us knows exactly what is right and what is wrong. Funny how our certain knowledge differs from person to person. Could we both be right? In most cases, yes. Because we are all seeing orange, just different shades of it.

In a few cases, someone mixes red and yellow and sees blue. Oops. We have a problem. But most of us know the difference between right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate, etc.

What to do? Hold on to your beliefs and values, as they are important to who you are. But respect others whose views might not be identical. After all, they are not you, and their beliefs and values are important to who they are, too.

Air is Free?

2005-11-26T15:17:00.000+05:30

Think Again.

You take in Oxygen (O2) and give out Carbon-di-Oxide (CO2). You have to add (burn) your own Carbon along with Oxygen when you return it to nature.

This thought just crossed my mind when I came across the line ‘Nothing is FREE in this world’.

Choice

2005-11-11T21:59:00.000+05:30

Every situation presents you with two paths. You can choose the path of reaction or you can choose the path of action.

The first path is not really even about choice. It is the abdication of choice to every little event. You might leave the headlights on overnight. Or the photocopier jams. Or you spill ketchup on your blouse. The first path allows these events to bring you down, because you simply react.

The second path is the path of choice. It is about choosing how you want to feel. Dead batteries, jams and stains won't bring you down because they do not factor into your choice. If you choose to be happy, you will still be happy. These little events will still be inconvenient, but inconvenience is not the same thing as misery.

Just Wondering

2005-11-04T23:03:00.000+05:30

Now, I see a difference in my blog.

I have the Blog name changed and also the template which seems better. I am happy about the changes that have been made on this :)

Just wondering, why do I like astronomy/astrophysics conceptually and not with Mathematics in it?

Is it because I dont understand ? or is it because I don't want to understand?

I don't know.
When it comes to equations in physics, I go bonkers.

I am saying this coz, in my final year Bsc., my subjects being Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science, I was equally interested in physics as well as Mathematics. I joined Honors course in Astrophysics in St. Joseph's College.

A scientist from ISRO used to come to take the sessions. I always admire him for his one liner "Pictures speak 1000 times louder than words" which he really meant and used to teach with more number of slides. I really liked the initial sessions as it was all concepts and slides which I loved.

Later, perhaps after 5-6 sessions, it was all mathematics in physics with huge equations which I disliked. After one or two sessions I discontinued the course.

No motivation

2005-10-22T19:41:00.000+05:30

I feel that my blog doesn’t motivate me to blog on a regular basis.

Just thinking why it doesn’t motivate....
Firstly, the background is so flashy....in search of good template.
Secondly, also looking forward to change the name of my Blog....I guess it’s awful....

Let me change these two and see if I get motivated....

Significance

2005-10-08T12:03:00.000+05:30

Significance

We often think that we must accomplish some huge, highly publicized feat to achieve greatness-climb Everest without bottled oxygen, invent some wonderful product that everyone in the world needs: make the Forbes magazine's list of the world's richest, save a child from a burning building, or win a TV reality show contest.

Actually, greatness comes from consistently making wise smaller choices. The accumulation of many good small choices has the same impact as a few small drops of Tabasco sauce-intense power!

Greatness comes from consistently keeping our commitments and promises. Keeping our word builds trust from others and trust in ourselves.

When we seek after and respect goodness, we develop greatness in ourselves. We attract greatness by appreciating the outdoors, reading good books, developing our talents, and carefully selecting television programs and movies that inspire integrity.

POSITIVE QUOTE OF THE DAY
-----------------------------

The three great essentials to achieving anything worthwhile are;first, hard work, second, stick-to-it-iveness, and third, commonsense.

-- Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931) American Inventor

The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love.

- Hubert H. Humphrey,1911-1978, American Politician and Former Vice President of the UnitedStates

Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.

- Harriet Braiker, American Psychologist and ManagementConsultant

I Am Not an Illiterate!!

2005-09-20T04:42:00.000+05:30

I Am Not an Illiterate!!

The Day before Ananth Chaturdashi.
Venue: My uncle’s place
Occasion: Ganpathi Hom
Time: Around 10Am

All my aunts, cousins joined in for the occasion. My uncle still had the Ganapati idol at home and had planned to immerse it on Ananth Chaturdashi. Hom had already started when we stepped in. Everybody busy watching the hom and seemed they were praying too. After an hour, it was time to disperse after the pooja was over. Suddenly there was increase in the pitch of voice exchanging pleasantries, sharing the experiences, facts and gossiping about the stuff they really enjoy (that is to discuss about who did what and was it right or wrong, how somebody should have done something, why did someone do something like that…list goes on….).

After a while they seem to have got bored of talking about the same thing over and over about the same. After lot of discussion (rather gossip), it was time to prepare lunch. While preparing lunch they discovered new topics to discuss, for one small point they excavated lot of other topics related to the root topic. I met my cousin after a long time, we were busy discussing our own topics and we were also wondering if they (my aunts) all would have been in the research field, lot of things could have been unearthed related to one particular topic. They were discussing as though they were about to write a thesis. Arguing and establishing their own understanding about the point they were making.
Finally, they all came to terms. Cooking was done. The food prepared was kept before God and the final pooja was to be done.

It was around 4.30 pm, the pooja started. My cousin is a schoolteacher and she is very proud of being one. She always wanted to be an amateur teacher. We share the same birth year and month. The pooja was going on and were asked to recite any Ganesh mantra. I knew only one, which I used to recite since my school days. I recited that and told them that is all I know. My cousin was reciting a whole bunch of songs about Ganeshji. She was doing really well. After a while, a spark of thought hit my mind as though Ganeshji knocked my head and said “Fool, you are not an illiterate.” After that moment there was an overwhelming joy in me. For the first time I realized I am not an illiterate. I should have made an effort to learn some of Ganpathi mantras’. Then I promised God that the next time (next Ganesh Chaturthi), I would learn some new Ganesh mantra and recite it.

Working Memory

2005-09-01T10:58:00.000+05:30

Working Memory

What is Working Memory?

Memory over a short period of time is called Working Memory. This is a simple process of remembering things for a short period of time that happens everyday in our lives.

Early psychological work in the 1950's and 1960's led to the hypothesis of 'short term memory'; a process of limited capacity and only operative over a few seconds. The concept of 'working memory' is an extension of this idea, with the added idea that short term memory is woven together with higher cognitive processes, such as learning, reasoning, and comprehension.

Unlike long term memory, which has a large clinical body of research, working memory has only recently become the focus of intense clinical study. It is often assayed in intelligence or cognitive examinations using span tests, in which patients are asked to repeat a set of digits in reverse order (if I read "8-9-3-2-1-9", you would say "9-1-2-3-9-8") or alphabetize a group of words that had been read aloud. Studies of patients with various frontal lobe lesions do not show a systematic deficit in storage. These studies indicate that working memory is not one process; rather, it is made up of several separable processes.

A Psychological Perspective

Alan Baddeley, in his landmark book Working Memory, captures three decades of psychological work on working memory systems. Many working memory experiments simply consist of stimuli that are to be remembers for a few seconds. A typical task might ask you to remember a few letters, numbers, or features of an object. Typically, there is a brief delay, after which the subject is 'probed', or asked what he or she remembers. From extensive studies like these, Baddeley proposed a model of working memory that involved three distinct subsystems. The best described is the 'phonological loop', a system that draws upon speech resources. For example, if I wanted to remember a set of numbers, I might catch myself whispering to myself -- it turns out that speech systems are an integral part of working memory. The second component is the visuospatial sketchpad, a parallel system akin to an artist's sketchbook for stimuli that cannot be verbalized, such as spatial information. The third main unit is the central executive, a system responsible for supervisory attentional control and cognitive processing. This last system, though poorly defined, is most alluring because it represents the very stuff of thought.

Where is Working Memory in the Brain?

The rich psychological research, the simplicity and fundamental nature of working memory systems, and the adaptability of working memory experiments make it ripe for new brain imaging technologies. Both PET and fMRI capitalize on properties of cerebral blood flow to make inferences about underlying neural activity. Founded upon Baddeley's model of working memory, investigators have begun to explore neural correlates of working memory. Several neuroimaging studies provide evidence for a distinct neurological basis for a phonological loop, as well as separate processes for storage of items and retrieval. During the storage phase of verbal working memory tasks, activity is found in Broca's area (involved in speech production) in addition to supplementary and premotor areas (involved in movement) in frontal cortex, and is strongly consistent with activity in areas involved in preparation of speech from other neuroimaging studies. In addition, different networks are involved in retrieval as compared with storage in the left lateralized frontal cortex.

The neural correlates of spatial or object storage, in pursuit of the visuospatial sketchpad, is somewhat more tenuous. Neuroimaging studies yield that there are different areas activated in spatial or object memory tasks compared to those in verbal working memory tasks. Neuroimaging studies also suggest a difference in storage systems compared with retrieval systems in spatial or object working memory, indicating that there are again separate networks at work.

The Elusive Central Executive

The most fascinating line of inquiry confronts the idea of a 'central executive', a control system that mediates attention and regulation of processes occurring in working memory. The idea of a central executive was first postulated by Baddeley. Many investigators have seen evidence supporting the idea of a central executive; they have observed higher cognitive activity in an area in the prefrontal cortex, called DLPFC (Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex), during difficult tasks. This area shows activity during object working memory, and what are termed 'executive processes', such as planning, focusing attention on an object, switching between tasks, and 'inhibition' of short term storage (which are often tested using probes designed to distract subjects). One powerful design to study executive processes is to tax working memory systems to its capacity, or to present the subject with two tasks to perform simultaneously. As the reasoning goes, if you make working memory systems work hard, the central executive will intervene to manage the increased load. Examples of such difficult tasks include remembering a set of numbers while doing simple math or the famous Stroop task, where color names are presented in different colors ("red", for example, might be presented in green text).

A few neuroimaging studies using these difficult tasks support the notion of a central executive control system. In one fMRI study conducted at the University of Pennsylvania, participants had to place objects in a category and decide whether two visual displays differed by rotation. In the dual task condition, frontal areas showed increased activity, including DLPFC and the anterior cingulate gyrus (an attentional area). Both areas are active in attention and inhibition tasks, and the anterior cingulate has been implicated in PET studies of the Stroop test. Despite these studies, the concept of a central executive still remains tantalizing and mysterious, and much further exploration remains to be done.

Other Evidence About Working Memory

In addition to neuroimaging studies, there is converging evidence from animal models and cellular studies. Typically, awake, behaving monkeys are studied with electrophysiology, and the interconnections of individual circuits can be mapped out. Many of these circuits, thought to be comprised of large pyramidal cells, are focused in monkey prefrontal cortex, analogous to that of humans. Careful studies of these neurons reveal exquisite patterns of neuronal connectivity, and several models of working memory are derived from this connectivity.

The pharmacology of working memory also proves fascinating. Dopamine, a largely inhibitory neurotransmitter with many functions, is thought to play a major role in working memory. The frontal cortex has many dopaminergic pathways, which may modulate the activity of the pyramidal cells in the frontal cortex. Again, although much evidence has been marshalled by scientists who study working memory in monkeys, the relationship to human working memory systems is unclear.

As more information becomes available about working memory, it will become possible to think clearly about diseases such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease, conditions that show clear deficits in working memory. Many scientists have studied the way that working memory interacts with these and other diseases; however, without knowing more about the structure of working memory, it is difficult to draw further conclusions about its specific interaction with neuropsychological disease. Another intriguing line of research involves tracking working memory systems in aging; as humans age, there is a clear decline in their working memory capacity. It is not yet clear what component of the systems of working memory is responsible for this decline.

Despite the current intensive inquiry into how we remember things on a short time scale, the components of working memory remain shrouded in mystery. Further research on the systems of working memory will result in greater understanding of this fundamental system that we use almost every moment of our lives, providing insights into the higher cognitive processes that it feeds.

So bottom line:

All you need to do to top the CAT is make use of Wokable Memory right from nOW!

Source referred: Brainconnection

Lord Krishna!

2005-08-28T04:35:00.000+05:30

Here are some very good pics of Krishna which I got in a mail circular and also there goes a message.

Hear what Krishna says:......

If I answer your prayer at once, it is because I am testing your faith.

If did not answer your prayer at once, it is because I am testing your
patience.

If I did not answer your prayer at all it is because I have a better
plan for you.

Remember Krishna's promises are yes and Haribol! He is God
not man, which explains why He can never fail, hold on, don't be discouraged, your
miracle is knocking at the door of your heart.

A little more faith is what you need to see all your needs met.

The Prayer Answering Krishna is saying He has met all your needs.

Have a Lovely Weekend!

Long time!

2005-08-27T11:25:00.000+05:30

Its been a long time after I posted the first blog. Everyday I think i should write something special or something interesting.

In this thinking process, I tend to never write anything at all.
Now I ve decided, I will start with writing things that catches my attention everyday and the things that I observe and feel I should write about it.

Let me begin with ToDay(Friday). Just had three things on my mind

1. Had to go out with my mom to temple(Krishna janmashtami special)

2. Had been to IIM-B to collect the CAT form. I never realized when the dates of issues the cat forms by SBI passed by. Today was the last day. Luckily, I had informed one of my friends in IIMB(Praveen) to get the form. Praveen was aksing about Zango, FC espesially Psychodementia.

3. I had to finish reading a book which I couldnt complete coz I was watched movie" Maine Pyar Kyuon Kiya". Fun movie, liked Sush' acting:)

Will keep posting the lastest stuff...:) Till then EnjOY

Mera Bharat Mahan

2005-08-16T00:27:00.000+05:30

Let me Begin my Debu' post with the Independence Day Message!

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY TO ALL!!!!!

MERA BHARAT MAHAAN

Regs,
Rathna