When you are down

 Life is full of ups and downs, usually interlaced with long normals; this blog is about being down.

Sometimes, the downs are longer and stronger - to the point where it can be unbearable. The pain, the negativity, the loss, the failure, the difficulty, the problem; well, it’s just overwhelming. The world around you seems to collapse, everything becomes pitch dark. Not everybody goes through this and the ones who do, know how depressing it can be. You can feel quite alone, right in the midst of all the people around you.

All of what is mentioned above is closely related to a person’s thought process and psyche. The person might feel lost, might feel broken and here is what is important for the person - the grit, the strength, the resilience, the attitude, the fighting spirit. It is very easy to give up in difficult circumstances, but not many realize it is equally easy to pick yourself up and say ‘No’ to giving up. All you need is a little bit of courage, a little bit of support, a little bit of care, a little bit of love, a little bit of tenacity and a lot of “no to giving up”. The more you say “No” to giving up, the easier it is to bounce back. Probably, just ask a simple question to yourself - “How can I just give up and not fight it out?”.

The life we get is a blessing and it is important to realize the gift, the opportunity we get in the form of time at our disposal. It’s not the end of the world and there are thousand things that can be done - it just needs a bit of application, a bit of discipline, a bit of guidance, a bit of perseverance, in short, a lot of belief, a lot of motivation and a lot of drive.

Be the light that someone needs to see at the end of the tunnel and you would have helped someone overcome “being down”.

Being happy

This blog is an attempt to find the what, why and how of  "Being Happy"....

What is Happiness?

Well, I can't define what is this "happy feeling", it's just something to be felt.. 

At one point of time or other, we all have been happy ... we can't deny how good it feels "Being Happy". It's just awesome to be happy..

It's a positive space, which is a cherished time, a memorable experience, something to cling to..

Why be Happy?

I think Happiness is probably an outcome - an outcome of achievement, good luck, an event, a positive experience, a random act of goodness, etc..

I can't be 'just happy' all the times - I have a default state of mind, and then there are variations in it like happiness, sadness, irritation, frustration, anger, fear, comfort, discomfort, stressed, elated and likewise..

The feelings like sadness, frustration, irritation, anger, fear, stress make us feel bad/negative; our behaviour and actions tend to be in problematic zone.

This is the beauty of happiness; We feel good when happy; our behaviour and actions tend to be in friendlier and constructive zone.

How to be happy?

This section of the blog is what I intend to have as a learning for me as well...

• First of all, we have to know ourself - what we want and then, go about fulfilling it. The journey to the fulfilment is as important, if not more, as the fulfilment itself in terms of the aspect of "Being happy". We should celebrate/enjoy the journey as much as the fulfilment itself.
• We should understand the value of what we have. More importantly, we should be thankful and grateful for what we have. What is normal for us might be luxury for many others.
• We should learn to forgive - ourselves as well as others. In forgiveness, lies the power of healing.
• Happiness increases by spreading - try to give and receive happiness.
• The most difficult times are the ones of difficulties and sadness - try to understand and imbibe that time doesn't remain the same - there are going to be difficulties and struggles in life - faith might be of lot of help here. Happiness can be just around the corner.
• Be ready to help and also, open to taking help. We can help each other and good relations create positive vibes.

As conclusion, "practice makes a man perfect" - so, just "practice to be happy". There is another saying "Nobody is perfect" - so, may be we can never be perfectly happy ... 

All the best for "Being happy" !!

Open to mistakes or just avoid them

Mistakes are a reality, they happen, no doubt about it; but they bring with them a penalty and there are no two opinions about it as well.

The billion dollar question is whether we should "be open to mistakes and learn from them" or "just try to avoid mistakes".

The significance of the question is, implications of embracing any of the approach. Here, it is important to acknowledge that it's just not an action that can be a mistake, but an act of inaction can be an equally significant mistake.

I think the 3 words are highly interrelated - risks, experiments and mistakes. There are times when you know that a particular action is a definite mistake, there are times when you know that a particular action can turn out to be a mistake or may be not (that's a risk), there are times you have no clue if an act is a mistake or not (that's an experiment) and then, there are times when you just know it's not a mistake and it turns out to be a mistake (well, that's just a mistake).

If we have an approach of "just avoid mistakes", essentially we are saying that we are not open to risks and experiments and if we have an approach of "open to mistakes", then we might just develop an attitude of casualness.

A very important aspect here is to understand the "scale of the penalty" and "impact zone" of a mistake. It is quite important to evaluate our actions and categorise them as risk/no-risk or experiments and also analyse the scale of penalty or gain that they might bring, which basically means that we should know/understand the situation really well.

There are multiple sayings around this aspect which you might have heard - "Stay hungry, Stay foolish", "Fail fast", "Learn from other's mistakes", etc. I just wish that people understand the nuances of mistakes and the different approaches, at least I wish that i understood them way earlier than now. 

It's still for an individual to ponder over this and understand the implications of the approaches, risk, experiment and mistakes.

After a bit of thought and some experience of life, I think I will recommend the below:

Understand the situation/circumstances, size up the scale of gain/penalty and impact zone, definitely avoid mistakes if they can be catastrophic. Else, it's upto an individual to evaluate and decide whether or not to risk or experiment. But, definitely keep taking actions.

My personal journey, so far, has been to gradually move from "not understanding the situation" to be able to identify and undergo "risk" and "experiment" - resulting in severe penalties, at times and healthy gains, few other times. I think this blog might make me more aware about my actions and more keen/watchful about my approach towards "risks, experiments and mistakes".

I just hope somebody reading the blog benefits from this. Just understand, there is no "Ctrl + Z" in life.

Problems, Difficulties and Challenges

Success is a tree whose roots lie in problems, difficulties, challenges and so does failure’s.  A person’s present and future depends on how he approaches the problems, difficulties and challenges that come along the way. A person is born with a lot of constraints and at the same time, a person is born with a lot of opportunities. The failure in acknowledging the constraints and the success in identifying the opportunities can be a good platform for a positive mindset. Nobody doubts what a positive frame of mind can achieve.

So much for the positive frame of mind.. But what about the realities and practicalities of the problems, difficulties and challenges? Yes, constraints do exist and they have multiple aspects .. it will probably be foolish, if not bizzare, for any person to set out on an attempt to break Usain Bolt’s 100m world record. The abilities, potential, self-belief, confidence, patience, perseverance, knowledge, skills and so many such aspects come into play. But, quite necessary (not sufficient though) is the “desire” to do something that can help a person take on the problems, difficulties, challenges and take him beyond the finish line.

What you sow, is what you reap - so, the desires you nourish will define your success, failure, happiness, sadness, frustrations, calmness and so on. While having the mindset of problem solving, facing the difficulties and accepting the challenges is key to growth, it is much more important to have the desire for the right set of problems, difficulties and challenges for yourself.

To end this blog with some help/best practices, following are some hints for better handling of problems, difficulties and challenges:

• Believe in yourself - Equip yourself with right tools; prepare/arm yourself with knowledge, skills and self-belief.
• It can become stressful at times, find someone to talk to/team up with.
• Failures are a part of life - You might not succeed at everything; learn to accept failures gracefully.
• Look at life as an opportunity - embrace problems, difficulties and challenges.
• In the face of difficulty, it can be difficult to put up your best face - try to cultivate positive mindset.
• Time does not always remain same, there are ups and downs in life. Utilise the good times well so that you are better prepared for the 'not so good' times.

Quality of Life and what to expect from life...

My last blog was "Life's Best Practices" and while I was thinking what should be my next one, I thought it will be good for me to define what can be the parameters of a "quality life" as far as I am concerned.

Before I proceed further, I would recommend a book "Thinking, Fast and Slow", by Daniel Kahneman (a nobel laureate) and from what I have read so far, which is very initial, preliminary reading, will have a profound impact on this particular blog.

Without getting too much into the details of the book, I would paraphrase an important concept of the book, which is "We are driven more by our impressions and feelings (Thinking Fast) that plays critical role in shaping our thoughts and intellect (Thinking Slow)". While I am not sure If I am well qualified to opine on this, but I do concur with the concept to a large extent. At a given point of time, what I am gauging is "Am I feeling good, Am I feeling bad, Am I happy, Am I sad, Do I like this, Do I not like this, Am I satisfied, What do I want, What do I not want, so on and so forth..." . Based on this, I would like to have a very simple definition of quality of life - "Am I feeling good or happy about life?". If the answer to this question is yes, then I am having a 'good' life.. if the answer to this question is no, then I am *not* having a 'good' life.

Before you jump on and try to judge this simplistic, minimalistic definition (which again is a function of 'Thinking Fast' system), I will acknowledge that every person is different and has different expectations, aspirations and definitions of a 'good' life and a term like 'quality of life' categorically demands a more holistic and deeper definition, but which I think is subjective for every individual and upto an them to define in a broader and narrower context.

Probably, a good indicator of your definition of what is a 'good' life is to think about the attributes of your good, potential spouse (if you are yet to marry) or go back to the time of defining the attributes of your good, potential spouse (if you are already married) [Note: This might not be applicable to people who found perfect love in their teens :-) , which some of my friends have, but still can be a good hint for defining a 'good' quality life]. For me, I was interested in looking at following parameters when I was doing my match making:

• Education
• Profession
• Personality
• Family background (read religion, caste, financial status, upbringing, etc)
• Potential
• Behavioural compatibility

While the above is a decent indicator of what I would include in the parameters of 'quality of life', it is only a subset of it and the other part of the parameters is attributed to what more I think I need to 'feel' good or happy about my life. I would like to quote one of other concept from the 'Thinking, Fast and Slow', which is 'We have excessive confidence in what we believe we know and apparent tendency to not acknowledge the extent of our ignorance and uncertainty in the world'. While again I am not sure if I am well qualified to opine on this, but I concur with this as well to a large extent. The first step to defining 'your' quality of life is to know yourself well and define 'what you want' a.k.a what will make you feel good/happy. The interesting part the book plays here is to bring out that 'We have excessive confidence in knowing what we want or what will make us feel good/happy and the apparent tendency to not acknowledge the ignorance we have to '*not*' know what we really want. 

One thing I have learnt is that 'Life is like a tread mill, you just have to keep running....'. 

From my perspective, I think I do have enough in my life to qualify for a 'good' quality of life, but I also think I have good, strong reasons to still believe that I do not have enough, to call my life as 'good'/'happy' life. What I realise is, life has thrown so much at me that I understand, rather know, that life is quite uncertain (which i don't know is good or bad).

Well, I can go on writing for a little longer, but I will like to keep the post short enough and end it with saying "While the life is definitely uncertain and we are quite ignorant as well, we still have to go about living it by planning/strategising and experiencing it."

 (Just to keep you interested in the book 'Thinking, Fast and slow', it mentions something about an 'experiencing self' and 'remembering self' and how they play a part in our lives :-) .... )

Life’s Best Practices :)

Life is a sequence of time and events, and it is more about what you do to it than what it does to you. While everyone’s circumstances are different and there is no magic wand or magic potion to help you sail through life, I think it makes sense to analyze what works best in it. This is an attempt to pen down some best practices I have found in my life...

Do the right thing(s) !

Your success does not depend on working hard, it depends on doing the right thing(s). Working hard might be one of the right things, at times. Just like it is important to do the right things, it is important not to do the ‘not right’ things. Invest and spend your time to find what is right in circumstances and different phases of life, and go about doing it. Defining ‘right’ is subjective to each individual and sometimes there might not be ‘the’ right thing and decision making comes to the fore here.

Find Good Mentors, and/but take your own decisions !

It's said “A picture is worth a 1000 words” and I would say “A good mentor is worth a 1000 friends”. Your first mentors are you parents, then the teachers and as your life progresses, you find less mentors when you are supposed to take up more responsibilities and handle more complexities. A good mentor can be the guiding light at different phases of life but remember that the path has to be traversed by you and it is very important to take own decisions and keep learning/growing along the way.

Invest in yourself - take responsibilities and keep learning !

The best investment that can happen is an investment in self. There are various ways to invest in self - like trainings, networking, reading and most importantly, taking up responsibility. It is important to have a positive frame of mind, believing in self and persist with learning and gaining expertise. Knowledge and skills should pay handsomely, in the long run.

Focus on health !

I think ‘Health should be considered as wealth’, which actually it is. It is highly advisable to focus on health - regular exercise, good sleep, right nutrition, managing stress, etc are all key ingredients to healthy living.

Give sufficient time and enjoyment to family !

Life feels longer when difficult and shorter when merry. It is important to have everything balanced, more so when it comes to Work-Life balance. The people who care for you the most are your family. Give sufficient time, care and love to family, take vacations, do enough leisure activities with them - Family is who cares the most for you.

Make lasting friendships/relationships !

Relationship is a two way street: While someone can be of help to you, there is immense happiness in being able to help someone out. It is not just about give and take; and a good company can be much more rewarding when it inspires and motivates ! 

Cultivate hobbies and follow interests !

While it is a lot about investments and returns in life, you should find time to cultivate some hobbies and follow your interests. A happy moment or a pleasant memory can help you survive some tough ones. You should be able to create enough fun in your life that helps you stay blessed.

VIVID(Broadway) show @ Berlin

Back in 2003, I went to UK as a rookie and was astonished and amazed with lot many things like cleanliness, Bus with GPS updates, 7-level underground metro/tubes, super trains, palaces, google maps, nightlife and so many other things.

Since then I have been at many foreign countries and have also experienced the changing India; and have not been astonished much in a very big sense. The cleanliness of the foreign still makes me awed, but i don’t miss much otherwise in India as such.

Yesterday, I was quite astonished and amazed… well, by a theatrical display - something called VIVID(Broadway) show at “Friedrichstadt-Palast Berlin”. It is difficult to describe it in words.. I won’t say it is a must watch but if you do happen to watch it - extravagance is an understatement for it, mesmerizing also probably might be an understatement, elegant definitely.. It was different.. Nothing close to what i have witnessed.. It was simply impossible to not clap and whistle. I will take a go at describing it, but I am afraid I will fall way short of it…

The show was a combination of live music, live dance, live singing, acrobatics, aerial acrobatics,  acro-dynamics(i have coined this term; don’t know how else to define what is saw) , fireworks, laser show, vivid mesmerizing colourful lights, extravagant costumes, animations, human-animation interaction, some live painting projected on a huge screen, it was definitely dangerously breath-taking for some of the artists, and all glued together as a light touching story. They even included one of the spectators in stage performance for 10 minutes.

We were in a huge auditorium .. may be 1000 people or more, at the top row to give a beautiful overview vision. The stage was magnificent podium.. And it was truly dynamic - black, semi-circular, around 40-50 meters wide and there was hardly anything that was not moving - it had rotation, it went up and down, it was broken into small/big sections which opened and people and instruments and ropes went inside it and came out.. There was a huge circular stage part in the middle of it .. which could be pivoted up to be used as digital display for projections.. There was a curtain for animation projection and at the back, there were live musicians.. The stage had an extension to first floor gallery where musicians, dancers and actors performed as well.

You can watch the trailer at this URL https://www.palast.berlin/en/.

The best part of it was, that at the end, it did not feel like a punch in your face.. It was simply soft, elegant and beautiful. It is something to be witnessed and experienced..