Is the grass always greener on the other side.......

I am sure a lot of us really wrestle with situations where we have choices but we really don't know which choice to pick....Hell we sometimes don't even bother to evaluate what we have in hand as we take things for granted.......Why do we take things for granted in the first place? Because what is easily accessible is not really enticing.....Always the one that is difficult to get or something that seems far and distant looks enticing......But what we forget to consider is that....while the grass is always greener on the other side, maybe we forget that if we watered the grass on our side and had patience, it would be equally greener too...... In fact a lot of times we take impulsive decisions where we think the grass is greener on the other side but then after reaching the "greener side", we look  back only to find that the grass is now greener on the side that we were.....It is funny that we go back and forth and don't make up our mind.....But what really causes the confusion?? Is it the fact that the sheen on the current side fades away or is it the fact that like all good things.....when things change, we also need to move on and go with other options? Well, it could be either but the root of the problem is the choice......

Research has shown that the more choices people have,  they end up making wrong decisions.....It is interesting and psychologist Barry Schwartz explains this phenomenon to us...Check it out in the following video from his TED talk regarding the paradox of choice

http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html


So....what do we do then? Do we really shun choices and just live like we have no choice....??
That would be impossible because we have all become so comfortable with being inundated with choices that we feel that curbing our number of choices actually limits our freedom to make a good decision.....
The best way in my opinion is to really consider at the maximum 2 choices at that moment and make a decision based on the merits of the two choices and move on.....As we go along, we really need to learn to brave ourself and learn to tell NO if something doesn't seem like the right candidate to even be in one of our 2 choices.......And this way, in my opinion, a lot of confusion can be avoided and we get greater clarity about what we need to do if we consider only 2 options at that moment in time and make a choice based on that.....But we also need to be aware of the repercussions in choosing either of the choices and be prepared for the good and bad of it......

Moral: The grass may be greener on the other side, but if you look carefully, there only green everywhere and nothing is greener.......

Individuality and empathy......

It is interesting to notice that while we all strive for individuality, it is the collective action of the individual people around us that really makes us who we are... I came across this wonderful statement made by one of my friends which goes like:

"No point wasting time waiting for friends and no point wasting time waiting for those who ain't" ....... Which is hits the nail right on the head. We look for acceptance from people around us and always want to be harmonious but in that process we try to do one of the following things:

i. People should like me so I will go that extra mile to make sure I am likable......

ii. It will be nice if people liked me although I am not quite sure how much I am willing to open up for them......

iii. I dont' care if people like me or not, I will do what I have to do and people can take a call......

iv. Its good to have harmony around and peace around, but then I will still be the person I am, but I'll try to understand first and then look to be understood....let's see where that goes....

Needless to say, I subscribe to the point (iv) because a lot of times, we tend to be selfish or always want to put our foot forward that we rarely give the chance to understand people across the table. When was the last time we really didn't just hear to what people said and tried to put ourselves in their shoes? In other words, empathy first approach always brings out some inner qualities in ourselves that we take for granted. For instance, it is bound to give a lot of patience to the self because when we empathize, we are actually going into our vision or dreamland(inception of sorts) and visualize ourselves in that situation.....It is interesting to see how greediness/selfishness helps us here....Because, we put ourselves in the situation and because we give a lot of importance to the self, we are able to understand the situation better and go forward with it.....This does wonders to us in more than one way.....

First being, before we even make a judgement or form an opinion about someone, we simulate things and see what we would do in such a situation. This kind of simulation is really powerful but it doesn't need to be on all the time. There needs to be a fine balance between simulating things and just leaving that and always switching yourself on to analyze things or people around. Empathy is not about analysis, it a means to understand someone better. Maybe you cannot expect them to do the same back to you but then you are at peace with your inner self that you are at least making an attempt to understand the people around you and give them the time that they deserve if they are truly important to you....... 

Second thing, after you are able to better understand the person and their situation, unknowingly you develop a lot of patience and tolerance.....For any relationship to work(friendship or romantic or family bonding) patience and tolerance is the key.....To put it bluntly, its all about how much you can really tolerate someone in your life.....Maybe it sounds too negative but it is not....Tolerance is all about patience and if the person is not at all important, you wouldn't even bother thinking about empathizing with them in the first place......So, seems like we do all of this subconsciously in bits and pieces. But if we try to stop overanalyzing things around us and just treat people as they are, listen and empathize with them, we can be guaranteed to build long lasting relationships which are built to last and not built to get lost over time.......


Third thing and probably the most important. When we start empathizing, somehow people kind of get a drift of that someway and do the same back to you. It feels great when you can give something so powerful and get it back......You end up doing a lot by subtle hints and with minimal communication.......This is probably what people call as "reading the mind"......There is no special key to read the mind....It is malleable, it keeps changing and thats the best part about it......We just have to enjoy the change and adapt as we go along with the present in mind because the present changes when tomorrow arrives.....

Poem to Self

Enjoy the chaos around

For when all the chips are down

Upon you it will dawn

Forgetting to enjoy the present
Will hardly earn you a cent
So, don't lose the chance of being a trillionaire
And live your life in despair
Don't mope and pine for things you have lost
Coz whatever happens, happens for the best
Look out for people who get your back
And not for people who talk behind yours
For the time that went by ain't comin back
And whatever that should belong to you will always be yours......

What is the connection???

I came across this quote by famous management guru Peter Drucker and it goes something like this:

"The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; It is to act with yesterday's logic".......
Although I am not sure how much of this was intended to see it from living your life perspective, I feel this is very apt to how one could live life free of troubles and confusions.  In its true sense in the management world, this tells people to really look at the present data and make a sound decision based on the present data that you possess.  If you look at life, I guess we could do that too. Yes, its probably hard to let go of some of the past, life is very different than selling a burger or groceries to people.  But nevertheless, lets see what we can do to take in present data around us and see how that could help us.

Consider the fact that you have had a pretty decent life with all the roti, kapda makaan taken care of and education also taken care of. It's only after you graduate from college that life really hits you on the face with a soft pillow or a hard cement block to bleed your nose and yell at you "SURPRISE.....GOTCHA!!!".....And you are either dazed or hurt with that you encounter and wondering where the hell did I mess it up......I guess the place where we all tend to mess it up is to expect life to be as casual and protective as we had it back in college......That's probably the first start for us to really ingratiate ourselves into the thinking that "Don't have any expectations from anyone"...... The moment you do that, you stop taking everything for granted....You feel the need to really earn whatever you want in life and when you have these "hunger-games" playing within,  when you get something that satiates your hunger, you feel very satisfied irrespective of the quantity of "food" that goes into you...... But it doesn't stop there does it?? It's just the beginning and you have to make lots of decisions which really shape your life and have put you where you currently are........So what do we do when we have to make such decisions in life??  Well.....we probably do one of these things:

i. Ah.....I have been in this position before. I perfectly know how its gonna unfold from here....
ii. Wait a minute!!! This is unknown territory....How am I supposed to navigate myself from here......???
iii. Ah....I know someone who was in this situation......I know what that person did and I am either going to/not going to the same thing.....


Let's re-consider our usual approach and see how we can apply the management mantra to our life and check out how it could work.....BTW this is just my perspective and I am really not preaching anything as such....


Irrespective of what situation you may be in .....lets consider the present facts......You may think you know how it may unfold from here....it may be good or it may be bad.....But your present will never be an exact replica of what the past was no matter what.....That could either mean you are dreaming or you are too scared to take a chance in life that you enjoy things not changing around you......
The best scenario to be in is to treat every decision making as scenario (ii) where by you try to tell yourself, this is kinda unknown for me coz things have changed a lot and when things have changed, so have I .....So I going to use the wisdom I got from my experiences but I am going to make a decision purely based on the data that I have currently......Does that sound better??

What does this approach yield?? To put it bluntly : peace of mind...... How??

Well.....consider you are driving a car and you have been hit from the back before because you did not notice the rear view mirror on to your right. What would happen if that paranoia forces you to keep looking at the rear view mirror every 2 seconds and you lose concentration of the road in front of you....BOOM....thats a recipe for another accident.......It is as simple as that......You cannot drive ahead by just looking at the rear view mirror........You need to look forward and look ahead from where you are........The road ahead is far more wider and longer and if you take your eyes off it to look back you will be left behind and you will be stuck where you feared.......Leave the past, look ahead and take each toll both as it comes.........

And keep saying this to yourself.....
"No matter what shit happens.....Life is awesome coz these are the events that make it awesome......."

About time.....

Well hello and here I am....After two futile attempts of trying to write a blog and trying to be regular only to discover that I haven't been able to devote enough time or have the required patience to do this, I guess this should be it.....This is my third and hopefully this is a sustainable one and I hope to take it forward from here.....Let's see how it goes....