No doubt about it

Surviving is succeeding, no doubt about it. Doing the work is better than not doing the work. Waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress. But, and it’s a huge but, you define yourself by the work you do, and perhaps you need to redefine what you’re willing to take and where you’re looking for it.

Smart people

He was in a hurry to go to the conference in the early morning. He got struck up in the traffic due to some sensitive happenings in the city. Police people placed barricades at junction points to not allow the public. Feeling disgusted, he barked at the Police gentle man and tried to explain public grievances etc.

But Police gentle man was cool and  just listened to his pains and said, ” First, put your pants zip on….”

********

You’re in a conference with smart people. All of a sudden they start discussing a term or concept you don’t aware of or understand, what do you do?

Do you know what is IPSec Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)? Anything about Triple DES encryption? Secured connectivity using GRE tunneling, site-to-site VPN, blah blah blah?

If smart people in the meeting are talking about an approach or concept that you don’t know, it’s very important that you don’t just be there and nod your head sagely. I think there are two constructive approaches. The first is to ask. “Wait, I was with you until a second ago. What does that mean?”

The second approach is to write it down and not go to bed that night until you know the topic better than the person who brought it up. How else, precisely, are you going to become one of the smart people?

Initiate

“I would love to learn.”

Learning is OK. Listening is fine.

But initiating is rare, valuable and very important.

How often do you initiate rather than react? How often do you invent raather than exploit?

Spectacular

I was sipping coffee, standing at the canteen in our office premises. A gentle man came to me straight away and said, “Hey, your spectacles are cool. Nice one.”, and gone.

In fact, he is the only one who praised my spectacles. No one among my near and dear liked it.

It was a totally surreal moment that made me smile. A goofy happy smile? I don’t know.

Problem

I think, there are three ways to deal with a problem.

• Lean into it.
• Lean away from it.
• Run away.

Some people lean into a problem, especially a difficult one, by sitting with it, reveling in it, embracing it and breathing it in. The problem becomes part of you, at least until you solve it. You try one approach and then another, and when nothing works, you stick with it and work around it. What I mean is – you accept it, live with it, breathe it and whittle it until you  achieve your goal.

Some people choose to lean away from the problems that nag them at home or at work. They avoid them, minimize them or criticize the cause. Put as little into it as possible and maybe it will go away.

And for some people, the problem is so nasty or overwhelming that you just run away.

What do you think, which is the best approach? The first one? And sometimes, quitting isn’t such a bad idea. The second approach, is the one that many of us end up with by default, and the one that’s least likely to pay off.

Twitters

One professor mentions, “The definition of a machine is simple. It is anything that reduces human effort. Anything. So, see the world around you and it is full of machines.” A student, Ryan asks: “Sir, what about a gym machine, like a bench press or something? That doesn’t reduce human effort. In fact, it increases it.”

I am reading Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone, now a days. This book brings out the sheer brilliance of IIT students in a very subtle way. The professor does not know how to respond for Ryan’s question. Some students can pose fairly challenging questions based on their common sense and without any prior knowledge and unsettle teachers in the class.

Another twitter…

“Dad! Why are you calling him ( system admin) for everything? Don’t you know how to handle a computer? But, you always work on the computer itself!!!”, kid daughter of a software giant asks.

Does he has any answer?

Induction

I bit my tongue while eating.Got soap in my eye while washing my face. I could not get the key out of the lock in the front door. Someone hurt my feelings. I tore the seat of the sofa while trying to move something. A representative in an organization barked at me, over telephone when I asked a question.

My day was really crappy until …..I saw the incredible look on one lil girl’s face as she was about to eat her ice cream. I just loved the wonderful look of sheer glee on the lil gal’s face as she took the first bite!

I was wallowing in my own self-pity today and seeing the joy of life on that lil gal’s face made me realize once again… that the world does not revolve around me.

Note: A post repeated..

Rojulu Maaraayi

This evening, I was on the way to get a hair cut. I generally get some relief whenever I do. Maybe because of the gossip and the idea of having to listen to them talk. Of course, I get the least chance to respond.

Entered into the shop and I found that 5 other guys were in a row waiting ahead of me.  But the barber surprised me and invited me to sit at the operation chair bypassing all the others. Noticing the visible confusion on my face, barber said,  “They are here not for a hair cut but for chatting. They own neighborhood shops.”

“Oh. OK”, I sat.
And as the barber started his work,one of the five men asked, ” What happened next?”

Barber flushed water on my hair and said, “Ah. What else have happened? Goddess Kanakaduraga watched Rojulu Maarayi (Times have changed) in a theater and got down from rickshaw at the kamaan(entrance) of the temple. She said to rickshawallah, hey..it’s not that times have changed..it’s actually people have changed.. and disappeared..”
Another man asked, “You believe it’s right?”
With scissors running on my head, barber said “Why not? it’s so true.. Why times change? See..it’s morning now..night comes..and another morning comes.What’s day today? Thursday..Friday tomorrow..and so on..They never change..It’s only people change. Kanakadurga said it right..”

I was tight lipped and seeing at my lap with my head bent down.

Father or Son?

Father or Son? Which role you like?

I must say- Father. If you are not a father yet, I believe you would definitely like this role in your life.

The above theory strengthened today as one of my colleagues’ son achieved a stupendous success in a highly competitive exam. I don’t know how happy the son is. But I’m pretty sure about the father. You must have seen his victorious and joyous eyes. A proud father.

Great moments. One should feel at least one time at any point of ones life.

All the best for them.

A picture that can never be posted!

“Hello? How far is Mall from here?”, stopped my bike and asked these people on a national highway during my road journey to a remote town called Mall(nearly 80km from Hyderabad). The man in the picture said, “20miles…”, and they started to go away from me. And I don’t know why the idea of taking this pic happened. But I interrupted them and requested them to give me a pose for this pic. They obliged and so happened this pic!!

I asked them to give their postal address so that I could post the pic.

“Err.. we’re moving out of this place tonight..probably to Nellore.. And you know, we don’t have any permanent address..Where there’s a work, there we are.. If you see us anywhere in the future, you can give the photo…no problem..”, he said with a thankful tone and moved away…

These people, for better or for worse, are making their livelihood with an incessant journey from the North to the South of the country?!!??

Can I meet them again in the future?? Let’s hope so.