Friday, December 25, 2009

Perception, Pretense and other Pastimes

From some days, I have been doing some soul searching.

Why is life the way it is? Could it be anyway different than what it is? What are others thinking about me? How will others react to my comments? Will others like my comments? Is he pretending to be what he is? What is his ulterior motive? Will others feel about what I am going to say? I have not been in touch with X person, what will he/she feel about it? Is this a good time to get in touch with X? Will X mind that I am getting in touch after ages?

All these questions, and many more, bothered me a lot for a very long time. I was too sceptical about expressing my own opinion, which is wierd because I always propogated that one should voice his/her opinion.

But sometimes you just need some 'time-out' from your routine. That is what I wanted. I was unable to focus on work, nor on family. Effectively, making me suffer in the process. I thought if I was able to spend time with myself for a while, I could sort out my messy life.

I was experiencing the widening communcation gap between my family, friends, near and dear ones. For no fault of theirs, I was going away from them, and I didn't know what to do. I just wanted the situation and my life in general to improve. I was neither opening up to others with my problems, nor solving it myself.

Somewhere I knew that I had the solution within me. Only, I was not able to find it. I was just moving along, without making any efforts to solve the problems. I was just waiting for things to get worse before I start controlling them. In this process, I was becoming more introvert and I was just growing an impenetrable shell around me. I had cut all communications with my friends and families, but still pretended that things were all fine.

Then came a point when I was no longer able to sustain the self-developed mountain of problems. I just had to find a solution. The phase of finding a solution was very revealing.

I spoke to my family about it. They offered me a simple solution and the root of my problem was identified rightaway. My problem was, I was doing too much thinking. I used to always think of things too critically - irrespective of their degree of seriousness. I used to think of all the possible outcomes/ possible responses/ possible turn-downs. You get what I am saying? I anticipated responses/ solutions/ problem-areas/ 'their' thoughts - positive or negative, and I refrained from acting on them. Thus, there was a huge delay in 'actions'.

These had become my bottleneck - my work, my family and I was suffering from it terribly. I was not open enough to do radical things, which was again very wierd because I am known to be a radical/ creative thinker.

Having identified these 2 major bottlenecks (and this is a very recent development), I am feeling immensely relaxed. But I knew that I still had to act on them.

This time I have decided - I will act on it asap without critically over-analyzing and over-assessing things. From past few days, results have been awesome. I am discovering that all these problems were my creation. I was only 'speculating' them. And they were becoming real. And they began haunting me.

So now I take quick decisions, and act on them. Life is becoming better again! Cheers!

An example of this is: Earlier, I would think for a long time about blogging my personal thoughts and sharing it with netizens. What will they feel about my thoughts, should I share my personal thoughts with them, etc. But I didn't bother much before writing this post. :) It is important to share than to hide. Sharing helps one grow.

PS: Another thought just struck me: Beneath every problem is a solution waiting to emerge and free itself!

Monday, October 05, 2009

a new start

I want to be a blogger again. I have been thinking about it for long.

To start with, I will be writing just for the heck of it. Writing anything that crops up in my mind. Things I adore about my l'il baby, Swasti. The techniques I use to keep her from crying.

Watch out for this space.. :)

Thursday, March 05, 2009

change in hand-writing

Over the years my hand-writing has drastically changed. May be evolved is the right word.

Till very recently, I was a cursive writer until I came across Hugh MacLeod's cartoons on gapingvoid.com. I studied his writing, and found it very practical. Very legible and very clear. But it was print-writing. I adapted it and started using it. Not that my cursive was not legible. I have received several appreciations during school level for my cursive writing. Anyways.

My logic was this: Others may find cursive writing slightly difficult to read. Since I write for others to read, I should switch to print-writing. I also got a good response for this switch. I keep writing oneliners, thoughts, project specifics, and other such stuff on board and the readers did find this type of writing much easier to grasp.

More about it later...

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

corporate alter-ego

We all want to be superheros - in corporate and personal lives. Somehow completing our target with unmatched accuracy and incredible speed. Saving some office guy from a big bully. Increasing team-work through mentoring or motivational blah. Saving the office from a mega-blunder by demonstrating "keen eye for detail" power.

Some remain shy and perform like Clark Kent or Peter Parker in their personal lives and transform in Superman or Spider Man in their professional lives. Some are like Bruce Banner who overtly transform into The Hulk and gets the work done. But their alter-egos don't have exciting lives. They're always struggling to keep up with their personal commitments.

I am wondering if a guy who consistently excels in professional and personal fronts is mythical.

I have recently become a great fan of Ben Tennyson (from Ben 10), a teenager with an Omnitrix having amazing powers of 10 aliens. Depending upon the situation's intensity, he summons his aliens using his Omnitrix and transforms himself into one. Then he goes on to "resolve the issue" at hand and ensures that the "problem" does not recur.

He is plain, down-to-earth, and balances both his lives with great dexterity. In our own lives, we should transform ourselves in our role models whom we actually look up to. Be it in managing teams, family, friends, projects etc.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

my experiences in driving

This was officially my fifth day of driving a 4-wheeler on the busy streets. And I am begining to feel that driving is an adventure and I hope to become passionate about it very soon.

The opening line will give y'all a feeling that I have just learnt to drive. But it's not so. I 'know' how to drive a car since my first year of engineering (9 yrs back - yeah, I know, don't gimme those looks!). I knew the basics then but wasn't 'hands-on'.

I was somehow reluctant about driving a car, for no reason whatsoever. Lot many friends and family members forced me to actively start driving. But I had a stronger willpower. I stayed adamant. I did not even bother to get a car driving licence. I satisfied myself with the excuse of having lot of work at my workplace. My crooked logic was: Since I did not have licence, I should not drive on roads as I don't like to violate traffic procedures.

Then came a time when the government encouraged me not to drive. Yes when the fuel prices had shot up and Petrol was at Rs 55 a litre. Anyways, they were brought down to curb inflation later, which was the good part.

Sometime in between I got engaged and was about to get married. This probably was the single most important reason that urged me to get a licence and learn driving.

Just somedays back I got a learning licence, and I started driving on roads. I had to develop confidence about my ability to drive. I am now practicing to make it perfect. I dared (very late though), and did practice driving on roads (not on smaller lanes, not empty on roads but roads full of people and vehicles).

With driving being newly added in my skill-set, I can venture out and take care of the pt 7 in my previous article.

Will be sharing more of my experiences in driving with you....

a new begining...

Its been a real long time that I wrote anything. I really missed this period. But I was focused on my work and was settling in my married life.

Now I want to do lot of things. I want to:
1. re-unite with friends with whom I was not in regular touch
2. re-start blogging
3. fortify relations with family members (near and far)
4. start enjoying work again. (There was a small period when work had become just work. Monotonous. I am passionate about work. But during this small 'dark-age-type' period, I was working mechanically. I will again be passionate about my work.)
5. re-activate my interest in photography and and start publishing it (may be in flickr, picassa etc)
6. re-start meditation (there was a sufficiently long period when I had stopped meditating for no reason whatsoever. Meditation helped me discover and maximise my potential.)
7. re-visit places which I have not visited so far. (These would be scenic spots around Nasik)

Here's looking toward doing all of these with a lot of zeal!

Cheers!! :)

Friday, January 16, 2009

a quick post

Yahoo is more popular than gmail although functionality and ease of gmail is better.

Currently we are facing tremendous issues with delivery to yahoo mails. We have tried lot of stuff to get rid of this problem, but to no avail. Tried to get in touch with yahoo customer care people, but I face a problem with such 'support teams' where they don't provide a telephone number. Lot of efforts but all in vain.

This is leading to high customer dissatisfiers. Yahoo has given some guidelines on 'best practices' during mailing. Well, to a layman like me, only 10% of those points made sense. Understandably, the problem remains.

But the rising customer escalations is a problem. Let's see.

Just had 5 quick minutes with me, thought of sharing my concerns with y'all!.