Contributed to Deccan Chronicle’s article on how you need to be mentally prepared for a lifestyle change. The article was triggered by the marriage of Bollywood Star Shahid Kapoor to Mira Rajput and the massive lifestyle change the young lady has to make.
Once upon a time there was a young stone cutter who looked with envy upon the rich merchant who employed him. One day he was muttering to himself about what it would be like to have such freedom and power when, to his amazement, an angel appeared and spoke the words “You are what you have said.” In an instant, the stone cutter had become the merchant.
Continue reading The Stone cutter and the Angel
You’re sitting in front of your comp. And forwarding a joke to your friends. You smile to yourself even as you’re sending the joke. You can imagine your friends smiling too. Guess one of them does. Coz he replies immediately “Good one, pal!”. You’re not the one who made up the joke, but you almost feel as if you did. Ah, that makes you open many of the unread mails in your inbox. You find many nice jokes in those. Very soon you have a cleaned up inbox. What an accomplishment! Something you had planned for the last one week is finally over.
You open the door only to find two leaking milk packets at your feet. The milkman sucks.. is what you would have normally said. Not today. Not now. You’re in too good a mood to get mad at him. You decide to spare your wife of the agony as well. You want to give her break. Let’s give her a surprise, you think. You hate making tea, but today is different. You make tea and toast the bread as well. Which wife wouldn’t want a husband who does that? An early morning thank you kiss is all you need to keep going.
Continue reading Today is different!
What do you do when you’ve opened too many programs on your computer and it hangs? REBOOT IT! What’s the best thing to do when your phone’s memory is jammed by too many open applications? RESET IT!
What happens when you reboot/reset electronic devices? The unwanted data disappears from memory and the device starts functioning the way it was supposed to.
Many years back I had a boss who used to do exactly this. He used to start afresh. He used to RESET himself. EVERY SINGLE DAY! Every day he told himself – Today, is the first day of the rest of my Life! Every Day. And that was his Reset button. The moment he pressed that button, he forgot every negative, unpleasant thing that had happened to him till the day before. He had made it a habit to learn IMMEDIATELY from every mistake he made, because he knew that in a day’s time, the learning would stay (on his hard disk, you might say..) but the incident was going to vanish from his memory.
Continue reading Ctrl-Alt-Del
Inertia is a BAD word. It can wreak havoc in your life. Sometimes getting out of bed and wearing your jogging shoes can seem to be the most difficult thing to do in life. Yet one day you are able to move yourself out of lethargy. You not only wear your shoes, you actually go for a 20 minute walk too. That day and the next day and the next day! You feel delighted. A sense of accomplishment engulfs you. The mega business order you bagged the previous week pales in comparison to the significance of this achievement! You tell yourself.. now only if I could continue this tomorrow and the day after and.. forever. And then disaster strikes!
Continue reading Change is always challenged