There have been more than 10 blog posts related to happiness on my site. These posts included – ego, money, work we do, peace of mind etc. Recently, I came across a research – old one -by Dr Eric L. Zielnski. His research states that – about 50% of happiness levels of an individual is governed by genetic set, 40% by intention or say a desire and about 10% by circumstances of an individual.
Isn’t it interesting? If we assume this research is representative we are sure to be happy if we prepare ourselves. An article on this research added that genetics can be modified by our thoughts and actions. Awesome, if we decide to be happy we can be happy at least 90% of the times, isnt it?
I remember, when I met Dr Anand Saxena – my engineering professor – in Dec 2012 he told me this –
गो धन, गज धन, काज धन, सबे रतन धन ख़ान|
जब आवे संतोष धन, ये सब धुरी समान||
Go dhan, gaj dhan, kaaj dhan sabe ratan dhan khan
Jab aave santosh dhan ye sab dhuri saman.
Meaning:
It is true that owning cattle, jewels or kingdoms is mine of wealth
But when you own wealth of contentment (satisfaction) those mines (cattle, jewels etc) of wealth become worthless (like dust)
To be happy one needs to be content. I think that is how the Buddha professed the four truths. There is misery, there is cause of misery and there is a way out. This way out is – being content and thats pretty much it, isnt it?
Lastly, what I think was – the Buddha taught the path just alter that 90%, created the Sangha or community to remove that 10% chance of circumstantial challenge. Hope after joining the community people didnt get into competition of being the first to be enlightened 😀
My Favorite Season will be a season or a moment when everyone finds out his / her purpose in life. My favorite season is the one when we achieve Permanent Happiness.
How often have you seen dragging yourself going from one thing to the other, from one place to the other and doing it because you “have” to do it. You do things because those are either social obligation or because these are required for survival. How many times – many of us – do things because you “want” to do it.
A time when everyone of us is doing what he/she wants to do we hopefully will see more constructive world. A world where if it rains it would be the best thing that can happen, if it is chilling winter it would be good and summers would also be enjoyable. Thankfully, I have witnessed almost every harsh season – almost flooding rains, harsh summers and for a short time, almost 0 degree winters. Even with these seasons, I could not find my favorite season, because when it was summer I was waiting for rains or winter, during rainy days I waited for sun to show up and so on. If we are not satisfied inside we cannot be happy. May be permanent happiness is a mirage!
It has been a quest for some years for me to identify the purpose of my life. After my MBA, there was a mail in my mail box – Manager Marketing for a liquor brand.
I asked one of my professor’s – “Sir I received this mail, should I give it a try?”
He in return asked me – “do you feel excited about it?”
I said – “Sir I am a teetotaler, I do not encourage people drinking.”
He said – “Don’t even apply there. This job does not sound aligned to your personality. I am not saying you cannot do good work in this organization, but even if you do awesome in this role, you would end up losing yourself on your principles. It would make you dissatisfied in life.”
His point was – identify what you “want” to do, not what you “have” to do. There may be situations when answers are not straightforward – I want to do marketing. The job is for marketing. You will have to be more specific in that case – “Ok, not marketing of tobacco or liquor”.
Once I had been offered a similar situation. There are three businesses, online gambling, jewelry ecommerce and some other if you had money where would you invest? I selected jewelry ecommerce even though on all calculations I could find online gambling offers the biggest opportunity in terms of RoI (Returns on Investment). The person asked me why? I said I would not want to compromise on my principles, I do not encourage gambling and therefore even if it offers me better returns I would not consider this business.
If all of us can make rational decision on what we enjoy doing our works wont remain works, they would become hobbies. That time would be the best time for our society – that would be the best season to live on earth. Is not it? Otherwise – permanent happiness is a mirage!
This week’s topic for LBC was “My Favourite Season” suggested by Ramana uncleji. As usual I twisted it as per my choice – what I want to write instead of what I have to write. 🙂 You can read other blogs of other Loose Bloggers Consortium members at Ramana Uncleji, Shackman and Lin.
As it had been for last 10 years, this February also, I abhorred writing a fat cheque to my insurance company. I hated the agent who had sold me those policies and almost made a fool out of me. Yes I always felt that he duped / robbed me by selling these policies and just for the sake of saving taxes I had to pay so much as premium. I never wanted to learn from my MBA class of financial accounting on managing risks.
Not just that, I have received N number of calls from so called WHO, which asks for funding heart, eye, kidney etc surgery of a baby boy or a girl. These calls have always been met with a cold no, or suggesting that I have assisted in other such causes or “I am a DND registered customer why are you calling me?” These calls sound spurious so there are interesting crowd funding support system such as – Watsi, KettoMilaap etc.
Recently, one of my family member had to be admitted to hospital and undergo a surgery. Thankfully, this person was covered under insurance. I realized the value of insurance. I revisited the concepts of insurance. Insurance is distribution and transfer of risk. In our case, we had been paying premium for last couple of years (during this time it looks as if the amount is gone in vain). Eventually, we needed this risk manager to take charge.
What insurance companies do is pooling and redistributing of risks. It sounds very weird. What pooling of risk means is going to many people covering them under insurance at a premium by charging some money. This premium amount is invested in different investment instruments. Whenever someone amoungst the insured faces the risk (under which the insured is covered), insurance company pays the amount as per their terms – this is called as redistribution.
I am healthy, so for me it is a “cost” I know I wont fall sick and I am also sure that I wont die sooner, so why pay this premium and get covered for something that is not going to happen to me? This is the point young people ask themselves. But you never know when you need such assistance. There are circumstances when you may need such help. I drive safe, what is the guarantee the other person wont jump signal and bang my vehicle?
I am not trying to sell any insurance. I am here to explain a very interesting concept that we all do support each other when we buy an insurance. If I do not and would not need that money, I am sure someone else in the pool is going to be benefited by the money which I have helped create – interdependence!
In India, insurance has a deep-rooted history. It finds mention in the writings of Manu (Manusmrithi), Yagnavalkya (Dharmasastra) and Kautilya (Arthasastra). The writings talk in terms of pooling of resources that could be re-distributed in times of calamities such as fire, floods, epidemics and famine. This was probably a pre-cursor to modern day insurance. Ancient Indian history has preserved the earliest traces of insurance in the form of marine trade loans and carriers’ contracts.
Is not it an interesting thing? That we support each other even without knowing and help ourselves too. The challenge comes when insurance companies reject your claim and money and greed becomes primary focus instead of helping someone in need even after covered under insurance. This blog post is already very long, so I hope reader will understand the challenges in this industry and greed seeping in the system.
Perhaps in middle school (6th to 8th), we learnt a lesson on why crows are our best friends and what we can learn from them. They eat dead animals and therefore keep our surrounding clean. We need to learn from them that whenever they see something to eat they always invite their fellow crows and all of them eat it together – what camaraderie, isnt it? But alas! as we grow we forget these small things we learnt as kids.
Perhaps Krishna knew it all, he suggested Draupadi (Panchali) to reject Karna and thus Panchali said – Karna is a son of lower caste and I wont accept him as my husband. This – for my readers who have not heard of Mahabharat or know the context – was an India where girl (if not all, at least daughters of Kings), had the freedom to decide who she wants to marry. This was called Swayamvar – or a competition – where husband was selected by his capabilities by the girl. This kind of Swayamvars are recorded in history – be it Rama or Prithviraj Chauhan (12 century AD). Compare it with arrange marriage system of say two generations back when such decision was not that easy to offer to girl. This was an India where even if Krishna (God in human form as per Indian scriptures) was alive, abilities of Karna was proved secondary than caste (family’s profession).
We have heard many such incidents in Indian history when a untouchable became center of discussion – be it Shabari who fed Rama only sweet berries by tasting those first. Here untouchable was first tasting the fruit and than offering it to Rama. Or be it a story of Eklavya. He approached Dronacharya (Drona) who refused him, later asked him to chop off his thumb to offer it as fee of teaching. Or the story of Sunita during time of the Buddha.
I dislike the concept of caste system of India to the core. Slowly I moved away from the ritualistic religion to spiritual part of religion. I read parts of Bhagavad Geeta too. When I read Chapter 4 verse 13 of the Geeta I interpreted it in my own way, thank god at least Hinduism offers differing with the pandits; I can have my owns interpretation of the scriptures (ref recent controversy of Irrfan Khan).
I infer this as follows – “I created four sub-division of society based on work and attribute. Even after doing this I am above and beyond this division.” Remember Krishna does not say that the division is based on birth, it is based on work and attribute of work.
Listen to other language translation here, I cannot say it this translation reflects my opinion.
In whatever ways Indian society has misinterpreted the concept completely. This whole caste system implementation has gone awry. I believe the concept could have been, teach kids and when they grow up their abilities will put them to different works and thus their work in society will be divided in four sub-divisions! Even if this sounds justification of the caste system, I still dislike the caste system. Everyone must have his/her fair opportunity to learn and try what and how one wants to work in the society. I hope the capitalistic economics and current open access to opportunities will offer an evolved society. Currently it is just a hope, as we read the news about atrocities against Dalits. It has been close to 70 years, but if we still see these news in media either there is something wrong with our society or media is giving coverage to it only now!
Just fresh graduate from college and I’d just joined my first job, where I was selected through campus interview. I resigned within few weeks stating I’d have done this work after my 10th, if I were to do it. My brother taught me at that time – “no work is bad, low or menial. Do not look at your resignation from your first job as an ego issue. Accept it ‘you would not have enjoyed doing it.‘ If you want to start a company, it is upto you, if you want to study further, be into R&D be it. Even if you are gardening, be the best of the gardener you could be. Do it to the best of your abilities, no work is low or menial and never forget this lesson.”
I could relate to his lesson in many sense, be it a crow’s nature to clean our surrounding inadvertently or our society having different people performing different acts, we have to balance and accept that everyone does what best he/she can do for the society. There may be instances when one’s abilities are not utilized (as was in my first job); at that time he/she has to decide to move on and do what makes more sense to him/her. In today’s world when a person makes competitive strategy – he/she is Kshtriya (warrior clan in Indian caste system). When the same person presents his concept or shares his knowledge he/she is Brahaman (Pundit, teacher clan in Indian caste system). As a startup CEO (Chief Everything from dusting room to meeting clients to executing tasks) when one cleans his desk, prepares tea, drives somewhere or designs product/service he/she is Shudra or Vaishya (lower caste or businessman clan in Indian caste system). In current social and economic setup we cannot rely on the definition of works of previous times. We need to either define things in newer manner or perhaps just get rid of the division itself.
There may have been roads paved with good intentions (by dividing work & caste system), but could not have lead to heaven at least. We started dividing society not on work but on birth. We decided one work is better than the other – but this is be good.
I was watching Gulal (A Hindi Movies by Anurag Kashyap) yesterday, somehow, it is available on Youtube.
That movie revolves around State of Rajasthan, kings of that state and their wish to get independent Rajasthan – independent from India. At first it sounds very weird, as the story unfolds different characters start playing their strategies for their own benefits. Whatever happens in the movie, that movie reminded me of Brexit – British Exit from the European Union.
After watching the movie, I was going through the documents of European Union. EU came into existence after two consecutive world wars. The wars which involved almost the whole world but centered around Europe. Just imagine a Europe between 1920 to 1938 (between the two world wars, or the Europe just after 1945. There was enmity, conflicts and the fight for economic dominance. This all actually ended with economic agreement! Isn’t it interesting?
The foundation of EU was more on economic development, social development – let me call it human development. Quote from EU website – “The EU regional policy starts to transfer huge sums of money to create jobs and infrastructure in poorer areas.” Such a wonderful concept that people can cross man-made borders, do business without trouble and follow one set of rules yet their countries do not lose their identity. Just imagine all European countries making a team to compete in Olympics or Fifa world cup!
The EU regional policy starts to transfer huge sums of money to create jobs and infrastructure in poorer areas.
The union started 21st century with a couple of aims – Peace in member states, Citizen’s security, economic and social solidarity. Such lofty goals require enormous efforts. These efforts at times become lobbying for one or the other. No doubt there may have been political and business interest groups who might be trying to get better deals or benefits for themselves. This type of lobbying – or cheating in some ways – can only be stopped when there is genuine connect to develop others and heartfelt desire to help those in need. EU adds close to 20% to the world GDP, what is more important to note is – its population is only is only 7% of the world population.
Just imagine if we get to see such geographic unions in other parts of the world, such as South East Asian Union or South American Union. These type of geopolitical, economical and social unions would require building trust first. A caution the union must only be on two fronts – economic development and social welfare. No! don’t even think of religion – religion is and must be an individual pursuit, those who make religion a group’s belief they mostly want to gain power. Also, religion is only used mostly for generating fear in the heart and mind of followers.
The movie Gulal had a very selfish and political motive. Can we compare that story of Gulal with British Exit from European Union? At times my mind says yes and other times no. No because it was a democratic decision, based on votes from common people. The statistics says older people were not in favor of remaining in EU. Reason – they were getting affected in many respect on personal level. By the way, these old people are the same who had benefited some or the other ways from being a part of EU.
My mind says yes because who says canvassing was not done? Who says there was no political motives, selfish goals? Who can deny all these? It has repeatedly proved that we select being individually smart and therefore we are collectively dumb – British exit from EU is an example of the same. Though we may argue that parts of Britain was against it and 51 to 49 cannot be generalized.
Also heard that those who voted against were fearful of immigrants. I wonder how big is the problem of immigrants in Britain! Of late, the fear of immigrant is evident in a way – every morning I am waking up to a city trending on twitter. There is some or the other attack at some place, European Union was built for peace and social uplifting – not for terrorist attacks.
My question came a full circle from the movie Gulal to British Exit to Gulal again – What drives people? What drives an individual? Ambition, selfishness or fear? I wish in future we would not be driven fear and selfishness and, in future we would see such union and countries coming together to prosper together, instead of people terrorizing and killing fellow human beings. This wish includes economic and social development – religion is a very personal affair, it should not come on streets and should not be forced.
Disclaimer – Author supports such collaboration and unification as done by the European Union. Such unions would one day make our world more connected and the interdependence will help us embrace each other with our respect, trust and support to each other as fellow human being rather than black or white, European or Asian or for that matter capitalist or socialist. We indeed are interdependent.
Old days our ancestors used to communicate using sign language. Historians have found out wall painting in many civilizations and have discussed about usage of sign languages. We humans evolved, grew and became intelligent so started speaking, reading and writing when languages were born. Or perhaps the signs were difficult to remember over a period of time, thus language was born. We have evolved. With time, a lot of developments have happened. Now we communicate across the globe.
Development happens in cycles, so now after so much of development we have again started speaking in sign language. We call this sign language – smiley. Many a times one has to refer to the ‘dictionary’ to understand what is the meaning of that smiley. Specially that is the case with older generation (I am a part of that). Millennials are different species – well that is how media, marketeer and many people think. Millennials understand these sign language with ease. Though as per definition I should be part of millennials but I dont understand the sign language.
yes I can understand. In fact I've to search which emoji to use to express emotion to youngsters. Because there are too many
Many studies state that Millennials are different compared to the older counterparts. I am of the opinion that every generation is more evolved compared to previous one. Generation of my parents were busy settling down. My generation is little adventurous, millennials are freer, more connected and apparently they have more concerns for society.
There are many studies on Millennials, because they are going to be the biggest spender & biggest target audience for marketeers. Some studies say that Millennials are more concerned about environment, more connected, driven by sharing, more inclined towards social justice & balance and are more spiritual than religious One study. Now organizations also care for CSR, however shallow that could be. Hopefully this will be true one day – let them fake CSR until they make it. I am sure millennials will make this transition sincere with time.
When I read about millennials I thought in another direction. Sheer size of this generation is making us note these characteristics. Of course these are key traits of this generation, but still the sheer volume is making us notice this. There must have been people in previous generation who had similar thoughts but the numbers, perhaps the ability to measure was less at that time. There are very contrary analysis also done – Millennials less spiritual and less religious too, Millennials less religious but more spiritual either these are really contrary findings or it has been the norm for generations; earlier it was not measured now it is.
Yuga – Sadhguru. Isha Yoga
According to Indian philosophy, the generations evolve, this happens in a cyclic fashion. Yes perhaps therefore we are moving towards spirituality now. I came across an interesting video by Sadhguru on this same thought, the video is not available now but the article is, read it here.
If I try to connect the dots of what Sadhguru said and that of characteristics displayed by the millennials, we are likely to see a more interconnected society and more compassion and empathetic time to come. Wish my this prediction comes out to be true and terrorism stops, not by guns perhaps by the power of interdependence.
This was last weeks title for LBC, unfortunately I could not write last week as I had two sessions on IPR – one for faculty development and one for startups those two sessions took precedence over my weekly commitments. So I missed writing. Read other’s who write on LBC here – Rummuser, Shackman.
I have always been very critical to Hinduism. When I was young, I used to feel – Ramayana and Mahabharata are well written novels. However, slowly my perception is changing. When I try to relate historical places (such as Panchavati, Nashik or Ujjain) and incidents around those places, you may call those incidents as stories, I think perhaps there is some veracity to these. The other thing I got to know about Sri Lanka tourism is places they show about the time of Ramayana Check Sri Lanka launches new product – Ramayana Trail – http://www.srilanka.travel/travel_news?news=267
Those all points apart, I have always been critical of Hinduism. However, recently, I was listening to some hymns in Sanskrit. The hymn sounds so different and interesting. I could only understand a part of it when I heard it for the first time. Naturally the hymn is in Sanskrit so it was not straightforward for me to understand. The part which I could make out was – “Vanaspateya shanti”. The hymn speaks about peace of biological life or plant beings. It had stanza for peace for everything.
I started searching for this hymn.
I would relate this hymn to another Sanskrit shloka –
ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः सर्वे सन्तु निरामयाः ।
सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु मा कश्चिद्दुःखभाग्भवेत् ।
Om Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah Sarve Santu Nir-Aamayaah |
Sarve Bhadraanni Pashyantu Maa Kashcid-Duhkha-Bhaag-Bhavet |
In the above shloka and Shanti mantra, the scholars are praying for peace for every living being. When we see the kind of violence around us – terrorism or wars – this kind of philosophy fascinates me. The religion evolved in India have the concept of inner search, peace and renunciation. This is something whole world needs to learn from Indian religion.
“I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the earth, then I ask myself the same question.” – Harun Yahya
Adnan Oktar (born Ankara, 1956), also known by his pen name Harun Yahya, is advocate of Islamic creationism in the creation-evolution debate. He is considered to be the leading Muslim advocate of creationism.
I have wondered about many things in life. It includes creationism, economics and war. Many of the thoughts are posted in the blogs here. Recently, Ramana uncleji commented on my blog post – Free will and Fate.
Sitting quietly. doing nothing, spring comes and the grass grows by itself. Zen
How often we looked at growing grass as the Zen saying states. I’ve a difference of opinion though. The growing grass does not do anything on the surface, but inside it, below the surface too there are a lot of things going on. Struggle of survival, isnt it?
The other thing I wonder a lot about is economics and our interdependence. I know many people do not consider economics as a play of interdependence however they see it has how do I improve my marginal utility. Most of the times this thinking of these smart people is based on “how do I… at the cost of other”. This needs to change. The discourse of economic value has to change. It needs to include everyone. If there is inequality we would not achieve peace.
On the debate of creationism and evolution – I wonder why people keep on fighting about creationism but accept – and use too – scientific discoveries? I liked the way The Buddha kept silent on the question of existence of God.
There are many more things I’ve wondered, why? The most regular point I cogitate is economics and spirituality – interdependent co-arising. This blog is an outcome of the same wandering of mind.
It was topic of Loose Bloggers Consortium for this Friday. Others who have written this week are – Shackman, Ramana Uncleji and Dunnasead.
I received the following message on my LinkedIn timeline.
“I AM SICK AND TIRED OF READING GREAT SUCCESS STORIES & INSPIRATIONAL THOUGHTS, ITS ALL IN YOUR DESTINY, NOTHING IS IN YOUR HANDS, GIVE YOUR DOB, TIME & PLACE OF BIRTH, I WILL TELL YOU THE ENTIRE STORY OF YOUR LIFE”
This is an interesting point. If we look at it from one side it says – We are all forced to be where and what of the fate and there is no control! Right? From the other side we may denounce the statement by stating Free Will (my choice) is what makes me what I am and where I am not the fate.
I remember in one old talk by Guruji (Sri Sri Ravi Shankar) somewhere when he said – “All your past was your fate (Karma), all your future is free will.” Interesting, isnt it? There is a balance.
Guruji on Destiny and free will
I was thinking about the balance and with reference to my fate thing. I made these assumptions or conclusions. The fate most probably provides you with situations to succeed e.g. some astrologer would tell you – Your mangal is sitting here and Rahu and Ketu is doing this or that, therefore you are likely to have tough time. And for good situations because of Brhaspati you may get some this or that opportunity you are likely to get promoted, better job etc etc.
I think we must never get in the debate of fate and free will. We just should keep on doing what we do. Results will come when the time is right. I thought for argument sake we may also say that the bad times are the times for preparation, doing our bit of hard work so that we can reap the benefits when our good time arrives. Isn’t it?
I have been reading one or the other story of Father Anthony De Mello’s books – The Prayer Of The Frog Vol. I and Prayer of The Frog Vol. II and share the same here occasionally. The books have small and very interesting stories. One of the story I read was on a balancing act is here –
—
…..or distinctions.
A man was doing his Ph. D in philosophy. His wife realized how seriously he was taking his studies only on the day she said to him, “Why is it you love me so much?”
Quick as a shot he replied, “When you say ‘so much’ are you referring to intensity, depth, frequency, quality or duration?”
By dissecting her petals no one ever gathered in the beauty of the rose.
At times you just need to live and not analyze your life – a big, very big lesson for me (perhaps many professionals) to learn.
– in Dec 2012 he told me this –
