Business to the Buddha

Tag: choices

  • Choices

    My daughter, Adviti is growing up. She has started asserting her liking and choices gradually. She decides what she wants to eat when she wants to change the song, and what she wants to wear. It is turning out to be a fascinating life lesson for me.

    We start making choices since childhood. I remember spending time with my niece Chinu when she started making choices. She liked watching Kung Fu Panda (movie) I enjoyed watching Kung Fu Panda with her, she also collected pebbles as I did as a kid.

    Smiling-Baby

    I believe some of our choices are involuntary, and some are self-made. Let me take an example – Adviti likes us chanting of Bhojan Mantra (video below) before meals because she has seen us doing it for as much as the last six months. I wonder if she understands it, or whether the rendition is clear. However, she loves it, and if we start eating our meal without the chanting, she forces us to chant the mantra. Possibly this is what Sanskar is. I’d call it an involuntary choice – I may be wrong though, she may be forcing us because she understands! When she changes the Youtube video – it is most likely a self-made choice.

    Choices, Liking and Love

    Though I found time now to write about it, however, I had been thinking about Adviti’s likes, dislikes, and choices for a while. Those who know me know that for my arrange marriage I met two dozen girls. Many rejected me, I rejected some. In these discussions, some accused me of – you are not proceeding further “because I am fat”; “because I am darker shade” etc. I had to respond to these because these were genuinely not the reasons. I will share few arguments that I shared with these prospective alliances.

    One, on complexion, I said, let’s assume I get to marry the fairest girl in the world. Every evening I come from the office. and we start fighting on a trifling matter. In that case, what is the value of the “fairness” to me? It is said that beauty is skin deep, isn’t it?

    Two, on complexion and shape, I said, let’s assume I get married to someone, she met with an accident, or I met with an accident resulting in a body deformity. Would the other person leave the better half who met with an accident? I had to take this example because one alliance had such an incident. I had to tell her that such things are possible after marriage too. A bad example but I took such an example.

    Lastly, on the shape, I said who is going to remain like this forever? With age, we all will be out of shape. why worry about it from now? One must be fit for a healthier life but one should not take serious decisions giving one-factor full weightage.

    Those long discussions (or at times long-distance discussions), in some cases the contest of mind vs heart, for alliances made me look at likes and dislikes little objectively. I asked myself – if I love someone because of face or shape or behavior (or family – yes Indian marriages are not just two people it is their family and extended family too) what if one parameter changes in the same person? In the end, I came to realize – choices are made (or someone or something is loved) because of the whole and not because of the parts. Check this section of an Indian movie – Nayak the real hero – where protagonist is explaining his “dream girl” and what that turns out to be by his father who is a cartoonist.

    If I love someone or something – I love that because of the uniqueness. The uniqueness includes possible flaws. If I had to respond to “why I love someone or something” what would my response be? If my response is because of X, Y, Z and A, B, C, etc. There may be more people with those same qualities. Would it be possible to love those others too? This question helped me realize the lower strata of love. This stratum is for love, liking, or choices we make in the material world. The spiritual world has compassionate affection – of the Buddha – for everyone or full devotion – Bhakti – for the loved one.

    The realization was that we make choices in the whole and start intellectualizing the choices part by part for bringing balance between heart and mind. This justification brings reasoning of “why” and “because of”. Most likely Adviti makes her self-made choices on the whole, once she grows older she too will start intellectualizing the choices to justify her liking.

  • Options, analysis and decisions







    I have been analyzing buying a house vs living on rent and buying a four wheeler vs riding a cab. This is not a new comparison and analysis for me. Most of the time, answers to these two were – buy a house and rent a car or use a cab service.

    How did I arrive at these conclusions? Of course after some calculations and considering options. The question is – what was the measure on which I measured these things to come up with some conclusion? The measure was “utility”. In economics utility means resultant benefit achieved from something (usage or consumption of product or service). When you eat Idly on road side @20 INR and when the same idly plate is served to you in a better place it could by @60 INR. We may argue about taste, hygiene etc of idly from 20INR to 60INR. When one moves from basic utility to additional utilities we measure that in terms of marginal utility. Marginal utility, is the incremental benefit one gets from consumption or usage of an offering.

    We can continue from our situation of buying a four wheeler. The first question one may have is – which car – SUV, Sedan, Hatchback. Once that is decided which company which brand and what amenities such as AC, power window and music system etc. There are obviously many more questions in making a decision. The other option is hiring a local taxi or app based service. After all this analysis – what one gets is drop from point A to point B. At times pain of parking – if it is owned car or self driving. The drop from A to B is utility in this case. Marginal utility is – can you play music of your choice while driving or is the vehicle air conditioned during the trip. In the bargain of ability to play music and air conditioning you need to pay extra. This extra amount vs the additional benefit you get defined marginal utility.

    Many of our life decisions are made emotionally and justified rationally. I analyzed a lot with a decision of buying a house and renting a car. Currently, I live in a rented house and drive a car. How often do we take decision by listening to our heart and mind? Is there a rational justification to our decision? Why do we take such decision? When we have to really take a plunge with faith, we falter. When we have to take a decision with full analysis we do the opposite!

    Give it a thought – Mahavir and Buddha – both were from warrior families and were to be the kings. Why did they renounce everything, how on earth they both might have taken such step? Had they both done enough analysis possibly both had stayed back. I know more about the Buddha so can think of an incident, when he was following extreme austerity such that he could had died of hunger, he decided to eat. In short term his five best friends went away saying he has left the path. But the Buddha was right, austerity and self affliction may not necessarily help. He said to himself, if I die of hunger I wont be able to achieve what I strive for.

    In my analytics practice one of my senior’s Eron Kar used to say – “If you torture data enough it will confess to the story you want it to narrate.” Always it is not right to over analyze, at times leaders need to take a leap of faith and decide.

    Prof Mankad told me once – “Pravin, when you become a leader, sitting in the 76th floor of your corporate office when you have to make a tough choice do one thing. Leave aside all the papers and analysis. Walk toward the window. Take out a coin from your pocket, toss it and you will have the decision.” Dr Mankad continued “Pravin, sometimes you should stop over analyzing.” I need to learn a lot to do that one I have to become that big a decision maker of a company and two stopping the urge to analyze everything, I still analyze a lot!

    Image source – http://novalo.com/flat-fee-self-employed/

  • Decision making







    One can make a decision or gets into a situation of decision making only when one has choices. Choices at times spoil us or confuse us.

    I would not want to write much when I have a great video to share in relation of this topic – it is about life, choices and decisions.

    Decision making is (LBC topic) Loose Bloggers Consortium topic where Maria, Rummuser, Ashok, Shackman and I write. You can visit their blogs and read their thoughts on the topic.