Method to the madness!

Prudential algebra, the Benjamin Franklin way of plotting ‘pros and cons’?

Or the ancient Persian way of ‘deciding twice’: once when sober and once when drunk?

Or ‘decision science’ is where you get your juice from, as the New Yorker points out that it is Barack H. Obama’s decision method -  a research field at the intersection of behavioral economics, psychology, and management?

Or do you prefer the Charles Darwin method of listing possibilities?

Or do you find yourself close to the ‘Gandhian method’, that stems from principles of morality, quality, civility, humanity, inclusivity, and collective good?

How do you decide? Do you have a method for it? If not why? Is there merit in having one? Are some of the things that I wish to explore with you, today. The art or as many call it the science of decision making is perhaps the most essential skill one needs to own, not just for sustenance but also for success. We make hundreds of choices each day; some more critical than the other, but decisions nonetheless. Every decision necessitates a definite consequence. If it happens to be a sound one, outcomes are balmy and if it goes south, things turn ugly. Therefore, it is crucial to pause to analyze the process that we might have for arriving at decision. At this stage, for argument's sake, let’s admit that all of us have a method, it's just that some of us recognize it and others do not, but trust me when I say no human mind is devoid of one.

While we’re at it, let’s bust the most common myth, the oldest surviving decision fallacy: Lack of knowledge/intellect causes poor decision making, undividedly. 

This is believed to be the gospel by many but it is not entirely fact-based. I am not saying that information and intellect are not useful in making a selection but I am simply saying that it is not the ‘sole’ contributor in decision making. Knowledge deficit is not an issue as much as, behavior deficit is, let me give you a few examples:

Common facts are known to most if not all. 

1. Carb/sugar is poison. 
2. Wearing a seatbelt (even on the rows behind the driver) saves lives. 
3. Smoking kills. 
4. Not reading ‘good stuff’ makes us dumb.

Yet, these blunders are choices that billions of people make every day over the known ‘right choice', and the science behind it, completely’; as I said, awareness is not always the issue, the behavior is. A person who makes the weighing scale arc beyond the healthy mark and those with a special medical condition, let’s say diabetic, hypertensive, cardiac issues - know that the voluptuous bite of burger, will set them back by a few weeks of hard work (assuming that they have been refraining) and yet when presented with one, they hog it, in 8 out of 10 incidents. And while at it they also order a bag of fries; some in guilt override even finish the job with ice cream (with disproportionate amounts of creme). Have you ever thought why some of us slide on the hideous slope? Behavioral psychologists explain, it is because of the combined effect of the below : 

1. Present Biase: Absitation, in this case, is hard work. Which even if observed is only going to materialize into tangible results in the future but letting go, being slothful, rewards here and NOW (the bite). So most people go for it. 
2. The emotional context of the pleasure centers: Social contract accounts for a lot of what we do, an enclosure full of reckless burger eaters, tricks your brain into believing that after all a burger can’t kill and then you intellectualize in your mind, while you have already queued up for the order, that, "I have been on salads for nearly 7 days, I have earned it". So with a smile broader than usual, you order double cheese and whatever else it is that you enjoy consuming.
3. Fear of losing out: We’re motivated more by fear of loss than possibilities of gain: not taking the bite looms larger than the possibility of being on the healthier side of body mass, in the long run. So at the moment, burger seems like an ok thing to do so you go for it.

Human beings are irrational subjects but in the most predictable ways, therefore, as long as you are able to tame the ‘cue, routine, reward’ cycle as the ace writer Charles Duhigg defines in his book the power of habit, which is to say that behavior accounts for more than information in decision making, you'll be fine. But what is also true is that all circumstances that we face are not an outcome of routine, we often encounter unique situations, to which we have zero familiarity with. That begs that question, how should we approach decision making in those cases? A few examples of those scenarios are: 

1. COVID has dented the business substantially, should I, therefore, rationalize the cost structure of my organization now, or wait for the situation to unfold a little more? 
2. Which job offer should I take as both of them promise to pay nearly the same and are in the same city? 
3. Should I marry or not? What my ideal match will be? 
4. What should I learn next? 
5. Which investments make sense .. which is dud? 
6. Who to befriend and who to actively avoid? 
7. How polite is it too smooth? 

You catch the drift, I hope?

Decision making is often an art of juggling between conflicting objectives and undiscovered options. You’ll never have all the information that you need, security will seldom be answered conclusively and yet you’d be required to exercise your choice and sometimes without much notice too. What do you do?

I think we have succeeded in doing a good job in setting the context right. We’ve defined the issue at hand well, we gotta now unravel the solution part of it. And before we get there I must in the benefit of full disclosure, admit that I have made many terrible choices, straight up unwise ones when measured against the common parlance and I also can’t even say with certainty that I have never repeated a judgment error, in my life. But I must also place in your knowledge that I have been intent on discovering the art of decision making for over 16 years, now.  I have read a wide variety of philosophers and observed modern-day exemplary decision-makers to better my own process. I have also written about decision making (12 articles in the last 10 years, you can find them on the website)

So, when you learn what I have to say on the matter, take it for what it is worth, no less no more.

What you’ll register from here on is a condensed version of a discipline that I have created for myself, and so far it has served me well or so I think.

Step 1 - is to figure out what is it that matters the most to us? Or put differently, what makes us most appeased. 

• Is it wealth?
• Does intellectual indulgence count above everything else? 
• Do you crave for happiness in the conventional sense the most?
• Is morality and social justice, the mission of your life?
• Do you get motivated by societal positioning, which is about going a bit over the top in the display of possession?
• Are health and emotional well being most dear to you?
• Are you looking for love and a sense of belonging? 
• Or you simply want the ZEN, like peace?

Or anything else? 

Decisions are the vehicle on which we travel to the destination of our life goals, therefore it is vital to sort out what we really desire for first. It is crucial to not haste here: take your time, speak to your friends, family, and most importantly your mother: she knows what you want more than you do. After you’ve made up your mind on your life goal(s) and related priorities, give it some resting time. Let say 90 days or so, revisit the list again, and if then also it makes the same sense that it did when you originally created it, chances are that you’ve hit the GOLD. And if you feel like you need to change a few things, go right ahead: it is your life and there is no deadline for this activity. The goal is to know the thing that you deeply desire at a level much deeper than what is easily influenced by superficial worldly influences. After watching the BATMAN movie if you want to be one too, you know it can’t be your life's GOAL, because there is JUST ONE BATMAN!   

Also, at this stage you must know that :

“We judge ourselves by our intentions, but others by their impact.”

Let’s scope our decision-making process to say that we’re blocking important and interesting decisions like the items listed below, from our endeavor

1. What to watch on Netflix. 
2. Android Vs iOS.
3. Youtube Vs TIKTOK.
4. Kohli or Dhoni.

We’re trying to narrow our conversation on rather uninteresting aspects of life, those decisions which often mean more than one thing. Things that have an impact on our lives in the medium as well as the long term. The set of decisions that help us get through the familiar part of the day are important but they do not determine the quality of our lives. Who we are today and what we will be tomorrow are a function of the other kinds of decisions that we take; the ones that require cognitive investment: logical thinking, rationalization. Matters that require intentionality, are the ones that we are going to talk about in this article.

The decision is a statement of intent, in fact, the most potent one.

As significant as the intention is to a decision-maker is, it is also open to interpretation by others, who may or may not be impacted by it. Opinions are not the same as facts and therefore must be taken with a grain of salt. We should shape our system of decision making, by trying to be rational, comprehensive, progressive. Inclusive, moral, and most important of all ‘right’. A smart man once said ‘when facts change I change my mind’; when one of his discussions was called into question, by the press. From peace to war; every outcome at an atomic level is a decision. 

It is comforting to know that no one ever walked on the planet without making poor choices. A bad decision is undesirable but not completely avoidable. It is humanly impossible to effectively insulate the decision-making process from error. No matter how bright you are you’d still make regrettable choices, it is ok, do not beat yourself over it. It is, however, crucial to have a system of making decisions, so that you get is right more often than you get it wrong.

Actions work best when they are themed to a carefully chosen principle. I personally believe in the three value systems that we will go over one by one. In my view, it provides beliefs needed to form a sound decision-making process. I credit the below philosophies for all the right decisions that I took in my life. And I attribute all the decision errors that I have made thus far to a shortage of discipline, intent, and sometimes even bleak desire to make them right. 

1. Stoicism: Stoic philosophy can’t be discussed without mentioning the stalwarts who propounded this line of thought, eloquently :
   1. Seneca  (4 AD - 65 AD)
   2. Marcus Aurelius (121AD to 180 AD)

I have had the good fortune of reading writings of both of these heavyweights, in the university: It was not an extracurricular reading, philosophy was one of my subjects.

Other thinkers have also spoken and written about Stoic philosophy but I find these two thinkers most prolific. If you were to deep dive you’ll find that “Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy which was founded by Zeno of Citium, in Athens, in the early 3rd century BC” (Wiki will also tell you this)

So what does it really cover?

The virtue of action, tolerance, and self-control, it professes remaining calm under pressure and avoiding emotional extremes. Personal improvement is at the very core of this philosophy. It simply mentions that everything that happens in our life is a result of connected cause and effect. It says that we can only respond by adjusting our attitude towards the prevalent circumstances. This discipline is about accepting the worst possible scenario and actually living it a few days a year to know what it is like to face the worst fall. It advises against making anger the response but leans on the side of intellectual arguments. It propels, that it is going to be ok in the end. This principle is also dead against, empty hope, passion, and mindless motivation. It is about being objective and free from emotions to the extent possible. 

2. Buddhism: It is about confronting suffering by practicing compassion. Budhha seconds, blowing out the flames of desire, by living in moderation, ‘the middle way’. Four important aspects of this philosophy are :
   1. Suffering exists.
   2. Suffering is caused by desire 
   3. We transcend suffering by managing our desires.
   4. If we change our outlook the changing circumstances won’t impact as badly.

Buddhism is about converting Ignorance into wisdom, Anger into compassion, greed into generosity. It teaches us to focus, to internalize the world around us, and to give. It tells us that peace is the ultimate goal that we must go after. I’m not detailing the origins of Sidhartha and how he became the enlightened Budhha because I assume most of you already know about it.

BR Ambedkar’s writing on Buddhism is worth reading

3. Essentialism: Disciplined pursuit of less. Less is more! It does not mean that you should aim for less - you have every right to desire wealth, materialistic pleasures, or just about anything that you deem fit. This philosophy is about attaining those goals by removing the vital few from the trivial many. It talks about devoting all your time and resources only to the things that really matter. It does not advocate “I will do everything”. It teaches us to declutter our lives, being intentional about what we do, and not diving into every pool that we find in our way. The principles of minimalism are also covered in it. Do more with less, be productive, and not busy. It speaks about, not following the pattern, but finding one’s own path and then pursuing it with laser-sharp focus. 

You should read Greg Mcknew to learn more about this philosophy.

When I try to converge these philosophies to find workable guidelines, I take the below out.

Tool Kit : 

1. Saying “NO” is ok. You do not have to say yes to every opportunity. Less is more!
2. Delaying decisions is better than taking the wrong one. 
3. Pro and Cons is important for maintaining objectivity 
4. Emotional wellbeing is displayed by not letting sentimentalities cloud judgment
5. Be aware of your biases and work actively to shield your decisions from them.
6. Be compassionate and be willing to share the fruits with those who deserve it. 
7. Always be on the right side of the moral principle in doing so uphold the law of the land, too. 
8. Stand for what you believe in even if doing so is the hardest thing to do at� the moment.

With that, I take your leave. I hope you found it useful. 

Remember, you have to make your own framework, pick what is right for you, and then run with it. 

Essentialism, care to try?

People have, I’d assume unintentionally, made possessions the yardstick of success. A large part of who you are gets defined, at least, socially, by what you own; consumerism is a powerful force. Trade and commerce control society in ways that we do not often imagine. Patterns of consumptions are studied, newer consumer vulnerabilities are identified and then products and services are conceived to play into that sentiment. Not all of what is being sold is sinister, we aren’t nomads or cave dwellers, we surely need things to comfortably live by but the question is that do we only own stuff that we need or are we surviving with less or have we amassed a lot more than the need? What we ‘need’ is a rather elusive question, people are almost granted to answer it in affirmative when asked on conformance. Let’s agree it is not easy for everyone to concede that they are ‘hoarders’. The place of courage from which such an admission might come is as prized as it is rare. 

Let’s test ourselves, shall we?

Make a list of all your possessions, everything that you own, down to the smallest pin, both inherited or bought - everything! And then map when was last that you actually used the article. Creating a simple table like the below one should help you get a handle over it.

Serial Number	Article	When was it acquired (approx)	Why was it acquired (vaguely)	When was it used last(approx)

Do not intend to finish this in quick 30 minutes because you’ll not be able to. When you start documenting items you will end up listing most frequently used items first and as you exhaust such items your pace will grow weak. At this point take a break, make yourself a nice cup of coffee and start from one corner of the house, or let’s say from one of the rooms and start listing everything that you see. Open drawers, boxes, suitcases, cupboards, everything. It will be an excruciating exercise, you’ll certainly want to give it up. Midway this exercise may seem pointless and a colossal waste of time too but trust me, keep up with it. Do not give up on it. It is ok to finish it in the course of the week or even a fortnight. There is no rush to reach the finish line the same day. While if you can do it there is nothing like it.

After you’ve scanned every corner of the house and listed everything that exists in your home, take a count of total items, and then put a filter on all the items that were used at least once in the last 90 days. Divide the count of items used at least once in the last 90 days with everything that you possess.What does that %age look like?  

20% ? 

30%? 

Or somewhere in the middle? 

Let’s say that if you have scored anything more than 50% then you’re already in a great state of health. Lower the % deeper the hoarding issue. We are good at going with the flow, we give in and try to compensate for emotions with items, the only sad truth is that articles do not compensate for the void, at its best it only distracts us from the core issue temporarily, but that is all that it does. Think of it if what you do not use regularly actually doesn’t add any real value to your life and therefore if it were to not exist your life will not be any less good or bad or any different. 

Clutter is easily the item that you have not used in the last 90 days and yet possess. It not only takes physical space but also attention and much more than that by means of housekeeping. It also tells us that we have not been intentional about acquiring stuff and in the process have created a heap of unused and therefore unneeded items. This is just about you, now think what this might be doing to the ecology and the environment of the entire planet? Imagine if all 7.5 billion of us only possessed items that we actually used, the world would be free of at least 60% of the stuff and therefore the burden. 

Global warming and increased risk of not creating sustainable living would not have been an issue, as grave, as it is today.

Creating a sustainable environment is a result of creating a mindful lifestyle and in that direction minimalism is a great step. I’m not professing for sainthood here, nor I’m asking you to get rid of everything .. it is not recreating ‘the monk who sold his Ferrari’. My pitch is for us to become intentional about what we own, and by extension what is that we let accumulate around us. 

Coming back to the exercise, that we spoke about: 

#1 Try and sort the list in descending order, that is, items that you have not used in the last 90 days should appear first in the list.

#2  Start from the top and go to the middle point of the list.

#3 Pack the least used items in boxes/containers/suitcases and stash them away in a safe & dry place.

Spend the next 6 months on the items that you are left with, that is all that you use on a day to day basis and some more. Remember you do not have to deprive yourself of things that you love and would want to have. In this exercise you are only trying to be a little more mindful of what is around you, that is it. Should a need arise, you can always dip into the storage and get the items that you wished away as part of this exercise. It is an okay thing to do.

The thing to note here is that you will need to keep updating that table that you just made. So that you have a view of what has been happening with your usage and items.. A log of all additions.

When the six month period gets over, take another stock, which is another look at the table.

You would have by then lived 9 months with items that you frequently use and a little more. Think, is it going to be possible for you to give away/sell the rest 50% items that remained locked in the storage for 9 months (barring seasonal clothing/items)? If you can, it will be a great start to a good life, a life without clutter of items that you may not need.

It is not easy but if you can get this straight, you will be on the path of becoming a minimalist, which is a great thing not just, ecologically, environmentally but also economically. The mindful living will teach you the important virtue of abstention; hopefully, you will be able to control your urges to buy and hoard, better.  Remember you still have 50% items that you had available to use, again make a list of items that were least used and try and give up about 10% of those to the storage.

Living with less, creates more of things that matter, like free spaces, lesser economic burden, and more happiness. When you declutter you give yourself an opportunity to wander less and concentrate on things that matter most. I’m not an expert at it, nor have I become, a minimalist completely but I have made some good progress, a few things that I've accomplished are:

1. Simpler wardrobe: I wear similar clothes at least 20 days a month, that is a white shirt and black trousers. I haven’t gotten over my love for shoes so I still have quite a few of them out. Gotta work on it.  
2. Digital decluttering- I was in a mindless upgrade game, I used to hoard every gen item that I could lay my hands on. Multiple items of the same category. Many phones, computers, tablets, headphones, smartwatches, etc. For over a year, I have been able to become singular, one MacBook, last-gen iPhone and apple watch, one pair of headphones, one iPad and that is it. One item each category.
3. Subscription - I used to hold more than 30 annual subscriptions of all kinds of services, from music to application to platforms. I’ve simplified it, to one subscription per service that I like and enjoy. Thereby cutting about 60% of the mindless digital hoarding.
4. E-Reading : I pride myself on being an avid reader, as a result, I would easily buy close to 200 books every year, I have reduced it to less than 50, I try to read more digitally now.

My life has become objectively better not just clutter wise but also on the level of finances. Not having clutter makes me feel more fulfilled, focused and usually relaxed. 

On the work front I used to be obsessed with information, I needed to know everything that was happening around me, every version of it. In the last two years, I have been able to actively reduce useless information hunger and have tried to concentrate on the job at hand, just that, it has improved my productivity.  

I no longer obsessively check and refresh email every now and then, I have a routine for it. I check emails three times on a typical workday. I still end up replying to everyone but now the emails do not interfere with my creative work. I’m able to focus. My phone used to be full of notifications from social media, news, and other applications, I have turned off notifications as a result, I now check on them when I have the time for it.

These small alterations have made me a little more aware of my surroundings and have helped me focus better. 

It is definitely worth a try .. I recommend you give it a shot.

Until we meet again!

The unambitious, you!

All of us need to truly love something to exist meaningfully; it doesn't have to be one thing. It can be a combination of things, people or situations.. just about anything that we identify with unthinkingly, something that feels like our own, a natural extension of who we are, in its most elementary form. There are many ways to want ..not so many to know. The story of human evolution has been written in letters of adaptation and with the ink of patience, there has never been a shorter method to mutate naturally into a higher race, from fish to monkey to monkeys staring at blue screens all day, using both opposing thumbs to press mostly and not so much to grip, has happened in millions of years. Some advance laboratories today are creating working models of human heart and in some capacity also the brain – these aren't dwarf achievements, these could potentially change how we conceive our world. But even in its most profound state it is not evolution but an attempt to emulate, another proof that we are monkeys for the most part of our being. Monkey see .. Monkey do.. until we find what we love. That realization alters that course of being for better, does little to speed though.

Through centuries of recorded history, we have been educated about the need to progress and prosper, heroic stories of accomplishment has presented to us with the sole purpose of igniting inspiration in us. We pick up our idols and start emulating the qualities that made them who they become. It is a good thing to do .. we have to create something out of limited existence, we must leave behind things for people to remember us by. Nature is a great leveler.. it allows successful as well as failures to leave the same things behind – stories. Tales of who were we and how did we deal with our lives, in our times. And what can be better than creating a story about something we love. How we come to love a few things more than others is a topic in itself, the neural science, making it work is interesting .. we will surely touch upon them some day. Today, however, it is about identifying which is that thing, or if we have actually found it.

Would you believe me if I told you that everything that we do unambiguously has the potential of becoming things that we truly love and desire? But hold on, isn't being competitive and coming out as the winner a thing? It most certainly is, but what we are talking about today are things which exist at the level much deeper than the sense of accomplishment in our thought center, in the most pristine parts of our brain. These things define who we are in far more meaningful ways than how much money we make, what our net worth is, what job title we have .. how big our homes, our cars, and offices are. Let me put this straight, I'm not trying to make a saintly argument here. Nor am I trying to hike to a moral high ground from which wealth seems as waste and material belongings are another representation of limiting chains. While you are at it .. make the money you want .. create the home that you've always wanted, be on the cover of every magazine that you liked reading in your growing years. Possibly be so awesome that every poster is in the town dreams to have you in it. Material matters are important ..it is the unit by which society measures success and you have to score. Go be the person you must become.

My argument is simply this .. to get better at being that person that owns stuff, good stuff, you will first have to be the person who loves, and this is only the romantic love, that SRK has fooled our generation to fall for. This love is admiration that Gandhi had for truth, respect that Nelson Mandela had for equality, and importance that human/civil rights had in Martin Luther King’s world — you see what I'm saying? This love is not Manmohan's silence or Modi's chatter .. this love is the time that Dr. Tharoor takes out to keep writing books and publishing them at a stage in his life when he can simply reap the benefits of who he has been in the first 40 years of his life. This love is feeling that got AJP Abdul Kalam to take up teaching .. after leaving the majestic Rashtrapati Bhawan. This love is also in some ways called "purpose", life's mission, identify or just a hobby. Pick the word that you think describes it the best, as long as the definitions are aligned expression isn't a problem.

For all we know life is not a lazy Sunday afternoon or a busy Monday morning .. it isn't a laid-back Friday evening or an exhilarating Saturday – life is a concoction of all these and more. It is the routine of Tuesday, weight of Wednesday, throbbing of Thursday .. all if it mixed into one. Have you ever wondered why you find it difficult to concentrate in your silent bedroom but find it easy to read your book, in a crowded café that you like? Have you mulled, why discourteous staff bothers more when the food is not particularly tasty? The same traffic jam feels ok when you are on your way to meet a person you know as a horrible being?  Why do we procrastinate a few things on the same day as on which we absolutely can't sleep to encounter an important event, the following day? Mind is a mess for some and mystery for others but is always is the key to the world that we like to build for ourselves. Product of our mind is thought and these thought are the only things that we really have .. everything else is just an illusion. Coming back to the definition that I attempted creating, I based it around being unambitious, I say so because in things we love .. we do not compete and this fact that we are not in a race promotes the kind of peace that is needed to create unison & tranquility, in other words concentration or happiness or simply put pleasure. Let me give you a few examples, if you like reading and Ruskin Bond happens to be your writer of choice, when you read his finest creations you do not bother about reading too fast or too slow .. you just enjoy being there. So much so that you often re-read, revisit the plots even without the book, think about what your writer said before sleeping amidst the emptiness of night. Now, think of a contract that you read at your work .. what things come to your mind? You've to read comprehensively, objectively, quickly .. make notes, be ready etc.. these are important things but at a cognitive level, to read that contact masterfully, you will need to have a Ruskin bond in your life .. if you do not have it .. you can't do an awesome job at reading and comprehending that contact.

Neither me nor your best friend .. will ever be able to tell you what should you love and why? Your mother can .. mothers know everything .. and they are always right. Whenever I have been defeated in life .. I have always run towards my mother .. her company gives me the strength to fight back. Maybe she is the one who inspires me the most and from her, I find things to love and be the person that I wish to be. I'm not sure .. if this method will work for you. On finding what you love .. you are truly on your own. I can tell you when you find the thing that you love .. you will experience one or all of the three things & thus .. you'll know you've found it. When you do, keep it close to your heart, keep growing into its stronger, bigger and better shape – that alone, will give you the story that you'll leave behind.

The three things are:

1) You'll be willing to reconsider, restart and even resume ..

2) It will make you forget .. everything else that you otherwise consider important. ( This forgetfulness is not a mental disability but the general phenomenon of being substantially more aware of something and giving other things lesser importance, momentarily)

3) It will be addictive, you will effortlessly want to do it more and more    ( so is smoking, drinking and drugs – but those aren't things that you love .. those are things you simply get trapped in for lack of education and dare I say, lack of awareness)

I will end this with a hope that you find what you truly love and create a wonderful story with it, one worthy of leaving behind.

You have a good Sunday.

Failure, a roll of the dice!

As we enter into the final week of 2017, I have to thank you for your continued support, I had not hoped to cross 7K on readership, so soon, but we did, 7056 to be precise ( till 24th Dec 3:45 PM). It has been a great year for me. Early this month, I sent out emails to randomly selected returning readers/commenters to ask them if there is a specific topic on which they’d like to hear from me. I received 347 responses, studied them to ascertain that roughly 86% people hinted at hearing on “failure”!

I thought a great deal about it .. re-lived most of those moments when I encountered failures and what transpired from each of those events and how life kept changing, sometimes irreversibly. I also got drawn into thinking how would life have been without those moments of failure, for a brief while that thought felt really nice .. and I did get seduced into devoting more to a failure free life but as I scratched the surface a little, I realised that my thinking had quietly shifted from being realistic to wishful, a few hours later, the idea almost appeared unreal to me and then I jogged back to my failures again to gather all that I had learnt from my own falls.

A day and a half with these thought & I got fairly certain, that my life wouldn’t have been what it is today ( could be better, and I’m working towards it) had I not failed. I tried looking at it a little more dispassionately, separating emotions from the core issue or the event. Most of my failures started to make perfect sense, then.

Come to think of it .. life is only a tad better than roll of dices more so because one thing leads to another. If decisions operated in isolation, failure & success wouldn’t have mattered as much, but because life is a series of events one coming after another in a logical and progressive sequence - each event is indeed imp. 

Let’s accept this - Shit happens! 

Don’t you agree? As much as we would despise failing; we all do once in a while, ins’t it? 

Everything counts, from you letting the snooze button win most mornings to you not choosing right things to eat or loosing to your own lazy self and thus missing on your exercise routine. Even in areas which are more formal in nature, lets say an investment tanking or an assignment flopping big time - We’re in a way a sum total of these!

Let’s open it up a little. Failure often times is considered bad, expect for that fact that is not always so. Some failures actually propel us to a progressive future, enables us to make amends and move on with our life just fine and even those which do not really make us into something better at least leave us with a better understanding of who we actually are. 

Both successes and failures start at a decision .. irrespective of the size, impact or even the context, a decision is always the starting point.

I like to think of life as a puzzle and each decision as a block in that massive build up that spreads itself across a stretch as long as a lifetime.The choices that you make lead you in a certain direction, remember nothing is absolute- your wrong could be someone else’s right, our lives are interconnected more interestingly then it may  appears to us. We keep moving forward each day a little irrespective of us failing or succeeding - because that puzzle called life, knows one thing and that is how it would like itself to get concluded. While it may seem like you hold the console but for the most part .. you actually get played.

No one I know has it figured out completely .. nor do I have it completely within my grasp but what I do know is that no one ever walked this earth without failing more than a couple of times, at things, they today are successful at. Failure really is the GPS to success, in ways more than one for those who really desire to succeed. 

Life will never be free of failures .. there will always be victories and losses. All of us will have to not only put up a fight for a seat at the table better yet try work harder to get to the seat at the head of the table. So long as there is life .. there will be struggle and so long as you struggle .. possibilities of meeting failures will be there.

So what you really can and should do is to think of an approach towards dealing with failure. The questions is to work towards a strategy to make these stumbles rare and too far and few in between by being meticulous, sincere, alert and above all careful. 

I wish for you to succeed but if life catches on .. you could make use of these three tips.

1. Quitting too early is uncool: Quitting is easy but not fun. In more than half of the occasions where I have chosen to be persistent, I have succeeded. Even in the face of most strongest opposition and most unfavourable of the circumstances you sometime have to just hang in there. You can’t finish first without being in the ring for longer!
2. Regard for Rejection: We give in, because we face rejection, sometimes even from people who we trust & look up to. Rejections can’t be the reason to give up on anything, what you need to pick up from it is the clues to change, to get better. You need to work your way thru rejections. Our world is not always very warm but it does get kinder to those who handle rejection gracefully. Validation is not as valuable as you may think. It is ok for some to not understand you or your plan as well as you do. Offer a nice smile and move on.
3. Future is not a mere repetition of past. - Everybody commits error, the important thing is to learn from them. Because you’ve failed in the past .. you shouldn’t try in the future is the most unwise advise that you’d ever get. If you care for it .. go for it! Let not failures of past limit your ability to carve a future full of success. You can change the pattern.. if you really want to.

If you ask me .. it is a constant struggle between the below two.

1) Desire to succeed

2) Fear of failure

There will be times when these two mingle into each other and become inseparable, you have to remember - nothing defines you better than your will. Law of averages applies to everything and it will caste its spell on you too, you will stumble, you will fall, you will get knocked down sometimes in the face and hard - it is all part of the procedure.

Fear and failure is part of life, the trick is to recognise it as a fact ; you’ve to give strength to your desire to succeed and in that long journey take a few failures here and there with a grain of salt. Nothing great has ever been achieved overnight. If you wish to succeed be ready to be in the middle and fight it till you knock your opponents down.

You real opponent is “failure” - deal with it. 

Gather yourself & stand again - for it is worth it.

With that I end this.. wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy new year 2018.

Chaos & Clarity!

Clarity is one thing that human minds understand and desire the most - this is a proven fact! If I were to put this any simpler I’d say - things which are simpler and truer are easier for people to comprehend fully. This dates back to the very origination of organized learning, we started from symbols and then gradually graduated to present form of storing & propagating knowledge by effectively combining competencies of character and images both- we call it info-graphics!

The first step to clarity, however, is Chaos!

This may sound a little out of place, but if you give it a thought you’d realize that - we wouldn’t seek clarity if it wasn’t for chaos! Humans are combative by design (this includes submissive, authoritative, passive, extremist, docile - all kind of human being). For those of you who are having a hard time believing that we are a combative race, should recall “survival of the fittest”. This principle from Sir Charles Darwin has been proven beyond doubt and because we have left millions of years of evolution behind us - we have grown from Fishes to Monkeys into our current forms where we have created the world for ourselves - full of conveniences and vocations.

That brings me the question - is Chaos a bad thing?  More often than not negative sentiments are attached with the word, if you were to ask 10 random people if they'd prefer chaos all of them would in one voice say that it is not desirable. I’m here to argue otherwise. 

I’m of the firm belief that Chaos helps progress!

I’m not arguing the impossible or on purpose trying to take the negative line of wisdom to attract attention but am saying so because I’ve carefully examined human history ( all that I could learn so far). Order is what is desired and chaos is what is opposite of it, now think of it. Orders are actually patterns that we fully comprehend and chaos are those we are not able to quite grasp, which is why we rearrange. It holds true for us putting our books on the shelves to folding clothes to finding the shortest route to our favorite cafe. 

It is always about bringing order!

One could argue that entire human progress should be attributed to this one thing - bringing order!

When we made villages outsiders dense forests - we organized housing near the source of food!

When we started thriving near rivers - we organized the capability of soil to give best results near a water source.

Fire was invented to end the chaos of darkness. 

Wheels brought order to the chaos of ease of movement. 

& then came the motor and that changed the world, beyond imagination.

We owe our entire progress, all our inventions and discoveries to Chaos.

Simplification is what we do best and that is what we must do to end the Chaos around us. Imagine standing at a center of a maze - the chaos of uncertainty surrounds us from all direction. We begin from not knowing, but progress, when we get the urge to know that first step and when we take it towards seeking clarity, we start ending Chaos. We move from one bit to another with relentless effort and quest for clarity, we reach the other end - Chaos leads to Clarity.

So next time when you find yourself in Chaos of any kind, remember, that it is for good and you can combat it in three simple steps. The thing here to note is that you cannot not have the patience to follow thru. If you leave it mid way you’ll have to live with it for the rest of your life.

Steps:

• Believing that this can be solved.
• Break it down into smaller and manageable problems 
• Take one problem at a time & progress till you reach the end.

Don’t get bogged down because there is Chaos .. this very chaos will make you find ways to Clarity, something you love and enjoy!