Social Media: Its all in our head

             We often come back to a screen, a social world filled with unrealistically exuberant lifestyle posts of people in our vicinity, and simultaneously a political  world filled with destruction and sorrow. This generates a string of unfeasible demands and expectations in our head from our life and our partners.
           “We only live once and our life is so mundane, our life is so ordinary, I can’t control anything, we don’t have that connection, or he/she isn’t right for me, we don’t have that spark that  this couple has, look what her husband bought for her or look how he surprised her, how she is managing everything so perfectly and blah blah…”

           
             

One man against them all

This is not just a story. This is a reality, a truth that shook the nation to its very roots. Today everyone is talking about corruption.But back then when there was no Modi, no Anna Hazare, a man raised his voice against the demon. He was Abhimanyu who was alone in that battle and was caught in the Chakravyuh. He was Satyendra Dubey.
              He was born in Bihar and despite his family's poor financial condition, he performed very well in academics. He became an engineer. Rather than going for fat salaried jobs, he decided to serve the motherland and joined service under govt of India.
              He was appointed as project sepervisor for a small section of Golden quadrilateral. When he found misuse of funds, he wanted to take strict action but all his hands were cut by his superiors. Finally, he wrote to the prime minister about the isssue while requesting his identity to be undisclosed. Unfortunately, this letter became public and Satyendra had to pay a heavy price. He was killed and a voice was silenced forever.
               India still remembers this man and his struggle who, although, could not cross the seventh gate of chakravyuh but definitely left a mark on this country.

Learn to cope with life as it plays out

The following article was published in The Hindu. It is really worth reading, more so, if you are trapped in a maze made up of your own surroundings and wanting to come out of this maze. It is also very helpful for guys entering into professional life from a college life.
(link to this article  http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-openpage/Learn-to-cope-with-life-as-it-plays-out/article16766030.ece)

                    Life is fun every day during our school and college days, as we enjoy them with our friends in different ways. But one fine day things start changing. We get into a job for a living. We get married. We have children. The challenges around handling the people in our lives start coming up.

The people we interact with daily in our professional life do not always treat us the way we want them to. Some of them even hurt us, knowingly or unknowingly. Some of our managers do not treat us with fairness. Our peers try ways to show they are better than us. Our relationships that are to last all our life don’t work to our expectations. The spouse is not understanding enough. Parents keep complaining about silly things. We struggle day and night to understand how we can satisfy the people around us, how we can change them, and live the life of our dreams. This was definitely not the life we were looking forward to when we were young!

Here are some of the truths we can imbibe into our essence in order to help us out of all that misery and suffering:

Truth 1: We cannot change other people or their behaviour. If we are not ready to change ourselves for someone else, we surely cannot expect them to do so. So accept the fact that the other person will not change just because we want them to. Relaxing expectations tremendously improves your peace of mind, especially in the matter of our children.

Truth 2: We have the choice to not let other people’s behaviour affect us. When someone behaves or talks in a manner that is meant to hurt us, imagine that we have a mirror in front of us to just deflect the remark/behaviour, before it even touches us. Once we start practising the Imaginary Mirror technique, the hurt and suffering we have to go through because of other people’s acts, words and so on will slowly start vanishing. We should never be dependent on others to define our state of happiness. The feedback from others should only be taken in a positive sense, to help us improve ourselves.

Truth 3: The only things we have control over are our thoughts and our behaviour. Once we learn to defend ourselves against the negativity around us, we can start changing the pattern of our thoughts to make us happier.

lBe grateful for the countless good things and blessings in your life. List them on a piece of paper whenever we feel down and out. To make it even more challenging, don’t repeat entries. We will be surprised that we never run out of items when we start counting our blessings. Spend time once in a while to look around and appreciate the beauty and wonder of the trees, hills, clouds, wind…

lWhenever we feel someone is trying to let us down, try to understand why they are doing so. Most of the time a person’s behaviour is transaction-based, limited to that situation, and doesn’t define who the person actually is! So be willing to forgive and forget. This removes much of the burden from our shoulders!

lRespect the person we are. When we start loving and respecting ourselves, other people will follow. Do not live to please others, being a door mat to others. God made us in his own image, and a part of God lives in us. I am important, so are my needs. Treat ourselves once in a while – maybe a special spa, a special gift that you have wanted for long, and feel good about it.

lThe present moment offers us many choices, and we are free to make our choices. Prioritise and take informed decisions that we will not regret ever, at any time in the future.

lGain control over our mind: Many a time we will find our mind wandering in many ifs and buts, past and future, which never materialise in reality. These thoughts only add on to our worries, and we start trying to solve the problems before they even arise in our life. Live in the present. Practise monitoring our thoughts on a frequent basis and redirect our mind to focus on more productive thoughts. Regular meditation can be of additional help here. The worries we have are just directly proportional to the probability of illness and disease in our life; so let us consciously reduce or even get rid of them.

lRelax and take a deep breath. Allow the good things to come to our life. Do we know that God (or the Universe or Consciousness or whatever else our belief is…) is always trying to push all the perfect things to us?

We are almost always in a state of fear and resistance, and so we unknowingly try to push all the good things away from us. Relax and open up our minds to receive.

This life is the only one we are consciously aware of. Let us live it to the fullest, be grateful for each and every blessing we already are in possession.

Jiby George

(The author is a senior manager at Infosys in Thiruvananthapuram and is a ‘Samaritans Counselor’ for the 5,000-plus employees of the local centre, helping them overcome challenges, both personal and professional.

The day when I am weak

There are times when we feel weak and not oriented towards our own work. Or we feel fascinated by someone else's work or profession. And then we begin to question our own decisions or choices. This undermines our confidence and self esteem. It is a viscous cycle that downgrades one's image in his or her own eyes.
              To come out of this, you should do a quick analysis as given:
1. Remember why you chose to be what you are where you are.
2. Remember the first day when you began to pursue your goal.
3. Look back for all the good work that you did since that day to this moment.
4. Your choices impact others too.
5. Now make a choice.
             Believe me when u will do this, u will feel proud and put yourself on the work that you have committed yourself to.

Towards a Cashless Bharat

The country is talking about a cashless economy.  Is it really possible? Is India ready? But wait..What about chotu..that chai wala that works in that shop.. or that dhobi that takes away my clothes for drycleaning every week..can they make digital payments?. These are among many questions that experts are asking.

         

            Well nobody is denying the fact that there are challenges. But then no challenge is unsurmountable if India decides to stand together. We have proven it several times in past history. The most recent was when people decided to stand in long queues to support demonitisation and tackle black money menace.

           This task is no different. It requires support and cooperation from the citizens. Govt also has to come out with a long term vision for cashless India. This should include focusing on digital infra, financial inclusion, appropriate policy and institutional framework, cyber security among other things.

           The most crucial task is to incur attitudinal change in the society. For this, it is very important for people to understand the  benefits of digital payments over transaction through currency notes,i.e, how easier, safer, cheaper and ecofriendly it is for us. Believe me if one can use facebook, wattsapp, it is not difficult for him or her to learn paytm or Bhim app of govt.

            So, I would say Cashless bharat is possible given the sincere efforts of the govt and participation of the people.

Keep moving

People say things to u..things u don't like..things u wanna reply back...but here i tell u what to do...fight back....the way is move on

Sometimes u give ur 100%...u try hard...but u don't get it...keep moving

Sometimes success does not come in handy.....but what u gotta do is keep moving...he there wants u to try a little more harder...u gotta show him that

We all know about Nelson mandela...he spent 27 years of his life in jail...our many soldiers have also given their lives...well today I will speak about him...in all those 27 years...for him there was no light at the end of the tunnel or may be there was......but in all that time...one thing he did.....he kept on moving....

This is my msg to india...keep moving...stop at nothing

This blog would have only original and new insights on things that matter..