Where is your magnet focused?

Do you know when your car becomes old???
When your neighbour gets a new car...

Do you know when your phone is outdated???
When your colleague gets the latest 10 inch phablet...

When does your laptop look old???
When your junior who just joined gets a shiney new one...

I'm absolutely crazy about my bike, and have been using it for ages now. But last year, a newer, upgraded version of this bike was released and since then, somehow I've convinced myself that my bike is getting old.
Now, believe it or not, during the last one year, my bike has given me the maximum issues. Starting from engine sound, chain sprocket issues, timing chain issue (I have no idea what it is)... somehow, it feels like my bike is trying to take revenge on me. Latest adventure was when I realised that my tire had gone flat for no obvious reason. I ended up dragging it for half a mile to get the tube replaced.

I have suddenly started facing issues only after I got this thought process that it is getting old.

In workplace, you will always find 2 kinds of people. One's who are always complaining. Somehow, all troubles seem to come in search for such people. And the most interesting part is that their troubles are well justified. Somehow, they are always at the receiving end.
Another category is the ones for whom things just keep happening right. They don't seem to struggle.

To you it might look like, all those who struggle are complaining and cribbing, and all those who don't have any issues are happy.
The truth is - All those are happy, things work out for them. All those who are complaining, get more reasons to complain.

You get what you relate to. The more you complain, more reasons you will get to complain. The more you smile, more reasons life will give you to smile.

Its not that the smiling ones don't have any issues, its just that they choose to smile inspite of their issues.

I know a few of my friends who are absolutely logical, pragmatic, scientific. If you are that type, I'm not sure how I'll convince you. Just think of yourself as a magnet, it attracts those like it.
Only difference is that a magnet can't choose what it wants to be, we can.

I was in a work related discussion today and we were talking about how we need to plan things. I needed to know the availability of my seniors. 2 of my seniors gave two very different approaches -
Option 1 - We will take up this activity. I think it will get over in this much time. But then there are other factors such as x, y, z which could cause a delay. Because of these things, we might end up extending. Plus I'm occupied with a, b, c, so I may not be able to put in time. Subject to that, we should be able to finish it.

Option 2 - Lets see, our due date is x, so we have to deliver within that, if some issues come up, we'll have to move them around, I am occupied with a few things but I think I can manage. This looks doable, we should be able to meet the targets if we push ourselves a bit harder.

The first guy is focused on the issues and can see them more clearly, the second guy is focused on the goal and can see that more clearly. It is not that the second guy is turning a blind eye to the challenges, its just that his focus on the goal is clearer and everything else is ancillary. Who do you think I should work with???

I've shared about getting one's magnet right a few times before, but I still felt that this was worth sharing.

Where is your magnet focused???

For Granted?

You have probably read this story a few hundred times by now as mail forwards and as facebook posts, but I can promise you that you wouldn't have read it the way I did. So please, for my sake, read this story to the end, read it the way I want to share it...

There was this man travelling by train. In the same compartment, there was another man travelling with his son. The son was probably 16 or 17 years old. The son was quite excited, almost as excited as a 3 year old. He was seeing outside the window and making some pretty childish comments every now and then.

Suddenly the son said - "See papa, that tree also has a brown trunk, how is it that all trees have brown trunks"
The father replied - "Well, that's the way it is."
Son - Wow, there are so many different shades of green. That's green, right?
Father - Yes son, that is also a green.
Son - See papa, the railway tracks are going parallel to us
Father - Really? lets see how far they can keep parallel...
And the son kept saying - "See papa, the whole sky is blue", "the birds are trying to race with the train", "Everything is going by so fast", "The hill at the distance looks like its moving forward instead of back"... and so on.

Everytime the son would make such a comment, the father would say "Its beautiful, isn't it!!!", "Very nice", "Amazing" etc. It was very obvious that the father was being very patient with his son.

Finally, our friend couldn't watch it, so he said to the father - Looks like your son needs help, I think you should take him to a doctor.

The father, with all his excitement replied - Actually, we are coming back from the Doctor. My son here was born blind and he just got an eye transplant. He is just learning to see...

The man was dumb struck. That is when reality hit him, and hard...

Something beautiful happened right then - For the rest of the journey, this man sat right next to the young boy and enjoyed each and every sight with the young boy. He had travelled that route a few hundred times, but he saw a new world that day. A world with new found eyes.


For the last few years, my loved one was going through great pain and trouble due to some dental issues. She was not able to eat anything sweet, spicy, hot, or chilled, not able to drink soft drinks, effectively letting go of everything pleasurable because of the dental issues.
Recently, she completed the entire treatment, and is now able to eat anything she wants.
You should see the smile on that face when she eats what she wants.
A healthy mouth is something we take for granted, but for her, it was an absolutely amazing experience to be able to eat and drink whatever she wants.

I used to hug her everyday, three times a day, sometimes fight with her, sometimes not speak to her for days. She would make cakes and sweets for me and I don't remember saying thanks once to her. Then, one day she was gone. That is when I realised what it is to have a grand mother in one's life.

I go to work with it everyday, for 8 years it has been my partner, so much so that its like second nature for me to ride my bike. Then, one day, at 11 in the night, the clutch wire snapped. That's when I realised how I had been taking its reliability for granted.

She's waiting for dinner everyday when I go home, then one day, she was not feeling well and ate early. When I came back home, I was eating alone from my plate, that's when I realised how eating together from one plate was a default activity for me.

Most of us have irritating mom's, who keep pestering us to keep our rooms clean etc, wait... the day will come when you will realise how you have been taking your mother for granted.

You keep cursing the job, the company, the boss, yet you keep coming to the same workplace for years. That credit into your salary account every month is taken for granted. Until, one day, recession hits... that's when you realise that you took the job for granted and never tried to work on your skills...

We take the body for granted... Wait till the doctor tells you about that anomaly in the liver, or that white spot in your mouth, or the day you have to climb five floors and you realise that 125 kilos is a lot of baggage.
If you don't take care of it, this very body will start betraying you...

Only for the last few days, I have become more aware of my dental health, I enjoy my gym workouts better, I enjoy the family time better, I take better care of my bike, I drive a bit more safely, I don't mind doing some house work.

It is the very basic nature of us humans that we take all the beautiful gifts of life for granted and only when they are gone, we realise the true worth of them...
We have been doing this for all our lives... Atleast now can we change???

The Hug...

I was sitting at my friend's place to see her new born baby.

We sat there chatting while the baby slept peacefully. Then while we were talking, I touched the nice chubby cheeks of the kid and instantly a slight frown appeared on his face, then the mother caressed the other cheek and the frown disappeared, even a slight smile came back. All this while the baby was still asleep.

Somehow that baby seemed to recognize the touch of his mother even when in deep sleep.

Must be some magic in that touch...

I remember when we were kids and fell sick, how our mom would sit next to us. She would just keep caressing our hair while we slept. Somehow the touch seemed to heal us. I still remember how I used to cling to my dads legs trying to hug him while I was barely above his waist height.

Even as we were growing up, my mom would give us a hug when we left for school and would welcome us with a hug when we came back. That habit lives on even today. I leave the house hugging each and everyone in the house and again hug everyone in the evening when I come back home.
Not a single day goes by when I haven't hugged each one in my family atleast 3 times.

Unfortunately, in today's time and age, we don't have time to hug, time to hold hands, time to sleep with our head in that loved one's lap...

A father doesn't have time to hug his son, a mother doesn't have time to hug her own daughter... The result... when these kids grow up, they start missing that loving touch which they received as kids. Over time, they forget the value of it.
We now have a generation where a husband hesitates to hold hands with wife in public.
We are in a generation where if a son actually goes and hugs his mother, the mother gets worried and asks - is everything alright???
We are in a generation where if I hug a guy friend I met after ages, three of the people on the road will think I'm gay...

For the first time in my entire blogging, I find myself poor, I don't have enough grammar to tell you the value of a hug, the value of a touch, the value of a clean non-sexual touch.

If you trust me as a friend, do this today. Do this right now.

Just go and hug the first person in your house right now. (that doesn't include your maid servant, she might charge you with assault.) Whether its your mom, your dad, your sister, your spouse, your brother, your sister, you friend, anybody at all... Heck, go hug your landlord...
Find a loved one and give them a hug. Not a single word, no explanations, if they ask you, just say you felt like doing it... Just one hug...

If you are not able to do this even after reading this sharing, then I'm afraid you have already lost the most valuable experience in your life and I can promise you its not coming back.

This sharing is not for you to go and like in facebook.
Its not for you to read and feel good.
Its not for you to read and think - Gulshan writes well.
Whether Gulshan writes well or not is not the question, because if this sharing is not able to change your heart, then all my writing is probably not worth a dime for you...

Go ahead, beat the hesitation, experience that hug, that touch and come back and tell me how it was...
Trust me... I'll be waiting for your comments on this one...

Mirror - Part 2

A few days ago, I had shared about a mirror and how it tells us only the truth. Then I went on to share that every person needs a mirror in life, a teacher, a parent, a true friend... someone who can tell unpolished blunt truth.

One of the feedbacks I received said this - "My belief is that even a mad man walking on the streets, shouting and pouring his anger/tragedy and what not is a Mirror for us, may be not directly for our issues but indirectly pointing us to take care or else......"

Thats so true that I had to share this with everyone.

When I see a man shouting like crazy on the road and being rude to others, I look up and say, Thank God I'm not like that.

Whenever a person drives like a monkey or the hungry coyote and whizzes past me, I just think - Thanks God I don't drive like that.

And then, someone in the office comes and passes a comment on my work, and I don't like it. Then I realise that I said something similar to another colleague a few days ago. This friend has shown me the mirror.

Seeing a friend go through health issues, getting parts of his body taken apart and lying on the table just because he could not drop that last glass or that last butt... even that is a mirror showing me that I have been on the right track so far.

Seeing my friend pile up kilos every year and gathering unnecessary weight on his body only pushes me harder to stay fit.

Next time you see an ant in your house, don't squish it, just shove is far away from its path. What happens next will be a revelation to you. The way it comes back to its tracks again and again and again you might realise something. (and the ant doesn't even read this blog)

My teacher says, some people make mistakes and learn, smart people see others' mistakes and learn. Of course, there's a third category which never learns no matter who's mistake it is.

My point is - 

When you seen someone suffering from cancer because he smokes and drinks, its a clue for you to drop these habits. To continue doing these thinking it will never happen to you is absolutely foolhardy and @#$!#$.

When you see someone driving without a helmet and meeting with an accident, its your clue to wear a helmet and drive safely. If you continue making the same mistake he made... well, then you will become an example for someone else...

The Mirror...

I was looking at myself in the mirror and I noticed that the prosperity was showing itself around my waist. Then I looked at my handsome face and continued getting ready for work.

That mirror showed me everything about me. The good things and the bad ones. It just told me the truth. No sugar coating, no diplomacy.
I as a person, chose to see only the handsome face and not the tummy.

That is exactly the role of a teacher in our life. A teacher shows us exactly what we are. A teacher tells us where we are good and where we are not. But, what to do with that knowledge is entirely our choice. When my teacher tells me that I need to improve my time management, I can either work on it or I can try to justify saying that my time management is not good but I'm good in so many other things. Just like the mirror told me that my tummy was big but I continued to look at my face.

Two fat men stood in front of a mirror, one saw the face, another saw the big tummy. The one who saw the face continued to see the face. The one who saw the tummy started working on it. Few months later, both of them came in front of the mirror. Who do you think had become a better, fitter person.

Whenever I give a feedback to someone in my team, I clarify that the intention of the feedback is to improve the person and not to humiliate or insult him in any way. It is my job to be a mirror there. And it is the person's job to take the reflection in the right meaning.

In the same way, when I sit in a discussion with my seniors, I'm sitting in front of a mirror. It is my job to receive the feedback in the right sense and work on improving on it.

All of us may not be fortunate enough to find a teacher in our life, but most of us do have a mirror in our mothers, sometimes in a friend, sometimes in the life companion. All of us have one person in our life who will always tell us the truth on the face. That person is the mirror of our life.

I've been fortunate to have the right relationships in my life who have showed me truth at every stage. At times when life cornered me alone, the everyday house hold mirror has been my companion. When you look at that mirror and look into the eyes of that reflection (your reflection)... those eyes have the power to show you all the truth in the world... Everything about you...

At times I have been mature enough to see it and improve upon it. At times I have also been immature and ignored it. And I can assure you that everytime I accepted the truth shown by the mirror, I have become a better person.

When was the last time you saw the mirror?

What can you offer?

I went to a temple few weeks ago with my friends. As we were entering the temple, some of my friends stopped at the entrance and bought some flowers to offer, others bought some coconuts. I wasn't sure what I wanted to offer, so I decided to enter the temple empty handed.
As we waited in the queue, waiting for our turn to come, the friends were busy in their chatter. I was a bit more silent (for a change). As I waited there, I was thinking as to what I should have bought as my offering.
First I thought I would offer coconuts to Him, but then I asked myself - who created the coconuts? who put the water and the soft white stuff inside that hard coconut? I found my answer, its Him...
Then I thought I should have bought flowers. Then I asked myself... who created those flowers? who added fragrance to them... Its Him...
Then I thought, I should have brought some milk to anoint his statue. But then, I saw what happens to the milk after it has been used for worship. That same milk could have satisfied someone's hunger... Who am I to take His creation and send it down the drain???

Then I got a bright idea... I'll just make a good donation in cash, that way I don't have to give him anything which he created... then again I thought... who has sent all this money and success to me? who gave me the right opportunities...

By then, it was our turn to offer our prayers. Like a small child, I just offered my thanks and walked out of that place, I felt already heavily accountable for all that I have received and feeling too grateful to ask anything else, I just came out.

On the way back, I was thinking, who's decision was it to ensure that I reached the temple safely and got the chance to offer my prayers?

Who chose to give me a good life and loved ones who care about me?

What is it that I have to offer??? What is it that I own???

My house, my car, my bike, my money, my success, my wealth, my family, my loved ones, my friends, my education, my very own body, my hands, my feet, my intelligence???
So many my my my my my's.... which one of these could have possibly come to me without His decision. If everything has come from Him, then what am I trying to prove by offering it back to Him???
Even my thoughts are not mine...
Yes, you read it right, even my thoughts are not my own. Haven't you had experiences when you were in a tough situation and some idea came and you got out of the situation.... knowing yourself, you also realise that you can't come up with such an idea... what do you call it???.... Divine Intervention.... isn't it??

So when even my thoughts are not my own, what is it I have then that I can offer to him?
Its just like a 3 year old goes to his dad and tells the dad - "Give me 500 rupees, I want to buy you a birthday gift"

I kept asking myself... What do I have to offer when even this body is not my own???
Then I realised... I still have one thing.
One thing which I absolutely own.
One thing which nobody in this world can take away from me....
Its my ability to make a decision...
Its my ability to decide.

We have no time in this fast paced life, even then, if I can take the decision to think of Him, that is my best offering to Him.
I had shared on my blog sometime back, my decision to sit in prayer is the best prayer I could offer Him... I still follow that...
When everything is going wrong, I sit in silence and offer Him my thanks and a promise that we will see it through together... that decision to sit is my best offering to Him.
When I feel like having a smoke, the decision to keep my arms folded is my best prayer to Him...
When I feel like hitting that person right in the face and break his nose, the decision to keep a smile on my face and hug that guy is my best prayer to Him...
When she just doesn't want to listen and I want to just bang the door on my way out, my decision to hold her and hug her as long as I can... that is my best prayer to Him...
When that skimpy micro mini skirt walks right beside me, my decision to look the other way is my best prayer to Him...
That decision to stop and take some time out, buy a few breads and blankets and give them to the needy... Not the fact that I bought them, but the fact that I took time out to do it is my best offering to Him...
We all get beautiful thoughts every day, but my decision to sit down, put them in writing and share them with the rest of the world is my offering to Him...

Whats your offering???

The lost purpose!!!

A few years ago, there were some terror attacks in Bangalore, as a knee jerk reaction, all the top hotels and clubs implemented safety measures. Even malls had security measures in place. Today, years later, I went to a hotel in my car, they stopped me at the entrance and checked the underneath of the front with a mirror on wheels, another guy peeped into the hatchback and satisfied, they allowed me to go.
My question is - If I was a terrorist planning to blow up the hotel, will I just waltz in with a bomb sticking out of the bottom or a bag full of grenades in the boot???
Obviously, I will be more prepared, obviously those things will be better concealed.... So then, what is the purpose of going through the ritual of checking .

Once I was stopped from entering my own office building because I was wearing a Pathani Suit and had about 2 weeks of beard on my face. I was carrying my backpack with me.

At the mall, they have a metal detector and manually check all the bags. I was carrying my lunch box, while patting down the bag, the person looked at my lunch box and I just said what it was, he didn't check any further.

When the project was started, it was decided to have a daily report by generating a status, analysing each item and updating the status. A few weeks later, the person preparing the report was only updating the exceptional items. Another few weeks later, the report was just a copy paste from the earlier day.

The Finance Controller was supposed analyse and sign each of the invoices before approving. He did that for the first few years, but now, its just a formality where the accountant brings all the invoices, in less than 5 minutes, over a hundred invoices get approved.

I used to go for an audit. Everytime I entered the building's parking area, the security guard would note down my vehicle number and time of entry. After a few years, they upgraded the security systems, now there was a security camera at the entrance of the parking area. Guess what, I still see the security guard standing there diligently noting the in and out times of each and every vehicle.

By the way, I'm yet to read a news article saying that a threat was avoided because of the hand held metal detector.

This is exactly what is called a System Entropy... System Decay...

Every process, Every system is bound to decay over a period of time.
People become casual, circumstances change, people change... a complete knowledge and purpose of the original system is never transferred to the next generation. As a result, the next person doesn't see things the same way.
Every system discussed above and every single system around you and me was setup by some smart people. Every system was designed with a lot of thinking an planning. The problem is that every single system designed was suitable for that time.

When I introduce any system, I will follow it 100%. The next person will follow only 80% of that. Next one to come will only 80% of what he learnt from the earlier person. Over a period of time, the original purpose of the process has already been lost.
By now, people are only following the steps without knowing why.

Think about it...

The only way I can see to avoid such System Entropy is to:
1. Constantly review the existing systems.
2. Never allow the steps to become mechanical.
3. Most importantly, never do anything without knowing why you do it...

Let's rediscover the lost purpose...