random ramblings

Read today about lies we tell ourselves and the plan for life.  Reminded me of two things I read couple of weeks back. First is an HBR article How will you measure your life? . Gist of it is – author advises to create strategy for life (find out the purpose of your life), allocate resources (time/energy) towards that strategy, create a culture which enforces that and avoid to deviate from that path 100% of the time. The author is someone who pledged never to play ball on Sunday and hence didn’t go to a college basketball final on Sunday. This is treating life as business or managing an enterprise. Food for thought at the very least. I had reached to this article through NY Times column which is comparing Well-Planned Life described in above article to something the column author called Summoned Life – which flows according to the circumstances of a person. His conclusion is that both works – has to work anyway. My take is – I admire someone who knows exactly what they want...

It is not possible to give feedback to a person about his biggest problem – something apparent to everyone, but no one talks about it. Like you know someone lacks depth in knowledge, but can act extremely confident and boast about things – you can recognize the faking part of it, but will you be able to tell him? Or someone who takes life too easy, but cribs all the time about lack of growth. Or someone who talks so much that you are afraid to run into him on a Friday evening. It might be the single biggest feedback which might make a difference in their lives, but how much of a friend you should be to give such a feedback? Will you give such a feedback if it was your manager? I wonder if some of the folks never got the news or they never took it seriously.

When things are not going your way, try Find someone with whom you can be yourself Find someone to share with, your dreams, fears, disappointments Try exercising Travel somewhere, take a break Smile more, try some humor Try to read books, to give you a new perspective Think about your priorities, constraints re-evaluate the goals and the method Make a change, take a leap Learn something new Talk to more people, make more friends Help someone Say Yes more often Find a new passion, revive an old hobby Look at your strengths and what you need to do Do something But just don’t wallow in despair

I have been following American politics much closely for last 2-3 years – mainly got hooked during the last presidential primaries. Today morning saw the majority leader taking a different stance compared to the president regarding an issue, so was thinking about good and bad compared to our politics. The good – Two party politics – that is the best thing. Compare that to Kerala where we have Kerala Congress A, B, C, D, E… and then coalitions that can shift not based on ideology, but based on slots in the cabinet. Primaries – there is a chance for people to choose candidates. For us, I think people often decide not to even vote saying no candidates is worthy – it is often true as well. The candidates chosen by party hierarchy gives in to vested interests such as shares for castes, groups within the party etc. Deserving candidates might lose out just due to lack of political capital. Having the power to choose candidates by the party registered members relieves the would-be cand...

In my morning drive to office, there is a 4-5 km stretch of single lane road that has three major junctions that makes the entire stretch go at a slow crawl. I come to the first junction. Folks who want to go right are aligned to the right with indicators on, we crawl at slow pace and bikes are somehow making their way forward utilizing every inch of road. We make some space on the left for folks who want to turn left. Now there comes a guy on the left with right indicator on and goes straight to end of line, another guy behind gets emboldened since there is a leader and scrambles behind him, a mad rush follows, guys who waited patiently tries to assert their priority, cars go head to head or rather rear view mirror to rear view mirror to see who has guts – in the ensuing mess, somehow we make it to other side in parallel with the guys who cut in from left. It is single lane road, so someone has to adjust to avoid hitting the folks waiting for bus on the sidelines or the oncoming bus ...

Feeling good – it is distinct/distinguishable, happens not so frequently. Each time this happens, I usually try to identify the reason why. Feels very comfortable in clothes I wear, but it is not the clothes itself since I have worn these before. Had slept for seven hrs, but I have slept even more before. Had a decent breakfast – but had the same many times before. Exercised a bit – not normal. Have a slight cold and sore throat – but the feeling is in spite of that. Got a reasonably good treatment at car service station in spite of it taking more than an hour – they are well trained. Work is not creating much stress – even though I need to figure out how to move something forward. Appreciated someone whole-heartedly for a help – that felt good. Have read some things reasonably good since morning – in spite of the stories of corruption, accidents, unrest and inefficiency in the newspaper.  Hope the day will not grind it down.

Came across this NY Times article – Study Rethinks Importance of Kindergarten Teachers . Quotes from it:- Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more. Good early education can impart skills that last a lifetime — patience, discipline, manners, perseverance. Some teachers are highly effective. Some are not. And the differences can affect students for years to come. My daughter is in preschool now. My thought was – there are a lot of under advantaged children who never go to kindergarten, so are they losing out even before they start school? I see our community reach effort which is to go to a school and distribute notebooks – while doing anything is better than doing nothing, what could make more real impact ...