Sunday, December 31, 2017

Year-end reflections

2017 will go down in my professional career (till now) as the year I worked the hardest. Personally it will be the year I traveled the craziest (mostly for work) and didn't really have much of a work-life balance.

The way things are getting extremely connected (always-on) we are increasingly immersing ourselves into a work-only culture. The constant checking of email on phone, the buzzing of instant messages from all over the world (office colleagues, customers, partners, vendors - the list goes on). I think it is now time for us to actively disconnect or at least have preset hours in a day where we intentionally switch-off our email and all kinds of messaging services even on our phones.

If you are like me, what can we strive to do differently next year? Well, I have been going through a mid-life crisis of sorts (for several years now) and I am beginning to question my definitions of both - happiness and success. These are highly subjective, overly marketed and poorly defined terms in everyone's life. Unless you really "identify" your definition of happiness and success - you will be endlessly and thanklessly stuck in the rat race called the "fast-paced life".

So, my plan for my resolutions for 2018:

  • Identify what is my definition of success and happiness
  • Ruthlessly cut down on peripheral activities that do not contribute to either
  • Subscribe to the JOMO (Joy of Missing Out) philosophy
  • Actively minimize and simplify my life
Wish you all an amazing 2018

Saturday, December 23, 2017

Binge Watching

Today will go down in my life history (in Google) as the day I binge watched Conan videos all day! I have binge watched only once before. That one time when we discovered House of Cards and completed Season 1 in one day. But today was different. I was not watching episodes (they have continuity, and that's a reason why we can't stop at the end of an episode cause you are curious to know what happens next!). Today I was just randomly watching Conan videos all day, with my YouTube on auto-play.

Now, I am a big fan of a lot of talk shows. My daily dose of YouTube videos (in no particular order) consists of:
  • The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
  • The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
  • The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon
  • Jimmy Kimmel Live
  • Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
While all of the talk show hosts are funny and interesting, I guess most of them are very driven by political opinions and current affairs. Conan on the other hand is pretty random, and I love his sense of humor. He has all these random videos of him traveling, learning self-defense, being mean to his staff and generally being silly. I would highly recommend you binge watching him.



Sunday, December 17, 2017

Wise Men Dancing


In my quest to stay abreast with the latest music that the current generation is listening to, I still try to listen to the top tracks every week from YouTube. Most of the music is hit and miss for me now. Reflects my age.

I realize that you somehow can only associate with the songs that you heard as a teenager. Songs before that are too old for your taste and the songs after that are just not cool enough. I think every generation thus has a decade of music and musicians that they really like and then everyone else is just okay.

Anyway, while listening to the latest generation, I chanced across this video by Carly Rae Jepsen featuring Tom Hanks (my generation). It is tastefully done, and for some reason I think I really love videos which get popular old male actors to dance in them.



So without further adieu I need to link you guys to the other cool song that I know of an old male actor featuring - Christopher Walken (again) and his amazing dance in the Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim.



So I guess, I can safely conclude that - to get a lot of views for your video, you don't necessarily need a lot of cute girls (read K-pop) but you can do it by getting a wise old actor dance for you!