Acknowledge ephemeral happiness

 In our relentless pursuit of happiness, I realize that most of us have stopped acknowledging the ephemeral happiness we derive from small wordly moments every single day. 21 years into the 21st century we actually experience a lot more happiness on a daily basis than anytime in the history of homo sapiens. Most of us experience unprecedented levels of comfort, access to amazing healthcare and nutrition. Yet we as a society have now become increasingly divided, unhappy, irritable, stressed and unhappy.

While curbing societal pressures and controlling stress is something beyond everyone's reach, acknowledging happiness is definitely something we all can (and should do!). Ideally, throughout the day, we should learn to pause, acknowledge and appreciate the simple pleasures in our life. Complex things like airconditioners, refridgerators, microwaves, telephones, internet, televisions and simple things like hot water, taps, electricity etc. etc. all have enriched our life by leaps and bounds. We have completely stopped acknowledging the level of ease we have gotten used to, and constantly think of the next thing!

As you read this blog, I hope you think about all the little comforts that you have gotten used to, and starting today, pause and appreciate these fleeting moments of happiness as life passes by at breakneck speed!

Race, Nationality and Religion

My nationality, race and religion has always been at the forefront of my "classification" within the society at home and abroad. With social media increasingly fueling people to be overly religious, xenophobic and racist, I feel that it is time to talk about these topics from a pseudo-scientific perspective without going down a slippery slope. So my dear readers, please try to read this blog post without any bias.

Nationality - By far, I think this is the easiest to identify and categorize human beings on. All you have to do is ask for their passport. But if it were that simple, then life would be easy. There are certain nations in the world that allow dual-citizenship. In that case you can have 2 nationalities (e.g. Swedish-French, American-Italian etc.). You are legally carrying 2 passports and both countries recognize you as their citizens. 

Then there are people who change their nationalities during their lifetime. For e.g. an Indian citizen can renounce their citizenship of India and become a citizen of USA etc. In that case, you have had one nationality for a few years of your life and you changed your nationality for the next few years of your life and so on.

Now, according to the very broad definition of xenophobia, it is the fear or hatred of foreigners (which would mean foreign nationals). If you decide to become a xenophobic and spew your hatred on someone, you have to make sure that they are really of a different nationality. For e.g. Anyone in the world can become an American or an Australian or a Canadian as long as they follow their immigration processes. I believe that's what the nations have been founded on. So you can't just look at a person and call them a "foreigner" and marginalize them.

This xenophobia gets even worst when people of the same nation discriminate amongst each other based on their "place of origin" in the same nation. (e.g. in India - discrimination based on the state that you "domiciled" in)

Religion - Coming from India, this is a very contentious topic. But I guess, again, religion is quite easy to understand and categorize. You follow a faith and you abide by the principles of that faith. So you could be a Catholic, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist etc. Your religious identity is very distinct from your nationality. While statistically speaking there is a higher probability of having someone from some religion coming from some nationality it is just a statistic. I mean, theoretically an entire population can decide to change their religion overnight and still maintain their nationality (in almost all countries). I do understand that some countries are formed on the basis of religion, and you are not allowed to "freely" practice another religion if you do not follow the state religion.

Race - This has been the most difficult to comprehend classification for me. As far as I have researched there is no solid-scientific basis on which to classify people into races. While we continue to desperately classify populations of people into races - this classification is inherently flawed and very difficult to prove. If you think I am wrong, I request you to comment and redirect me to credible sources on race. This classification  has caused innumerable conflicts, wars and genocides and we continue to fight amongst us on a classification that has no clear scientific basis.

The general arguments I see online sounds something like this - My ancestors came here before your ancestors, so this land belongs to me and you go "back". This argument only holds for "Nationalities". For e.g. An Indian passport holder can only live in the USA for the duration of the time that her "Visa" permits her to stay in that country. There is no argument there. And for any reason if the "relevant" authorities (The people in the immigration who determine if you are fit to stay in their country or not) decide that you have to pack your bags and go "back" (to your country of citizenship) - you have to.

Any other reason given for this argument is - xenophobic and/or racist. You can't discriminate people based on how they look, how they speak or how they dress. Human beings have existed on this planet for 150,000 years. I can confidently say that none of our 100K+ years of ancestors stayed in the same place as we stay now. You can potentially only trace back your ancestors to a few hundred years? Same goes with race. Whatever physical features of a person you see have come after 100K years of intermingling between homo-sapiens coming from around the world and evolution. Some blood-lines have had distinct features that have propagated to their off-springs, but that's about it (I am talking about skin color, eye color, shape of eyes, type of hair, height etc.)

It is time (I know this sounds so cliched) we keep these differences away and work together towards the greater good of humanity and the planet!

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle

After we are done (whenever that is) with COVID-19 and the US Elections, we still have to come back to the looming problem of Climate Change. It may be on the back burner now, but it is just a matter of time before it raises its ugly head again. While I am no scientist, I do believe that we all can contribute to reducing our (human race's) impact on the fragile ecology (or whatever is left of it now).

 

I think the age-old saying of Reduce - Reuse - Recycle needs to be somehow changed to emphasize on the fact that we need to reduce a lot more than we have to reuse and we have to reduce and reuse a hell-lot-more than we have to recycle. Only then, we have any hope of saving the planet. My not-so-clever brain came up with this inverted pyramid to depict that:

 

 

Rather than simply engaging in green washing, think about your environmental impact in everything you do. For e.g. by now, I hope you have read that plastic bags are environmentally more friendly (if you reuse them) than cotton bags (reuse 45 times than reuse 7100 times to have the same life-cycle effect). Anyway, let's revisit the terms Reduce - Reuse - Recycle again:

 Reduce

Buy less. Use less paper, plastic, food. Use less electricity. Use less water. Walk where you can drive your car. Take public transport wherever you can. Don't waste stuff. Every action you do, think of your environmental impact. Remember, the world has to last even after you are gone. So reduce the irreversible change that you are inadvertently causing.

Reuse

Reuse plastics, reuse paper, reuse clothes, reuse utensils. Reuse whatever you can. Be stingy for the environment. It is not about how much you can afford anymore (most of us are rich enough to afford quite a bit of luxury and be wasteful). It is all about the environment now.

Recycle

If you can't reuse, then remember that most countries now have recycling programs. If you try you can find out how you can recycle your stuff. Make sure you segregate at source so that items put for recycling are really recycled.

How to get rid of your dandruff in a week?

 If this sounds like a click bait article, I am sorry. I thought I share something I found out a couple of years ago and it seems to have worked for me till today.

Now before you proceed, here are some disclaimers:

• I am not a doctor or a dermatologist or even remotely associated with the medical profession
• People on the internet can write anything they want, and you should not trust them
• This is my personal experience, and everyone's experience can be totally different
• I am not being paid to write this blog post (or any other) so this just my honest opinion

Okay, with that list out of the way - let me tell you my story. As a school going kid, and subsequently through out my life, besides my weight and my looks the other thing I was always embarrassed about was my dandruff problem. I have had dandruff in my hair for as far back as I recall. I tried a lot of remedies - medical, Ayurvedic or advertised. Nothing really ever worked for me. Anti-dandruff shampoo was always a part of my grooming arsenal, and it just managed to sometimes reduce it, but I never really got rid of it. I tried crazy remedies like egg, beer, yogurt, shampoos with ZPTO on my head and other than the awkward smell, it didn't impact much.

 

A few years ago, someone advised me to use the Selsun 2.5% suspension shampoo to wash my hair everyday for a week and then subsequently alternate days for a month. The shampoo contains Selenium Sulfide. And it is apparently not available over the counter in USA. However, I can get it in a pharmacy in Singapore without a prescription.

My dandruff has completely disappeared ever since. I switched to using their Selsun Blue version once a week subsequently, and it dandruff has not recurred again. I am not "absolutely" sure if its really the shampoo or my diet, or my horoscope, or climate change, or just the fact that I am dangerously close to my 4th decade on this planet, and apparently dandruff is not an old person problem.

So all the best!

Masked

Whether you like it or not, masks are going to be an important accessory for the next several months (hopefully not years!). It's the new normal and in Singapore it has been mandatory to wear a mask if you step out of your house for the last 3 months.

I have already felt three inconveniences with wearing masks and here they are listed in no particular order:

1. If you wear spectacles, masks fog them up - Yeah, I tried a lot of internet remedies so far, and nothing seems to work. This is the most annoying part of wearing a mask - I can't see properly when I breathe!
   
2. You end up smelling your own breath - This is a minor annoyance. But I guess it's good in a way. Reminds you to brush and mouthwash regularly. I have experienced this before on red-eye flights.
3. You can't read people's lips - I find this annoying. Now that I can't see people's lips, I realize that I have been seeing people's lips to interpret what they are talking when I meet them face to face. Last several conversations, I have difficulty understanding (especially if the person is new and his/ her accent is not something that I am used to before).
   

And no list is complete if you don't do both pros and cons. So here are some of the advantages I foresee of wearing masks:

1. Masks reduce the spread of the virus - Well that's the most freaking obvious reason why everyone should be wearing masks in this pandemic. I am amused/ worried and downright angry that we are debating whether we should wear masks now!
   
2. Face recognition software will have to now play catch-up (a-bit) - If you have not been living under a rock, you must have realized by now that facial recognition software is amazingly accurate. Just try Google photos for a few days, and you will realize. If Google is this great, the big-brother cameras watching you all the time on the street, must be 100x more intelligent and recognizing your faces and tracking you. I hope with the masks, the facial recognition software will need to be tweaked a bit, and so I think we might have a few months of anonymity on the street before they catch-up at recognizing us on the street again.
   
3. Finally I have a fashion accessory for my face - My favorite clothing brand is making masks. So are a lot of high-fashion brands. It's a matter of weeks before which we all will start wearing designer masks and make a statement, just like how we currently make statements with our clothes, shoes and watches.
   

Eisenhower Matrix

In my quest to be better organized in life, I read a lot of "self-help" stuff online and offline. Most of it I read and forget (cause it ain't that impressive). Something that has stayed in my mind for a while now is the concept of an Eisenhower matrix. I wanted to write about this in my previous post but was worried about making it too long. So here it is!

This matrix was apparently invented by Eisenhower (the US President) and it expects you to classify all your activities into 4 quadrants:

Eisenhower Matrix (also attributed to Stephen Covey)

1. Do First - Urgent and Important - Things that are urgent and important have to be done first (I think we all understand this - so I have nothing much to add). The only thing we need to be careful about is - not all items on your list are both urgent and important. What may seem urgent may not really be (e.g. A customer email asking for something). And what may seem important (for e.g. because it came from your boss) - may not be that important.
2. Plan or Schedule - Not-urgent but Important - This is the most tricky quadrant. We (or rather me!) procrastinate a lot in this quadrant. Learning that new thing (programming language/ skill/ musical instrument etc.) taking care of your health, talking to your family members etc. is important. But since it is not urgent, it gets postponed (forever). If you don't schedule time for it, it never happens.
3. Delegate - Urgent but Not-Important - This quadrant consists of a lot of chores that are urgent, but can be delegated to others to do it (For e.g. you can schedule your bank to automatically pay your bills, credit cards, renew your policies etc. These are all tasks that are urgent, but can easily be delegated).
4. Eliminate or Don't do - Not-urgent and Not-important - This is easier said than done. But a lot of things (social media?, status meetings, weekly catch-ups and the list goes on) are neither important nor urgent. There are more efficient ways of doing those things and it is best to learn to say no! I struggle a lot at this.

So next time you go on a retreat or take a break to ruminate, spend some time to think about all those things that are in your Quadrant 2 (Not-urgent but Important). What you start working on today will help you sometime down the line! It's best you think about them now and schedule them!

Time-boxing

If you know me long enough, you know that I am a big fan of To-Do lists. To-Do lists have been a part of my professional and personal life for as long as I remember. For team-work and where I have to coordinate with several people, I love Trello. Its Kan-ban like interface is nifty for tracking status and driving things to completion. However, lately I have realized that To-Do lists lack the "time required" component and that puts the tasks that take longer to a big disadvantage. In other words - on my to-do list a 2 minute task and a 2 hour task both occupy 1 line each. And my monkey brain always chooses to complete all the smaller tasks (to get my dopamine kicks) in the process pushing my big ticket tasks for "later" (Euphemism for "never").

I was researching a bit about this problem on the internet when I had my A-ha moment. (Trust me, if you have any kind of problem ever in your life, someone else somewhere has had that problem before, solved it and documented it somewhere on the internet for you. All you have to do is - search for it!). So the magic bullet to complement your To-Do lists is - Time-boxing. 

Time-boxing is just a sophisticated way of doing these 3 things:

1. Assign a priority value to every item on your to-do list
2. Estimate time required to do every item on your to-do list
3. Assign that item on your calendar for a specific time-slot based on the time you estimated in (2) above

So a simple list of 5 Tasks on your To-Do List after Time-boxing would look something like this on your calendar:

Its of-course much more difficult than just creating a To-Do List. But it gives you an idea of the finite time you really have and helps you prioritize your work for the day/ week or a given time period. Also, when you start estimating the time (or effort) required to complete a task, you identify which tasks are actually projects that need to be accomplished and work towards breaking them down into smaller manageable tasks that can be done over a period of time!

The global work from home experiment

As the virus situation evolves, I am guessing a lot of us have now officially started working from home. While working from home in the IT sector (my industry) is not something new, continuously working from home is a bit of a new experiment for all of us this time!

My job involves working with remote teams across Asia during the day and Europe in the evening so I am stuck to communication devices most of the times. Life is getting intense and my day starts around 07:00 AM and ends after 08:30 PM almost everyday juggling multiple time zones and people.  I also realize I take little or no breaks when I work from home.

There is a general sense of business as usual though everyone has the virus at the back of their minds. It seems like it is here to stay longer than anyone of us expected it to be. I am sure there is also a serious economic downturn on the horizon and I hope we come out of it strong.

It's 2020 and I am thankful that we have 24 hours reliable, stable bandwidth and always-on internet connectivity. We can share our desktops, do video calls and talk to each other almost as if we are together (without the human-touch factor!). I hope this comfort with working remotely with each other prevails even after this threat is gone. Will save a lot on business travel (time, money, inconvenience)..

I hope you all are coping well. After working from home for almost a week now, I have started appreciating the little things in life. E.g. - I love how airy and bright my home is if I open up all the windows and doors, I love the sparse look, I love my sit-stand desk, I enjoy using my blue-tooth headsets and I feel I am 10 times more productive because of no cross chatter from my colleagues or people dropping by my desk asking for something that is urgent for them disrupting me from my urgent and important tasks!

Take care, stay safe, stay healthy and be happy!
And, its time now we actually called our long-lost friends and spoke to each other!

Mind over matter

Had the chance to volunteer for "Let's take a walk Singapore" yesterday. It's a long distance walking race with participants choosing to walk 20 KM, 50 KM, 100 KM or a grueling 150 KM. I had the privilege of checking in the 100 KM walkers at approximately their 64 KM mark and the 150 KM walkers at their 110 KM+ mark.

This race is not big, and it is a charity event. So neither does it have much media coverage nor does it have a huge prize money. What this means is that most participants are ordinary people (not athletes). The competitors are like you and me, with a day job, participating for fun and testing their endurance.

Most ultra long distance endurance athletes that I have spoken to tell me this - the muscle groups in the leg that we use for walking are slightly different than running. And long distance walking is way more difficult than long distance running because of the added element of time involved.

Being at a checkpoint where most participants had walked for more than 24 hours before reaching there was a surreal experience for me. These were ordinary human beings with extraordinary will-power. Imagine this. They all had walked a full-day or more under the grueling Singapore Sun. Most were walking alone with no company and only their sheer determination pushing them along. Almost every walker had few blisters on their feet and had blood stained socks. While we as volunteers tried our best to cheer them up and provide whatever basic first aid we had, the people pushed on with their own self-determination.

This event will go down my memory lane as an unforgettable evidence of how ordinary people like you and me can achieve extraordinary things in life.

Corporate Humanity

A few weeks ago I twisted and hurt my ankle quite bad. I had a business trip lined up right after that fateful day, and I had to cancel it. I had non-refundable tickets so I had given hopes of getting any refunds at all.

Just to try my luck, I wrote to the hotel and to the airline indicating that I am unable to fly because of my medical condition and attached my doctor's medical certificate. I am pleasantly surprised that both of them made an exception, and refunded my non-refundable reservations without any penalties. They were pleasant, responsive and did it without any administrative delays/ hassles to me.

I am amazed and my faith in humanity is restored again. I am glad that there are still human beings on the other side making such decisions (and delighting customers). It's not just an AI engine managing everything!

Thank you Hilton and thank you Air China for being nice to me. I am not a special (read gold/elite/platinum etc.) customer of either of them, yet they treated me well. Emails were responded and calls were picked up!

Resolutions

I have been blogging here for more than 11 years now. So if you know the routine, every year I write a short post to wish you for the next year and give some ideas for a resolution. Half the time I don't keep any resolutions, and the ones that I do are so generic that nothing really happens and another year goes by.

2018 was a bit different for me! Just like 2017, I had a crazy professional year. But somewhere in the beginning of the year I resolved to read at least 1 book per month (12 in a year!). For a change, I managed to finish my 12th book just in time for Christmas. So, I think I finally managed to stick to a resolution. Now I know 12 books ain't a lot. But that's where I guess, resolutions (for me) are best when they are small and achievable. If I get too ambitious, I procrastinate and never make it!

So as we head into 2019, I hope you all have a happy and healthy 2019. Hope you can set S.M.A.R.T resolutions and stick to them. And in the week of 25-31 remember to do these 5 things.

What-if?

If you have been reading my blog long enough, you know that I believe that climate change is real. I believe that my activities, however small they are, affect the earth negatively.

Lately, I have been reading about the other side of this issue. I understand that quite a few of us believe that climate change is not affected by human activities. And all the climate models worked out by scientists are incorrect. Of course everyone is entitled to have their own opinion, and everyone has their own source of information ascertaining their point of view.

I can understand that if we continue to be skeptical of climate change, we can continue to burn fossil fuels, use coal for our power plants, use fossil fuel based transportation and continue to increase our carbon emissions. Anyway that's what we have all been doing all this while, and that is what has put us on to this path of fast-track progress!

My only concern is - What if?

What-if the climate models turn out to be real?
What-if we are indeed affecting the climate by our activities?
What-if incessant and uncontrolled carbon emissions will cause irreversible increase in earth temperatures that will make this planet inhabitable?

I understand that we can continue to be skeptical, and not believe in the scientific research being published. We can continue to live the way we have lived for the last several decades.

But also, we can now strive to change our habits on a personal level. Try to reduce our carbon footprints in our own small way. Irrespective of our belief in climate change, there is no harm in being frugal in our consumption of the earth's resources, being mindful of carbon emissions, and adopting a less fossil fuel based lifestyle.

It is not because we have to believe in climate change. It is just because we have a shared responsibility to our planet. And we don't want to worry about the what-if?

49 Weeks to 2018

Have had some of the busiest days of my life in the last month. So when other things take priority, blogging goes on a back burner. Hope you all had a lovely start to the new year, and wish you an amazing year ahead, or rather wish you happy 49 more weeks to 2018.

Depending on how you compartmentalize your days, they can be very long or very short! Hang on to your resolutions and make sure you achieve them this year!

Reddit - read better news!

Facebook is now the world's biggest media house just because of it's sheer power of distributing news across the globe than any other media company. Most of the world consumes its news (real or otherwise) from Facebook.

While I have also consumed news on Facebook, in the recent past I have actively stayed away from Facebook for a while to not let all the negativity affect me. I still use Feedly as my feed reader (after the Google Reader fiasco) to read my favorite bloggers and websites.

I have also been heavily reliant on Reddit to get my crowd-sourced news especially for the "breaking" stuff and to follow the news topics that I like. So I thought, I let you guys know about Reddit, if you have already not heard of it.

Reddit is like a community sourced news portal, where you have people voting for the articles and news that they like. Eventually the most voted news/ articles make it to the top of the front page which keeps changing all the while. Besides, Reddit also has these various "sub-reddits" where you can follow a community curated topic of your choice. So what on Reddit do I follow and I recommend?

Here are a few of my favorite sub-reddits that I recommend:

LifeProTips - Small quirky tips for managing your life
ExplainLikeImFive - Explanations on complicated topics given as if you are a 5 year old
TodayILearned - Something new to learn for the day
AskReddit - People asking questions on reddit, and getting answers!
UpliftingNews - Positive news of good things that happen in the world
History - Your daily dose of History lessons
Fitness - The name says it all
GetMotivated - If you need motivation, this is the right sub-reddit

It is up to all of us

There is this absolutely stunning documentary released by National Geographic with Leonardo DiCaprio about Climate Change and what we need to do right now to prevent a catastrophic destruction of our planet. I think this has been the best made documentary ever on this topic and is a mandatory see for every human being.

Edited on 13/11/2016 - Looks like National Geographic took down the video from YouTube. I investigated, but can't find the reason why. So the only thing that is legally available now is the trailer.

Though I thought I knew so much about Climate Change before, this documentary really changed my perspective even further. I would highly recommend each one of you to take the time and see this documentary as soon as you can. And then try hard to change your lifestyle in a meaningful way.



I believe as human beings if we are cognizant of the effect of our actions on the environment, and take positive steps to reduce it, we can really achieve a lot in a very short amount of time.