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!

Mindfulness

So I managed to read the Miracle of Mindfulness a third time. It is a super simple book and can easily be read in a day. It is the only book I have read more than 2 times in my life, because I felt I was too shallow in understanding it.

I realize that every time I read it, I understand a little bit more about mindfulness. While it sounds very mystic and spiritual, it indeed is a very simple concept. The problem really lies in how difficult it is to be mindful every breath of your day!

If I have to summarize my understanding of mindfulness it would be - Your mind has a continuous stream of thoughts (Monkey Mind). How you "react" to those thoughts decides how you "feel" (Fear, anxiety, stress, love, hate, anger, jealousy are all feelings - outcomes of thoughts that came in your mind). When you are practicing mindfulness - all you are really doing is completely focusing on whatever task you are currently doing (eating, sleeping, reading, walking, etc.). From a mind's perspective you are neither engaging in thinking about your past or your future (consciously or subconsciously). Also, even when thoughts indeed come in your mind (which they always will!), you are acknowledging the presence of "those" thoughts, but choosing not to "engage" in them (By not "engaging" I mean you do not "feel" or "drift" with the emotion that your mind generates with regards to those thoughts). 

If you are a practitioner of mindfulness, you might as well correct me. This is my current understanding and it may definitely change as I try to implement it more in my life and potentially understand and experience it more. And if you are not yet a student of mindfulness then I recommend you give it a shot for a few days/ weeks/ months to really "experience" it.

Me-day

 Since the start of the pandemic, one thing that is sourly missing is - vacations. Its been a very long time since we have taken any vacations. What this also means is that we have been working from home all the time every day in and out. I ended up forfeiting quite a bit of my leave at the end of 2020 (because my organization does not allow me to carry forward leaves). That's a tonne of rest and rejuvenation gone down the drain.

I decided that in 2021 I will take these one off, random personal time offs (PTOs). Relax and rejuvenate in the middle of the week just so that - I get some "me" time and I do not end up wasting my entitled leaves this year again. Vacations still seem to be a very distant dream.

I call such PTOs "Me-days". These are my days where I do what I want. It could be reading a book, going out for exercise or just go window shopping. The aim is to disconnect and not work and not do your household chores. I already managed to take 2 till now and lets see how this goes.

I feel like Me-days make me happy and help me recharge!

Biking

 And before we know it, the first month of the new year is over. 2021 is no longer new. We are 8% into the year already. January has been a busy month catching up on work and adjusting to new changes. COVID-19 situation continues to be as-is and even worsening in some countries.

A new thing I seem to have discovered in the last few months is - bicycling. I think with the lock-downs, the social distancing and the overall lack of entertainment options indoors, people seem to have  generally ended-up outdoors. And if you are not the jogging kind I guess cycling is a nice form of low intensity work out. It can take you long distances, you can get some wind in your hair and also get a bit of cardio.

Singapore has been encouraging people to pedal (and generally remain active). The Park Connector Network (PCN) is an amazing network of bicycle paths that are trying to connect all the parks in the entire island so that you can literally navigate the entire island by your bicycle (or on your feet). Naturally, biking seems to have become a very common activity for a lot of people island-wide. This is evident by 2 things - the no. of people on bikes in the PCN and the general lack of new bicycles available for purchase in most bike shops.

FOMO hit me hard, and I have been trying to bike some miles last few weeks. I am not sure how long this new found hobby is going to last, but if you are sitting on the fence and thinking about a new activity to start, I guess biking should be a good one to try out in 2021 and beyond.

Continue reading books

Books haven't been my go to source for entertainment ever. Almost 3 years ago, I tried to build a "book reading" habit into my daily routine before I sleep, and I have managed to keep it that way now for a while. Yesterday I managed to finish my 12th book of this year and I am happy to say that I managed to stretch my resolution of reading a book a month to the third year. I hope to keep this resolution (forever?).

Of course, sometimes I read really small books and sometimes I get stuck in super big ones. Overall, I just manage. I have realized that I am not a fan of fictional books, but they are the fastest to read. In non-fiction, I am not particularly fond of "self-help" books. I think I mainly love reading business books, and recently have taken special liking for history. Managed to read 2 books about India's history this year and the 3rd book is on its way in the postal mail as I write this blog post.

I don't manage to retain everything I read in a book, but well, bits and pieces and some novel ideas do stick in the back of my brain for most books. If you are consuming all your information these days from news sites and social media, I implore you to read books of topics you like. And if you are a voracious reader, I admire you!

The US elections that just went by, seem to me like one of the most divisive elections I have ever seen (in my lifetime). It could be because of social media, or just that anything that happens in the USA gets a lot more media coverage than anything happening anywhere else. Anyway, reading all the caustic news occasionally, has strengthened my resolve to read more books I like and not get unnecessarily bothered by political  happenings on the other side of the planet.

Constantly Distracted

I feel constantly overwhelmed by too much work-email always in my inbox and too many instant messages. It's like this leak that constantly fills up a bucket in your house. However hard you try to empty the bucket, it fills in again.

I am sure many of you experience the same. To add to it, if I go away from my laptop, the constant instant messaging and new email from work on the phone adds to the stress! There really is no work-life balance. The entire life is "worklife". I wonder how other people manage this distraction? I have stayed away from social media for a long while now. This definitely has helped to reduce my other distractions.

I miss the good old days (more than a decade ago). Where you left your work in office when you left for the day. Work from home was limited to the days when you had to bring your work laptop home to do some work. And I needed approvals to get a laptop! Life was easy. There were no "Smartphones". All that could pester you were SMS and most of the times they were never work related.

I have a feeling this is just going to get worst before it gets any better. While I have been actively trying not to check emails on weekends and after office hours, it does not seem to help much. The more I think about this problem I realize that along with time, "attention" is my most important asset. I have to work towards constantly guarding it.

While 2021 is still far away to make resolutions, I hope I can really practice mindfulness and go on an attention diet.

Time

Sorry for disappearing for almost a month. Life changed suddenly (like it always does) and I am in the midst of that change. I will probably write about what I have "been through" in a subsequent blog post once I am through this.

If there is one thing that I feel we all have equal access to (regardless of race, wealth, color) is - time. Every human being on the planet gets 24 hours a day. Irrespective of how rich you are, you can't trade time and everyone is equally wealthy in terms of the number of minutes you have in a day.

We are obsessed with money, but if you are a middle-aged salaried man like me - you need to guard the finite resource - time - by trading away money to do things that take too much of your time. To value your time, you need to have an index cost to each hour of your time so that you can do a cost-benefit analysis of your "time" much more easily.

I know it sounds simple but this "cost-benefit" analysis can get really complex. There are some things we do with our time that are genuinely required. For e.g. spending time with family is priceless. Working out, eating, sleeping, daily ablutions are a required (mandatory) use of time. So then, this analysis is something we need to seriously do about the discretionary time (browsing, socializing, entertaining) that we spend. Or the chores (cooking, cleaning, paying bills) that seem to occupy all of your weekends. I know I have written about time-boxing before, so I am sort of repeating myself.

Anyway, this brings me to my last argument on this topic. As much as possible try to do the following two things with your chores:

• Automate
• Outsource

 If repetitive things can be automated (auto-investment, auto-bill-payment for e.g.) then do it! Save time on non-value added activities. If you can outsource boring, non-value added chores (filing taxes, washing, cleaning (to maids/ robots/ consultants)) then do it. Only DIY if you enjoy (entertainment) or have a health benefit (cleaning 1 hour is your workout of the week!) or it is really worth it (for you).

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!

Philanthropy and the wisdom of Bill Gates

Growing up (especially during my Engineering days and the early part of my career), I was a big believer in the Open Source Software philosophy. In the late 90s and early 2000s the biggest perceived enemy of Open Source was Microsoft and by association Bill Gates. I was not very fond of him as a starry eyed under-graduate student.

Post my MBA, I wanted to work for an Open Source software company and change the world. Given the circumstances, that never happened and I went into (or rather continued) in commercial closed-source software.

Anyway, over the last decade, I have been passively following (online), listening and reading about Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation and my opinion about him has changed leaps and bounds. I have come to respect and admire him for the work he is doing globally on things that most Governments and Corporations are turning a blind eye towards. I feel like, he stepped away from the corporate world at the right time, and decided to change the world.

He has shot to prominence in this pandemic. One of the reasons being - his ominous TED talk in April 2015 where he spoke about such a pandemic coming in our lifetime and the deadly consequences of it.

Flash forward to 2020, with all the negativity and uncertainty around us it's refreshing to hear Bill Gates' views on the potentially positive outcomes we might have "after" this pandemic, on the world order.

If we stop being so toxic with each other on social media and so divisive about all our ideas (us vs. them thinking) we can sit back and look at the last 100 years of human progress and see that humanity has stepped up to any challenge always and worked to solve it together. For e.g. we have not had a catastrophic world war after 1945, we managed to not annihilate the planet through a nuclear war, we almost eradicated a lot of common diseases and infant mortality has been all time low. Now, if we put all our creative brains together and work towards solving problems of today - climate change, COVID-19 etc. we can leave this world a better place for future generations.

DOMS

Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is the pain in your muscles that sets in 24-72 hours after you have done a strenuous exercise. I have been slightly more active at home these days than before, and I realize that my body reminds me that I got muscle groups in my body that I have never ever used before.

I have now increased my "remote coaching" sessions to 3 times a week (Mon-Wed-Sat) which means (Tue-Thu-Sun) typically are my DOMS days. One more reason to TGIF. After almost 4 decades of disuse, some of my muscle groups are now waking up to the reality that they were never used.

There is no "known" cure for DOMS other than enduring it and letting your body heal by itself. The coaches recommend "Foam Rolling" but that just adds more to the misery. I look forward to the day when I have used most of my muscle groups so that they stop getting sore all the while!

Till then, I shall take this opportunity to thank my coaches for the misery.

Jump Rope Workout

Another interesting and effective cardio workout that I discovered in this pandemic is - Jump Rope Skipping. It has a very low learning curve (I picked up in matter of a few weeks) and it is quite fast to do. You can get an extremely great cardio workout in 5 minutes or less anytime of the day with almost no equipment other than the rope and no large space required.

I learnt my jump rope skills from the video below, and while there are a lot of tricks that you can do, I am still at the basic "bounce" and working on my endurance. I will highly recommend stretching and warming up before you actually start jumping to prevent any injuries.

The more I am stuck at home, the more I realize that staying fit or working out is just a matter of discipline! I can imagine skipping late in the night or early in the morning) in a hotel room on a business trip. All you really need is a rope, and it is very light and compact to carry around. So all those excuses are just my lazy brain speaking all this while!

Auto Switch-off Internet

If you are having broadband internet at home, there is a high chance that you never ever switch off your router. Which means your Wi-Fi signal is always available. Besides reducing the life of your equipment and wasting electricity, I am not sure whether it is an ideal condition to leave your internet running all the while 24x7. So if you are someone who is worried about it like me, here is a simple solution:

There are these cheap mechanical power timer outlets that are available that can be programmed to switch off for specific hours everyday (they are simple 24 hour timers and you can program them to switch off power to any appliance that is connected to them for designated hours). I have mine set to switch off my TV and Router every night from 11 PM to 7 AM. The advantage? Not only do I save electricity, but it forces me to go off to sleep at a fixed hour every night (TV and Internet are the biggest time wasters anyway), even if I am in the middle of a Netflix drama or surfing aimlessly some random YouTube videos.

I would highly recommend you buy these. Or if you have the budget, you can buy the electronic ones that can be programmed to follow a weekly schedule (Mon-Sun, 24 hours - so you could set it to switch off on weekday afternoons when you are not at home and change the hours for weekends - if you wanna binge watch Friday nights). Eco-friendly and help you to be disciplined!

Surya namaskar

Since I already wrote about Burpees, I also thought of writing about Surya-namaskars (Sun-salutations) as a wonderful full-body exercise to be done everyday in the morning.

Rather than randomly stretching my body and being lethargic till I get my first shot of caffeine, I find the sun-salutations as a very good form of stretching that wakes me up and recharges me. I typically target to do 12. Why 12? Well, I don't know - I just associate 12 with the Sun and doing anything less seems too little and any more, I get too tired and sweaty. 12 sun-salutations takes me approximately 6 minutes or less, just enough to not procrastinate and get my stretching done.

Now, it is an ancient yogic exercise. That means there are several variations and if you search for videos on YouTube, you can get lost in the wonder world of sun-salutations. I personally follow the method shown in the video below, but if you have a yoga instructor, I suppose it's best you follow that method.

And if you adopt the fast method of doing salutations as demonstrated by Baba Ramdev below, I am sure you can squeeze in 100 over (108?) Surya Namaskars like Burpees and get your cardio exercise done right in the morning!

Athleisure clothing

I recently learnt a new term in clothing - Athleisure My simplistic mind interprets that term as "wearing athletic clothes for leisurely purposes". In this lock down and work from home experiment I have discovered a few things:

1. Even if I am working from home, it's best to have a routine - So everyday I get up at almost the same time, do a small morning ritual and then get started with my work
2. It's still good to have a work/life balance - While work hours have gone through the roof, I still like to demarcate my workday and personal time by changing apparel. I don't like to work in my pajamas cause it makes me feel lazy.

Now, now, like many of you know - Singapore is a tropical country. Shorts and t-shirts are the most comfortable apparel to wear literally anywhere. So my work from home attire is mostly that. I also realized that if I wear athletic shorts and t-shirts (active wear) to work at home - I sweat a bit less while working (its terribly hot in the afternoons) and every time I get a small break, I can squeeze in some reps. So athletic wear has become my new favorite clothing.

And while I researched for this article,  I understand that this trend ain't new. It has been around since the 1980s. Last year alone Americans bought 44B USD worth of athleisure apparel. So here I am again playing catch up! So this is a public service message only if you have been an old man like me, and have never heard of this convenience before!

Burpees

One body weight workout that you can do anywhere without any equipment and which helps boost your endurance as well as has a major cardio-component in it is - Burpees. They have proven to be mighty useful in the days of the pandemic as a quick exercise to be done for your cardio. I haven't gone out for a run/ jog or swim for almost 2 months now, and without the Burpees, I would have had no cardio exercise at all. My lovely coach has thoughtfully been giving us some crazy challenges with Burpees (including a 500 Burpees in 4 days challenge recently).

The Burpees have an interesting history. They were invented as a much milder form of exercise by a New York based Physiologist named Royal H. Burpee in the 1930s (hence the name!). The US military subsequently adopted it to be an exercise to measure fitness of army recruits during the World War II. According to this article, being able to perform 41 repetitions in a minute was considered excellent and anywhere less than 27 was considered poor. (I come in the very very poor category currently).

If you have ever participated in a Spartan race then you may recall that the punishment for failing an obstacle is - 30 burpees. Like most lazy people out there, I hate them. The exercise starts out looking simple but in a matter of a few repetitions, every inch of my body starts burning! No wonder it is used as an exercise to evaluate your level of fitness.

Burpee Animation from Sportsrec.com

So next time when you feel like you need to get your heart rate up in a confined space (like your home or even in your hotel room), all you need is 5 minutes and as many burpees as you can!

Taming your wandering mind

Since the lock-down I have been trying to discipline myself by better using my time. Things haven't been as rosy as I expected them to be, but well, at least I am trying.

So for the last 4 weeks I have been trying to make way for 8-10 minutes everyday for meditation (baby steps). Coming from India, meditation is something that everyone talks about and a lot of people practice it regularly. I know of at least a dozen of my friends who meditate regularly, so I thought I should follow their footsteps and experience the miracle of meditation.

So far, my meditation has been going the same way as my yoga. I have been sitting there pretending to focus on my breath while all sorts of thoughts wander through my mind. Reminds me of this video about the monkey mind by Mingyur Rinpoche. I try to focus on my breath but in a matter of few moments I lose my focus.

I don't think I am getting anywhere yet. But I think 4 weeks is too short a timeline to see any tangible benefits. So I shall continue and see if I can progress. I am intrigued by people who can pull it off so regularly!

The Distraction (curtailment) box

While I have stayed off social media for a long while now, my smartphone addiction is still an intriguing bit that I am unable to comprehend. Since the beginning of this year, I have been on a quest to understand this compulsory need to involuntarily check my mobile phone several times a day. It started with the download of an innocuous looking wallpaper from the Google Store called the "Unlock clock". All it really does is - show a count of how many times I "unlocked" my phone since the start of the day. It was scary at first to see that I checked my smartphone 60-80 times a day on a typical workday and it went down to 30-50 times a day on most weekends.

Subsequently I chanced upon a book titled "The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-tech World" and it jolted me back to reality. I realized that I am addicted to "information seeking" and subconsciously seeking out new information every few minutes from the easily accessible Internet and WhatsApp on my phone. Besides wasting my time on unnecessary information, I was also losing out on getting bored. So I came up with this rather simple idea. I went to Muji, bought a random plastic box with holes for handles on both sides. Now, I keep my phone in the box when I am at home. I call it my "Distraction Box" and I keep it far away from my living room and my Work from Home room. The advantage? I don't subconsciously check my phone anymore. Every time I am tempted to casually check my phone, I have to go through the special effort of going to the room where the box is kept, opening it and taking the phone out. This entire act, actually motivates me not to check my phone unnecessarily.

Now, I just go occasionally (8-10 times a day) and read all the WhatsApp messages I have received, reply to them, put the phone back in the box and get on with my life. If I do get a phone call, the phone is always connected to my Bluetooth and I can still take the call.

Repeat Everyday

As I grow old, I realize that I can probably learn almost anything as long as I decide to do a tiny bit of it everyday and religiously stick to my routine. Note that I ain't saying I would be "good" at that something, I am just saying - "I can learn something". I believe that forming a periodic (daily/ weekly/ monthly) routine is the easiest way to start to do anything in life.

So for the last several years, I have been struggling to learn Vietnamese. It's a difficult language (may be not as difficult as Mandarin) but still difficult because of all the tones that they use! I had several false starts and I almost gave up. Till I found this app for my phone called Duolingo. It's a fun little language teaching app that promises to teach you a new language in "15 minutes per day". (The caveat is - it doesn't tell you how many days!).

Anyway, it's been a year since I have been diligently doing my Vietnamese learning on Duolingo everyday 15 minutes for 365+ days. I just got a nifty little celebratory badge from them indicating so.

Can I speak Vietnamese fluently now? Hell no. Do I know more Vietnamese than what I did a year ago? Hell, yes! I can count, I can read, I can name some colors, I can tell the time, and if you listen to me carefully enough you can get the context of what I am trying to say (sometimes!).  Anyway, as long as I continue, I can only get better. So this is a small little success that I thought I share with all of you and inspire you to start your learning journey today! I actually have shared Duolingo with a lot of friends and what started as a lonely exercise now has become a mini-community learning a language of their choice everyday.

Anyway, I have now decided to challenge myself a bit more this year. I have a very weak upper body and I have sucked at pull-ups all my life. So now, I have installed a pull-up bar at home, and all I am practicing all these weeks is to hang on it (dead-hang) for 30 seconds everyday. I hope, I can do 10 pull-ups someday in the future, however far away that future is!

Count your blessings

To all my friends who are complaining about this lock-down - count your blessings!

1. We are amongst the lucky few who can continue to work from home (make a living, earn money) while we are locked down at home
2. We can absolutely survive (and thrive) from home (everything is available online - entertainment, essential foods, pharmaceuticals, capital goods etc. - you name it you can order it!)
3. We can entertain ourselves (video games, card games, board games, Netflix, Amazon Prime, TV, YouTube etc.) You name it you have it!
4. We can study any subject we like online and even get some certifications! (Coursera, Udemy etc.)
5. You can virtually talk with anyone around the world at anytime through video chats (use it!) No friend is far away. We can do high-quality HD video calls with people tens of thousands of miles away! That's unprecedented in the history of mankind.

The best outcome of this pandemic has been that most of my prospects are now open to doing video conferencing without having to physically see me in a meeting room! All the IT security measures have magically disappeared as now I can login remotely to most systems (which they earlier didn't allow). I hope this sustains after all this is over. I am hoping we finally end up reducing global business travel and reduce our carbon footprints!

The COVID-19 Cut

So Singapore is not yet technically under a complete lock-down for COVID-19. We are still allowed to go out as long as we maintain social distancing and do not form large groups of people. But looking at the pandemic situation worldwide, I think (personal opinion), it's wise to stay at home as much as possible and only step out for essential services. That would mean - grocery shopping (if you can't buy things online) and an occasional walk or a run in a not crowded open area to get a feel of the nature. Again I repeat, we are not under a lock-down yet and things might change till you even read this blog post.

One of the monthly necessities that men like me have is a haircut. I had been delaying my haircut for a while cause you can't socially distance yourself from your barber. While robots can perform complex surgeries already, they still can't style you up. I guess we will have to wait a decade at least for robots to develop a sense of fashion.

So finally last week I succumbed to my unruly hair and went to the hair dresser. And I decided to cut my hair as short as possible so that I won't have to go to the hair dresser again - at-least for 6-8 weeks. So here I am presenting my new COVID Cut. I ain't interacting with anybody so it suits me well while I am holed up in my home working my bottom from home.

The COVID Cut