When was the last time you stood up for someone?

In today’s world we have become desensitized to so much that happens around us. We prefer not interfering maybe because of the consequences. Here in India, the last few years has been filled with stories of intolerance and jungle-raj which has driven a lot of us to be silent.

When I hear this phrase of standing up for someone, I am reminded of a story by Colin Ryan I read in the Reader’s Digest a few years back.

Source: Reader’s Digest

When I was in fifth grade, you could have told me, “Colin, it’s not cool to wear the same pair of sweatpants every single day of school,” but I was comfortable. And you could have told me, “Colin, it’s not cool to go to the school dance and do the Macarena for the entire duration of Guns N’ Roses’ ‘November Rain.’” I would not have stopped. You could have even told me, “Colin, it’s not cool to be an active member of your local church’s clown troupe.”

Then I went to sixth grade, middle school, and all of a sudden, it was clear there were only two options. I could somehow be cool, or I could somehow be invisible. And I have to say, I was doing pretty well at option two.

Until third period on the first day, when a teacher had us fill out a questionnaire with “get to know you” questions.

I assumed that she would be reading them privately, so I felt safe to share from the perspective of the sweatpants-wearing, Macarena-dancing, Christian-clowning little snowflake that I was.

The teacher collected the sheets, shuffled them, and redistributed them to the class. We went one by one. We’d read the student’s name and then our three favorite answers. My sheet ended up in the hands of a kid who was one of the coolest and meanest.

His “favorite answers” of mine were the three worst ones to be read out loud. The first question was “What’s your favorite movie?” The other kids wrote Scream and Universal Soldier. I remember thinking, We’re 11! How are you seeing R-rated movies?

He read my answer, Beauty and the Beast (which I maintain holds up better than the others, but I couldn’t make that argument effectively at the time). A laugh erupted from the room, and my cheeks burned because I knew we were just getting started.

The next question he read was “Where would you like to travel?” The others had said “Australia,” “Japan.” I wrote “Wherever a book takes me.”

The laughter this time had an explosive quality to it. The kids were high-fiving.

The final question was “What do you like to do on the weekends?” The other kids wrote “Hang out with friends” and “go to the mall.” I wrote “perform with Clowns for Christ.”

Those who weren’t laughing at me were sort of staring at me in disgust. I felt about an inch tall. I remember fixating on my Trapper Keeper binder and trying to figure out if I could somehow disappear inside it.

But then, something amazing happened.

A voice from the back of the room said, “Guys, cut it out.” And the room went silent. The voice belonged to Michelle Siever, and Michelle Siever was popular and cool. Michelle Siever had sway. The room was quiet.

But Michelle wasn’t done. She turned to the teacher and said, “Why are you letting this happen? What is the point if we’re just gonna make fun of each other?”

I don’t remember the teacher or the kids’ names, but I remember Michelle Siever’s name. I remember how it felt when she spoke up for me because she showed me that day that we actually have three options. You can be cool, and you might be remembered for a little while. You can be invisible, and you won’t be remembered at all. But if you stand up for somebody when they need you most, then you will be remembered as their hero for the rest of their life.

When is the last time you stood up for somebody when they needed you?

Old Keys Won’t Unlock New Doors

There are 2 questions we need to ask ourselves, because they have a huge impact on what we will achieve, both at work and life in general. Here they are, along with an explanation why old ways won’t open new doors.

Let’s start by looking at those 2 questions:

  1. What do I want?
  2. What am I prepared to do, to get what I want?

What do I want?

Many people waste years twiddling their thumbs, spinning their wheels, because they don’t really know what they want professionally or their life in general. Instead of living life by design, they go from day to day reacting. They often find themselves a part of other people’s plans. Working hard for clients and customers, yet making little real progress in their own space.

Take some time to think about what you want. Success for you should be based on what matters most to you and what gives you your greatest sense of well-being. As the ideas start to flow make sure you capture them. Write everything down. Add as much detail as possible. Don’t worry about it being perfect. It’s your first draft. It’s something you will need to adjust over time. The key thing is to get started.

This process will immediately help you gain more clarity on your destination, allowing you to draw the map.

What am I prepared to do, to get what I want?

The quote above, old ways won’t open new doors, is an age-old saying. It advises us in just 6 words, that if we want something new we must be prepared to do something new. This is challenging. However, it’s also essential, because nothing improves until we improve.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Einstein

So, what are you prepared to do? What improvements are you prepared to make to your strategy, your philosophy and your mindset?

I can’t answer these questions for you, but I can give you some sound advice. When the vision you have is compelling enough, it pulls you. You don’t need to push yourself. You will do what’s required.

If you’d like to achieve at a totally new level, dedicate some time today to answering those questions. You’ll be amazed how much easier it is to plan ahead with confidence, when you know exactly where you’re going. You’ll also be amazed at how much more energy and motivation you have.

In short, when old ways won’t open new doors for you, it’s time to try something better. Something new.

Growing Old?

Everyone is getting old; not everyone is growing old. But the path of purposeful aging is accessible to all. It’s fundamental to health, happiness, and longevity.

With a focus on growing whole though developing a sense of purpose in later life, Who Do You Want to Be When You Grow Old? celebrates the experience of aging through inspiring stories, real-world practices, and provocative questions to help readers navigate the path from adulthood to elderhood with choice, curiosity, and courage.

Learning is the basis of our human development; as individuals it is the core of our personal progress. We acquire new knowledge, skills and values, and we discover.

It is possible that learning becomes more difficult with age. But it becomes just impossible if we don’t make the effort to learn, if we don’t study, especially in some fields. Today there are less excuses not to learn: the digital access to information, articles and books, courses, often to codes and data, makes learning easier and often affordable. YouTube has videos on anything you want to learn under the sun!

Unlike many of our other organs, the brain has the ability to constantly change — a phenomenon known as neuroplasticity. New scientific studies show that we’re capable of neurogenesis, a process wherein we create new neurones in certain parts of our brain throughout our lifetime. These ongoing biological processes mean that we have the power to create physical changes in the cellular structures of the brain, developing new nerve pathways, which can directly result in improved cognitive function, a slowed ageing process, and enhanced memory.

A constant learning has it’s own advantages; it Keeps your mind sharp, Improves your memory, increases self-confidence, gives you a feeling of accomplishment, helps you meet people who share your interests, you build on skills you already have & many more!

Some key things that help me:

1. Learn what you want

You’re not in school anymore. There are no rules! Pick any topic that you’re curious about and seek out more information. Now that you are not in school, you have the greatest advantage: you can learn anything you want. Pursue what peaks your interest and never stop learning — your mind will appreciate it.

Keep a List.

If you find something that interests you, but are entrenched in something else? Keep an ongoing list of all the things about which you’re curious. When you have free time, you’ll have an easy place to go to expand your mind. This really helps!

2. Talk to Smart people

Know anybody your truly admire? Somebody who is really good at something that you would like to be good at?

Take them out for a lunch or dinner or just a walk. Ask questions and listen to their answers keenly. You will be amazed at what you can learn if you let someone you admire teach you. This is so simple, each one of us is good at something or other, we can really learn the skills or develop interest in any skill, just by talking to a person who is good at it.

3. Read good books

Some people have great ideas but they aren’t available for lunch. Many of them have written books. What a great way to expose yourself to powerful ideas. If reading isn’t your thing, get over it by starting with books on subjects that really interest you and read small bits at a time. It’s worth it.

If reading is not your thing at all, you can surely listen to different podcasts or watch short videos on the skill on YouTube.

So what are you waiting for? Go out there and learn to play the piano or how to make a cake or whatever it is that you fancy.

The Journey

Life is indeed about the journey. The funny thing — the ultimate cosmic joke — is that we won’t truly understand that until we’ve taken the journey. 

Sometime back I listened to a Howard Stern interview with Jonah Hill. They were discussing topics such as taking notes on a film and why Jonah wanted to host SNL for a fifth time — which prompted Hill to say this:

“The only reward is the process… The reward of filmmaking for me, of this film, would be to get to make another film because it’s what I love to do. And [that’s] something that actually is the truth, but it’s just hard to stick to because as human beings you’re like, ‘Oh but I want this validation or I want that validation’… The process is the reward. That’s it.”

Hill also talked about having a young, validation-driven headspace when he had been nominated for two Oscars. So Howard asked, “Do you fear you’d never be nominated again? Like now you’d really be in the moment, you’d be present…” And Jonah smartly replied, “No because the point is by the time you get something like that, by the time you’re ready for it, that’s not the thing that makes you happy…”

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

Albert Camus

The pursuit of success is, in and of itself, success. If anyone aspires to “be successful” they’re missing the point. Lots of people want to be the noun without doing the verb. They want the job title without the work. Let go of the thing that you’re trying to be (the noun), and focus on the actual work you need to be doing (the verb).

The point: DO. Or, more to the language of this article: Take the journey. The point is not about being successful or being an artist; it’s to put in the work, to play, to discover.

We all set goals. But goals are not destinations. Goals are guideposts along the journey. Then again, we need to take the journey just to realize that the journey in and of itself was the “destination” we were seeking in the first place.

I’m still on the journey. And I can say I’ve committed myself to identifying and defining the meaning contained within the phrase, “life is about the journey, not the destination.”

Happiness is a Choice

Henry David Thoreau said: “Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.”

Here are two stories on happiness.

Once, a shah was riding in his palanquin through the town, looking through the window at the scurrying people. Suddenly, he saw a lonely dervish sitting in the middle of the crowd, who was smiling and looking happy about something. The dervish was dressed poorly, and except the saucer for hand-outs and a road script he had nothing else besides him. The shah road past him and soon forgot what he saw.

After a few days, the shah had to go the same way again, where he saw the same dervish again, completely happy, dozing with blissfully closed eyes.

The next day, shah chose the same way on purpose, to see if the dervish will be in his place and again the image was the same. Intrigued, shah was going the same way almost every day and every time he found the dervish in the same spirit.

Finally, unable to stand it anymore, shah came out from the palanquin and addressed the imperturbable dervish with these words, “Why are you always smiling? Almost every day I see you here and it seems that you are absolutely happy.”

“Exactly, my master.” – said the dervish with a smile.

Shah was surprised and asked: “Why are you happy? Do you have any money?”

“I don’t have anything, my master. Maybe during the day a little bit will fall in for food.”

“Do you have a home or a family?”

“Neither this and nor that. I wander the world as the wind.”

“Maybe then, you have good heath?”

“Absolutely not, my master, from the cold of the night my bones ace often and almost all of my teeth have fallen out.”

“What makes you so happy then? Tell me. Maybe your recipe for happiness will be useful to me. I have everything, but I’m unhappy.”

“God never sends more challenges for one person that he can’t handle. And burdens a person only with those circumstances, which at that moment, are most useful for his development. The circumstances in which the person is – is the place for spiritualization. I accept that the best thing for me now is what I am, where I am and what is happening with me. I accept it with gratitude and a smile, if necessary with resistance and patience, and if possible, I try to understand what God is trying to say to me with it and in which direction should I move with my development. The realization of it doesn’t make me absolutely happy, but I have a clear horizon opening in front of me, free from the rainy curtains and filled with the sunny light of awareness.”

You are Whole

I came across this lovely quote on my Insta feed from thedoodledesk‘s account. And this made me reflect on how things are constantly changing in my life. We all have our ups and downs, days when we are super-motivated and days when we feel low and lost. We are constantly trying to keep up with the idea of being complete, of making it in this world.

It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.

Eckhart Tolle

One of the things that always affects us is the idea that we are damaged, that we are flawed. In a way it is good that we are aware of our shortcomings, patterns that cause us more harm than good. Who among us has not felt damaged? If we look at our lives closely, we will discover pockets of conditioning that make us feel needy or have led us to act in ways that are less than admirable. We may have even hurt others or ourselves. It’s easy to feel flawed.

But here is the truth: You and I did not come into the world damaged. Our original source, who we are, is whole, fulfilled, creative, completely at peace, loved and loving.

We are born innocent, filled with so much potential, virtually free of psychological scars. Then life brings us challenges. Our needs are not adequately met. Our feelings are rejected or minimized. We may have been criticized, pressured, demeaned, or even abused.

We don’t have the skills and support to manage our emotional reactions, so our feelings go underground, out of conscious awareness. We develop belief systems and strategies to make our way in the world. And we take on identities – as unworthy, entitled, bitter, or afraid.

But regardless of our experiences, our upbringing, our choices so far, we are not damaged (so you can stop telling yourself that you are). Take away what you have learned from your experiences, and what is revealed is the unconditioned you. You are whole, clear, undisturbed, open.

Discover that love is closer than close. Restore yourself to your natural state, and you will see that damage is a figment of your imagination.

Do you recognize yourself as whole? Can you see that the ways you have learned to protect yourself, the facade you put on, is not who you are?

All the things you’ve done and the things you’ve seen, the people you’ve known, the heartbreaks you’ve stitched back together, the plans you’ve made, and the plans you’ve had to let go, the celebrations and growing pains are part of your wholeness.

At the end of the day, you need to learn to look at all of yourself from the most loving perspective. You are the exact right combination of experiences, insights, strengths, and imperfections that make a person whole.

You always were and always will be wholly beyond compare.

Bitter or Better? Your Choice

No one on this planet is spared from getting affected by the actions of others. People impact us, sometimes in a good way and sometimes in a bad way. We get hurt by the words and behaviour of others. Some of us may pretend that no one can get under their skin. But at some level we get affected! We all have had experiences where it’s really easy to feel resentment and anger towards someone. In fact, it’s hard not to.

The bitterness inside can easily consume us, swallow us whole, and take over our life. Sometimes for a very long time.

But the key thing about bitterness is that it can’t change the past, but it absolutely changes the future for us. Instead of thoroughly enjoying the present moment, we choose to allow our bitterness to take over and ruin our peace of mind.

Yet, it’s so hard not to be bitter when the world has been unkind to us, and honestly, we feel like we deserve to be bitter.

Maybe you do deserve it. I know some really awful things happen to people.

But I also know that when we choose bitterness, we are giving power over to the person or thing that hurt us.

Each time we choose bitterness we are saying, “here’s my joy”.

We have a choice to make- be bitter, or be better.

Being better, meaning, choosing a life of freedom for yourself.

Getting to take the weight of the past off of you so you can live a lighter life.

One where you are present. But the choice needs to be made.

Usually the choice needs to be made daily.

In fact, it might need to be made many, many times a day.

Am I going to let whoever hurt me steal more from me?

Or am I going to release it, knowing God will take care of it Himself, and move forward from this pain?

I know it’s a process. I know it can take awhile to get to a place where you really feel free from the past.

But I pray that you’ll at least start the process.

Bitter or better- you choose.

Choose with your future joy and peace in mind.

And when bitterness sneaks up again, which it probably will, make the choice again.

And again.

Because life without the weight of bitterness is better.

One Word Can Make A Difference

Every single word or sentence has the power to move people toward you or away from you. Using the right words can inspire, embrace, acknowledge, intrigue, validate, and include others in a positive way. Words are powerful things. They can uplift and they can burn. They can cause confusion and they can create clarity. 

Words have power – power to create energy blocks in your life and also to dissolve them. If we just observe the way most of us speak, our choice of words, our sentence construction, we will realise how much this simple act contributes towards creating stress for ourselves. In this context, the Hindi saying “”Shubh shubh bolo”” (speak positive) makes a lot of sense.

If we were to just change our vocabulary a bit, substitute positive words for the negative ones and make it a point to use these positive words on a continuous basis, much of our problems and negative patterns, which we have created for ourselves, will disappear.

For instance, take the sentence “”I hate Rajeev””. Here, the word ‘hate’ is so strong that it immediately creates a strong barrier in your relationship with Rajeev leaving little scope for any improvement. It does not help you or your cause in any way. It just creates acids in your stomach when you say it. It causes an energy imbalance that results in stress.

Suppose you substitute the words ‘I hate’ with the words ‘I prefer’, it not only retains the positive tenor in your emotion, it also does not create energy blocks. So instead of saying, “I hate him”, you could say, “I prefer not to deal with him”. So it is very important to choose the right words while speaking. If you were to practice substituting “positive” words for the various negative ones you may be uttering, it will add a sparkle to your life.

I still remember the lovely bookmark given to us on our SSC Passing out Parade at St. Britto’s High School.

One song can spark a moment,
One flower can wake the dream
One tree can start a forest,
One bird can herald spring.

One smile begins a friendship,
One handclasp lifts a soul.
One star can guide a ship at sea,
One word can frame the goal

One vote can change a nation,
One sunbeam lights a room
One candle wipes out darkness,
One laugh will conquer gloom.

One step must start each journey.
One word must start each prayer.
One hope will raise our spirits,
One touch can show you care.

One voice can speak with wisdom,
One heart can know what’s true,
One life can make a difference,
You see, it’s up to you!

Suggestive Women – The Story of the Car Radio

Seems like cars have always had radios, but they didn’t.

One evening, in 1929, two young men named William Lear and Elmer Wavering drove their girlfriends to a lookout point high above the Mississippi River town of Quincy, Illinois, to watch the sunset. It was a romantic night to be sure, but one of the women observed that it would be even nicer if they could listen to music in the car.

Lear and Wavering liked the idea. Both men had tinkered with radios. Lear had served as a radio operator in the U.S. Navy during World War I, and it wasn’t long before they were taking apart a home radio and trying to get it to work in a car.

But it wasn’t as easy as it sounds:

Automobiles have ignition switches, generators, spark plugs, and other electrical equipment that generate noisy static interference, making it nearly impossible to listen to the radio when the engine was running.

One by one, Lear and Wavering identified and eliminated each source of electrical interference. When they finally got their radio to work, they took it to a radio convention in Chicago.

There they met Paul Galvin, owner of Galvin Manufacturing Corporation.

He made a product called a “battery eliminator” a device that allowed battery-powered radios to run on household AC current.

But as more homes were wired for electricity more radio manufacturers made AC-powered radios. Galvin needed a new product to manufacture. When he met Lear and Wavering at the radio convention, he found it.

He believed that mass-produced, affordable car radios had the potential to become a huge business.

Lear and Wavering set up shop in Galvin’s factory, and when they perfected their first radio, they installed it in his Studebaker.

Then Galvin went to a local banker to apply for a loan. Thinking it might sweeten the deal, he had his men install a radio in the banker’s Packard.

Good idea, but it didn’t work. Half an hour after the installation, the banker’s Packard caught on fire – they didn’t get the loan.

Galvin didn’t give up. He drove his Studebaker nearly 800 miles to Atlantic City to show off the radio at the 1930 Radio Manufacturers Association convention.

Too broke to afford a booth, he parked the car outside the convention hall and cranked up the radio so that passing conventioneers could hear it.

That idea worked – He got enough orders to put the radio into production.

That first production model was called the 5T71.

Galvin decided he needed to come up with something a little catchier. In those days many companies in the phonograph and radio businesses used the suffix “ola” for their names – Radiola, Columbiola, and Victrola were three of the biggest.

Galvin decided to do the same thing, and since his radio was intended for use in a motor vehicle, he decided to call it the Motorola. The name of the company would be officially changed from Galvin Manufacturing to “Motorola” in 1947. But even with the name change, the radio still had problems.

When Motorola went on sale in 1930, it cost about $110 uninstalled, at a time when you could buy a brand-new car for $650, and the country was into the Great Depression.

In 1930 it took two men several days to put in a car radio. The dashboard had to be taken apart so that the receiver and a single speaker could be installed, and the ceiling had to be cut open to install the antenna.

These early radios ran on their own batteries, not on the car battery, so holes had to be cut into the floorboard to accommodate them. The installation manual had eight complete diagrams and 28 pages of instructions.

Selling complicated car radios that cost 20 percent of the price of a brand-new car wouldn’t have been easy in the best of times, let alone during the Great Depression. Galvin lost money in 1930 and struggled for couple of years after that. But things picked up in 1933 when Ford began offering Motorola’s pre-installed at the factory. In 1934 they got another boost when Galvin struck a deal with B.F. Goodrich tyre company to sell and install them in its chain of tire stores.

By then the price of the radio, installation included, had dropped to $55. The Motorola car radio was off and running.

In the meantime, Galvin continued to develop new uses for car radios.

In 1936, the same year that Motorola introduced push-button tuning, it also introduced the Motorola Police Cruiser, a standard car radio that was factory preset to a single frequency to pick up police broadcasts. In 1940 he developed with the first handheld two-way radio – The Handie-Talkie – for the U. S. Army.

A lot of the communications technologies that we take for granted today were born in Motorola labs in the years that followed World War II.

In 1947 they came out with the first television to sell under $200.

In 1956 the company introduced the world’s first pager; in 1969 it supplied the radio and television equipment that was used to televise Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon.

In 1973 it invented the world’s first handheld cellular phone.

The two men who installed the first radio in Paul Galvin’s car, Elmer Wavering and William Lear, ended up taking very different paths in life.

Wavering stayed with Motorola. In the 1950’s he helped change the automobile experience again when he developed the first automotive alternator, replacing inefficient and unreliable generators.

The invention lead to such luxuries as power windows, power seats, and, eventually, air-conditioning.

Lear also continued inventing. He holds more than 150 patents. Remember eight-track tape players? Lear invented that.

But what he’s really famous for are his contributions to the field of aviation.

He invented radio direction finders for planes, aided in the invention of the autopilot, designed the first fully automatic aircraft landing system, and in 1963 introduced his most famous invention of all, the Lear Jet, the world’s first mass-produced, affordable business jet (Not bad for a guy who dropped out of school after the eighth grade).

Sometimes it is fun to find out how some of the many things that we take for granted actually came into being!

And remember – It all started with a woman’s suggestion!…

Power of Prayer

Once a ship was wrecked at sea due to storm and only out of all crew two men were bale to swim themselves to a small deserted island. After both reached the island, they didn’t know what to do and both talked and they reached on conclusion that there is nothing they can do except to pray to God and wait for rescue.

However, they both decided to divide the territory between both of them and stay at opposite sides. They did this to determine whose prayers would be more effective.

First thing they needed was food. So the first man prayed for food and next day he saw fruits bearing trees on his side and saw that other man’s side was still barren.

After two weeks, the first man felt lonely and prayed for a wife and next day a woman survivor from the ship wreck swam to his side of the island. On the other side there was still nothing.

Next, the first man prayed for home and clothes and more food. Like magic he got all those things. Still the other man was same as before, nothing had changed.

Finally the first man prayed for a ship so that he and his wife could leave that island. Next morning a ship docked at his side of the island.

He boarded the ship with his wife. Then the first man thought, “Since none of that man’s prayers have been answered, he is unworthy of leaving that island.” So the first man decided to leave the other man on island.

As the ship was about to leave, the first man heard a voice from sky saying, “Why are you leaving your companion on the island??”

The first man replied, “Since I got everything I prayed for that means my blessings are a result of my faith and prayers. His prayers were unanswered that’s why he has nothing on his side and so I figured he does not deserve to leave the island with me.”

The voice from the sky responded, “You are sorely mistaken. You are in great debt to that man.”

“How is that?”, asked the first man.

“It was that person’s faith and prayers that invoked your blessings as he was the one who prayed that all your prayers might be answered.” replied the voice from sky.