Dream!!

My best day dream - Navya singing a shahrukh song (Tujh mein rab dikhta hai...yaara mein kya karu) for Sadhguru..all three personalities I love so much coming together:).....and just to add Deepti reading this blog!!

My Inner Engineering Experience

7 Day Course (5th to 11th September 2012)

Day 1
- Sadguru talked on Desire - The problem is that our desires are limitless but our physical has limits
- Need to balance between Body, Mind, Emotions, Energy
- Physial (Sensory), Eternal, Bliss Bodies
- Butterfly (Patanga) Asana - For Spine ( Root of energy)
- Baby (Shishupal) Asana - For Spine

Day 2
- Responsible for everything
- Responsibility and love are related
- Breathing - Left and Right Balance
- 10 Step (Nadi) Asana (Left and Right Balance)
- Left Leg (Ardh) Asana

Day 3
- Food   - Negative - Ginger, Onion, Tea, Coffee, Chili   - Positive - Ash Gourd, Honey   - Neutral - Potato, Tomato
- Present Moment is Inevitable and unique
- Can always be happy in current moment
- Alternate Nose Asana (Left and Right Balance)

Day 4
- Om
- Three Gods - Creator (Knowledge), Maintainence (Money), Destroyer (Power)
- 3 Lock (Banda) Asana
- More on present moment - accepting things as they are  

Day 5 (Full Day)
- Sports (90 mins)
- Be aware of your ego
- I am the part of the energy
- I am not this body - this body belongs to me
- Leave anger 100%
- Can you be father to all the babies in the world
- Nice Lunch
- Purchased Books, DVDs
- 12 - 24 - 48 - 60 (Remarry)
- Don't initiate anyone
- About Isha Ashram and activities
- Preserve only body
- open for change for everything else
- Find and decide to be joyful in each moment
- there is no bundle of joy
- Slow breathing means longer life
- Complete Kriya  

Day 6
- Kundalini (like snake)- 7 chakras
- Q&A on Kriya
- Book Yoga - No good
- Suffering - Cause and Effect
- Patanjali - Covers everything on life
- 5 elements - Earth, water, wind, fire and space
- Fear - Violence relation
- Women equality - in spiritual societies
- Unconscious mind - 95% - can be accessed only with meditation
- Freedom - Bondages definition
- Karma Imprints - because of likes and dislikes - If responsible, we will love and like everything  

Day 7
-  How you consider your work - example of three labours
- How do you want this world to be - every answers meant loving - so be yourself loving first
- Self practise of kriya
- Guru Pooja    

Kriya
- Prepatory asana   - Butterfly - 2 mins   - Baby - 2 mins each side   - 10 step  - 3 times - Exhale and Inhale

- Start (with left leg asana)   - Alternate Nose - 5-6 mins - (Start and end with exhale from left side, left hand on lap)   - Om - 21 times -  watch vibrations, take yogamudra after this   - Flattering Nose - 3-4 mins - as fase as possible, neck tilted up   - Lock Asana - Inhale - lock - Exhale   - Meditation - 5 mins - watch normal breathing, neck tilted up

Learnings - Aware of myself - Possible dimensions of myself - Importance of this life - Meaning of investment in myslef - Can be happy anytime - Being simple      

Daily Prayer!

Thank you God for this wonderful Life!

Let all beings be happy and peaceful!!

Give me strength to overcome fear and to treat good and bad with equality!

Give me knowledge to understand self and know the truth!!

Possibility Of Two Full Time Jobs??

Days in a year = 365 days

For most of us its 5 days working

Holidays
========
52*2 = 104 weekend days
30 Paid Leaves
10 Festive Holidays

Total non working days = 144 = 40% approx

Remaining working days = 365 - 144 = 221 = 60%

Work Day = 8 hours

Actual working hours = 8 * 221 = 1768

If we work 10 hours daily round the year, we can do one more job:

2 (extra on work days) * 221 + 10 * 144 = 441 + 1440 = 1881

Buffer = 1881 - 1768 = 113

113/ 8 = 14 days - still we can take atleast one day break every month!!

Fitness Formula!

A. What money can do (50%)
1) Fitness Center Membership - For Facility, Equipments
2) Personal Trainer Fees - For pushing you, intensity
3) Proteins and Vitamins - For recovery and body immune

B. What you csn do (50%)
1) Being Regular - Consistency, efforts, inner motivation
2) Diet Control - What to eat and drink , what not to eat and drink

Both the above categories are , interdependent and evolved slowly in us over a period of time.

Most Famous Careers!! - Top Ten Ranking

Following is my ranking of top ten careers which can make you famous:

1) Politician - CM, PM..
2) Industrialist / C Level Executive
3)Stock Market Player

4) Nobel Prize Winner - Sceintist, Economist, Writer, Professor
5) Media - Journalists

6) Sportsmen
7) Bollywood - Directors, Actors
8) Artist - Musician, Painter..

9) Spiritual / Motivation Guru
10) Social Activist


I cant think of any of above for myself may be except being a junior social activist after 2 decades..:LOL:)

What to watch in television?

I wonder how TV has become the most successful entertainment channel for people across the world. Lets see my logic by goiing through some basic categories of channels available:

1) Soap Opera / Realty shows - Star Plus, Zee - Don't even want to say a word!
2) Movies - How many movies you can watch? I prefer to go once in a while to theatre.
3) Songs - MTV, Zoom - Better like to listen them!
4) Sports - How much cricket is enough??
5) News - All news is breaking news??
6) Business News - Just making the man more greedy!
7) Others - National Geography, Discovery, Travel & living - This is the most interesting part but not always!

I think there are other better options like music is more relaxing, books provide more choice of topics or I will ask do we always need some entertainment in our free time, can we not just sit and relax without doing anything:)

11 Golden Rules for an Enriched Living!

1. Invest in yourself - Spiritual / Professional / Physical

2. Enjoy and give the best in everything you do. Always try to find your
passion.

3. Don’t be in comfortable zone for too long and keep updating your goals
frequently. Convert such thoughts into action.

4. Always be Happy and Satisfied. Thank God for all that he has given.

5. Inculcate simplicity and an attitude of honesty and integrity.

6. Everyone is equal. Always keep a watch and try to kill your ego. Don’t make
your ego as your enemy.

7. Don’t loose your temper easily and don’t be greedy about anything. Keep your
desires under control. Career and money is not everything in life.

8. Don’t be reactive to situations and don’t think too much about what people
will think.

9. Always appreciate and help others. Don’t think negative and forgive
everyone. Make goals which are in benefit of future generation and society
at large.

10. Always remember that death is certain.

11. Last but not the least - Always respect your parents.

Measuring happiness!

What we need for happiness?

Some people says it is just a mode of thinking and so we don't need anything for being happy! Is it true? Can we be happy without even basic things in life like food? This may be true in different perspective that even after having many things you may be unhappy and want more!

In today's world when everyone has problems and MANY things to worry about, one can consider himself very fortunate if below four major categories can be satisfied:

1) Health - Get up little early in the morning to do following instead of just rushing to office:
- Exercise
- Pooja
- Breakfast

2) Money / Security
- Weekends
- Retirement Plan

3) Family
- Time for Family
- Few Friends / Social circle

4) Career
- Decent Work and People
- Not more than 11 hrs (proper sleep)
- Home near to office (no traffic)

If we try to focus too much on only one thing, we can never be happy. All the above four categories are inter related and impact each other very closely. So we should strive balance in life to make it more joyful.

Mentorship In Schools - Today's need!!

Mission:
--------
To make life of a student more meaningful and purposeful.

Target Audience:
---------------
School students of 9th to 12th standard.

Includes:
---------
1) Importance of studies / Eductaion
2) Importance of each subject
3) Importance of fear - Exams, performance, etc
4) Importance of communication
5) Importance of competiition
6) Importance of mutual respect
7) Importance of career
8) Importance of hobbies
9) Importance of fitness
10) Importance of right friends
11) Counselling about basic individual problems
12) Feedback about teachers, school and parents
13) Creative games
14) New generation topics like Brands, tech products etc

Benefits:
--------
1) Confidence
2) Focus
3) Self Identity
4) Responsibilty
5) Big picture
6) Avoid depression

Talent Management (TM) - Next Revolution!

Now a days many companies have renamed their HR function as Talent Management. It is indeed a very nice thought from these companies. But I wish these HR people also evolve themselves in implementing this change in real sense.

As it is becoming more and more challenging to hire and retain talented people, we should first define "talent" in people. Are we referring to any skill set of say any technology or we aer thinking about whatever knowledge the person is keeping in his/her mind? There are many tools available to track the skill set of employees and document management initiatives for putting everything on paper.

But by narrowing down the meaning of talent as above, we are just ignoring many other impportant aspects of a talent employee such as :
1) Loyalty
2) Proactiveness
3) Teaming
4) Commitment to work
5) Organization
6) Fitness
7) Enterpreneurship
8) Patience

Above aspects are very important and should be considered seriously while hiring and retaining people working for you.

250 sq ft mind!

Owning a house is quite an important landmark in the life of a person. A child stays with parents till he is grown up to start earning and live independently. Then, generally he rents a house. Few people, are fortunate enough to save some money over the years, purchase their own house. The size and price of the house purchased at this point depends on the circunstances prevalent at that particular point i.e. savings, market price, preferences etc. Purchasing or building a house is a tediuos activity and so there are very few who later think of moving into a bigger house even if future allows them to do so.

The same cycle applies for owning a mind. There are many people who keep staying with their parents mind or with a rented mind without thinking to own a mind of their own.Few who actually purchase or build a mind of their own do not want to move into a bigger mind later. This is because they feel secured in their small mind and do not want unnecessary inconvience which this shifting might create.

But this change may not be so difficult as generally understood and can be rather benefical for them and everyone. This decision of moving and some efforts to find a bigger mind itself can redefine us as a person. This is how the world has generated so many leaders. One most recent and obvious example is Barack Obama.

Nobody can own a big house or big mind at the first instance unless inhherited. But there is quite a defference between self made thing and something which is inherited. One recent example is George Bush (Jr). You may not respect the things which you have inherited and so cannot understand the importance.

Mind is rather easy to be expanded within very less time. It is just a matter of realization the real characterstic of mind. Mind is boundary less if we ourself don't create boundaries of our ego around it. Why we think that only what we are doing or thinking is right? This is applicable in all spheres of life. The minute we start pushing us in other's shoes, we can easily understand why right and worng is a matter of perception and why something which is right for you can also be wrong for others and vice versa.

You don't really need to increase the area of mind which is already infinite. But yes, we need to remove the boundaries created by us which are coming in our way to define our growth path. One simple approach I learned recenlty, whenever you say NO, it is creating boundary and when we say YES, it is actually helping to remove boundaries. This principle has to be used with prudence and not blindly.

Sometimes, mind actually shrinks when someone is too busy with the success which becomes like a boundary and so create reasons for the downfall earlier or later. For a celebrity, his fame becomes a boundary and sometimes it is so strong that it is really difficult to break. It is impossible to break the boundary when you think that there is no boundary at all. Even a farm house has a boundary though not visible from the bedroom.

What do you really want??

Some desires are fulfilled and some are not. The pain of one unfulfilled desire is sometimes more than gain of ten fulfilled desires. Also with every fulfilled desire, we may have sacrificed or compromised many other important things of life. This imbalance in concept of desire converts most of the successes to failure without being getting noticed easily.

Any unfulfilled desire gives us an opportunity to look back and understand whether the desire was worth for? Rather controlling desires at the point of origin can help and simplify life to a great extent. With so many desires adding to the wish list daily, we can classify them in to two categories which are created:1) because of others - like competition and social status, 2) not because of others.

For former, just remove them from the list and for later, one question can help - Do you really want this?

Short term thinking of long term visionaries..!

I will not start and end with Raju..because he is just one of us (not many). His contribution to Indian economy may be understood later by everyone if we start taking it as learning event. He is a true example for result of greed and also courage to accept. To me, the Satyam story is not about fraud and it is actually all about greed. There can be many implications of greed and fraud is just one of them. The 2009 recession does'nt look like just another cyclic recession. This is also one of the implication of increasing greed at all levels globally. The reason of collapse of housing and banking sector in US is no different.

While sleeping, if you take your body out of the bedsheet (chadar..), you may get hurt by falling from the bed and start feeling the cold of the floor. This is the difference between growth and sustainable growth. Now a days, every business house is calling their chairman as visionary. The word vision is attached to a person after he has achieved signicant growth. This cannot be right. Vision should come before growth. Unlimited growth is not a vision. Actually whether growth will follow vision is also not important. No body called Dhirubhai Ambani a visionary before Reliance became so big. Growth is not always the product of vision. Most of the times, growth just happens...just like that..sometimes because of good circumstances, sometimes luck and many times because of greed.

As I said before, the greed is increasing at all levels i,e, individual, family, corporate, country and global levels. Any professional (not just IT), wants to become a CEO too fast without thinking whether he or she can sustain this growth. The difference between can and should is undermined by everyone. Even one becomes of CEO in 5 years of his career, it may not be good for everyone and so for you. Similarly, corporates are also doubling their sales target every year. This is because of unhealthy competition present in the market which is again a result of greed. Too much aggression is not passion for work and can not achieve much in long term. With so much expansion of businesses, it is actually difficult to take hollistic view of the situation and so every "leader" is ending up survival of each day.

The choice is between God and Greed. Your interest in GOD is only one thing which can be grown unlimited without analysing for sustainability.

Hare Krishna

Life as a freeway!

I could never have understood the meaning of life till the time I learnt driving few years back. When sitting as a passenger in a car, it is like a life of a child who is dependent on his parents for everything and assume things will go right everytime with no need to think of any uncertain possibilities. The child life is more of his parents life or we can say is a part of parents life, as it is parents responsibility to take care of the child.

One need some skills only when one start living life on his own i.e. independently. Similarly you need to learn driving only when you want to drive the car yourself.

The life is like a road because:

1) Uncertainty - On road, we can see only to some extent at a time say 500 ft. Then a new view will come after the turn. Even in case of a straight road, you can not see till the end of the road and your view keep increasing for next 500 ft evry time you travel 500 ft. In few cases your view can be 700 ft and sometimes it can be 300 ft. But with your limited view, you may think that the road ends with the end of your view which is not the case. The road remains of its own length irrespective of your view at any given point. Similarly life has its own length and we can only see or forecast only till some extent say next 6 months and as we progress we keep getting more clarity for future period.

2) Competition - The cars keep overtaking each other in attempt to reach their destination as early as possible. I have seen some drivers who will keep changing lanes and overtake all the cars just because of the attitude that they cannot see any car ahead of them. This kind of mad competition is more because of impatience than hurry to reach the destination. This can be dangerous too for all people on the road and in most of the cases delay things more. This also results in over speeding which can get you a ticket. Similarly everyone should be patience and follow rules while competing in all spheres of the actual world.

3) Opportunities - Taking exit at the right time is important to take advantage of the shortcut ramp to reach your destination on time. One should also keep watching for other lanes to chnange and avoid traffic in your lane.

5) Threats - One should be always precautionary for Stop Signs and Red Lights to avoid collision. Rules are for safety and avoid unnecessary tensions.

6) Corrections - One should always look for U-turn immediately after realizing wrong route. After going too far on wrong way, you may decide to change your destination.

7) Direction - Right direction is more important than right route. If direction is right, finding route will not be difficult. Be careful on one ways where there is no turn back.

8) Certification - You need a education qualification also in addition of your knowledge to get trust of others to do a job. This is similar to driving license.

9) Accidents - Regular servicing and maintainence of horns, mirrors, Seat belt and brakes can help you avoid accidents. Precautions like yielding while changing lanes are also helpful. Having insurnace can give great relief in event of any mishappening inspite of all precautions. Similarly, plan things in your life to make it safe.

Indexing your Life!

Index is the most important page in any book. An index:
1) explain the purpose of the book
2) gives overview of all the areas covered
3) helps to identify intereting or useful topic
4) explain relationship of all topics
5) Helps to find any specific topic easily
5) helps to remember summary of the book
6) Initiate your thought process about every topic before reading the details. You can relate the details with your thoughts while reading.
7) Last but not the least, helps you decide whether you want to read the complete book or not.

Not only in reading, we can use indexing in all other means of communication except listening. Before speaking, you can index all major points to organize and proper selection. In writing, we should always start with an Index which gives structure and ensure all important topics will be covered. We should not use indexing during listening so that we are not pre occupied with our own thoughts and so limit ourself. In listening, indexing can be done in the last for summary and right understanding.

Not only in communication, we can and we should use indexing in our life too. Life is a journey and not a destination. So there should be a plan of your life to achieve some goal. The goal can be similar to title of the book. Though many people dont think about any goal in life and live life like a book without title. But just having a title is not enough. Next step should be proper indexing. This is during this exercise when you may think of alternatives and organize it in a better way. You may also knock out few things as they may not suit in the index. Please see the above benefits of indexing which are also applicable in designing the index of your life.

My first road trip!

Thanks to recession that many companies decided for year end shutdown. Less concidentally, both of our (Deepti and me) clients observed the shut down. This gave us 11 days off starting from 12/24. This was good for us because unlike contractors this was like a paid holidays for us.

We could not decide anything for vacation well in advance because my client postpone the project deadline only on previous Friday(otherwise there would have been lot of work during this shout down also). One thing I always knew was that I will utilize this time for a road trip. Now the question was the place. First thought which came was Mt Rushmore and Yellow Stone National Park, the only reason we dropped it, was distance which was 1400 miles one side and would have made the complete trip almost 3000 miles. I was not so comfortable with so long trip (being my first one)..The second option was San Diego as I had heard a lot about Sea World (with Shamu fame..).After a breif discussion, we easily agreed upon this option and started further planning..

Now the question was how many number of days. First we thought 2 days of San Diego and 1 day at LA should be enough. Thanks to Google and Wikitravel, that we found that there are many interesting places in both the cities though we already visited Universal Studio, hollywood and Disney land in a Bus Trip a year ago. We also did not want to make the trip very hectic and also wanted to travel majorly in day time. We finally concluded for 7 days including 3 nights in San Diego and 3 nights in LA. The dates decided were 26th to 1st after considering weather, preparation and new year.

Next step was to book the hotel and purchase tickets. It took us almost 4 hours of continous surfing kayak, priceline etc, to finalize the hotels. There were too many options and a wide price range. Hotels in LA were quite expensive. We opted for budget hotels, Ramada and Super at San deigo and LA respectively.

Daywise experience is as below;

Day 1
=====
We started at 9.30 am from home. It was a sunny day to make the driving more enjoyable. Drive from LA to San Diego had lot of traffic with 6 lanes. The average speed of this trip was 75 mph excluding 2 breaks for 30 and 15 mins. Though we initially thought that we will share the drive but I did all the driving till the San Diego hotel which was about 450 miles. We reached the hotel by 6 PM.We went to downtown and saw following places on the way:
1. Airport: Was facing the harbor.
2. Kettner Blvd and San Diego Skyline - Very beautiful though not not very large.
3. Hyatt Hotel - Mentioning because it was very well decorated
4. Convention center - An auto show was running in this large building. We did not go inside.
5. Gaslamp Quarter (5th Avenue) - Happening and upscale market full of restaurants and many people performing at streets. It was a surprise to hear bhajan music and we found ISKON team dancing to the Hare Krishna mantra on the streets.
6. Hotel Del Coronado - It was like a Mysore Palace in India (I have just heard but not seen). Fully decorated with lights. We went inside and found it to be luxury hotel with Gold, open spa and big dining hall..

Day 2
====
After having the breakfast in the hotel, we left at 9 AM:
1. Sea World - It was little disappointing (may be because we went with very high expectations). And also becasue we found it to be very similar to animal shows we earlier saw in Six Flags at Vallejo. The park was not too big and we could easily finish it by 5 PM. But we really liked the sky tower and sky ride. We purchased a Shamu poster as Soveniur.
2. Old Town - The town was built in 1850 and had lot of shops with antiques and craft. It was cold in the evening and we enjoyed a masala tea at a small cafe.
3. Sea Port Village - This was a market facing the harbor.
4. Buggy - At Seaport Village, we saw couple of buggys and decided to have a ride. After little negotiations, we finalized for 85$ an hour. It was very cold and he offered a red plush and royal blanket. It was a fabulous experience roaming around the city in this royal buggy and people watching us (infact few people were shooting as well!) This was the best and most romantic part of the complete trip.

Day 3
=====
Next day also we left at 9 AM and day included:
1. San Diego Zoo - The place was very ineteresting. We started with a bus guided tour. Then we went to other corner of the zoo by Skyfari. The main attractions were giant panda and polar bear. We also liked Koala (generally known as teddy bear). There was a big elevator conviniently located which avoided steep hiking. At last we did one more round of guided tour and skyfari. From the skyfari, we could see the whole forest beneath us and could also spot some gorrilas and elephants from above. We purchased one Kenyan crafted wooden wall hanging as Soveneur.
2. Prospect Street - Market at La Jolla beach.
3. Masala Restaurant - This was rated as the best Indian restaurant located at 5th Avenue. We liked the food and ambience.

Day 4
=====
After checking out from hotel at 9 AM our schedule was as below:
1) La Jolla Beach - The place was very scenic and the 30 mins walk there was very refreshing. We also saw some seals lying there and it was their puppying season.
2) Costa Mesa - As a break on the way to LA, we went to south coast plaza (shopping mall) in Orange County. The mall was so big that it has its own zip code.
3) Little India - Artesia, popularly known as Little India is so called because the entire area has shops of Indian jewellery, Indian ethnic dresses, sweets, Indian resturaunts. We happily landed in Ambala dhaba and enjoyed chaat, lassi and stuffed parathas.
4) Getty Villa - This is a sister museum of Getty Center. The sculputures and paintings were very nice.
5) Rodeo Drive - The shops were closed but the street was fabulous and full of all big brands. The chandeliors were placed all over and were used as street lights. We decided to go again the next day.

Then we checked in hotel at 8 PM. The hotel was very near to LAX airport.

Day 5
=====

1) Catalina Island - The ferry took 2 hrs from Marina Del May beach to reach Avalon in Catalina Island. Then we took a bus tour for 2 hrs from 1 to 3 PM. The tour was very adventurtes with bumpy and sharp turns over the mountains along the coast. The tour guide Randy was funny as he kept speaking and we were wondering if he has a tape running in his pocket. The bus also took us to the Island airport at top of the hill (approx. 1800' above the sea). Then we went round in the market, along the casino and a beautiful beach, Descanco cove. The beach was one of the best beaches i have ever seen (full filmy..)

We both caught some cold at the island and so went directly to hotel from there. But I had to take a small call with offshore as they were working during shut down also.
Day 6
=====

1) Venice Beach - Famous for people watching. Also there was a muscle beach with open air gym.
2) Santa Monica Pier - Full of activites and rides.
3) ISKON - The temple was added in the plan in LA itself. It was wonderful experience to have lunch in the temple.
4) Rodeo Drive - This time we could also enter in the shops. Surprisingly, all the shops were selling ladies purses with prices going till 40,000 $. At present, we cannot understand the worth..!
5) Celebrity homes - Instead of taking the famous tour, we found the addresses of some famous celebrities on google. Some of the stars home we visisted included Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie, Arnold Sch.., Robert Mudrock, Cage Nicholas ect. Cage Nicholas mansion was huge but the boundary so high so that only a fraction of balcony was visible. The Bel Air and beverly hills area obviously had an air of royalty and luxury.
6) Getty Center- We could just spend 45 mins in the museum as it was closing time when we reached but the tram ride and view from the museum was breathtaking.
7) Sunset Strip - Full of night clubs, we couldn't figure out much there and so decided to go for dinner.
8) Clay Pit restaurant - The best rated Indian restaurant in LA located in Brentwood. The food and ambience was perfect for bidding farewell to 2008.
9) The Bridge - We don't want to be in hotel room. Hotel receptionist suggested us to go to Universal studio to see fireworks, but we decided to go to movie as U-S was approx 35 miles away. We went to Bridge and watched movie "YES MAN". The movie was hillarious and we enjoyed Jim Carrey a lot.


Day 7
=====
After checking out, we started from hotel at 9:30 am and reached home safely by 4:30 PM. The average speed was 75 mph. Fortunately, we found an Indian restaurant "taste of India" during lunch which was a treat as we were felling hungry because we skipped our breakfast. This time Deepti also drove last 120 miles.

Conclusion: In all, the trip was very good but little more hectic than planned. I would also like to appreciate my new car for a trouble free and fantastic ride.

Save on your cell phone Bill!!

In todays world, communication is considered to be the most important thing. Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening are all important aspect of everyone daily life. It is important in personal relationship as well as for professional growth. It is infact an indespensible part of life. We cananot imagine life without communicating. There will be no teaching, no learning, no education, no expression and so on. No communication means no voice, no music, no i-phone, no media. A world with no coomincation means only silence. Do you think that it is impossible to live in this environment?? I have given some time to think of this question and can easily conclude that it is not impossible (but surely difficult). The only mandatory things in life are food and air. Everything else should come in comfort or luxury category. Saying, small car is a necessity and big car is luxury, will be manipulated definitions. To apprecaite anything, understanding the definition of "necessity" is most important. We may have lot of things and want many other things in life only because we fail to understnad the correct definition of necessity.

Communication is also one such thing which is now assumed to be "necessity" of life. This infact has been exaaggerated to a great extent. Lets discuss how!

The biggest "benefit" of commuication is that it allows to maintain one's ego. Infact all the things which are not necessity are only for maintaining ego. To me, this is the definition of Materialism.

Speaking /Writing /Blogging - Speaking and Writing are same category because whatever you can speak can also be written and vice versa. This is an active category. This type of active communication is difficult to be effecient without one's ego. Even if it is full of simplicity or good for everyone , there will be some demand for others appreciation. There is definitely my ego in expressing this blog. Else why would I be sharing this shit when I am myself trying to rather improve on communication skills:)

Reading / Listening - This is a passive category. But still ego is actively involved in manipulating the text in the way you want to read or listem.

Thinking This is the most hidden form of communication and full of ego. This is even more important for people who don't want to disclose that they are egostic.

Chatting / Phone This is the latest, easy and most "used", 2 way commnication medium.

The purpose of this blog will be fulfiled if this blog can help you atleast to reduce your cell phone bill by 5%.

CA Vs BE!!

There has been lot of discussion on topics like CA vs MBA and Indian CA vs foreign accounting qualifications. But I have never seen anything on CA vs BE!

One may say that this is because it will be comparing apple with orange. I think it actually depends on the timing of the comparison. Like, if you still need to decide on the subject to be choosen after 10th, this may be a very useful comaprison.

I have seen such discussions are only done while deciding professional qualifications which is more of comparing one apple with other because anyhow at this time one cannot decide to change the basic domain or subject.

Till recently, I was proud to be a CA and could easily conclude it to be a right career decision. But, this was best only between the options I have after selecting commerce as my domain. If I look little back and try to see what would I have done if I have same understanding of the things which I have now, I would have probably selected science!

One reason why I selected commerce was probably that I was not good in science subjects and so thought to try for commerce (without knowing anything about it). I should say that I was afraid of science (atleast to some extent) because I had no specific interest in commerce (logically).

Though even now if I think, I can't say that whether I would have a better career in science or not. I am not talking in terms career growth here because competition is every where and it all depends on self to excel in the given field.

What I am trying to say here is, if we like to call ourslef knowledge workers, engineering is one domain which is the most important knowledge required for growth of any country or economy. Fortunately I have started realizing this fact and so trying to appreciate it in this blog.

An "engineer" is the person who knows the concept of "creation" and not just analyzing something which is already exisitng. They have very rare attributes of innovation and reasoning. They have a mind to understand from basics to advance of everything because of their strong fundamental knowledge about the nature and material.

This is the reason (I have observed) that they are exceling in all the fields like finance, management or technology. I am not making number of billionaires as my criteria here. but if you see people who are shining in professional capaity are basically "engineers".

But this is not true for all people who have "any" enginerring degree. Irrespective of the institute, what is important is ones understanding of the concepts of creation (which means from basic).

What ever you get first, drives the whole thing!!

In all phases of life, everyone gets lot of choices and can decide for them considering many factors depending on prefrences and circumstances. Decision is one thing, and luck is second one. Between them what is more important is perception. But in either case, whatever happens or strikes first becomes the "center" point for all further discussions and become a base / benchmark. Sometimes growth of one person is also defined in relation to from where he started. Some of major decisions in a life can be 1) Qualification, 2) Career, 3) Life Partner, 4) Religous belief, 5) Social beliefs.

With so many options available these days for specialization in post graduation, it is very difficult for anyone to calculate all factors and decide one course. There are very few cases where students know actually what they want to do after analysing their strengths properly. Most of the times, the decisions are driven by factors like market demand, what friends are doing, what is considered in, funds required, etc. Time constraint is an important factor due to which one has to take some final decision within a short span of time. Though the discussion here is not about how the decision has been taken but what happens once the decision took place. After taking the decison, the circle of thoughts gets limited to the field selected. Like say, one guy took engineeering as his subject, now he can think of finance as option for a simple reason that he is a sceince guy now. There is nothing wrong in this and specialization always give you an edge. But keeping oneself open and aware of "outside" world can give more edge. This can also help in identifying his real interests and make changes early in life. Desparately collecting too much information can just add to already existing confusion in everyones life, but, keeping open to information is a different angle.

After 2/3/4/5 years of specializing qualification, one still find himslef in front of a decison box in job market where he can select among many types of industries. Like after any stream, one can now enter the Information Technology industry because of their domain skills. We can easlily find that even after 15 years, most of the people will be competing in the same industry where they joined initially. There are very few cases, where people are ready to take the risk of change in industry. This can be due to comfort factor because moving within same industry is easy than a different industry. Now a days, people are doing Executive MBA so that they can change their industry but I think one can change it without MBA also. What is required is just open mindset. If you are good in your subject, you should be able to use that knowledgr anywhere!

After 2/3/4/5 years of specialized career, one want to make a work life balace and start thinking of getting married. Most likely, if you are starting looking at this time, chances are that it will be arrange marriage:) It is just impossble to define what you want in your spouse because everyone wants everything and expectations are out of control. Again the discussion is not how we serach for a spouse but what happens when you decide the partner. Now you have to spend your whole life with this person!! Exceptions are divorcees and then second marriage where again things may repeat instead of improving. In cases of love marriages, there are so many cases that people fails to define love correctly and falls for someone they first like mutually.

Simialry ones spritual, social and moral beliefs are generally what they were taught at first or childhood but parents, teachers and others. Any lack in this efforts by them can not only make wrong beliefs in the child but he may have struggle complete life to understand what is going wrong..