Category: Everything else

Unwashed Vessels in your sink

For those who don’t have/use dish washers and still wash vessels old style (i.e. with detergent and a sponge), I’m sure you have walked into your kitchen in the morning and groaned at the pile of unwashed vessels in your sink.

Here’s an interesting poem that a friend remembers when she finds an unwashed vessel pile –
Thank God for Dirty Dishes,
They have a tale to tell.
While others are going hungry,
We’re eating very well.

With home and health and happiness,
I shouldn’t want to fuss.
For by this stack of evidence,
God’s very good to us..

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Worth remembering for next time. :)

Expectations

‘Don’t expect’ is a tenet I’ve heard from time to time. The logic is simple of course – ‘if you don’t expect, you don’t get disappointed.’


In my humble opinion, it would take the joy out of life.
Imagine walking into an important meeting without the anxiousness that comes with expectation. Imagine walking out after a great meeting feeling numb.
Imagine receiving THAT call saying the ‘deal is done’/’you got the job’ and just smiling contented.
Why, of course, you had no expectations.
Imagine making a pass at a woman/man and then not bothering to look at his/her reaction?
Isn’t expectation that makes romance memorable? Isn’t expectation what builds into ‘hope’ – that wonderful emotion that helps keep our heads up during tough times? Isn’t that what inspired Gandhi? Isn’t that what inspired Victor Frankl in that tough concentration camp?
If you didn’t expect, would you bother hoping?
More questions than answers. One thing is certain, I am not cut out for the ‘ascetic’ life that involves meditation in the mountains. I love people too much.. and I find expectations to be wonderful things – through them, you taste failure and success, love and disgust, sadness and happiness – through them, you taste life.
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Will this even matter in 10 years?

Some events are great levelers. Failure, for example, is one. You could be flying really high thanks to some recent success and then wham!. Failure makes us reflect, makes us understand ourselves better – and is a great leveler.

I find the ‘Will this even matter in 10 years’ question a great leveler too. I believe that life is just a long bumpy road with many picturesque views. For every picturesque view, there are a multitude of bumps and ditches. We have many co passengers in the journey – our parents to begin with, then friends, colleagues, spouse, kids etc. And of course, we have the all important choice – to be happy, or not. There is always enough to complain, always enough to get us down – so finding happiness is not all that easy. We only make it tougher for ourselves when we let small things get to us.
Like this morning, when I saw something that pricked a bit of the happiness balloon. Being my reflective day of the week, I thought myself to sleep. (if there ever existed a phrase) And when I woke up, for some reason – I asked myself the ‘Will this even matter in 10 years’. ‘Not a chance’ was the answer that came right back.
Bam! Decision taken. No looking back.
So, I smiled, woke up and decided to blog about it.

The Blessings people

Since last July, I’ve been writing out daily learnings, blessings etc on an every work-day basis.

And I found myself flipping pages and realized 2 things –
1. People form 80% of what I thank the lord for. There is the occasional time I’ve thanked the lord for sports I play, my phone, my laptop, some rather cool apps or systems and of course, quite a few thanks have to gone to a-connect (i.e. my company) as well but still – 80%, on average, is to people who mater.
2. And I also realized that a few people show up on these pages with unfailing regularity. Often, it didn’t even require significant interaction with them – one short email or phone conversation already had me thanking the lord for having them in my lives.
It’s always interesting to know a new thing about myself. So, if I’m feeling down in the dumps, what would potentially work is get busy finding a new app for my phone/comp – but what is almost sure to work is to spend time with some of ‘the blessings people’. That should sort it out.
So, what would you think would be up your blessings list?

Joy

I received a piece of very good news today.

First, it didn’t quite sink in.
After a while, it did.
And that’s when I looked back. If this was me two years ago, I would have gone into a 2 week high with little regard for anybody but myself.
But, this time around, I had work to do – of course. So, I decided to focus on work and take it in my stride.
Gradually, the celebratory air sunk in and then I began calling/emailing friends and family one by one to relay the news.
As I was thinking about whom to speak to, I thought of many – close family, friends, mentors etc.. and I was feeling both thankful and humbled. I had done very little after all – the real credit went to those who believed in me. And boy, the whole experience felt so good..
And it was SO much fun sharing that joy. Having been brought up as a single child, sharing doesn’t come naturally to me (it’s still a forced process) but if this is anything to go by, sharing is a mind-bender.
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I was also reminded of a couple of lines from the evergreen ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling

If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

The Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock

But, it is also a fact that I love the ‘Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock’ on my iPhone.
Why did I get it?

I woke up VERY annoyed one morning. I was angry – angry with the world, irritable and even banged the table a couple of times when something didn’t work as it was supposed to. I don’t generally do that.
And, in the middle of the day, I took an opportunity to take a 20 minute nap. And voila.. when I woke up, everything changed. I felt positive, happy – different!
My Conclusions

I sat back, thought about what went wrong and concluded that my alarm clock might have rung at the wrong moment. I had slept 7+ hours and I wasn’t lacking sleep. Hence, decided to read more about ‘Sleep cycles’ as I’m fanatical about eliminating sources of negativity in a day.
And Voila…

I found the Sleep Cycle Alarm clock, bought it for $0.99 and began using it. The concept is simple – you place the iPhone at the edge of your bed, it records your body movements and calibrates the depth of your sleep. So, a normal night of sleep looks like this –
After 1 month of analysis, I’ve figured out that this is my ‘normal’. Deep sleep for a couple of hours and then ups and downs in depth of sleep.
If I’m very very tired, then I expect the graph to look like this –


When to wake you up?


And now, you probably see where the alarm clock adds value. If you give it a window of 30 mins to an hour, it will wake you up when you are closest to being awake.
The 3 coolest value adds for me have been –
1. Understanding how I sleep. After a month of data collections, I pretty much wake up and guess how I think I’ve slept. And by now, I’m getting fairly accurate! And just knowing this – typically makes me feel happy.
2. Great snooze!. Firstly, the alarm clock always tends to wake me up when I’m ready for it. And even if it’s 20 minutes before the ‘deadline’ time, it has a brilliant snooze. The snooze concept is that it snoozes if you just hold the phone (no fiddling around searching for a button required) and it calibrates according to time remaining. So, if your alarm rings with 20 mins to go – the snooze will likely be after 7 mins, then 5 mins, then 4 mins, then 3, then 1 etc..
3. Good feeling when I wake up. I was skeptical at first wondering if it was all psychological. But, my conclusion by now has been that even if it is, then that’s great. I feel great when I wake up.. and it’s generally added a lot of joy to a typically painful experience!
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Not sure if similar trackers/alarm clocks are available on your Blackberry’s or Androids – so I wish you all the best if you plan to search! For iPhone users, I’ve had a great experience. So much so that if they decided to charge me $49 for it, I would pretty much still pay.
And if you decide to take the punt, do keep me posted of your experience. My colleague just got it and I can see he’s been bitten by the bug too!
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Note: I found the clock useful when I had a 4 hour sleep night planned. Gave it a 1 hour window and again, worked like a charm.
Note 2: The alarm clock recommends you leave it on charge. Not necessary. On an iPhone 4 – it typically eats up only around 30-35% over 7-8 hours from my experience last month.