Category: Everything else

Do it Anyway – Mother Teresa

Every once in a while I feel it is worth re-posting this poem as as reminder to myself never to forget..

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.
Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.
Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten.
Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.
Give your best anyway.

You see.. In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

Make a system.. and never feel guilty again.

Let’s go back to January I had decided I would make it a point to read 30 mins every day. Typically, after a few days, I started faltering –

Normal Situation:
I feel very guilty on day 1. Then again, on day 2 and soon, I just tell myself ‘I can’t do this’ or more likely convince myself I’m too busy to read.

Situation 2:
For every day I miss reading a book, I pay my friend 2 dollars.

Do I feel guilty now? Never! Because I absolutely HATE losing money over it. Have there been days I’ve lost money over this? Yes..
Do I feel bad? No.. because I know I did something more valuable.

The key in making a system like this is it establishes an opportunity cost. The ideal system would also have a bonus for doing well. While I haven’t gotten there yet, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

The biggest revelation for myself is I’ve close to eliminated ‘guilt’. If I get a shouting at for bad work, my reaction now is to ask for ratings and make sure I pass on a dollar to this very lucky friend for a negative rating. And again, no more guilt..

Of course, my system is slightly more detailed (As I’ve been on it for months now), so in case you have any questions, I look forward to them in your comments..

Anything that’s not a yes is a no..

Whenever we take a decision that involves our gut/blindly taking a call based on what our heart says, the simplest thing that has worked for me is that ‘Anything that’s not a yes is a no’

For example, this happened when I was checking out blog skins for RohanRajiv.com and I kept leafing through pages and pages. While I didn’t have a clear idea of what I liked, I knew that if I saw a thumbnail that my heart said ‘yes’ to to, it would be fine. I came across 2-3 of them that my heart said ‘Well.. pretty good’ but didn’t stop, till I got that resounding yes!

Our heart communicates pretty candidly the moment we make friends with it!

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This works practically with anything we intend to use as well – task list systems, furniture.. anything that requires us to decide with our heart! :)

The Lost Symbol, The bucket list and Prince of Persia..

3 creative in-lets(?) during the week thanks a Dan Brown book and 2 nice movies. And I just thought I’d write in the one thing I remember from each book..

1) The Lost Symbol
(This one is on the review queue and will get there in a few months from the looks of it.. haha)

I would remember the whole concept of divinity within from the book. I know this is a point re-iterated in all our scriptures, but was a very nice reminder from an unlikely source.

2) The Bucket List

I will remember 2 quotes from the movie..

You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you.
and
He died with his eyes closed and his heart open

Sublime!

3) The Prince of Persia: So much changed when the Persian emperor spotted talent on the street and gave the talent an opportunity..
Made me wonder – Are we reaching out and giving talent opportunities?

AND

Stefano Catelli, you are a lucky man! ;)

Ruthless email de-cluttering..

3 weeks ago, I looked at my mailbox and I found myself simply annoyed by all the spam I had accumulated over a period.

So, I got down to being slightly more proactive and went on a major email de-cluttering spree, and did the following –

1) Centralized newsletters to one account, and in the process eliminated a couple.

2) Removed 3 accounts from outlook and my life altogether. Set up permanent auto responders just in case someone does send legitimate emails. (And if its to the spammers, that’s spam right back at them!).

3) Went about unsubscribing from promotions/online stores and lots of other stuff that had just accumulated over the years..

4) Realized I could do without the news.. so that went out.

5) Removed email subscriptions from a couple of the blogs I subscribed to and just added them to the ‘Blogs I read‘ section as I hardly ever miss posts that show up there..

All in all, in 3 weeks, I’m 90% clean. There’s still the odd promo that I’ve not managed to erase but I can already feel the joys of not having to delete unwanted emails and mentally cursing them for coming in (again)..

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De-cluttering once a while is a genuinely liberating experience! So, if you’re feeling messy, Happy de-cluttering!

Waking up to a nice sounding alarm..

Everybody typically has their own philosophy with alarms – some like it loud, some soft, some a sound they hate so they’re forced to wake up and snooze/shut it.

I’ve been experimenting with different songs – slow ones, fast ones, loud ones and finally have settled on a nice number that starts off with a slow pace and picks up gradually.

Waking up these last few days has been an absolute pleasure. Since I love having an extra 10 mins of sleep, I then set my timer and wake up finally to the guitar from ‘Wonderwall‘

Funnily enough, I look forward to waking up to these lovely tones. These small things add up and make a huge difference to the day!

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Do let me know what your alarm experiences are.. :)