So much crazy

It is probably justified to look at the news and think – “So much crazy going on.” For example, here’s a quick sample from the last 2 days.

The Filipino Prime Minister admitted to killing criminal suspects himself to show the police how it should be done.
Donald Trump brought together the world’s top technology leaders. But, 4 seats on that table are reserved for, of course, his kids.
The Russian premier kept Japan’s premier waiting for 3 hours – not a surprise as delays are part of his power game.

It feels like the end times. Of course, it isn’t. After all, there’s always been plenty of crazy on the planet. And, if it isn’t directly affecting you or if you don’t control it (and that is more of us than we like to admit :)), there’s really little point sweating it.

And, I’d say the “don’t sweat it” idea extends even to things you think matter. We are prone to waste too much time on nonsense. It is part of being human. So, there’s more politics in the office than there needs to be. And, there’s way more jealousy and envy than we should bother with.

Joseph Addison had a great quote that speaks to this –

 “When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tombs of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great Day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together”

Whenever you find reflecting on “so much crazy,” just remember Joseph Addison. Sure, most people might forget this in their lifetimes as they chase small and insignificant triumphs. But, you don’t need to be one of them. In the final analysis, we all end up in the same place. And, in Addison’s words, “we all make our appearance together.”

Don’t sweat the crazy. Love, laugh and live instead.

Audit

An audit is an inspection of an organization’s processes typically conducted by a third party. I love the idea of an annual audit and I think I’ve become more conscious about the process over time. And, this year, I am thinking about the various parts of my life as I aim to commit to a few practices for the coming year.

For starters, I tend to take a concentric circle view when I think of my priorities.

This builds on a simple principle – you can’t take care of others until you take care of yourself. However, the prioritization that follows is personal. I think of my people, my work and my community (service) as the priorities that follow – in that order. So, here are some questions I’m asking myself. This isn’t an exhaustive list of the question I should be asking as I’m focused on areas I most want to improve.

Me
How can I eat healthier?
How can I be fitter?
What is my information diet looking like? How can it be less, but better?

My people
How can I be more conscious in my relationships?

My career
How can I organize my workday better to make sure I’m tapping maximum productivity?
Post kid, how do I embrace more flexibility in terms of when I work without letting it affect my engagement at home?
How can I take the time to synthesize what is going in tech?
How can we manage our finances better?

My community/service
How do I define service?

I’ll aim to write about the results of these questions over the next few days.

Mind control

Professor Charles Xavier in the X Men has a powerful ability – mind control. There are multiple other cartoons and comics where controlling others’ minds is a superpower. And, I wouldn’t blame you if you thought this post was about that.

It isn’t, though.

This is about our minds. As we grow up, we spend a lot of time in school studying topics like Math, Science and Language. Then, in college, it could be Engineering, the Arts or whatever else. All of this is important brain food. And, yet, the single most important topic, Psychology, is completely optional. All those other things we studied can help us become extrinsically successful. But, they do little else and they definitely don’t help us understand our mind.

You could be in one of the most beautiful places on earth. But, you could be intensely unhappy inside. You could be living in a gorgeous home with everything a human being might want. But, you might be living in self created hell and be unable to notice it. On the flip side, you could have little compared to everyone around and, yet, be happy.

This isn’t an easy problem to solve. It takes time. Like all difficult problems, it first begins with awareness. It, then, needs us to learn and know better. We live in a time when an education in human psychology is a click away. Use it (if in doubt, start with the “7 Habits”).

All the other stuff we read will help us build a living. Understanding how to work with our minds will help us build a life.

Better self talk – is this worth it

Yes, things would be better if you stopped worrying about stuff you didn’t control. And, yes, things would also be better if you stopped complaining. But, a blanket ban isn’t a recipe for better self talk. If anything, it only makes things worse.

Asking yourself to stop complaining or to stop worrying today is futile. If you are in the habit of worrying, it will be several weeks or months before you learn to break that habit. A blanket ban is just a frustration creator. As you get more frustrated, the self talk will get worse. And, at some point, you’ll label yourself incapable and move on to the next futile quest.

A better question, then, is to just make it a habit to ask – “Is this worth it?” If you are worrying about something you really shouldn’t be wasting energy on, the question – “Is worrying about this worth it?” – should prompt you to re-examine your approach to solving the problem. Of course, worrying or complaining isn’t an approach that helps solve any problem. If anything, they cripple your defenses. But, that’s the sort of logic that’s beside the point when you are worrying (or complaining).

Trevor Noah, on the Daily Show, nicely shared that you can’t win an argument with a toddler on facts. They’ll just make up ridiculous facts. You win arguments by asking the toddler to elaborate. By asking questions and opening a dialog, the toddler soon realizes that what he/she is saying makes little sense.

In debating with our emotional side, we are engaging with our inner toddler. So, by asking “Is this worth it?,” we open a dialog with ourselves. This isn’t about solving the problem. It is about asking the question and making progress.

Bit by bit and question by question is how great things are done.

Choosing information

Not too long ago, your family would have received just one Sunday newspaper. In our home, we typically called dibs on the pieces of the paper we wanted to read. Someone wanted the “supplement” while someone else wanted the sports section. There wasn’t a whole lot of choice in the matter. Some households afforded two newspapers. But, most just worked with one. But, now, we don’t need to worry about information scarcity of any kind.

The fantastic Quartz newsletter had multiple powerful pieces yesterday. There was one about free trade – what populist leaders have gotten right and wrong about it. Then, there was an important piece on the evidence gathered so far about the effects of direct cash transfers (the basic income idea). They also had an informative piece about the problems caused by the boom in the sushi business – fish stocks are depleting quickly. And, did you realize that Giraffes have been placed in the extinction watch list?

The Economist shared that Latin America leads the world in renewable energy. This is driven by hydro power. However, they’re investing heavily in solar power. Costa Rica and Uruguay met their power needs from renewable sources for more than half the year this year. This stems from the fact that Latin Americans care deeply about clean energy. Wow. Wonder what we could do to improve the state of things where we are..

Of course, both of these can come straight to your email inbox. The Economist actually works out cheaper than an old school newspaper subscription – the kind we used to have 20 years ago. And, they deliver not just a weekly stream of articles but all sorts of specialized services. They earn that fee. The Quartz newsletter is free. At that quality, it is one of the deals of the decade.

But, just as easily as these can make their way to our inbox, others things can, too. We could be hearing about the likes to our latest photo of our coffee shop. Or, we could be clicking on some piece of fake news that showed up on a news feed. Or, we could spend our time looking at the latest collection of viral cat videos.

As kids growing up, we earned our freedom with evidence of responsibility. The more responsibility we showed, the more our parents trusted us. But, information in today’s age doesn’t work that way. We have unlimited freedom to choose what we consume despite no evidence of responsibility.

Here’s the impact of that – what we consume informs how and what we think about. Then, how and what we think about influences what we do. And, what we do influences our world and, in many cases, the world.

It is all up to us, then.

Let’s choose well.

On parenting

My wife and I became parents 4 weeks ago. Parenting promises to be the mother of all learning journeys. And, my main emotion is one of gratitude after witnessing a miraculous process.

As we headed toward this parenting journey, a few folks tried convincing us that “nothing can prepare you for this.” But, they also told me that before our wedding, graduate school, and other such important life moments. And, they were always wrong. So, that didn’t really deter us.

Our preparation went a really long way in making this as smooth a transition as we could have hoped. As all those who prepare know, preparation can never prepare you for 100% of reality. But, it’ll take you 70% of the way by giving you a good sense of what to expect. And, that 70% makes all the difference in the world come match day.

In the spirit of sharing lessons, I’d like to share a parenting resource that I have been updating since we were expecting. I plan to keep it updated for the foreseeable future. It is a Google Doc I call “A Learning a Day Dad Notes” and is accessible on http://bit.ly/aladdadnotes. In it, you’ll also find a link to my wife’s doc for moms that she has generously agreed to share as well. These notes contain links to another Google doc where we also shared our pre-arrival shopping list. The pre-arrival shopping list was an intense process because expectant parents are a very profitable segment for retailers. And, it took us a lot of effort to separate the signal from the noise and ensure we were spending our money on stuff that would actually matter.

My notes are true to style, i.e., brutally honest. So, I hope you find it useful. You’ll see multiple resources mentioned in the doc. But, I’d like to give a shout to the one website we found incredibly useful – Lucie’s List. Thanks, Meg, for a wonderful website. It is my go-to.

Finally, I don’t want this post to just be a resource dump. So, I’d like to share a passage by the Lebanese American poet “Kahlil Gibran” whose parenting philosophy I hope to live –

On Children by Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

The depth of this passage always blows my mind. Our daughter’s name, Samvita, means “consciousness” and her name will be a reminder for me to conscious about the many wonderful ideas this passage points to…

Onward.

4031

I thought I’d pause normal service for a small celebration today. This is post number 4031 on ALearningaDay.

I knew I was approaching 4000 posts a couple of months ago. But, I only pay attention to the numbers every once a while. So, it was nice to find look up and find that that milestone had passed by.

I also thought I’d share an update I’d worked on over the past couple of weeks – I updated the logo. I would be surprised if you noticed the change. It is still a word cloud and it still has “A Learning a Day” running through the center in green text. However, the words have gone through a significant update. A close friend had helped create the first version with the kinds of words he thought this blog stood for few years back. I loved the idea and wanted to change the words. While I think (he and) I had an idea of the kind of words this blog stood for then, I think I have a far better idea now. So, I went back to Wordle.net and worked on it.

I hope they resonate with you as much as they do with me. :)

I said yesterday, in jest, to a friend that “Life is full of life lessons.” We laughed at how obvious it sounded. It is in so many ways. And, yet, it sometimes isn’t. Showing up here 4031 times has taught me just how many life lessons there really are.

And, of course, this wouldn’t really be a blog without you. Thank you for your support through various parts of this learning filled journey. It means a lot.

Thanks Wikipedia

I’ve learnt so much about so much from Wikipedia. So, when they shared a message asking readers/me to donate, I donated $15. It is a small amount. And, I hope it helps.

In doing this, they also taught me a lesson how to craft a simple and powerful marketing message. Inc.com had a nice article about the beautifully crafted messaging they use.

“Dear readers, Time is running out in 2016 to help Wikipedia. To protect our independence, we will never run ads. We’re sustained by donations averaging about $15. Only a tiny portion of our readers give. If everyone reading this right now gave $3, our fundraiser would be done within an hour. Think of it like buying a scoop of your favorite ice cream, only much healthier. And your donation supports the only non-profit on the list of the world’s top ten most visited websites. That’s pretty sweet. Please take one minute to keep Wikipedia online and growing. Thank you.”

As someone who works for a group supporting online ads, I definitely appreciate the resolve behind the stand. Wikipedia could become one of the world’s most formidable ad businesses by flipping a switch. So, it isn’t an easy stand to make. After all, your values are your values only when you lose money over them. And, they clearly do.

Additionally, Wikipedia is a wonderful reminder that, with a bit of leadership and organization, volunteers around the world can collaborate to build something special.

I think a non-negligible percentage of my Google searches are actually to find the link to the wiki. Long may that continue.

Thank you, Wikipedia – for all you’ve taught me.

Am versus habitually default to

We generally say – “I am xx” and “I am yy” when we describe ourselves. “I am short tempered.” Or, “I am a relaxed person.” The question, then, is how much of these descriptions is what we are versus what we habitually default to?

A close someone recently said – “I am emotional. I have high highs and low lows.” This resonated with me as I had struggled with that for a long time. A quick search for “highs” on this blog points to that trend.

There’s a 2008 post that says “Highs and lows are not necessary” and I ask myself to “play it cool.” There’s a 2014 post that talks about how the highs aren’t all that high. And, there’s a bunch in between that talk about the evolution. Describing myself as emotional and as someone who had high highs and low lows would have been accurate in 2008. But, it hasn’t been accurate for a while now. It was a case of something I habitually defaulted to. And, after a lot of work, that changed.

While there are portions of our behavior that are very hard to change, there are huge portions that can be changed. We’ll need to first want to do it. Then, we’ll need to reflect and catch ourselves behaving that way after the fact. Then, slowly, we’ll hopefully develop awareness as we do it. And, over time, we’ll understand the triggers well enough to prevent it. Change doesn’t happen overnight. But, it is possible.

The first step is to stop describing things as if they are permanent. There is not as much “I am” as we think. And, there’s a lot more that we “habitually default” to than we think as well.

We are more malleable than we give ourselves credit for.

Grapefruit and Spinach

Grapefruit, spinach, or bitter gourd versus any snack with processed sugar.

Exercise versus lying on the couch.

Reading a non-fiction book versus watching television.

Quality sleep versus browsing the web till late into the night.

People who push back and challenge us versus people who always agree.

On first sampling, the latter options typically win hands down. There is a correlation between things that don’t taste great at first and things that are good for us. But, do more of the former, and they’ll begin to grow on you. After a while, exercise, reading non-fiction, quality sleep, grapefruit (and other healthy food) and interesting conversations become things we can’t live without.

But, we’ve got to look past first impressions, think long term and commit to taking action.

There’s a life lesson in here somewhere.