who lost her brother in the holocaust. The last thing she did ever say to him was chiding him for having lost his shoes..
Can we make this as a promise for ourselves? Probably not..
But, it is a possibility..
Let’s not forget to give those we love that hug before we say goodbye and that kiss to tell them we love them..
It’s not pessimism, it’s just that we never know.. and regrets are just not the way to go..
Thank you Benjamin Zander
I am generally a person who has too much fun making mistakes to make them ‘just’ a few times..haha So, the list of goofs is long but I’m going to try and pick the top 2 and also just put in a word about them..
1)Bankruptcy and Debt: I make it sound worse than it probably was but then there was this period when I did go broke – completely broke. Suddenly, I had no money for bills and I had no idea where this even came from?
It was a shocker to me as I had enough money thanks to a scholarship that paid for all expenses. And it then occurred that I had been living a lifestyle that was way above my means. After I’d started working, I was in this rather warped sense of reality – too many cab rides, too much eating out etc. At any rate, I was spending a lot more than I earned. Now, as I had been very proud of the fact that I did not have to take money from home for my university studies, I had to rely on friends to bail me out on an immediate note, and they did. It was a big big hit to my own understanding of myself in terms of expenses and finances. It took more about 1 and a half year to get myself back to complete financial comfort but I’ve learnt a few lessons that I will take forward with me for a long long time..
Learning: Money to spend = Money Earned – Basic expenses – Savings. I haven’t even come to a point where there are savings I can talk about but it is a very simple rule that is easy to flout.. And once flouted, takes enormous discipline to get back. It’s a lesson I’m thankful for – it was my Personal Financial Management 101 course..
2)Screwing up health: There came a period after my 2nd year when a whole bunch of people I knew just fell sick. These were generally symptoms of a larger problem – there was a lot of illness flying around accumulated due to bad eating habits primarily, resulting in a loss of health. I was seemingly too busy to worry about food and the result was a bad gastric problem that lasted for three rather painful weeks.
The worst part was that it was self inflicted.
Learning: ‘Food first’ is a motto I’ve tried to stick with.. I generally don’t mind walking into a meeting a few minutes late and paying late fee if it means grabbing the all important bite. A lot of things go wrong without food in our system.. And it’s just not worth the risk.
3)Goofs in itself – a learning: These 2 big goofs on the finance and health fronts changed a lot. Firstly, I became very concerned about saving to the point that I cringe when I have to spend 20 cents to buy a new take away box. I prefer washing old ones and carrying them to the canteen myself.
With health, I was already very concerned about my staying fit. This just went up to a whole new level in terms of what I ate. It’s come to a point where I have consequences if I don’t have a full vegetable dish and a fruit or fruits every day. (Again, more on that when I write about R15/my discipline system).
I’m thankful I screwed up with these things when I did because it becomes tougher to learn these lessons and rectify this as we grow older. I wouldn’t recommend these to anybody. So, if you are a university kid who is going through the normal drill of an unhealthy life, then I think you’ve seen enough evidence of the things that can happen. It’s amazing how even the small things can come back and bite us..
When I was in school, I was once playing badminton on a wooden court with no shoes when my PT Teacher came up to me and asked me to stop. When I told him I’m only playing for a ‘short while’ and nothing would happen, he just smiled and said – ‘You’ll only feel the effects when you are 40!’ ..
It’s the small things that make a difference. And if the effects of wearing the wrong footwear are so bad, we can only imagine how bad it would be with the wrong food. And as far as money is concerned, I think we’ve seen what spending over our means and living on credit can do to the world.. :)
And again, while I do hope that none of you ever have to make these mistakes to learn, if they do happen.. we always have the choice to grown into individuals who are better for it than not..
As Rafiki – the wise baboon in Lion King puts it – ‘You can either run from it.. or learn from it’
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14 days to go..
was fitting that it would be ES2007S (Principles of Professional Communication)- the best course I’ve taken in the past 4 years and very fitting that I said goodbye to the classmates I have felt closest to in these 4 years..
I’ll soon be blogging for the course reflecting on it. More on this then.. :)
Have a nice friday evening!
Ha ha.. Good morning.. have a great day!! :)
It’s amazing how simple this sounds yet how difficult it is do..
It’s seems so fundamental but yet. My hunch is that what gets in between is the teenage ‘go with the flow’ notion. The first time I heard about these over-ly organized lives in books, I always thought they were missing the point with their planning etc. Over time, I’ve realized that we only have leisure time when things go as per plan.. else we are always rushing from one thing to another.
A constant crisis fighter – story of my life for a long long time.
Anyway, I’m at the planning stage again for what remains of university life – 14 days!
Here I go again.. :)
Thanks to a football crazy bunch of friends at my high school (DAV Boys, Gopalapuram), I was a football convert. Having hardly played the game till I joined my 11th Grade/equivalent to JC1, I was playing a lot of football all of a sudden. There was always football talk – premier league clubs etc etc. So, I was looking forward to come to NUS to play lots of football as well.. And I did.
3 things that I remember –
1)Learning the game: In my early days, my playing was restricted to games with a bunch of my Indian and hence, known seniors and friends. This was generally a lot of fun as it was pretty feisty.. However, as I began to work, I became less regular because of clashing times. Besides, my mentor always just hopped onto the field and joined anybody who was playing. In the early days I was very apprehensive, but I soon realized how much fun it was. I learnt a lot in those days particularly from one regular called Jackie – who was a Singapore Airlines person, a commando at the army and at 46, among the fittest people I’ve seen.
Jackie’s understanding of the game was great and he always used to push me to do better – run harder, fight for the ball. He always said -‘You’ve got to really want to get the ball if you ever plan on getting it’. It was great. I made a whole bunch of friends over soccer. I was a regular for a good 2 years, generally playing 3-4 times a week. It was my way of keeping fit..
Learning: Playing with players with different styles gave a good idea of my own abilities. I had never been an amazing athlete. I had a pretty decent amount of stamina and I realized that my biggest strength was an eye for pass i.e. for spotting the right pass. I’ve learnt that for both football and life, it pays to know our strengths so we can focus on those strengths.
2)Realizing a dream: One of my big dreams when I first saw the awesome looking SRC football field was to play a proper football game and score a goal! Now, once I joined university, that dream practically faded away as I saw the the standard of the teams. With my skills, I could only make it to the 2nd round selection of my faculty’s team(which is admittedly pretty good) but anyway..
It was just when I had almost given up hope when it turned out one of my football buddies (from above) used to play on this team and once I happened to hop by with a mentor of mine as they were about to play a game. They were the NUS staff team, were short of players and I excitedly joined in. I still remember that game – we got thrashed 7-0. In typical style, I decided to be more regular and joined them for training/kicking around on Tuesdays and games on Fridays. I played quite a few games, got to know a good number of them and had lots of fun and learning. There was a player in our team called Tomoo (an Econs Professor) who was a player I would pay to watch. Thanks to a few good players, we won quite a few of these games as well.
And you know what, I did score that goal.. It was a penalty I had won and it was wonderful burying it in under floodlights.
Learning: I always think of Randy Pausch (the last lecture Professor) when I think of these small dreams. I learnt we should never give up on it.
The bigger learning was NOT to rush! I was always rushing when I got the ball – too impatient and always lacking composure. Tomoo taught me to focus on one thing at a time by taking it much much slower. This is a learning that had a huge impact on my life and work..
3)Watching Football: I started watching Manchester United in the 2002-03 season. It’s funny how it happened.. The first game on air was a Man Utd game followed by an Arsenal game.. I saw the game and fell in love with the team. Wonder what would have happened if I’d seen the Arsenal game first..
Anyway, I followed practically every game that season. Following that season, we had some weird cable rules in our city and I couldn’t really follow games for 3 whole seasons (which coincided with my board exams/O and A levels) – so a good thing, all in all I think. This passion was re-ignited in university.. And boy, has watching football given me so much happiness! I still remember impatiently waiting for the Barcelona game the night before my signals exam. (Funny how these things work…) Remember so many great goals.. Remember the joy at winning the champions league.
Of late, one of the best things that has happened is I’ve found a football buddy who lives and breathes united as well. And that’s a friendship I’m sure to treasure for a long time. It’s become a part of life now, to go down to a lounge in PGP and catch a big game with friends or walk across to KE7 and watch a game on the big(ger) screen TV.
Another fun thing that happened was ‘Management Through Football’ – my mentor’s idea to convert all our football talk to ideas and solutions to life problems. This probably requires a lot of background but was a nice way we used to catch up on Saturdays and play football with friends on Saturdays..
Learning: It’s been great following a club closely. I’ve learnt a lot from Sir Alex Ferguson’s management style. The biggest thing I’ve learnt is his refusal to take any defeat or failing personally. While he does play the media game well by deflecting attention, all in all, he almost always moves on.
Another wonderful thing I learnt is his longevity as a result of his habit to celebrate, and then move on..quickly! He’s built 4 teams at Manchester United. During this 23 year period, he was won 11 premier league titles, 2 Champions leagues and numerous other trophies. Most strikingly, over 950 managers have come and gone in all the other premier league clubs..
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Of late, playing football has lessened thanks to a new passion – Tennis. While I have no idea how it started, a few of us made it a habit to play every Saturday morning till a friend advised me to engage a coach and that’s been a great decision as well. It’s lots of fun learning a new game..
I was heading for my FYP presentation yesterday morning and was busy munching on assorted fruits. I was just in a mood to finish and the only thing that stood between me and an empty fruit cup was a pineapple piece. I had quickly gulped everything else down of course..
Now, it was a rather big piece and I tried to cut it and attacked it with vigor – only for it to become threateningly messy with all the thin string like things threatening to get stuck between my teeth..
So, I aborted that.. and paused for a moment. I then realized that there is a specific way to cut a pineapple and consciously tried to cut it along the line.. and voila, it came apart beautifully.. and I had finished my fruit cup and my quota for fruit in a day! (We’ll come to this when I write about the R15 system later..)
Every thing that nature has created has a specific way of use, a method. And every little thing has its own unique requirements. It is the same with people – everyone has a different trigger for them to open to us and be themselves..
The big question is – are we aware that brute force alone can never solve a problem? Are we ready to stop, think and understand the person/pineapple/problem before trying to solve it..
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Big one for me to keep in mind. :)
Good morning.. Have a great day! :)
| An archive.org photo of the 1st website – designed and made by me on Dreamweaver. How cool is that! (However crappy the website may be) It was actually a website with tabs that are listed in bullet points. Wish there was a better picture memory| :)
Another big part of my university identity has been ExpressionHappens – my attempt at an initiative to help people express themselves.
It was after a Nineo all-nighter that we were discussing the Nineo vision (Helping people find work they love..) at the Arts Canteen Burger King. It was a nice morning, we had a lovely view of the harbor and we came to the conclusion that we would have to practice what we preach. So, we began identifying our passions and decided we should do something more with them.. Now, mine happened to be meeting people and talking to them (I’m sure you’ve figured out I’m a big talker by now..) and the conclusion was I should start a talk show! And so it began..
1) Beginnings: So, here I was, the one man manager of my own little initiative – I decided to call it ExpressionHappens and decided I would pick a question and go about interviewing people and put all their views together in a show called ‘Talk it out – where Expression Happens‘. As valentine’s day was just coming up, I went out on a Sunday and interviewed a few people. It was one heck of an experience because about 60% said no to the idea.. And it required a bit of mental training to be okay with the idea of people seemingly rejecting you. And let’s not forget, I was still driven by insecurities rather than any semblance of self confidence.. So it definitely wasn’t easy..
Anyway, I finally released the Valentine’s Day video – my very fast. It was a very badly edited video, but was a start. And then, I decided to keep this going. I did miss a week or two, tried re-engineering the name to ‘Talkdodo’ (Successful internet companies have o’s in their name – Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Microsoft etc.. Hehe) which didn’t last for too long.
A whole set of nice developments took place though. After my 3rd episode, a friend of a mentor who I had met offered to invest $1,000 for a 50% stake in my little talk show venture. I thought it was too low given I had dreams of making it a billion dollar initiative.. Haha. I also began getting some sponsorship – the PGP Non air con indian stall being my 1st sponsor and then an acquaintance who wanted to publicize a website linking to a calling card he was trying to sell. These deals lasted for a while and I felt it had some potential. I was now looking to expand into events. Besides, by now, I had a close friend who was an expert video editor and a couple of others in the pipeline. All in all, it seemed like an encouraging start and I was all set to close for the semester…
Learning: It is extremely hard to begin. It’s the toughest thing, really. Ideas are like tender saplings – they can get crushed with just one strong critical comment. I can think of a couple of times I almost decided against this.. Looking back now, I can’t but thank the lord that I did because of the many many positives that came after.
2) The Mockery Group: Now, a lot of old history was about to be reopened with some circles I was very unpopular with. A few friends decided that the talk show was too crappy for them to deal with (they had to put with it on facebook, gtalk links etc) and they decided it was time to call for a shut down. And they did, in good style – with a nice new facebook group and a bunch of members etc.
By now, I’d already attended a couple of RealAcad’s(a post coming up, soon) and one of the important competitive strategy applications we learn is that all publicity is good publicity. So, if someone is trying to take you down, there can’t be anything better.. That’s in theory of course. Let’s not forget that you are looking at a very insecure 19 year old whose inflated ego is the only driver. Anyway, the best thing that happened is this group activity punctured the ego balloon. I practically went into hiding for a month – wanted to have nothing to do with this ‘bad talk show idea’. After all, a whole bunch of people had said it was rubbish – what could be worse?
You see, the big trouble with insecurity is that a lot of self worth is attached with the opinions of others. The bigger trouble is that more often than not, it is attached to only the negative opinions. By this time, I already had a 100 odd students and friends on my mailing list who had lots of nice things to say about the videos but again, when you are talking about a balloon, all it takes is a needle to puncture it.
That was a tough summer for many reasons (aside from this). It was a rather uncertain period at work and I decided I would do a little more with my life.. Atleast, I shouldn’t let my happiness depend on other’s opinions of me. And I decided it was time to just build on self confidence and remove the ego component. In a quest to get better one day at a time, I started this blog..
Learning: Failure is a very beautiful thing. It tends to open our minds to things we aren’t doing well and makes us humble. I questioned my own intentions and purposes on that day and decided it was time for a change.. I knew it’d take a long time to change my perception of myself. It did take a long time, but it stands among the better decisions I made..
|I was alerted that it was better termed as a mockery group rather than a hate group. Hence, the change.. :)|
3)Talkdodo, back to talk show videos and a look within: For a while, we played around with the idea of becoming a university video channel wherein we would record videos of student cca events and become an NUS news channel of sorts. This changed when we sat down with a mentor to discuss what we should really do.. As we had decided to submit a business plan to SPRING singapore. This discussion involved quite some soul searching and we decided that we needed to get back to our talk show concept.. And we did, we made a video a week consistently for 6 months and learnt a LOT. It was a real test of discipline, planning and the 3 of us in our team were pleased with ourselves.
That business plan submission went very well. After intial discussions, Spring was prepared to invest a sizeable amount under the condition that they would have close to full equity/control and we change the business idea to suit their plans.. We declined again and didn’t proceed as we didn’t feel our work justified the scale of investment yet. Besides, we wanted to learn how to make a good talk show video.. And felt we weren’t there yet. Perhaps we were naïve, but we prioritized our learning over success and it is a decision I am very proud of..
However, when we did reach 50 – we decided that this wasn’t where we had envisioned it and decided we needed to do something bigger, something that would touch more people.. It was that ‘something’ that we called Sparkz..
And that is a story for another day.. :)
Learning: A lot of wonderful things happened thanks to ExpressionHappens. It was my taste at getting my feet wet with 2 very close friends.. It is something I would suggest to anyone who still has years in university left – to try something different, something that they are passionate about. Give it a more formal name, make a website, publicize a bit and have lots of fun.. What better time than our university days?
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The next big chapter in ExpressionHappens’ evolution is Sparkz.. And as promised, that would be coming later..
And until then, here is my favorite talk show video –
What is your favorite holiday destination?
Hope you enjoy it! :)
I have been such a pathetic listener in the past that I’ve never really cared about what the other person had to say and this insensitive flowed into work till I got strong feedback from a mentor once about paying attention to the tone of the voice of the person on the other end. He said that he would know if a person was ready to talk or not just from the way he/she said hello..
I had an clarification call to make yesterday and the moment the person picked up, I sensed something was not right.. and that was the case. Luckily, I always say ‘Hello – would you have a minute now for…?’ which has helped greatly..
But, picking up a non verbal cue yesterday from a person I didn’t know so well was not a bad thing at all. Just shows how much communication is non verbal.. There are cues all around us..
So, Are we listening?
A Learning a Day 