Warren Buffet wrote: "You have to be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful". Warren was referring to the "ideal" strategy to adopt when dealing with the stock market. The old adage "where there is a will, there is a way" can be rechristened to reflect the new-age saying "where there is risk, there is a reward". It's definitely not Boolean as in there is guaranteed reward when risk is present, or vice-versa. All it does is increase the possibility that one might be more successful when taking risks, than when compared to not taking risks at all. Risk and Reward are two words that have always gone well together - like peanut butter and jelly in some ways because one is sweet and the other salty! The culinary experts advocate a pinch of salt in the most sweetest of desserts to give it a nice twinge - maybe they need to be told the reference to risk and reward!!
Back to mainline, I read an excellent article on 'risk and reward' in the weekend Financial Post newspaper (yes a physical paper on hand, which is fast becoming oblivious!) that could be best summarized by one line that the author beautifully put in, to describe risk taking. Here is my attempt at quoting the article (not verbatim): "Risk taking is by no means consistent as it extends across avenues. A person who is an extremely careful driver on the streets could be the most carefree when he is in a casino. On the other hand, someone who is extremely careful and avoids risk taking in his financial aspect of life could be the most reckless when on the streets."
The essence of what the author's statement meant, or rather what yours truly interpreted it to be, is simple - risk appetite is not just unique to individuals but also unique to areas of life the very same individuals choose to apply it to. You cannot, by any stretch of imagination, choose to be consistent in risk taking. Neither is anyone's appetite to risk taking consistent across all walks of life. I was curious, when I read this article, as to the link between one's risk appetite and their general personality. Interestingly enough, there is a whole scientific community that has delved into this aspect. I for one have been risk averse all the way to one end of the pendulum, and I believe part of it comes with the territory and the culture - the role one's upbringing plays in determining the intangible aspects of decision making in life couldn't be more apparent than risk appetite for example.
What's your risk appetite? Have you seen rewards commensurate with it?
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Election democracy: For the vote, By the poll, to the people
“Prediction, especially about the future, is quite hard” said the famous physicist Niels Bohr.
I am not sure if he referred to the kind of predictions the astrologers ilk make. Maybe he was referring to providing an insight into what tomorrow has in store for us in terms of advancements in science and technology, or just its general impact on day to day events. When people form opinions on events after they have taken place, there is always a tag attached – it is the oft used phrase in such circumstances: “in hindsight”. Opinions in hindsight have the benefit of repeatedly analyzing the event that just happened, from various angles, and then putting forth an opinion that is based on logic which therefore can be explained away. Future events or predictions are just that – mere hypotheses about what is likely; maybe the odds are improved depending on the probability of certain events happening more than the other, or some sequence of events from the past guiding the future event in a specific direction.
Putting all the jargon around probability and its basis on prediction aside, for a moment, I am wondering how much attention the exit polls (that various news love to put out around elections) are getting. Would these exit polls or predictions, as to the results of the elections, end up biasing the common man that is the voter? The media is looking for an avenue to analyze and even over-analyze at times, each and every aspect of a particular event. The polls and the drama surrounding the predictions provides more than enough fodder for the media to have a field day around all the data that is thrown up. Whether there is any worthwhile benefit to these polls is beyond my mere comprehension.
It is amazing to note that without any data or useful inputs, there is nothing to debate upon. Where there is a plethora of data, the analysis surrounding the combinations of the very same data isn’t too far behind. This is applicable to every single aspect of our lives – if we take a moment to look at our everyday life, every logical action of ours is based upon weighing pros and cons, or in other words a very analytical approach to analyzing data. So, in my opinion, the poll predictions are just that – a bunch of data that overzealous political analysts love to debate on live television in the fervor that everyday lives depend on it. It would be that much more beneficial to the common voter if these esteemed political analysts would instead pick up and analyze the past performance (yes, a performance review) of each and every meaningful politician that is worth his / her salt – this would at least help the voter make a judicious decision rather than be biased by the opinions of polls that already determine the winner or loser before the first vote is even cast.
I am not sure if he referred to the kind of predictions the astrologers ilk make. Maybe he was referring to providing an insight into what tomorrow has in store for us in terms of advancements in science and technology, or just its general impact on day to day events. When people form opinions on events after they have taken place, there is always a tag attached – it is the oft used phrase in such circumstances: “in hindsight”. Opinions in hindsight have the benefit of repeatedly analyzing the event that just happened, from various angles, and then putting forth an opinion that is based on logic which therefore can be explained away. Future events or predictions are just that – mere hypotheses about what is likely; maybe the odds are improved depending on the probability of certain events happening more than the other, or some sequence of events from the past guiding the future event in a specific direction.
Putting all the jargon around probability and its basis on prediction aside, for a moment, I am wondering how much attention the exit polls (that various news love to put out around elections) are getting. Would these exit polls or predictions, as to the results of the elections, end up biasing the common man that is the voter? The media is looking for an avenue to analyze and even over-analyze at times, each and every aspect of a particular event. The polls and the drama surrounding the predictions provides more than enough fodder for the media to have a field day around all the data that is thrown up. Whether there is any worthwhile benefit to these polls is beyond my mere comprehension.
It is amazing to note that without any data or useful inputs, there is nothing to debate upon. Where there is a plethora of data, the analysis surrounding the combinations of the very same data isn’t too far behind. This is applicable to every single aspect of our lives – if we take a moment to look at our everyday life, every logical action of ours is based upon weighing pros and cons, or in other words a very analytical approach to analyzing data. So, in my opinion, the poll predictions are just that – a bunch of data that overzealous political analysts love to debate on live television in the fervor that everyday lives depend on it. It would be that much more beneficial to the common voter if these esteemed political analysts would instead pick up and analyze the past performance (yes, a performance review) of each and every meaningful politician that is worth his / her salt – this would at least help the voter make a judicious decision rather than be biased by the opinions of polls that already determine the winner or loser before the first vote is even cast.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Ruling the rules
Aristotle had to say this about wisdom: “Wisdom is the right combination of will and skill”. I had a link in my inbox this week (one of those euphoric moments when an e-mail has something that takes you away from the daily rigor, even if for a brief while, only to bring you back that much more enriched) – this one that delved on our apparent loss of wisdom. Delving straight into the specific 'loss' that prominent psychology researcher Barry Schwartz refers to, he mentions how rules and incentives have forced, or rather clouded, our thinking to ignore practical wisdom in daily lives.
Barry brings up a job description of a typical janitor in a nursing home or hospital and speaks of how the particular job function is so different from ones we encounter in our daily lives – the difference between that of a janitor involves practically no human interaction for 99.99% of the associated tasks. The excellent underlying thought here being that any job description that involves human interactions has to have a scope that is not so rigidly defined so as to limit practical wisdom influencing the daily operations and allowing one to 'do the right thing'. The anecdote from the talk that had an impact on me was the specific one relating to how a father buys lemonade at a concession stand for his young son without realizing that it has a small alcohol content. The series of events that unfold separate the father and the son for nearly 3 weeks; more interestingly and rather curiously, the story notes how at every step of the way – the emergency worker, the judge, etc say that it seems awkward but that they are bound by the rules and regulations that govern their daily lives and determine every specific sequence of action they have to follow.
Coming to our daily lives, I am sure each one of us has at least one pet peeve that is a repetitive part of our job which we have very logical reasons for doing differently, but as the obedient soles that we are, don’t disturb the hornet’s nest. If in our daily roles, as empowering leaders, we can create the space for the teams to be that much more practical in following the rules, we would make our workplaces that much better than we found it in the first place. As Barry notes, rules and regulations are a must and even necessary evil of the society for it would be chaos without them. Where we have to make a distinction is to realize where human interactions are involved, and when dealing with these ‘moral’ roles, create the space for individuals to exhibit their practical wisdom. By creating more rules, and incentives for following the rules, we are creating a society that rewards what might actually be expected behavior in the first place. The anecdote about how having nuclear waste dumps in the local community evoked drastically different responses from Swiss citizen polls, when an incentive was added to the offer, shows how incentives become counterproductive sometimes as you start evaluating 'benefits' from following rules. Where people considered it as a responsibility and a duty in the first place became a calculation of whether it was'worth' the incentive. Considering Barry’s rare expertise in analyzing the economics side of human psychology, he couldn’t help bringing up the fact that the incentives (bonuses) augmenting the rules being part of the economic problems we are dealing with. His proposed solution to fixing the markets isn’t more rules and regulation, neither he is advocating more ethics courses. Rather, in a refreshing way, the onus is on individuals to be "moral exemplars” in every opportune moment, every day of life.
As a frequent listener to Barry Schwartz and other prominent speakers whose lectures revolve around human psychology, I can attest to time spent listening to TED lectures, as being well spent. Here is the complete 20-min talk.
Barry brings up a job description of a typical janitor in a nursing home or hospital and speaks of how the particular job function is so different from ones we encounter in our daily lives – the difference between that of a janitor involves practically no human interaction for 99.99% of the associated tasks. The excellent underlying thought here being that any job description that involves human interactions has to have a scope that is not so rigidly defined so as to limit practical wisdom influencing the daily operations and allowing one to 'do the right thing'. The anecdote from the talk that had an impact on me was the specific one relating to how a father buys lemonade at a concession stand for his young son without realizing that it has a small alcohol content. The series of events that unfold separate the father and the son for nearly 3 weeks; more interestingly and rather curiously, the story notes how at every step of the way – the emergency worker, the judge, etc say that it seems awkward but that they are bound by the rules and regulations that govern their daily lives and determine every specific sequence of action they have to follow.
Coming to our daily lives, I am sure each one of us has at least one pet peeve that is a repetitive part of our job which we have very logical reasons for doing differently, but as the obedient soles that we are, don’t disturb the hornet’s nest. If in our daily roles, as empowering leaders, we can create the space for the teams to be that much more practical in following the rules, we would make our workplaces that much better than we found it in the first place. As Barry notes, rules and regulations are a must and even necessary evil of the society for it would be chaos without them. Where we have to make a distinction is to realize where human interactions are involved, and when dealing with these ‘moral’ roles, create the space for individuals to exhibit their practical wisdom. By creating more rules, and incentives for following the rules, we are creating a society that rewards what might actually be expected behavior in the first place. The anecdote about how having nuclear waste dumps in the local community evoked drastically different responses from Swiss citizen polls, when an incentive was added to the offer, shows how incentives become counterproductive sometimes as you start evaluating 'benefits' from following rules. Where people considered it as a responsibility and a duty in the first place became a calculation of whether it was'worth' the incentive. Considering Barry’s rare expertise in analyzing the economics side of human psychology, he couldn’t help bringing up the fact that the incentives (bonuses) augmenting the rules being part of the economic problems we are dealing with. His proposed solution to fixing the markets isn’t more rules and regulation, neither he is advocating more ethics courses. Rather, in a refreshing way, the onus is on individuals to be "moral exemplars” in every opportune moment, every day of life.
As a frequent listener to Barry Schwartz and other prominent speakers whose lectures revolve around human psychology, I can attest to time spent listening to TED lectures, as being well spent. Here is the complete 20-min talk.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Proverbial Professions
An apple a day, says the doctor,
Obey or disobey, they have the final say;
You eat the fruit and you get the sugar,
They get you finally, one way or the other!
Where there is a will, there is a lawyer,
There is a way, they will always say;
You win or you lose, it doesn’t matter,
End of the day, they are the ones richer!
Make hay in sunshine, says the banker,
When in trouble, they point to the bubble;
Going up or going down, they always have an answer,
Come rain or come shine, only their bonus is fine!
Time and tide, wait for no engineer,
Every problem, they jump up to conquer;
By design or not, no invention is perfect,
What they make sure, is to have questions after!
Obey or disobey, they have the final say;
You eat the fruit and you get the sugar,
They get you finally, one way or the other!
Where there is a will, there is a lawyer,
There is a way, they will always say;
You win or you lose, it doesn’t matter,
End of the day, they are the ones richer!
Make hay in sunshine, says the banker,
When in trouble, they point to the bubble;
Going up or going down, they always have an answer,
Come rain or come shine, only their bonus is fine!
Time and tide, wait for no engineer,
Every problem, they jump up to conquer;
By design or not, no invention is perfect,
What they make sure, is to have questions after!
Lost and Found
Where are they hiding? I am referring to the current era’s equivalent of Newton, Edison or Einstein….have we truly seen the extinction of individual magnificence wherein the individual had the exemplary ability to positively impact the world single handed?
Ever since stumbling upon an article this week on “Group Coherence”, as part of my discovery of applying Agile principles to software development and management, I have been thinking if as a society we have started favoring group achievements over individual brilliance. For long, I have heard that teamwork is essential and the most key ingredient to success, which I do not disagree with even for a bit. Also, lest I am construed as favoring prima donnas, my position on this is far from it. Rather, I am left wondering how much of an impact the evolution of mankind has had in the past century in moving away from celebrating individual achievements to relishing team backed successes.
There are definitely individual beacons still around in every industry – the folks that have made a name for themselves through their own sheer hard work or by channelizing the genius in them towards making hallmark accomplishments. But they are also far and few between, and none that can walk or talk on the same plane as the fathers of every field of science or medicine, as we have come to call them. I am reminded of an anecdote where Einstein’s chauffeur apparently chided him once that questions posed to him after his lectures were so simple that even he could answer them. Einstein offered his chauffeur to take his place on the stage for the next lecture because people then didn’t know him by face all over. Apparently so intriguing was this experience for the chauffeur, upon being posed questions, that he told the audience “since these aren’t worth my while, I will ask my chauffeur who’s sitting in the audience (the real Einstein) to address these”!!! Looking beyond the presence of mind and the intellect that even Einstein’s chauffeur possessed, this brings up a very important aspect of the society then – individuals were celebrated but the real glory went to the work and the person doing it was more of a medium that they saw the work through. This explains the anonymity of the face, but not the name.
My reasoning for our current situation is as follows: since the era of the Newtons and the Edisons, over time, we have probably moved to a point where the individual got more prominence than the work itself. Now, the course correction in our evolution kicked in and we are balancing it by going to the other extreme of not looking upon individual brilliance on the same footing as much as we delve upon 'group coherence'. Every scientist that shares something valuable to the world now has a research team behind him or her; every innovation we see has a group associated against it, even a cursory glance at the recent history of patents I have been looking at from the US Patent and Trademark office has a whole list of names on each one, and the list goes on…
I am not immune to this transformation either: I have also been touting the team spirit horn on my teams at every available opportunity. For me the awakening has begun. For the benefit of getting others to jump on this bandwagon, let's look at it this way: there was never a better time to reevaluate our perspective on individual achievements and our broad reactions to it. Make no mistake – playing by the team and working as part of a larger ecosystem is more important today than ever before, but let us consciously make an attempt to encourage and reward individual brilliance as well.
Ever since stumbling upon an article this week on “Group Coherence”, as part of my discovery of applying Agile principles to software development and management, I have been thinking if as a society we have started favoring group achievements over individual brilliance. For long, I have heard that teamwork is essential and the most key ingredient to success, which I do not disagree with even for a bit. Also, lest I am construed as favoring prima donnas, my position on this is far from it. Rather, I am left wondering how much of an impact the evolution of mankind has had in the past century in moving away from celebrating individual achievements to relishing team backed successes.
There are definitely individual beacons still around in every industry – the folks that have made a name for themselves through their own sheer hard work or by channelizing the genius in them towards making hallmark accomplishments. But they are also far and few between, and none that can walk or talk on the same plane as the fathers of every field of science or medicine, as we have come to call them. I am reminded of an anecdote where Einstein’s chauffeur apparently chided him once that questions posed to him after his lectures were so simple that even he could answer them. Einstein offered his chauffeur to take his place on the stage for the next lecture because people then didn’t know him by face all over. Apparently so intriguing was this experience for the chauffeur, upon being posed questions, that he told the audience “since these aren’t worth my while, I will ask my chauffeur who’s sitting in the audience (the real Einstein) to address these”!!! Looking beyond the presence of mind and the intellect that even Einstein’s chauffeur possessed, this brings up a very important aspect of the society then – individuals were celebrated but the real glory went to the work and the person doing it was more of a medium that they saw the work through. This explains the anonymity of the face, but not the name.
My reasoning for our current situation is as follows: since the era of the Newtons and the Edisons, over time, we have probably moved to a point where the individual got more prominence than the work itself. Now, the course correction in our evolution kicked in and we are balancing it by going to the other extreme of not looking upon individual brilliance on the same footing as much as we delve upon 'group coherence'. Every scientist that shares something valuable to the world now has a research team behind him or her; every innovation we see has a group associated against it, even a cursory glance at the recent history of patents I have been looking at from the US Patent and Trademark office has a whole list of names on each one, and the list goes on…
I am not immune to this transformation either: I have also been touting the team spirit horn on my teams at every available opportunity. For me the awakening has begun. For the benefit of getting others to jump on this bandwagon, let's look at it this way: there was never a better time to reevaluate our perspective on individual achievements and our broad reactions to it. Make no mistake – playing by the team and working as part of a larger ecosystem is more important today than ever before, but let us consciously make an attempt to encourage and reward individual brilliance as well.
human life <> technology generation
I recently experienced the technology of receiving the "bar coded boarding pass" on my cell phone, via e-mail, which I could just swipe prior to boarding the aircraft (no paper whatsoever!). This led me to think about the advancements in technology during my lifetime and how we see multiple generations of it in one lifetime of ours - the quartet below is a tribute to that!
When the telegram gave way to the letter,
Communications surely changed for ever;
Just when you thought it couldn't get any better,
Began the era of e-mail on the computer!
Televisions evolved from Black and White to color,
Transformation in displays was much sooner;
Looking beyond the question of projection or plasma,
Began the era of the LCD charisma!
Reading used to be on the old styled book,
Carried it around every corner and nook;
To prevent a pile up that needed a ladder,
Began the era of the e-book reader!
Calls over the wired phone began with the trunk kind,
Slowly and surely happened the liberation of the bind;
Trying to come up with an all-in-one solution,
Began the era of the mobile revolution!
When the telegram gave way to the letter,
Communications surely changed for ever;
Just when you thought it couldn't get any better,
Began the era of e-mail on the computer!
Televisions evolved from Black and White to color,
Transformation in displays was much sooner;
Looking beyond the question of projection or plasma,
Began the era of the LCD charisma!
Reading used to be on the old styled book,
Carried it around every corner and nook;
To prevent a pile up that needed a ladder,
Began the era of the e-book reader!
Calls over the wired phone began with the trunk kind,
Slowly and surely happened the liberation of the bind;
Trying to come up with an all-in-one solution,
Began the era of the mobile revolution!
The moment is NOW!
These are the times when I see every medium, be it the TV, the Internet, even the fifth estate speaking of the stress in the lives of everyone; most of it is being attributed to the contraction we are facing in the economy. I happened to listen to an audio book on my business trip last week, one part of which had a very interesting anecdote from the speaker on how to deal with stress and it delved into the psychological aspects (the not so apparent sources of stress).
Apparently, a very well educated and highly literate but arrogant scholar was crossing a river in a boat, and he had this ensuing conversation with the boatman:
Scholar: Are you familiar with Sahitya (literature)?
Boatman: No, Sir, rowing the boat is my sole means of livelihood and I have had no opportunity to become familiar with it.
S: A quarter of your life is wasted then; have you at least encountered Alankaara Shastra, which is a very deeply regarded aspect of human lives?
B: No Swamiji, I am not familiar with it...
S: Then another quarter of your life is wasted because it is a beautiful thing you have missed in life. Are you at least familiar with the language - Sanskrit - which is the language of understanding and describing intelligent aspects of the world?
B: No Sir, I am not familiar with it...
S: Then another quarter of your life is wasted for you haven't had a chance to touch upon any of these divine literary pieces.
The boatman continued to row, understanding the scholar doesn't understand his position in life....a little while later, the boatman sees a hole in their boat
B: Sir, are you familiar with "tharana vidhya" (for those who aren't aware, this is the art of swimming!)
S: No, I am not...
B: Then, Sir, your full life is wasted for we have a hole which is allowing water to seep in....
And then the boatman jumps overboard onto the river and swims his way to safety while apparently the scholar drowns. The speaker in the audio book used this as an example to say that one might be an expert in physics, botany, whatever. But, if one does not have the knowledge to cross over the sorrow and the stress and have what it takes to tide over it, then all of the other acquired knowledge is useless. What is this stress? I do not wish to go into the specifics of the entire discourse for this would become a book instead of an article! Essentially, the speaker categorizes the answer to this question into 3 areas - (1) understanding oneself and realizing what materialism (distinguishing between wants and needs) is for there is richness in poverty and poverty in richness; (2) the aspect of living in a state of joy by staying in the present at all times; (3) operating from a sense of emptiness and fullness according to the situation on hand.
If I were to summarize it all in one simple sentence - we should begin to think of every thought we have as not affecting us but rather looking at ourselves as an empty space where thoughts come and go, it leads to a sense of not being attached to emotions. He uses another aspect of daily life to explain this -
"When you are at home, you think of work; when at work, you think of elsewhere and so on......". By this, one is not able to be in the moment and experience the moment.
Apparently, the story behind "Chidambara rahasya" ("rahasya" means secret; for those who aren't aware, it refers to the empty spot behind the Nataraja statue within the Chidambaram temple in South India) is that it is the symbolic reference to the operating with emptiness. When you have a thought that is negative, it symbolizes a need to have an emptiness, which is a state that you need to take on so that it is the thought that visits you and leaves you, and the thought itself does not become you. This, according to this expert on people behavior, is the best approach to tackling stress. The beauty of this approach is that it automatically addresses a number of things: - looking at other people and actions as just that and not making inferences, objective approach to every situation, not carrying baggage from the past, isolating negative thoughts from influencing actions, and most importantly helping deal with daily obstacles in life.
I don't mean to say that it's a simple open and close book case or a simple matter of solving a logical puzzle. I personally tried practicing this "staying in the moment" in the past week or so (part of the reason behind my abstinence from posting any article in this period as I wanted to try this before preaching it) and tried to really consciously stay in the moment every single second that I was awake. It was really hard at the beginning as I found my thoughts wandering all the time but I found that once I was able to exert control onto myself consciously in the form of being in the moment, I started looking at possible approaches to daily situations that I am not sure I would have thought of, earlier. Those who know me would say I am not of the kind that gets stressed very easily, but I can honestly see the positive impact this simple approach has had in my life already. I have by no means perfected it yet. I am sharing this in the hope that it really makes someone's day, or goes at least some level towards alleviating the stress of someone reading this article - that, my friends, would make my day!!!
Apparently, a very well educated and highly literate but arrogant scholar was crossing a river in a boat, and he had this ensuing conversation with the boatman:
Scholar: Are you familiar with Sahitya (literature)?
Boatman: No, Sir, rowing the boat is my sole means of livelihood and I have had no opportunity to become familiar with it.
S: A quarter of your life is wasted then; have you at least encountered Alankaara Shastra, which is a very deeply regarded aspect of human lives?
B: No Swamiji, I am not familiar with it...
S: Then another quarter of your life is wasted because it is a beautiful thing you have missed in life. Are you at least familiar with the language - Sanskrit - which is the language of understanding and describing intelligent aspects of the world?
B: No Sir, I am not familiar with it...
S: Then another quarter of your life is wasted for you haven't had a chance to touch upon any of these divine literary pieces.
The boatman continued to row, understanding the scholar doesn't understand his position in life....a little while later, the boatman sees a hole in their boat
B: Sir, are you familiar with "tharana vidhya" (for those who aren't aware, this is the art of swimming!)
S: No, I am not...
B: Then, Sir, your full life is wasted for we have a hole which is allowing water to seep in....
And then the boatman jumps overboard onto the river and swims his way to safety while apparently the scholar drowns. The speaker in the audio book used this as an example to say that one might be an expert in physics, botany, whatever. But, if one does not have the knowledge to cross over the sorrow and the stress and have what it takes to tide over it, then all of the other acquired knowledge is useless. What is this stress? I do not wish to go into the specifics of the entire discourse for this would become a book instead of an article! Essentially, the speaker categorizes the answer to this question into 3 areas - (1) understanding oneself and realizing what materialism (distinguishing between wants and needs) is for there is richness in poverty and poverty in richness; (2) the aspect of living in a state of joy by staying in the present at all times; (3) operating from a sense of emptiness and fullness according to the situation on hand.
If I were to summarize it all in one simple sentence - we should begin to think of every thought we have as not affecting us but rather looking at ourselves as an empty space where thoughts come and go, it leads to a sense of not being attached to emotions. He uses another aspect of daily life to explain this -
"When you are at home, you think of work; when at work, you think of elsewhere and so on......". By this, one is not able to be in the moment and experience the moment.
Apparently, the story behind "Chidambara rahasya" ("rahasya" means secret; for those who aren't aware, it refers to the empty spot behind the Nataraja statue within the Chidambaram temple in South India) is that it is the symbolic reference to the operating with emptiness. When you have a thought that is negative, it symbolizes a need to have an emptiness, which is a state that you need to take on so that it is the thought that visits you and leaves you, and the thought itself does not become you. This, according to this expert on people behavior, is the best approach to tackling stress. The beauty of this approach is that it automatically addresses a number of things: - looking at other people and actions as just that and not making inferences, objective approach to every situation, not carrying baggage from the past, isolating negative thoughts from influencing actions, and most importantly helping deal with daily obstacles in life.
I don't mean to say that it's a simple open and close book case or a simple matter of solving a logical puzzle. I personally tried practicing this "staying in the moment" in the past week or so (part of the reason behind my abstinence from posting any article in this period as I wanted to try this before preaching it) and tried to really consciously stay in the moment every single second that I was awake. It was really hard at the beginning as I found my thoughts wandering all the time but I found that once I was able to exert control onto myself consciously in the form of being in the moment, I started looking at possible approaches to daily situations that I am not sure I would have thought of, earlier. Those who know me would say I am not of the kind that gets stressed very easily, but I can honestly see the positive impact this simple approach has had in my life already. I have by no means perfected it yet. I am sharing this in the hope that it really makes someone's day, or goes at least some level towards alleviating the stress of someone reading this article - that, my friends, would make my day!!!
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