Tag: human greed

Why perceptions win over truth.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

The human mind is only as potent as you want it to be, decide to turn it off and like a obedient appliance, it will shut down! Join me here for this weekend article on deciphering why perceptions almost always have a strangle hold over reality- read truth- truths about us, about the people, the society, the universe around us! So here we go!

To begin with, one must understand the challenges of dealing with truth, one part of that is, truth is always contextual and the second part is that truth is always difficult. I am not going to write in further depth and give a class on the “philosophy of truth” but in simple layman’s terms, as I have always been saying, “Each person’s truth is true”. Chaos and ambiguity commences when the others around either refuse to see the truth alongside of the context of the person who owns it or they observe the part which suits them and race ahead to draw inferences around that small limited understand- mis-understanding! Perceptions on the other hand are fun to engage with, like some stimulating, hallucinatory medicine, they engage and play with the human mind to create imagery, narratives and motives (for subsequent disastrous actions). If you are wondering why it is easy to shake hands with perceptions- well it taxes the brain much much less and as I have been saying- the human brain only cares if you are going to be dead- all that does not kill you is fine for your brain and that is the truth about the human mind!

The fact remains though that truth is easy to engage with and deal with only and only if people are able to do so holistically while connecting with the beholder of the truth and the contexts around it in the same moment of time! This is what judiciary is all about! Analyzing and observing comprehensive contexts of facts and data that arrive in front of them- read -evidence. This is what takes time and even at a people to people level engagement- whether they are members of your family, friends, co-workers, the feared politicians, bureaucrats,who ever you can think about- each one of them can be engaged with and dealt with only when you begin to invest enough time and mind to understand the origins of the truth that they hold on to- and as you begin to do that- you will be surprised to know that many of the truth’s that people hang on dearly to are more often than not – reinforced powerful narratives based on perceptions constructed over time- days, weeks, months, years and in case of political arenas and running or ruining of nations and societies- these are developed and curated over generations and through decades!

The eternal battle between “truth” and “perceptions” (often held on to as the truth) has been another hallmark of human societies- only societies and nations that have been able to successfully and selectively engage with few truths and many perceptions have made progress! Societies which have over-indulged into wanting to decipher the “absolute truth” have always suffered on an ongoing basis, simply because the only real absolute truth in the world is “death”! Everything else around is contextual and set to a specific audience and social scenario! But why this whole obsession around with “truth” and what allows perception to emerge and race ahead!

Well, what I think would have been the case is that as human societies began to evolve, there would have been a need to share innovation and knowledge and hence the compelling need to be “truthful” because anything short would almost always mean someone not making it back from the wild! You see back then if you were a soldier on guard or a hunter in the woods or a farmer in the fields, the only way to improve your skills and competence would be “wise words” from the “masters” who are the modern day equivalent of quality research journals- albeit which stand the scrutiny of being peer reviewed. Hence this is one of the many other genesis of applying the “Gold standard” to the virtue of beholding “truth” – to share it for the greater good! But as times and centuries changed, over simplification of truth started to back fire- and societies soon began to have a cohort of people who were second to none and from there emerges the birth of the war of narratives and development of perception- to tell the world why “A’s truth (which may again be a perception) is better than B’s). To this day, if you carefully observe the world is stuck with this same crap! Whether it’s your relatives, friends, offices, societies, governments, groups, whatever you choose to observe- you will find that people are more often than not dealing with the long overgrown shadows of perception rather than dealing with what the truth really is and this mindless, endless loop goes on to consume the human mind which after a point simple maxes out and basically is telling you, “whatever, you deal with this shit, I am fine as long as you don’t get killed”! Importantly our modern societies have ended up incentivising the pursuit of perceptions over truths and that has further helped perceptions race ahead of the truth!

You see, truth is plain vanilla- it is almost always a binary- either something is or isn’t , there is nothing more to add to create drama and intensity- you see like you believe in God or you don’t, you don’t sometimes believe in God based on your convenience! So your truth is that you are either a believer or an atheist and that’s about it- but this becomes boring- so how do I make this exciting and more entertaining- well I say you are too simple to be true, your are too uncomplicated to be real, I say, your approach to your faith is cause driven and with these small sparks of ignition, when I begin to create and weave stories the real essence of who you are gets left far behind and what the building narrative begins to do is, it very much starts to portray your perception from the eyes of the people who essentially want you to be known “as what and how they perceive or rather want you to be perceived as” What makes this so potent- well, it is effortless as easy as that meaningless gossip and as easy as intentionally throwing a few odd pebbles to create the ripples and let the “perception aggregators” do the rest! If you wondered why politicians give a damn to the media, well this is the reason- for they know a tad too well how to deal with perceptions and under the belt blows when their contextual truths (if they have any) are served on a platter as perceptions for the masses ort lap it up! So what’s the way ahead? Can and do societies win the war of perceptions and allow truth to have it’s place?

The answer is YES and a NO; Yes societies can change the narrative but for that it calls for a much orchestrated effort which is directly in proportion to the ability of the collective minds to be able to discern and see “what is” and “what is being told it is”! For this to happen you need social frame work which incentives people who are able to present the “what is” narratives and allow people to make up their own views and inferences- simply because each one sees “what is” from the context of “who they are and where they stand ” in the social scheme of things, needless to say also what we need to factor in the ability of their minds to deal with the whole space of the taxing discerning exercise which is o vital to sieve away “the what is” from “what it is said to be”.

The NO emerges from the very YES of this space! Simply because bulk of human kind is so caught up with the effort to simply survive is that, they hardly ever are in the time and space which allows them to be so methodical and clinical to understand and decipher between the real and the apparent and for the few from the society who have that option more often than not it is the case of “who will throw stones at other glass castles, when have their own”! This is why functional societies tend to lap up perceptions more readily than realities as they serve as a pivot to get even. This is the reason why societies stay replete with struggle and strife for one or the other reason around the world, all the time, because that’s what keeps the perceptions ticking and as long as they keep floating, the truth is boxed-in, in a tight corner unable to come ahead, unless and until there is some large scale systemic dysfunction which collapses the society and a new order begins to emerge. If the new order banks on the selective elements of truth, there is much respite, change and stability, however if the new order too begins to go the old ways, it’s just a matter of time before societies end into the dysfunctional stage one more time and this cycle goes one with truth remaining pushed in a corner with no one wanting to care about it! So what’s the meaningful way ahead?

Functional and operational societies tread a balanced path between truth and perceptions and you can apply this thought to individuals as well! As long as there is a fine balance between devoting the just time and space to appreciate the contextual truths on things that matter and soaking in perceptions (to know the truth- not the served perception), things will be just fine and you can very well mark yourself and your society as “safe”. The moment this changes, for whatever reason it may be- things will begin to change (good or bad) depends on who you get caught up as in that space! Depending on which side the leaning is more- either you will end up with people and societies which are vanilla, plain, with “people for rules” kind of environment (when you choose more of truth) or you end up in a fast paced, narrative driven and loud society (when you give in to perceptions far more than the reality) and you often find that here you have “rules for people”. There is nothing right and wrong between what societies or individuals choose to be- whatever the choice may be- the movement of the society or the individual will always be striving for hat lost balance and as the effort inches towards that balance progress is achieved and as it moves away you witness regression- societal and individual!

I leave you with these thoughts for now, allowing you to pursue your sense of balance, because what your contextual truth is, is yours’ and there is noting that changes that- not even powerful narratives emerging from driven perceptions! Be comfortable in your truth, for that alone will allow you to counter the narratives of perceptions that come at you!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another piece, until than stay safe, stay wise and observe “what is” not “what seems to be”!

Rationalize your desires.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

One key learning that 2020 has offered humanity with is the urgent need to rationalize every bit of time that we have with us and very importantly about rationalizing our desires! Sure enough, not that these aspects were not known to humanity earlier, neither it is that people have been reckless or careless about this, but 2020 has shown with absolute certainty that things will go wrong and when they do go wrong- even the basic freedoms will begin to seem like great privileges of your life! Join me here as nudge the space around why it is so imperative and critical that humanity begins to rationalize its desires and how that alone can help us collectively focus on our today to create a meaningful tomorrow! So here we go!

Sure enough, this is not going to be a write up on evaluating whether it is right to have desires or not, neither is it going to be about suggesting how much of desire is enough or anything around this things! What I want you to start to explore here with me is to decipher how desires have gone to shape our lives- individually and collectively and how people who make progress do differently from those who seem stagnated- remember the word is “seem stagnated” and irrespective of who says what, even the person embracing inaction is in a state of muted action! To explore this space of how to rationalize our desires, we need to perhaps first know what desires are and what is so meaningful and stupid about them!

Desires are what they are- I mean you will always get a more technically correct reply perhaps from a certified clinical psychologist on what they are, but from a layman perspective- desires are what makes us humans “tick” and when I use the word “tick” it implies for the better and for the worse! Humanity has evolved through the ages soaking in different experiences at different times wither within the same geographical space or by travelling and engaging with other regions. Those experiences and learnings go on to shape our thoughts in two specific areas among other things, the area of abundance and the area of deficiency! This is the essence of human desires- they almost always emerge from what is available aplenty or what is absolutely lacking and this from where the whole effort to pursue and realize them begins!

As I said in the beginning, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the space around desire, so say, you have one apple and you want one more that’s fine, you have no apples and you want one, that’s fine too, things begin to go wrong when you start to believe that either you alone should have an apple or there should be no apple in the world! This is why and how we arrive at the next step of rationalizing human desires! Unless human desires aren’t rationalized in the context of the potency of the desires, we will always continue to be in a path of conflict and uncertainty no matter how affluent or access to opulence our world and lives seem to have! So how do we about rationalizing something that’s so fragile, unpredictable and has the potential to be both rewarding and punishing!

Well, to begin with, it’s easier said than done, like a lot of things that hinge on human greed! Having said that, giving sanity a chance, the real and perhaps the only way to rationalize desires is either by virtue of self-realization or the more brutal and unrelenting way deployed by social compulsions and societal framework- more often than not it is the combination of both these factors that compel humans to calibrate – rationalize their desires- but as amore and more ways to cheat the real unbiased calibration or rationalization become available- people end up getting trapped by trying to pursue what is really not meant for them and believe me this has nothing to do with their abilities or inabilities!

It’s easier to understand why individuals would want to disregard their intelligence and keep pushing for some utopian desires endlessly, but how and why do societies end up pursuing the rabbit on the moon? Well, that is a factor of the diminishing individual and collective intelligence in a society and more often than not leadership with misplaced priorities! So you, see this becomes a great ecosystem to reward dumbness and continue pursuing it, as there is no one really checking anything meaningful and all the checks and balances are again looped in to the level of acquired collective dumbness! This is the space where humanity conforms and binds to an agreed and allowed level of dumbness and incompetence. Hence even desires often get mis-construed riding on this overwhelming backdrop of societal chaos or at times, just left to linger on with no real potency and purpose. But then how do few desires manifest and what makes them come alive?

The truth around the desires that come alive- whether they be individual led or collective manifestations of a society or nation resides in one fundamental truth and this is that those desires are more often than not compelling and fundamental to the existence of the individual or the collective and if not realized can directly drive them to a point of crisis which threatens their very existence! When an individual desires for that house, there is a compelling and urgency led purpose, when an individual needs that certification that signifies the urgency of purpose again and likewise when societies or nations pursue projects/ desires/aspirations and are able to manifest them- more often than not they are the very essence of what that society stands for! The leaders know it very well , what to manifest and what to hold back and to time the collective manifestation for a nation’s desire- simply because there is an added layer of credit taking which plays a pivotal role even when the desires that are being realized offer a promise of hope and future!

Unless a directed effort is made to rationalize desires, manifestation of what is being desired will almost always falter, not because there is perhaps a flaw in the desire, but largely because there will be ambiguity among the beholder of the manifestation with regards to what is to be done with what has manifested! This is that space of winning a million dollars in a lottery and not knowing what it means! So how does one rationalize?

Well, rationalizing desires begins by knowing and building a relevant foundation congruent to what is that is being desired, higher and further that your desires are, the deeper and wide is what the foundation needs to be! This foundation can be different things for different desires, it could be that certification, it could be that access to resources, it could be that potent network, it could be that powerful network around you, whatever that is, it has to be aligned to what you want to manifest through your desires. If you observe around your or perhaps even look for examples in your life, the chances are that the story of many of those unrealized desires resides in the misaligned foundations that were built, resulting in a life that is neither aligned to foundation nor the desire!

Once you are able to have a formidable foundation aligned to your desires then magic seems to happen and you will witness that you will gravitate towards circumstances and people who share the same thought for the desire that is being projected and the journey of manifestation begins to take shape! Once you are aligned through the process and you have calibrated the journey with definite mile stones and a final stop, rest assured even as you the rigour of the journey and the test of time- like every great idea and desire does- you will arrive safe and secure- simply because you would have amplified well that desire in people around you and in the processes around you to ensure that you will prevail sooner or later, irrespective of how steep the challenge is! This is the real essence of rationalizing your desires, it is never about desiring less or lowering your desires, on the contrary it is about, diving deep within and creating a strong bedrock for your foundation so that your desires can be pursued and realized in accordance with the laid foundations!

I leave you here with these thoughts, urging you to connect with your foundation and see how it serves your desires and tweak it in congruence to create enough amplification to propel you ahead to manifest the desires that you hold within!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then stay wise and stay connected!

Marketing through fear.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Through evolution, if there has been a singular thread that the human mind has been able to hold on to apart from being creative it has been the thread of respecting and taming fear! Join me here as we take a quick look on how this space of fear- has gone to shape us, what we do as individuals and societies and why the marketing of fear is not limited only to companies that sell products and services, but runs beyond that and is much deeper than you can think! So here we go!

Fear- the most basic of human emotions and something that has gone a long way to make who we are today. Fear certainly played it’s part to ensure that as a species we survived and thrived. Experts have written books upon books on how fear helps and how it harms, so I am not going to go ahead and more to that bit, but this is the base point that we will have our piece anchored upon- the singular fact that fear works and perhaps works too well to ensure that we survive and we thrive.This is why people who do market through the angle of fear- almost always get what they set out to achieve! Let me explain!

The pandemic sure enough has brought the entire humanity face to face with a situation that even by standards of pure science and scientific research is mind boggling and giving a tough time even to the renowned experts in the respective fields of study- but what do we observe as we look around? You have anti-viral clothing- formal wear, you suddenly have anti-viral “x”,”y”, “z” and almost everything from the ball pen that you hold in your hand to the mobile cover that you may have or the humble body wash/ hand soaps all of them have been suddenly transformed into oversight anti-viral heroes sure enough with that golden sly condition of 99.99%*** written and said all over as the choreographed visual sleight is played out! Not to forget the sudden wonder foods that have cropped up which are supposed to keep you safe by boosting your immunity even as you smoke and drink and load cholesterol in your system! I mean really? The marketing through fear angle when it comes to what we consume as humans is not limited to this pandemic alone! Let us jog down the memory lane!

If you have been observant, try and recollect how food was marketed to you- whether it was that milk- for protein and health or those humble oats, that white meat, that steak, that vegan movement, that fish with supposedly the most potent pack of Omega 3 fatty acids or those canned shrimps, to the whole narrative of micro plastics in sea food, antibiotics in meat, pesticides in plants and fruits , to chemicals in formulation…so if you actually walked through this who;e circle- by now- you would have checked out almost everything that you can think of eating or drinking simply because for every one narrative that says you should have it else you will get “abc” problems, there are competing narratives which suggest exactly the opposite which say, if you have this, you will certainly get “pqr”. So finally people do what they can, ignore as much as they can, apply science if they have the time and energy and if it is available with them try to apply age old granny’s wisdom and common sense and get moving ahead in life! The people who get sold into these narratives are the ones’ who are entrapped for ever and it is these masses that are than played over by people who want to sell to them whatever they please to, whenever they choose to and at a price that they command! If you thought this fear led communication is only limited to marketing of products and services or the world of communication, think about it- there is virtually not one sector which is untouched by this malaise! Even Governments play out the same strategy, the only difference being that their playbook gets camouflaged into visual-less,boring and printed pointers (change of rules you see) which are often ignored and missed until the IRS or the tax man in your nation comes home paying a visit to you! Let me explain this space too quickly!

Governments the world over have the big task of managing societies- societies which are at times diverse, cohesive, divisive, polarized, idealistic, plural, liberal, accommodating, welcoming, closed..so on and so forth. The matter here is not about what is right or what is not so right, you need to see in this space, how is your government (if you have one!) working on the entire social fabric that you exist in- what is the story that is has been selling to you- do you or rather did you ever or maybe – do you always get a sense that the government is always trying to reach out to you and tell you something that is not right! Think about it, when was the last time that a leader of a society/ nation took to the stage and said, you had given me “x” time and I had 10 things to provide and this is what I have accomplished! Well, hardly any right? So humans, being humans- it doesn’t matter whether you are just who you are or you lead a nation- when you have nothing to say, they spin a story and since being in politics, crime won’t help, neither will any of the other vices, fear is the only instrument of choice to distract, divert and draw people to a non-issue that either doesn’t exist and if it does, blow it so much out of proportion that, by the time everyone is consumed by it- people are left wondering and saying to themselves, ” What was all that about, anyway”!

Whether they tell you stories of the enemy within or around, whether they paint the picture of climate change (even as they themselves clear forests- unknown to you!) or whether they talk about eradicating poverty- while they sustain and increase their personal wealth- all that approach is to instill fear and sell fear- aggressively or subtly to ensure they are able to manipulate and control and get what they want the society to do and allowing only permissible flexibility to resist/divert or stay non-committal- anytime that percentage threatens to wreck the balance of the social balance- an incident will come to the limelight and very often that just goes on to reinforce the stories earlier sold by marketing fear!

Final words, well, whether it is the promise of that tooth paste in your hands about being anti- whatever or that apparel which assures you 99.99%** of whatever that makes sense or it;s that news about that bad country, or bad people or those Vs Us kind of a narrative- all and each of these nudges are to make you feel vulnerable, unsafe and anxious- because it is only when you are vulnerable, opened up and exposed with a mind filled with self-doubt and confusion- that a marketeer or a government will be able to plant the seed of fear and if you make the mistake of allowing that to happen and you go on to nourish it- well you just end up writing a blank cheque to your life- some call it loyalty, I call that ignorant slavery! So what’s the way around, is there any? If everyone seems to be hell bent on manipulating and conspiring all the time! Read on!

Individual awareness, access to multiple verified sources of information and education are the essential ingredients for empowering people to compare, contrast and discern of what is actually unfolding! Debate, discussion in a directed manner to address an issue or a challenge or a developing problem are all but the next steps followed by proactive implementation of legislative steps to safeguard and govern the society with transparency and clarity! Sure enough seems to be a fairy tale, because the moment this happens, what we have is distributed ownership of society where no one member of the society is more important than the other and everyone is as equal and as important as the other person and this is what a few will never want the many to have access to and hence the story of marketing and selling through fear will go on and on unless you are able to discern at your own level and share that insight around your sphere of influence so that at least a section of the society is able to see clearly what lies ahead and is able to save the day for the many- should the time ever arise! This is the space where new leaders are born and new orders are created!

Remember, fear must be respected to be overcome, but not surrendered to! No one overcame fear by surrendering, people have always conquered fear by embracing it!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article, until then stay safe and stay wise!

NEWS and social alignment.

~ PA ~ 1 Comment

I am pretty sure, with the seemingly unending work from home crisis, the entertainment played through the news channel is the last thing that anyone of us would have ever wished for and neither it is something that our rational mind is ever comfortable with- It doesn’t want to know- you know! Join me here, we we try to make sense around the nonsense played out in the garb of journalism and news broadcasting the world over; depending on where you are the chances are you are been treated to either a binary or a multicolored spectacle of narratives and ideologies, each trying to win your mind and heart so that it serves the purpose and even if it doesn’t the channels end up being the ultimate winners in this game of mind control. Nor am I complaining, neither am I suggesting to hold a moral high ground- because each one of us is equipped with a base level intelligence to know that magic tricks no matter how creative, scintillating they seem to be, never have found the solutions to the real world problems! So let’s move ahead and make some sense of the noise that has entered our lives!

Sure enough, I don’t own a media house (and I am so thankful I don’t , in these times!), but let’s try to understand as layman and observers how the whole aspect of NEWS has ended up being where it it today- cluttered, noisy and divergent! Before you jump the gun, like with every vocation, we have had pioneers, innovators and those rare breed of selfless geniuses even in this space. But as they were very few of them in the long period of evolution of the NEWS space, the risk it got to the business was unlike for any other business! Hence unlike the earlier formative days of coming to life, the business of NEWS today, is the business of building and crafting narratives played out to a certain audience for a specific agenda– helps a few times, possibly harms a lot!

With the advent of science the earlier phase of industrialization, as printing technology and inks became a reality the possibility of recording developments, documenting what was unfolding around saw an explosion of sorts as far as growth was concerned, add to that the access to education and being literate (we will come back to this towards the end), it changed the dynamics of societies the world over and with every passing year form then on we have add more and more literate people- resulting in more access to documents- documents which were not merely books of fiction but records of governance which now became records of accountability that could be held up to challenge when governance failed and appreciate as it flourished. To this evolving scenario, we had multiple pathways of the human mind coming up- philosophers, sociologists, psychologist, politicians, innovators, business tycoons- every segment of the society through this access of the printed world- wanted to create a mark of their own and gain what is important- control and as the communication media changed from print to radio to TV and to the menace of the online in the last 30 odd years- the mad craze for Control- Control of narratives has never been as fierce as we see it today- to the extent that groups and individuals are happy to sabotage companies, governments just to have their narrative win over the others! With so much happening around- you thought that the print world was always and only limited to the great works of art and literary classics that propagated the value of the essence of being human and need for collaboration and sharing! Well, as they say, as the coin is flipped, one side retains its polish and the other hits the dirt, the one that shines is what holds the power, control to drive the narrative and with that the hearts and minds of the people!

Through the last 100 odd years, the concept of NEWS- that is sharing information about latest development within the societies across regions, continents and the world in general evolved and through its evolution the wise people who owned this machinery of news curation and dissemination realized the enormity of the power that this had to influence, direct and control social behaviour, opinions and attitudes. This perhaps, if you ask me was the turning point in or recent history as humanity learnt to leverage on the power of this medium to further pursuits of greed- either political, capitalistic or both to serve a few masters while doing dis-service to the others!

From being a mirror that reflects and shares the happening as they really do, the world of NEWS suddenly has become on “Mirror Mirror on the Wall” kind of magic- wherein every person that seeks is, is served as per who that person is! This is where our modern day societies have ended up being- a society where every individuals truth is a different reality, hence we have created societies which are intrinsically more divergent rather being cohesive and the apparent cohesion gets ripped away in no time as some uneven pressure is applied to the social fabric either through policy change or some mis-communication! Guess what holds the key to correct all these imbalances that are created by this new magic mirror- yes- NEWS again! So what is really happening here? Is there anything that can be done to regain some level of rationality and sanity?

As I said earlier, power and ability to move masses in a direction of ones’ choice is perhaps the greatest high that rulers ever get! Whether its a kingdom that you are a part of or a nation that has elected representatives ( whatever form they come in), the fact remains that people at the helm of providing service unto others, are driven by motives- when that individual motives of the people in power is not aligned to the larger motives that the society aspires for, is where the problem begins and and then narratives are created and crafted in quick succession to ensure that the narratives of the leaders override and prevail over all other narratives and thereby as the divergent voices get drowned in the noise of the people who drive the mainstay narrative. Things rapidly alter and how that manifests largely depends on whether that overriding narrative has been used for the larger good even while serving self-interest or whether only the self-interests of the people who drive the narratives are being served!

So how do we survive this? Well it’s deceptively simple, depending on where you are, chances are there could be anywhere from perhaps 20 odd to over 800 channels broadcasting NEWS by the minute and to that, not to forget the online players, news syndicates, news aggregators, its a big party in a sense! Now that you have only 24 hours in a day, and have that need to win your daily small battles ranging from getting the grocery to paying your bills to safeguarding your income to taking care of those weird mood swings of all the members that you deal with- pets included! Sure enough, the last thing that you want to do and should ever do is flip the switch of that idiot box or your latest smart TV and get stuck on some ranting, screaming and yelling for some cause by a few people who have been agitated by all that- the first thing that you need to do is evaluate- How much of what is been ranted off, actually impacts you now or forever- and if that’s not worth your time, just flip the channel and if it does, listen, get a complete picture, research on other conflicting narratives and then take a scientific rational and informed decision in the way you can- bitching, frowning and sulking doesn’t help anyone especially if the context is something that will impact you! Needless to say if you have ever noticed that these sold narratives are often loud, nosier and are almost always accompanied by a dash of fear mongering or an undercurrent of hate which basically strives to create a division within the social strata (because that serves the political maneuvering).

Well, given the limitations of a blog, I really don’t have the space to get into intricate details about how and why you should try to retain your sanity and control over the narratives been served to your every evening prime time! But what all of us can surely do is (depending on what role and impact we can create in the society that we live) we can choose the amount of time that we can spend to understand and decode the narratives and then applying our own rationality and wisdom see if that narrative fits what we observe and even the slightest deviation is an indication of something not being right and that almost always is perhaps the first sign of curated narratives been driven down the society. Not all of us will have the power to change or stop that, but each of us, as individuals have a formidable power to change the outcome by doing what is right rather then getting sold into the narrative! In case you happen to be one for them, who are empowered by sections of the society to voice your views and narratives than, the more you do it with logic and facts, higher are the chances that a powerful counter-narrative will be created and that gives society a decent choices to evaluate and make a informed decisions as it deems fit in the contextual settings that may be prevailing!

The whole aspect of NEWS creating narratives, draws power from the inertia of those who can create equally powerful counter-narratives! It seems strange, but well at times fact is stranger than fiction! It never really matters what is been said, who is saying what they are saying or what is the method of communication adopted- whether we have anchors yelling, howling, screaming on the channels or we have fist fights breaking out in the studios as part of a planned script- the most important part here is- what is that you and I choose to do as we witness this, when do we say enough is enough and when do we begin to apply our rational, scientific and logical mind to what is been told to us to be a problem and we actually are able to see what the problem really is! As more and more empowered individuals begin to do this diligently, slowly but surely change happens and in no time will you see all these unproductive nonsense loose its acquired sheen, because all of that drama only works- when there is an audience for it and importantly a paid audience! The show of the clowns ends when the circus halls are empty!

There is no point, raising fingers, for or against anyone- because eventually all of us come from the same societal bucket and if you think that the waters are stinking, well that‘s a time when the society needs to come together more than ever to do an agreed, principle based change to correct what’s gone horribly wrong! Think about it! You always see political class and every media channel having divergent, opposite and at time useless views about every thing- whether someone asks or not- but when it comes to the question of existence- like an act of war or a pandemic like the one we are facing now- all of them (thankfully!) come together to stand uniformly behind the nation that they come from! This act tells you something, apart form the fact of people being patriotic, it also shows you what the real priorities are and why all else is nothing but a drama played out for the audience of a nation, directed and produced by …well … you people are smart…go check for yourselves!

I leave you here with these thoughts for now, think twice before you decide to consume everything that’s laid in front of you; gluttony too is a sin and in the modern times that we live, its poisonous enough irrespective of the golden cup that it comes in!

Stay wise, stay safe, rationalize and apply your intelligence empowered by your wisdom! Ciao for now, will be back soon with another piece!

Guard your intelligence.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Waking up every day to some next level of crap seems like has become the new normal in the times that live in! Even in times of global pandemic societies the world over have been blessed to witness arson, rioting and looting for one reason or the other. If this political and social unrest is not enough, we have the never ending surprises springing up at the workplace that we are yet engaged with or we were engaged with! Whether it’s the uncertainty of the next paycheck, or the heavily laced work environments as each person tries to protect their turf and survive the job cuts and pay adjustments as much and as far as possible- Every sense and sensibility seems to have been thrown right out of the window and people are now, more than ever before in the recent history of humanity are reacting and reacting to situation as they evolve rather than proactively altering the narrative and responding to what emerges! Join me here as we try to understand what the real stories are behind the ones that get played out and is there anything that one can do in these contextual time warps to guard their intelligence and sustain their sanity! So here we go!

So, to begin with what does your mormal day seem to be like- well chances are you are waking up to that piece of aggregated advertorial- which some refer as newspaper- where the headlines are nothing more than a well curated orchestra of the collusion between the politicians of the day and the business that owns that piece of information thrown in front of your doorstep. Depending on who has how many such pamphlets are thrown public opinion is been swayed and directed to think in a particular manner about a certain topic and this is where the real game begins! If that was not enough- you have other avenues of intrusion that come into your life- that post on a social media handle, that craze for the likes you want to garner, or that comment which either puts you on cloud 9 or throws you into the abyss which either calls you to start with a smoke or start getting worked up for no real sense of reason! Add to this the real or created challenges at the workplace where you are possibly still hanging around by a thread or the business that your struggling to keep afloat! Politics, corporate bitching, undercutting, changing polarities, missing common sense and that rare arrival of intelligence among all this noise- sure seems to be too much to be handled by an individual for even one day! Well, the fact is that we actually ending up whiling away our whole lives doing this same thing or variations of these day in and day out and seldom realize what we have really achieved in the sense of the word called achievement and what we have really missed- missed as in something that web should have been anchored to and which we have lost never to get back! To all of this when you add that penultimate layer of your inner circle of your family and friends- well that is almost all about it and beyond this point you are already drowned enough, at times even forgetting to breathe for yourself to ensure that you stay alive! So what’s this chaos and noise all about, which simply doesn’t seem to go away and the more we try to fix it, it ends up fixing us and our approach to it and life in a way that we even forget what we had set out to do!

This, my friend is the modern day warfare of information which attacks, continuously and repeatedly your mind and more importantly your intelligence! You see, knowledge is about knowing what has already happened and all the entirety around it- What helps humans to keep progressing ahead and moving ahead is Intelligence- Intelligence which uses, Knowledge coupled with experience to create a pathway using ingenious ways to secure a pint in the future which moves away from the problems of yesterday and today as we see them emerge and dissipate and at tims compete around us all the time! Once Intelligence is attacked it is the proverbial death sentence to our very existences- because then we are no longer thinking and feeling humans- we are rather directed biomechanical units which perform what is expected of us by the people who have the power to have that done from us- this is that dangerous place where the top 1% control, strategise and direct humanity to perform and execute what works for them! Think about it a planet with over 7.5 billion souls all controlled and directed by a few thousand people- politicians, businesses, technocrats, innovators, authors,mercenaries, spiritual gurus- there is virtually almost one representative from every imaginable sector that you can think of who are part of this elitist of the elite club that wants to reduce humanity to cyborgs and biomechanical machines who think less and feel nothing and this is why the very critical need to guard your intelligence so that you don’t end up being the next victim in this scheme of things! Don’t trust or find it hard to believe- well live you life and tell me ten years later- if thats’ the way you think it works! Being a scientist, I can tell you one thing, you don’t have to burn your finger to know if the water is bling or not and this is what separates people who guard their Intelligence and those who outsource it! So why does this occur and is there a way around, through or over it? Well read on!

As societies evolved we have had different ages or definitions of power, there was a classical ancient time when knowledge was power and the ones’ who had it, manipulated and directed kingdoms and empires to their whims and fancies at times for the greater good and at times leading them to catastrophic disasters especially when a layer of human greed and the aspects of cardinal sins was applied around that! We then had a period of medieval history and recent modern history which saw the maturity of kingdoms and nations as governance matured and innovators and scientists arrived at the scene as new age heros and they were hailed and nations/kingdoms who had more of them invariably saw more progress and development and this has been the foundation of the last century and this is what has lead us to where we are now in this moment! If there has been any singular common thread running through the centuries, it has been the fact that each time humanity has worked cohesively for the greater good of society the society or nation has thrived and made great progress benefiting every person associated with that network! Each time the efforts have been subverted, sabotaged owing to greed of a few in those very societies we have seen downfall and misery arising again and again and all the negative aspects of humanity, whether that be wars, famines, capitalistic greed, political and social unrests all of these and many such challenging connotations of society have made their presence felt and very often robbed away those societies of all the progress that they would have done in the last few decades! Now the question you may want to ask is, why do supposedly intelligent sections of the society fall into this kind of unsettling trap? Well as statisticians say, numbers are very funny, once you learn how to play around with them, you can have 1 being greater than 2 depending on where the decimal lies and where the zeroes fall!

Once people let their guard down and start to consume everything that they see, read, hear or are spoken about as true and fail to apply common-sense and science to verify and test the veracity of the claims, individuals and societies set themselves up for their downfall by shutting down their ability to think! This is why you must guard your intelligence, because intelligence alone is what gives the potent power to analyse, debate and critically test everything and anything that is presented and this is why people who are locked into the prison of their knowledge seldom shake hands with intelligence- as they are trapped in the times bygone which hardly have any or have a rapidly losing contextual relevance to the present moment and for those yet to arrive!

Sections of societies, that elite group knows this fact quite well and hence the war of the narratives– eternal and evergoing- where they want to create issues where none exist,want to sweep away what needs to be addressed and all this done- with a single purpose- to direct your thinking to the way that suits their agenda and purpose and unwittingly people succumb to this and before you realise it, you have diminished your ability to think afresh, anew or be innovative and than are permanently resigned to the instructions and apparent guidance by these very 1% lords that hold the power to sway individuals and societies the way they wish to! So if this is that bad, is there a way around it, can individual make a difference? What’s the path ahead? Read on!

The most assuring part of intelligence is that it is there- it’s about whether you use it or not! So it’s like that electricity supply which is always on and you need to flip that switch to access the light you need to or that AC that you want, but the whole point here is that there has to be an effort made to flip that switch! Flipping the switch and the right one is the essence of using intelligence sparingly like salt is to food to create magic and outcomes that have the promise for the masses and serve the greater good rather than becoming a self-centric exercise! This intrinsic power of intelligence is what is feared by the 1% club and hence the ever aggressive race to create smokescreens and false narratives to try and blind out intelligence! So where and how do we begin?

The easiest and the the perhaps the right place is to begin with you- beginning with oneself- as the foundation – as an aspect of self-awareness and knowing well what serves you and what doesn’t- is the first step to ensure that your immediate circle remains free of unwanted garbage, clutter and nonsense that can creep in- under the guise of “critical or breaking news”. Once you have sanitised your immediate area- you have ample space to think, deliberate, maneuver and progress at a pace, time and path chosen by you- yes you alone and that is what makes the whole difference between being a leader/clutter breaking individual or a follower and part of the masses! Once you have secured his inner space, the next step and perhaps equally important one is about building gates that check and recheck what’s been allowed into your clean zone, ideas, people, opportunities, thoughts, everything and anything- because like a virus on the prowl, one bad entity is enough to unleash a cascade of unfortunate events which can bring down even the most intelligent of people, ideas and opportunities! I will stop short of getting into details of how we do it and what steps does it entail, because each one of us is unique – as unique we can be and our contextual truths of life are perhaps stranger than fiction and that’s where the opportunity too lies to defeat and win over the 1% elite club- by creating distractions and moves banking on our intrinsic intelligence to help us achieve what serves the greater good for us and the society around us! This, my friend is the essence of guarding deploying our intelligence, no matter what the pressure we face or what the odds that we face!

I will leave your here with these thoughts, urging you to take a moment to notice what’s driving you- rather what is that you are driving you life through or are you getting driven around! Wisdom lies in deciphering Knowledge from Intelligence and applying Intelligence to make knowledge work for your present and future and not allowing Knowledge to entrap your intelligence to the bygone eras!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article, Until then stay wise, knowledgeable and intelligent and yes, don’t consume all that comes your way- remember -even the virus got sent!

The Work From Home pandemic!

~ PA ~ 5 Comments

I know you may think, I am out of my mind, but trust me, when I say the next challenges pertaining to human creativity , collaboration and trust are all going to arise from this so -called magic bullet of work-from-home! Join me here as we try to gauge what is perhaps greatly amiss and why what’s missing here will eventually end up causing the next pandemic with connotations spanning the mental health, financial health and work health of individuals and corporations world over! So here we go!

As the virus came calling, governments did what humans are great at doing- imitation- yes imitate what’s happening with the other nation; so as one nation locked down, so did others- well not to blame anyone for so much little was even known as things started to go from bad to worse and by the time people knew what had to be done and there was too much of cheese all over the place to avoid people from tripping, falling and breaking their bones- so the holy answer to all problems became the lock down and with that piece of unwarranted medical harakiri came the second unintended consequence of “work from home”!

People forgot in no time,even their ability to think and see how suddenly, just because the law of the land said so,working from home became fine! It is the same company perhaps, which would have made you move houses so that you could cut the traffic and reach on time, perhaps it is the very same firm which said, the offer letter could be given only if you stayed within a 10 mile radius and can make it ot the office on time, these are the very same offices which cut your leaves, salaries because you clocked in ten minutes late , three times over in a month just as recently as a few months back, now they all seemed to be just fine- for them- even as your privacy and peace at home has been plundered, looted and laid threadbare- whether it is that pet calling for you attention, that maid coming in at the critical moment through you presentation or the small kid who simply doesn’t understand what the parent is doing toying around with an electronic gadget- all and many such more minute scenarios are laying the foundation for your next disaster in the making and if you are not careful, the next one will even shame the virus- because the next challenge coming your way will be more personal- created by you and can only be solved by you!

To begin with, let’s try to understand what has actually happened! One fine day, your organisation was informed it’s not business as usual- like many others you too rejoiced with the thought of being able to work in your pyjamas and seem cool- to post snaps from your kitchen and show your superhuman skills of being able to work at home and for office at the same time- well this was the first checkmate- you just proved to your firm that the work given by your firm- and the price at which it was given to you doesn’t seem to make any sense- so as a consequence- your work-from-home hours suddenly started to stretch beyond your levels of comfort and sanity- so that now forget the kitchen you also find it a challenge to relieve yourself! Add to this the next layer of complication that gets added when you have more number of family members “working from home”- conversations overlap, conversations are overheard, jokes become a pain point and tonality becomes a point of debate- next any remaining confidentiality- whether its that email to your colleague., vendor or boss- doesn’t miss the attention of the other members and often your emails will be spell checked and langage refined- finally at some point your people from office will know- you have got a communication expert sitting by you helping you counter your one more incompetence which now lies more exposed than ever!

Likewise there will be countless odditties that will come to the forefront and few of them will many a times not what you had been saying all the while to the people with whom you worked at the workplace and now that they have intruded your private space- well the sad fact is there is no place to go further and create ambiguity- so what does this to the trust between people? Well as colleagues you have mental images and comfort evolved dealing with specific individuals- not everyone you know makes you equally comfortable hence- you tell what you think is the level of comfort for both of you- but with this private space intrusion there is a new level of problem- a lot of people come to know what you have perhaps not told- because it may not have been necessary- or required or because you didn’t want to- in any case what that ends up doing (which again is unwarranted) is erodes a small amount of trust and once this process starts, trust me there is no going back and it’s just a matter of time that you will see so-called team re-alignments and working dynamics change and in extreme cases people shuffled across the board and in a few other case ejected from the system! All simply because your privacy got intruded and you really had not planned for this shit coming your way!

To all this drama when you add multiple stakeholders and also add the other work-from-home members from your residence (now which resembles kind of a public arena-because of the kind of activities that seem to start at 8am and end only around midnight!) the chaos and confusion only adds up and in some cases is bad enough to drive you crazy enough to either share some unpleasant exchanges with the people in the zone or simply hang up your boots and say a hasty goodbye to what would have otherwise been a smooth career pathway- the one that you had aspired for and set out to achieve right from your college days! So what’s really happening here? Is there a way out of this and way to manage this? How long will this go on and what’s really the matter- the work or you?

Let’s start from the beginning! Do you remember few of the conversations that you had when you took up this job (which has now intruded into your privacy)? Yes, topics like- work-life-balance, respect for private time, no calls or emails on holidays and weekends, why you must move closer so that you can commute and be in the office! Why the office discourages working from home- because they respect your privacy! and now this very office is advocating the very opposite of all that was said and agreed upon- why? The Virus- not at all- you see, global businesses, whether you are selling donuts or some high end jwellery have been under stress even before the pandemic broke out and globally the capitalists led- world of corporate blue collared elites have been waiting for an opportunity to correct the systemic wrongs and the pandemic just happened to be the blessing in disguise that they were ecer waiting for! This once in a lifetime opportunity gave them the reason to dishonour their corporate lease agreements, defer payments to vendors and staff indefinitely (unless in few nations where in the governments intervened and set the rules of engagement – to salvage some sanity), get even with the governments of the day to extract deep discounting for the next few years so on and so forth, not to forget the reset of their banking terms and conditions (the corporate ones- even as at an individual levels you still get hounded by debt collection calls!) So you see, the real thing about asking you to work from home is the least interest of your safety- but in the larger interest of corporate finance and the compulsions that go around with the nexus of business and politics the world over- nothing to say good about and nothing to whine- because neither I am the business nor the government! and you ended up thinking the work-from-home- intrusion to your privacy was a sacrifice that you are doing for upholding your company! Well keep thinking that way- and wait for the next nightmare!

The other serious level problem that has happened is that as individuals begin working connected through distributed spaces- human brain the way it is- trust erodes rapidly and you add a personality angle to it, this differentiating rate of trust erosion for all the right and wrong reasons helps accelerate the fall of teams and bring in the “new order”- read creating lean teams as the new need of the day- thereby kicking in pay cuts and job losses- each and every aspect of this is linked to the innocent looking solution of “work-from-home”! The things that help this, are the ability to track meticulously- time everything to the nth second and no more- lobby meetings, board room chats and walk around the office so the sudden addition of a 60-80 minutes of additional time through the day- ironically enough ends up making you look more non-productive than ever before and you too begin to loose a grip as the normal way of planning does not help as work seems to get over sooner than you think and as the battle to prove efficiency amongst colleagues takes centre stage- each one send sup undoing the other one and eventually create enough fluidity so that when the time comes- all are swept away in one masterstroke of team realignment! The only way that individuals hope that the organization still holds interest in them is by understanding if their home-office furniture ordered is coming in or not! I mean really! So is there anything that we can do, if this is all a game cast at the upper crest of societies and nations, do we stand a chance?

Well, as history says, when the war is with the system, you need to be in the system to beat the system or develop and evolve it, never has anyone been able to alter the course of history by staying aloof, unaffected or away from it! The fact remains that even as we engage and present ourselves to work with corporates or business houses- irrespective how experienced or inexperienced you are- you need to have your own intrinsic non-negotiable terms and conditions! Like all offices have a office rule book or a manual or better still a code of work , you too need to come up with a code book for your life- I mean, after all isn’t that the most important thing that you should ever be bothered about? Something that core and intrinsic, because when all else and everyone leaves you at some point in time- which they will certainly do- what stands with you apart from your shadow will be the core values systems and the intrinsic systems that construct and make you who you are! This, my friend is the essence of being able to stand firmly and face all the storms and high waves that may ever come your way- by harnessing the strength of who you are and for that to happen you need to be connected within and know yourself as well as you know the vocation that you pursue nor the people who matter you! Once you have cracked this essential adb vital code, rest assured, there could be a hundred more vurusses coming your way, the next time an organization asks you to work-from- home,you will know what is coming your way and chances are you’ll either insist to work form office or politely ask them to get in touch with you once the offices reopen! Exposing your private life for the capitalist greed of businesses and politicians is the last thing that you should ever do- this is similar to a soldier allowing spies into the nation! Think about it! Is anything really worth it -at the cost of peace, harmony and the wellbeing of the core unit that you represent in the society- the family that you have!

The work-from-home pandemic is the greatest illusion and perhaps even more dangerous than the virus, the virus will eventually will be tamed- there be vaccines and solutions through medical interventions, but the pandemic of work-from-home if allowed to get a foothold- will end up eroding the basic functional units of the societies the world over- these units could be families- small or large, could be partners living together, could be friends, or good people working on something bigger and better together! All of it will be lost to be enslaved to the greed of the growing capitalist clut with or without collusion of the political class of the day! The only way through this and to stem this, is by knowing who you are, what your value systems are and very importantly having the courage to say No- when enough is enough and guarding your private zone with every ounce of courage that you have!

I leave you here with these thoughts, for you to reflect, what your experiences have been and possibly urging you to create a blueprint for yourself and the unit that you hold close to you- so that you guard yourself from the next attack that may come your way disguised as yet another some new way of living or working!

Ciao for now, grab that coffee and I will be back soon with another article!

Don’t let success fail you!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

“Success” is by itself cryptic and means different things to different people, but what is common, is the fact, that no matter how you want to define it for yourselves, within it lie the seeds of your failure! This piece is all about understanding the real essence of “success” and how to ensure your success doesn’t sow the seeds of your failure! So here we go!

To begin with most of us, when asked , “What does success mean to you?” will go on answering this question with that unwanted grin and start adding all the materialistic attributes that one can think of- money, cash, houses, gadgets, vacations, lifestyle, grandeur, name, fame, recognition, food, indulgence etc. etc. and the list can go on and on- What is common within all the elements mentioned here is that all and each of these manifestations of success are all extrinsic and dependent of multiple variables apart from you! When this aspect is forgotten or lost in translation- shit invariably happens and you end up setting yourself for certain failure, ironically developing from your success and it is proportional to the extent of your success- the more successful you become (hinging on the extrinsic attributes and definitions of success) your failure will be equally noteworthy and iconic! Sounds familiar? Well yes- the stuff that tycoons, politicians and celebrities face right? Well yes, and more importantly each one of us too have faced this, every now and than at the level that we are and proportional to what we have achieved or not achieved in life! So this is what must be focused upon and this is what needs to be fixed! How do we do this? well read on!

The problem with our modern day definition of “success” lies in the fact that it all is entrapped into materialistic bondage! Nothing wrong in earning money, growing your affluence and being able to enjoy the best of what the world has to offer and what your money can buy- the problem is with ending up using that space and that ability to indulge with what you have to define your success which becomes the undoing for many! You would have heard stories of sporting icons, celebrities, business tycoons, who had it all and than lost themselves as they lost what they had (rather what they had- which according to them- defined who they are!). Well, this plays out when people misread and misinterpret “success” as an achievement! Consider this, how would you feel if every time you went to meet your doctor- you find your doctor- throwing a party because he cured ten patients yesterday! or when you visit a store to shop for some clothes and the moment you complete your billing- you find the counter staff breaking out in a gig celebrating their targets! Well, I am certain you would not have seen any of this! So what does that mean? Isn’t your doctor successful and shouldn’t he celebrate the “success” of his patients getting better? Seems aright to be celebrated, right? Even the shop counter staff, knowing they hit the sales figure, nothing wrong if they too celebrated their “success” isn’t it? So why don’t do they do it? Well in the case of the doctor or the counter staff they are practicing what I call it as “Internalizing success” – they know the simple truth- that they are working in the current direction and are sure that if they continue doing what they do- they will keep achieving the results and keep getting better and better- which will help them with building their lives! This is what internalizing success does and the bets part- well it doesn’t bother them much if that odd patient left treatment mid-way or unfortunately died or if they did not hit the sales number for that month! Because they know it deep within that – With each opportunity they give their best and than hope for the rest to manifest and this is what real success looks like- It’s hard work, non-glamorous and intrinsic! They don’t contemplate of stopping work as a doctor or leaving the job at the store, because one day, one event was not working in their favour!

Internalizing success does many wonderful things! First it helps you understand that your success is defined by Who You Are! Real success which clings onto a person always derives its strength from the person and not from the circumstances around the person! Circumstances are like a case of electromagnets wrapped around your working world- every now and then there will be changes and that change of flux around you will drain you of your internal latent potential unless you don’t do way with the habit of large dependence on the circumstances around you! Sure enough they are important- but no reason can be bigger than Yourself and who You are as person when it comes to defining success in the real essence of it! What happens if you don’t embrace success this way around?

Well as long as people define success by aligning it to standards, benchmarks and societal confirmations, there will be an ever ongoing disagreement between Who You Are, What Your Beliefs are, What you actually value and what you paint as an image of what others must see (which comes in as a rider to enjoy that stage success!). Success of this nature, which is measured and calibrated through the lens of the world/society or set standards and perceptional rules of engagement of the sectors that people work in- will invariably fail- once the external factors that fan the staged-success are depleted- either they wane away or they move to a new host- what is left, is an individual with a hollow reality of the staged success and with more questions than answers about themselves! This staged success which is hinged on circumstances and societal influence brings along a hidden baggage which manifests in different ways like, peer pressure, competitive pressure, one upmanship, group-isms and so on and so forth- this compelling need to belong to be recognized and to belong to a section or a select acceptance within the society ends up undoing all that may have been done by an individual and eventually sets up the person into a tailspin of self- discovery where answers simply don’t seem to come by and there are more and more questions as the dive becomes more and more terrifying. The only hope of recovery to come out of this deadly self-inflicting death dive is to “Know Yourself” and Know that Your Success is not dependent on others to the extent that you are made to believe!

True success is always a factor of the Individual- If you have been successful once you will be once again and yet again- certainly there will be spanners in the wheel as you try and move ahead and there will be twists and turns on the way- but as long as you don’t fall into the trap of “compulsive social acceptance”, “confirmation bias” and fall prey to the “be in the group” kind of situation- you will be safe and have a greater sense of achievement when you do and a refined element of learning should you fail- because whatever the outcome maybe- It is then always about who You are and that’s what matters! Once You learn that You alone make the difference and You alone get to decide Who impact you and by How Much, rest assured – you’ve imbibed the right way to “Internalize Success” and sooner or later You will become what You are Destined to be- no matter what the circumstances!

I will leave you with these thoughts, so that you may go head and reflect and see how you have experienced staged- success and true success as you wandered across the world! Always remember- The Final choice rests with each one of us- to define and be defined the way we want us to be! True Success is about us, each one of us and what we can uniquely achieve by being How We Are! There can be no comparison, never, simply because each of us has a different life story and a life path, to narrate and tread upon! All that hinges on others and external factors, will fade away, sooner or later! All that remains is the Belief and Faith within and that alone helps to weave the fabric of your true success- which solely relies on Who You Are!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article, until then stay safe and stay wise!

Dealing with your job loss.

~ PA ~ 2 Comments

If the title grabbed your attention, there can be two reasons- either you are or have been at the reeving end of this or you are at the end form where this will start! Irrespective of which side of the table you are, this is going to impact you and this article is about trying to see how meaningful this sordid affair can be turned into- how can we possibly create diamonds from the unwarranted pressure that loss of livelihoods brings with it! Rest assured this is no – sermon for the making everyone feel good- but more about how to introspect and make sense of the developing nonsense around you! So here we go!

Well, to begin with, let us get some clarity, the pandemic- the virus per say- is not the only reason- why you would have been discussing your job loss! Depending on your sector, which nation you belong to and the kind of business that you are working for, you would have been getting signals of something not being right for at least 4-6 months prior to Feb/ March 2020. The world economy was slowing down and it was well on its way to hit rock bottom- the only thing that happened differently – unlike earlier recessions this one got camouflaged and over-ridden by the global health emergency and headlines changed to number of infections and deaths from disease – replacing the usual financial headlines that come with an economic melt down! Now your job loss could have happened for multiple reasons- or actually in few cases- for no real reasons at all!– I mean large companies do have a qualified and experienced senior management and business risk advisors who are supposed to save the day for these companies for exactly the kind of scenarios that we are facing! So what were these enlightened ones’ doing as they were scouting for the proverbial “Iceberg event?” More surprising is the fact that their- risk mitigation strategy often starts with the reactive stance of suggesting job cuts- rather than having an ongoing preemptive and proactive stance of avoidance! – About this, I will write, some other time! Now that you kind of know, that you are not entirely to blame to what you are facing- let’s get started with the “dealing” stuff!

If you happen to be one of those unluckily-lucky fellows, who are under 30, the blue eyed resources for the corporations, armed with those enviable management and engineering certifications and as the norm is now- a-days goes- digitally certified- by everyone and anyone that can offer a certificate- well this is a the pivotal moment of your life and trust me you should embrace this as much as you can! No matter what sector you have been working- you took up the challenge- performed- if not excelled- at times surprises yourself and other s around- at times hit rock bottom- gone through the whole baptism of corporate world and just as you thought you were acing the game- well the playground is suddenly closed for you! So now you are angry, confused and in utter shock and disbelief- “Why me”, “What did I do to deserve this?”, “Why not the other person, why was I chosen over that one?”- As long as you remain stuck in these self-serving- defensive and consolatory state of mind- trust me- you will only find it more and more difficult to come to terms and focus on what you must essentially do- Stand up- Dust yourself- and Walk/Jog/Run/Sprint ahead yet again! This easier said than done – can be achieved by clinically dissecting what you have gone through and this is how you do it!

It has to start by understanding well- really well- like an external consultant would do to understand the business dynamics- what has really played out- there could be multiple scenarios based on the nature of business- supplier side issues- vendor payments- accrued debts, working capital issues- managing partner differences, ownership slug fest, failing quality of leadership, as long as these manifestations arise form the work arena- chances are there would have been signals- clear or subtle signals of the fact that- all is not well- and there will be a bump on the way- now the ability to predict the dimension of that bump- whether it will allow the organisation to pass over or will it wreck the momentum of the organisation and rip it apart- is something which comes only with experience- hence for the youngsters- this can be excused- but the plain fact remains that- part of the job loss problem- is because , as individuals we are connected to the task that we perform but often fail to scan the broader pictures around us that are constantly shifting and developing– Its like you are a pilot who is flying the plane- with all attention locked into the instrument panel- and missing the whole picture through the windscreen ahead! When people tend to pick these signals up- they leave and try to avoid getting caught up in the unnecessary corporate warfare which happens through methods! This, is essentially the first learning for your life- before you sign up for that next journey onboard another corporate vehicle- scan the environments around the ship that you wish to embark! Check for operational stability, check for essential fundamentals and check how the vehicle is driven- who has the controls and what does that mean for you as an Individual! You may have a great company with a bad team or a bad company with a great team; and the results through these two scenarios can be strikingly different and the outcome, needless to say would be miles apart! Anyone of these scenarios can make you a great hero or break you completely depending on what is your natural inclination to deal with- as in what you are great at- fixing people or fixing processes!

Once you have understood that there are contributing developments that lead to situations like a job loss- the next thing that you need to understand and figure out is, what is that you could have possibly done to effect a change- a different possibility?- did you do that?-was it possibly to impact a change through the position that you were at? If you have cleared this basic step of understanding that you did in fact give all you could have to the work at hand at the position that you were- than well I guess it is a classic case of having boarded a ship which had embarked on a journey to find icebergs and crash into one! So once you signed up- it really didn’t matter what you did or not, as with time- it was eventually going to break apart and sink- here what matters is or what could have mattered is- how close you have been to the lifeboats on the ship and how well you have understood the emergency evacuation drill! So, yes, it all boils down to having a plan for yourself- the fabled Plan B, which helps you navigate uncertainties of life- everything and anything- form the traffic jam in the morning to being able to find your livelihood back!

Finally the most important aspect,“Learning” what did the event/incident teach you, what did you learn- this is perhaps the most powerful tool and mindset to carry with us all through our lives- A learners mindset helps to develop patterns and decipher our environments more rapidly so that we are better prepared when shot hits us next time- because it will , that’s for sure- as long as humanity operates form cornerstones of greed and dominance!This learner’s mindset will help you clear the cobwebs in your mind- which try to climb and cloud your thinking with tons of self-pity and self-victimization for no real reason- unless you were the person who was in-charge and you screwed up the whole damn business! Even in that kind of extreme scenario caused by intelligence malfunction- a learners approach will do well, to ensure you stand back quick and don’t repeat the same mistake again so that you can recover and race ahead!

A job loss is a great thing to happen- because it presents to you unknown colors and hues of individuals, collective groups- called companies and the whole societal equation that goes around with it! You will see behavioral changes and attitudinal shifts among colleagues, mentors, peer groups, so-called- friends, you will know the power equations secret (the real power is always in the chair- not the person- when it is in the person- chairs don’t matter!– That’s the stuff that Corporate and Political Godfather’s are made of!). You will see how narratives about you change fast, before you and behind you! You will get support from unknown quarters and people whom you would have hardly counted upon, that odd client- whom you always discounted as petty, may come to your rescue with some great recommendations! You will see a lot of things happen around fast- it’s kind of graduating all over again in a short period of time! You understand the power of the contract that you signed up which allows/disallows you to do”xyz” for “abc” months post your severance!

Most importantly you will learn, “To value your Life” in a renewed context, perhaps more time for yourself, more time perhaps for your family an real friends! You will perhaps appreciate, there is no point running a race with no finish line! There is more to see, and experience by pausing and walking and just being around the wold that we have, because once you have exhausted a considerable time through corporate slavery– that time is gone and so are those many infinite opportunities to experience life which could have possibly created a completely different and better version of yourself! Perhaps this job loss, allows that ingenuity within you to arise,a waken and create an entrepreneur that the world has been waiting for! There can be multiple an many scenarios, what remains certain is – The job loss is not really a loss- if you see it from the space of having a learners mindset and if you convert this loss to your gain by connecting with people, things and places that really matter; Elements which will be by your side no mater what!

I leave you here, to reflect, introspect and see how even in a seemingly awkward situation (which largely is always painted with despair and grief), can one also find the seeds of the future, and by knowing the right ones’ to nurture,you can create the pathway to a future which provides better awareness and calibration through the experience digested through a learners mindset!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another interesting article! N, yes, If you are really hit hard and finding it difficult to gather your bearings back, drop me a mail, will be glad to help you- without damaging our mutual sanity and without serving unwarranted optimism and hope!

How natural events are transformed into disasters.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Cyclones, earthquakes, landslides, mudslides, flash floods, seasonal floods, volcanic eruptions, tidal bore, tsunami, avalanche, sandstorms, tornadoes, typhoons, well all these seem to be cousins from one big family who are hell bent at making human lives miserable and hell, but the truth is far from that! This short piece is to help you make some peace with these wonderful gifts of nature and allow you to enjoy them while ensuring your safe and don’t suffer! So let’s go!

Our planet has been evolving and continues to, with each passing second- that’s how it has always meant to be! Even before humankind evolved as we know it today, these natural events played a major role in ensuring that the conditions were conducive enough for complex organisms, ecosystems to develop and foster which have made it possible to be who we are today, and for me to write this blog!

Through history- ancient and modern- there have been replete examples of storms, and cataclysmic events at times well documented and at times lost partly in the passage of time. 200 years ago the earth was the same, the natural events would have been more or less the same- the only reason why we possibly never had such a hue and cry about things was possibly because our science and the accompanying dumbness had not yet arrived to the scene! With breakthrough’s in science, technology, it became possible to have satellites hosted up, weather balloons sent up and snaps clicked to understand comprehensively how the weather systems worked in tandem not only in a small area- but across larger areas.The boundaries of nations are created by humankind, for nature there is no international border or allegiance to any trading block or political alignment- if there is a storm coming your way – Nature will not decide your fate on religious or political alignments- your acceptance of science and common-sense alone will make the difference between you have a future tense or getting permanently stuck in the past tense!

If one goes to see what has changed in the last 200-300 years, it is the spread of mankind in areas as remote as one could think of- remote in the context of climatic harshness and habitat in general. So what did we do, well we applied science, technology and ingenuity, perhaps all that we could apply (sans common-sense) to create cities, towns and human settlements in areas and locations which were nothing more than a ticking time bomb with regards to how nature implements it’sown plan! Last 200-300 years historically have witnessed large events wherein there has been general disregard to nature, whether it is altering the course of rivers for dams, whether it is draining the swamps to make way for construction, whether it is reclaiming land from the Sea, or blasting off mountains to create transport lines, or clearing natural habitats for agriculture and cash crops, you name it and you will find it- these and many allied factors around these events- which have a geo-political and an economic overtone to it have accelerated the conflict between Nature and Humanity. The funny part is that humans have first created this problem and than gone a step further in creating a whole new business of trying to figure out how to deal with “Climate Change”even as every passing second the climate is being altered and changed through human activities on an ongoing basis!

The simple truth remains is that humanity through it’s development has sadly allowed the human greed to override human acceptance and the better use of accommodation mind-set which is so very critical- as each one of us knows that this is the only planet we have (at least as yet) and this is the only place we can call our home in the whole known spectrum of the Universe! This human greed to have it all, consume everything and dominate resources of nature/from nature has ensured we are always in the firing line of natural events! Cities have been built around sea fronts world over – knowing very well- that there exists a clear and imminent danger form what the oceans have to throw at you when they have a bad day at office! Hill sides and mountain slopes are cleared off recklessly to have the quaint little hill top or mountain view idyllic settings for that ever elusive Instagram selfie- without giving a second thought about the risks that come with an unstable earth on precarious slope- setting up of whole city blocks close to river flood lines – clearing vital pristine natural forests for farming- all of these set up as a society in direct conflict with nature and when shit happens- which it will- instead of the storm going away flattening trees in a forest- where they can grow back fast and quick (as part of the natural processes) we end up having messed up cities and devastated human lives at times with terrible stories of agony and pain which take years and years to recover and by the time that recovery is complete we are surely hit by some other incident in one way or the other! So, by now if you are trying to think I am making a pitch for an environmental cause- well I am not, because even that is business! I am trying to share a simple and yet wonderful thought- Get Humanity out of the way of Nature and everything will be just fine!

If people don’t senselessly clear forests, build resorts by blasting off mountain slopes, don’t whine for sea-front properties and understand that nature is beyond your lovely pet and the money plant in your house or office, well I guess, we would have already won half the battle! No matter who says what, it doesn’t matter how much of science you know or not, what matters and perhaps the only thing that matters is if you generously use common-sense and want to feel empowered by nature and share the sunrises, sunsets, spring flowers and the snowfall in the right way at the right times and wish to paddle down a call, clean river or have a campfire by the beach or in the woods- remember it always starts with you, every singular effort done to ensure that nature is not being trampled upon is the essence of ensuring that we are able to handover the pearls that nature has to offer to succeeding generations sans the unwarranted anxiety and whole narrative of “the world was better earlier”! Remember, earthquakes don’t kill, it is the man-made structures that fail- which kill people, Flash floods don’t kill- being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time gets your killed! Nature has it’s own way to send out signals of distress and warnings if you understand it that way- have your wondered why animals ride it out better when natural events occur? You may say they sense it, well yes they do, the fact also being, even we can, but our capitalist and modern day greed has ensured we have ended up switching off our receivers which can help us too- should we ever trespass into a natural place at a horribly wrong time!

Finally, it is never about Nature Vs Humanity, we are part of nature- once we are ready to keep aside or even trim a little of the ever growing greed of wanting and dominating the planet, this world will be a much better and safer place! Remember, natural events never were designed in a way to kill anyone- let alone humans- it is humans who have found ingenious and dumb ways to get into the path of nature and at the wrong times and add to our ever growing list of demises which occur because of non-application of science and commonsense-applying even one of it can save human lives- always- no matter what nature throws at you!

I will leave you here,for now, so if you happen to be somewhere close to brewing thunderstorm or by the beach, show some respect and use your limited knowledge of science or common-sense to ensure you can appreciate the great sights and sounds that nature puts up for us and also ensuring you don’t get killed and live to see another sunrise!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another piece and here’s wishing you a eco-friendly life!

The real story behind the Layoffs.

~ PA ~ 2 Comments

If you happen to be one of those people who have recently been asked to move on with some dignified (according to the employer) monetary compensation and a possible restraining order (that you will not speak negative about the firm for next 12 months), because the world is in a crisis and because your “not so long ago market leading firm” is collapsing and about to perish, this article is here to help you see through what would have happened behind the scenes, so that even you know how much you are really to be accountable (and if you indeed really are) and what does it speak about the modern day “futuristic caring organisations”! So let’s roll!

If you have been used to reading my articles for sometime now, you know it too well, I like to be to the point, simple and clear, no ambiguity, no opinionated bullshit and no creation of unwanted emotional stress, present the picture and leave it for your perception and interpretation based on how kind or unkind life has been to you! There is a good reason why we all as humankind are unique, even twins will be different, one may be absolutely sane while the other one may be a certified psychopath! So from my perspective there are broadly the following reasons that precipitate Layoffs, if you have any more apart form these, feel to add them to these coveted list!

White Elephants and Peacocks

Disconnected Processes

Right Team for all the Wrong Reasons

Incompetent Leadership

Business Led Strategic Opportunism

White Elephants and Peacocks: Well these roam about across businesses and organisations, easy to find, detect and trace! As the name suggests, they exist as long as the senior leadership enjoy their antics and can more importantly afford their salaries at the expense of someone else (that could be public money in case of PSUs or listed companies or money from Investors and parent companies!). Once the senior leadership changes, or has a change of mind (not to be confused with wisdom) they will change the sets of White Elephant and Peacocks with a spooky predictability- that’s why you find that few companies have their white elephants and peacocks getting changed every 2-3 years- it keeps their corporate zoo busy and adds to the meaningless excitement!  These are the ones’ who make most of the routine layoffs on an ongoing basis irrespective whether the economy is up or down, whether we are in midst of war, famine , surplus, whether we are growing at 10% or 1%, irrespective of everything and anything else, these are the ones’ who keep the HR teams busy hiring and firing them on a regular basis, larger the organisation, multiple such instances! You may want to ask me- but why do organisations get these White Elephants and Peacocks in the first place? Well hold this question to the end, once we have completed the other types, you will begin to see a singular thread which possibly will answer all your questions and provide ample enlightenment! So let’s leave this circus here and move ahead…

Disconnected Processes: Processes lead to Layoffs? Well, yes they do, normally you would have read them as “automation led layoffs” sounds familiar now right?, So here the question to ask is, why would an organisation create a pathway of automation without figuring out a smooth transition wherein the number of people are gradually phased out through “normal routine loss of workers”. The answers that you will end up getting based on the type of organisation you are dealing with, will be something like these, “we want to build a futuristic place of work”, “we want to flood the market through spewing out tons and tons of our products-irrespective whether someone wants them or not”, “machines are more reliable then people”, “this SBU doesn’t resonate with the new management’s line of thinking” etc etc. So you may start to wonder, why is it so hard to plan a strategy of 2-4 years duration to embrace automation, re-skill needed labour or workforce and then reuse  excess workforce through re-skilling and re-utilization aligned to the new process? Why do people start coming up with “Job Ads” to hire new people for the new process? Well hold this question, we will answer this towards the end! Let’s move on to the next one!

Right Team for all the Wrong Reasons: Through my experience, one truth that has established again and again is the fact that, Even as people come in all hues and shades of psychological make- whatever one may want to say, People are good.. always good at who they really are!–Everything else remains to be an acquired skill which either develops or fades away depending upon what opportunities are made available or not to an Individual and the Team that one belongs to! Often you will find in some sectors, that when a Head of a Unit leaves, the whole team moves, what does this say? Well if you ask me, it is the classic case of having a right team and asking them to do all the wrong things! Consider, you have  team of excellent communicators and sales professionals and you inform them that they will have to route their sales pitch through scripts and call centre outbound calls and them just keep sending pre-formatted templated emails to prospects- well you know what a true bred salesperson is going to tell you! well yes, he is all likely to ask the senior leadership to “FO” and not teach him how sales is done and managed! Now you may have a valid question, Why do organisations hire right people and ask them to do things which they aren’t supposed to do or make them do things the way it is detrimental to their growth or the process? We will answer this too towards the end…so hold on to this!

Incompetent Leadership: This certainly is the perhaps the most apparent and visible factor as Layoffs happen! Layoffs are almost always seen as Leadership Incompetence and in many cases- most of them that hold good- this is not about the Incompetence of Individuals at the top, that is different, this is about the collective intelligence or lack of it at the top that translates into Incompetent Leadership! One more face about Leadership Incompetence is that the more larger an Organisation, more are the chances of the same getting manifested and more are the pathways of Incompetence manifestation- imagine a debilitating attack on the nervous system from within- that is what Incompetent Leadership does! You may now argue that, how is that when majority of top management comes from famed business colleges/engineering/medical degrees from institutions (which most of us only can aspire to be an alumnus of), how can they be so dumb? or rather incompetent? Well sure enough that’s not how all of them are, most of them would be sane and wise- as long as they are all by themselves- the moment you add them to a team which comprises of similar people and calls for applying collective wisdom- and is trying hard to realize an utopian dream-shit happens and that’s when you start listening, “A” has joined the board, “B” has left the board and so on and so forth! So what, has this got to do with layoffs, well as these leaders struggle with their own collective challenges- they often get lost in a maze of inconsequential things and as this seeps through the organisational structure, the effects start to show and the resulting layoffs happen!

Business Led Strategic Opportunism: This is by far the most often invincible and the real reason behind many layoff stories around the world! This is what leads to creation of compelling PR narratives and creating diversion, distraction and deviation from real issues and this is the one reason which superimposes itself on all the above reasons and plays out choosing one or other type above! Human greed with no end, senseless capitalism and the ability to decide the fate of the majority by a few eclectic minority- when goes wrong- layoffs are perhaps one of the most minor things that manifest, the world has witnessed more murderous and damaging aspects of Business driven greed and Capitalist domination with no end in sight! If you think Conflicts and world wars were fought for territory, well you are right, but partly because each of them weer funded deep and long and that funding didn’t come only from government taxes but also through the invisible hands of the capitalists who favored one side over the other so that when everything settles down they get their pie of the cake to exploit and continue with their never ending hunger for world dominance through wealth creation and managing that!

This strategic led intervention when micro-managing- chooses the timeline for the elephants and peacocks, starts to throw spanners into the operational wheels so that collective wisdom start to falter and even the highly skilled and qualified individuals start to fail collectively! It is this factor that creates imagery of adding SBUs, shrinking units and hiring the best and then without much noise doing away with the best! This is what creates a narrative that wipes off every gain and every note of what Individuals and teams would have achieved in the organisation for the organisation and has the power to play down every achievement in face of some other narrative that is completely opposite to what real facts could be!

You may be a CEO and if you think you drive the business, you are wrong, equally wrong as the last executive who got laid off even as he had given all that the job called for! Layoffs are a narrative which are a dynamic camouflage to a larger purpose which is held close to the heart and mind of the business owner who is in turn dictated by the people who own the ecosystem wherein the business exists! If you think It’s your fault or mistake…think about it all over again! Ask one simple question- If you were really that bad and incompetent- Why would they hire you to begin with! 

As the old saying goes , not all is white and neither all is black- we live in an era that is colorful as it gets and has these specks of grey here and there, at times these grey’s block out everything around and that is the philosophical essence of what layoffs truly are! They are not the measure of the competence or lack of it of an Individual- rather they are a statement of how change is being allowed to come in- Transformation – as they call it- whether that’s a positive experience or not- depends on which side of a table you are sitting and what is the bargaining power that you bring to the table!

I will leave you here, and just to say this- Layoffs are good, like everything else, as long as you know how to make use of this blessing in disguise- be glad that it happened now as it happened for some other time perhaps would have been more painful- As long as you are bound by corporate slavery- Growth is Optional and Layoff is a Certainty!

Ciao for now, I will leave you here with your coffee, to think and reflect and make yourself Layoff proof if you can!  At Simplifylives, we are able to help and guide those who need help during these times with regards to their professional challenges and ambiguity, drop us a mail and we will be glad to assist!

Say no to Corporate Slavery! Embrace Layoffs!

Leadership-Calibrated by Incompetence.

~ PA ~ 3 Comments

Whether you are in India and wondering what more worse is in store for you, or whether you are in the USA and have been through the process of social suffering and social mourning, irrespective of what your individual story is, right now, perhaps since World War II for the first time, Humanity is held at Uncertainty, which is nothing more or nothing less then the reflection of Incompetence of Leadership at the highest visible levels within the societal arrangements that we have adhered to as humans over the last 60 years, and perhaps this is the reason why the evolving changes will question and possibly topple existing rituals and arrangements in the months and years ahead- some may help and yet a few may harm! Join me as we try to make sense of the clutter and chaos and understand what the noise is all about within the moments of deafening silence that we get to hear every now and then! so here we go!

The current crisis – so called crisis (if you ask me) is a stark reflection about how something that could have been better managed was allowed to slip away and run free and unleash havoc in no less then 184 countries when the virus was at is peak! I am not going to use this article from the point of view of who did t, why and all of that political rhetoric, the focus here is, “Why did world leaders react the way they did” even as details (no matter how insignificant and ambiguous they would have been) began to emerge about the ferocity and damage potential that this virus was capable of.  A part of the answer lies in the fact that our world is an ecosystem of delicate and fine balances, like an orchestra all the different musicians and creative geniuses come together to play not one tune but their different tunes and just make it audible enough to know us who is out of syn and who is in the fold of the developments, the current episode has been so bad that it has turned a global orchestra into a big mess where every player has ended up not only playing their tune but also has ensured that the other one can’t play and hang on to their own tunes! This, I call “acoustic dissonance”! A space where no one is listening enough for anything specifically and whatever that is getting played is being accepted!

Leader’s decisions are understandably calibrated to the limitations of what they are asked to govern and manage. The problems start when they begin to govern and manage not from the mandate that has been provided to them or the positional power bestowed unto them but from a space to imitate and replicate what is being done elsewhere and when they start to find their answers in the same problems which are being resolved elsewhere; completely forgetting that the contextual setting of a same problem will have a differentiated impact based on the context of the other place and the specificity that it brings along with it! So  to begin with,why does this happen?

Unlike the golden age of emerging nation, new world and economic order that we have witnessed between 1950 until 1990s, the digital age has hastened everything and created blanket formulae for everything and everyone, whether it is a job that you need  or the vocation that you need to pursue, there are templated pathways to success and failures, and of course, when it comes to politics, there are dynasties and legacy handovers- but not all of them necessarily are mature or wise like their earlier generations! What all of this leads to, is a sum total of failing competencies across the social fabric, with citizen pressure low and misplaced with regards to their priorities, aspirational quality of governance, for life; the governing arrangements reciprocate by doing simply what is being just asked and aspired- and completely doing away with any visionary effort to preempt or proactively mitigate any foreseeable challenges- these aspects are then exposed as the next disaster strikes and then each element of this failing incompetent social fabric is rushing to help each other- something which could have been avoided in the first place!What’s worse as soon as the challenge is overcome, the social fabric falls back to the misplaced notion of comfort that all is well, until the next time bomb sets off, which in all probability is hidden in the current challenge and is already ticking off as this one is being managed! So now the question, can we do something about this?

Well the answer is a Yes and a No, the modern day social issues are unfortunately driven by individual greed and disease of wanting more and more with no end in sight, when this amplifies across society, it’s a hopeless situation which keeps repeating over an over again like a never ending spiral death dive unless there is a radical shift in the leadership model which is able to stall this dive and align the whole critical mass of the society for a greater and higher cause and purpose by leading from the front! This is where true leaders emerge and that’s why Leadership experts and Human Behavioral specialists  often say, True Leaders emerge from the Crisis even as Pseudo Leaders create the crisis in the forts place! This alone is the hope and promise which can pull failing societies and individuals from a never ending self defeating death spiral and align them to a higher purpose and direction for the larger good!

Leaving the larger governance issue here, if we see what happens within our work areas, it is no different; every organisation grows to the limits of the Incompetence that is displayed by their leaders and the limiting beliefs that come along with it! This is why you see the churn that you see when individuals decide not to work with Mr. A , B or C or for a Company X, Y , Z- this has largely to do with this simple underlying fact, which gets camouflaged and distorted in the disguise of team meetings, restructuring, formation and disbanding of SBUs so on and so forth! Another quick way to see if you are facing the Incompetence challenge at the work place, just make a note of hoe many meetings you are part of and what real world difference have those done to you as and Individual or your team or the client (who actually pays for your in-office entertainment sessions!). The moment you do this, your next decision will be either to chart a course for your growth within the firm because things are still manageable and repairable or you will get busy planning your exit strategies! Most of the organisations suffer not because the people are ineffective, it is largely because the direction and quality of leadership is severely compromised which simply doesn’t allow people to either contribute enough or has them disarrayed in all  other directions then what they should be focusing upon, thanks to the element of Self-Obsessed- Self-Driven – Megalomaniac style functioning! So how does an individual navigate around this and stay safe from being drawn into this trap of Incompetence?

The simple approach to avoid Incompetence traps comprises of really basic stuff! Firstly you may like to start by saying “No” to that undue promotion, designation, money, incentive which, heart in heart you know is not right and not worth what you are! Well yes, this seems idealistic, but that kind of introspection and being brutally honest with oneself is the foundation to ensure you don’t get entrapped into the world of Incompetence! Importantly to execute this strategy you need to have a design for your life and value system in place which provides you beacons and alarm systems to ensure you stay ion track and calibrate your growth, progress and monetary success by staying away form incompetence traps all along! Next what you can do is remain “Authentic” no matter what the compulsion and temptation, don’t disguise to what and who you are intrinsically not, if you cant tolerate dumb people, ensure you study the collective IQ of the team that you are supposed to work with or lead, rather then ending up with increased anxiety and hypertension, this first step can ensure a lot of unwanted explanation and white noise in your life is taken away in the first instance! Lastly learn to create clear protocols and keep you expectations right! If you want to travel faster then Mach 2 you need to be on a fighter plane and not on a commercial airliner, so be sure you are using the right framework and contextual settings which allow you to get what you expect as long as you continue to provide the inputs that are required to receive your expectations! This list is not exhaustive and there can be more and more nuggets of wisdom and plain speak that can be added and created to suit individual personalities and contextual settings and that is the most important aspect of life, since we are all unique individuals, could be similar in a few ways perhaps but necessarily unique, each of us requires a unique solutions to a seemingly similar problem because the contextual settings are always going to be different and that is the key to steer clear of Incompetence around us!

I will leave you here, allowing you to think and reflect on your share of experiences with incompetence and what you could or did do to either help it or stop it and whether you are zoned out or zoned in within the entrapment of Leadership that is Incompetent!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another piece, Do keep writing to us on topics that you want to learn and share and do let us know if you or your organisation needs assistance to mitigate your Leadership crisis! 

 

 

 

 

Consequences of “It’s not my problem”.

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

We are in the beginning of April and for a change global headlines across the world have definitely changed the predictable formats of politics, business and sports! Although the pandemic- is bad enough- especially if that’s hurt you too close for comfort- It has in a way certainly taught us or made us revise valuable lessons of life!- Costly lessons one must say- but that’s what nature does, when humanity goes on doing what it can with gross disregard! Well, cutting the philosophical side for now, through this piece, I will quickly share with you, what I think are the key learnings from this not-so-welcome episode that we ourselves intentionally/unintentionally ended up inviting to our lives! So let’s roll!

Ignorance is no more bliss: Even as whispers began in late November or December 2019 pertaining to a strange illness developing in mainland China, the world went on their usual business as if that was a problem limited to that specific country, within matter of few weeks- I guess- 6-9 weeks- the picture became quite different indeed- with the world now in a form grip of the pandemic and collectively thinking what can be done! Well, I will not dig deeper more into this topic, I have written quite a few pieces around this, but what it signifies and what the learning here, is that each nation and each society fragment has been over the years so much got used to just keep looking into their own micro-environments that the bigger picture is often lost and that in turn fogs out every essential detail that is needed to run a society or a nation! Not seeing over the horizon and staying locked into your own little window has been the greatest folly of our times! If houses have doors and windows- the residents must be wise enough to use adequate judgement to know when to use what!

How can I benefit from this: As sick as may this sound- this has been the ugly face of the current global crisis- even as nations started to act- react to mitigate and try to make sense of the war against the virus- there were these few elite who have so far being able to profit from everything that has happened around- well, honestly there’s no point begin judgmental about what is right and wrong- simply because that is not how the world really works and moreover one person’s nectar is another’s poison! But we got to see this play out- globally stock markets fell, everyone was selling off what they had at whatever price they could- well this is the story everyone knows- what people don’t know is who bought all of what got sold at such discount value – and how come the people who bought this had enough funds to buy what they bought! Well these are the questions to which may never find answers and  this is certainly the domain of some hardcore investigative journalism!

The “What are they doing syndrome”: This is the most funny and the most dangerous part of the whole pandemic episode-  as nations scampered to make sense of what was unfolding- every nation- big or small- created something called “empowered  groups” or “national co-ordination teams” who were supposed to understand the directions from the supposedly “I know all” WHO and pass it within their own countries- what happened with this was pretty soon before anyone could realise the parent body instead of being a leader to lead, direct and guide the world ended up being a collaborator who simply kind of  aggregates ideas and possibilities- which now has got many nations to a stage to devise what works and what doesn’t work for them through trial and error and unfortunately when it is about illnesses- these trial and errors means and implies loss of lives! This is what is being played out and the only hope now is that we overcome this crisis with as minimal collateral damage as possible. You may call terms this inertia as fear of failure to lead or erring on the side of caution; but always remember indecisive leadership in every aspect and each time will be counter productive, whether you lead a nation or the baseball team in your neighborhood!

You do as I Say: This is no doubt, the ultimate weapon that governments, individuals seem to hand out when they have run out of all options- scientific or unscientific. This is that point where you have globally experienced people being asked to be thankful, asked to do this and that for them and they, asked to offer, asked to allow, asked to agree, asked to follow, you name it and you will see examples played out at all levels across the societal fabric! Well the best part of this, not all of what is being asked really makes sense- and  if you survive all this and look back after a few years- you will end up wondering “what the f**k was I thinking”! I mean if are in gratitude, being thankful, it implies we are” that’s about it- what is the whole show about displaying it?!

It’s not my problem: This proposition, if you carefully see is the cause and the effect both! Even as we allowed a pandemic to develop ignorance over-riding on this facet allowed the situation to reach where it is and even as this ends and nations race to fix all that would have got broken through this ordeal we will finally see these statements eventually raising up; nations will say this to world bodies and federal governments will say this to the state!

This fallacy of  this thinking is not our making during the time of a crisis – rather it reflects how we have ended up becoming as humans- individually and as a society! Offices want to have those ritual Birthday Cake cutting on the floor to check off the employee engagement task for the month, not knowing if the person is diabetic or there is a crisis that the person is dealing with in the personal space, companies have numbers  on their dashboard and when decisions have to be made they are simply made (well nothing wrong with it) but again the rationale and logic is what defeats the purpose of such decisions and ends up bring companies back to the same problem in time ahead- sometimes sooner then later! So what do we do?

Well, each one needs to define ones’ own heaven and be comfortable with the hell that one chooses for oneself! But as long as we take ownership- read “total ownership” and sustain an elevated level of awareness and prudence about everything that is happening around us- we have won half the battle- certainly not one individual can oversee and map everything and everyone and each instance around all the time- well, that’s where the whole idea of a team , group, society, community, nations comes in place- this is what “watching each others’ back is all about and this is the essence of ensuring that “Everyones’ problem becomes your problem- not because you have an answer to those problems but because you want to be ready to face it when it hits you with minimal damages as much as possible, until such a time that solutions which are proven and tested are made accessible! This principle when applied and thought through even for the day to day corporate chores that we need to further- makes a great point about always ensuring that we have what we call as individual clarity and objectivity about what is expected from us individually for the role that we play-  and when each member on the team does this, rest assured successful teams will lead to create successful businesses and successful societies which in turn  build a healthy nation! So next time, think twice before you say” Its, not your problem- because it may not be now- but is will certainly be sometime and then it will be worthwhile if you Know something about the problem that you are facing!

Ciao for now, I leave you here with your cup of coffee/tea as the case may be! Stay wise and stay sane, and always remember, just by your existence you contribute and become a reason for all that is fair and unfair in the world around you and  that you experience! 

 

The dangers of misplaced narratives.

~ PA ~ 4 Comments

If you think or rather want to continue to think that “We’re in this together” and “Together we will prevail”, are great things that seem to inspire each one of us- Well, think again, these statements look great, the only problem that I have with them is, dude, I did not sign up for any of this shit! I would have rather joined a UN coalition force to rain down a barrage of bullets on the bad people or signed up for the olive green uniform for my country but to get drawn into a global narrative that is being literally shoved down my throat and placed in front of my face by trying to tell me that I need to contribute and be a part on this- so called war against a virus! I mean, wait a minute, have we really lost it!? A war against a virus, I mean really?! Take a pause and think about it (since you would be either in a quarantine or a lock down), how come one  gets coerced  to contribute to  alter something about which neither anyone has complete  facts- the How, Why and What of it and neither the solution to it!- neither you are a biologist, chemist or a molecular scientist- so what’s really going on with all these forceful patriotic narratives, the clapping, banging, singing all over the world- what’s really happening! Well this is what is called as the “War of the narratives” and this is something that every nation wages at some or the other time, the only difference being this time, all of them are doing it, at one go for one singular narrative- The Pandemic!

History is replete with examples wherein narratives have been created to drive select agendas of individuals who have been able to harness power, position or both and lead societies, nations to the gates of hell! So why is it that even when people, who are generally well educated, aware and have a thinking mind fall into the trap of these gimmicks and symbolism of false narratives? The answer lies in the qualities that I enlisted! Literacy, Awareness and Mind never help when literacy is not equated and filtered through education, awareness is built on prejudice and pre-preemptive assumptions and people even after having a mind, decide to lock and kept it away!

Misplaced narratives are perhaps the greatest invention of human mind! It is no surprise that most of the times they have been used to push through agendas which normally would have not gone through! So why do have them in the first place? Well, go back to history! Each time global communities- whether they be nations or regions have stalled and the governing agencies (elected governments, dictators and whatever fits into this systems that rules over the masses!) have hit a trim level with regards to any vital metric of the society that they govern, it has almost always ended up giving birth to powerful narratives- which essentially were a distraction created for the masses more then anything else! What these narratives almost always did was to lead people in a directed way of seeing at problems or thinking in a particular manner which reinforces the decisions made by the governing agencies! If we go back to the times when the great world wars were fought- you will notice a singular trend- every action that was taken even from the beginning of each of the wars was to do something with a powerful narrative by an individual or group of individuals who had come up with a clever strategy to communicate what served their purpose- to an extent that millions of people- whether soldiers or otherwise felt it a patriotic obligation to get in harms way (especially when a few of those countries were least impacted directly at a time when limited escalation broke out!) Consider Vietnam- the much famed theater of war from where US had to move back and was also the reason why powerful counter narratives were made in way of movies and films to keep sending the positive messages around the war to the general public! Truth certainly comes out, but if it gets mistimed- it looses its essence! This fact is being used and abused by people who govern and believe in creating false narratives!

In our current case, no government sounded off alarms about the deadly contagion that the virus is in the beginning, but as they realized that mistakes were costly- the narrative changed from the governments accepting accountability and responsibility- to telling citizens what to do and enforce a lock down. The lock down in nations where the virus was more aggressive ensured that those who were sick were more or less written off and had no chance of waging a come back as the system was reduced to choose between people when it comes to who lives and who doesn’t- Inhuman it seems and it certainly is- the worry here though is not that world wide health systems can’t cope with this kind of deluge of  sick people- The fact here remains that governments watched every our and every day as the things began to spiral off and decided to get active only when it started to suit their objectives- again not by- being honest and truthful of the omissions and mistakes, but rather by creating false narratives and putting the onus on people for their own life- The over all feeling across the world based on what governments are telling their citizens is “Well, we have a problem and you can alone ensure you are safe if you do a, b, c and If you don’t do this, well I cant guarantee you anything!”

Misplaced narratives work extremely well to serve political and strategic points for governments but in the long run they ruin and completely break down the communication and trust within the social frameworks and end of the day, more often then not end up reducing citizens to some crazy “Citizen ID no XXX”. That’s about it- eventually this is where we all will be heading to and this is what will remain as the reflection of the nation that we belong to . This one number will define how high and farther we get within the context of the society we live in. So you may want to ask me now, if “misplaced narratives” are so bad and dangerous why are they allowed and how do they get a foothold in the first place?

You will be surprised to learn, that individually each one of us and collectively as a society we ourselves are to blame for the extent of false/misplaced narratives we are ready to buy into and agree to! Yes, this is very similar to herd mentality and the overbearing need to comply with “social conformity bias” to be accepted as part of society and not be seen as an outlier or oddity who can be taken out/ ejected depending on what type of society you are going about in! The reason why these things get a foothold is surprisingly our “intellectual inertia” a behavioral attribute wherein we perhaps know what we are witnessing is against established logic and normal universal principles of humanity, yet we decide to do nothing about it- nor say, nor act and well this inaction serves as acceptance in the scheme of things  and misplaced narratives start to rule! Remember Hitler- one person who made millions believe that killing innocent people from a specific community was their greatest duty of service to their nation” well, yes- this is what it is and this is how it can get played out from a worst case scenario point of view- An Individuals delusional thinking and intellectual hallucination and fixation of an idea- brought the whole world to the edge and resulted in sufferings and deaths of millions and millions to an extent that the effects of those are felt even today when you visit towns and places tucked away on the quiet corners of Europe, Japan or other theaters where all hell had broken loose! A simple act of not using intelligence, cognition and displaying inertia at individual levels when reinforced by societies leads to a deafening silence which fuels the development of “misplaced narratives” which eventually end up harming the society which has surrendered and outsourced its ability to think to the whims and fancies of an individual or a group of individuals! So is there no hope around this? What’s the way ahead, are we kind of really doomed?

Well the fact remains, if there’s a problem, there is a solution always and this applies to the ability to ward off misplaced narratives as well! The first and possibly the only step is to use individual intelligence and wisdom before you agree to disagree to anything that is coming your way- e.g. If I were to tell you clap for five minutes everyday at 12 pm to become a millionaire in one year- well I am sure giving some kind of marketing twist I will be able to tempt you to try that dumb thing! But if you have a mind which starts to weigh my statement against principles of science, philosophy and common-sense , you will know this is rubbish and nonsense and  you will ask me to shut up! When one voice turns against a misplaced narrative- it by itself is powerful and when you amplify that using the power of social media and create a compelling counter narrative which is based on facts and science- which can be verified and explained in plain speak- this powerful counter narratives are what revolutions and pressure groups are made up of! Remember the Jasmine Revolution, – well that and many such were the result of powerful counter narratives when individual members of society came together and decided to stop misplaced narratives by confronting it collectively in unison with facts and more acceptable solutions!

Misplaced narratives are often the first steps before a nation is planing to change their political framework and these are more often then not tests run with tact and strategy and regular intervals to gauge the mood of the citizens so that any dissent can be stifled- using appropriate force as needed to ensure that the governance agenda- whatever that is- can be met! If you happen to be in any nation wherein you are seeing the political class becoming more and more in your face and in your app or in your life- Well, welcome you are now officially part of a society where a powerful misplaced narrative is completely hiding away from you what is really happening behind the scenes! If you think-all world leader woke up to a pandemic late- well think about it! If they have so many resources and time to mitigate and control the things now- why couldn’t they stop that from ever reaching to those levels in the first place!? No, I don’t need you to answer now, but keep thinking, maybe the “Pandemic is a Misplaced Narrative” and there is something bigger unfolding- which is hidden in plain sight!

I will leave you here with a cup of strong, very strong coffee and wake up  your mind, and try to sieve through the narratives that you have been a witness to and allow your intelligence and wisdom to guide you to unravel which one of those are indeed, “Misplaced narratives and who fast are they racing to impact you!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another piece soon!

What to expect as people emerge from the lock-down!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

As we emerge out of the demonic shadows of the pandemic, you will find that the world has changed a big time, for good or bad- well this will largely depend on how your lock-down period was and what were the contents of  your isolation! Irrespective of whatever it was- you will be a changed person for a lifetime and may that be for the good and greater well being of yourself and everyone around you! This piece is a quick one trying to share what are the emerging shades and colors of human behaviour you will get to see around as the world begins to gets ready for business as usual in a few weeks from now!

You will probably encounter what I call is the “Butterfly syndrome” well not everyone, but the usual “social and ultra extroverted types” will be the ones’ who will display this. These will be the ones’ who will go from desk to desk and check if all is well and so on and so forth! Well, folks, I am not going to tell you if this is a wise thing to do or not, I leave that to your own figment of imagination! (as a Coach I am largely indifferent to how people behave- much of my focus is to see if their behaviors are aligned to the outcomes that they aim for!). But in a way these people with the “Butterfly syndrome” are the ones’ who have walked into the event and walked out of it with relatively the same levels of IQ and for them coming back to the routine is akin to waking up to reality (they forget all the torture, stress and challenges that the lock-down would have presented). This is good in a way but the problem is that they also forget the vital learnings that are needed to have a meaningful life ahead as they go on to embrace the world- full speed ahead with their selective amnesia!

The next broad display will be from people whom I like to call the “Reversed Polarity syndrome” As the name suggests these people will display completely opposite behaviors then what they were before the break off from the routine– you will come across cases wherein a person who has been a known introvert- suddenly is getting colorful and is too much into everyone’s face at times and borders on actually ending up irritating others (this irritation would normally have more to with lack of content for the right contexts as the person tries to overdo the extrovert’s role- not knowing when to shut up and when enough is actually enough!). On the other extreme other end of the band you would have an otherwise vibrant and chirpy individual suddenly transformed and metamorphosed into a deadly silence, displaying a matured behaviour which would generally be not congruent to their age! Now whether this will be good or bad- depends on multiplicity of factors like who they are what they do and the kind of job that they do etc. etc.; The best part of all this, is the fact that people who will display these traits- with time, will elastically come back to their natural zone; even before they realise it, they will be once again their authentic self! Even they will find it hard to believe that they did behave the way they did in the initial days after coming back (which will fun for some and embarrassment for few others)!

Then you would have that pristine balanced lot- right there in the middle- as if nothing happened- will go on as usual as if they are just back from a vacation and their conversations will all loop to things- like- during the work-from-home I had sent you that mail on Saturday at 5 pm and that other mail earlier on Friday at 3:30 pm) and people are left dumbfounded- “Wow, this person is God in disguise-even as the earth and society seems to be falling apart- you have this smart person- rattling off the data, numbers and also sending out plan of action for days ahead! Cool!

Apart from these superficial aspects- there will be however, a lot of serious stuff playing around the minds of the people all the time for a good long time- this could be as long as few weeks for a few of them it can be a lifelong challenge depending on how an individual would have soaked the episode in! These things and episodes will be played out in the deep confines of peoples’ mind all across the world- these will be what I call as “Automated Response mechanisms” which will evaluate every act and every action in light of how vital or trivial it seems to be in the larger scheme of things- read ones’ life and what one wants from it! Of course not everyone and all people will be able to have this space of their mind ticking around this- But this will be reflected and shown by people who actually have used this space of isolation to seek and find their real urge and have got their priorities of life right during this time in isolation, for some it will mean reinforcing their beliefs and values in what they have been doing so far and for few others it would be throwing away and walking away form all that they were doing and head to pursue something totally new with a refreshed approach and work towards what their new priorities are now! Whichever you look at it, it certainly assures a positive outlook for the individual, but that may not always work for a similar experience for the  organisation that an individual works for unless the supporting ecosystem within the organisation echoes the same!

These and many such evolving patterns of acquired behaviors will play out across offices and work places at all levels and these interplay will lead to new synergies trust behaviors and in few odd cases will lead to fall outs and complete rejigs of value systems and individual alignments vis-a-vis- the work place mandates! Importantly after spending an excessive time through the work-from-home scenarios- there also will be realignments and re-calibration of inputs and efforts that are provided by individuals at their homes with an aim to calibrate these inputs against outputs that are being perceived and experienced! You will see instances of where people want to spend more time at home, you will come across instances where people start to work late more often, you will see people wanting to travel more often or less often- all this will be in a nutshell reflective of how the excess time at the home front went by. There will be multiple reasons and again a hue of colors and shades of different personalities working with or against each other as well- and honestly that is befitting for  another article altogether!

Whatever it is, folks, trust me the period coming up, certainly promises to be rich, colorful and entertaining, which will offer a window into the human mind and behavior like never before! I am also quite sure none of us want another global crisis just for studying changing behavioral patterns- certainly not me! But then, this is perhaps among the  few positive fallout of a crisis, next only to that of saving lives from the clutches of certain death!

I leave you here for now and will be back soon with another refreshing article. Do keep writing in and do let me know what is that you want me to write next about and yes; stay calm, wise and safe always! If dumbness and stupidity gets you dusted- well nothing can be paradoxically as painful as that would be! Ciao for now and will catch up soon!

 

Learnings from a virus attack!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Even as the world responds and grapples to deal with an onslaught by a visibly invisible enemy- no matter how odd it may look- this episode again gets us back to the same fundamental question (like with any disaster)- “The WHY of it?”

To begin with, this is not the first time that humanity has been hit by nature through a viral route- things have happened in the past too and organisations/ agencies worldwide have provided swift response and made it possible to wage a war to ensure that the crisis ends with minimal fatalities. Each of these battles against the onward march of these seemingly super-bugs has provided ample amounts of learning and takeaways-but for some strange reason- as humans we simply don’t seem to believe what science tells us and we end up at points in history like the one where we are now!

This is not an article that gives us a solution to tackle the Corona Virus (boy- I would be rich real rich!) but this attempts to see what we possibly miss through the rush of our busy lives and why instances like these may continue to strike with predictable timelines and severity as we keep advancing and moving ahead!

What we certainly know is that this tiny virus too jumped from animals onto humans– so the holy question- “What the f**k was anyone doing – in an unhygienic setting around a dead animal?”. What is even more dumb is the fact that – what are the kind of animals do we want to consider having on our plates- and whatever happened to basic personal hygiene- Isn’t that something that we all learnt at playgroup or kindergarten?” Why does the UN (through WHO) need to tell the world “To wash their hands and maintain Hygiene! What does all this speak about ourselves – as individuals and societies – the way we have evolved as Humans- are we becoming more smart by the day or are we setting up ourselves for even more dangers by playing plain stupid and dumb! What’s actually happening here?

Being who we are; arrogant, ignorant, stupid, overconfident- all or any of these- humans tend to put them in harm’s way every now and then- whether it is that casual jay walking across a busy street, riding a bike without a helmet, exceeding speed limits on your sports car, or simple dumb things like- speaking while your mouth is full of food, refusing to brush your teeth at night, binge eating, drinking for no reason- you name it and you will find an instance around you and at times each one of us have been more or less guilty of this! Indulgence- is to blame- that insatiable appetite to wanting more and more and more of everything and anything around you, just because you have the resources to acquire and enjoy- this senseless indulgence is the underlying reason for the mess that we have landed humanity from time to time! You may ask me around this time- well what has this to do with the corona virus- well it has everything to do with it! If reports are to be believed this virus broke through some wet food market and one of the reasons that appeared were possibly an aspect of inadequate handling of meat/food products that were possibly infected and add to that the senseless rush that food markets nominally see ( because we get everything at a lesser price and this small incremental greed of saving that one dollar more by going to a larger market and being ready to buy/sell food products in not so hygienic conditions- what eventually has unfolded is for the whole world to see and understand! It is a classic case of a gross disregard of few people who have put at risk global communities and contributed to early exit of a few lives!- in some cases possibly these poor souls would not have even heard of such a place and any of these unfolding events at a place thousands of miles away from their residence!

In the times of fast city lives, social compulsions and wanting to be conforming with everything what others do- It is but certain that when the wrong role models and wrong practices are picked up and followed- when shit hits those and what you follow; it will hit you too! This again is not limited to only a virus outbreak- this is applicable to almost everything and anything that we do! What this episode us teaches is that – Our Individual value system and common-sense; that internal gyroscope of our mind; (which keeps on telling us always and all the time, “Hey, don’t do this, let’s move out of this place, let’s not buy this, let’s do this over that) whenever it is disregarded; chaos unleashes– it is similar to trying to shut off an ILS landing in heavy rain and trying to land the plane through a visual approach in the blinding rain- the chances are you will land with a bang- and will be lucky to survive! So what’s the answer to all this chaos and is this the last time we are witnessing something like this?

The first part of the answer, a generous helping of common-sense(having nothing to do whether you are rich or poor, educated or illiterate) value systems and inner belief will keep you alive and away from harms way for good- without you having to do anything more then using your brain and applying it for yourself in the right way! The second part, sadly the world will not learn- not that there aren’t any wise people around- in this context the problem is of too many wise people speaking to each other with no one wanting to listen to anyone! As long as this circus continues- you may have billions of dollars and thousands of people as a resource to serve and overcome problems- the fact will remain – that humanity will keep walking away from problem into another! (which would be largely created because of the mishandling of the previous one)- well incompetency – will keep on popping up here and there- as it always happens across large organisations and this in turn ensures that humanity always pays a heavy price – a heavy price for incompetent leadership and lack of common-sense of few people!

I will leave you with these thoughts for now, for you to reflect and really think for yourself- What is that you think you will do from this moment on- not to save the world- but to save yourself and your family to ensure that you do not come in harms way because of the incompetency and stupidity of someone you may have never known!

Keep thinking, stay wise and stay safe! Of course, remember, Personal hygiene is not doing a favor on the world- it is a simple act of ensuring that you don’t end up buying an early ticket for your exit from the theater of the world! If someone said, common-sense is like salt to food, then well makes sense to ensure you use it sparingly and always when you decide to cook up a new dish within your brain! Ciao for now will be back with another piece soon!

Keep writing to us with your inputs on what next you would like to read and to learn more about our structured interventions and consulting solutions for organisations and individuals through our consulting and coaching services! You can reach me at parimal.aluri@simplifylives.com!

Human greed and climate change!

~ PA ~ Leave a comment

Well, not a very great title to start the week with; but this is something that I wanted to share and would like each one of you to share further and practice to do what is best possible by you! Climate change is a direct consequence of human greed! Someone said this earlier, “Our planet can fulfill all our needs but there is nothing that can ever fulfill human greed”! With almost 35-40% of human population staying within 50 miles of a coastline around the world and almost 75-80% of all major urban cities and mega-cities under severe infrastructural pressures; isn’t it time that we cared enough and thought about all this chaos around us (at times apparent and at times hidden) with a little more wit?

Scientific data can be quoted and one metric over the other, there can be arguments on the rate of rise of sea-levels world over, there will be claims and counter-claims to decide which of the many environmental problems is a larger emergency over the other, but what people and in fact all of us miss the bigger point is that- one fundamental aspect – reason for this mayhem has absolutely nothing to do with science at all to begin with- it has fundamentally everything to do with a very simple and ancient problem that is so intrinsically woven into our psyche- “Climate change is a problem cause by human greed”- nothing more, nothing less!

This topic, in itself, qualifies for a new best seller to be written, but I will try to share my thoughts as crisply as possible appreciating the limitations of a blog- wanting it to remain a blog!

Pick up any scientific literature and you will be surprised to know that all the bad guys (the pollutants- polluting agents- raw materials/finished products/chemical intermediaries) were at some or the other point in history hailed as the “new wonder”, “answer to energy crisis”, “agents to propel development for human society”; whether it was extensive coal mining earlier on, or the ability to tap into massive hydrocarbon reservoirs of oil and gas fields, rapid development in the field of polymer sciences or innovation of new polymer molecules etc (to enhance their utility and versatility); each and every step that science took in the last 150 years across its fields and sub-fields and inter disciplinarian areas was with a single motive and purpose to make life “easy” and “value driven” for humans! Then where do things begin to go wrong? How did these miracles of modern science (many Nobel awards were given in these or related fields of path breaking research) turn into demons and manifestations from hell, that now threaten to wipe out ecosystems and alter climate in an irreversible and damaging chain reaction? Well lets decipher and simplify the chaos!

Science by it’s very nature is an enabler and a simplifier- No matter which field of science you choose it has only one aim- to enable, improve and simplify complexities of human life and provide mankind with a quality of life which is incrementally better then what it has been before! Even to put it cynically, if science can’t provide you an elixir of eternal life, it can improve the quality of your death by making it quick and less painful! So if this is the noble high ground of science, why is it that we face today a challenge like never before by using the very substances which have originated in research labs few decades ago? Well the answer my friend lies in the fact that it was never a problem with what was innovated- rather with how the innovations were produced post scaling up productions and the deviation of the utility of what was innovated- deviation from the primary reason of scientific research that was conducted in the first place!

Pesticides, Fertilizers were hailed as answers to world’s food problems and a solution to increase yield in limited fertile land tracts around the world to feed the ever hungry people! A closer look into this space will provide you with a few facts- even though yield increased, application of fertilizers and pesticides was not done always as per laid down standards- result food contamination causing new health complications (and the next challenge for science!), simultaneously depletion of soil fertility which further puts pressure on crop growth- further increasing use of chemicals and the cycle just goes on and on- another tweak in this cycle was the new age genetically mutated crops which were supposed to grow fast, in soils and climates where they had no business growing and there by we end up altering food habits and consumption patterns (again which go on cause environmental and health complications– As nature gets compromised and tricked into something that it is not designed or equipped to deal with for that particular geographical area and climatic zone!) One final element to make note of – increasing food consumption- well with advancements in food technology and food processing simultaneously, even as millions go to bed without a single meal all through the day- we have plenty examples of people indulging in gluttony- consuming food for no real reason- just think about the last buffet where you had been or think about the juice that you left half-way or the plate that you did not complete- because you had seriously misjudged your hunger! Well, yes – no matter how insignificant or innocent this instance looks- this is by far one of the leading reasons that go on to contribute the adverse climates that we face- unplanned and unwanted consumption of food- eating when not hungry! Just imagine- if the predators in the wild forests had started to operate on similar lines a few thousands of years back, by now we would have been the meal of their choice because they would have ended up killing all the herbivores just for fun!

If you understood the above example, now try extrapolating this behaviour to every aspect of your life and all that you see around- “consumption – senseless consumption” is the key word which is nothing but repackaged “greed” in its new age form which is the fundamental problem. The ever increasing demand for clothes (read nylon and polymers- micro-plastics), shoes , vehicles, furniture, etc etc… you just think of it- every time you have bought something that you don’t need and already have just because you felt like- well you just drove another nail in your coffin by contributing to climate change!

Science has always solved problems and challenges that were impediments to the development, safety and security of mankind. What we have ended up doing is abusing its benevolence to suit our greed and this gross disregard has lead us to where we are now!

The fact also remains that, by being what it is- science can and does offer solutions and remedies to solve this crisis as well, however what needs to be learnt is that, science cannot and nothing for that matter can ever provide a solution to human greed!

So, let’s do what can we do in our own little ways, simple and effective things; eat and drink as much as is needed to nourish yourself, remember flaunting that burger for an Instagram pose, or holding that beer glass for earning your badge among a group- does no service to your health, unless you have been made to starve sufficiently to assimilate those calories that come along, not to forget the damage that you health faces by overdoing these seemingly cute little fallacies! Whether it is food, the clothes that you wear- get into a mode of mindful and sensible consumption, no one is asking you to be miserly or miss out that big wedding or that party- it is just about being smart in your selection of clothes, apparels and all the paraphernalia that goes with it (to make you socially acceptable- read conformity bias) so that you contribute to a sustainable way of living and make your presence on this planet that much little painful!

It is the incremental values of multiple such contributions done by individuals around the world that will be required to minimize and manage the negative impact of climate change (let alone stop it or reverse it).

I leave you with these thoughts and urge you to get some mind-space to ponder- how you would like to contribute to either mitigate or accelerate climate related challenges that we,as mankind collectively face!