When I am in the middle of something and people interrupt me with a question or comment, I usually turn to them with this focussed/stern face. When the situation within my team is already stressful, this reaction doesn’t help. The last few days have been extremely stressful at the team & i have been trying to absorb as much of it as I can. I found a neat trick that seems to work for me.

When people come over or interrupt via other forms of communication – I do 3 things:

1) Stop – often I am trying to do 2 things, that doesn’t help. I need to stop.

2) Look – look at the person and give my full attention

3) Smile – about 3-4 secs of them talking, i smile. This diffuses the situation and the conversation can proceed in a lighter manner.

This seems to work pretty well. Experiment subjects have been few – will get back after testing on wider samples 🙂

“If you meet an idiot, he is the idiot. If you meet an idiot everyday, you are the idiot.”

Usually I’ve found its easy to spot my technical or knowledge short falls. It’s much harder to spot shortfalls with my problem solving approach, intra-personal or interpersonal skills. Perhaps because we don’t approach these as subjects in school. In these scenarios, the “idiot compass” works great.

Experiences that make me believe that the entire world around me is an idiot are clues to find the next topic to learn about.

I’ve recently moved offices & the new locations has plenty of computer issues. Get stuck & annoyed so many times – unsaved work is lost. It is meant to be a frustrating experience.

But when these issues recurred today – I just seemed to enjoy them. It took nearly an hour to fix them, but the hour was a great relaxation and thinking time. I am not sure why I behaved that way today – but I know that starting tomorrow any computer issue is god’s email asking me to spend some time thinking!

3 quick notes from my morning read. The book has many hidden gems.

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Abu Said on religious life: “To lay aside what you have in your head (selfish desires and ambitions); to freely bestow what you have in your hand; and never to flinch from the blows of adversity!”

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India’s unwritten law for truth seekers is patience 

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“Mind is the wielder of muscles. The force of a hammer blow depends on the energy applied; the power expressed by a man’s bodily instrument depends on his aggressive will and courage. The body is literally manufactured and sustained by mind. Through pressure of instincts from past lives, strengths or weaknesses percolate gradually into human consciousness. They express as habits, which in turn ossify into a desirable or an undesirable body. Outward frailty has mental origin; in a vicious circle, the habit-bound body thwarts the mind. If the master allows himself to be commanded by a servant, the latter becomes autocratic; the mind is similarly enslaved by submitting to bodily dictation.”

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The third particularly hit home as the the talk is about mental strength required when one fights tigers. While the quote has much wider implications – in this context was spoken about to fight challenges (tigers). The challenger needs physical strength but also the mental strength required to treat tigers like cats. This applies to every tiger we face in life – inner and outer.

Problem solving:  Mental strength to fight tigers; There are no problems, merely puzzles; and “Patience” seems to be the mantra!

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My super-public- habit tracker –

Mar: Exercise 4   Blogging 3   No snooze 4 

Feb: Exercise 13 Blogging 13 No snooze 28 

A friend was telling me about the problems in her life- parents, family and career.

Could you relate to that statement? Or does it seem a little weird? I hope the latter – because otherwise you just called your parents a problem(though one is often attracted to do so).

Using the word problem has a negative connotation and brings out a frustrated response. When you think of problems also your motivation levels are slightly lower – it is the slow gasp sigh response. Recognising that these are puzzles instead, makes the situation a lot more fun- almost like a game. My career is indeed a puzzle and I can try to solve a bit of it everyday.

If your friend is always late, the problem response perhaps entails the sigh, “i waited for you” frustration and if you contained your anger – perhaps you’ll show it on someone else. Treating him as a puzzle gives a lot more options – you can try to reverse engineer his thinking, you can try to reset his watches, you can try to find the pattern in his “lateness”, you can set goals of things to do in the waiting time, etc.

It was an eye-opening switch. There are no problems- merely puzzles.

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My super-public- habit tracker –

Mar: Exercise 3   Blogging 2   No snooze 3

Feb: Exercise 13 Blogging 13 No snooze 28 Fell off the wagon mid way through Feb there… 

“The funny thing about the past is … That the past does not exist. Only a memory of the past exists. And each time you recall that memory, you experience some emotions – in the present. ”

Singapore, You will forever remain in my present. Scared, but excited.

I moved from Singapore to Pune.

Acting involves deciding to express an emotion, reacting means responding to changes in your emotions. Acting to emotions is fine, reacting is dangerous.

Reacting to both positive (happy) and negative(anger) are dangerous.  It is easy to see the consequences of angry reactions- spoilt relationships, hurting people, rash decisions etc. Reactions to positive emotions are equally dangerous – people take on more risk for example. A more subtle such occurrence happened at a coffee meeting –  as I got comfortable with the person – I opened up more. I was happy the meeting was going great, got excited & lost my composure. I shared more about myself than I should have, which then became a detriment to our relationship. I was jumping with joy but the carpet was removed below my legs!

Keep watching – the emotional reactions are dangerous!

I have been reading “I am that“. I was inspired to read the book based on just one quote I read someplace. They attributed it to the book!

“Love tells me, i am everything.
Wisdom tells me, i am nothing.
And in between flows my life.”

The last 2 lines meant a lot to me, the first did not. I wanted to read more – so I picked up the book and am giving it a shot. The book has many gems and is very thought provoking. Not an easy read for me – but I expect more processing over the next few days! Here is another gem!

“To deal with things knowledge of things is needed. To deal with
people, you need insight, sympathy. To deal with yourself, you need
nothing. Be what you are–conscious being–and don’t stray away from
yourself.”

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My super-public- habit tracker – Feb progress: Daily Exercise 11/15 Blogging 12/16  No snooze 16/16

The World Cup is here and I am in chennai now. The entire country is analyzing the game tomorrow against Pakistan.

I used to be part of this- somehow I don’t seem so glued in yet. Will give it sometime- this could just be because I am hardly around too many cricket fans nowadays.

More importantly it feels like I am glued into things based on the people around you.

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Did some meditation today, just after my exercise of the day 😉 The meditation routine is called “laser”, learning to focus on something. I focused on a slight niggle I had on my back & I think I diagnosed it in 20 mins! That sounds like a good method worth trying more often!

For the past few days I ve been struggling to write anything, in fact I ve been struggling to reflect on what I’ve done.

So I thought of why that was the case. I think it’s because am running on an empty tank- close to no thinking time. Good realization to have. Tomorrow is a complete task-free rest day. Well actually it’s a task free thinking only day. Let’s see how that works out.