Happiness of Life.

In the book "Happiness", by Richard Layard, he states that the increasing wealth of western countries does not lead to a corresponding increase of happiness among its citizen and neither around the world. And hence it is important that nations should be governed on the basis of what will make people happy, instead of what will make them rich.

And it sounds convincingly true in the context of Arunachal pradesh. Why people wants to be rich ? That seems to be like a very simple question, with an obvious answer of " to fulfil the requirements ". But will those fulfillments really make you Happy at the end of the day?

We make choices, and thats a very humane thing to do. But, more important is about taking decisions that would do good and make us happy. Now if we try to define the term " Happiness ", we can never come out with a conclusive definition or relate a physical description for that.
Things that would make you happy would not necessarily make others feel the same, in the same sitaution like yours.

Did we ponder on what makes this difference?
Frederick Keonig points out that " We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of something we don't have but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have".
Simple and crispy answer for the whole ambiguity on defining the Happiness or to ponder upon the difference.
This just tells us that, we needn't be a definition hunter for everything that we find intriguing, and Happiness as a matter of fact is the most intriguing of all. But, we do sometimes forget to acknowledge that. We fail to see, that we could be happy with what we have, and with the choices that we have to pave in ways for further more such avenues. But, as soon as we start defining the term 'Happiness', we try to limit our happiness. We forget to recognize the things we have at this moment. Instead of valuing it with what could be done next, we try to monetize the whole issue.
We fail to see the things we have, and instead start fantasizing on the things we don't. Fantasizing could be an debatable word here, but the important point is we start comparing our failures with the success of others.
We tend to forget success doesn't necessitate about monetizing every aspects of life. This makes other beautiful things of life look like an irrelevant entity. The moment we monetize our success or failures alike, it is simple like that of opening a pandora box. A box, full of surprises and further choices to be made.
In his book "Paradox of Choice", Barry Schwartz tells us that, we need to understand why more choices lead to less happiness and our continuous actions of figuring out what to do about it. Well, the reason is simple. Each new choices adds up more to the probability of choosing a bad choice. And this gives us more risks of missing out an even better choice.
The book talks about Maximizers and Satificers. Satificers were more likely to make a good decisions, since they were content with the things they had and the list of choices to be made were relatively simpler. But, on the other hand Maximizers, were more akin to making a bad choice. They were needed to be reminded or given feedback that they had made the best decision. They were also found out to agonize more over decisions before making them in crude sense, and typically regret afterwards in a rather confusing way, could be as in having made a decision, or of not having made the other decisions.

So one should remember that lesser choices we keep, and simpler it is made, more happy we can be.

Life is an wonderful arena of choices. Each-day we start is about making choices. We even make choices of the choice that we haven't chosen yet. Interesting ! But, the big difference successful people create, are about the effective, lesser number of choices they keep for themselves.

Well, this article has got stretched, and I would prefer to have one choice of ending this article by somehow relating it with Arunachal Pradesh as I wanted it to be.

Is Arunachal Happy ?
We have over the years seen and heard about the phenomenal experiences of many people who have gone rich, affluent and powerful. But, the irony is, this species of growing rich people has just confined to few domains be it politics, engineering or administrators. And it is imperative that one has to be thoroughly baptized and solemnized with the holy water of corruptions with the blessings of our political patrons.
I sometimes wonder, are they happy ? Happy doing that ? Happy just earning money, so that he can have dozens of cars to burn liters of petrol every day. Wait ! They don't seem to pay for the petrol through what they earn, but through govt or say public fund.
Another curiosity that has stroked a chord, at least to my innervated sensory organs, is, if the distance they have traveled by burning those oil, has ever served people any good, and at least to respect the proportionality relevance of real-time affected entities. OK. Thats irrelevant here. (sorry, that was again me.... :) )

Intention of this article is to make these classes of people more richer and more happier.
It is understandable that they constitute the top echelons of any functionary that would affect lives of people around.
I want these politicians, engineers, administrators and everyone to get richer. Not just in monetary aspect, but in others too.
People, hate, loath and criticize them (read: politicians, engineers, administrators, contractors etc.). But, people certainly can't shunt their importance. Our society is totally affected and dependent upon the decisions made by them.
Now, Its important for these group of class to understand that, Once they do some substantial amount of good work, it is not just beneficial for them to set themselves free from options of being hurled with abuses, but yes, with lesser choices they keep of getting back the same.
Money earning is an never ending process. Even if you die, after having amassed millions, your son/daughters would like to work. And wouldn't anyone of us desire to see that thing happening?

Easy money is a recipe for destruction, and one of your kins could inherit those.

Well, how I wish Dam shouldn't be built in Dibang or in any part of AP ? But, our attitude of monetizing the whole issue is simply interesting and complex as one could be.

We need to ponder upon, what we exactly intent to buy. Buying is about getting some good experience. Sometimes simple is good, and sometimes complex is good, depending on what a good experience is in a given context.
Well, atleast for me, Dams is about buying us lot of money. Ya, a money is the one that gets us money, and we certainly buy money.
Lots of money, then cars, houses, and all the riches.

But, at the end of the day, we need to ask ourselves,

"Are we Happy ? ".

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Just for the sake of writing ~~

An excerpt ...

my colleague1 :" If I offer you my pen but you don't accept it, whose pen would it be now".

Colleague2: " obviously yours ! "

Collg1 : " exactly, and same goes true with whatever irrelevant statements you might make upon me, which I wouldn't accept, hence it has to be yours, isn't it ? "

Colleague2 ....(thinkin,thinkin ... )

Well, that was an interesting one. And more on the famous lines of mahatma buddha.
Still, I wasn't satisfied. So I asked my colleague1 to frame me the same qns.

Again the excerpts from talks....
Collg1: " whose pen, if i give but you don't accept ".

Me: " Obviously yours"

Collg1:" same goes true for the statements you would make on me, until and unless I accept it, those filthy words will be all yours ".

Me: " I have an explanation for this !!, what if, I accept the pen you gave me rather than rejecting it ? "

Collg1 : " It will be yours" .

Me:" Exactly... pen is with me now and not You. But what about the Ideas ".

" an irrelevant statements upon you, or be it relevant, just conjures from the ideas that I would come up with.
And my sharing of ideas with you wouldn't void me with the ideas I just had, isn't it ? "

" but that's not the case with pen, which has materialistic existence, so be it ideas or the thoughts, it doesn't necessitate every time that it can be correlated with other material things of the world".


I guess... I made some sense here !!!
Did I ???
:)

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The art of effective decision making

What does it take to make an effective manager ? The ability to conjure upon ideas, lot many infact and bring it to actions, taking care to share the rewards equally among his peers. Seems, someone just made the ways of becoming a manager a simple task. Well, the truth is, its easy to just be a manager, but its tough to be an effective one. For instance, two managers can be equally knowledgeable about their industry and products, and have expertise on company's finances and operation, and even be acquainted to unseen quirks and talents of their employees. Yet one may be highly successful while the other mediocre at best. The former might climb the hierarchy ladder with faster rate than the latter. So what the difference?
Is it the difference in numbers of effective and wise decisions they make ? But one shouldn't be carried away by the ability to make large numbers of decisions.
Remember, Making the decisions the right way is more important than making the right decisions.

But, for that decisions have to come up first, Right !! One of the question that you can come upon is , why you need to take the decision ? Well, making decisions can be of two types normally. The first one is arrived at using a specific process and which will have a cumulative effect on the people you're working with. Second one could be the personal decisions, you make now and then. For example, should I type this article through my keyboard or should I pen it down in my note. And there I made this decision of typing it down(maybe am lazy writing it with a pen). So these kind of decisions are continuous, though I can confirm If one takes decision while asleep also. So basically, decisions are as important as the air you breathe. Sometimes you decide on the kind of air you breathe as well. Obnoxious smell, and you close your nose.

But, lets concentrate on the first one, since this is something that would decide if you can manage a group of people, which further would zero-in to the ability of managing yourself to manage others. Sounds confusing ? Don't be !!

Well, its important that one has to be a good decision maker at the first place.
So If we narrow down the list of the steps to wise decision making, they would be :
--Defining the problem: make it as specific as you can, come up with a list of decisions that need to be made. Come up with questions such as, if this is your decision or someone else's? Do you really need to be taking the decision ? Is it the right time to make the decision ? Is it an important decision(prioritize your decisions) ? Who all would be affected by this decision ?
--Come up with as many alternatives as you can think of. : Brainstorming is important for bringing out all the possible answers to your problem.
--Your resources : think about the resources from where you could get more information about possible alternatives.
--Cross check your alternatives.
--Evaluation of your selected alternatives.
--Visualization of the outcomes of each alternative.
--Do a reality check.
--Which Alternative is the most suitable for you and your partners.
--GET Started.
--Keep reviewing it regularly to check if the outcomes are the one that you had expected.

Now, since we have seen the steps, its also important to check on the list of mistakes one usually makes in this regard. And they are:
--Relying too much on “expert” information. Don't emphasize heavily on expert's comments. Those comments have their own axis for its functionality. Your perspective might be different. And this tendency can also cause a bottleneck for the other creative ideas you could come up with.
--Over estimation of the value of information received from others. Don't get swayed by information provided by people inside your social circumference. Try to use those, but after proper evaluation.
--Under estimation of the value of information received from others. So proper analysis of all the information gathered is important.
--Not listening to your feelings or gut reactions.

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Intrapreneur - the next big thing !

"Intrapreneur"--First timers would normally get confused with the Intrapreneur and Entrepreneur, sounding the same, and a notion that it has to be the same, unless there's an intentional omission of 'E' changed to 'I'.
Well don't worry, even I had the same when I first came across the term ' Intrapreneur'.

“Intrapreneurship is the process of creating some type of value inside of an existing entity by taking some kind of new product or business and looking for new ways to bring it into the market. And in order for it to be truly an intrapreneurial opportunity, it has to be a product or service that's different from the company's traditional business” - Joe watson, CEO of Reston.

So, if you dream of leaving your middle-management job and venture out on your own, the only thing that gets back to is Entrepreneurship. A very good thing, go ahead !
But, if you want to avoid the risks of going solo, which is primarily because of the fear of losing your safety net- especially at a time when most of the people are expecting some kind of economic slowdown, and the worst part of it that it could claim the job you already have; in this regard, all One can advise is “Intrapreneur”. Atleast it has the glamour that comes up with having your own start up, not an easy thing though !!

So how does it start?
Take for an instance, you are employed with a certain company for some years, maybe with a very strategically important role. But on the other side you have a have your own dream of your own start up. And incase if you see yourself-and the company-doing much more, with your plans for start up, you're then the prime candidate for “Intrapreneurship”: the art of spearheading a new product , service or other venture within an existing firm.

Many of the same precepts apply to entrepreneurship, which has stages such as :
----coming up with a new idea
----structuring a market analysis
----assessing the competition
----creating a sales and marketing plan
----determining the risks and rewards
----and the execution of the plan.

Good thing about Intrapreneur, is the security of knowing that the parent company will provide the necessary resources and still pay a salary even if the venture is not as successful as anticipated. But, nothing in this world comes truly free. An unsuccessful venture could possibly derail your career.
This reminds me of :

“Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better capabilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk- and to act”
---Andre Malraux.(french historian, 1901-76).

Both endeavors requires a person to be – a process oriented and a creative thinker, and with level of resilience that can withstand obstacles and roadblocks. Failure to properly navigate problems could arise, is a sure way to hurt yourself and your reputation. So Intrapreneur has to be someone who can develop an exciting concept into a profit driven enterprise.

There is one interesting maxim on Intrapreneurship, “ Intrapreneurship changes as the nation goes through phases”. This is relatively true in its sense that when corporations are trying to generate revenue, Intrapreneurship opportunities increases.

So Intrapreneurs are people, who have gained a unique perspective on the dynamics of the organization, and can best explain how changes in one area of a company's business can impact the organization overall.
So next time when you are motivated about new startups, but is wary of the risks, think about strategizing the same for Intrapreneurship.

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"Smoking" was injurious to health.

That is something I probably would be telling the rodents visiting my grave. And ya, most of my talks with those insects, rats etc would have been on this the theme ...
" Hey I would have probably met you 10 years later "
" I should have been doing this or that for another 10 years "
" Wait, where am I now ? , I could have had an internet connection inside my grave if I knew I would have died now, not 10 years later "
"You know the developments one can imagine, 10 years down the line "

The above statements or rather say the postulations cornered for the thesis on "Smokers around the world and their do it now, ASAP syndromes ", would indeed have just been a figment of my imagination if this had not been true.

A 50-year study of nearly 35,000 British doctors who smoke cigarettes has found that those who smoke their entire adult lives will die, on average, 10 years before those who never smoke of who stop smoking by age 30.

The study, which began tracking the doctors in 1951, is the first to quantity what scientists have long known--that cigarette smoking is deadly and becomes more so the longer someone smokes. At age 70, 88 percent of nonsmokers in the study were still alive, but only 71 percent of smokers. At age 80, 65 percent of nonsmokers were alive, but only 32 percent of smokers. Overall, about 6,000 of the doctors first studied in 1951 were still alive in 2001.

Just as the harm caused by cigarette smoking is dramatic, so, too, is the benefit of stopping smoking. According to the study, a person who quits smoking at age 60 will live, on average, three years longer than someone who continues smoking, while a 40-year-old who stops will live nine years longer. If a smoker quits by age 30, s/he can expect to live as long as someone who never smoked.

"Hey... but I could have had the power to talk to these rodents"

"I could also have had the power to torment the other non-smokers...so that (grinnn..) they could come and meet me in my grave atleast 5 years ahead."

Am i so mean ??? Well, just wondering,

when i would be able to quit the smoke...
the smoke that knows no fire...
fire that burns no and nothing...
nothing that would my 10 years will be filled with...

"Quit smoking.... Smoking is, indeed injurious to health. (read it after 10 years plz).

:)

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Tibet - my two cents on it.

Tibetians protest around the world, coinciding with the China's ambitious plan to host Olympic and the torch relay across the continents, has been reviewed by people from all the corners.

Was the modus-operandi of the protest to disturb the torch relay a pre-planned action? Obviously this has to be, considering the concerted efforts of the Tibetians for their freedom since decades. Did anybody doubt that? If that had not been the case, we would have seen the reversal of the exodus that came to India from Tibet as refugee. But, this isn't happening and won't happen any sooner also, considering the efforts taken by the people around the world against the injustice meted out to Tibetians. Ya.. you guessed it right, the effort of being a mere spectator.

I don't get the idea of a nation state carved out by forceful annexation of some regional neighbors; exactly as the way China has done with Tibet, in parallel with the Taiwan. Why can't they live in peace and let the others live in peace as well ?
Some of the quagmires I find it hard to surmise upon.
Equally its true with the Indian context as well, we can't let kashmir be a free state or a pakistani state. Both of the options just seems to drill us of our feeble feelings we could keep for human beings. Resilient Indians or the Kashmiris ? Bombing of innocent kashmiris, by terrorist bombs or bullets from crossfirings between terrorists and Indian army, hardly bothers us.

So at one end you get killed by people who call themselves martyr(read militants), and on the other side you've military personnels who seems to have the license to kill anyone. Not anyone just the Kashmiri...!!!

Coming back to the China-Tibet events.

For Tibetians around the world, living each day with an uncertain hope and dream, and a question they would find flummoxing, which of their progenies would one day reside in a Free Tibet, is a hard thing one possibly can endure. Even at this age, where democracy seems to be the favorite chants around the world, the rightful people are still languishing and finding it hard to fight for their rightful place.

Hopes are just like a pendulum. It swings with its own mood and the favorable momentum. So does it go true for the sudden spurts and resonance of the Tibetians protests around the world.

They, deep down in their heart realize, the abject truth that the world knows but is fearing to back(though they do mentally)owing to China's position interms of supremacy in all the domains. They know, this is the right time and the only time to embarrass China, or else they would have to wait for years or decades when China would conduct an event of International involvement again.

They know, they can carry on their flame of fight for freedom along with the torch, all around the world.
The torch for them is a ray of hope, a hope that they are ready to keep alive even for decades, until the time, when Beijing hosts its next Olympics.

My progeny would update the struggle then.

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Human Design by Alexander Pope.

Alexander Pope, regarded as one of the greatest verse satirist in English once wrote an essay on Man, wherein he states:

THE DESIGN.
Having proposed to write some pieces of Human Life and Manners, such as (to use my Lord Bacon's expression) come home to Men's Business and Bosoms, I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering Man in the abstract,his Nature and his State; since, to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being.
The science of Human Nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points: there are not many certain truths in this world. It is therefore in the anatomy of the Mind as in that of the Body; more good will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open, and perceptible parts,than by studying too much such finer nerves and vessels, the conformations and uses of which will for ever escape our observation. The disputes are all upon these last, and, I will venture to say, they have less sharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice more than advanced the theory of Morality. If I could flatter
myself that this Essay has any merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite, in passing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate yet not inconsistent, and a short yet not imperfect system of Ethics.

Just like the Science unravels the truths, our experiences too, materializes to show us the truth, which minutes ago were a mystery. So, here we have a natural process that synchronizes all the elements of a person's life to give him the further sanctified tag of having existed for few more moments, minutes or seconds.

My question is which one would be more important, the experience or the realization of having experienced ? Can there be an element betwixt and between those two, yeah, with relevance to the sanctified wisdom that proliferates to squeeze out the further refined explanation?

What significance does the experience have in our life without we realizing that it occurred ? Does it implicate, moral wisdom is a necessary requirement, though it sounds oxymoronic.
As Alexander vehemently connotes about accruing of good to humanity, if we narrow down our scientifical solutions for larger perceptible parts, rather than the lesser visible blood vessels, or the cells.

I just felt, maybe we can do the same with our experiences. Rather than clinging to the facets of minuscule experiences that hogs about for just few moments, why not we concentrate on the experiences with larger stretch.
Life is too short, and sometimes rather long, to bother on the shorter aspects of life, ya... I know they hold relevance with respect to our existence, but it turns out to be of lesser significance to its counterpart, yes the larger than life experiences.
Ok... was it a cliche ? Can experiences be larger than life? This is just a part of my experiences with the ambiguities of life, which is nonetheless an entity with seemingly longer time stretch.

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Ephemeral of All !

Time, a relevant scale that tries to draw out uniformity among the varied different(in-different as well)inhabitants of this supposed to be lonely earth, encompasses a lot many enigmas that still draws curiosity of intellects around.

(did i just made myself one among that ... haha... sorry I did that infact )

Well, coming back to the topic " Ephemeral of all" , it's just a self claimed postulate of a question which am so fond of asking... " Which event or process is the ephemeral of all" , in other word which event, action, reaction or process has the least period or existence ?
I had come upon a long list of people, all with their own ideas of ephemerality .
One came up with an option of 'life span of fly' ...

Which fly ??

Any fly.... dragon fly, mosquito(fly), fly that flies, well so many of them.
OK. I had to take take a note on all of those, even when we are so much aware of technologies that talks about executing processes in micro secs...well nano or much smaller brethren of these ranges.

How could he think of the flies ?
Why did he feel that killing a mosquito was just few seconds work, of course, it happening naturally ?
Workers and engineers in ALL-OUT, GOOD KNIGHT,etc companies... and of course not to forget our "KACHUA JALAW MACHAR BHAGAO" Company would soon have lost its job.

Or maybe he never had tough time like I did, like most of us did... you know.. to wait patiently, unmoved in a still posture, holding deep breath, and all concentrated to land a slap to ourselves, just to kill one of those blood quenching brats aka mosquitoes.
Well... he certainly never had it for sure and I wished his answer was the right one.
But sadly we know it isn't ! :(
The other answers that I got for this question was, a little bit more refined one, than I previously narrated.

Some said, time duration of nuclear processes... ya nuclear fusion, fission. A much better answers though. Some came up with the processors that are supposed to execute millions of arithmetic operations in fractions of micro or nano seconds.
I just pondered, how much time they would infact take for one single arithmetic operation then, well that would be way beyond we could have imagined of.

So the more confused or relatively harder for us to visualize period, options seemed to satisfy me. But, where's the conclusive answer that am seeking ?
Will intersection of my confusions bring me a conclusive answer?

Ya...you just heard it... confusions can be conclusive. Further refinement.

My introspections with my quest to find an answer seemed to me like a feeble confusticated confusions (wow...that certainly is) that was just drawing me far away from the ephemeral thing that I was trying to seek.
I felt, our inability to draw up a clear cut distinction between two instances of one could help me.
Thats where I thought, Time which can be further fragmented to three more divisions of namely, PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE could take me one step closer to my question.

I was just in the past, but am writing in the present..
...oops i just landed in the future....
WHAT ? .... am back in past ?
No...am at PRESENT... hence am writing.... Hmmm... back in future ?

Did I make the Time Travel so easy ? Should I shout "EUREKA ?" or should i cry about my envisaged confusions ? So which part of the three named zones of time am I living in, right now, right away ?

Can you answer me this question, in person, and in PRESENT ?
If you can... please try it on your friends or please write down the methodology in my COMMENTs space.
For me, it just signifies the extension of Theory of Relativity of time. Hmmm...do you believe that ? :)
Well, my conclusion to this would be, our state of being in PRESENT is the ephemeral of all !

***views and counter views will be highly appreciated***

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Questions and answers to Life ?

I keep pondering, which course of Life is actually the hardest or the easiest ?

Or does it really make any difference if toughness or its opposite would make any drastic change, well I don't rule out the possibility of minute changes though.

A new born baby, unable to walk, nor choose or wear its clothes and neither feed itself. Does these inabilities exactly define the Hardship of life in its real terms?
Or are we to go ahead and set ourselves with further refinements in defining the abject ridden life?
Or is it always hard all the time?

My confusion is in relation with every actions we take in a day's or minute's life. How significant are, each and every minutely detailed actions responsible to the further comings we would face ahead ? Can we really correlate all the decisions and consequences ? Can we really decide on the consequences? Now if we can to the later question just laid, how good would it suffice to the consequences?

Can there be really any consequences if we have upper hand on deciding its out comings?
OK... outcomes and consequences does sound one... quite synonymous. But are they really same?

Does it bother if I ask you so many questions or I do the same to myself?

Now isn't it hard .... I guess, I just made my life harder.

So play simple. Play safe. Life ain't just walk the cake.

" Shall try to come up with more.... :) "

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