Luxury versus Simplicity

“Luxury is artificial poverty, simplicity is natural wealth”

The simplest things in life are possibly the most difficult to achieve. I was recently watching a TV show, where someone shared this quote. I found it interesting. Let me illustrate this ,with a simple example.

Many of us resolve in the new year, to go for a walk every day ,to maintain good health. It is so simple ,since you do not need any equipment ,nor anyone’s help to do this. But, most of us fail within the month of January itself.

A daily walk is simple and natural way to maintain our health. On the other hand, if we do not do any exercise every day and end up being over weight, we may be advised to go for a bariatric surgery to reduce unnecessary body weight, which is artificial and against nature and we may call it artificial poverty to reduce our weight.

Life is not very different. If we look back at our forefathers, they lived a simple life and were healthy, wealthy and wise. Today, we have all the technology in the world . In India, the middle class is prospering and have all the comforts of life. But our children are becoming obese and people in their forties ,are getting heart related diseases.

I am a great fan of technology and how it can make life more comfortable, for mankind. Even the latest fad of Artificial Intelligence (AI) can definitely make our lives more comfortable and predictable. But when we tend to make technology as the end in itself, rather than the means to an end, we end up struggling in life.

We need to continually invent new technologies and be in control of the outcomes ,for the welfare of mankind. However, if we allow technology to dictate our lives and become a victim of the same, then we may have to face the ill consequences of it.

Let me illustrate this with another simple example. The mobile phone is ubiquitous today. Most of us will find it difficult to survive without it . It enables us to remain connected with family and friends. It works like a watch/clock, calculator, GPS, bank and even as AI assistant, for all our questions in life.

However, if we stop having good conversations with our family members/friends and restrict communication to whatsapp or social media exchanges, it could lead to broken families and friendships.

Emails, whatsapp and social media do not have emotions, but people do. So, when we exchange messages through these media, many a time,we may hurt feelings of others or get hurt by others ,without any intent to do so. When two human beings interact face to face, such misunderstandings are minimised ,since you are able to clarify to each other ,based on the reaction of the other person.

We do not visit family or friends ,when they are in distress. We are happy to send them bouquets and smiley through social media. A person in distress ,may need a hug or someone to talk to. But, we do not realise the same, unless we ourselves are personally in distress.

Let us learn to simplify our lives and go back to basics.

S Ramesh Shankar

5th July 2025

Respect, Honesty, Trust & Loyalty

“Respect is earned. Honesty is appreciated. Trust is gained and Loyalty is returned.”

We do get a lot of whatsapp messages every day wishing us good morning and also sharing with us some interesting quotes or videos. Many of the these quotes give me ideas to write blogs. Someone asked me as to how I get ideas every week. Apart from my own reflection and insights, I get a lot of ideas from such sources and also from my interactions with people at all levels.

As a HR professional for life, I have had the privilege of interacting and learning from all levels of employees. These interactions were also a great source of ideas. The above quote on respect, honesty, trust and loyalty helped me to distinguish the four concepts.

Let us first understand “Respect”. In the early stage of our lives, we may respect our parents, elders and teachers out of fear or due to consequences associated with non adherence. But, as we grow up in life, we respect people, who earn their respect.

We may not necessarily respect a senior at work. A senior colleague earns respects through his actions and not his words. When leaders walk their talk, they earn respect. When there is no gap between what they say and what they do, they earn respect. We may wish a senior colleague in a formal way ,but that may not necessarily mean, we respect them.

As kids, we are taught in school and college to be honest in all dealings. Our parents and teachers almost spend their lifetime, trying to inculcate this value of honesty in us. We do appreciate the value of honesty but sometimes, when we see successful people around us, who are dishonest, we start questioning if this value of honesty is worth living.

After we go through the ups and downs in life and if we have pursued a path of honesty ,we realise that we are always appreciated for our honesty. I have never missed a good sleep at night ,since I have been honest in my profession ,right through my life. Further, union leaders always appreciated honest officers and I experienced this right from the beginning of my career. when, even senior corrupt officers were being gheraoed on an issue, the union leaders always appreciated us for our honesty and hence always kept us away from gheraos and other forms of coercive protests.

The most expensive thing in the world is Trust. It can take years to earn and a matter of seconds to lose it. Trust is gained through our, day to day actions. Parents, teachers or elders gain trust of the youngsters, when they see them practising ,before they preach. Trust is never gained through words or speeches. It is always gained through our explicit actions. It takes years to earn trust ,but may be seconds to lose it. A politician may have earned the trust of his voters and won multiple elections but when he is convicted in a corruption scandal, the years of trust is lost in minutes.

Lastly, loyalty is always returned. An employee, who is well taken care by any organisation, never wants to leave because of loyalty and wants to return the good will, through her service to the organisation. A player never leaves a team, if taken care of , during good and bad times and continues to be loyal to the team.

Let us learn to distinguish respect, honesty, trust and loyalty from today.

S Ramesh Shankar

1st July 2025

Relationships are like birds

“ Relationships are like birds. If you hold tightly, they die. If you hold loosely, they fly. But, if you hold with care, they remain with you forever.”

Karma says – “Relationship is not about kiss, hugs and romance. It’s all about trust and never giving up ,on each other.”

I found two interesting quotes on relationships and found them very insightful. Our life begins with our relationship with our parents and siblings. Our parents hold our hands and help us to walk in life. Our siblings are like the support systems ,with whom we can laugh and cry ,as we try to find our foot hold ,in life.

We then grow up and develop friends with our classmates in school and college. We move closer to these friends and they influence us, more than our parents and siblings ,at this stage of our lives.

After our academics, we move on and our colleagues at the work places, are our best friends in life. As we move from one relationship to another, we realise that each has its value and has a timeline ,attached to it. Some of them sustain themselves ,while others fade with time.

We then get married and have our life partners with us. This relationship is complex but real. We have either chosen each other out of our own volition or gone by the choice of others. Either way, it evolves over time and we start depending on one another, for our sustainable living.

All the relationships, which sustain themselves ,have some interesting similarities. Our siblings are with us right through our lives and during thick and thin, they try their best, to support us. Our classmates may not be interacting with us regularly but some of them are friends for life and we trust their advice always.

Then friends and colleagues ,lay the foundation for a life long journey, for us. Our spouse becomes a partner in life and is willing to walk along with us ,to the peak of the mountain of life. There could be good or bad days in our lives but we go through them together, fight with each other, resolve our conflicts and are willing to support one another.

The first similarity of a good relationship, is its unconditionality. We are not breathing ,on each other’s neck. We let go and are still in touch. I can recall many close friends, whom I may not have even talked over years ,but still close enough ,to seek counsel, when I need them.

When relationships become conditional – we tend to use and throw. Such relationships ,do not last a life time. It is like holding a bird tight and it dies. We need to learn to invest in every relationship, we want to nurture in life.

At the same time, relationships are not about hugs and kisses every day, like the compatible life partners teach us. They trust one another and care for one another ,without expecting anything, in return. Trust is a two way street. We get ,what we give to others. We need to remember that we earn trust by our deeds and actions ,and not by our words of intent.

In order to nurture a good relationship, we need to earn mutual trust, care unconditionally, let go and give space to one another. At the same, always be accessible and available to one another, when they need us the most.

From now on, let us try it.

S Ramesh Shankar

1st July 2025