I have always believed that learning and education need not go together. I have met people in life who have never gone to a formal school but know the world. On the other hand, the best of professionals from the world’s best educational institutions ,do not sometimes inspire us, with their knowledge or skills.

I was reflecting on this subject on “what inspires you to learn from whom ?”. I thought about the people I meet every day and got my insight.

I meet people who have worked in multinational corporations in very senior positions but their every day behaviour puts me off. Then I have met graduates from the best educational institutions in the country, whose arrogance repels you from them.

On the other hand ,I meet a housekeeping staff in my community, who inspires me every single day. Starting from her genuine “Good morning” wish to her enchanting smile, everything about her makes me a good learner.

I meet her everyday and learn in every meeting of mine. Her work ethic is unparalleled. She comes to our community at 630 am so that she can earn a little more by taking additional responsibilities beyond her work hours which commences at 8:30 am.

She is meticulous in her work and does not need any supervision for her quality of output. Her smile is endearing and I have never seen her in a tiff with any of her colleagues. She is ever willing to take up additional work and support her colleagues at work.

She volunteers to make tea for all of her colleagues and is the first to come to work and almost the last to leave. I have never seen her complain about anyone or about work to me or any other office bearers of the community.

She is ever helpful to her colleagues and to everyone who seeks her support. She goes out of the way to get support staff for our residents whenever they need one. I had recently wanted a temporary housekeeping staff since my regular help was down with typhoid.

She recommended a young widow to work for us. This girl came and did her duties in the absence of our regular staff. I assumed she was her relative or friend. But my respect for her went up when I came to know that she did not even know her but wanted to help her since she came to know that she is a young widow with two children and was in the look out for a job.

So, my insight from all these experiences is that you need a great attitude and willingness to share ,to learn from others. This lady is the best in whatever she does and her attitude is worth a million. She is always smiling and willing to share. I am not even sure if she has any formal education. But that does not matter ,for you to be the best in whatever you do and also share your smile with others.

I wish I could be as simple, grounded and caring as my colleague in the community is.

May be worth trying.

S Ramesh Shankar

8th Jan 2022

I sometimes wonder whether we eat to live or live to eat. It may not be either or, as it could be both too! I eat to live. I believe, I eat food to survive but some may live to eat and it is fine too. Eating to live or living to eat is a personal choice and everyone has a right to live life their way.

I have never enjoyed cooking. I enter the kitchen only when it is inevitable and I have no choice. I do help my spouse when she needs help in cutting vegetables or doing some other chores in the kitchen. But cooking is not my hobby. Sometimes when people ask me what I would like to eat – I would reply – anything and they would be amused. The people who enjoy food want to plan for it and put in a lot of efforts to cook and relish it.

I can spend an entire day with fruits and snacks to survive and not cook anything if I am alone. But for some others, this may be a torture. So, if I have a guest, I need to cook good food for them if they enjoy food and not offer snacks just because I can manage with them.

In my view eating to live or living to eat is a personal preference. I neither believe my philosophy of eating to live is wrong nor someone else enjoying food and living to eat is wrong. However, the problem is when one thinks the other is not ok.

When people want to take you out for dinner to a famous restaurant in a new city and you are not that excited, they feel disappointed. They may be right in feeling unhappy as they are putting in extra efforts to make you happy, but they don’t realise that food is not your priority. On the other hand, if you say no, you are making then unhappy since eating good food, is life for them.

In my view neither eating to live nor living to eat, is right or wrong. What is wrong is our belief that the other person is not enjoying life as we are doing. We tend to typecast people based on our own frames of life. The moment someone does not fit into our frame of life and living, we feel they are wrong.

Our ability to live life on our own terms and letting others live their own way, is a better way to enjoy life. The day we realise that we have a right to live life our way and others their way, we may be right. We also have to learn to respect the opposite of our worldview of life.

It may be easy to say this, easier to write about this but rather difficult to practise it. In life, most things we adore may not be what others do. The day we learn to live life our way and let others do their way , we have arrived.

Life is all about live and let live.

S Ramesh Shankar

15th Oct 2021

Our world today seems to be revolving around “I”. The day we grow from “I” to “We”, we may have arrived. While it may look simple, it is possibly the most difficult and challenging transition in life. While it looks like a single alphabet to a double alphabet, it is is not as simple as that.

The first and foremost hurdle in this change process is our “ego”. Our ego prevents us to subsume the “I” in our thinking and move towards the “We”. We are worried all the time about ourselves and our family members. The first step could be to think of our community and our society at large, wherever we live.

If every individual is selfish enough to care for self and not worry about others well being, the world evolves into a cruel place to live in. The day we are able to sacrifice selfish needs to the larger good of others, our journey of transition begins.

One may wonder where this all begins. In my view, the family is the basic social unit of society, where it all begins. As parents and elders, it is our duty to inculcate the right values amongst children so that they are able to see beyond themselves always.

I remember my school days, wherein sharing our tiffin was such a source of joy. Today parents advise children not to share and think it is unhealthy for everyone. Ofcourse during the pandemic days it may be better not to share. But in normal times, sharing is caring.

Our schools and colleges also need to re look at the curriculum to promote the “We” rather than the “I”. Everyone is encouraged to excel as individuals whether in academics or otherwise. We need to possibly redesign our academic courses to promote peer learning and enabling each other to succeed.

I realise that countries which promote “We” more than “I” are better in team sports than individual games. Team spirit not only enables this crucial transition in life but also enables growth of individuals, teams, communities and societies, at large.

Even organisation cultures and performance management systems tend to promote “I” over “We”. It is time to challenge all of these and ensure that we promote team work more than individual excellence. I am not for one stating the individuals should not strive for excellence. What I am suggesting that individual brilliance should not be at the cost of others.

Lastly, as a community, society and nation also we need to promote this change. We need to enable each other to succeed every day in our lives. We need to support other families and communities to be successful. Even states need to enable each other to move forward.

The current pandemic is a great opportunity for the developed world to enable the developing world to face this crisis together. We need to remember that humanity will survive only by collective efforts and not by individual brilliance of nations.

Let us together resolve to move from”I” to “We”.

S Ramesh Shankar

10th May 2021