I have always wondered if beauty lies in perfection or otherwise ? I have seen that the truth may lie somewhere in between. I live in a home today which is built by a builder whose architects play around with the beauty in the imperfections of nature.

On the other hand, I used to live in a flat where the architects believed that beauty lies in perfection. In that flat everything will be perfect to the core and almost like a mirror image of each other.

While I admired both the houses and the builders, I always wondered whether beauty lies in perfection or imperfection ? This may be true in life too. I have always been a reasonably organised person in my personal and professional life.

All my things at home will be in its place and all things will have a place in my home. Similarly my office space will be reasonably organised so that you can retrieve anything in reasonable time.

I have met people in my life who aim for perfection as the means and the others who consider it an end. There are some who get highly disturbed even if a small pin is not kept in its rightful place. On the other hand, there are others who thrive in chaos.

Another good example could be our planning process. I love to travel to places. So, while I travel I plan reasonably well in advance, book my tickets, hotels etc. Even if I am travelling by car, I am clear on my route and the place where I plan to stay. However, it may be fun sometimes to tread on a journey where the destination or the route is unknown.

There are people who fear the unknown and there are others who fear the known. So the truth in life may lie in between the two extremes. A teacher who teaches you up to the last alphabet may do a good job but a teacher who enables you to explore the last alphabet may also kindle the curiosity in you.

I am not sure whether perfection adds to beauty or it destroys ? If we plan perfectly life is beautiful but imperfection makes life adventurous. So life is not black and white. It is grey most of the times. We need to learn to aim for perfection but should be willing to deal with imperfection and enjoy the journey instead of cribbing about it.

The beauty of the craft in the photo above may be in the imperfection more than the perfection.

If you buy a hand woven garment most manufacturers will tell you that no two garments will be similar. The hand craft of a weaver is reflected in the garment and hence each garment could be different but may be beautiful. On the other hand, machine made garments may all be perfect to design and no dissimilarities between two of them and this may make it boring.

So, we have to learn to live with imperfections to have a perfectly happy life.

S Ramesh Shankar

18th October 2019

I have always wondered – “What makes people happy ?”. After a lot of thought and reflection, I have evolved a simple hypothesis to be happy in life. Many of us spend our life time living everyday by comparing ourselves with people around us. It even starts in our childhood. Our parents tend to compare us with other children in academics and other activities and thereby rate our performance. Our teachers do the same and hence our society judges us by comparison only.

We grow up that way and tend to live life by comparison. We start with our student days and look at how have we done vis a vis our siblings or friends or relatives. We then worry why our career is slower than our friends and relatives. We lose our sleep if our neighbour gets a new car and we cannot afford one.

Life goes on this way. At work, life is no different. Our performance is assessed in relation to our peers. Even performance management systems are designed to assess performance in relative terms. So we end up as a point of reference in a bell curve. Some doing better than us and some worse.

In my view, the foundation of unhappiness is our living by comparisons. The day we realise that if we live in an “Absolute” way without comparing ourselves with anyone around us, life would be fun and we would discover the formula for joy. This may not be easy as it is ingrained in all of us to live in “relativity”. It starts with family, friends, relatives and society at large. Even countries do not prosper because they live and die with comparisons.

Let us look at why Bhutan is the happiest country in the world although they may not be the wealthiest. This is because the rulers as well the countrymen live in “absolute” terms. The people of Bhutan consider happiness as the means to the end as well the end in itself. They do not compare their GDP or wealth or development with other countries in any other way.

So, it is time for us to sit back and think about it. If we start living for ourselves and our happiness we will not worry about what others do or have. We will be happy with what we have and not die for what others have and we don’t. We need to be content with what we have. This does not mean we should not aspire for higher things in life. Of course we should but not because others have it but because we can work towards achieving it for ourselves.

Every parent should look at the innate talent of each child and let her or him prosper, grow and realise their potential. Every manager should look at each employee as a talent and provide the necessary environment for him or her to grow based on their potential and not their performance in relation to other colleagues.

I am convinced that if I live life on my own terms, there will be less and less reasons to be unhappy. I have tried to be content with what I have right from the day I started my career. With the active support of my partner and my kids, I have been happy most of the time in life. So, this hypothesis is not based on any management theory but personal belief and practise.

We can best learn from children of how to enjoy life in absolute rather than suffer in relativity by comparisons, as in the photo above.

You have a right to have a alternate opinion and I have a right to differ with you.

Let us exchange our views on this issue so that together we make everyone happier every day.

Together we can.

S Ramesh Shankar

10th August 2019

We sometimes fantasise that life is all about ourselves as an individual. This is truly a fantasy. The earlier we realise , the better it may be for our lives. Let us start from our personal lives including our family, friends and society.

Imagine how life would be without being part of a family. We may be born alone when we arrive at earth but there can be no life without being a member of a family and a community. It is rightly said that man is a social animal. We cannot imagine leading life all alone. We need siblings and friends all the time to enrich our lives.

This is the reality of life from childhood to senescence. Imagine a child growing up all alone with nobody around to play with. Imagine a youth without friends around her. Can we imagine a senior citizen living all alone at home and staring at the four walls ? Life would not only be boring but may be difficult to live through.

We need support from everyone around us in our family and social circle to grow up and succeed. We need guidance and direction from more experienced people than us. We need recognition and support when we slip along the way. We need someone to lift us up when our morale is at an all time low.

The situation is no different when we are at work. Some employees dream that the organisation exists only because of them. This is again a dream till they realise that they exist, learn and grow only because of the organisation. Organisation again is a social enterprise. It is not the building or the machines, which makes an organisation. It is the people working in them. No individual can succeed without enabling peers at work, a motivating manager and supportive customers and suppliers.

Even the best performing employees realise that they can never be successful without their team. How can one imagine of doing everything alone in life ? It is neither practical nor possible. The earlier we realise this reality in our career, the more successful we are likely to be.

Let us examine a football team. Even the best player in the world cannot score a goal unless he is supported by other forwards in the team. We see this in action. Many outstanding players lose out in the long run because in spite of great talent they fail to realise the value of team work.

Sometimes by looking at the mirror as in the photo above, we tend to believe that that life is all about ourselves till we come out and see the world.

Life is no different. As we have seen whether in the family, work, community or society, our success lies in our ability to grow beyond our individualism. We need to realise this early and learn the art of working in teams. It is the give and take in life, which will make us successful.

We need to realise that no individual is larger than the team she represents. If individuals excel in team work, they may be more successful than others. So, life is all about working in groups and enabling each other to succeed.

Let’s transcend from individual to team thinking today.

S Ramesh Shankar

16th November 2018