What goes around, come around is a common saying. In my view, this is equally true in life. We have to remember that what we give to others, we get back in some form. If we share love and happiness, we get the same. If we spread hatred, it may come back to us in some form.

It is equally true in money and material things. If we are willing to share our material wealth with others in whatever little ways we can, we are blessed with more wealth. If we are able to help a friend, colleague or relative in distress, God helps you in more ways than one when you are in trouble.

I have seen this and experienced this in multiple ways in my life. Let me illustrate with a few examples. Whenever I have tried to help someone in distress in cash or kind, God has always returned me with caring support when I have been in despair.

I have also noticed that whenever I have faced a cash crunch, I have got some unexpected surprise inflows, which I did not think of at all. I feel this is because I may have done some good to someone without expecting anything in return when they were in trouble.

It is equally true for sharing our knowledge and skills. The more we share with others, the more we get from others in terms of their knowledge and skills and thus helping us grow everyday.

We could easily learn some good lessons on giving from a pet dog. You nurture and care for a dog and she will give her life for you. I had a Labrador at home. She was so caring that she will not eat anything unless my wife had finished her lunch or dinner. As humans, we can ape these noble qualities even from animals around us.

So, it is worthwhile to believe that in life, we get what we give to others. It could be in cash, kind or feelings. It may neither be directly correlated nor scientifically established by any logic. We have to believe in this destiny of life and it will hold true for us. There are some things in life which we have to do without any logic or reasoning and this is one of those actions.

If you do not believe in this theory, that may also be fine. It is your truth and cannot be equated to anyone else’s truth. You may have experienced life otherwise and that is your reality. However, it is worthwhile to challenge ourselves and our belief with the backing of others sometimes and it may work miracles.

I have been challenged by some younger people in my family and work teams who believe that this theory may not be valid today. Even in a sports field they believe that this is not true. I have an alternate view and still hold on to it. In my view even a sportsperson who is well behaved on the ground is respected more than others. You get back the same respect you give to others in life or on the sports field.

As in the picture above, you give milk to a stray cat which is hungry and someone may feed you some day when you are hungry.

Each of us have a right to hold our own view. I just want to share my experience in life and urge you to experiment and make your own judgement. I still believe we get back what we give to others in life.

Let us give and try.

S Ramesh Shankar

20th December 2018

I have been privileged in life in every way. I have learnt from everyone around me at home and at work. Every family member and friend has been generous in sharing their knowledge, skills and life lessons with me. Similarly at work, every colleague I have worked with or interacted with has been more than eager to share their learnings with me.

I have sometimes wondered as to why people conserve their knowledge. Some people believe that if they share their knowledge or skill, they may lose their competitive advantage or their worth in life. I think the other way around. The more you share, the more you learn.

Let us reflect on own lives from childhood. Every time we recite a nursery rhyme to a kid, we memorise the same and never forget it. Similarly, every time I have taught maths to my kids, I have improved my own numerical abilities. In my view, it is difficult to imagine that I will lose my identity if I share my knowledge or skills with others.

I have seen this attitude at the work place too. Many senior professionals try to conserve their knowledge and skills thinking that it increases their value in the organisation. It is the other way around. A leader who is ever willing to share knowledge or skills or builds positive attitude in others is the one sought after by the team members.

One interesting dimension to be kept in mind in organisations is that even if you share a policy or a process, it cannot be aped in terms of culture or execution the way you do it in your organisation. Culture evolves. It cannot be copied. So, there is no rhyme or reason not to share your best practises with the world.

We can see in sports that the best players are ever willing to share their skills with their juniors. They never feel threatened that their juniors will learn their skills and make them redundant. Life is no different. Nobody can copy your style or attitude in life. Knowledge and skills are to shared to be sharpened. Attitude is to be ingrained from within.

Organisations and societies spend years to evolve their cultures. It is not possible for another society or culture to easily cut, copy and paste them. Similarly, it is not possible for an organisation to copy a system or a process easily unless there is a culture as a base and a value system to support it. So, we need to realise that the more we share, the more we create learning opportunities for ourselves as individuals and organisations.

Every individual learns from others more than from oneself. So, it is imperative that even as individuals, the more we share, the more we learn. Learning by sharing has to be a way of life. It has to be an attitude to life. This ensures that we can never become obsolescent.

Even sharing kulfi as in the picture above with your friends can be a learning opportunity.

Let us learn to share always.

S Ramesh Shankar

18th December 2018

Most of us love to go on vacations. We plan for days together about where to go. We choose our destination based on our interests, the company we are likely to have and the time we have for our holiday.

However, we forget one simple rule of life. We focus so much on the destination that we forget the journey. We do all the research to find out everything about the place we plan to visit. The places to visit, the weather, which may help us to plan the clothes we need to take. We also plan the people we have to meet at our destination.

In this whole process for planning our holiday, we forget that there will so much to do on the way to our destination. Imagine you going on a holiday in a car with family and friends. In my view, the journey is more joyful than the destination. We focus so much on the goal that we forget to enjoy the journey.

Life is no different. Each of us have a lot of goals in life. We have a lot of ambitions. We meticulously plan to reach all our life goals. But most of the times we do not end up enjoying the journey to our destination. For eg. One of our goals may be to graduate from a prestigious university in a beautiful state. We focus so much on our academics that we do not have time to see places in that beautiful city. We do not have time to admire nature or meet wonderful people around the university.

This is so true almost in every aspect of our lives. We resolve to go for a morning walk every day to the park. Our goal is to keep fit and maintain good health. This is laudable. But while we are walking 5 kms a day in a beautiful park, we don’t enjoy the green trees, wild flowers, the singing birds or the blue sky above us.

Then as we get ready to go to work or college, we are running against time. Even if we are taking a public transport, we have so much to enjoy along with way before we reach our destination. We close our eyes and miss to see the world around us. We may get opportunities to meet nice people along the way. We may observe good Samaritans around us serving society and so on.

At work, our focus is on target to achieve for the day. There is nothing wrong with that goal. But we fail to wish people around us. We do not remember to wish a dear colleague on her birthday. We may even find it difficult to find time to have a healthy lunch break.

In our social life, we are not different. We neither remember festivals and occasion to celebrate with family and friends nor remember to wish them even if we are at home on a festival holiday. We think sending and receiving messages on social media the best past time in life. We do realise that social media does not convey emotions. We do.

Imagine missing a sight like in the photo above and not pausing your journey to admire this beauty as in the photo above.

It is time to wake up and enjoy the journey as much as the destination. We all are born on a pre determined date and possible our return date to heaven is also fixed. The time in between these two dates is at our discretion. This is the journey we need to enjoy as life. We should not spend our life worrying about the ultimate date. After all, all of us have to go some day. Some go earlier while others may go later.

Time to enjoy the journey is now.

S Ramesh Shankar

22nd November 2018