Many of us struggle on what to depend upon – heart or mind – to decide everything in life. This is a genuine dilemma and most of us may have gone through it ,in some stage of our life. While heart tells us what we are passionate about, mind analyses it logically ,if we are capable of doing it.

In my book, we need to decide from our heart and plan to execute it from our mind. Many of us tend to wish through our heart and just dream about it. So, it invariably ends up as an unaccomplished dream in our life.

All of us have dreams and passions in our lives. It takes time to identify, what we really enjoy in life and that is absolutely normal. It is fine to change your mind and change it any number of times ,till you find your calling—Something, which fascinates you and keeps you awake at night too.

We all come from different economic backgrounds and it is possible that we cannot follow our heart ,till we reach a stage, where we can afford to do it. Let me illustrate this with an example. I have been passionate about driving and going on long drives. I started my career in 1981 and bought my first car in 1987 and but it took almost ten years for me, to undertake my first long drive with my family.

My financial status and family conditions ,did not permit me to spend money on this passion ,till I reached a reasonable financial stability. I never looked back after that. I could afford to drive different cars and go for long drives with family and friends, across the country in different cities ,I lived thereafter. Even today, I go on a drive once in a few months and enjoy it.

We need not feel bad that we are not able to pursue our passion at a particular point of time ,for reasons beyond our control. Everything in life has a time and place to become a reality and we need to evolve the patience and perseverance, to wait for the opportune time.

Let me give you another example ,from my personal life. I always was passionate about writing. I used to write articles for my school and college magazine and many a time ,for our company newsletters. But I could pursue writing as a passion and publish books only since 2016. This was more than three decades after I started my career.

We need to find ways and means to discover and rediscover our passions in life. It may take some time and we need to be patient ,to make it a reality. Although, we may dream about our passion, it becomes a reality only when we apply our mind and plan for it in our lives.

A dream remains a dream ,unless we systematically plan for it and make it a reality ,through diligent execution. I had a dream to go to the Kumbh for many decades but made it a reality this year ,through systematic planning and seamless execution. So, anything, we dream through our hearts ,can become a reality ,if we are willing to toil to make it happen and work hard through our mind ,to make the impossible, possible.

Let our hearts continue to dream but our mind should convert those dreams into realities through planning.

Let us begin today as it is never too late.

S Ramesh Shankar

5th Feb 2025

I have been travelling in trains since the time I was born. As a child, we used to travel in second class compartments and non air conditioned coaches. Initially, the trains were pulled by steam engines and then diesel and nowadays electric engines

I loved the smell of the steam engines. I recall my first posting after my training period as a management trainee in a public sector undertaking. I was posted to an iron ore mine and the journey from the steel plant to the mine was by a passenger train pulled by a steam engine. It took us 3.5 hours for a distance of about 130 kms.

The joy of travelling by train has to be experienced to be believed. The best part of the train journey is that every ten minutes there would be a food vendor offering tea/coffee or snacks. We enjoyed getting down at every station and buying something – may be a newspaper or a magazine or just filling our water bottles.

Another interesting benefit of a train journey, especially a long overnight one ,was that ,we met people from different states of India. There would be interesting people to meet. Families, young boys and girls and elders. Many families carried enough food for their journey and invariably shared amongst all the co-passengers.

Some of the long journeys would take us two nights or more and it was more than 36 hours. We not only met and made new friends, who could turn out to be friends for life but also learnt a lot of things, from the interactions on the trains.

The train journeys improved over the years. The trains became faster and coaches cleaner. We also could upgrade from second class to first class and then to air conditioned coaches. Having tea in mud kulha (pot) and coffee in glass or steel tumblers was fun.

We also enjoyed snacks along the way and some stations were famous for some things. We used enjoy oranges at Nagpur or good mangoes in Vijayawada. Even ice creams was popular in some stations. The peda at Mathura and Peta at Agra were mouth watering.

My childhood, teenage and early adulthood was spent in train journeys. Even after I started my career, the first decade was travelling by train only – both personal and official travels. We looked forward to the company and the food ,shared in trains.

Watching the sun rise on the horizon or the moon set ,was mesmerising. The trees and the landscape along most routes, are green and breathtaking. Another good companion during train journeys was about reading books. I had a colleague at work, who was a book worm. He used to just buy a ticket from the starting to the destination station and carry a few books and finish them. He never got down. Just took a train to its destination and returned in the same train on the return jouney.

Today, when I look back, I can state that, life is also like a train journey. We start somewhere and end somewhere. We have stations on the way as the cities we move and live in. We meet people along our life journey. Some are entertaining like in the trains and some may avoid us like the grudging travellers, who do not like to interact with anyone.

We need to learn to enjoy our journey as much as the destination.

S Ramesh Shankar

20th Jan 2025

I was recently reading somewhere that “Plan versus Actual is life” and I tend to agree. We all dream big and aspire to fulfil our dreams to the best of our ability.

However, when reality bites us, we realise that what we planned is different from our current realities and that is life. This does not mean we should not plan, nor it means that the current reality may not drive us towards our goals.

This means that either our plan was inadequate or the execution beyond the plan, was not good enough. It is almost like the new year resolutions ,most of us make. We are high on enthusiasm when we make those resolutions but within weeks, if not days, we realise that reality is far from the promises, we made to ourselves.

It is almost like the gym ,in most offices today. While all employees desire to have the best of gym in their workplace; after a few months, if not weeks of its inauguration, we see that most gyms are either closed down or highly underutilised.

This is not because a gym at work ,is not a desirable thing. It also does not mean that employees do not want to be healthy. What is means is, there is a huge gap between plan vis a vis actuals and that is life.

If we move to the business situation, we understand it much better. All of us plan grandiosely. However, even before the end of the first quarter ,of a new financial year, we talk of revising the plans for the subsequent quarters since the actuals of the first quarter makes us realise the ground realities.

So, we need to realise that our life and work are not very different. At both places, we need to plan and then execute it meticulously. The gap between plan and actuals, is life. We need to realise that our life will be as good as our planning and execution.

If we either do not plan well or we do not execute well, we face failure in life and that disappoints us. It may be simple to assume that we need to go back to the drawing board and look at our plans or the gap between our plans and execution strategies.

Both at life and work, our planning has to be continual and evolving. Our execution also has to adapt to the changing needs of the environment. If we have planned well and implement our plans meticulously, the chances of disappointments are less. However, the environment around us may not always be under our control.

So our plans and implementation strategies have to be adaptive and evolving. We need to fine tune them ,keeping in mind the changing circumstances and our own moving milestones.

If we positively accept life, then our ability to execute what we have planned more realistically ,becomes a reality. On the other hand, if we surrender to current reality and refuse to change ourselves, then our plans will continue to be ,building castles in the air.

Let’s start living life positively from today.

S Ramesh Shankar

2nd Jan 2025