Category: Life & Living

Back to our roots ?

I sometimes wonder whether the time is ripe for us to get back to basics. We need to rediscover our roots and live again like our forefathers did. The current pandemic has made many of us reflective. It has helped us realise that health and happiness, money cannot buy. The richest of nations and the most advanced have suffered the most in this pandemic.

I would like to share my life journey and learning through time. In my childhood, we had limited resources but unlimited happiness. None of us generally fell sick amongst family and friends and we were content with what we had in life. I recall our home with no fridge, TV, washing machine, dishwasher, refrigerator or air conditioners but none of us complained. We had the joy of living together as a family, having dinner together and playing together.

Then as we grew up and went to college, we experienced the benefit of travelling by bus and train and saving money for our parents by whatever means we could. There was only one earning member in the family and all of us contributed our bit to conserve and contribute to everything happening around us.

While our first job gave us financial independence, it also taught us how to stand on our own feet. We considered it our duty to send back money to our parents and also take care of them. Expressing our gratitude to everyone who helped us stand up in life was a way of life. Today the pandemic reminded us about the value of family and friends. It has brought us back to ground zero.

In our career, we almost took our job for granted. Most of us did not believe that we will ever lose our job in our career. Life long careers in organisations was almost a given. Today, it is quite different. People neither want to work for an organisation for life nor organisations are willing to guarantee life long jobs. Jobs are changing and so are careers. This again is making us realise that life is beyond a job and a career.

If we look at our life in general, a lot has changed too. We were enamoured by the social media and the number of friends we have. However in a crisis like the current pandemic, we realise that the true caring people are your close family and a few reliable friends only. We need to realise that we have to save for the future and lay the foundation for the future of our family as well.

Conserving for the present and saving for the future was taught to us as we started our careers. Today we live for the present. We had started to believe that life is today. We need not worry about the tomorrow. Today the pandemic has suddenly woken us up again. We may not be sure of our job security and the future looms in front of us. So, we realise that we need to go back to saving today for a better tomorrow.

In every aspect of life, we are realising today that we need to get back to our roots. Our food, our living styles, conserving nature, being grateful or even our career or vocation. We need to learn to be self dependant and respect nature in every way.

As in the photo above, we need to reflect if we have the ability to admire the beauty of this flower and connect with nature as we did in the past.

Our life events are cyclic and it is possibly the time to reinvent ourselves and rediscover the fundamentals of life and living.

S Ramesh Shankar

23rd July 2020

Life need not be a “win or lose” always…

Many of us think of life as a race where one has to win and another lose . Is it necessary ? I am not sure. It may be a good idea to look at life as a game to play and enjoy the game. You may win some time, lose some time and even end up in a draw some time. We may also be prepared for a game to abandoned sometimes and you may have to share points with your opponent.

Life is a zero sum game. The day we realise it, the better for us. We need not live life as if we have to win a game always. We need to learn to play the game in a fair way and give it our best shot. If we win, we deserve it and if we lose, our opponent deserves to win. If there is a draw, both of us deserve to share the credit.

This phenomenon of win-lose spirit is seeped in societal values. We urge our children to be competitive always and look at winning at all levels. A child who does not learn to accept defeat cannot face life in its full fury. We need to learn to accept victory with humility and defeat with grace. This is best lesson for life.

Our education system is entrenched with systems to identify winners and losers only. It may be time to revamp this system so that we encourage students to learn and play the game in a fair manner. While winning or losing may be an outcome, it should not be our focus. We need to learn to play the game to the best of our ability and let victory or defeat go to the person who deserves it on that day at that time.

This attitude to life has been promoted within families too. We make our own children compete with each other. We promote competitiveness amongst our own children at home by saying that you are not as good as your sister or brother. This way we not only kill the spirit of learning but also promote rivalry and lack of mutual respect between siblings.

The work place is no different. Having spent almost four decades in the corporate world, one can understand that the workplace is a competitive world. But this does not mean that we create systems and processes where employees almost kill each other to be a winner. We need to enable employees to continually learn and give their best. Winning or losing has to be realised as an outcome of their efforts and not an end in itself.

The sports arena is also not different. We see players and teams competing with each other to win at any cost. Sometimes they are willing to violate rules, behave unacceptably as long as they win. This is not the spirit in which any game is to be played. The spirit of the game is not valued anymore. Victory by any means is recognised and promoted. This kills the spirit of the game and thereby gives birth to players who are like conspirators to enable victory at any cost.

We need to learn that life need not be a win-lose game. I would prefer life to be an enjoyable journey of learning, where wining and losing is part of the game. Playing the game in the true spirit has to be encouraged and rewarded. This will ensure that people learn to play in a fair way. We will realise that this leads to better behaviour of people, more happiness and better results as well.

As in the photo above, we need to make players learn to play the game fairly rather than only focus on winning all the time.

Let us learn to play the game of life.

S Ramesh Shankar

24th June 2020

Locked in because of the lockout

We always have a ready excuse in life for everything. When people ask me, why were you not able to complete a task, I may say there was a lockout and you know how you feel lonely and left out in such a situation.

We may blame the rains for coming in late to office or the sun for not going for a evening walk. It is possibly human to invent reasons for not doing something. But, if we dig deep, we will find, we do not have an excuse for anything.

It can be as simple as promise made to my kid to take her for a circus or as official as a commitment to send a presentation to a customer on a particular date. While we always find excuses to justify our behaviour but deep down in our hearts we know we have none.

While this may look simple, it is possibly one of the most difficult things to achieve in life. What I find interesting is that the simplest things in life are the most challenging. It may easier to fix a machine under breakdown than to change a simple habit of ours every day.

I learnt it the hard way to be punctual in life after I missed an important event in my school days. Since then, I have been punctual in all my personal and official engagements. What I find interesting is that late comers to work are never late to miss a train or a plane during vacations. This means that if we are passionate about something, we can make the change.

This is equally true in life. The lockout is beyond our control. It is possibly one of the best ways to prevent the unknown virus to spread. However, to keep our mind locked in and blame the lockout for that is not justifiable. I know people in life who will always find a reason for things going wrong for them. They are never happy. On the other hand, you find people, who are always happy irrespective of the fact that they may not have all the luxuries of life with them.

So the simple lesson to be learnt is that we need not feel locked in even in a lockout. We can find hundred and one ways of keeping ourselves engaged and innovating and thriving in this environment. I put my thinking cap on and got so many ideas to write about, which I never got during the normal days of the year so far. So, it is upto us to change any situation to our personal advantage.

If we believe the lockout has not only physically kept us indoors but also mentally, we have none to blame than ourselves. Our mental potential is unlimited. Irrespective of your field of interest or work, you could discover new things everyday even within the confines of your home. There is so much to learn, so much to observe, so much to read and reflect and so much to change.

The sooner we realise this phenomenon, the better it is for us as evolving human beings. If not, we get stuck like the snail in its shell. We may be putting our head in the sand like the Ostrich and thinking that the world has come to an end. We need to realise that we have sunk our head and the world around us is still alive and kicking.

As in the photo above, we innovated on the cap and the mask to have fun even during the lockdown.

Time to get up and awaken ourselves is now. Are we ready ?

S Ramesh Shankar

20th April 2020