What is spirituality ? 

In my view, I would simply put it as our effort to find meaning in life. We generally confuse spirituality with reliogisity. Each of us follow a religion of our choice and try to live life to the best of our abilities. All the religions lead us to the same destination. We all believe there is a power beyond us, which guides us and cautions us when we are in doubt about anything in life.

I have gone through many phases in my life, where I have lost faith in God. I remember that the first instance was when I lost both my parents within a span of two years. I thought God was cruel to me and did not give an opportunity for me to serve them when I was in a position to do so. . It took me more than year to bounce back. I realised that I had done no wrong and although my parents were no more, it did not prevent me to serve other elders in society. Hence, the realisation that we need not always be bound by our own family to find meaning in life was a spiritual revelation.

The other instance was at the work life. I have sometimes felt that I had done my best and I still did not get rewarded or recognised adequately for my efforts. It is on many such occasions that I felt that God was non existent. You lose faith in God and sometimes in yourself. It is not easy to go through such moments in life but time teaches you many things. It also made me realize that there are millions of others in life who have contributed more than I did and never looked for rewards or recognition. It is when this realisation dawns on you, that you start redefining the meaning of life for yourself.

I was a religious person for the first two and a half decades of my life. I used to practise the Hindu rituals and visit a temple every week religiously. But as I grew up and faced a few tragedies in my life like the death of my parents, I realised that the real meaning in life is not understood by following rituals or visiting temples, churches or mosques. One is able to redefine life for oneself better when the person is able to find her or his feet firmly on the ground. One is able to realize that there are countless people around, who suffer much more than you have ever experienced and they do not give up. It is such a realisation, which makes you stronger and wiser.  

Today my religion is “To be a better human being everyday I live, enjoying myself and making life enjoyable for all the people around me, in whatever way I can.” My meaning of life is to be a good human being as I define it. It is to live and let live. It is to realize that there is much more to give back to society than you get from it. It is to realise that our contributions to others is just a drop in the ocean. Spirituality is your definition of life.  

Let us define life the way we want it and live it that way. Let us realize that relatively speaking we are always better off than many people around us. Let us be grateful for what we have rather than worry about what we don’t.

Every day is an opportunity  to redefine our meaning of life.

S Ramesh Shankar

Is it worthwhile to develop punctuality as a habit in life ? In my view, yes and I learnt it the hard way. Based on my mistakes and experiences, I would like to share how it has helped me discipline myself.

Forty years back, when I was passing out of school I missed the opportunity of leading the school march past in our annual day since I was late by two minutes. The chief guest was the station commander of the Air force station in which my school was located and the function started punctually at 2 pm as planned . It was a missed chance and I will never ever get a chance to lead the school march past again in this lifetime.

This was a turning point in my life. I decided that I will never be late in college or thereafter in my career. I have tried my best to be in time always and this has helped me to build my credibility. As a student, self discipline helped me improve my academic performance and gave me ample time for my co curricular activities and also social service.

In my career, it has helped me to grow. Many a time my own children have asked me as to how it makes a difference to be on time in a public sector, where I started my career. I used to tell them that our actions builds our character and our character builds our legacy, which is the only thing we leave behind after we depart. I used to be happy that nobody could raise an eyebrow on my timeliness. In my understanding, timeliness not only means being on time every time, it also means living up to our commitments. If we are expected to deliver something or give a report or even share some data by a date and time, do we do it without reminders ? This builds our credibility and people start believing that they would like to emulate this quality. On the contrary, if we are never on time or do not deliver on our commitments, then it is the other way around.

Another interesting dimension is the concept of “flexitime” at work. While we have officially allowed flexitime in all our offices, many employees think that coming late is ok but don’t realize that one need’s to stay late to compensate for the same. We also think that if we come late or leave early, it is ok if nobody is watching or our boss is not in office. It does not matter if someone is watching you or not, you need to live up to your own conscience. This is the principle of self discipline.

I am reminded of a senior colleague in my career, who used to come late and leave early from work whenever his boss was on leave or on tour. He thought he was smart till the day I had to call and inform him that even the pantry boy in the office used to comment that on a particular day if his boss was on tour, he would vanish after lunch. This sort of behavior reflects on your character and nobody other than you can mould your character. So, I called and counseled him that everybody around observes us all the time.

I love the way, the younger generation lives life today. Their attitude to life and work is energizing. They wear their passion on their sleeves in whatever they do. It is worth remembering that while one can party all evenings, it is equally important to be on time the next day at work. This will be a true reflection of our discipline.

If you are on time, every time and live up to all our commitments, we evolve as a leader, who leads by example and will always leave a legacy behind us, wherever we go.

With best regards,

S Ramesh Shankar

 

 

One of the many things we have imbibed from the western culture is to mark days to celebrate for our father, mother, valentine and so on.

The marketing whiz kids make us buy products and services by positioning them well and making us feel as if we are doing a service to our father or mother by buying the product or service they market.

I was wondering what would be a better way to pay tributes to our fathers today, 19th june , which the pundits state is “Father’s day”( the third sunday of June every year).   I would prefer to look at one great quality my father displayed in his every day behaviour and try my best to imbibe the same in my every day actions.

My father was an epitome of patience.  I was quite short tempered when I was young and was growing up.  I have learnt to be more patient as I have grown and matured as an individual and as a professional.  Today I am happy to be more patient than I was 30 years back.  However, I must admit that I have a long way to go to be as patient as my Dad was.  In his entire lifetime, I have seen him lose his cool only twice.  So, may be I can work further since once one of my office colleague politely gave me a feedback some years back that I lost my cool twice in the one year she worked with me.  So twice a year to twice a life time – I have a long way to go.

You could try to identify one great quality you could imbibe from your father and then check where you are on that quality today.  The gap could be your promise to yourself

Celebrate Father’s Day this way.

S Ramesh Shankar