Tuesday, August 23, 2011

The edifice of self-esteem

We are not born with self-esteem. Self-esteem cannot be thrust on us. We can only achieve our self-esteem in our lives. The esteem with which we hold ourselves is always the result of our own unstinting efforts in achieving the goals that we have set for ourselves.

A person with self-esteem exudes quiet confidence.

The way to build our esteem is to set ourselves small, achievable goals in life and go about in achieving them. Each success that we achieve in our life adds to our internal fund of esteem. Our esteem has to be built brick by brick in a similar fashion that a large building is constructed. We need patience and commitment in building our esteem.

There are no shortcuts to self esteem. Success and fame achieved by accident or through devious means will not add to our self esteem. They can only inflate our ego or makes us vain. The vanity that results will not have affirm foundation as we will know in our hearts that the success was by chance or not well deserved.

However l victories that are achieved through honest effort, however small, will truly increase our own esteem. These successes are truly enduring and manifest itself in the self-pride that we develop. This is because we know in every fiber of our being that the success was well deserved and was a result of one’s own efforts.

It takes a long time to build one’s self-esteem. But once it is built it is difficult to destroy it. Self-esteem is like a fortress around oneself. A solid self-esteem can withstand any amount of derogatory and deprecatory comments. On the contrary, vanity in a person as a result of an inflated ego can easily be crushed. A person can be easily hurt if his opinion of himself/herself is a consequence of his/her ego.

Self-esteem is that magnificent edifice that we build for ourselves through our own untiring efforts. A person with self esteem is aware of his/her strengths and is also aware of his/her weaknesses. While self-esteem instills confidence in the person it also brings about a certain amount of humility.

Self esteem is truly the amalgamation of confidence and humility. While self esteem takes a long time to build it is well worth the effort.

It's all in the mind

Life is not fair. How often does this thought crop up in our minds? We always feel that we are at the receiving end of the stick as opposed to our friends or colleagues who seem to have a great time. We can easily come up with umpteen reasons as to why we are worse off than our neighbor.

Why does this happen? Actually it all depends on our own perception of reality. We develop a distorted view of the world and our place in the scheme of things. For some reason our minds prefer to focus on the negatives of our life and the positives of others. For some unknown reason we prefer to feel miserable and lousy. To me it appears almost that by nature man tends to gravitate towards negativity in life. It is almost as if the mind would like to trick itself into believing that the world is loaded against it.

Our understanding of our own state is distorted and our perception of neighbor’s supposed cheer in life is completely incorrect. We tend to dwell on where things are wrong with us. Also we have only a partial view of our neighbor who seems to have it better than us.

Nothing can be farther from the truth. For one our neighbor has their own share of problems in the world to handle. Moreover our own life is not as bad as it seems to be. It is quite likely that there are certain areas where fate could have treated us better, but clearly there will be many things for which we need to be grateful for.

It is possible that at certain points in life, fate could have dealt us a bad hand. But what is important is how we respond to the situation. Rather than fretting and fuming about the unfairness of fate we could choose to take positive action to offset the effect of our fate. Moreover we should focus on the many blessings we have in life. For one we could be free of any debilitating disease or we could have a stable income and family etc.

If we only look around ourselves we will find many reasons to be grateful. We need to re-focus our mind to dwell on our little blessings rather than our faults.

We have to understand that our perception of reality and reality as it is are completely different. We have to free ourselves from the bleak picture that our mind creates for us.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Corruption: The descent into hell

Here are some really dark and disturbing statistics.
1) Recent estimates from UNICEF (2006) state that each year, under nutrition contributes to the deaths of about 5.6 million children under the age of five.
2) Malaria is estimated to cause around 3 -5 million deaths annually
3) AIDs responsible for 5% of deaths worldwide and caused 2.3 - 2.5 million deaths in 2003.
4) 1.1 billion people lack good, clean water supplies, and 2.7 billion have no access to proper sanitation

In the view of these issues confronting the world the Copenhagen Consensus in 2004 & 2008 investigated the various options to address the problems facing the world. The Copenhagen Consensus tried to identify the top 3 problems that would need to be addressed assuming that $50 billion was available at its disposal to solve these problems. Based on their analysis it was identified that HIV/AIDs, malnutrition, trade development and malaria were the top 4 issues that should be addressed for maximum effect.

Now in the light of these pressing problems of the world I would like to take a look at the issue of corruption in public life by those in power.

What level of depravity would a person have to descend to in order to amass wealth for himself, his kith and kin and his descendants through wrongful means and deprive millions of their share? How can a person ignore the problems of everybody else and only focus on hoarding wealth through illegal means.

Corruption truly indicates a distorted view of oneself and the world. It is truly the height of selfishness. The corrupt politician not only lacks a heart but is also probably blind. If not he/she would definitely would be aware of the poverty and problems facing society and he would not cheat the world.

In this world where millions are starving, children are undernourished and malnourished, and a large section of the population lack clean drinking water we have politicians who cheat the country and its people of billions of dollars and stash it in foreign banks. How heartless can these people be?

I guess the Copenhagen Consensus could be given its $50 billion if we could only recover the billions of ill-gotten wealth from the corrupt politicians and put the money to good use in solving the problems of the world.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

The Grass on the other side is brown ...

Make no mistake “the grass on the other side of the fence is not green”. Usually our grouse in life is that our friends or neighbors are better off in life than we are. Nothing can be farther from the truth.

The reality is everybody in this world has his or her own share of problems. We are also given our own unique quota of problems. What differentiates one human being from another is how he or she goes about solving their problems.

The important thing in life is to recognize that though our friends and neighbors appear to have things that you don’t have they also go through tough times. The moment we realize this we need not fret and fume about how others have their lives all arranged and nicely parceled.

We just need to look at our own lives and tackle the problems that we are faced with. As long as we use our mind to skillfully solve problems we can tide over a lot of life’s difficulties.

We have to learn to accept that we are given a set of issues in this finite life of ours to solve and clear away. We need to put our minds in cleverly solving problems. We need to use our ingenuity to solve the problems that confront us and not fritter away our energies in sulking and envying the lives of others.

The moment we realize that everybody their share of problems and we fully confront our problems wholeheartedly we can keep our spirits cheerful and soaring high!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Key strategies to power your career


Success in professional life is rarely accidental. It is the result of a well thought out plan carried out to perfection as one moves from rung to rung in the organizational hierarchy. Here are some key strategies, which if pursued, will give a better control over your career and will make your rise in the organization fairly smooth

Learning to learn: This is by far the most important quality we need when we enter the professional world. We need to learn how to learn. We need to be able to absorb the essence of our task, assignment or project. Any work that we perform we need to know both what to learn and how to learn. We need to able to look above the immediate project requirements and appreciate its function in a holistic way. We need to fully understand the product, the technologies involved, what problem it solves and how it ultimately benefits the end user.

Depth over breadth and vice versa: If you are in the technical ladder make sure that your swim deep and long. Spend time learning the implications, intricacies and nuances of the technologies involved. Learn to appreciate the various tradeoffs that have to be taken in the work being done. On the contrary, if you are a project or a program manager focus on breadth rather on depth. Understand the benefits and shortcomings of the involved technology and various allied technologies. Understand industry trends and how the project fits in the organizational business plan.

Make the right moves: At every stage one has to be aware of where one is with respect to the goal. We need to monitor and make mid course corrections. It is quite likely that as you move along in your professional life you may want to switch technology domains or shift to management. These are conscious decisions that you will have to weigh and take as you go along. As you grow you have understand where you want to go and how you want to get there. This is the mark of a true leader. We will hit several crossroads during our career. Our decisions should be directed towards our long term goal. Make sure the choices you make contribute to your professional, monetary and emotional accounts.

Look from the other side of the fence: If you are technically inclined learn the basics of project & program management. Understand and appreciate the challenges of people management. Don’t pigeon-hole yourself into a technical-only slot. If on the other hand you are a project manager you must spend time becoming tech savvy. Try to get an all round view of all related technology. Technical people prefer managers who are tech savvy.

Plan for Success: This is critical for career growth. Make sure you plan for success. In the words of Yogi Berra “If you don’t know where you are going you might wind up someplace else”. Bring focus to both short and long term goals and work towards achieving them.
Understand and appreciate “Management Speak”: This is something that is very critical to your career growth. Make sure you understand the jargon that senior management tends to use “for e.g. 10,000 ft view”, “project risks”, ”quality improvement”. Do not shy away from this type of management jargon. In the early years most of tend to take management jargon lightly. Put yourself in your boss’s shoes and understand and appreciate the challenges he faces. It is good idea to understand the direction your organization is heading with respect to other peer organizations

Network: Networking is a critical to your success in the long run. Get to know your peers, subordinates, your boss and his peers. The more you network, the better are the chances of your success. It is imperative that you not only grow your professional network but also keep it well-oiled. You will learn a lot of people skills by networking. Networking will keep you abreast of all the latest trends in the industry, besides many organizations prefer referrals while recruiting.

Visibility speaks: Success in the professional world depends a lot on your visibility to the top management. Make sure that you help or lead any effort that is organization or at least department wide. It is very important that you grab opportunities to lead. This will not only increase your visibility but will also improve your organizational skills and make you understand the challenges of making things happen.

You will spend close to a quarter of a century in your professional avatar. Having a proper plan and working towards your career goal is important to both your financial and emotional well being. So ensure that you make all the right moves in your career.

Diversifying Happiness

Man's primary goal in life,from time immemorial, is the pursuit of happiness. Our every endeavor in life is geared to the increase of our happiness quotient. We may be interested in joy through the attainment of Nirvana or in happiness through the acquisition of material wealth, power or glory.

Whatever be the pursuit the common denominator of all mankind's activities is for an increase in his happiness.

Given that we are interested in increasing our happiness or contentment levels it makes sense to identify ways to keep our happiness levels brimming or overflowing.

A common sense way to make sure that we are happy and joyful in life is to diversify our investment in many activities that can bring to us consequent happiness. We need to pursue several activities each of which can bring a certain level of happiness to us.

For example we could learn some new skill like playing a musical instrument, involving ourselves in creative activity etc. As we become more proficient we will can bask in a sense of achievement. We could also involve ourself in doing our bit to the needy and the underprivileged. From this activity we can derive satisfaction when we do our bit to the needy. We could try to spend quality time with our family on a regular basis. This can greatly contribute to your joy at home.

In any case it is important that our returns to our happiness pool is from several different and diverse activities that we have spawned off. At no point in time should we pin our happiness on the outcome of just one single event. For example if we were to pin our hopes on getting that promotion in office, getting a raise or for example getting admission in some college in which you have set your heart on you are setting yourself for some painful experience.

The key take away is that if our joy at any point in life is dependent on just one single event we can feel crushed if that does not happen.

The important thing in life is to ensure that we invest in several parallel activities in life and reap the returns from some or all of these events turning in our favor.

Hence to lead a happy life "diversify your happiness" and reap rich dividends of joy.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

In search of power, glory and prosperity

What distinguishes man from animals is his ability to reason. Man has the ability to choose an action from a set of valid alternatives. The action that he chooses should be based on the values that he cherishes. Values can be anything as long as they are founded on true north principles of integrity, kindness and compassion.

How should man conduct himself in life? Are there valid goals that are worth pursuing? What should be basis for goals that we set for ourselves?

Any goal in life is good as long as it is the result of a rational choice that man makes based on his inner values in life.

For example one’s value could be acquisition of great wealth through legitimate means. The person may be keen on gaining riches through dint of hard work, judicious choices and opportunities that he is able to see.

On the other hand a person’s value could be attainment of power and the ability to drive things on attainment. Similarly others may yearn for fame.

All these are perfectly valid values and do give a person a purpose in life. What is wrong in wanting to be multi-millionaire, or to have the immense power or far flung glory? All these are perfectly reasonable goals in life. It is only necessary that achievement of these goals is done through legitimate means.

Wealth, if it is not just for one’s own selfish pleasure, can be put to great use for the uplifting of the underprivileged. Similarly, power, if it is not misused can drive a lot of good actions.

There is nothing wrong in wanting riches, power or fame as long as one is willing to put it to good use for oneself and for society. We do have a Bill Gates, the world’s richest man, who is using his fortune to eradicate diseases like malaria and polio from the face of the earth. We are all aware of Mahatma Gandhi who used his enormous moral power to win India’s freedom and to eliminate the evils of casteism and untouchability. Similarly we have a Michael Jordan or a Sachin Tendulkar who have achieved great fame and are role models for aspiring youngsters.

As long as our ambitions are grounded in good values of integrity, human kindness and compassion there is every reason to chase the dreams that we have.

Monday, August 1, 2011

The Rationale of Values

Ayn Rand in “Objectivist Ethics” discusses her reasoning behind ethics. Ethics are nothing but a code of values. Values represent a choice among a set of possible alternatives. How are values defined? Who has defined them and against what have they been defined. Ayn Rand argues that life is the standard against which any code of ethics should be measured. Anything that prolongs life is to be pursued against anything that results in death.

While life is the basis for measurement of ethics how does one decide what is “good” and what is “evil”? Is the concept of “good” and “evil” based on the whim of a person, or on whims of society or does it just come from some mystical books. How does one define what is “good” and what is “evil?” To this Ayn Rand suggests that anything that results in pleasure to mankind must necessarily be good and anything that induces pain must be evil. So all things that promote pleasure or happiness can be assumed as being good and those that cause suffering can be assumed to be evil. Also man has to use his reason to determine what causes happiness and what causes suffering and not base these on what has been said or told to him. He has to use his reason and make rational choices in life.

Based on these premises Ayn Rand shows that there is virtue in selfishness where the primary purpose of man is the pursuit of happiness based rational choices in life. She explains that a selfish pursuit of pleasure does not imply the harm or the hurting of others. She advocates a policy where each individual works towards his own happiness and collaborates with others in society through a policy of give and take akin to trade.

Based on the premise that life is the standard of measure for a code of ethics and definition of “good” as anything that promotes happiness and “evil” to be anything that causes suffering I would like to investigate whether the commonly known values stand up to this test. The only additional condition that I would like to add is that “good” is anything that promotes happiness for the individual and the larger happiness of the society and “evil” is anything that causes pain to individual or the larger part of the society.

Integrity: Integrity is the virtue where one follows one’s convictions based on what is right and what is wrong. Assuming that the individual has exercised his reason he is bound to have a sound system of convictions. When somebody goes against his/her own conviction then he/she is bound to feel unsettled resulting in suffering. Hence integrity can be shown as maintaining inner peace and is definitely a value to be adhered to.

Honesty: Honesty denotes that we deal with reality as it is and we done misrepresent reality to ourselves or to others. Imagine a world where this value is not adhered to. Then we will never know what reality is there will be utter confusion resulting in chaos or in other words suffering. So logically honesty is a value that promotes peace and contentment in the individual and the society

Kindness: What is the reasoning behind kindness? Clearly when somebody is kind to us our happiness increases. So it makes perfect sense that we can increase the happiness quotient of others and consequently our own by being kind to others. This is simply based on doing unto others those acts that would have made us happy if we were on the receiving end of the act.

Trust: Trust is the axis around which society revolves. Being trustworthy is necessary and basing our actions on trust is extremely important for the smooth progress of society. This value also clearly stands to reasoning and promotes the well being of the individual and society.

Humility: The virtue of humility signifies that one has a balanced view of one’s own achievements and capabilities. It implies an absence of arrogance while at the same time denotes strong self-esteem. The value of humility is clearly a virtue that promotes contentment as opposed to excessive which can cause untold suffering if the ego is hurt.

So it clearly can be seen that the values of integrity, kindness, humility, trust and others truly stand to the test of reason and logic and promotes peace and contentment which should be basis for all actions. Hence a life that is based on sound north values is surely a life worth living.