22 posts tagged “imagine”

The recent carnage in Mumbai (my family lives there) made me stop for a little bit and realize how important it is to be in the 'now' - living today as if there was no tomorrow.

So here are three videos that bring a lot of meaning in this new world we all live in, where ever we are:

I cant imagine a quote better than Henry Ford's as my headline for this historic election.

Below are the history making headlines from two sources that I like the most - there is just something special about headlines in print! Having voted for the first time ever and that too as a 'relatively new American', this is special!

Furthermore, I feel I have company now as far as hard names go .....

Obama Sweeps to Historic Victory - The Wall Street Journal

WSJ - Obama President 2008

Obama Elected President as Racial barrier Falls - The New York Times

NYT - Obama president 2008

Stop and think - we are all the same and we are all different. Dream. Imagine.

Imagine

This blog is titled Imagine and I am a big fan of the song that Lennon sang way back so here are some more that an event called Olympics might change the way you imagine life:

Needless to say, having a wee bit of imagination is a good thing. Unlearning to learn some visual tools and skills seemed appropriate so here is what I have just picked up and reading currently.

More on it when I get through it but I can tell you that after about 40 pages, I am buying a big whiteboard for the home.

The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures

Dan Roam

Swimmy, Stripes and Orbitting the Giant Hairball are all excellent hand drawn visual presentations of very powerful messages. Furthermore, with coffee shops being a part-time habitat for me, napkins are always plentiful.

Jared Sandberg of The Wall Street Journal, had an excellent article here called " Nothing Can Kill Drive and Inspiration Like a Long Wait". I experienced a LONG wait (for about 3 years) during the downturn. Yes - I was CEO of "Vocationally Challenged", Inc. for 3 years right after completing my MBA program, which brought me to the US - pursuing my dream.

The common charactertisitics of a wait when you are looking for a job are:

• Waiting to hear (anything) from a recruiter
• If you are lucky and have gone beyond that, waiting to set up an appointment
• Waiting to hear back from the employer on any interview you might have had
• Waiting to learn when the the round of interviews end (Google, I believe, stretches it out across multiple interviews over months)
• If above not leading to a 'Yes', then goto beginning and start the 'sale cycle' all over again
  

Here are some observations from my experience of that wait:

• Patience is a hard-to-get virtue in America since it is an economy driven by convenience and efficiency
• Hope and expectations are often thought of as the same. If you are an optimist, like me, you definitely want to hope for the best but expect the worst. There will be no surprises - life is about managing expectations.
  
• The feeling of helplessness leads to many of these frustrations. If helplessness is a problem, one can solve it
• Visualize the end results, the goal is a powerful tool to getting there. Did you learn to ride the bike by looking down trying to avoid the rocks/ potholes or by looking at where you wanted to reach? [Waiver: If you are in India, please look down first - you waive me of all liabilities if you follow my instructions and hurt yourself]
• There are no shortcuts - embrace the struggle. The more you do and have to, the more you will learn, value it and rise to the challenge
  

Imagine:  Yoda: "Difficult to see. Always in motion is future"

It took me a while to finally finish Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl but I did! It was very profound for this pea brain since I had to read many sentences over and over again. Actually - I was very very busy too - no, seriously!

IMG_2821

Frankl developed the concept of Logotherapy - the will to meaning - from his time and experiences at  concentration camps. I found it especially relevant since it is in stark contrast to today's frequently sighted .. or should I say "celebrity wanna-be" sitings of will to pleasure (Freud) and will to power (Alder).

I hope to bring a lot of various simple applications of it in our lives today so let  me begin with one that is probably the core of the book. According to the book, one can discover this meaning in life (which, btw, continues to change all the time but never ceases to be) in 3 different ways:

1. by creating work or doing a deed
2. by experiencing something or encountering someone
3. by the attitude we choose towards unavoidable suffering (more on this certainly later from some personal examples)
   

You can very well imagine people involved in all of the above three but (2) states directly that encountering a person like you, I or anyone can make the significant difference. Apart from the fact that you might meet that someone to change your life, the really cool part is that YOU might be that person in someone else's life. So next time look closely since as my father in-law likes to say, "if you believe in coincidence, you may not be paying attention".

Imagine: You are it!

Peggy Noonan, a Columnist at of The Wall Street Journal known for her Declarations, had this (if it asks for your user name, pwd, read it here for free) article on June 30, 2007 -  "On Letting Go" right before July 4th.

This last July 4th was my first as a naturalized American, I found it really relevant and speaking to me directly.

I made "the decision and cast my lot" without any doubt in 1991, "got off the boat" in 1999 in San Francisco and  officially became an American, and achieved my dream, in 2006. Still relatively fresh and having become a Dad to a 17 month old, who is born in America and is more white (literally) than I am, my emotions on Peggy's article based on my journey from an "Outsider" to an "Insider" are as follows:

• I came across many Indians (and still do) who are sitting on the fence, as Peggy states - they have not cast the lot

In fact, the Indians born here to Indian parents are commonly referred to as ABCDs - American Born Confused Desi!

• I saw (and see), frequently, as she writes: "Your psychic investment in America doesn't have to be full. It can be provisional, temporary. Or underdeveloped, or not developed at all."
• I did not come across a single person or moment in my 7 years before Naturalization, that made me feel that I was an Outsider
• I noticed Indians, or people from other countries, befriended, invited etc others mostly from their own country (My wife, from her observations during her time in Japan, informed me that Americans did the same in Japan)
  
• I noticed my parents, who absolutely adore my wife, still considered her as an American
  
• I learnt, embraced, enjoyed the people I decided to live amongst - wherever I was, am or will be
  
• I respected differences since we are all different AND eventually we are all the same
• I reached out to more and more people who were different from me and from whom I could learn something new
• I adopted an American mother during my first few years and found mentors in their teens
  
• I stay(ed) close to my parents, values and people that mattered - as an Indian and now as an American. It is not because they are Indians - it is because of who they were and how much they make a difference in my short life
• I stay(ed) close to my American (and might I say Caucasian to be more expressive at the risk of being politically incorrect) in-laws - as an Indian and as an American
• I lost my accent, my passion to follow cricket, a sport that I represented my school for, and Bollywood movies. In fact at one recent Indian gathering I embarrassed myself by making it obvious that I did not know it was the World Cup Final cricket match that I was there with everyone to see! Blasphemy!  
• I became an Outsider amongst many Indians  
• I was labeled as a Permanent Resident Alien until naturalization in the US. In India, I was a Non-Resident Indian

With many Indians, especially those back home, I felt out of place - I did not follow cricket, I had more of an American accent, I had an "American-American" wife. So my question is this - Why does it matter amongst all of us about how we speak? what sport we follow? Who we marry? Who we befriend? What country we have a passport of?

Isnt it about You, I  - and why We came together and continue to invest time?

No American cared if I followed baseball or not, No American cared if I had an accent or not. Everyone embraced me with all the differences even though I was really an Outsider - it was about us and not our countries.  Are any of my prior acquaintances behaving differently now that I am American - nope!

It was and is about US (pun intended!) - THAT is what being American is about. The America that provides opportunities to everyone independent of the country of origin (and other factors) - The American dream. No other group of people embraces anyone from another country like they do here! I witnessed America welcome me and 400+ people from 65 different countries.in one single day, out of many in a year.  It does not happen anywhere else.

Yes, I did let go, I let go of all countries. I just did not let go of people.

Imagine: A Global Independence Day    

1. Name
2. Sex
3. Age
4. Color
5. Country/Ethnicity
6. Religion
7. Language
8. Attire
9. Occupation
10. Sexuality
    

In the last few months, some of the major media outlets have been covering "happiness". The Economist had a special report on it, which I wrote about briefly here and and then today - The Wall Street Journal has its take on it here through an article titled: No Satisfaction - Why What You Have is Never Enough.  I had indirectly referred to when I said "it is your job to choose".

800px-Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

The above two are a little different from the happiness being pursued that I wrote about here since the above is after one has passed the basic requirements under Maslow's hierarchy of needs covered under the Physiological and Safety levels - food, shelter and a roof.

The Journal article states in the second paragraph the following:
"As a country, we are richer than ever. Yet surveys show that Americans are no happier than they were 30 years ago. The key problem: We aren't very good at figuring out what will make us happy."

According to the article, experts offer two reason: (1) We aren't built to be happy. Rather, we are built to survive and reproduce and (2) We're bad at forecasting

The Economist about other experts and how they attributed it to Habits and Rivalry

Different problems are being attributed to this state. Does it surprise you as much, as it does me, that people are are not identified - the people we choose to have around us.

Maslow brings it out in the third tier after Physiology and Safety as Love/Belonging to move on to Esteem (all categorized as Deficiency Needs) and Self-Actualization (categorized as a Growth Need).

It seems "Once an individual has moved past a level, those needs will no longer be prioritized."

In my personal life,belief and imagination, it has always been first about people that have brought me happiness - I learnt to move up 'that' hierarchy from my days in India but always, at each level, surrounded myself with the right people around me - Always! I still do and will do! It has been the 'rock' (The story about those rocks next) in my life.

Maybe the hierarchy needs to be revisited, maybe it is 'culture' - but eventually it is all about You, I ....We and our imagination of this world.

Imagine: There is no 'i' in Happyness

Sometime ago, I had referred to managing happiness and then the movie The Pursuit of Happyness.

Finally - I did see the movie and I loved it.

I also realized that Chris Gardner's pursuit in itself was the happiness - not the job and not the many millions of dollars he went on to make eventually.

Millions have jobs and millions have many millions of dollars but not all those millions are happy. Gardner achieved happyness due to his:

• ability to dream to be a stock broker
• determination to realize that dream with hard work
  
• perseverance to pursue it through all hardships - extreme hardships
• drive to be there and provide for his son
• courage to face all odds stacked against him - from $21.33 in his account to having to show up at his most sought-after interview without a shirt
• sense of humor in adverse situations
  

Consequently, on taking a peek into my own life (Needless to say I have not had to overcome challenges even close to what Chris Gardner did), I do feel that every time I had to pursue something hard and overcome obstacles/challenges - I valued my achievements more and I was happier. But then I like it rough - coming to America is still my 'personal best' at that.

A sense of accomplishment? - maybe; A sense of purpose? - maybe; Discovery and/or retention of the right people? - Sure; Continuous discovery of oneself? - Yes....... Probably all these ingredients in different proportions.

I do understand that it is easy for me to say so since I have never known poverty - leave alone with my baby. Nevertheless, I do strongly believe its that journey that can bring out the best of us.

Imagine: the destination, live the journey