The tuition fever

"Today education has become business." This is one of the most common quotes that I keep consistently hearing from most of the parents. They are bowled over by the amount that gets spent on their children's education. They don't even have an option of not doing it. If they don't spend, the children don't get the required education. Peer pressure has made students demand more out of their parents and, unfortunately, parents are made to yield for the same. While we accept that the normal school education is essential from an authorized body, what about those tutorials which re-teach the same lessons? How are students fighting the tuition fever? Let's discuss more on this.

I have been to tuitions for my under-graduation. Until my tenth grade I used to find that tuition was just waste of time. Post my under-graduation I felt the same as well. But it had become quite crucial for me during the under-graduation time. As I observe the present generation juggling between too many classes it just makes me wonder if they are opting the right decisions. What is tuition? It's a place similar to a class atmosphere where one goes to learn his subjects. Who goes to tutorials? Students who are unable to cope up with the classroom education provided at school/college go to tuitions. This was the earlier definition. Today, students go to tutorials because there are no good and capable teachers available in school/college because the good ones have opened tutorials rather than working for a meagre monthly salary in institutions. With more and more tutorials opening people's mindsets also have got tuned towards tuitions, both that of parents and students (needless to say). Education is not about marks until you enter your competitive exams. It's about understanding the world around. Textbooks have been comprehensively prepared to make sure that students are able understand in the simplest manner. All it takes is good amount of patience and hard work to invest time on reading them. Since students are unable to input these two voluntarily a force is required to enforce the same. That is where tuitions have come into picture and the students have caught the tuition fever.

Today's generation plays with smartphones in its primary standards. In fact, there is no tuition to teach how to use a smartphone. Still kids are able to do it because of the curiosity. It means that kids are able to understand the automated guiding machines like phones, comprehend the instructions and use them. The same needs to be applied to text books. This requires commitment towards studies by the student. He must be ready to read until he understands and practise until he remembers. If the student is able to do this then there is no requirement of tuitions. Time investment coupled with serious commitment is the perfect medication for the tuitions fever which is affecting not the just the child but the parents too.

Old lessons die hard

Recently while speaking to one of the students I came across one of the most important lessons of life, and that was 'Hard work is the route to success'. The student came up saying that in today's world, hard work doesn't yield anything. If that was the case then donkey would have been the most rewarded animal. Hence smart work is the trend of the modern world. Only smart work leads to success. That is where I was trying to find out how come a lesson that stood firm and true for 20 centuries suddenly was failing in the 21^st century. The Laws of Science haven't failed till date and I was only wondering how Laws of Success could fail.

Today, people are searching for new reasons which are stopping them to reach their goals or others expectations from them. Hence they wish to disprove every existing theory that leads to success. A simple example of this is what I have presented above. One of the proverbs that always comes back to my mind is, 'Old is Gold'. One can go around and ask all the successful people around about their secrets of success. All of them shall share the same old lessons on hard work, passion, commitment etc. For example, Sachin Tendulkar is known for his patience, consistency, passion for Cricket, hardworking nature and other positive qualities. Shah Rukh Khan also expresses the same attributes that have led him to success in the cinema industry. Even the Ambanis from the business field exhibit the same positive qualities like commitment, love for people, perseverance etc which make them the undoubted Lords of different businesses. No matter which field you are in you can always achieve pinnacle in that field through the same old dedication, discipline and devotion which have been taught to us by our parents, elders and teachers from time immemorial. There is no point in searching for new ways to achieve your dreams. Follow the age old proven principles of success and excellence shall be your present.

Excuses and success don't go hand in hand. There is no point in debating about why a particular rule cannot apply to you which has applied to a lot many achievers. You don't even need to know all the Laws of Success to bring life to all your dreams and passions. You just need to know many, understand some, adopt few and implement one. One such lesson is more than powerful to help you connect to your dreams in reality. A single lesson realised and inculcated in life is much better than a million lessons learnt and forgotten to remember.

Only conviction drives the vision

Commitment to work and dedication of time and efforts are the most essential requirements to reach our goals in life. Goals can range from being unrealistic dreams to rational visions. It all depends upon the individual who holds these dreams and visions in his eyes. He has the ultimate power of converting thoughts into reality. Fortunately or unfortunately, man doesn't realize the strength of this power unless he uses it once and that one time implementation requires thorough conviction. Conviction alone can drive visions into reality.

Conviction is all about sitting and doing the task at hand irrespective of whether it is interesting or not. Conviction deals with more of completion of the activity rather than the liking or the disliking of it. Starting different kinds of work is easy because there is the assistance of the initial curiosity or the beginner's luck. Sustaining is the challenging part and taking the work to completion is the toughest challenge. However, the mere decision of making up the mind for something so massive, can only be the result of taking commitment. A commitment is always kept up to because of conviction and hardwork. No matter how much time or energy it takes , one must make up his mind without even getting such distractions.

There are different ways to raise back your conviction. Have a mentor who can spot the flaw points in you without any doubts or questions. Develop the habit of reading more books because they are the sources of knowledge and wisdom. The vision towards which you're driving must be more important than the intermediate results. Only then will the conviction be able to drive us far ahead in life to accomplish all that we dream of.

Hats off to Amitabh Bachchan sir!

The first day he entered facebook he garnered more than 10 lakh LIKEs. He is our evergreen and ever-young iconic actor Amitabh Bachchan sir. The consistency that Amitabh Bachchan sir carries on social media can only be compared to the commendable commitment of the sun to light the earth every morning. Generally, his posts have LIKEs, COMMENTs and SHAREs in numbers of thousands or ten thousands. I had assumed that Amitabh sir wouldn't be able to go through any of these comments but to my surprise I was totally wrong.

 

I was going through some of his latest facebook posts and found that  in one of the posts he has addressed the fact that he had skipped the post number from 288 to 299 and has wholeheartedly accepted it and apologized for the mistake. Not just that, in one of the comments someone has said that Dilip Saheb is a better actor than Amitabh sir. For that too, he has replied that he definitely endorses the same viewpoint and shares his respect for Dilip Saheb. In both these instances, he has mentioned the name of the person who has pointed out the mistake in skipping the number and the one who mentioned that Dilip Saheb was a better actor. Being so busy at an age where he is, he has patience and time to read through the comments and answer them. I was bowled out by his humility and his commitment to answer his fans and that too, addressing the right person.

 

Many of us feel that we seldom find time to answer the number of people around us who are connected to us by relations. Here is the legend Amitabh Bachchan sir who has been cumulatively posting on facebook and tweeting every now and then but who just doesn't stop there. He takes care to revert to the questions from his fans. Only a busy man can find/make for more work at any point of time. Amitabh Bachchan sir has proved that it doesn't take age or the busy schedule to steal away the commitment and the dedication from the soul of a person who has made up his mind to work hard.

Will have to make it happen

Just a few seconds back while I was thinking of a topic for today's blog and was chatting with one of my colleagues, she was telling about all the meetings that she had lined up from november 15th onwards for a mega IUnewspaperbag campaign of making 1,00,000 newspaper bags on Novemeber 20th,2012 on the occassion of International Children's Day. She has voluteered to be the Chief Volunteering Head for this humungous project taken up by Inspiration Unlimited. I was really inspired to talk to this young lady by name Beena Chowdary who is pursuing her graduation in Law in one of the finest institutes of India. When I asked her as to how would she manage her studies with this busy schedule for the newspaperbag project, she just replied "will have to make it happen".

What a wonderful attitude to see in youngsters today! She has complete belief in the work of hers and is sure to manage all commitments simultaneously, the reason being she respects every commitment. We have seen 'n' number of people around us who are just trying to find an excuse to escape from their commitment on many occassions. Probably I have no rights to blame anyone of them and I accept the same as well. If one is not involved in multiple commitments then what's the fun in living a limited life catering to just one particular work from 9 to 5? LIFE itself means Learn In the Form of Experience. If a person is not engaged in multiple tasks then how will s/he be able to gain multiple experiences? Repeating the same experience everyday definitely doesn't give the same enthusiasm of a new experience. If you are not fulfilling the bucket of diverse experiences then where's the question of living and loving a holistic life?

So, friends! don't fear from taking up new commitments. Blunders and mistakes are bound to happen and that is exactly called as experience. But make sure of one thing that you will carry the attitude of Beena Chowdary and that is, 'will have to make it happen'. This attitude alone shall clear all the roadblocks and build a proud past for you. Do let me know if even you are interested in participating in the newspaperbag project on november 20th on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

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The primetime focus

We have to agree that there are innumerable distractions around us to drag us away from what we are supposed to do. Even more threatening fact is that not all distractions are bad, some are good as well, some are even better than what we are currently working on. Steve Jobs stated this perfectly - "People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully".

Even I have to confess that I lost my focus a bit from my daily blogging habit because of the 'n' number of other urgent things that needed immediate attention. But needless to say that I'm BACK. Sometimes you just miss your track only to discover it back with more clarity. So choose carefully as to what are those which you chose to focus on to complete and divert all your energy to that first. Where focus goes, energy flows and idea grows. Even if you have missed focus from those which you committed for then don't dump yourself in worry on discovering this flaw. Just get back your primetime focus back on it. The primetime means the time dedicated for the prime interest which occupies the highest position in your priority list. So bring in your focus back in the primetime to cover for all the backlogs of your commitment. The best part is that the focus shall expand to occupy each second of your primetime.

We are living in a world where we are entitled to perform a lot of roles and a wide range of activities. Amidst all these we should not lose focus from our primetime activity that builds us. Even if you lose by any chance just back to it with complete rhythm using the concept of primetime focus where in you convert all your time available to primetime to focus on the work that you had left unfinished.

 

I hope that your primetime focus on feedback is back on

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Attitude reflects in every sphere

Many times you might have come across people who will say that they are very fast in certain things but not the same at work. There might be other instances as well when you will find people who will have all possible reasons of disinterestedness in studies but will be very much interested in every other activity involving fun. Some claim that they are highly responsible when it comes to personal matters but can't keep up the same in professional matters. These kind of indifferences will be many.

Attitude is something which defines our approach towards any situation in life with definite restrictions. When there are no boundaries in terms of space or time, whatever you do is always right and justified but the moment the rules come into play it's very important to be aware of each of our steps. That's when the real attitude gets tested. The intensity of seriousness that you give in the subject of your interest will be the same as that in the area of your liability. No one likes liabilities for sure but you cannot escape them as well. No matter what, you have to deal with them every now and then. This is the time where in all your minor and tiny attitudes and habits come into picture. For example if you follow punctuality, you will be punctual whether it's a cinema or a board meeting, if you follow speed of action and sense of urgency, the same will show up whether it's in professional work or personal commitment. This is what I mean by attitude reflects in every sphere of life.

So the simple test to evaluate yourself is to observe yourself as to how you respond in any situation that you are in. That will automatically reflect your approach in other situations as well. You don't have to live a decade to understand yourself. All it takes is a few moments of unbiased observation of the self. Hope this blog will be useful for you. Eager to see your comments on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

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Daily decision

So many of us make resolutions for every new year and often we fail in following many of them. Longtime commitment is something hard to commit to for most of us. We definitely try our best to follow the resolutions taken but sometimes our memory limit lacks the ability to remind our resolutions to ourselves. At such rare occasions we fall prey to desires and distractions and break the vow taken. Whether you steal once or hundred times you are still called the thief. Hence once we break the resolutions we don't mind breaking it 'n' number of times which drains away the meaning of resolution itself.

Since I am into the field of bodybuilding and health fitness, strict diet, disciplined workout and regular routines are some of the things I need to be really specific about for rewarding results. I have observed most of them very excited on the first day of joining the gym and the excitement most of the times doesn't last more than a week. Infact with myself, I have had the experience of yielding to junk food and missing workouts due to laziness many a times. I used to take a commitment for 3 months to follow strict diet and regular workout but due to some or the other reason I was never able to follow it hundred percent. This continued for almost four months since I had started. Then I adopted a new method of breaking up commitment on a daily basis. One day is good enough for us to remember the decision that we would have taken in the morning till night. Early morning I used to take simple decisions as I would workout completely for 90 minutes today and I would restrain from eating any oily or sugary food only on that day. This was something very easy to follow because the mind had no constraint for the next day. So it allowed me free of distractions. Next day once again I would make the same decision only for one day and it would work perfectly fine.

I started applying the same principle for other interests of mine. For example just writing one blog a day is a routine decision that I make in subconscious everyday. You can decide on whatever you want to improve and make one decision per day and follow it perfectly. The short term commitment is something which is very easy to fulfil and also it doesn't get out of our minds very easily. I make some new decisions on different days and enjoy following each one of them. Hope this helps you too. Do share your opinions and feedback on is.mohanbn@gmail.com
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A day off

Today I was watching the movie 'Karate Kid' in which one of my favourite actors Jackie Chan has played the role of a KungFu master. In the movie he trains Will Smith's son everyday on KungFu and after a long stretch he tells him that he will have a day off to have fun because too much of training is bad. Probably the reason I was watching the movie was also the same. I had taken a day off my regular routine activities to just be free of all work. Probably I even made my mind free of any thoughts of work. Probably this is what the inspirational speaker Sujit Lalwani defines as the break point in his break point theory.

When the car is driven continuously for miles together obviously after a certain point the engine gets heated and it wouldn't be able to run the same way as before. You will have to refill the radiator and allow for the cooling time for the engine to return back to its normal running mode. May be even the tyres would have rubbed enough against the rough roads and the need to replace them arise. Similarly even we humans have certain limits when it comes to how long we can work continuously. The moment the work fills in too much of the head and you're unable to give enough attention for relaxing your mind you will start feeling the aversion towards work in small amounts but you will still continue because of logical reasons to work. As this proceeds the efficiency decreases which will be even more frustrating. This is the time that you should recognise yourself and give sometime yourself for fun else the engine can never ever work in the best state. The small period of relaxation will help to reorient ourselves towards our goals and visions and help us view ourselves and our style of working. This introspection will lead to better output from the next day. I have even read that as per research the best people work in small bursts of energy than continously.

Probably I could give a day off for me from my work but I was wondering why I wanted to blog irrespective of the self-declared day off. Then is when I realised that ABAD{A Blog A Day} was a promise that I had made to myself and more than that I had declared it public that I would be following it no matter what. As Rajnikanth once said that you can create and change the will(legal document) but never change what you have spoken on a stage in front of people, may be my declaration of following ABAD held me strong to come back to blog even on a day off. Probably this is the reason that some of the most successful people declare what they will accomplish amidst the public and use it as a subconscious reinforcement to achieve it and achieve it for sure irrespective of any kind of obstacles in the journey. Might be this is the reason that leaders can work for long periods of time without breaks as they are always with people taking up commitments and working hard to fulfill them. So I would advise even you to declare whatever you want to follow and achieve publicly so that you can enjoy the benefits of it.

Please share if you have had any similar experience on

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Self-Cheat > Else-Cheat

Probably everyone one of us in this world is a cheater. At one point or the other in our life we have cheated. Please dont get me wrong. I am not blaming anyone here. Its the basic instinct of any living being on this earth to take the easier path. Seldom do we select the longer and harder path for any of our tasks. I am not against taking easier paths. Any sane mind would always choose the simpler and easier way of doing something than the harder one. But one thing we need to be cautious is that we are not breaking any rules of the game while going for the easier shortcut. Would we take the same shortcut if the monitor of the task is right in front of us? If the answer is YES, cheers! carry on but if the answer is NO, then you have started cheating.

In life we would have witnessed innumerable people who cheat others for different kinds of reasons. They always feel that they were just intelligent enough to fool the other person but they are absolutely wrong. They have forgotten that in the process of cheating someone else they had cheated their own conscience. Lets bring down the level of cheating now. Forget cheating others there are numerous instances when we cheat ourselves. If we can win over this self-cheater we can win over the evil devil of cheating others.

We would have decided that we will be on a diet for next one month but the sight of junk food makes us cheat ourselves to eat it. We would have decided to study for 4 continuous hours but the news of sports update cheats us into watching the game for one hour. We would have committed to work extra in office but the peopleless environment pushes us out of the seat to cheat our own commitment. You would have promised your mom to complete the housework but the thought of your friends partying makes you forget the promise. All the above instances may seem so natural and too silly to be discussed. If so, its how silly you take your own word. If you can cheat yourself, you can cheat anybody in this world.

The choice of cheating the self and taking the alternative path may bring momentary pleasure but never contentment. Try to challenge this inner cheating sense for once. There will be dilemma and negotiation in the mind between you and yourself for sometime but once this confusion subsides you will be able to see the clear path of fulfilling the commitment and the eternal happiness of having self-control rejuvinated. Instance by instance when you grow stronger through this experience of cheating-self versus yourself fight, you will achieve the highest level of self-control. From then on you will never have to yield to the excusitis syndrome and will be able to fulfill every commitment that you make to yourself or others.

After all , life is all about commiting to your dreams and fulfilling them which never gives an option to cheat yourself.

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