We are all human beings

At the end of the day we are not Gods; not even devils. We are human beings. There is loads of stuff that shall shut their doors on our faces. There is a mighty chance of things going wrong when you just expected them to go right exactly how you planned. No wonder such backfiring always change our moods and emotions. Things that don't work out carry the power to switch us off for some moments. All of a sudden all the energy feels as if it's drained out. The motivation to go ahead no more lingers on the mind. All these are very much natural because we are human beings. Just like how we can go high and laugh rolling on floor the opposite also holds good. These situations shouldn't make us blame ourselves.

Let's go back to the time when we were those kids who cared a least about what the world around us was doing. All that we were focused on was our games, our food and our tiny, little homework. We didn't bother what others thought about our colour or clothes. When someone disappointed us or fought with us, we definitely felt bad and cried in the arms of our parents. But after some time we got back to our normal routine of playing and enjoying childhood. None of the pressures of the universe could levy their burden on our shoulders. We could run, fall, jump, hide, sleep and do every other thing that was possible without worrying about what happened just an hour ago. Feelings are an intricate part of human beings. Sometimes they are good; sometimes they go down to being bad also. We must accept this truth of highs and lows of life and emotions. As we grow older people teach and train us to be ever-happy which is a very hypothetical and ideal situation to ever happen on this planet in our lives. It's very easy for someone to say to you to be happy when you are sad just like how it's easy for you to do the same to someone else. But changing the emotion is not so easy at one switch. It shall take its time. Until then, we must agree to the fact that we are prone to such mood swings. If the emotion can swing from good to sad then it can swing back from bad to good also. There lies the hope for every one of us. We can get back to our energetic states also, not just lose them.

Life is there to offer all kinds of challenges to us. It wants us to go through all kinds of emotions. It wants us to experience all kinds of scenarios. As you expect more from life it only gives back more to you. All you need to do is to enjoy this wonderful ride called as life. We cannot be perfect all the time. Perfection is an illusion. We must agree to the fact that we can also make errors and be ready to correct them. If we act the same manner all the time then we won't remain as humans; we turn into stones which remain the same no matter which situation they are in. The essence of life is change. It can be change in our emotions or thoughts. It can be a change in our perceptions or feelings. We are all humans ultimately.

Leadership is a D.E.P

To elaborate the title for those of you who couldn't interpret it, 'Leadership is a D.E.P (Daily Evaluation Process)'. To become a leader is a never ending process. Everyone is a leader to himself. The journey of becoming a better leader never ends no matter how many years of life we scale through. A leader is not the one who leads a lot of people. A leader is one who knows and does the job of leading himself or herself. Life is all about leading ourselves towards our goals. The moment the world sees us leading our lives, it surrenders to the leaders like us who have the power and clear direction to lead the globe. But, how does one evaluate himself as a leader?

Leadership is a daily evaluation process. He never gets a chance to get complacent at any point of time or can he compromise on any of his results. A leader needs to build his work day by day while developing himself so that he notices a better himself the next day than what he was the previous day. Hence I call that leadership is a daily job. Achieving excellence in whatever one does is what qualifies, as well as quantifies to be a leader. It's not about achieving perfection that defines a leader though he never gives up on striving for accomplishing perfection in every endeavour that he is a part of. For a leader, it's one day at a time and one work at a moment. A moment wasted apart from getting invested into work is a lost moment and he loses his leadership status for that moment. The more number of such moments only undermine the name and capacity of a leader. Hence every moment counts.

While we are pursuing our academics, we have the evaluation done once a month or once in 3 months or annually once. But while being a leader in real life, every day is a test or an exam. A leader needs to perform on a daily basis on a wide variety of things that he or she is involved in. There is no one to evaluate the performance except the results that his work is going to produce. It's all about self-evaluation. How well can you win your own self-evaluation will determine how well you have lead your day. Leading persistently and leading oneself correctly have to be tested on a daily basis and only then a true leader is formed. Once again, "Leadership is a D.E.P".

2P tend to P2P

The title might be little confusing. Let me clear the confusion before we go ahead with the article. 2P means practice and patience and P2P means performance to perfection. I could have easily split up this blog post into two, one on practice and the other on patience but didn't do so because at the end only the combination of these both can yield the expected result in life. Let's have a brief insight into this amazing combination.

 

'Nobody is perfect' is a repeated slogan that we hear almost everywhere, still the drive towards perfection is always enforced upon us. In fact, there is nothing wrong in racing to be perfect because on the way to perfection we shall meet excellence for sure. There is no other better satisfaction than achieving the peaks of perfection in our performance. Any kind of performance needs consistent practice to reach the perfection. Just practice alone doesn't help. Only perfect practice can lead to perfection. The duration of practice might last as long as we reach perfection and hence it demands patience. Only when we patiently practise can we deliver perfection in every performance of ours. If you practise continuously for few days and after that lose patience and give up the practice then perfection can't be achieved. On the other hand, if you're totally patient and practise once in a while without any sense of urgency, even then the perfection in performance cannot be achieved.

 

Different people who have become successful in life have derived various lessons from their journies. Some state the message of patience, some of hardwork, some of humbleness and so on. However, success is a result of culmination of all these positive qualities. No one quality alone can yield success in life. We have to possess and exhibit all the essential requirements which the success demands. You can share your opinions about success on

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One sword to protect 100 wounds

Imagine a battle of the times when there were no guns and bombs. People used to fight with metallic weapons such as swords and chains. Sword fight is one of the famous duel between two opponents. If a warrior is already hurt with a hundred wounds on his body, it's quite difficult for him to continue the battle but if he has just one sword in his hand still he can definitely continue the fight such that the wounds are no more hurt and get enough time to recover by the time he keeps fighting and defending himself and continues the battle.

If you have imagined the above scenario exactly or even approximately then you have already got my message. The above battle is what I refer to life as since life is just a series of challenges that we are fighting day in and day out. The warrior is none other than the person who is reading this blog right now. The hundred wounds are the hundred flaws that exist in imperfect beings like us. Let me assure you that there is no Mr.Perfect in this world. The single sword is nothing but that single strength of yours that will take you ahead in life. Friends! just accept the truth that flaws exist in all of us but the only difference between any two people is the number of flaws that are discovered and those which are still hidden from the light of reality. It's quite natural for a warrior to get hurt during a battle and the same way it's quite natural for one to have flaws. But you have to remember that a sword in hand can make the warrior ultra-powerful in spite of the wounds. Similarly one strength of yours if repeatedly executed can shadow all the flaws that you have.

Well! It doesn't mean that you can walk away just like that with one strength. The warrior while defending himself with the sword also makes sure to medicate the wounds and become perfectly fine. Likewise it's our duty to work on our flaws and try achieving the perfection of flawlessness how much ever impossible and distant it might sound. Remember to keep strengthening your strength by exercising it as often as possible and simultaneously keep working on your flaws as well. No wonder that I ask you for your feedback once again on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

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OCD: Beware 5% of the population

OCD is a psychological disorder where in a person affected by OCD tends to repeat the same things again and again. The full form of OCD is Obsessive Compulsion Disorder. This kind of a disorder happens when a person puts him/herself under too much of self-pressure to be perfect at what he/she is doing. Due to the mounting pressures of the expectations of this competitive world which is addding tension day by day, close to 5% of the population is found to be affected by this disorder. I am writing about this disorder in my blog because I also belonged to this 5% sometime back.

 

I can clearly recall that it was during my 9th std when I got severely affected because of OCD. I had bagged the 'Merit Student Award' during my 8th and 9th stds in my school. During my 9th std, I found myself reading my lessons and repeating them until I got them perfectly well though I had understood them. Until I was able to pronounce every word to the best perfection my mind wouldn't allow me to move forward. There was strange sense of fear that I might forget all that I have read so far if I didn't perfect it by repeating. This repeating used to consume loads of time and also would irritate me because I couldn't get out of a virtual jail that I formed around myself. I still remember the night when I was awake till 3am in the morning just to prepare for a simple test on Chemistry. Day by day, OCD was catching upon me. It started to spread into other activities of mine as well. I used to apply filmit to the lamps again and again just becaue I was afraid that if I didn't do it correctly something bad would happen with me. I can only recall and regret those times when I would shed tears being completely helpless at helping myself.

I shared this problem of mine with one of my friends whose brother referred to me a psychiatrist in one of the hospitals in bangalore. I took my father along and went to the psychiatrist. She asked me many questions as to why it happened and from how long. Then she took me to one more senior of hers who prescribed some medicine. I came back home without much solution and was with my book once again at night. At that time, my dad came to me and told me not to have any tension or pressure to be the topper and just study as much as I could. Then he stated a statement which almost killed the OCD in me in one shot. He just told me that those medicines prescribed by the doctor would weaken my nervous system. This statement just blew me off my worries and intimated that my health was more important than anything else. That is the time, I completely started neglecting the OCD in me and carried on with my studies to the best that I could do. Even in my 10th board exams I didn't score well except for 94%. Then came my undergraduation, the first day of which I decided that I would study as long as I understood the concept and wouldn't bother much about perfect replication of text book words. I worked hard for 2 years only to find myself becoming the topper of my college alongwith 4th rank-holder for my state, 29th rank-holder in engineering entrance exam and 33rd rank-holder in medical entrance exam. Please share if you have had any such similar experiences on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

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