My Thought For This Friday (12/29/17) - Zooming in and out

Negative attributes in others get magnified when we work or live closely with them or think about them in the present; yet their good attributes typically come into focus when they are far away or move away from us or when we recollect their past.

My Thought For This Friday (12/22/17) - Hate

Hate is if you could not in any way explain the extreme disliking of something.

My Thought For This Friday (12/15/17) - Benevolence

Of all the joys in life, there is nothing like the one you feel when you willfully give away something to the most needy. The warmth, completeness, humanity, and gratification you feel never changes, regardless of your age. 

My Thought For This Friday (12/8/17) - Reflection

After seeing the super moon this week, I thought what it could mean in our lives:

If you reflect on your past and learn, you can shine in the future.

My Thought For This Friday (12/1/17) - Defensive

There is a fine line between explaining and sounding defensive. It is really an art to do the former without giving the impression of the latter. Striking the right tone helps in not sounding defensive. 

My Thought For This Friday (11/24/17) - Trust

Ultimately form of 'Trust' is, going to bed with the unflailing assumption that I WILL get up tomorrow morning and accomplish all I planned to.

My Thought For This Friday (11/17/17) - Learning

Make sure you don't learn the wrong lesson from what went right. More importantly, make sure you learn the right lesson from what went wrong. 

My Thought For This Friday (11/10/17) - Self-comprehending

To understand yourself, sometimes you need to be by yourself.

My Thought For This Friday (11/4/17) - Diligence

Hard work bridges the long gap between goals and accomplishments.

My Thought For This Friday (10/27/17) - Complementing and complaining - Take 2

If you want to complement some one, do it immediately. If you want to complain about some one, wait on it to ensure it is warranted. You can afford to be wrong about complementing but not complaining. 

My Thought For This Friday (10/20/2017) - Helping others

Just like you don't need eyes to have a vision, to help others you don't need money; intent would suffice.

My Thought For This Friday (10/13/17) - Analysis

Paralysis by analysis before taking up a task is the result of 1) thinking primarily about outcomes more than the process itself and/or 2) focusing on factors that control the process even though they are beyond one's control.

My Thought For This Friday (10/6/17) - Collaboration

If you can't compete, try to collaborate. It is one way to buy time and ride out tough times.

My Thought For This Friday (09/29/17) - Hearing ourselves

While we are ok with hearing ourselves live, why is it that we don't like to hear our own recorded voice? I despise hearing my own voice in lecture or phone message recordings and in a non-scientific, small sample survey, nearly everyone I asked said the same. Is it for you?

My Thought For This Friday (09/22/17) - Kitchen

A cleaned up kitchen is like a shaven surface. Both will require your attention soon.

My Thought For This Friday (9/15/17) - Carry over

Carrying negativity over from one incident/situation to other interactions is decisively detrimental to a relationship. It is like when something benign metastasizes and compromises the whole body. It is hard not to but we should at least try and handle everything on a case by case basis.

My Thought For This Friday (09/08/17) - Smooth ride

Unguarded optimism or unrelenting pessimism are like a vehicle without a brake or a gas pedal, respectively. Neither alone will ensure a smooth ride.

My Thought For This Friday (09/01/17) - Over the hill

Because of increased life span and technology, 50 is the new 30. Shouldn't then "over the hill" phrase be reassigned to refer to those who turn 70? Just saying.

My Thought For This Friday (08/25/17) - Manners

Saying ‘thank you’ and ’sorry’ strengthens relationship. Saying ’thank you’ is recognizing something good in others and indicating that you are not taking their goodness lightly. While saying ‘sorry’ is acknowledging something bad in yourself and indicating that you are not taking your mistakes lightly.

My Thought For This Friday (08/18/17) - Stress

Stress is caused by worrying about at least two types of things; those that are not under our control and/or those that are under our control. To reduce stress, quit worrying about the first type, as you cannot do anything about it. Instead, focus on the second type, as you can do something about it.

My Thought For This Friday (08/11/17) - Judgemental

Use impressions of some one or an observation to form hypothesis and test them with fair follow up questions. Instead, do not ever use your impressions to draw conclusions about some one or something. Doing so typically leads you to be prejudiced or judgemental.

My Thought For This Friday (08/04/17) - Real test

All relationships (or companies from whom you receive service) typically feel good until a challenge comes up. How well the challenge is resolved helps you find out which ones are good and which ones are not.

ps: this thought first came to my mind when I was thinking how we feel good about any airline when there is no incident; upon further thought, I felt the same applies to a relationship.

My Thought For This Friday (07/29/17) - Wrong Assumption

If you ever don't act on or follow up on your thoughts or ideas, make sure 'others would have already thought about it or tried it' is not the reason for your inaction. It is always a wrong assumption to make; even if it is the case, your way of doing might be an improvement.

My Thought For This Friday (07/21/17) - Tolerance level

People tolerate competent jerks lot more than incompetent jerks. Latter is a suicidal combination at work.

My Thought For This Friday (07/14/17) - Family trips

Trips with family or friends enhance bonding with them because responses to unexpected, unplanned, unfamiliar situations and events help us understand them better and realize their strengths. The chances of such events happening at a faster clip during a trip is higher than normal.

My Thought For This Friday (07/07/17) - Learning

Early on in our life, with formal education we learn to live. After it is over, we should live to learn, as life is the best teacher and learning never stops.

My Thought For This Friday (06/30/2017) - Real respect

Real respect is the reverence, adulation, being held in high esteem, admiration, etc., a person experiences even if they have nothing to offer in return, not in power, and not in control of anything. 

My Thought For This Friday (6/23/17) - Staying put

At times, doing nothing is a solution to a problem. You don't have to react every time you face a challenge (equivalent to taking a pitch in baseball or leaving a delivery in cricket). For example, answering certain emails at work, entertaining a child's request...of course, the challenge is knowing when to stay put.

My Thought For This Friday (06/16/17) - Achieving

If we consider failure as the first step of learning and don't treat success as the final step of an accomplishment, we will continue to achieve great things in life.

My Thought For This Friday (06/09/2017) - Wedding Anniversary

Today's thought is about my wife on our 26th wedding anniversary

26 year journey with my wife Sadhana Ravishankar. Looking back, I am most grateful that I can be myself and share willfully what I feel with you. Sharing this journey with you allowed me to gain confidence to say that: There is no secret/anger that I won't hide, there is no disappointment/low point that I can't share, there is no flaw/shortcoming in me that I don't disclose, and there is no goal that wouldn't be possible.

My Thought For This Friday (06/02/17) - Protesting

Role of a protesting visionary activist is to challenge our comfort zone and make us fight against unjust practices today itself well before it is going to be accepted by the society as wrong. That is what Gandhi and Martin Luther King and many leaders did in their day well before what they fought against are now considered unacceptable by all in a society.

(I thought of this when watching the movie Hidden Figures. In the theater, there were noticeable gasps and noises expressing discomfort on the discriminatory treatment of Katherine Johnson and other African American mathematicians in NASA. What is very uncomfortable and injustice in 2017 was totally acceptable in the 1960s. There in lies the vision of those leaders who fought against such ills in the society).

My Thought For This Friday (5/26/17) - Shock and grief

 

Suddenness and surprise contribute greatly to the shock and grief you feel in learning a bad news. When possible, priming or preparing some one may help them better deal with bad news.

My Thought For This Friday (5/19/17) - Songs and past

Old songs mean much more for us because it is a reminder of events or moments from a memorable past. For others who are listening to it for the first time, it is just another good song, with no emotional attachment. This is the reason for the marked difference in reaction to a famous old song when heard by old and new generation.

My Thought For This Friday (5/12/17) - Courage

You need courage to accept defeat and a conscience to reflect and learn from it. 

My Thought For This Friday (5/5/17) - Fairness

If you think and act fairly at every step of the way, you will always end up doing the right thing.

My Thought For This Friday (4/28/17) - Power and wealth

Power and wealth are two things for which humans never reach satiety. Many problems in this world can be traced to this inability in us.

My Thought For This Friday (4/22/17) - Small things

Small things in life have the knack of giving us a lot of happiness. My top five:

1. Watching a movie in the theater with a tub of popcorn.
2. Randomly walking into an ice cream shop to get a scoop (diabetes be damned)
3. Watching sun set.
4. Going for a hike in a new trail.
5. Looking at maps.

My Thought For This Friday (4/14/17) - Learning

You learn more from your failures than successes. That is why it is important to be frustrated when facing a defeat; then there is a chance you can look back and learn. Instead, if you are angry or bitter in defeat, you learn nothing.

My Thought For This Friday (04/07/17) - Doing things

Sometimes doing a task is not whether it is right or wrong. Thinking that way causes confusion and inaction. Approach it as whether you can do it or cannot do it.

My Thought for This Friday (03/31/2017) - Crying

When you are born, you alone cry unlike everyone around you.
When you die, everyone one around you cry except you.

My Thought for This Friday (3/24/2017) - Questioning

One skill students should pick up in a class - asking questions. Exam in fact should be an opportunity when teachers can teach students how to ask questions. Then, in real life, they can ask questions themselves to be both successful and self-teach.

My Thought for This Friday (3/17/2017) - Crying and laughing

How come we can cry for a longer time than we can laugh?

My Thought for This Friday (3/10/2017) - Conscience

Conscience is like a mirror; it will totally show what is in front of it. You will see it even if no one else can.

My Thought for This Friday (3/3/2017) - Learning

There is no better way to learn something than by doing it or teaching it.