My Thought For This Friday (12/24/21) - Overcoming grief

Memory you create with someone is the vessel they will use to cross the ocean of grief when you forever leave them behind. Create memories now.

My Thought For This Friday (12/17/21) - Self criticism

Criticizing one's own flaws, not others' flaws, requires more courage. 

My Thought For This Friday (12/10/21) - Push back

 

It is important sometimes to push back in order to avoid being pushed over.

My Thought For This Friday (12/3/21) - Comparing with others

It is interesting to note that we compare with others when we are young and with our own younger selves when older. 

In both cases, an adjustment has to be made: when younger compare only to your potential and when older judge yourself only based on your current situation and abilities. 

My Thought For This Friday (11/27/21) - Fair Expectations

Make sure the expectations are fair and reasonable; this way, if not met, the ensuing disappointment is totally warranted.

My Thought For This Friday (11/19/21) - Learning

You can't fix the past mistakes; one can only learn from it. Why? So that you don't repeat it in the future.

My Thought For This Friday (11/12/21) - Ruing

 The setback from a failure after trying is far better than ruing later of having not tried at all.

My Thought For This Friday (11/5/21) - Being good at something

We are good at things we seem to have fun. And we seem to have fun in things we are good at. 

So, the goal of childhood should be to explore multiple things with an open mind and honestly identify things they are having fun and good at and build a career based on it. 

My Thought For This Friday - Rejection (10/29/21)

 Rejection can be direct or indirect (silence, being ignored,..). It is hard on the receiving party, as it hurst their self-esteem. Keep that in mind when you are turning down or saying no or rejecting some one or some thing so that you can find ways to soften the blow as much as possible.

My Thought For This Friday (10/22/21) - No help is small

Don’t limit yourself from helping others thinking that it is only a small help. Remember, it is only small from your perspective. For them, it may be a significant one.

My Thought For This Friday (10/15/21) - What is NOT rude?

Pointing out and reminding the obvious is not rude. In fact, it is essential to be an effective teacher or a leader.

My Thought For This Friday (10/8/21) - Hard Work

There is no substitute for hard work. It should be the centerpiece that should be holding together one's creativity, smartness, efficiency, intelligence, etc.

 

My Thought For This Friday (10/01/21) - Doing small things right

Focus should be on doing the 'small' things right. Then the desired 'big' thing will naturally happen. Misplaced focus on bigger thing is tempting and ends being the reason for disappointment later.

My Thought For This Friday (9/24/21) - Ego

Dissolve your ego before you can solve the problem

My Thought For This Friday (9/17/21) - Grief

Grief: sadness that arises from knowing fully well that you can’t do a single thing to change that one outcome.

My Thought For This Friday (9/10/21) - Enlightenment while exercising

Watching the Apple Watch or Fitbit really makes you watch what you eat. 

An important benefit of exercising is that it makes you realize how hard and long it takes to expend calories and thus serve as a cautionary alarm next time when you consume them. 

This is especially important these days when it is so easy to gain calories. For example, 140 calories consumed by drinking a can of Coke in few minutes will take a brisk walk of 30 minutes or running for 15 minutes to expend the same amount of calories.

MyThought For This Friday (9/3/2021) - Gaining new perspective

One of the joyous aspect of teaching for me is that each time you prepare for a lecture, you gain new perspective of old concepts. Just like looking through a kaleidoscope.

My Thought For This Friday (8/27/21) - Empty Nest

Empty nest is actually full of memories. However hard, coming back to it with content is more important than drowning them with tears and sorrow.

My Thought For This Friday (8/20/21) - Anger

Anger is like rain. It will go away eventually. Waiting it out without engaging with it is the best option so that you do not end up getting wet and make things further messy. 

My Thought For This Friday (8/13/21) - Cheap laugh

Whether it is a gathering of friends, family, or co-workers, it is important to control the urge to say something to generate a quick laugh. Many times it only generates misunderstanding or offend someone and ends up generating a cheap laugh instead. It is not worth the effort.

My Thought For This Friday (08/06/2021) - Live in the moment

We as humans can look around and learn from other creatures. Just live in the moment. Our ability to think, analyze, plan, predict, and expect is what is causing too much stress and pain, preventing us from enjoying the current moment. 

My Thought For This Friday (7/30/21) - Being rude

Taking advantage of one's kindness is the most rude you can be to that person.

My Thought For This Friday (07/23/21) - Failure

One collateral benefit from a catastrophic failure is that it helps you effectively deal with relatively smaller failures.

My Thought For This Friday (07/16/21) - End of mentoring cue

If your student (or child) does everything on their own (start to finish) without any reminders or follow up, your job as a mentor (or parent) is coming to a close. It is the cue for you to step aside and enjoy their performance from the sidelines.

My Thought For This Friday (7/9/21) - Fairness

Real test of fairness is how well you apply the expected right standards in situations that involve you. It is relatively easy to be fair when judging conflicts that don't involve you.

My Thought For This Friday (7/2/21) - Being judgemental

Easy to watch a storm pass by from a safe place than it is to be in one. Hence, don’t judge others going through a difficulty. 

My Thought For This Friday (6/25/21) - Effectiveness

Like a tree, be quite effective and quietly effective. The long-term impacts of one's actions is more important than all the short-term noise.

My Thought For This Friday (06/18/21) - Ignoring

Ignore people who do not appreciate or care for you. Instead, use that saved energy to focus on people who do appreciate or care for you. Typically the latter is smaller but by focusing on them, they can get, and indeed deserve, lion share of your attention anyway.

My Thought For This Friday (6/11/21) - Music

Music is like a close friend whom you can summon on a moment's notice, share any mood confidentially, and receive a much needed company.

My Thought For This Friday (6/4/21) - Celebration

 

Celebrating someone's birthday even after they passed is the best proof that have endeared themselves to the survivors, who are still glad about the birth of the celebrated.

Today (June 4, 2021) would have been the 75th birthday of Shri. S. P. Balasubramaniyam, one of the most prolific singers in the history.

My Thought For This Friday (5/28/21) - Kindness 2

Taking kindness for granted in a relationship (spouse, friends, etc) is the worst thing you can do. Just because they are close does not mean you stop showing them their kindness is being appreciated. Taking it for granted is how relationships deteriorate.

My Thought For This Friday (05/21/2021) - Ego

Discarding ego is necessary before one can say I don’t know much about this to give my opinion or answer the question. One of the best life lessons I learnt as a teacher. 

My Thought For This Friday (5/14/21) - Power

 Power used wisely only results in benefits. Power used with greed only results in abuse.

My Thought For This Friday (05/07/2021) - Lessons from Teaching

Some of teacher's knowledge, skill, and perspective is from experience. If they realize this simple fact, it will help them be patient when teaching beginners.

My Thought For This Friday (4/30/21) - Helplessness >> Action

Watching something you care about but can't do much induces the worst feeling of helplessness. But it is also the signal to you to join forces with others who feel the same way. Before you know, you CAN make a difference. So, that helplessness one feels at time of distress should not be a ticket for inaction.

My Thought For This Friday (4/23/21) - Equity

 Equity is........ 

All vehicles stoping and waiting in both directions, so that one pedestrain can cross a busy intersection

My Thought For This Friday (04/16/21) - Final goodbye

If it is hard to say to final goodbye to people you have never met or related to, it must be because of the positive impact they unknowingly made in your lives. 

My Thought For This Friday (4/9/21) - Prediction

If I only heard someone but never have seen them (happens a lot with Radio personalities), I would imagine how they would look like. And when I see them for the first time (in person, video, or a photo), they would not look like what I had imagined. It happens every single time for me and I am always amused with what led me to imagine a certain way and how I fail each time.

My Thought For This Friday (4/2/21) - Attitude

 You can cure a wrong attitude by having a right perspective.

My Thought For This Friday (3/26/21) - Talking about one's self

Fifth Anniversary edition of sharing my thoughts every Friday. 

It is always looked down upon, rightly so, for lack of humility when one talks about themselves. Occasionally, and if warranted, with sufficient evidence, and necessary, it is ok to do so. Today I take the liberty to do just that. I am very proud to have developed the discipline to post every week my thoughts, however simple they are, for the past 5 years. Thank you to everyone who read them, react to them, and comment on them, I appreciate all of it very much. 

I totally understand the discomfort one may feel on such a self-aggrandizement. To those who feel that way and to everyone, I suggest to you this excellent article on how to do it appropriately:

https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass/how-to-talk-about-yourself-in-the-best-possible-way-fd1eaf484748

My Thought For This Friday (3/19/21) - Love and Hate

Love is effortless and easy. Hate requires a lot of effort and energy. Let us therefore be lazy and energy efficient.

My Thought For This Friday (03/13/21) - Admiration

I admire people who speak or do things they are passionate about regardless how uncommon or unusual it may be. The basis of my admiration comes from them doing what they like without worrying about what others would think about it. 

My Thought For This Friday (03/05/21) - seesaw

Most things in life are not a seesaw. 

To lift something up, you don’t have to lower down another. 

Nor should one interpret when one thing is being praised or shown in good light necessarily also means it is lowering another. 

My Thought For This Friday (02/27/21) - Compartmentalization

It is totally human to have carry over effect, from being unable to show enthusiasm in performing one job from feeling let down or upset in another unrelated task. 

But it is important to avoid this by compartmentalizing the negative attitude, being fair to each job, and doing justice to the extent it deserves.

My Thought For This Friday (02/20/2021) - Decline

 While waiting for sunset, it is not hard to not notice how rapidly it happens. On a normal course, same is the case with human life and the rapid decline towards the end is palpable. 

My Thought For This Friday (2/12/21) - Learning

One can learn ONLY if they want to. So, the goal of a teacher should be to make the students realize they want it. Learning will follow.

My Thought For This Friday (02/05/21) - Greed and Peace

Feeling content with what you already have TODAY is the starting point of being peaceful. 

Wanting to feel content with all you may need TOMORROW is the starting point of being greedy. 

My Thought For This Friday (1/29/21) - Conscience

A culprit can hide from everything and everyone else in this world, except one's own conscience. If they succeed in it, they are already dead as a human being.

My Thought For This Friday (1/22/21) - Learning

A person's inability to learn can be best learnt from watching them repeat the same mistakes. 

My Thought For This Friday (01/15/21) - Wastage

 Chances of wasting something is very high if you didn’t earn it.

My Thought For This Friday (01/08/2021) - Speaking up

 If you see injustice, feel ashamed about it. Better yet, speak against it. Even better, do something about it. Being silent is being complicit with the injustice.

My Thought For This Friday (01/01/2021) - New Year Resolutions

To have sustainable new year resolutions, it is important to keep it simple and make them based on what was possible for you in the the past year. Here are mine for this year:

• Every moment you are awake, be fair
• Every day for 30 minutes, exercise your mind and body
• Every week, hike in the outdoors
• Every month, volunteer time and donate money
• Every year, be grateful you made it to the next to be able to restate or form new resolutions