Mind and Matters

BLINK – A Review Written by Malcolm Gladwell, BLINK gives us an insight into believing our instincts and making Snap Judgments. BLINK takes us through a journey of various situations which then unfolds the power of thinking and mind reading. What one can learn from BLINK? Every decision we make is a result of attention to lot of details and analyzing the same. Do we ever come to conclusions just by believing our instincts – YES, we do but we rarely have the courage to accept the same. This momentary decision is what BLINK asks to believe, as most of the times we come up with the same solution after carefully analyzing the same situation. We do this day in and day out but unknowingly, otherwise why do you think at any given time we prefer a James Bond movie to a Mona Lisa? Human Brain is one of the best gifts to Mankind. We have to develop the skills of using it in the best possible way as it is unique to each one of us. Every situation in life (be it having a Pepsi or a Coke) is ruled ...

As I shifted my work place to Manyata, I, a lover of cars, reluctantly concluded that I needed a driver to drive me between home and office. After all 2 hours of commute time could be better served than navigating a car across the labyrinth of Bangalore. I casually mentioned it to a friend of mine in the IT recruitment business. He said, “Jayesh, in this city, Siebel Consultants, Java Programmers and car drivers are the three most sought after resources, next only to cooks. You will be lucky to find a gooddriver”. I was lucky. One Monday morning Samuel presented himself at my door step. He was all of five feet two inches, hair combed to perfection, wearing a clean shirt and pant and polished shoes. After agreeing to what I considered a generous pay package I handed him the keys to my precious car. Our relationship was matter of fact and very professional. I was taciturn with him, but polite. We hardly exchanged more than a few sentences every day. I was preoccupied in my thoughts and e...

I was traveling back home on Friday night enjoying the cool breeze– one part of my brain was very happy and looking forward to the weekend and another part of it was tired after the long week and dreaming about my bed . I started feeling envious of all the people who were inside their homes with their family and preparing to go to bed. As a human, I started complaining to myself about my situation and felt how unlucky I was. Should I call it irony or God’s personal message that day, that he made me see another world in those few minutes of my journey? I felt extremely small and at the same time very lucky after seeing the number of young children who were wide awake at that time of the hour. They were few who were hoping to find some left over food in the dustbins, another few who were laborers in the street side hotels- cleaning huge vessels, bearing abusive words from their owner. At that moment I wondered whether mine was indeed a very long and tiring week! There were these kids who...

2 years back i used to think that children are the greatest gift to mankind- they bring so much of happiness when they enter this world. The proud parents call the whole world to celebrate with them. As time goes by and when time comes for the children to take a look back at thier parents , most of them vanish. Most of us would have noticed this by now- and when i think of it i also have my parents ,its sometimes scary. Thee are lot of questions that arise in my mind and i struggle to understand the conversations in my mind. One thing is for sure , I will surely not leave them to feel that they are not cared for. When i write this , something that resonates t0 me is what my uncle told once - Parents give birth to Children for thier pleasure and happiness, they bring them up to satisfy their family needs - so what right does a parent have to expect that they would get back all that they did from thier children - are we contracting anything with our children??

To do the right thing always has been a prayer i have been saying to myself from i dnt know when! This has , most of the times landed me in awkward situations and still my prayer never altered. Was this some kind of a behavioral diesease i am getting into ?- oh , another thing , I have a habit of connecting anything to an ailment:). This had been a matter of concern for me until 3 days back when i came across this blog named - 'Life is too short to fold an underwear'. Though this blog was aimed at telling people that there is too little time in this world to brood over petty things , it struck me in 2 ways . 1. There is no right way to fold an underwear - so why waste time ? This is to say when a small thing like this has no right or wrong way , i cannot be right all the time as my right could be the worst way to do the same thing for some one else. 2. Life is too short to keep thinking what is the right way in every circumstance- spontaniety really helps and keeps us alive . I...