K for Knotty Feelings

Oh yes, it is word play. Pun for you, no Fun for me! Hah.

Knotty Feelings
Entangled thoughts
Caged Life..

Life was throwing lemons before
I kept on catching them
Eyes felt High Tide..

Eyes wearing a mask
So has the face, Nobody knows
How much I Cried

Here is to the changing life
Rekindled Spirit
Will it happen? Might!

Counting my blessings
Piled up baggage
I'm sure it is a positive Sign.

J for Jimmy Choo

Oh no, let me start before you assume that I am a big fan of the brand.

April is my birthday month. This year in addition to this, we have a function - a move and many other changes coming in. So, to make it cheerful for me- Mr.ISB decided to gift me something really expensive. A frugal soul like me, can not select anything for myself in such a range, but I tried and I am still trying.

Last night, I was doing the Bag hunting online, got a good deal and I told him,
"See, you can gift me this bag (trying to get his attention.. ) but it is expensive."

He has razor sharp focus so, he did not bother to change the direction of his sight. He infact said..
"How much? I would only look at if it is Jimmy Choo!" Knowing the frugal wife he has..

I swear, I cracked up at the moment. I said,
"Jimmy Choo? What? They dont make bags! They make shoes!"

He shrugged his shoulder with a ready answer,
"Mujhe Kya Pata!"

Today,

I was browsing through, to kill time as I had to wait to start a call in the office...

I just randomly searched 'Jimmy Choo Bags'....

...And I found this...




:O

Yes, Jimmy Choo makes bags! ...

"Mujhe Kya Pata!!"

I for I

No, I was not running out of ideas to write on this letter 'I'. However, lately this 30 years old little stupid lady has realized the value of 'I'.

What 'I' want in life,  How 'I' want to take my work forward? How 'I' want to manage my life. Believe me, when you go through a mountain of changes in physiological , psychological and cultural shifts within and around,... and you forget what about the very special 'I'- you are bound to go through hell. I went through a type of metamorphosis too and I believe, it is still going on.

I have realized, to keep my sanity in check- first I need to know what I want. Then I have to decide if my conscious is right. I have to train myself to stand up to what I believe in- what I want and fight for it using various tactics. Sometimes, it is okay to let go but too much of it would end up creating pressure on you to be a good person. The problem is not in being a good person, the problem is that, 'Good' and 'Bad' are perspectives.

I wanted to take this chance, to clearly write down basics.

I want a life where I can follow my faith and beliefs. While I do not want to upset any elderly person in my life- I also do not want to waste twenty years of my life, following someone else's faith.

I want to fly high in my career for various reasons, however I can see some bottlenecks for a few years. Do I want to succumb to them? No.

I want to really spend two vacations in a year with Mr.ISB.  Under current scene, work and home fronts - both are challenging. It is not going to be easy too. Lets see!

I do not want to argue with any one, unless I see that there is even a tiny bit of chance in the other side to change. I am so done with it. However, I would stick to my guns with stronger words and plans when I am in a better position to go through the drill.

I do not want to work to entertain myself. Not that I did ever, however my ambition are clearer and higher than ever. God Bless others!

I want to develop my sense of style, which is simple. I do not want to EVER succumb to the pressure of how others perceive what 'Style' is. I wish I can always tell this to myself.

I am going to stay away from problems of people who are eternally confused and change their decisions every now and then. While it does not mean that I am going to stop being social or helpful, I do not want to go deep. I have burnt my fingers already.

I want to take care of my health.

I want to take care of Mr.ISB's health. (Somebody is rolling his eyes!)

I want to spend good time with my parent and witness my brother's career taking shape.

I want to, for once, live life ignoring everything else which is not what 'I' want. Without being stressed about what 'Other' are thinking about me.

H for Habit

Habits are my favorite tools to bring discipline in my life (And ah, others' too!)

I have been reading a lot about how to form a habit, the principles of 21 days etc however, I wont say any trick was ever 100% successful. (and I got bored to explore more!)  I do believe that 'The Power of Habit' has the best method to form a habit. But, this post is not on forming habits.

This is about that one process you follow in the office as a part of your work to do analysis and you get so so habitual of the process that any other process fails to get through your mind. Your mind refuses to pluck data points and process. (Ah, nerdy I know!)

Let me explain, what exactly I tried writing in the above statement.

I analyse data related to my field. A lot of data. Hence, Excel is one of the skill set which I happened to master or so I believe, in last some years of my professional life. (Oh, Do not start Data Science debate. Our startup is yet to get into the field and the scale of data we should have for it)

In Excel, there are certain features I just happen to use like brushing my teeth. In a very subconscious way... Sanitize data, put filters, see patterns, insert pivot tables, try to decipher patterns and counts using suitable formats. Bamm, I got what you wanted. My mind registers the data points and now, I can decide the area of action.

This procedure is the most basic one and now after so many years of using this on daily basis- my mind now refuses to register anything, in any other format.

... And this realization happened today.

While making a to-do list on a piece of paper for the upcoming function at home we are hosting, I realized my mind is going numb. I opened the excel. Started typing down. I inserted a pivot table which gave me a picture on who has to do what and by which date. My mind digested everything and I was at peace.

Here is the screen shot of what I did. (Albeit, to protect our prestige I have hide some parts of it.)

I know, for a normal person it looks ugly and weird. However, this is the habit I have picked up to organize my life.

Subconsciously!

I am not complaining!

G or Gyan

Circa 2011:

I was just promoted to be an Assistant Manager with many others that year after a year and half training after college and which meant, I had to go through process training of the department I had worked for. While I accept that my college days were not hippie and cool like most of others (Yes, I was a boring person then too- who preferred books over partying!) , I and none of my batch mates were prepared for what was about to happen.

The training session. A freaking five hours long training session to make us understand 'Processes' as per defined by the company.

A formally dressed person entered the training hall, started with a presentation with boring small fonts on the big presentation screen. Every fresh mind sitting in the hall, I remember struggled for half and hour to understand the text and his explanation on whatever processes he was trying to explain.

In one hour, we all were tired and sleepy. Bored.

We could just gulped nth number coffee 'peg' as we called it,  after 2.5 hours. (It was a survival technique every batch eventually found out organically.)

I precisely remember, the training session ended (to our relief) after 4 and a half hours with whispers like,

"Kitna Gyan Denge Yar Yeh Company Mein!"


Today:

(I Promise I have not made this up)

My director asked me to explain to our new hires, the Process Document which was put together by a junior of mine, under yours-truly's mentor-ship, approved by the same director. I had dreaded the making time of this document- I personally had tried to put all the knowledge in the document but the director comes from a consultancy background which typically focuses on a presentation more than the mind being put behind it. Hence, we had spent double the time in formatting the same.

However, because we all had made these processes for our tiny startup and kept on iterating it over a period of four years- I guess, I suddenly realized this is 'My work'! I am quite proud of this piece of my work, even when our operations team adheres to it only up to 65% when it comes to implementation. I would also take some credits that important strategies are being built around some sections of this document even today. Oh, well I digressed.

Coming back to the documents I had opened on the presentation screen, on the request of the director.

I looked at the new hires who would be collectively doing my work from the next month. I felt like wire transferring my experience to them. Intentions were set.

I started with explaining every tiny step in the start up we had taken and how we had defined processes based on it.

I kept on going on and on, ripping apart every line. I was in a state of flow.

I had tried to kept it fun. Presentation was simple. There were stories related to every decision we had made..... And it came to the last line. My director looked happy and so was I. We ended the meeting.

And I over heard, "Bapre kitna Gyan ho gaya aaj!" What did you think I felt? Well, I smirked and the director smirked too.

This is called climbing the corporate ladder, may be!

F for Fights

I'm someone who believes, fights are immensely important for relationships. Specially, if taken for constructive building of the foundation of the relationship.

Fights help to understand each other.
Fights help to find flaws in one other.
Fights make you understand someone's perspective. Sometimes later but still they do.
Fights we are talking about should end within a stipulated time frame.
Fights if ends with you losing grudges, makes relationships stronger.
Fights can remove biases too.

However, fights which are spiral in nature, can really really hamper peace of mind. Someone who thinks fights are negative, they might not move on faster. Fights with silent treatments are as bad as sufferings within.

These are my thoughts on fights and this is how I fight with my own people. I find them incredible stepping stones, even if some are fierce in nature. If you get a 'fighter' who is as positive as you are about fights, nothing like it. However if you are a constructive 'Fighter' and the other person is someone who thinks fights are just a negative thing- who think a fight spreads bad vibes- things can go complicated.

What kind of a fighter are you?

Can you let it go in a couple of hours? or a night? or three to four days?
Do you Really try to let biases and grudges go afterwards?
Do you go back to your caring self?
Do you 'Feel' it for the one you fought with?
Do you just vent out and let it go?

E for Europe

Just when I was done talking about Day Dreaming I indulge into, I decided to write about Europe.

When you are done with Indian society, you are messed up with baggage of relations you carry which are not even important to you in daily life, you are tired, you are done with pollution and people's carelessness about it, you are fed up of office places where six days work week is a norm and they also cancel that one public holiday appearing on Saturday. You so want to write about Europe. Deep down you know, even a vacation plan can not be a reality for months together. But, that is the reason you want to feel 'Europe'.

Europe is the place where you can breath while working. Most of the time. You can live, to really live. You may not live for work. You can have a few hours to spend on your own self or your family on daily basis. You can walk for hours and do not worry about air you are inhaling. You do not need a car or a cab driver. You have trains with some place to stand properly. You have those market place cafes or river side cafes to give you a bottle of wine or a cup of coffee- whatever you like.

If you are on a vacation, you can just walk around places where some or the other thing would remind you of history. You would indulge yourself in the quality food which wont make you bloat. You would think, what if this is how life looks like in here.

If you are an Everything-Beautiful fan, your eyes would be full with flowers, flower pots, nicely done homes, balconies, or even vintage vehicles and carts.

If it is winter, I assume things would be little harsh. Little colder than your expectation always.

But then, you will have a cup of hot chocolate. Drool worthy chocolates. Over coats to flaunt. Boots to wear. Christmas to celebrate. A real mood to cook, cooking out of passion. Not out of compulsion.

You will have Denmark, Iceland, Croatia to explore the never taught history and beauty. Italy (Oh, I can go there again and again!) and France to enjoy the Rivera. Spain to have sun tan and colors together. Greece to feel 'Blue', not negatively this time.

If you are free, if you do not have commitments, if you have money. Please take this suggestion for free.

Plan to live Europe, for ten days.

PS: It is not a sponsored post. I promise.