Let’s STRESS on it!

Posted on 25 April, 2012 by Sandeep Atre

Why do we get stressed???

This is exactly what a participant asked during a session (…and all of us keep asking ourselves all the time)! Let me share what I discussed…

Well! There are two things in the stress-equation: one is Attachment and another is Control! Stress comes when you have attachment to something, but have no control over it! ….As simple as that!

Oh! You want me to explain it?? Here I go…!!! Just imagine that you are watching TV, and…

Case 1: Electricity of your house is ‘On’

Situation: There is Full Attachment to the thing, and there is also Full Control over it!

Effect: No Stress

Case 2: Electricity of neighbor’s house has gone off

Situation: There is No Attachment to the thing, and there is also No Control over it!

Effect: No Stress

Case 3: Electricity of your house has gone off; MCB tripped, you can put it in place.

Situation: There is Full Attachment to the thing, and there is also High Control over it!

Effect: a little Stress

Case 4: Electricity of your house has gone off; and it is a serious problem…

Situation: There is Full Attachment to the thing, and Less Control! (Go! Search electrician)

Effect: More Stress

Case 5: Electricity of house has gone off; serious problem… but it’s same with whole colony

Situation: There’s Less Attachment to thing (it’s no more ‘only personal’), and No Control!

Effect: Less Stress

So, if you see…the stress (and the degree of it) is all about the permutations & combinations of these two factors (and their extent): Attachment & Control! This holds true for all aspects of life…

…Parents not understanding your point (Full attachment…No control over them), death of a loved one (Full attachment…No control over God), one-sided love (Full attachment…No control over reciprocation), preparing for exam (Full attachment…No control over the paper), boss causing problems (Full attachment…No control over his complexes), away from the loved one (Full attachment…No control over distance) etc. etc.

That’s why there are only three kinds of people who do not get stressed: 1) Omnipotent – (Full Attachment…Full Control), 2) Madmen – (No Attachment…No Control needed) or 3) Spiritually Enlightened People – (No Attachment…Full Control over themselves)… Well! We can become omnipotent by building our world only around ourselves… Hopefully we don’t become madmen… and we can’t become spiritually enlightened overnight!

So…what’s the way out for us – the lesser mortals???

Well! The only way is to…

Get attached with the efforts…while remembering that we have no control over the results!

……..

Before you say anything…I put hand on Geeta and proclaim that…that’s what it says!!!

…….

So! Let’s love, without trying to possess…Let’s build, without wanting it to stay…Let’s contribute, without waiting to be acknowledged! Let’s…Give our BEST… Unconditionally!

Possible??? No!!!

But…Worth a try!

At least… you would be lesser Stressed!

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I Swear…!!!

Posted on 23 April, 2012 by Sandeep Atre

Something very interesting happened the other day during a session in the ‘Business-Ethics’ class…

Well! The context first…! Actually, I have a strong inclination towards management-education (May be due to the influence of my MBA mentors, desire to share experiences or itch to make a difference). So, in addition to all that I do, I am closely associated (now, even more so) to our group-institution in the domain.

Now! Back to the point…! While discussing a topic, I asked the class… “Assume that you are travelling with your cousin and due to an emergency you have to discontinue the journey! Two more persons are in the compartment – one says ‘Don’t worry! I will take care of her’ and the other says ‘I swear by my own daughter that I will take care of her’! Who would you trust her with?”

All except one said …”the one who sworn!”

And when I looked at that ‘only one’…she simply shrugged her shoulders and said…

“If he is so good…why the hell does he need a Guarantor?”

Good Lord!!! So true! …“To win someone’s trust… you have to have your own first!”

 

PS: I had posed two more queries to them… the inferences that came out after the discussions were amazingly interesting! Will share in the next post…

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getting for…forgetting

Posted on 18 April, 2012 by Sandeep Atre

It seems… “The only things that matter in life…are the ones we don’t have!”

Some time back, I was with a childhood-friend. Though we get to meet seldom, still we are close (…a sign of friendship! You leave a thread of conversation, meet after years, and pick it exactly from there…as if time was frozen there! No warm-ups, no taunts, no complaints!)

We were standing on his terrace, staring aimlessly into the vast dusky-sky, when he suddenly said “You know, in that city (he is a Doctor, working in another city), the strangest thing is that all rich people build bungalows for themselves, but are relished by servants…”

He continued… “The caretakers enjoy the view while the owners are away, stuffed at some luxury-hotel room, trying to earn more, to be able to maintain those Bungalows and… afford more of them!”

What he said, left me wondering whether…Ambition is nothing but “Ceaselessly remembering to get those things, which we can then afford to forget!”

Well! Harivansh Rai Bachchan rightly said…

“Mann kaa swabhaav hai…! Jise paataa hai…use kho deta hai!”

So… with due respect to ‘growth’, we should also learn to say on some days (and for a change, with a smile)… “Enough is enough”! Because if it isn’t now…it shall never be!

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Staying at the Top…

Posted on 14 April, 2012 by Sandeep Atre

Last evening…I addressed all the toppers of the city at one of the annual events of our organization (Hats off…to all my colleagues, and the team members, and the achievers!)…

…After the session, amidst the entire buzz, I kept meeting all the people and put my best effort to give a sincere share of my ear to everyone…People kept asking various questions and I tried to explain best within the given constraints of time…

Still, three questions – asked at different points of time, by three childlike teenagers – were so interesting, that I promised them that I will answer them in a post… So here we go…  

One of them asked “How to handle the pressure of being at the top?”

 Well! “Don’t fall in love with the top…rather fall in love with what got you there!”… If you feel the pressure of being at the top then it only means that your mind is now infatuated with the top and now it is blackmailing your heart to keep pumping more blood into the system! If this will continue then one day the poor heart will collapse because in its most pure innocence, it originally used to do it out of sheer love for the work…

The other one asked “What if tomorrow I am not at the top?”

When I was speaking to the audience then it was fascinating to observe that last year, the place was same but people were different…So, that means that the chairs will not change but every year the faces will keep changing (and so would the eyes looking at them from the stage). So technically speaking, ‘Topper is a place…and not a person’… And as long as you are still loving what you do, it is perfectly perfect to even be ‘average’ in it! Keep having fun! …being a topper is at best a side-effect!

Another asked “Although I am a topper, somehow I know I am not that good; I don’t deserve it?”

Well, after getting an award, famous comedian Jack Benny once said “People say that I don’t deserve this award… but then, I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either!” The moral is…Come on! Don’t be so judgmental on yourself…the whole world is hell-bent upon judging you all the time, so at least please stand by your own side.

…I mean! Look at me!!! Last evening, after the session, when I was smiling for all the photographs, you know what was going inside me? Actually, all I was thinking was “Well! I know that I am just ‘a guy next door’… It is their problem that they have not figured it out! … So let’s enjoy till it lasts…”

…After all! …

…This too shall pass!

PS: Well! Last evening, someone also asked me “How have you managed to stay at the top for so long?”…My answer was “You feel so because you see me only when I am at the top…Between every two occasions when you see me, I go through my share of ‘drops’ although they are not visible.” (Well! people close to me pretty well know that basically I am very very introvert, and as long as someone is not stepping on my foot… I am perfectly comfortable being even a ‘nobody’!)

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the handwash-generation…

Posted on 11 April, 2012 by Sandeep Atre

A mentor once told me that the greatest privilege in life is to be able to fall asleep the moment you reach the bed… to be able to laugh aloud without wondering about the reactions…and to be able to eat anywhere, without worrying for the stomach-infection…!

The other day, I went to deliver a seminar at an institution in the outskirts of another city (so now you can imagine that it was placed pretty remotely)… Before the session, the guys over there served a snack, with toppings of every possible color and smell… A sensuous urge went through my mind to have it all, but I couldn’t…

…because by the looks of it, it seemed to defy every rule of hygiene possible on this earth!

Damn hygiene! We never thought about it when we were toddlers… first splashing the beans all over the tiles and then eating them with the flavor of all the dust mixed in them…

…or for that matter, we never had to think about it when as kids we would go to our Maternal Uncle’s town and would have a Kulfi made of tap water, placed in a rusted cone, inside an age-old pot, taken out by the dirty hand of that Kulfi wala who did not bathe…

Is it so…that the world took care of us when we trusted it!

And now…when we don’t trust it, it keeps proving us right!

…Or is it just a case of weakening immune-system… and I am reading too much into it!

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Boojho…to jaanein!

Posted on 8 April, 2012 by Sandeep Atre

The other day, someone who is only an acquaintance extended a lot of support & care…

…I am someone who normally assumes that all people are basically good, but when someone actually proves that assumption right then ironically I still get pleasantly surprised.

Well! That proves that either I am really cynical (who has a deep-rooted assumption that people are bad) or a real Sufi (who is so aloof that he doesn’t expect much from even his own assumptions)! Well! …the jury is still out…

But this makes at least one thing pretty clear! We suffer when either someone does ‘what we do not expect of him’, or doesn’t do ‘what we expect from him’…! So actually…we do not suffer because of people, but because of our own expectations from them!

Damn it! Then it means that… to be happy, it is better to be Sufi than Cynical!

Although sounds confusing but I expect that you understood…!

Oh No! ……Not again!!!!

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the unlucky one…

Posted on 4 April, 2012 by Sandeep Atre

Was driving to work in the morning and casually tuned into a radio channel…Some RJ was talking about actress Parveen Babi …later realized that it was her birth anniversary (these days, my blog seems to be obsessed with actresses)

Parveen’s story is heart wrenching… She brought an urban glamour to the Indian screen, gave super-hits with all leading men of 70s, became a fashion icon and was amongst the first Indians to feature on Time magazine’s cover!

But there was another side to her story! She lost her father when she was seven, and possibly to fill that void of a strong support in her life, she got into many relationships. Although honest and giving from her own side, sadly she was misunderstood and continuously taken advantage of…

As a result, she got schizophrenic, and started hallucinating…got addicted, ran away from bollywood, came back after years, put on huge weight, accused famous people of conspiracy to kill her, created controversies and eventually locked herself in her flat…

…………

One morning, police heard from her residential-society secretary that she had not collected milk and newspapers from her doorstep for three days… She was found dead, with complications of Diabetes inside and a gangrene of foot outside….But they say, actually, it was her paranoia that killed her…      

Well! Some of us are ‘unlucky enough’ to meet the cruel side of life… then ‘stupid enough’ to find out the real motives of people around… and further ‘sensitive enough’ to get disillusioned afterwards…  

…Fortunate are the people who never have to test their relationships…We are better off living our lives carrying this assumption that all who we count as ours can be counted upon…

Before you come back next time, negotiate a better luck Parveen!…or lesser sensitivity

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…the first crush

Posted on 30 March, 2012 by Sandeep Atre

She was my first crush…

When I look back…I realize…I fell in love with her the day I saw her…She was standing a few feet away from me, looking at the sky with slightly tilted neck…her hair falling on her face as if they wanted to touch her before the wind does…That angelic face and the childlike innocent smile it would crackle into every now and then… and above all, that unmatchable TWINKLE in her eyes…She truly looked “fresh out of a fairytale…”

Oh! I guess, I forgot to mention that I was watching the old classic ‘Ek musaafir Ek Haseena’ and the girl was Sadhana, the face of effervescence on the celluloid in 1960s…(little did I know that I was to feel the same again, years later).

Sadhna was a rare combination of grace and charm! She looked truly ANGELIC…until one day, when she caught an infection in her eyes (which today can be cured with a few tablets costing only a few rupees). She continued to act but the effect was pretty visible…and then she left movies…For next 30 odd years, no one saw her! The reason was that she hardly stepped out of her home…she never let anyone photograph her as she maintained that she wanted her fans to sustain only her image of beauty and grace…

…The other day, I was addressing a group of students in their teens… One of them suddenly said “Sir! You are so calm and composed…we cannot even imagine you being angry at any one even in our wildest dreams!” To which I said… “Oh! It is because you don’t know me much…Those who are close to me pretty-well know how average I can be on any odd day…I can have a really bad temper and then can easily get out of control” (Isn’t it amazing that we all save both our ‘best’ and ‘worst’ for the people closest to us! Well, more on this point some other day!)

I could see that that student looked visibly disappointed on my breaking the mould she had in her mind, of a probable role-model!     

Well! The truth is… People don’t love you for who you are…they love you for who they think you are! … And the problem arises when you also start loving yourself for who they think you are! After all! While shaping others’ perception of you…you can’t discard your own reality!

Sorry young lady, for casting a shadow over your supposed role-model…but I can’t help it, because I sincerely believe Sadhana should have come out more often!

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So different! And yet so same!

Posted on 23 March, 2012 by Sandeep Atre

…Reading a book on Buddha by Karen Armstrong, and one on Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Over the years, I have had a habit of reading two books at a time, and that too from different genres… Before you imagine a funny picture of me holding one book in each of my hands and each of my eyes rolling in opposite side, let me clarify that I meant ‘toggling between them’…

The reason behind it is that a book is a dangerous species! It has all the power of hijacking one’s mindset, making one think entirely unidirectional (Hitler got obsessed with Friedrich Nietzsche’s writing and Jinnah with Iqbal’s thoughts, to become what they eventually did.)

So unless I deliberately want that to happen (there are times when I genuinely want a worthy idea to overpower me so that I obsess myself into a particular action), I normally read two in tandem, so that I retain enough objectivity to mull over the content and have ample chance to connect the seemingly unconnected dots.

They did it for me yesterday!

Last night, both the protagonists got disillusioned with life! While Buddha left everything at the age of 29 years (after he realized that the attachment to any worldly thing eventually gives only grief), Jobs got disillusioned at the age of 13 (when he held a magazine in hand – with a photograph of kids in Africa dying foodless – and asked the Pastor in the Church that if God knows this then why doesn’t he do something about it.)…

From there…they both embarked on a journey to seek a meaning for their lives. One paved the highest path of introspection (in spirituality) and other set the highest benchmarks of innovation (in technology)…

So different! And yet so same!

Well! Disillusionment is good…as long as it initiates us towards searching a meaning for our lives!

After all, we human beings are the only animals who live each day of our lives knowing that…we are not gonna stay forever!

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growing up…

Posted on 16 March, 2012 by Sandeep Atre

There is something about ‘early mornings’ that is truly magical…Sun is shy, sky is introvert, breeze is in mallow moods and trees are rehearsing ballet…In such moments, if you embark on your work-journey then you feel a special confidence of ‘I belong here!’        

Interestingly, I have experienced that when you go to a new city then it is always good if you get ready and hit the road as early as possible in the morning. It is so because then you feel so much ‘in control’ of what’s going around. If you instead start the day late, when the city has taken its ‘flow’, then you have all the chance of being overawed by it…They don’t call it ‘early mover advantage’ in business for nothing!

Anyways…back to my city and the ‘early mornings’. As is true for all my colleagues, the nature of my work has commanded me to be in a ‘dawn to dusk’ schedule continuously for almost a decade now. My work is such that either I am ‘working’ or I am ‘working on my work’! And now, if the ‘early mornings to ofiice are coupled with late-evenings in the office’ for too many days in a row then at times it spells trouble!

It has been that kind of a time recently…So when I woke up dizzy, and was a bit restless while driving to the workplace, I got reminded of a conversation with one of my nieces!

When she was a cute 5-year old, once she came in my lap and said “Kaka! Jab main raat ko sona nahin chaahati hoon to mummy pakad pakad ke sulaati hai…aur jab subah soye rehna chaahati hoon to tab wo pakad pakad ke utthaati hai! Aisa kyon?” I still remember my laughing and saying to her “Beta! It is called growing-up.”

I smiled while driving, and said to myself “Beta! It is called growing-up.”

The best part is… neither she had found my ‘intellectual answer’ convincing then…nor I found it relaxing now!

…possibly, somewhere inside, none of us wants to grow-up! It is so boring…

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