Life Goes On

Zero to Four
We crawl on the Floor
To receive attraction
Life goes on!

Five to Ten
We learn to Run
To grab attention
Life goes on!

Ten to Twenty
We shape self-identity
To gain experience
Life Goes on!

Twenty to Thirty
We earn employability
To get appreciation
Life goes on!

Thirty to Forty
We take responsibility
To get along life easy
Life goes on!

Fifty to Sixty
We acquire maturity
To make feel happy
Life goes on…

After Seventy
We reflect on life integrity
Making You feel pity
Life goes on…Life goes on…

Happiness is your Choice-Part1

Everyone wants to be happy. But, why some are always happy and some are not? The question might look too obvious. Many times we might have asked this question to ourselves only to end either with, no answer or feeling blue!

Be it a vegetable seller or CEO of a big enterprise all need happiness. Being happy brings inspiration, soothing relief for mental stress and builds positive energy to face life with SMILE.

While returning from my office in evenings, sometimes I used to have snacks at a road side chat vendor, John. He is married, and has two young school going children. Inquisitive to understand his life, I used to talk with him after chat! One day, I asked him how he manages his family with his solo income. With a warm smile on his face and calm voice he replied saying, “Sir, whether it is ten rupees or 100 rupees, all is yours! I look at what I have instead, what I do not have. Person can be happy with what he has or unhappy thinking what he does not have! Happiness is our choice.” This simple, yet powerful message inspired me to write this blog post.

There are great books available in the market about how to achieve happiness and start leading a fulfilling life. Volumes of knowledge and techniques can be gathered from these books, seminars, and even this post which you are reading now!! But, remember, Happiness should start from self. True happiness lies in your own state of mind.

Happiness is YOUR choice. Like John, each of us can lead our life happily. It’s simple, if you decide and choose to be happy then, you will be happy. This might look easy to read/write, but to achieve it requires great amount of self-discipline and practice to attain this state of mind. Definitely, just because writing this post, does not necessarily mean that am the happiest person living on this earth! But, through my continual learning and personal experiences, I am trying to manage and lead my life happily.

Like other positive energies, happiness is also a kind of positive source of energy. It shall neither be created nor be destroyed; it is a form of energy that gets transformed from one state to another!

I penned a small poem to spread Happiness across! A special thanks to my long term friend, SenthilVel for his contribution towards the poem.

“Do you think, you are the beautiful in this world?

Then, there are Millions beautiful than you!

Do you think, you are the brilliant in this world?

Then, there are Millions brilliant than you!

Do you think, you are the intelligent in this world?

Then, there are Millions intelligent than you!

Do you think, you are the smartest in this world?

Then, there are Millions smarter than you!

Do you think, you are the successful in this world?

Then, there are Millions successful than you!

But, if you think YOU are the HAPPIEST in this world,

Then, there is no one else in this world HAPPIER than you”!

Remember!

'Happiness is your choice! Start storing as rain drops, to outpour rains of Happiness in your life.’

Wish all my readers a Happy Wednesday!


I welcome your comments to further sharpen my pencils!

SMS#1 – Father & Son!

Oooh!.. Wait. Wait..I know most of you will be busy snatching your head to know what SMS means here right!. For few, (Thanks to the mobile word), the moment we read the acronym SMS, our brain automatically uncovers as ‘Short Messaging Service.’ But relax!, the SMS here nothing relates to any of that!!.

SMS is your FootPaths’ new series of posts named- Short Message Stories. These are short stories that I read and embraced a positive impact.

Recently, I read an article which talked about Story Telling. The message it conveyed was loud and clear - …’Story Telling is going to be the future mantra of Management concept.’ Even many management experts believe this is true. When I say Story, it means the RIGHT STORY worth sharing! (Others please excuse!)

Story telling is not new. We all used to hear stories right from our childhood. For many, the stories we listened during the bed time, shared by our Grannies’ still remain afresh. Most importantly, the moral we learnt (at least for me many times…) guide us during many cirumstances. And the best part about the story is not about telling it. But, it’s about mixing the right story, its rhythm and the timing that all counts.

Here is one such Short Message Story received through an email chain. It goes as below…

“A man was polishing his new car; his 4 yr old son picked up a stone & scratched on the side of the car. In anger, the furious Man took his child’s hand & hit it many times, not realizing that he was using a wrench.

At the hospital, doctors informed, the child lost all his fingers due to multiple fractures. When the child saw his father....with painful eyes he asked ’Dad when will my fingers grow back?' The father was deeply hurt and speechless.

Tempestuous Father went back to the car and kicked it many times. Devastated by his own actions, sitting in front of the car, he looked at the scratches and was surprised to see His Son had written 'LOVE YOU DAD.'

Ashamed of his action, the Next day the Father committed suicide...!!"
Message
Even though many moral can be derived from the above story, a message is crystal clear. Don't ASSUME things and always ASK what is the real INTENTION instead of getting furious.

$.1 pencil point is:
It’s not the Action that counts, but, practice looking at the Intention that triggered the action!. The deep intention of the boy in the above story is to express Love towards his Father!.

Just by trying to understand the intention we can choose our furture steps creating a positive environment.
Your thoughts are welcome!

More SMS’s to come…

Special thanks to my colleague Praveen Babu for sharing this short story!

Experience - A Fresh Look!

Experience and Expertise both form two sides of a coin. We use these 2 words very fairly without getting the inner significance. Most of the time, we say or affirm, Experience automatically results in Expertise. Let explore more...

Trying to understand meaning of the above 2 words, we would be able to pull out many definitions from Oxford dictionary, Wikipedia and other reliable resources. But, in simple term, we can understand:

'Experience is an outcome of an event' and 'Expertise is Learning from that event which causes change in behavior.’ Expertise comes alive from the Experience.

It’s interesting to watch by looking deep into the above perceptive. Both experience and expertise evolve out-off an event with significant differentiation factors namely, Learning and Change in Behavior. Now, let's consider a scenario illustrated below:

'A young child enters into the kitchen and finds a beautifully designed knife on the floor. Being attracted towards it, the child picks up and begins to play. While playing, she accidentally hurts herself in the finger and blood started oozing out. She immediately throws the knife, run towards her mother and takes medication…Again another day, she finds the same knife, again picks it up and starts playing. But, this time, she handles it very carefully and used it to cut papers and didn’t hurt her finger!'

The above scenario could be broken into the following pieces of information and correlated to:

§ The Event - Child playing with Knife

§ The Experience – An unexpected hurt while playing using knife

§ The Learning – Knife would cause harm

§ Child's Pre-behavior - Playing inattentively with the knife

§ Child's Post-behavior – Knife can be used to cut papers

§ Expertise gained – Being attentive

Here, considering the above child’s experience, she learns how to use a knife and gain knowledge of being attentive. In similar fashion, we encounter in our daily life such significant sources of unexpected events which mount into our experience and translate into our expertise. But, unless and until we recognize and experience those events, it will just remain as a ‘match stick without a spark.’

Many times, we consider ourselves as an Expert as our Experience enlarges. But then, stop now and move a step backward and ask ourselves, Did We Really Experienced an Experience?

Experiencing an Experience generates learning which in turn develops Expertise.

Let’s all try igniting our Match Stick this Weekend!

Have a Happy Weekend!

We Lived our Life or Our Life Lived Us’

Just imagine today is the last day you’re going to live and if someone would walk up to you and ask, Can you tell what you have done so for?.

This is a question which tells us, whether, ‘We Lived our Life or Our Life Lived Us’
Most of time we end up doing, what others wanted to do, than, what we really wanted to do. At the last minutes of our breath, if the above question is asked, we would end up regretting to the things that we could have not done, than to the things that we really have done in our Life. Here is a quick motivational thought which I came across that suit the above situation.

“Life is like a movie, immerse yourself in it!
Better YOU be the Director for it and make your life an Oscar movie!

Never permit that till tomorrow!

How many times you ever promised to yourself that tomorrow will be a better day?
Yet when tomorrow comes, nothing changes!
Before long,
Day turns in to a week!
Week turns in to a month!
Months turn in to a year!
What happens when a year turns in to a LIFETIME?”

So, lets “Better Act Now or We will become like, Water under the Bridge.”