koolhead17
I was with a few friends over dinner last night. We all were talking about subjects from work-life balance to managing a team. One thing was common: everyone has gone through the battle and has a scar.
Life is not easy for anyone: be it an employee, founder, or investor. We are all fighting our own battles. It is the beauty of Capitalism. Either you play hard or go home.
In the end, the choice is ours.
We can see the glass as half full or half empty. You have to pick your side.
Sometimes I wonder if we are living my own life. It is like enabling someone else checklist. It is like running fast and, it seems there is no end to it.
Is this how we humans live? Is consumerism or it is society? Or is it we who is responsible for this?
Are you living for fulfilling parents/wife/husband/kids or societal checklist or living your life?
Most of us die asking, thinking over these questions to ourselves:
What is the purpose of life?
Why am I here?
And then the ultimate question:
Who am I?
I finished reading Adam Grant’s: Think Again. The book talks about the power of learning by unlearning, shedding our biases, and seeing people, the world around us more objectively.
We live in a society, spend time with people who agree with our view. It is like living in a walled garden with limited knowledge and groupthink.
Once we see the world as it is. When we question ourselves and our ideologies, we become more aware.
I have been unlearning, debunking some myth about my learning. I have also noticed, reading can be the best aid. It helps with unlearning, rethinking, and making us question more about everything in our life.
Are eating fruits healthy for us?
The modernization of Europe, building castles: who financed it?
Are financial bubbles bad for civilization in the long run?
Is nationalism has anything to do with religion?
These were some questions whose answers I thought I already knew. I got busted, as all my beliefs were wrong. 🙂
Our progress depends on how much we learn, progress, curiosity, and unlearning.
We are living in a divided world. How we see our world, how we react differs from people to people. We all have our ideological alignments. It is like a bubble we have wrapped ourselves.
Why do treat humans differently on color, caste, religion, or sex? Is it because we are uneducated or educated irrational or because of our stereotype?
Ambitions are what defines our journey. People around us have a role to play. It is like a fuel that keeps us going. There are no right or wrong options and, a lot depends on what is our true north.
Our world wants us to follow a destined template. It can jeopardize one’s ambition. So keep your eye, ear open apart continuous self-inquiry.
We have our limited perspective and opinions, like a frog in a small well, assuming this is how the world is.
Seeing an opportunity and world with an opaque lens creates a bias. It makes us less rational.
The glass is half empty and half full at the same time. Why do we have to fight and hold our opinions on whatever we choose to see?
I can write a 100-page book talking to a half dozen folks around me. Most of us are not satisfied with what we have. We seek something better. It seems we are not living our life but a fighter inside a video game.
It is like we have endless unmet desires we are chasing and living in misery.
How do we know when we have enough? Who decides the limit: self or society?
We all have our blind spots.
We all get triggered by some action, response. As a result, we get upset, angry, or form an opinion.
What are these triggers? Are these our egos, biases, or insecurity?
One positive side of a small startup is the bond, togetherness. Everything else comes afterward. The happy, sad moments, cry, laugh, and celebrations we are all together in it. The first sales close, customers appreciation mail, Whatsapp message. It forms a small part of our life’s journey. After all, nothing is permanent.
Money decides your friend circle or who will pick, respond to your phone call, email. Even after having all the money, we crave love, respect, care and, empathy.
Belongingness shared purpose and, “I have got you covered is what brings us all closer.”
We are all playing together as a team and together aiming for the win. We have a limited time. It will help if we are all together for the cause; otherwise, money is just money: even a robber, gangster, thieve earns it.
I am reading: Think Again by Adam Grant. In the first chapter, he mentions the three different mindsets as told by his friend: preacher, prosecutor, and politicians.
We get into preachers mode when our sacred beliefs are in jeopardy: we deliver sermons to protect and promote our ideals. We enter prosecutor mode when we recognize flaws in other person’s reasoning: we marshal arguments to prove them wrong and win our cases. We shift into politician mode when we are seeking to win over an audience: we campaign and lobby for the approval of our constituents.
If you are on Twitter, you can witness thought leaders, propagandists, sellers: all in your timeline. Why don’t you start categorizing them and their sermons? 🙂