koolhead17
Society is a collection of an individuals with different mind set.
Doers are working on shaping our society for good.
Dreamers are forward thinkers.
Cribbers are unique. They have problem with everything:state, government, rules, systems, doers, dreamers.
A progressive society requires more doers and dreamers.
Union of doers and dreamers bring progress, innovation and development.
My 33rd birthday made me feel like I was doing a mistake. Friends and family who called to wish me were more concerned about me getting married soon rather than my health or work.
Are our parents right, or is this society created FOMO? Why does everyone around me want me to get married?
Some of my friends in the west got married very late and some are in live-in relationships for decades.
If I go by Indian society paradigm, I am in the danger of dying without a life companion.
Epictetus said: Man should live in accordance to nature.
Benjamin Franklin said : Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.
Someday I will reach closer to what Epictetus and Ben Franklin says and settle down. Until then I have to keep my nosy parents and relatives at bay.
I recently celebrated my 33rd birthday. I traveled to my hometown and spent the day with my parents.
I don’t have much to crib/complain about my life. I am living it moment by moment.
Epictetus says: Life is a journey and we are like travelers. Every moment has its own share.
At the same time, with all my experiences I can say: Life is as we see it.
I have realized that as we grow old, we get better with detecting bullshit. We start becoming more logical and rational. The emotional type:1 brain takes a back seat.
I have realized from various life experiences and through reading philosophy that:
The meaningful life = (virtues + logic + reasoning + principle + living in present + healthy eating + physical and mental well being) – (vices + bias + ego + expectations)
I will keep updating the above “meaningful life” algorithm over time.
Richard Thaler is a Nobel laureate and author of the best selling book: Misbehaving. He is a popular figure in the area of behavioral economics.
Last week when I was reading ‘Misbehaving’- the chapter on decision making caught my attention. It talks about how traditional ways of picking NFL players were resulting in losses. The chapter was from one of Thaler’s popular research papers [1]
He observed:
The selectors were keen on going with gut feelings when deciding who to pick and how much to pay.
Scouts were too quick in making forecasts. Their guesses were not accurate. Predicting a player to become a superstar was far fetched.
Teams were picking players for more than what they deserved.
Teams were more interested in the now. They were picking players based on recent performance.
Teams which liked a particular player felt an urgency of buying them. They assumed that the other teams are also interested in buying them.
I would say this paper’s reach is beyond NFL and picking players. Anyone making investment or hiring decisions can make these mistakes too.
I am hoping that we will rely more on data than gut feelings as we progress over the time.
References:
I visited a grocery store last evening to pick some rice. The aisle had over 50 varieties with different properties and health benefits. To my surprise their in-house label had replaced my regular brand. On top of that, it was offered at a 50% discount as an introductory offer. I came back and ordered my regular brand from an online store instead.
During a visit to a microbrewery, my friend spent 5 minutes to decide what to order from the menu card. He ended up taking the server’s advice instead. He said the items mentioned were too complicated to understand. We had a great evening: food, music, ambience and drink.
I realized I was repeating the same pattern while ordering my coffee. I have now begun asking for black coffee or cold brew without checking the menu.
I was curious on what was going on with the menu at these cafes and bars. My hotelier friend explained this secret. Most of the customers are busy chatting with friends or checking their phones. If the menu is cryptic, they will ask for the server’s advice. The server will in turn recommend the costliest item on the menu and the customers will end up ordering it.
In simple words, I was getting screwed. I was paying the price for not being aware and conscious. Blaming the difficult menu, urge of checking phones or chatting with friends is of no help.
Everyday we have to make a lot of decisions big and small – what TV series to watch? where to eat? what to order? what to cook? and whom to meet?
This constant activity of making these many decisions takes a toll on our brains. Scientists call it “Decision Paralysis”. Remember this the next time you are eating out or ordering online. Being aware will save you some money and sanity.
Barry Schwartz has written a research paper on decision paralysis.
India’s unorganized sector also happens to be one of its biggest job providers. Our maids, uber drivers, sales girls and servers at restaurants – all of them constitute it. They are hard working, voiceless, vulnerable and key stakeholders to our economy.
They are the invisible robots who drive us for early morning flights. They serve us our food and drinks with smile. But, we notice their existence only when they make mistakes. Forget tipping, we don’t even smile at them. The idiot phone keeps us glued and takes away all our attention.
We were not born equal. Some people were born rich and some were not so blessed. We should be grateful that we can afford an uber ride or enjoy weekend drinks.
We are better off economically than these hard working people, but does this give us extra power to treat them bad?
Please treat them as humans. Be empathetic with them. Exchanging our position with them won’t be easy for us.
Reference: The Exceptional Persistence of India’s Unorganized Sector
Whatsapp is synonymous to SMS for most smartphone users in India. It is an excellent service and has made us more connected. I am convinced that they will grow further with their payment feature launch.
But personally, I find whatsapp to be distracting and eating up a lot of my time. I have not been using it since 2016. I think I have not missed out on much.
These are some of the reasons on why I’m avoiding whatsapp:
Life is not about being connected with everyone every minute. It is more about spending time with self. Those who need me will find me, I don’t have to be on whatsapp.
Insecurity is a disease that humanity has been suffering since inception, history has it in detail.
There are many more such stories and I will leave them for you to read.
In this post I am talking about our personal insecurity.
Why?
Purpose of our life has become fulfilling bucket lists, being at the top and winning against all the odds. Our society rewards the machiavellian and punishes the stoics.
But at what cost?
If we are under a simulator (as some billionaires claim), I would love to hack and fix it.
I am writing this blog after a while. I should get over my laziness and start writing regularly.
I have been giving away books to my friends over a last few years. Why am I distributing books these books?
Some of the books I have been giving away are:
Reading is one key habit that I have picked up in the last few years. During tough days these books were my good companion. They helped me calm down and brought me closer to a better life. That is why I distributed copies of these books to many of my friends.
I remember an incident when someone rejected accepting a book. I wanted to thank him for his intermittent fasting podcast.
Some of my friends liked this idea so much that even they have started giving away books to their loved ones.
Should I continue doing this or stop it?
The book summarizes journey of Little Prince, the interplanetary traveler: his adventure all along the journey. It included meeting inhabitants from other planets and understanding their priorities..”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote this book in french which later got translated to many other languages. It is just of 100 odd pages, one reason why i bought it and finished it in a single sitting. The style of writing made me wonder if the author was interested in philosophy.
It seemed to me that author was sharing his life memories in the form of Little Prince.
Fun fact: Little Prince owned 2 little volcanoes on his planet and he cleaned its ashes. He also had a flower plant which he took good care of.
I will be distributing a few copies of this book to some of my friends, which also means I enjoyed reading it. 🙂
Some interesting lines, notes from the book :