tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8550787Thu, 04 Jun 2026 09:52:50 +0000clutterrantpersonalcommentworkplaceGeneralproject managementasidesipl 2.0metablogPhotographyLinkscodeMoviescricketReviewsportstechnologyinvestmentJob ChangeMSPMTravelbigg bossfinancefundareality showswc t20 2009Indiblogger ContestsJacob HillsJourneyThe Characterairtelcameracounterdesidhabaipljoepanasonicpoliticsservice providerssyndrometedtedxGateway Mumbaiclognoreply@blogger.com (Deepesh Yadav)Blogger230125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8550787.post-8110564694615538110Sun, 22 Mar 2015 10:28:00 +00002015-03-22T03:34:27.404-07:00Open Happiness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is a cheeky story about a fisherman meeting a Harvard MBA where the fisherman is living a life of contentment with his minimal income. He had reasonable work hours, no stress, time to play with kids, meet friends, enjoy with family. The Harvard guy advises him on working harder, smarter, corporatiz-ing his work and become a millionaire. Fisherman then asks what would he do with all the money and the MBA tells him that then he can retire, catch fish, play with kids and on and on and I guess you got the message. My personal view is that the sweet spot lies somewhere in the middle for most of us. If you are a monk and you can be okay with anything in life then you are God, and most of the discussions don’t apply but for the average folks who feel happiness and sadness derived from external situations, I think a compromise between the two will be the best bet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As of now, the circle I move in is lopsided (a good percentage of them not all) on the side of doing too much and being too competitive and too stressed out. Obsessing over being the one with the last word in a pointless meeting, trying to get the wording right for some presentation to make the right impression, socializing with the right crowd in the right way to get noticed and the list goes on and on. To the extent, life becomes an endless series of performance oriented living and somewhere they need to be brought back.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you go to the core, life can be very fulfilling if you have the base of your needs covered from Maslow's hierarchy of needs and then have time for other tiers. To be able to take care of your base needs most of us need a lot less than what we have, but because we are on a treadmill with many others where the speed of treadmill represents the average speed of the guys running. So, to be able to just keep up, you have to be at par with the average. And why do you have to keep up, just because if you don’t, you feel you have lost and you lose your mind. So, there is an artificial association of happiness to this race. In fact, there is very little chance of gratification, as that is reserved only for the top few percent and the recent are just playing catch up. If you are doing well, you are less miserable, if you aren’t you are more miserable. The race is to avoid misery and not to attain happiness and hence the default setting here is misery.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If only, people could realize this and dig deeper and try to find happiness in simpler things <a href=" the coke ad below</a> suggests, they might end up having a lot more fulfillment and happiness!</span><br />
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2015/03/open-happiness.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Deepesh Yadav)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8550787.post-1088849563546207006Sat, 14 Mar 2015 16:52:00 +00002015-03-14T09:52:07.252-07:00The Moments that count<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>We as human beings are always trying to maximize, it’s in our evolutionary genetics. What you try to maximize has a significant impact on your life.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had heard a lot about Conjuring before I went to see the horror for myself and I wasn't spooked as much as I thought I would be. Being a die-hard fan of the genre I was less than impressed with scare factor, but one thing that stuck from the movie was a scene where a picture of the family together was taken at a beach and the whole family seemed really happy. That moment becomes pivotal for the climax. I wondered how many such moments do we have in our lives that truly stay with us.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I recount, there aren't that many moments that always come to your head when you think about them. There are a scarce few though, those are still vivid and will probably remain that way for the rest of your life. There wasn't a particularly striking theme for all of those, some were moments of true happiness and some of true horror, but a good amount were neither and were banal from all known aspects. A lot of them came <a href=" I was together with my loved ones</a>. For the banal ones, I have a theory that those were the kind where you suddenly serendipitous-ly became fully aware of the ‘now’ and hence they remained etched in the memory forever.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are doing everything in our powers to maximize the number of moments in our lives but are we doing enough to maximize the moments that stay. I know, this is a cliche and more like the classic example of a cliche said by probably half of the world’s population. It still does make sense to be repeated because of the applicability.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I will still remember the time when I got my job and I ran to the STD PCO outside my hostel to inform my parents. That indeed was a life changing moment but I will always remember the time when my father and my brother went to the circus in my really early childhood. I still remember the rain, the deluge, the cut short circus routine, the disappointment of not being able to see “maut ka kua” – a drill where they ride a bike on the sides of a sphere; it was cancelled due to the monstrous rain. I still remember a few glimpses of the streets we had to take because we couldn't take the normal route that was rendered un-usable by the rain. I can almost feel the wetness in my buttocks to this day and the numerous seat changes as the roof of the circus was leaking from many places. Not sure what made that moment stick, but it did and it keeps coming back to me and I can’t help but feel a little fondness and nostalgic about it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you are truly a saint, your every moment can be memorable but then for rest of us, we have to work it out. I have often thought about taking time off and be able to make these moments. It always ends up being a few days trip to a tourist spot, or a week at home, but not much other than that. It is almost always fairly routine with flashes of memor-ability sometimes. How hard would it be to think of taking a month off for vacation, with family without family, but without the worry of something clambering and waiting for your attention that you somehow shut out? It seems fairly possible to be able to do that, but I haven’t done that in more than a decade of my job. That probably is my best shot at making moments that count until a time when I become a saint!</span></div>
2015/03/the-moments-that-count.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Deepesh Yadav)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8550787.post-983956462824199762Tue, 10 Mar 2015 11:29:00 +00002015-03-10T04:29:08.761-07:00The Depth of Abstraction<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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During an orientation I attended for one of my significant
promotions at work, someone kept repeating a phrase “Get comfortable with
uncomfortable” like a mantra. Every now and then throughout the day it would be
thrown in for good measure. I tend to forget most of the stuff I hear in these kinds
of sessions, but this is one of the few that stuck. </div>
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This isn't a concrete advice with specifics; rather it sets
the tone and has applicability everywhere.</div>
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The reason this remained stuck is because it internally spawned
in me a chain of thoughts and for the first time I fully realized the wisdom of
abstract advises. I have often considered them useless in past as being too generic
to be useful, something said because of lack of thought into putting it in more
concrete terms, in short - bullshit </div>
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Recently I was trying to advice someone on similar lines and
reached a point where I mentioned to him that you don’t need advice on
specifics, you need a generic meta-advice. An example of one such advice would
be a case where I offer 10 things as suggestions on various aspects you can
improve and the 11<sup>th</sup> advice I give you is “act on advice received”<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span>. So effectively the 11<sup>th</sup>
advice is sort of meta-advice but holds real value especially if you aren't
really acting on advises.</div>
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Another example once came to my mind was giving someone
advice on how to keep himself healthy. The advice can be broken down to granular
on keeping your heart healthy, limbs healthy, liver healthy, digestion healthy
and so on. If that someone happens to be someone who falls sick very often, I think
a meta/abstract advice would be to try and work on his immune system. If you
can make that strong the other parts will be taken care of. So, you have set
the tone and direction of what you are trying to do and then you still do what
you have to do to keep your body parts healthy but then you always have the
context in your head.</div>
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This advice held the same potential for me and I realized
the power of having such mental frameworks to ease your life especially with all
the cut-throat-ness in this world thrown into the mix for good measure. This
simple advice can be applied whenever you are feeling bad and just by observing
and knowing that you are in this specific situation that you are supposed to
learn from, changes the scenario from victim-hood to one of coping and learning
from it. The more practice you get the better you get at it. So every time you
are in deep shit, rather than feeling you are in deep shit, you can visualize
yourself as being in intense practice <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span>
This may sound like bullshit, but think about it – when you are working out you
are putting yourself through intense pain, much harder than a moderate slap on
your face during a fight. Which one would hurt more? The pain inflicted by a
slap will be much harder to bear than the pain of your workout, despite the
huge difference in the actual pain element associated with the two. So, what is
different, the way you perceive the pain – one is an insult, the other is your
own pursuit. Now, the basic point of the lengthy explanation is that your suffering
isn't determined by the magnitude of pain, but the context and your perception
of that pain. If you could change that you can free yourself from it! You can
extend this to any situation and hence we are back to the point of discomfort.
If you can find a way to handle discomfort (generated by job, spouse, kids,
parents, friends, traffic) and be OK with it, you have found your way to
nirvana!</div>
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So, think about some abstract/meta advises you would like to
apply in your life and then apply. Few basic tenets you should keep in mind – Our
bodies and brains are infinitely elastic and respond to challenges and practice,
they have the power to become better and the second one - whatever you need in
life to be at peace is present within you (no matter who you are!). So with
these two basic tenets and a video about hope below from <a href=" upcoming start up</a>, find out your own set of
rules and start a new life full of hope, happiness and most importantly inner
peace!</div>
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2015/03/the-depth-of-abstraction.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Deepesh Yadav)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8550787.post-1475303571091546827Thu, 05 Mar 2015 17:43:00 +00002015-03-05T09:43:59.175-08:00The Shawshank Redemption Re-reviewed<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the best lines ever said in a movie or elsewhere come
from the movie “The Shawshank Redemption”. It is an inspiring movie; the pace
of the movie belies the climax. </span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every time I hear word hope, I get reminded of
the movie and the line above. Every time I think about it, I get to think about it in a different
way, based on the phase of life I am in and the state of mind I am in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The part that I hadn't noticed so much earlier but that
comes to my mind when I got reminded of the movie today was the pace. There was
hardly any urgency or many tense moments throughout the movie. It just takes an
easy and lazy pace, definitely out of tune with the climax that is awaiting
you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also thought a little bit about the restlessness that
comes with hope. Your restlessness is driven of the fact that you don’t like
your current state and you would like to change and you have some hope of changing
it. But the fact that there is restlessness is enough to spoil your present and
for some folks that is the kind of hope they have, which can make them miserable,
like Red said in the movie.</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let me tell you
something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The kind of state Andy appears to be in the movie is a sense
of acceptance that comes with finality. Some times that fact that you are in a
dead end state drives acceptance and you end up compromising with your current
situation. That is the sense you get out of most part of the movie as he tries
to do things inside the prison as if he is going to be there forever. The acceptance
hides behind itself an indomitable spirit and an undying hope that remained
alive despite near impossibility of ever being able to get out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the end the hope does work out, but the aspect that
struck me more this time is the possibility, what if it hadn't. Would that be
considered a sad ending? It wouldn't be exemplary ending (and definitely worse for a movie), but then the way
things seemed to be going it seemed an acceptable ending for Andy. He was doing things, changing
his world in little ways possible for himself. He built a name and reputation
for himself, made real friends, real relationships, had leisure, time to
indulge in his hobbies (some if not all). A lot of things people in the outside
world struggle to keep because of a lifestyle they chose for themselves or
decisions they made in life. The point that struck me was, it probably would
have been OK for Andy even if he wasn't able to break out. He seemed happy and
content with where he was. Even though he was aspiring for more, it wasn't as
much from a sense of hating his situation and trying to escape it, it came more
out of being OK with the situation but still striving to be at a better place,
a content-er place if you will. As he also comments at some point</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Get busy living, or
get busy dying<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A hope that drives madness and spoils your current situation isn't real hope. The best kind is the one where you don’t end up being
miserable in your present, <a href=" you look up </a>to something even better.</span></div>
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2015/03/the-shawshank-redemption-re-reviewed.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Deepesh Yadav)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8550787.post-928955054548718111Sun, 01 Mar 2015 11:20:00 +00002015-03-01T03:20:42.974-08:00Self Reliance<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How great would it be, when everybody in the world gives
more than he/she receives in all the aspects of life! If only that one cardinal
rule is followed the world will be a constantly improving place</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now that I have a lot of friends who have young kids and are
trying to inculcate values in them that will shape their lives forever, I can
see different patterns. Some patterns are recognizable as inherited as they are
things that their parents did with them and hence assumed to be the best possible
things. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A lot of people mistake good parenting with being
subservient to the kids’ demands. A “no” for something is regarded as a lack of
care or resources; more so when it comes to things that your kids’ friends have.
Seeing what I have seen around, I think the last thing you would want to happen
to you is to be seen as someone not caring about your kid. Most of the times,
the conclusion becomes lack of resources and that’s an insult to the ego of parents.
It is more common than you think to have parents put their ego (in reality) in
front when dealing with such situations. It is easy and guilt free because all the
while you are convinced that you are doing the right thing, in fact the best
possible thing! However, there lies the catch. In succumbing to any demand your
kid makes or anything that is driven out of peer pressure, you are
essentially letting someone else drive your parenting. Now that may or may not
be the right thing, but the fact remains, you have forsaken your judgment. You
have outsourced your thinking and will let others, your peers, decide what you
do. This is generally a bad rule in life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is however, another class of people, who realize this
and let their own principles guide them. They are the ones who would make their
kids clean up their own mess whenever possible. They will make them say sorry
when they make a mistake and make it known to them what is wrong and what is
right. Those guys will do a great job at making independent and self reliant kids.
While it may seem that you are helping your kid by doing his/her work or covering or defending their mistakes, it
actually weakens them in long run, make them dependent on you and in worse cases make them bad people. I am still surprised
by the number of people who would support their argument with, my parents did
the same to me as if they are some benchmark of propriety; a gift to mankind.
In doing so, they are validating their parents as the best examples of parental
care and themselves a perfect specimen that came out as a result of that
perfect care.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The new ad by <a href="; bucks the trend, and shows
the value of self reliance and how you can be caring yet be able to push your
kids in the right direction by letting go of the support gently and
thoughtfully. A brilliant ad that I am sure is going to catch the attention of
a lot of folks.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="; width="560"></iframe></div>
2015/03/self-reliance.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Deepesh Yadav)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8550787.post-7817950385942843850Sat, 28 Feb 2015 09:12:00 +00002015-02-28T01:13:22.961-08:00Painless Upgrade<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The market for second hand goods is gaining pace and
automobiles are not far behind. An endeavor that once would have meant many
weekends spent in finding second hand car dealers and then checking their
inventory is now transformed to an online marketplace where you have the choice
available at the click of a button. It is also to be noted that a dealer acts
like an exchange and makes commission from both the sides, so there is inherent
friction built into the deal that is eating away hard earned money from the both
the buyer and seller and making the middle man richer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My first second (!) hand car buying experience was spread
over many weekends of searching the showrooms, keeping track of the models they
had and multiple visits to them before I could finalize something. I am pretty
sure, I ended up paying a little extra due to the commission made by the
dealer, and this is beyond what he claimed he made on the deal. With online
places like <a href=" next</a>, now a large part of the research can be
done at the comfort of your home and you can talk to the seller directly. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I had mentioned in past, there was a tendency in our
previous generation to attach a lot of emotional significance to their purchases,
things like my first car, my first something else. And in most cases those
first remained their last ones too, because they were reluctant to sell those
off or possibly they were never able to because they never go the right price
for it. Considering the limited second hand market, they would never find the
price satisfying for their vehicle and then will choose to stick with it rather
than sell it a price that they find insulting for their prized possession. So,
there they were stuck with their old goods forever and cherishing their
emotions around it. Not the case anymore, current generations don’t think much
of replacing “people” in their lives, much less thought would be spared for
things. And no one is looking forward to a life where they develop an emotional
bond with their car and never feel like selling it off. With the <a href=" available in the market</a>, it is far more tempting now to sell
your current car at a good price and get a better one at a reasonable price, a
gradual painless process of upgrade! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And with options like <a href=" next</a> which is a chat based
system, you get a lot of benefits like privacy, ability to keep track of the
discussions and no endlessly interrupting calls. Most of the offices are now following
an open theme for seating (which I find absolutely useless for any creative
pursuit because of the all the built in interruptions, but I digress, topic for
another day), it is very hard to hold a conversation without annoying the hell
out of your co-workers, in such cases, an asynchronous chat based system comes
as a blessing!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I have said many times before, the world has never been better
for people looking to get things purely for their use without investing the
savings of their lifetime and without sacrificing countless weekends in the
search of a deal<span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;">.</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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2015/02/painless-upgrade.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Deepesh Yadav)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8550787.post-1565050014908511684Tue, 17 Feb 2015 16:26:00 +00002015-02-17T08:26:56.782-08:00The Retirement Myth<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is interesting that
the bane of our successful working class isn't laziness, on the
contrary it may be too much work<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many folks including myself would speak of their early retirements
at the start of their careers. All blue eyed, hopeful, optimistic and full of
energy, it all seems like a steep rise to top in the next 10 years or so,
giving you enough money and constant income to have you retire in peace. Few
people got it right and I only read it few years back and it all makes so much
sense. <a href=" Ferris got it right in his 4 hour workweek</a> and the <a href=" Cohan inthis article</a></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are not looking for a life of zero work, I don’t think
most of us will survive that kind of life, more so after a life where you could
make enough money in ten years to last your life time. Unless you are truly
lucky to win a lottery, any such achievement would come after many 100+ hour
weeks and you would be incapable of dealing with the emptiness of no work. So,
essentially, what we look for isn’t really zero work, but freedom from
constraints, a control over your life, your time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you could spend your days the way you want without having
to worry about putting food on table or saving up for your kids’ college,
marriage and what not, you would have the life you want. This all makes a lot
of sense, and begs the question - is it really worth waiting 20 or 30 years and
have a retired life where you are not worried about all the things mentioned
above. Would you even have the energy to do what you want with your free time
then? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Instead of planning for a deferred retired, peaceful life,
figure out what you would like to do. You may come to realize that all that you
are looking for doesn’t need you to retire fully, all it might need for all you
know is a little bit extra time in your life and may be slightly better
financial planning? <a href=" the ad below from IDBI federal Life Insurance</a> trying to
free you up from worrying about some part of your financial needs. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="; width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, this may be true for some, not for others, but what makes
sense for everyone would be to have a list of things they would like to do if they
could get a chance to live worry-free. Here is mine</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Read<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been too fond of reading all my life. I spent first
18 years of my life without reading any English novel, but devouring every
piece of reading material I could get my hands on at my home. We never had a
reading culture at home (more so English) and I never realized how much I loved
it. Come college, I see a Hostel library and I got hooked. I read more than 55
books that year ( I was keeping count), of course, the grades nosedived, but
that’s how I started and my constant regret is, so many books, not enough time!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Play/Exercise</b> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Again something I did as much as I could, but wasn’t into it
formally ever. But started playing table tennis a little more seriously in
college, and then later on got into running, yoga, gym-ming, swimming. I may
not look super-athletic, but I enjoy it !</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Movies/Music</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With web 2.0, there is only more to do here and I would like
to lap it up all</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Write</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Writing for fun, un-constrained, un-supervised</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Learn</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Something, anything</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Make Money/Grow an
enterprise/Solve Problems</b>: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is the bit where I would like to fit my job or is a
proxy for a job. However, a job that lets me enjoy the other things without
putting pressure to choose from them, or ignore them. Of course, there are
rarely those jobs, and even if there are, there will be peer pressure, a
constant sense of competition with your immediate peers forcing you to push
just a bit harder. This is a bane for all of us, in big scheme of things, all of
us have lost the race in one way or the other if we really think we are in a
race, but we always change our scope to make it interesting/horrible for us. And
we stick to our own treadmills forever.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Write your own list, figure out what it is really, and make
a move!</span></div>
</div>
2015/02/the-retirement-myth.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Deepesh Yadav)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8550787.post-3822249336584273529Sat, 31 Jan 2015 16:39:00 +00002015-01-31T08:39:37.264-08:00Pensioners' paradise and Visitors' nightmare<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Despite being in Bangalore for a long time now, I haven’t
been able to reconcile with the one ways especially in the business district, the
area next to M G Road. I was trying to reach a place that would have taken me
20 minutes under normal traffic and if I knew the way, took me an hour to reach
because I came within few hundred meters twice and took the wrong turn. Horrible
traffic conditions and lag in GPS meant I was always one step behind and paid
the price heavily. All this extra time I kept thinking and thinking. The only logical
reason to create so many one ways is to optimize the traffic and one ways
should somehow help it, though considering all the extra traffic I generated owing
to my wrong turns, it would have more than compensated for the savings.
Obviously I will think that way because due to all the one ways I suffered and
will mark them as evil.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That got me thinking, who would design a city in this way
where navigation is such a challenge. This arrange can be convenient if either or both of the following holds: its a really small city and/or the population here has been living there forever. Those will ensure that everyone knows the way like the back of their hands and will generate an overall optimized traffic. This theory </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">aligns well with the reputation
of the city as pensioner’s paradise. The problem with this is, it becomes rather
un-welcoming for new and not so new people.</span></div>
</div>
2015/01/pensioners-paradise-and-visitors.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Deepesh Yadav)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8550787.post-8682015784775056242Sat, 31 Jan 2015 14:59:00 +00002015-01-31T06:59:41.395-08:00Don't Repeat Yourself<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I posted about the benefits of having a vibrant second hand
market and its handiness when it comes to folks who are looking to set up base
in short amount of time without having to spend a bomb and a series of weekends
exploring.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="</a> has already given an awesome market place for these transactions and is always looking to up
the game and make it a better experience for the users. With quikr next, they
are introducing quikr chat which is going to be a great thing on many counts. Here are the reasons I would prefer chatting over a phone call.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reduce
Interruptions</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We live in a world of interruptions. While
it is impossible to eliminate it, it is wise to reduce it as much as possible
for preserving your own sanity. A phone call leaves little room for
multi-tasking and snatches you away from whatever you are doing. Responding
to chat, on other hand, can be dealt with an asynchronous manner. A significant improvement in our
overly interruption ridden world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Multi-task<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Chat gives an option for you to speak to many
people at once, often times re-using responses as opposed to a phone chat,
where you can talk to only one person at a time and things get recorded only if someone is explicitly transferring the data
from voice format to some other longer lasting format than your memory.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Convenience</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is hard to take calls and talk in office
at your desk unless you have a plush personal office to use which many of us
are really not fortunate enough to have. For those of us, having an option to continue a quiet chat makes a lot of sense.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Privacy<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You are always worried about handing out
your phone number with the large number of marketing calls you receive. Despite
being extremely cautious about giving out my number, I get a lot more marketing
calls than I would be comfortable with.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Record
Keeping<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You will be talking to a good number of
people and both as a buyer and a seller you would want to keep track of what
things were discussed, which would include some clarifications around nuances
that matter to you but don’t always get captured in the fixed categorization and
text put in the ad. You can keep track of all those with chat and will be super
handy when closing in your option. With phone in one hand, it will be
challenging for someone to really note down the information, simply too inconvenient
when compared to the comfort of being able to chat and preserve the information
forever.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cheaper
than phone call<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You save money on phone calls! Data is much
cheaper than voice, until now that is. Things may change in future but as it stands
now, you do spend a lot more for the details you share using voice than when you
send it as text/image over internet. </span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like I said in <a href=" blog</a>, things are much sweeter for everyone these days and more in-line with the times. These simple
but extremely effective features are going to be make a significant impact on
the way people buy/sell things and set up their homes!</span></div>
</div>
2015/01/dont-repeat-yourself.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Deepesh Yadav)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8550787.post-5847922038520532630Sat, 24 Jan 2015 11:24:00 +00002015-01-24T03:24:50.905-08:00Spoilt for Choice<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Asus has some great
products to showcase in recent times. The two that came to my inbox for checking
the features are Eeebook and the “All in one” PC. To begin with, the look and
feel of both the products is top notch and you will be tempted to go for both.
In our day to day life, the time spent on our devices (for good or bad) will
definitely mean we need different screens for different settings. I already own
quite a few of these “screens” and have designated use for all of them but then
the moment you see something new, you got to check it out. So, let’s see what
each of these got</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><a href=" style="color: yellow;">ASUS EeeBook X205TA</span></a></b> - A compact laptop, with a decent sized screen and under 1 kg, definitely something you can carry with ease. The features that matter to me are</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">-> Under 1 kg with a full function keyboard</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">-> 12 hours battery life</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">-> A decent sized screen for a portable device</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><a href=" style="color: yellow;">ASUS All In One PC ET2040</span></a></b> – This one is a full-fledged desktop that doesn't really fill your desk unnecessarily despite such a healthy screen size. The features that matter to me are</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">-> Heavy duty power – 2.4 GHz</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">-> Screen size – I am a big fan of big screens especially when working and 19.5 inch, you won’t be left wanting for bigger screen be it work or pleasure</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">-> Hand Gestures – while this needs to be tested in person to see how effective they are, but if you are like me who watches a lot of stuff online, YouTube or otherwise, this may come in very handy</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">-> Power backup – need I explain this</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">-> LED Display – “seeing will be believing” but going by the experience of LED TVs, this may be a killer feature.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Looking at these two products, I think everybody would want to have one of those for different use cases. I, for one, am more impressed with the ALL in one PC as it gives me an elegant desktop for my home that I can use for my work as well as for multimedia entertainment. My work usually involves looking at a lot of data or looking at things in detail where a larger screen translates into higher productivity. In fact, if I had my way, I would love to mount an array of screens on a wall, but you don’t always have your way. A screen this size is definitely something you can’t complain too much about.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EEEBook is great when you work on the go and your work involves more than browsing internet or sending small messages/mails. Tablets are great for those browsing needs, but the moment you have to type something substantial you are left fighting with the device, instead of being able to focus on the task at hand. This looks like a great balance between usability and compactness.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For those who work on the go a lot more and need a sleek, long lasting, lightweight laptop, they will end up loving EEEbook, but for me, the pc takes the cake.</span></div>
</div>
2015/01/spoilt-for-choice.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Deepesh Yadav)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8550787.post-1470409344541476489Sat, 24 Jan 2015 09:14:00 +00002015-01-24T01:14:08.766-08:00All in<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am not an expressive person and when it comes to talking about
my personal life I get even shyer. However, the lure of a gift voucher and an
opportunity to write about one of the rare things I have done in my life to
express someone’s importance in my life, decided to go ahead with it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Considering the picture I gave above regarding myself, it isn't hard to guess that I had an arranged marriage. There was no courtship,
followed by realization leading up to proposal. Well, it was one of those new
age arranged marriages where there is interaction before closing the deal,
however, the intent from the start was to explore marriage and the only options
were, get married or forget about the whole thing ever happened and move on to
the next prospective match! Sounds clinical, but that’s how it is. Well, I am
sure there are people who can turn this into a courtship and proposal routine,
but none of that for me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Given not much was done earlier, I tried few things later on
to make it interesting. Small things like hiding gifts in unusual places, and …
maybe that’s it :(. Amidst
all these banal attempts, there was however, one that I would call a really
successful one and if I have to think of a way for proposing someone, I will
gladly convert the same idea into a proposal. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She was gone for a while to visit her parents, my parents,
relatives, basically a fairly long visit to our “native” as we call it here in
South India. I had time in my hand and got some ideas on creating albums for our
family. They look like picture books, literally like books with your pictures
in it. I created many of those, but the one in question was about how I met my then
future wife for the first time after speaking to her on phone for a month or so
and then all the meetings in between and so on. Speaking to her on phone, I was impressed with
a few things, not so impressed with others, but at the end few things were
clear. We were completely different people, but if there was someone who could
tolerate me and stick with me, it was her and if there was someone who I wish
would do this for me, it was her. I guess, rest of the stuff, felt less important,
though it manifests itself in our daily lives, in the form of constant
disagreements but we never hit each other so I guess we are good :).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, I was shameless enough to click pictures of our first meeting
and she didn't mind either. We never proposed as such, but talked in general
that day and absence of any no, meant yes from both the sides. Once official I had
the pictures of all the other time we spent together leading up to the marriage
and then our first anniversary. So, I collected all those and arranged them in
a nice sequence and got that book done.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style=&quo