My friend advised me the other day "Don't take life so seriously", in some context. This morning another friend tweeted "Life is hard. But don't make it harder. Believe that every dark night is followed by a bright morning". Yes, that makes me determined - I should not take life that serious.
It is easier said than done though. Attaining that state is indeed a holy grail. There are many reasons why I should think otherwise.
El Nino effect is going to be severe this year, monsoons will be weak. As such water is becoming scarce day by day. There is a report out by McKinsey yesterday that in Bangalore by 2026, the gap between demand and supply will just double. There will be ground but with no water, as such only 30% of ground water is potable now. But drilling bore-wells is going on and on. I need to seriously think of plan B.
In the personal finance side, inflation is in its full glory. A few percentages dips here and there once in a while when onion/potato prices fluctuate. All other prices are on the rise. Whatever I had invested to beat the inflation is beating - beating me fair and square. Average salaries have grown just above 2% while the average GDP growth was above 7%. I have to seriously tighten my belt.
One of my friends, equal to me in all aspects has just undergone a bypass heart surgery. I also have a heart, that also too tender. It might need some repair some day or other. Health care and insurance is booming like no body's business. Many of the insurance companies call day in and day out, as if they are so much concerned about my health. In some countries, the President himself is promoting such an initiative, to protect his government's health. I have to seriously think of taking one of those schemes, most of them cover only a few improbable illnesses though !
Every field I look into, serious developments are happening. And how can I be less serious.
James Lee, was our systems manager at customer location in Singapore. We have rarely seen him smiling. Always tensed. Simple reasons like, not getting a cab on time was a good enough reason for him to get nervous. That day worst happened. One of the servers became too serious and stopped working. The regional sales management system catering to greater China stopped. He called in the system vendor who supplied both the software and hardware. Then onward he could not sit on his seat. Every five minutes he would go and look at that system, just to see whether it was up some how by its own. Seeing that it was not the case, he would come to one of us and would curse. Since there were no mobile phones those days, he would page the service engineer, a message would pop up in service engineer's pager - "Come fast". In one hours time, the paging stopped, as the service engineer arrived. It took another 4 hours for him to fix the problem, till then James ate nothing, drank nothing. Just walked up and down in between checking whether the engineer was serious on his job. James was over-serious, he was worried about things which he did not have any control.
A few weeks after the above incident, my friend Vel Murugan ran into a trouble. His house was broken in by somebody in the afternoon while he was at work, One small bag was missing. Good news was that he hadn't kept any money in that bag. Bad news was that he had kept his passport. Stolen passports are always a threat right? But Vel's problem had to be more serious. He was supposed to travel in ten days time back to India to attend a wedding - his own ! Obviously he needed a passport to do that. But it appeared to me that he was not worried at all. Same happiness, same laughter, same evening outing and dinner at desi restaurant, in little India. After completing all formalities to get a duplicate passport issued I had gone with him to concerned Indian office there. "Aap ko Hindi aatha hey" - Do you know Hindi, the turbaned officer asked us. Vel did not know a word in Hindi for obvious reasons, I said I could manage. The officer took me aside and said "do sow dollar dey do, theen din mein kaam ho jaayega ! ( Give me 200 dollars, work will be done in 3 days time ! ). There is a saying in Malayalam "Naaya nadukadalil chennaalum nakkiye kudikku " - A dog even if it goes deep in the middle of the sea, it will drink only by licking ! It just can not change its habits.
Vel was not ready to pay any bribe. Maaro goli shaaddi ko, was his attitude. Another 7 days time, he got his duplicate passport in most legitimate way. He never looked perturbed in the whole process.
I asked Vel, "how can you be so cool?". Vel just replied "I was pretending. You will not believe, I did not sleep at all in the last 7 days. When I am around with you guys, I just crack jokes to keep that worry away from my mind for a few minutes, that is all "
I admired this quality in Vel. Though something is burning inside him, he could prevent that for a few moments intermittently. In the process he was helping us also in forgetting our problems. I learnt one thing - people may look not that serious, people may look not that worried, but they may be just pretending. They must be burning inside. Is it good or bad for them? I am not too sure. But it definitely helps others to get some relief from their own problems.
I had read about a story about an old man. He was terminally ill and he was restricted to sit in an "easy chair", a couch. He never lost his sense of humour even then. Every opportunity he could make people laugh, he utilsed it to the fullest extent. One night, in that couch he died. Since people noticed this only many many hours later, his body became stiff in that U position. As per custom, people wanted to keep his body straight laid on the ground, but it remained in that U position, how much ever they tried. You push his head down, his legs would come up. If you push his legs down, his head would come up. That was a good rocking movement. Even though people were in grief, that sight of him sitting in that curved position made people laugh. Some people are like that, even in their death, they can entertain others, they are gifted with that skill.
One can not afford not to take life seriously. Life is so precious. But nothing wrong in pretending that he is not over-serious, if he can. It helps. It helps others for sure. Seriously !
It is easier said than done though. Attaining that state is indeed a holy grail. There are many reasons why I should think otherwise.
El Nino effect is going to be severe this year, monsoons will be weak. As such water is becoming scarce day by day. There is a report out by McKinsey yesterday that in Bangalore by 2026, the gap between demand and supply will just double. There will be ground but with no water, as such only 30% of ground water is potable now. But drilling bore-wells is going on and on. I need to seriously think of plan B.
In the personal finance side, inflation is in its full glory. A few percentages dips here and there once in a while when onion/potato prices fluctuate. All other prices are on the rise. Whatever I had invested to beat the inflation is beating - beating me fair and square. Average salaries have grown just above 2% while the average GDP growth was above 7%. I have to seriously tighten my belt.
One of my friends, equal to me in all aspects has just undergone a bypass heart surgery. I also have a heart, that also too tender. It might need some repair some day or other. Health care and insurance is booming like no body's business. Many of the insurance companies call day in and day out, as if they are so much concerned about my health. In some countries, the President himself is promoting such an initiative, to protect his government's health. I have to seriously think of taking one of those schemes, most of them cover only a few improbable illnesses though !
Every field I look into, serious developments are happening. And how can I be less serious.
James Lee, was our systems manager at customer location in Singapore. We have rarely seen him smiling. Always tensed. Simple reasons like, not getting a cab on time was a good enough reason for him to get nervous. That day worst happened. One of the servers became too serious and stopped working. The regional sales management system catering to greater China stopped. He called in the system vendor who supplied both the software and hardware. Then onward he could not sit on his seat. Every five minutes he would go and look at that system, just to see whether it was up some how by its own. Seeing that it was not the case, he would come to one of us and would curse. Since there were no mobile phones those days, he would page the service engineer, a message would pop up in service engineer's pager - "Come fast". In one hours time, the paging stopped, as the service engineer arrived. It took another 4 hours for him to fix the problem, till then James ate nothing, drank nothing. Just walked up and down in between checking whether the engineer was serious on his job. James was over-serious, he was worried about things which he did not have any control.
A few weeks after the above incident, my friend Vel Murugan ran into a trouble. His house was broken in by somebody in the afternoon while he was at work, One small bag was missing. Good news was that he hadn't kept any money in that bag. Bad news was that he had kept his passport. Stolen passports are always a threat right? But Vel's problem had to be more serious. He was supposed to travel in ten days time back to India to attend a wedding - his own ! Obviously he needed a passport to do that. But it appeared to me that he was not worried at all. Same happiness, same laughter, same evening outing and dinner at desi restaurant, in little India. After completing all formalities to get a duplicate passport issued I had gone with him to concerned Indian office there. "Aap ko Hindi aatha hey" - Do you know Hindi, the turbaned officer asked us. Vel did not know a word in Hindi for obvious reasons, I said I could manage. The officer took me aside and said "do sow dollar dey do, theen din mein kaam ho jaayega ! ( Give me 200 dollars, work will be done in 3 days time ! ). There is a saying in Malayalam "Naaya nadukadalil chennaalum nakkiye kudikku " - A dog even if it goes deep in the middle of the sea, it will drink only by licking ! It just can not change its habits.
Vel was not ready to pay any bribe. Maaro goli shaaddi ko, was his attitude. Another 7 days time, he got his duplicate passport in most legitimate way. He never looked perturbed in the whole process.
I asked Vel, "how can you be so cool?". Vel just replied "I was pretending. You will not believe, I did not sleep at all in the last 7 days. When I am around with you guys, I just crack jokes to keep that worry away from my mind for a few minutes, that is all "
I admired this quality in Vel. Though something is burning inside him, he could prevent that for a few moments intermittently. In the process he was helping us also in forgetting our problems. I learnt one thing - people may look not that serious, people may look not that worried, but they may be just pretending. They must be burning inside. Is it good or bad for them? I am not too sure. But it definitely helps others to get some relief from their own problems.
I had read about a story about an old man. He was terminally ill and he was restricted to sit in an "easy chair", a couch. He never lost his sense of humour even then. Every opportunity he could make people laugh, he utilsed it to the fullest extent. One night, in that couch he died. Since people noticed this only many many hours later, his body became stiff in that U position. As per custom, people wanted to keep his body straight laid on the ground, but it remained in that U position, how much ever they tried. You push his head down, his legs would come up. If you push his legs down, his head would come up. That was a good rocking movement. Even though people were in grief, that sight of him sitting in that curved position made people laugh. Some people are like that, even in their death, they can entertain others, they are gifted with that skill.
One can not afford not to take life seriously. Life is so precious. But nothing wrong in pretending that he is not over-serious, if he can. It helps. It helps others for sure. Seriously !
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