Life is Like...

#211

Analogies are fun!

At a workshop I attended more than a decade ago, I recall this one instructor asking us to come up with analogies for "life". He'd keep prompting "life is like"? And for each response, he'd ask why?

For instance, one girl said life is like an ice cream. Why? Because you gotta eat it before it melts!

Similarly, to tap into my creativity, I came up with a few of what I think "life is like". 

Life is like... a jack in the box - sometimes it just springs on you!

Life is like... a washing machine - it spins and twists you but you come out brighter

Life is like... an infinite game - there are known and unknown players, the rules keep changing, and your objective is to stay and keep playing

What all do you think life can be compared to? Feel free to post in the comments your versions of "life is like".

Letter Writing

#210

In school, we were introduced to formal and informal letter writing. The knowledge back then, gained especially in formal letter writing, still helps me today when writing formal emails at work. Found a couple of letters I'd written in 8th grade as part of an English assignment:

Informal Letter Writing: Write an informal letter to a close friend of yours giving a vivid description of your trip to Mysore in April 2008.

<Address - 3 lines>

<Line break>

<Date as: 24th June, 2008>

Dear <Friend>,

        I hope this letter finds you in the best of health and spirits. I apologize to you for not sending a reply after I received yours. There's something that I'm eager to tell you. Do you remember what I told you about my school excursion to Mysore? Well, we went a month ago and had the best of times.

        It was fun travelling by train with friends. We talked, ate, played cards, sang, and even listened to music. We were told by the instructors that in Mysore, we would be visiting various temples and other religious places. At each temple, we had guides explaining to us about the place and also giving a little extra information about them.

        We visited the Brindavan Gardens, and also had a view of the spectacular musical fountain show. The Mysore Silk Factory was a place really worthwhile to see. We were shown how the saris were being made. We clicked snaps in the Belur and Halebedu Temples, which had extraordinary carvings of Gods and Goddesses. The Jayaramachandra Art Gallery had three floors of a variety of paintings.

        When we were taken to the Shravanabelagola Temple, we were completely exhausted and had a tough time climbing the flight of around seven hundred steps in the scorching heat of the sun. The Mysore Palace was a lovely place to see. Similarly, we enjoyed going to Tipu's Summer Palace. We enjoyed ourselves to the fullest. I really wished you could have also been there to have a lovely experience like this.

        The next time you have your holidays, I hope we can plan and visit lovely places like those I went to in Mysore.

        Please convey my regards to your parents.

<right side>

Yours lovingly,

Sriya

Formal letter writing: Write a letter to the Editor of a local newspaper, complaining about the electricity failure in your town during the examination days. You must explain in your letter the inconvenience caused to students and request the competent authorities to restore the current immediately.

<Address - 3 lines>

<Line break>

<Date as: 19th July, 2008>

The Editor,

B. C. Acharya Marg,

Chembur, Mumbai - 400071

Sir,

    I am a resident of <home address>, Chembur. In this area, I face an electricity problem due to which I am unable to study. Since my SSC exams will be approaching the following week, it is very annoying to have the current going erratically. This inconvenience of inconsistent power failure disrupts my concentration.

    I request you to take steps regarding this matter as soon as possible since it has been going on for the past five days. Kindly attend to it at the earliest. I will be thankful to you if I could get to study in peace within a day or two.

There was an urgent need to highlight this matter in your esteemed newspaper. I sincerely hope that the concerned authorities will take note of this problem and rectify the situation immediately.

Yours truly,

Sriya Ganesh

Scout v Soldier Mindset

#209

In Julia Galef’s book, The Scout Mindset, she talks about cultivating a habit of improved reasoning, seeking out blind spots, and changing one’s course after recognizing mistakes. She distinguishes between a soldier, who is trained to defend their own ideas aggressively whereas a scout who leads the soldiers has to adopt an exploratory mindset.

I learnt about this concept (Thanks again, Dad!) towards the end of 2021 when I was considering transitioning into a managerial role at work. We made a side-by-side comparison chart of how being an IC (Individual Contributor) aka engineer is more like a solider mindset whereas becoming a manager would involve adopting a scout mindset:

Software Development Engineer (SDE)	Software Development Manager (SDM)
Direct task action	GTD through others
Simple planning, scheduling	Multi-level planning, iterations
Fewer dependencies (only tech)	People (complex), multiple dependencies
Well-defined goals, completion, criteria ('J')	Fuzzy at times, undefined or ill-defined, evolving goalpost ('P')
Hard skills > soft skills	Soft skills >> hard skills
Sense of accomplishment, short-time cycle, many small wins	Always more to do, varying time cycles, a few big wins
Mostly soldier mindset: "kill it"	Combination of soldier and scout mindset: "find, explore"

While this has helped me get comfortable in and grow into the manager role, I’ve realized that in general, in life, by adopting the scout mindset, we can learn to be more enlightened, curious learners, less confrontational, and make better decisions.

Why do Superhero movies exist?

#208

I know now.

After every other episode of Marvel's Daredevil and Iron Fist with amazingly and cleanly choreographed fight scenes, I had this newfound energy to be supercharged and finish pending work quickly and efficiently, with no decrease in my stamina level. After binging on so many Marvel movies and series, I can't help but wonder in amazement how creative Stan Lee was wrt types of superhero characters - from superhuman strength to impenetrable skin to producing super-elastic webs to a blind superhero (good diversity there) to Captain Marvel (gender diversity) to tools, armours, and AI that transform a common man into a superhero, to variation in powers like invisibility, size change, elemental abilities (Human Torch, The Thing), to many many more such characteristics!

There's this video where Stan Lee explains that because Spiderman's costume is fully covered, kids can imagine him to be anything according to their imagination wrt skin colour, gender, and more. What happened by accident turned out to be a DEI brownie point!

Whether or not we like watching superhero movies, we can always take the concept and make it our own. May all of us find our inner superhero ability and channel it rightly to do good in this world.

The Good Witch

#207

Stumbled upon this show 'The Good Witch' by accident - and it turned out to be a happy accident, thanks to Netflix's 'play something' feature (which is great to cure boredom BTW). Akin to aimlessly, mindlessly flipping through TV channels with the remote. Only here, the recommendations are tailored to your watch content (I think). Finally a 'goody-goody' show, but not in an ostentatious manner. I've been yearning to watch something like this for a long time now. There are enough dark, gory shows out there. Even superhero series ensure they show at least one horrifying murder scene in gruesome, excruciating detail. The Bold Type series was 'good' too, but a little too much drama and emotion for me to binge-watch peacefully (although I'll admit I did end up binge-watching the entire series LOL).

However, The Good Witch is just plain good. That's it. Easy on the mind. Easy on the heart. Filled with sweeter-than-honey positive quotes, things always having a way of working out as a win-win, and happy endings, this show is exactly the relaxing, soothing stuff I need right now. It has helped me reinforce my belief that great things are coming my way and if faced with hurdles, there's a reason for each obstacle which I will not only overcome but come out as a better human being once I tackle them. For those who haven't read The Secret or Robin Sharma's books, this show can serve as a replacement for the messages in those without you having to read.

This show also reminded me of the good ol' Miley Cyrus songs I used to listen to on repeat way back in 2010-2011, loaded with optimistic phrases (see my previous post on these wonderful lyrics). Nowadays, Sia helps me boost my confidence and self-esteem with her "I'm unstoppable, I'm a Porsche with no brakes" and "I'm free to be the greatest here tonight". It's so empowering listening to such songs sung by strong, feisty women. They uplift my mood with their catchy tunes and arousing lines.

May we all find our 'Inner Strength' to 'Climb' and get to where we want to go and be who we want to be.

Song References:

1. Unstoppable
2. The Greatest
3. Inner Strength
4. Climb

Bits of Advice

#206

I read an article written by KK (no, not that one). Kevin Kelly's 103 bits of advice - from which I made note of 66 of them. Sharing my top 13 - words of wisdom which either resonate with me today or I will want to resonate with in the future.

On yourself:

Speak confidently as if you are right, but listen carefully as if you are wrong.

You can be whatever you want, so be the person who ends meetings early.

You will be judged on how well you treat those who can do nothing for you.

You are as big as the things that make you angry.

Your growth as a conscious being is measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations you are willing to have.

If your opinions on one subject can be predicted from your opinions on another, you may be in the grip of an ideology. When you truly think for yourself your conclusions will not be predictable.

On 'others':

You see only 2% of another person, and they see only 2% of you. Attune yourselves to the hidden 98%.

It’s possible that a not-so smart person, who can communicate well, can do much better than a super smart person who can’t communicate well. That is good news because it is much easier to improve your communication skills than your intelligence.

You’ll get 10x better results by elevating good behaviour rather than punishing bad behaviour, especially in children and animals.

On good deeds:

If you stop to listen to a musician or street performer for more than a minute, you owe them a dollar.

Courtesy costs nothing. Lower the toilet seat after use. Let the people in the elevator exit before you enter. Return shopping carts to their designated areas. When you borrow something, return it better shape (filled up, cleaned) than when you got it.

Making art is not selfish; it’s for the rest of us. If you don’t do your thing, you are cheating us.

On staying curious:

The chief prevention against getting old is to remain astonished.

Source: Kevin Kelly's bits of advice https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/

Blog Theme Planning

#205

PMI (plus, minus, interesting) is a brainstorming, decision-making and critical thinking tool developed by Dr. Edward de Bono. I used this mechanism to evaluate what I should write about in my blog:

Theme	Description	Plus (P)	Minus (M)	Interesting (I)
Sequential	Take up notes from Evernote one by one and write about whatever topic is mentioned in it	- No need to think of a new topic each time - No need for research if I have captured enough info	- Additional research and review required in case of partially captured items - May lead to forced writing of an uninteresting topic	- Good test to see if I can enable myself to write about anything at any time and do a decent job at it
Happy topics	Write about pleasant ideas, kind thoughts	- Improved mood/feeling after writing positive posts	- May lead to forced writing at times - Posts may end up being too cheesy, mushy	- How many diary entries and morning pages can be digitised in this manner? - Can I ensure better consistency by keeping length of such posts short as they’re easy to write about and may not have a logical conclusion?
30-day challenges	Fixed number of either random or alphabetical posts based on a topic/theme	- Good opportunity to harness power of constraints - Will be able to achieve higher number of posts in shorter duration to keep up with the goal	- May be tough to keep up, especially if A-Z - Forced writing/force fit at times - Lots of thinking and planning, even more for A-Z	- How can I make this fun for me and my readers?
Book reviews	Short posts on reviews of books I’ve read	- Can start by justifying Goodreads rating of already-read books, thus building one more social media apps connection	- Time consuming to carefully draft a positively worded review for each book	- Can I turn this into an opportunity to start sharing blog screenshots as quotes on Insta and Twitter, thus reviving both?

Verdict:

After doing this, I finally went ahead with an option I didn’t even include in this list!

I went ahead with a mood-based option, wherein I open my laptop and go: “What do I feel like writing about today?” By implementing the Hemingway bridge method, I make it easier on myself to do this exercise after publishing that day’s post itself so I can immediately start writing the next day instead of spending time thinking, planning, and drafting an outline.

Have you tried PMI? If so, where has it helped you?

Developing clarity of thought

#204

After acquiring crucial skills such as speed reading, touch typing, speed-writing via shorthand, it’s time to slow down. In fact, slowing down eventually allows me to move faster.

Let me explain.

The goal earlier was to sift through things and jot down everything as quickly as possible so I may revisit the material at a later date. The new, current goal is to invest time in the first go itself so I only capture summarized notes based on what I’d want to retrieve in the future, thereby saving more time. Same with speech. I used to talk faster but end up saying several umms and ahhs in between. I am consciously attempting to speak more slowly, more deliberately, thus achieving better articulation with almost-zero fillers, also resulting in the listener forming a better understanding more quickly. Likewise, typing a tad slower reduces the number of times I hit Backspace.

Another area I am working upon to develop clarity of thought is when talking to myself, either using the Feynman technique to explain something I’ve learned, or brainstorming on a topic to disambiguate a problem or generate ideas. The objective here is to ensure I complete my words, sentences, and thought process to not only bring things to a logical closure but also articulate the initial thought or idea into a complete point, and then follow it up with questions and potential clarifications, fostering meaningful dialogue. 

When writing, rather than starting from scratch and not knowing where I’d end up, I begin with an outline, add bullet points to each section, and come back with fresh eyes later on to create the first draft, which I then review and make iterative edits. My note to self is to keep in mind or on paper what I want to say, end with, and include points and aspects in the form of a mental model or a sequential flow. This approach also helps me keep track of the ultimate goal in a meeting or when reviewing a document. 

Lastly, journalling has been an effective mode of furthering a thought. As Benjamin Hardy describes - Writing goals makes you more likely to work on them. Writing self-feedback makes you more likely to improve yourself. Journalling can lead to creative breakthroughs, solidify insights, and crystallize your ideas.  

All-in-all:

• Journal for personal growth and mental creation

• Practice makes better, Miss Toastmaster 

• It's okay to slow down to move faster!

Hemingway Bridge

#203

I came across this phrase in Tiago Forte’s BASB (Building a Second Brain).

The author Ernest Hemingway, when writing, would follow this system wherein he would call it a day the moment he knew what he wanted to write next, thus creating a ‘bridge’ between the previous day and the next.

Since he already had a place to start writing from the following day, he did not have to face the fearsome blank page the next morning.

This is similar to the Zeigarnik effect I was introduced to, today (Thanks, Dad!), named after the psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik.

He postulated that people tend to remember and act upon interrupted or incomplete tasks more easily than finished ones, which he identified by studying waiters who ended up remembering unpaid orders better than paid ones. No wonder Netflix makes billions off of people binging on series that deliberately end episodes on cliffhangers (e.g. Suits).

I am now yet another successful test subject of this effect, or rather, a proponent of the Hemingway Bridge, as I wrote the key points for this post right after publishing my previous post and found, to my delight, how easily I was able to complete drafting this post today.

With this newfound momentum for restarting my regular blog posts, I will now go write what I might want tomorrow’s post to be about. 

Ciao!

Motivation from Miley

#202

Growing up as a teenager in the decade of 2010, Miley Cyrus was one of my favourite pop stars (P.S. she still is). I loved listening to her songs because: a) she had a unique voice in the world of female pop - husky and versatile (comfortably sings super low and super high octaves) and b) her songs were positive and uplifting, filled with words of goodness, encouragement, and inspiration. 

At times when I feel low, or confused, or it’s simply my journaling or morning pages time, or that moment when I need a self-motivating talk from myself, certain song lyrics have the best impact at making me feel better.

Here’s a list of such ‘talks’ in writing that I’ve had with myself in the past where the words I’ve jotted (emboldened and italicized below) end up being titles and/or lyrics from Miley’s songs:

• When I’ve pondered about the monotony of my life, wondering what I can do and how I can move closer to achieving my goals, dreams and ambitions: This is the life, hold on tight; and this is the dream, ‘tis all I need

• When I’m enjoying every aspect of life, be it interesting work or enjoying writing a blog post, very much like this one: Let’s dance, move your whole body, and let's start the party; and Hey! Get up, get loud; we’re pumpin’ up the party now; Let's get crazy, get up and dance, take a swing, do your thing, it's worth taking a chance

• When I love myself even more, especially when I’ve finally done something after days and weeks of procrastination, or I’ve created something from thin air that I’m proud of - a doodle, an article, or a visual representation of book notes - I’m unusual but not so typical, way too smart to be waiting around…I might even be a rockstar

• When my notes have my back or I’ve thanked myself in the future for having saved something in the past, giving myself the benefit of the doubt that I’d need it someday; or I've re-looked at my notes with a fresh perspective - You’re a true friend; you’re here till the end; Don't close your mind, the words I use are open

• When I want to get out of my own head and get moving, start acting on things and stop planning and re-planning; or I am too hard on myself for not doing as good a job as I had originally planned - Let’s do this; Nobody’s perfect; I gotta work it; again and again till I get it right; Life's what you make it, so let's make it rock

• When I reap the rewards of effort I've put in or an amazing opportunity has presented itself, I say yes to it and it works out - They say that good things take time; but really great things happen in a blink of an eye

• When I encourage myself and provide constant support by being a cheerleader to my mind and heart - If you ever need a friend, someone to care and understand, I’ll be right here; You're giving me the will to try; do you know that there's happy in these eyes; I know where I stand, I know who I am, I would never run away when life gets bad

• When I’m afraid to say or share something, be it to a person or to the world on social media; when I overthink and end up staying silent; one of those really bad and sad days where I feel meh and bleh and wanna do nothing but binge watch Netflix; when I’m trying hard to fight feelings of inadequacy in various aspects; when I want to pick myself up and dust myself off and move on, carry on with life, these lines from Make Some Noise are sometimes all that I need to remind myself of yet again:

It's easy to feel like you're all alone; to feel like nobody knows

The great that you are, the good that's inside you is trying so hard to break through

Maybe it's your time to lift off and fly; you won't know if you never try

Don't be afraid to be all that you are; you'll be fine

Don't let anyone tell you that you're not strong enough; don't give up

There's nothing wrong with just being yourself; that's more than enough

You can't just sit back and watch the world change; what matters is what you've got to say

Come on and raise your voice; speak your mind and make some noise

What helps you when you’re down?

Songs referenced above:

1. This is the life
2. Let's dance
3. Pumpin' up the party
4. Let's get crazy
5. Rockstar
6. True friend
7. Let's do this
8. Nobody's perfect
9. Life's what you make it
10. One in a million
11. Right here
12. Dream
13. I got nerve
14. Make some noise