laugh :) :D

Ha ha ha ha ha.... Ha ha ha ha ha.... maybe this is my first laugh for today (9:00 am here!!)... really need to work hard on this...an average person laughs 18 times a day :) I am one of those people who are keeping this number low ;)
Anyway, would you like to be haharaam (left guy in the pic) or heheraam (right guy in the pic)???? When I first saw this pic, I thought that 2 friends were having fun ! But then I saw it again and being in the philosophical mood, that I always am in :P !!, I named them the way they laughed  :D

Mr. haharaam is a guy who is very very expressive, you may call him an expert or even an extrovert ! Lives life king size ! Kind of a guy who has few resources but extracts everything out of them ! Sometimes has multiple useless things as well...ummm... like expensive watches !! (sorry... thoda personal hai :P) but I mean who wears a watch these days.. and even if you do, you will always look at your mobile to see what time it is :) ;) :D. Anyway, coming back to haharaam. So, he is a guy who will do things and try to enjoy as if this is the last moment of life! 

However, Mr. heheraam is a guy who is expressive but not as much as haharaam. He is not an introvert but can manage without being called as a boring guy ! Lives life decently but is always in a saving mode! sometimes friends turn that mode off :P and he lets them :D ;) So, he is a guy who will do things as needed and will enjoy life in a balanced manner !

Now who are you? haharaam or heheraam? do let me know in the comments below!

Why am I asking this question??? Well, let's just say that I want to promote laughter :D I myself feel that I am heheraam and would like to see if there is value in becoming haharaam :P  I would like to know who are haharaams & heheraams to be able to make that decision ;)  

(lame, right??? well, I could not end it well :P ... do let me know if you have any other thoughts :P)

Gracias!! 

-

skalfaaz

Above Average but Below Excellent

If you are living in India, you will find a lot of examples around you which fall in this category. It is probably true for all the places in the world. This topic interests me particularly as it resonates with almost all of us in some manner. Most of you will agree.

I can also safely mention the above because YOU are reading this blog :) If you know what I mean!

There are 3 types of people in this world which get most popular: 'The Excellent', 'The Worst' & 'The Average'. While everyone talks about 'The Worst' but generally, below average doesn't matter to people today. Average will be in a safe position as most people associate themselves with this. 'The Excellent' obviously enjoys the most luxuries (fair enough!).

But the most interesting is the position of people belonging to the 'Above Average but Below Excellent' category. Oh! Did you say that you belong to this category? Let’s see if by the end of this blog you still think the same way :) 

In my view, these types of people are the most deprived of everything but disappointment. The expectations are more every time and the results are almost always above average yet disappointing. Oh Yaara, I could have got the best college if I had done just 1 more question right in the examination! Oh Yaara, I could have won the first place if I had done just this much more homework! Oh Yaara, this pretty girl would have been mine if that su**er (read: good looking talented guy) would not have been in the way!

If you get 'Very Good' in an assignment, your Dad will ask you to do better! You don't get promotion even when you are above the rest but below just one! This doesn't seem to end...

I call these type of people (borrowed) the best losers!! The worst part of this best part is that it comes naturally to these people after sometime. So what do you think? Should they not expect too much or should they try harder? May be they are already trying hard! May be it is good to expect more! Well, I should not start another topic. This is just a food for thought for all the 1% readers who reached till this line :)

See ya next time! 

-

skalfaaz

You tell a story so many times that you become one !

"A man tells his stories so many times that he becomes the stories. They live on after him, and in that way he becomes immortal." - Big Fish (2003)

Seems fascinating! How you are not dead even when you are. One could argue that he/she has no life when he/she stops having feelings. However, I differ from this explanation. I think your life is not just about what you experience but it is also about what people experience of you. Take Facebook for an instance, now days it is being called a country in itself. People live in it! Unlike meeting and greeting in person, people are expressing their feelings through a comment / post / picture or if I may call a ‘story’. It is what they feel and also what they want others to appreciate. People recognize other people on Facebook through their stories. It is what they experience of each other.

It is worth living if your stories last longer than you. 

I work in an analytics firm, as a sales associate, and my CEO tell me that I should be able to deliver the sales pitch even when I am half asleep :) He doesn't mean it literally!! He wants us to be familiar with the pitch so much that we become the pitch. He wants us to feel what he does. I also remember reading a "10,000-Hour Rule" in a book written by Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers. He claims that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours. There is a common theme and a bigger message in both the examples. It is about perfection! If you got to be perfect in something, the only way to do is to become that something. We remember Gandhi because of his peace! We remember Dhyanchand because of his hockey! We remember Shakespeare because of his writing!

Another tangent to the topic would be debating on whether to live for oneself or for others! Trying to make people think well about you! Trying to do stuff that will make you popular. Well, I certainly don't have an answer to that. People do live for their parents, doing stuff they don't want to do. 

All I would conclude is:

"Excel in something so well that you could become an example... an example worth remembering".

-skalfaaz

Dualism in Decisions ! Making a choice !

Dualism - two contrasted aspects, two distinct facets...each failing to exist without the other, makes me wonder its application in making decisions. If you really think about it, taking decisions is actually about making a choice between the right and the wrong, the good and the bad, the pure and the adulterated...but these choices themselves are so subjective that they are inferred differently by different people!

The point is that human biases lead to the dualism.

Dualism in Decisions can also be thought of as a conflict between 2 forces... forces trying to accomplish their own set of goals under their own set of conditions... You & me could simply become a medium !! A child's force wanting to have a candy is not wrong, the child is just attracted towards the known unknown but the mother's force, being aware and concerned about numerable issues, may take the decision in favor of the known known. Every little thing that happens around us is a combination of decisions made by you and decisions made by people around you. The child wanted the candy because the child was taken to a place where the candy was available. 

At this point, I would like to challenge your ego. You are who you are mostly because of people around you and not because of yourself. You just made a choice. You could never become something you never saw, you never experienced, you never knew, you never talked about, you never read... I became an Engineer because, of all the things I was exposed to, I chose Engineering. I made a choice. For some of you, your parents made the choice for you. What would you like to become today? Most of you have a choice, but do you have guts to make an unbiased decision? Do you still find yourself in dualism? I do.

Let me tell you how I would want to end this writing.

Dualism exists everywhere, it can never be destroyed. The less biased you are, the better decision you make. I wish we all could live in Eutopia! Nevertheless, lets try to make a better world for ourselves. Lets bring clarity of thought :) 

Google could become a good friend in this journey !

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skalfaaz