Favorite Authors and Appealing Book Titles

I think we cannot rest till we have latest/unread book by our favorite authors (once you see them) in our hands. Over last one week I have acquired three books that I need to finish.

- Excused Begone by Wayne Dyer
- Foreign Body by Robin Cook
- When Everything Changes Change Everything by Neale Donald Walsch

I am sure I will enjoy them and hope I can share some words of wisdom I learn on this blog.

Meanwhile, I also wanted to share some book titles that tempt me a lot. It is because I believe in those action words and talk about them at work. I feel that I must read them.

Titles are

- Practice What you Preach
- Sense of Urgency
- Hit the ground Running
- Helping People win at work

I already have first two and completed reading them. I am hoping to get to other two after I finish what I already have waiting on my reading table.

Ten Year anniversary

Today, I was looking at my blog and realized that one of my first post dates back to May 1999.  The content has been hosted in different forms over the years

• First I started with a website on rediff.com homepage. (1999-2000)
• Later I moved to my own website.  (2001-2004)
• Then it was a blog hosted on blogspot (2005-2007)
• Now on wordpress.com (2008 – current)

Whatever may the forum, I found a way to share, express my ideas.  I have received emails over years which either helped a momemt of inspiration in their life or relate to their personal life and reflect on it.

For this reason, my blog is named to inspire everyone to reflect on something deep in their life at the moment they read some content.  You come here by a keyword search and find content that makes the moment count and move on.

Harmony

Another great song from past that calls for religious harmony. Great melody and message.

Resolution: Be Authentic

I was reading about new year resolutions by co-founder of DailyOM.

This prompted to think about what single resolution I can make that can be guidance for me and the word that came to my mind was ‘Authentic’.

I did some searches on this topic.  My objective will be to have harmony between my thoughts and actions. If I let Authenticity drive my life, goals during this year, what difference will it make? I feel it will help me be at peace with myself and everyone around me.

I hope to use this and share more of my experiences of being Authentic on my blog.

Staying Offline

While I was in India, it was completely different way of spending time at home. In absence of a ‘24 hr
connectivity’ which I am used to, I had to find other ways to spend time when I am not out of house for some work.

Sudoku: I ended up improving my skills in solving Sudoku. I would pick up daily newspaper and try to solve. I definitely got around to solving hardest levels of Sudoku called ‘Evil Sudoku’ with some practice. It would take me 30 minutes or so to solve it. Sometimes I had to give up but this was an interesting activity.

Watching TV: I don’t watch as much TV but ended up watching good amount of TV with a variety of channels available there. A little of movies and a little of talent shows is what interested me. Talent shows come in a variety with different age groups, different talents. But singing is one that makes it interesting to watch.

Reading newspaper?: I certainly lost habit of reading one with more of my time spent on online versions. I would quickly browse through key items.

I always managed to get at least one hour internet time but this time I had to focus on important things I wanted to get done than browsing like the way I do when I am always connected.

Interestingly I learned that I can spend time without being online and now I am getting back to older habits like reading books (not online)

Related Articles:
Connected All Day

Temple Visits

Visiting temples was one of the main activity during visit to India. Following are various temples we visited.

- Sanghi Temple: This is a temple on outskirts of Hyderabad with Lord Venkateswara as main deity. This was also a spot of many telugu film scenes. We went there on a day when it rained. The temple is located on a hill is far from noise of the city.
Link to more information about Sanghi temple

- Chilkur Balaji Temple: Also known as Visa Venkateswara Swami, this temple is unique in many ways. This is a very small temple but gets crowded a lot as devotee make perambulations to get their wishes fulfilled. There is no hundi for collecting money in this temple. This temple is also located around 20 kms from city. On visiting this temple, we realized this also was part of telugu movie Anand.

More about Chilkur Temple
- Simhachalam: Visiting this temple was not in our plan. But divine intervention seems to have influenced
mind of my friend to take us to this temple. It was not first time for me, but for my family members it was
first time. Temple was not crowded and we had a nice darshan, performed archana.  I am glad that we could make it despite our very short visit to Visakhapatnam.

More about Simhachalam
- Basara: Temple of Goddess Saraswati located around 200 Kms from Hyderabad. This place is on banks of river Godavari. Visiting this temple is a whole day despite starting early in the day.  This is famous for taking children to initiate them into education.

More about Basara
- Ainavilli: Temple of Lord Ganesha is located around 65 kms from Rajahmundry. Because of narrow roads, it takes couple of hours to reach there by road. You will cross quite a few villages on the way.

More about Ainavilli
- Padmanabha Swamy Temple: I visited this temple in November 2007 and my experience was etched in memory as I spent some time in the temple listening to chanting of Vishnu Sahasranamam that was reverberating in temple complex. I was not sure whether I will go this time but again Lord has his plans. My friend visiting me from Chennai had plans in mind and we made a trip to temple together. This temple gets quite crowded when it is time to look at the Lord. I am glad that I could make another trip this time also.
More about Padmanabha Swamy Temple

- Sai baba temple, Dislsukhanagar: This temple is located on mainroad in Hyderabad and is quite well maintained.  We gained solace by visiting this as we could not visit Shirdi on this trip.

- Vivekanda Rock Memorial: Kanyakumari: I visited this after almost 20 years. I remember visiting when I came on south india tour organized by our school. Having gained a better knowledge of Swami Vivekananda, visiting this now has a different significance. We reached in time to catch last ferry to the rock at 4 PM. This memorial has a meditation hall. Since this rock is not quite far from mainland, I felt it may be worth considering a walkway bridge in addition to ferry service.

Rock Memorial Website

Life experiences

Last few weeks brought a series of experiences as I visited India after long time. This included

- Visiting various temples
- Shopping
- Meeting lot of people (friends as well as relatives) after a long time
- Traveling to different places by different means
- Spending time doing variety of things (compared to a routine)

I will share some of my experiences over next few posts through this blog.

Field Trip experience

My daughter has been going to some field trips through school in last few years. Field trips provide a first hand experience and practical knowledge. I have not accompanied her on any of the trips due to work commitments. Recently I could take a break from work and accompany her on a field trip.

It seemed to happen so quickly though I didn’t have a plan to go on this one. With only 2 days to go, I looked closely at the field trip flyer. Then I realized that I am familiar with the place they are going to. Marine Science Institute in Redwood City is located next to Informatica office where I worked for few years. When working there, I have watched numerous times when kids arrived there and was curious what they did there. I never imagined that I will be there one day. Once I knew where the trip is going to be, I casually mentioned to my daughter that if the teacher still wants an extra chaparone, I will come.

My daughter was excited by this and immediately told her teacher next day. I got a call from her teacher that I can join the field trip. I checked the website for details of what will be there. On the day of field trip, we had to get up early 5.30 AM and be there at school by 6.30 AM. It was still dark at that time, but every child was there, ready for the experience.

Marine Science Institute is focused on education of children by providing first hand experience of marine life and explain the ecosystem to whoever is interested. All children boarded a ship that sailed on the estuary. Children were introduced to basics of the ecosystem. They were divided into four groups and took turns to do different activities: Fishing and study fishes that were caught, explore marine life under microscope, understand how to measure water temperature, density and salinity and explore bottom of the ocean by digging up the mud. Children had fun with non-stop 3 hour activity that involved thinking and physical activity.

It was a good experience. While my interest was not exactly in learning marine life, accompanying children and watching them excitedly learn new things reminded me of my schooling days. And the fact that I accompanied them was a matter of pride for my daughter and an indication that I care about her learning experience.

I do read in some blogs online where people experience regret that they have not spent enough time with their kids as they were busy with work. Time Management articles exhort that you spend time on things that you care most. I would definitely encourage parents who use the excuse not to spend time to kids to look for such opportunities. You will cherish the experience.

Related Links:

Marine Science Institute

Blog Technology

I am impressed by the features provided by blogging tools. Sharing information has become quite an easy task compared to complex ways years ago of changing links on websites and uploading files. We are able to focus more on content and less on effort required to publish it. I have been writing content using blogger.com. After I started using wordpress.com to publish new blog, I had a task on my to do list to transfer content from blogger to wordpress. I was thinking that I will have to spend a lot of time doing it. I do remember that wordpress had a utility to import content from other blogs.

Recently I decided to accomplish this and it was all a matter of clicks to import all content from blogger to wordpress. I didn’t loose any content and now all my blog posts are in place. There is no need to switch between two blogs.

Next I wanted to transfer articles I posted earlier on my website to this blog. I wanted to make sure timestamp of the post remains as the day I originally wrote the article. Sure enough, I found that bloggers do provide an option to change timestamp of the post. This was impressive. Now you can see some articles I transferred from 1999 on this blog with an appropriate timestamp.

I know there are lot of other features which make publishing content easier. If you are still using traditional method to maintain a website, it is time you started using a blogging tool. Ask me if you have specific questions but I am sure all bloggers are simple enough to use by everyone and come with easy to use instructions.

At the same time, I also opened up my blog to public. I have kept this blog private so far and now it is open to search engines. I have seen increasing number of visitors that are looking for a specific content dropping by.

Importance of Standards

Have you ever wondered why standards are needed? What if there are no standards available? Either in personal life or work, standards are important. Standards make it easy for us to operate. It gives us predictability and reduces chances of accidents and mishaps.

We live by standards and cannot do without them. But when an attempt is made to implement new standard we resist change.

Imagine life without standards

1. Imagine countries do not have time standards. Then everyone will have a different time on their watch and you can imagine what will happen.

2. Imagine no two streets in a city look the same. Can you travel on road?

3. Imagine one junction uses red for STOP and another junction uses green for STOP. what will happen?

4. Imagine no two cars operate the same way. Can you drive?
5. Imagine each tap operates differently. Turning one way opens in one room, other opens in another room. What would happen?

and so on..Think crazy and imagine what will happen if some of the things you notice are not standardized. Look around and see where standards have been implemented.

I am a cautious driver and despite my cautious driving, I almost had accidents on two occasions. When I analyzed both occasions, I realized that these incidents were due to ‘non-standard’ design of those roads.

Work place Standards

At work places also standards make a big difference. Our expectations will not be met if no standards are followed and everyone operates in their own way.Most of times the standards may be enforced by making it mandatory. In some cases it may be set a guideline.

Forms, Templates, Checklists, Processes etc evolve as organizations mature and try to achieve a standard.

Some people resist introduction of standards as they feel ‘bound’ and ‘restricted’. Some people find chaos when are no standards set and each one operates in a different manner.

It is necessary to define ‘good enough’ processes and standards so that some predictability can be achieved. We can introduce standards for ‘deliverables’ but not how they are delivered.

Standards are most often derived best practices in organizations that are found to give best results and eliminate mistakes.

Next time you are filling a form or asked to fill a checklist, do not dismiss it as ‘useless’ practice. There is a reason why a standard has been established and respect that.

Summary

Whether in day to day personal life or work life, it is good to have a standard way of doing things which reduces risks of errors and failures. Sometimes we may not be able to understand why a particular standard has been set up, but try to follow standard in spirit instead of dismissing them.

I give lot of importance to standards and try to design and put standards in place wherever possible which reduces risks of mistakes and improves ‘professional’ nature of team.