Philosophy behind Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

For long time I wanted to share my views on this particular story. If you have read or heard of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde you will understand my thoughts much easily.

Dr. Jekyll does an experiment which turns him to monster when he drinks a potion. Over a period of time, he turns into monster without having to take the potion. His other personality takes over him.

Learning from this is, we should control and monitor what kind of personality we are nurturing. We should control bad tendencies so that we don’t loose control. At the same, we should nurture good tendencies so that they can dominate our personality.

We all have dual personality, one for others to see, one hidden deep in our hearts. They are not completely different, but there is a overlap. Living in a social society, we are all forced to be like that. We need to be smiling even we are frustrated inside.

Goals of spirituality is to avoid this dual personality. We should be able to do what we feel. By filling our hearts with love and eliminate all tendencies we should not be having we can be like that. When we can eliminate this duality in our personality we will attain divinity. We are genuine in our feelings to others.

We like having people around us who will understand us as we are instead of what we seem to be.

Even I am like that. Sometimes what I feel and what I do are different. I have to admit that I am like that. Otherwise I will be a perfect being and divine.

This realization hit me once when I was very nervous about a particular adventure, but I was acting perfectly calm to the outside. God made me realize this duality and I decided to correct myself.

I never want people to think that I am a perfect being just because I write great. I try my best. I do have my own weaknesses, fears. And I am not always following what I am preaching others. The intention is there, but there are hurdles.

My thinking has been focused on aspects like this for quite some time.

How do I make my inner self and outer self be identical?
Am I doing what I am preaching?
Am I being right example for others to follow?

Summary

Our life journey is completely when we can eliminate our dual personality. Story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde teaches that we become what we nurture. Understanding this we should carefully watch what kind of personality we are nurturing. We should set our goals right (to become divine) and increase activities that nurture these tendencies.

Life Changing questions to ask

I have experienced that sometimes asking completely different questions, we can overcome some of the inhibitions we have. I have seen this kind of method suggested in many books. I even remember browsing through a book in a book store about tough questions we should answer to change our life.

I have many such questions in my mind and I will share how such questions help me in shaping my thoughts.

Problem: I am unhappy because I don’t have enough money.

We have unlimited number of desires. We always have less money than we want. We always wish we had more money.

Question: You won a lottery, what will you do with all the money you get? Assume that this is the amount you have never imagined.

Don’t bother about whether it will happen or not. By a stroke of luck if it happens you will not know what to do. We think of so many things we can do as long as we don’t have the money. But once it comes to us, we will be lost.

Examples: If you won 10 million dollars, what will you do?

Answers: I will Buy a house. What next?

I will buy a new car. What next?

I will donate some money to charities. What next?

I will quit my job, I will start a new business. As you keep continuing to ask yourself what next? At one point of time you will reach a dead end. You will realize that even after acquiring all the things we will still not be satisfied. We will come to things which are important in our life.

Problem: I don’t like my job/role. I want to change my job/role. I wish I had better opportunities or I wish I was in better place

Lot of times we start thinking we are in the wrong place. We want something different from what we want. We feel dissatisfied. This continue to bother us.

Question: If I had an opportunity to start all over what will I want to be?

By asking this question repeatedly we can find out what we we really to be.

Example response can be

I want to start my own business. What kind of business? where and when? Will I achieve my goals if I start my own business? what are the things I am really missing in my current role? Why can’t I make something happen so that I can achieve things I want to in this current role?

And so on..

Some other questions you might want to try and answer

If I had a wish fulfilling tree/well what will I wish for?

What are the things I am not able to do as I feel I am busy?

What if I had all the time in the world one day?

Who are the people I care for most? Why do I think so? How do I show them that I care for them?

Who are the people that love me? Why do they love me?  How do I know that they love me?

If I had all the power in the world what will I do?

If I had a power to change anything what will you change?

What are the things that motivate me most?

Why am I doing what I am doing right now? What will happen if I don’t do this now? What will happen if I don’t do it any more? Does any one care about what I do?

What will happen if I gave up all the things I have? Will I miss them?

What will I ask if God appears before me?

If you had an opportunity to trade places with someone, who will it be? Why?

What is your idea of a perfect vacation? What is your idea of a perfect day? What is preventing you from having a perfect day everyday? How can you make it happen?

What are the things we have taken for granted?

Sometimes I also ask questions like:

What if I had no e-mail access for one week? given the fact that we have become so much addicted to e-mail, answering this question sobers me up. Imagine the time when there was no e-mail. We have taken for granted so many new things that come to us which never existed before.

How was life 100 years back? How was life 200 years back? How did people live at those times? What if the world still existed the same way? What will be I be doing in such situation?

This kind of radical thinking can be useful many times in our life. Once I read this kind of concept, I tried to attempt it. Even at work, sometimes we are stuck with a problem. To resolve the problem we start thinking about various work around solutions given the lack of resources or time. Sometimes I try to ask the question like, how will you solve this problem if you had everything and no constraints? That helped us lot of times arrive at a better solution.

These were some of the things I learned and thought about. If you have any suggestions, do let me know. Sometime I will be able to update this article.

We attract what we deserve

When I was much younger, just out of college, I believed I can choose how I want to live life. I thought things will happen as I want them to happen. As I started facing situations in life and gained more experience, I gradually started realizing that things seem to take their own “course” instead of what I expected.

Some people like to call it fate, karma and luck when things do not go according to our wish. Instead of choosing to call it an external factor, I would like to call this an attraction force that we have which determines how things happen. Associating an external factor to events in our life, makes it appear as beyond our control.

I would like to say lot of things happen in our life which have a cause in things which we willed and did in past. I want to share a few experiences which had a mysterious factors associated to it and end of it things happened for our “good”. We may not realize the good in the short term and get upset and blame everyone. Ask many of the successful people, they will say the same things. Their success was not overnight thing. They worked hard, they had their worst moments, they had failures, they faltered. They overcame the problems and learned from experience. They gained wisdom and gradually learned a lot of things to face the life in a better way.

I have noticed this happen in my kids experience, much more than in my own life at first. Then I started analyzing my own experiences and realized this.

Example 1: When I was in India, we used to visit a grocery shop regularly. They had a lucky draw program for kids and we enrolled my daughter. Luckily she got one prize and due to this draw, some one came to our house and gave us a quick introduction on what they call “Learning to Read” Program. This is a book set worth around 10,000 Rs. which helps kids learn to read to faster. I felt it was good for her and invested the money and bought the books. Due to this, my daughter got very good interest in reading and in short time she was able to learn reading skills. She used the kit I bought every effectively and took active interest in reading. It had its own benefits in recent times which I will not detail now.

Now it makes me wonder the strange circumstances which attracted something that we would never have thought of

Example 2: Recently one of my friends had a new baby and we were wondering what to send as a gift. We shopped online and finally decided to send a Diaper bag as a gift. After my friend received the gift, he called me to say that this is exactly the thing they had a bad need of. It was timely gift.

As a reciprocation they also had sent a gift of Baby Monitor. Again it was the exact item I was planning to buy but didn’t get to.

When I realized the ‘timeliness’ of things in both cases above, I realized there is a certainly some mysterious thing that makes things happen.

Example 3:

I owned a cell phone for more than 2 years. As you know electronic gadgets are changing very fast in technology. My cell phone was a bigger model compared to new sleek and smart models that are coming up in the market. I thought I should buy a new one, but didn’t focus much on that. During Jan 2003, suddenly my cell phone stopped working. It stopped receiving calls and started to malfunction. I called up the service provider and after some calls they suggested me to buy a new phone. I went to store and got a new phone. Obviously this was a sleek model and has advanced features like Vibrate ring style and Voice Dialing and other features.

Though I didn’t realize, it had some obvious features. When my second daughter was born I was able to use vibrate feature effectively while I was staying at hospital as it is not allowed to have cell phones ringing within hospitals (at that time the rule was not in place to switch off cell phones in hospitals). It was for my own good that I HAD to change my cell phone.

I do have experienced this many times and the above are just a few examples.

Summary

Whether it is a happy occasion or unhappy occasion in our life, we get what we deserve and though at the moment it may seem incorrect thing to happen, after some time we may realize it was a good thing to happen.

I have seen some people who lost their job due to economic down turn actually get into a better job and into a better life. Though there was a temporary stress and problems associated with the apparent ill fate, things were good in the long run. When we read personal experiences of some of the successful people we find that difficult times made them become better. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

Are there any occasions in your life where you felt you were in the right place at the right time? Did you ever experience that you got a right thing at the right moment? Did you ever feel that some thing you felt was a unhappy event, was not really unhappy event in the long run?

By adopting an attitude “Every thing is for our own good” (in my native language it is called: Anta Mana Manchike), I found that I was able to maintain

Stay Motivated

One of the important challenges for all of us is to “Stay Motivated” despite all the upsets, emotions, downturns that we experience. Our ability to recover from an event which upsets our emotional balance is what makes us different. Being a “Self motivated” person has a positive effect. You not only stay active, positive and upbeat all the time, but you make others also feel better in your presence.

How do we do it?

How do we stay motivated constantly? I have tried some methods and I wanted to share them.

What is the best thing to do to recover from an upset? You need a medicine that helps you recover fast. Just like an illness which can be treated with medicine, we need to develop our own medicines to treat our upset. There is no standard medicine. Every one has their own medicine.

When I get upset, the best things for me to do is do something that “inspires” me. Any things that has a “positive message” in it is a source of inspiration.

• I would like to watch to a movie which makes me forget the event. I have a set of movies which are motivating and watching them makes me relax and laugh and get back to normal mood and even inspired mood.

• I would like to read a few passages from my favorite books which continue to inspire me every time.

• I would like to read inspirational articles. Over period of time I have written some motivational articles as well as collected excerpts of articles. Examples of articles read like: “How to remain ever happy”, “No one is happy all the time” and so on…

• I prepared a daily affirmation chart. I have written down a set of quotes and sentences which will inspire me instantly. I keep this with me and going through that chart can instantly inspire me (most of the times)

• I would like to talk to a friend and relax myself

• I would like to Pray to God and recollect some of the good things that happened due to His blessings and take the event that upset me as an opportunity to learn something from it and improve myself.

• I make it a point to read my personal experiences which helped me overcome similar situations so that I regain my resolve and strength.

• Read “Motivational/Inspirational” newsletters and articles on the internet. There is abundant material on Internet which can inspire us. Bookmark those sites and visit them when you feel upset. Motivational Articles, Quotes, Spiritual, Philosophical articles are many. Join such mailing lists and read them continuously to ensure you stay motivated and remember to stay off the lists/sites which do the opposite.

All the above are a ways to overcome an upset mood. Prevention is better than cure. So I also try to prevent events likely to upset me.

• One of the most influential things is media (TV, magazines and newspaper). We constantly see items that can make us feel bad about the things going on around us. So reduce TV or stop TV watch watching. I did that already. I spend less than 2 hours per week on TV. Even Newspaper and Magazine, I focus on positive news items and skip other items.

• Stop watching movies that are “too emotional” or “too violent”. If by mistake I rent a movie which is too violent, I skip scenes which are “violent” by using Forward button effectively.

• Keep good company of friends. Talk regularly with friends who match your interests and outlook of life and avoid company of people who tend to go on the opposite side of “positive life”

There may be other things we can do keep ourselves motivated. Each one has to develop their own methods.

Summary

Find out what keeps you inspired and motivated. Prepare your own medicine and start taking it when you need it. Most recently I started keeping a folder which contains most inspiring articles I found. Some of them are available on my site in Books and Wisdom section. I am keeping it handy so that I can read it anytime I need.

Always Use right tools for the task

In my opinion using right tool for the task on hand is very important in doing it in the best manner possible. Only by using the right tools we will be able to do a professional job. Even then some of us have difficulty in adapting to new tools and investing time and money in the same. We become so comfortable with our way of doing things that we don’t want to change and learn a new way of doing things and we also resist the change if it is being imposed on us.

I am obsessed to improve at every opportunity. I am willing to learn and invest in new tools. I am constantly amazed at the way some of the hard tasks have been made simple by new tools that come up in the market.

A few examples:

I wanted to ensure all the junk mail containing my mail address to be torn apart properly. I was not comfortable with manual way of tearing the papers to pieces and I didn’t rest till I got a shredder at home to the job in a easier and better manner.

I always insist on using a letter opener to cut open a mail I receive instead of opening it hastily with any tool at my hand. My obsession with this goes to the extent that I was not happy till I bought a replacement when I lost my first letter opener.

I shared this sometime back. I wanted a perfect way to manage my expenses and after some research I found that MS Money software meets my needs and didn’t hesitate to invest and buy the software.

As you have seen I have published a presentation on MS Project last month. I feel using Project is at least helpful in organization project related information and it is better use the tool (even if there are limitations) than not using any tool at all. I have tried to impress on my team members to use this in all future projects and I use it myself.

My Daily planner is the right tool which helps me to list my to-do lists, goals and track information the right way.

After coming to US I was taking my lunch box is ordinary cover and I was not happy with it and soon bought the right tool – a lunch bag.

And so on.. the list can go on.

What is it I am trying to convey?

Well, there are many ways to do things. Whenever we have a problem, if we research we will find that someone has already found a way of overcoming this problem and has started selling this solution so that others can benefit. Either through our ignorance or through our resistance to change, we continue to live with problem. Once you start keeping an open mind and willingness to change and adapt to new ways of doing things, we will soon find that we doing the things in a smart way instead of the hard way.

It is not humanly possible to do research for all problems, so rely on experts who can give good suggestions. When you have problem ask around. Someone might have found a better way to do things. If it is not prohibitively costly invest in the new method and derive benefit. Doing it with right tools we reduce stress and help you become good at it. By resisting change we are resolving to live with the stress.

I also find there are innovative and creative people out there trying to find solutions to problems. We have already learned lot of tools and learning new tools should not be difficult. Learning about new things will make life more interesting. Experiment and be willing to improve constantly.

There is always scope for improvement.

Summary

What are the problems you are having? Who else might be having similar problem? May be they already found a way to overcome the problem? Did you ask around? Have you been living with a problem for more than a few months? Then you are resisting change. Try this for a change and you will feel the difference.

Practicing lessons learned

I give lot of importance to not only learning from books, others’ experience, but also to putting this learning to practice. If I come across a new way of simplifying my tasks or a tip that I can use in the tools I use, I try to implement the same at the earliest opportunity. It also gives me an opportunity to keep ‘continuous improvement’ going on in things I do and things around me. This also helps me shape up my personality and character.

There are two distinct incidents which took lot of courage on my part to put theory into practice. During my college years, I used to read ‘Competition Success Review’ magazine. This magazine used to contain one article in section ‘Improve your personality’. I used to read these articles without failure which were mainly focused on leadership skills and also overcoming personal weaknesses. One such article I read was about overcoming fear. The suggestion given there was: To overcome fear is to do exactly do the thing you fear most.

Experience 1: Participating in “debate”

During schooling days I never participated in debates and I did better in Essay Writing competitions only. Only once during school days I participated in debates. Not being quite ‘talkative’ I did not do well in the debating competitions. This remained my weakness.

During college days when I read the article I mentioned above: I thought I should overcome my weakness of stage fear and participate in a debate. During 3rd year B.Tech program there was a debate competition. I remember the topic was something related “Petroleum conservation”. Not being an enthusiast first I thought of not participating. But I wanted to take the opportunity to overcome my fear. I spent couple of hours preparing material for the topic and noted the points in my mind. When I went to the competition there were more than 20 participants. I was very nervous and I was glad that I was the first participant. I did not do quite well in the debate and I had difficulty in speaking coherently. At one point my mind went blank and I paused almost 5-10 ten seconds before I could resume. I cursed myself under breath when my mind went blank. And I was glad when I finished my part. Though I didn’t win any prize I have my personal prize to cherish. I went through my own emotions to overcome a weakness. To some extent it helped me to overcome my stage fear and improve my confidence that I can certainly take up difficult challenges.

Experience 2: Join my friends in journey to Bombay from Kanpur

The second experience I can remember is when I was studying in Kanpur for my master’s degree. As we approached our final semester we have to attend campus interviews and also interviews in other places. All of our classmates had to go to Bombay to attend interview in L&T company. I was already upset about some missed opportunities. The journey from Kanpur to Bombay is a long one and we don’t know where we can stay in Bombay once we go there. My other classmates were adventurous enough to take the journey where as I felt I will skip going to the interview because I didn’t feel like traveling because of the uncertainty in the travel plans and our lodging etc. Long journeys always make me weak after first day and I had such experience earlier. I had a stomach upset and became very weak when I took up similar journey.

At the same time one of my classmates was sick and joined in hospital. I tried to take the as an excuse: “I will take care of him, instead of coming with all of you” was a convenient excuse than admitting that I am afraid of taking up the journey because of my silly fears. I went to hospital and sat by side of my friend. At this time I took another booklet with me “How to overcome fear”. When I read this booklet in the hospital, again I read the same suggestion I mentioned above. Immediately I felt ashamed and came back from hospital and asked my friends to book ticket for me also along with them. When I took this particular decision I went through lot of emotions and I remember this very clearly even now. I was later glad that I could join my friends for the trip. I had been to Bombay couple of times before and I was able to guide my friends through my knowledge. We went to Telugu Mahasabha and tried for accommodation there. We could not get there (in Dadar) and from there I was able to guide my friends to go to IIT Bombay which was near to L&T. We managed to stay with a few friends in IIT Campus and attend the interview. Though I didn’t do well in the interview, again this personal experience was something that taught me an important lesson. In our imagination we tend to exaggerate things that can go wrong and hence our fear overpowers our reasoning. Only way to overcome fear is to take up the challenge.

Summary

In my opinion fear is one of the worst enemies that can play havoc with our mind. We all need to develop our strategy to overcome this. It is not enough if we conquer this weakness once, it surfaces again and again with different face. Recall incidents in your own life where you overcame this weakness and write them down. By doing something similar, it acts as a reminder to me that in past I was able to overcome weakness by own effort and I can do this in future too.

Be Proactive, not reactive

If you have followed my articles related to time management, you would have understood by now that I like working in a planned manner. I don’t like working in an ad-hoc, fire-fighting manner. It is not that I can’t work in such situation if needed. I want to do  ‘quality work’ every time. When I perform some task I want to leave my mark of ‘quality’ on the task. I realize that I can’t perform a task to my own satisfaction, leave alone my boss or others satisfaction when I work under pressure. I like to plan well ahead of time and be ready when the scheduled event occurs.

For example, though I will be adding this article to website on 15th November, I am writing this article on 10th November so that I don’t have to do a last minute job. I am sure that if I write this article on 15th November, I will not be able to do same quality job.

Over the years, I have learned to be proactive. My planner helps me in keeping track of deadlines and plan well ahead of time. During last week, I had a major achievement and I wanted to share my happiness in this regard.

I have to renew my passport in April 2002 because it will expire by that time. Recognizing that this is a very important task, I wanted to complete this task much in advance so that I don’t have to do it in last month before expiry. Some people like crisis situations. They will wait till the last minute and when they experience a rush of blood and urgency they get motivated to do the task. They perform well under pressure. I don’t like to experience such high adrenaline situations because the stress caused by such situation will impact my life.

Towards this, I enquired with people who already renewed their passport. Gather necessary information about procedures. Last week I finally managed to go along with my friend to San Francisco consulate and get my passport renewed. I have been planning to complete this task in month of September itself. But somehow I could not get this done during September and October. By beginning of November I was very much determined to complete this task because I knew, if I ignore this, I will doing a last minute job again.

I termed this an achievement because I feel so happy completed this task much ahead of time.

I feel a positive energy about completing a task ahead of time. I feel proud in telling others that I managed to complete a task ahead of time. And not only that, since I feel so happy about that, doing things in a proactive manner becomes a habit for me.

I have learned to proactive in all important tasks

- Don’t missing bill payments by paying them well in advance.
- Completing tasks on time
- Renewing memberships
- Filing tax returns on time

Summary:

If you have never experienced happiness of proactive action, experience it. Complete one task much ahead of its due time. Take a task which can wait till next month. See if you can complete that today. Observe your emotional experiences. If you experience positive energy and enthusiasm, you will know what I am talking about.  If you start doing things in a proactive manner, you will also find that you have more time than realize. Handling crisis situations reduces your efficiency and you will be doing less than what you want to do. If you are working every day in crisis situations, realize that you are not working at your best capacity. You are like a over-worked machine.

Life is a dream

“The world is a stage and we are all actors in it” – William Shakespeare.

Many of the spiritual books I read send out the same message. Life we are living on this earth is a dream. But we tend to believe this is a real life. This is Maya of God. We are limited by our five senses and we cannot believe things that cannot be directly perceived by these senses.

A few weeks back I happened to turn on TV and watched a movie called “The Truman Show” starring Jim Carrey. In this movie Truman (Jim Carrey) lives in a place with his wife and mother and friends. He has lived in the same place from his birth for 30 years. He gets a desire to cross the sea and explore other countries. He plans to leave the city and go to Fiji islands. When he tries to leave the place he gradually encounters strange circumstances which prevent him from going out of his city.

Finally he realizes that he has been an actor of the show “The Truman Show”. From his birth, he has been living in life size studio including the city and sea. Everyone in the city he is living is an actor and they are not real. He is the only person who is person living naturally without realizing that he is the main character in this show. All the cameras are hidden from him and his life is being telecast live on TV 24 hours a day. The director who had designed the show receives lot of appreciation for such a brilliant show. Everyone of his city has been actors: his neighbors, his friends, his office and even his mother and wife are actors. He also realizes that one time when he wanted to cross the seas, they created a storm to create a fear in him about seas and his father is “killed”, which was all dramatized.

At the end of movies, he comes to know of the truth and manages to escape the camera. End of movie he comes out of the studio to live his real life. Though the movie looks a little ridiculous, this movie made me think.

We are all actors in this world which is being directed by God. If we think in this manner, we will realize the necessity to play our role in a detached manner. If we start taking things in a little less seriously, we will be able to play our role in this great drama of life. When I get too emotional or too upset, I recollect this simple idea and I can regain control on my emotions.

Summary

I am not sure whether this essay makes sense to everyone. But this movie has taught me a philosophical lesson in my life and I wanted to share the same. If you don’t really understand what I tried to convey, try watching the movie when you get a chance.

Powers of Mind

It always amazes to know wonders people can do by using powers of mind. Though the articles by Swami Vivekananda posted on my site, refers to use mind to achieve spiritual experiences, I want to recollect and share a few experiences where I wondered at powers of mind.

Flashes of Memory:

When I was studying in college, we had quiz competitions in our hostel. Though I was not a great quizzer, I joined one of the teams participating. During this I was happy with 2 answers I gave where I realized powers of my mind.

One question was related to a video clip: Showing Michael Jackson. Quiz master showed a piece of Michael Jackson video and asked us to name the album.

It happened like this. Couple of years before this quiz, I was at my home in Rajahumundry. My brother rented a video and was watching it. I was going through the TV Room. I stopped for 5 seconds and asked him what that video was. My brother told me it is Michael Jackson’s “Moonwalker”.

The small piece shown during quiz was exactly the same piece I watched at home couple of years back for 5 seconds. Immediately I knew that I know the answer and before the time was over, I answered “moonwalking”. Our team was happy as we gained good points by that answer. But I was amazed at my own memory. Though I made a small mistake in the answer, how could I recollect something which I never thought I ‘memorized’

During the same quiz show, in audio quiz, they played beginning music of a song and asked us to answer. Again in this case, just by listening to a short piece, I was able to recollect the song as “Aja, Aja Main Hu Pyar Tera” song just in time before the time ran out. My team was thrilled.

These are two simple examples that remained in my memory and some time I wanted to share these experience.

I realized that we have more powers than we imagine. We don’t use them properly.

Counting number of letters in a word

When I started my work at Ramco 1994, I met one person by name Kannan. He had this remarkable ability to tell you number of letters in any word immediately after you say it. I was amazed by his ability. e.g. if you say ‘Interoperability’ immediately he would say 15 (number of letters in the word). The answer is always instantaneous. I asked him how does he do that? He said it is a matter of practice. For sometime he had to travel frequently by bus for hours. During this time he was getting bored and started practicing this. He explained cases where people always try to challenge him with long words but he always gave the correct answer. The answer he gave instantaneously had to be verified only after 5 seconds, because that was the time taken by others to verify the count.

I have also seen amazing feats of memory by my friends, relatives

More examples:

We have traveled so many times by auto in Madras. Once we were coming home from Central Railway station. Immediately after talking to an auto driver, my wife told me, this driver came on one previous occasion. I tried to discount her saying that this might be a different person. But the driver confirmed my wife’s statement as we approached our house, saying that he has come to the same house some time back. My wife has the ability to remember faces and also names and other details. I keep teasing her with her ability, but I also wish I had this ability to recollect names.

Last year, another colleague of mine showed his ability to memorize numbers. We installed a software on my machine and my colleagues machine. We had to type CD Key which was 10 digits long. Two days later I was trying to install the same on another machine and I did not have CD Key with me. I went to my colleague and asked him whether he noted the CD Key anywhere. He repeated the number from his memory. I never expected him to remember such a trivial thing after two days. It was amazing. Wow, that is great. He also said, if he wants to remember – he can.

Recently again, one of my colleagues showed her memory power. I wanted a particular phone number. She repeated the phone number, thought it is not something we need everyday. She said that she can recollect by imagination of where and how she wrote that phone number. It is as if recollecting from a photographic memory.

There are many more examples that can come up. If you have some similar experiences and want to share them, write to me. I will post them. It is interesting to note such ‘extraordinary’ feats.

Summary

We are all blessed with lot of powers. But we don’t exercise them properly. Some people gain control and use a particular skill very effectively and achieve feats like what I mentioned above. It always amazes me. In general I noticed women display keen sense of memory in recollecting what dress a person wore couple of years back for an occasion etc. Each one uses different method to condition their mind to perform tasks they want.

I realize our mind is like a big memory storage device and tremendous capabilities and it records each and every moment of our life. If we are use our mind properly, we can make it do wonders. Remembering important things in life which we use daily is normal to many of us, but what I narrated above are examples where it beyond normal situation.

Always remember: we are more powerful than we realize.

Motivation: Will power to change habits

What do you want to change?

Many of us have developed some habits over years. Due to various factors we develop some good habits and also some minor bad habits. Minor bad habits include smoking, drinking too much coffee or tea or similar things. Sometimes we feel these are bad habits that we can give up whenever we want. I recollect this quote/joke about giving up smoking:

“Giving up smoking is very easy, I have done it more than 100 times”

Though this is said in a lighter vein, it conveys truth that giving up bad habits is not so easy. It takes will power, determination to take a step and adhere to it. I have met lot of people who have given up habits like this.

Making a Resolution

Let me illustrate a small example from my life:

When I was working in Ramco, we used to get coffee served to our desks twice a day and thrice a day, if you happened to work late. People say, drinking coffee is one of the ways of relaxing yourself. It will increase your effectiveness. But we also know that coffee contains nicotine and too much coffee is not good for health. I used to wonder whether I should continue taking all those servings which made my total intake of coffee up to 4 times per day. There were times I thought I should give up drinking coffee. I didn’t take this seriously. There were times I was upset when coffee is served late and eagerly looked forward to it. It became an addiction.

It happened so that one day I was working as usual. Usually coffee was served any time between 2.30 -3 pm. I was absorbed in my work and at around 3.15 pm I asked myself have I taken coffee? I looked around and found that I did drink my coffee which was served to me and I found evidence of the empty cup in my trash can. Every thing happened so mechanically that I didn’t notice, when I got coffee and when I finished drinking it. At this time I felt very bad. If I am doing something for the sake of doing it, without realizing any benefit out of it – Why do it? At this particular moment I was so ashamed of myself, that I took a decision to stop drinking coffee at office and stick to my daily morning cofee alone. From that day onwards I didn’t drink coffee at office. After few days, I found that I didn’t miss coffee at all.

Lessons Learned:

If you ask me, was it a great achievement? I would say yes, because this particular “resolving not to drink coffee” was small, but had significant impact on me.

I learned that if I have will I can stick to my decision. It served an example for myself whenever I wanted to give up something else. If I can do it once, I can do it many times. From this experience onwards I encountered a few more situations where I took similar “Don’t” decisions and I stood by them. It helped not only in small decisions but in some big decisions also. It strengthened my will power, determination. It improved my self-discipline. It made me more confident of my decisions. It made me think that I can “Change” If I WISH it.

It is not to say, that I am only person who has achieved this, I know of many people who took such decisions and stood by them. I know how proud I feel whenever someone asks me “how many times do you drink coffee?” and I reply “Just once in a day” and see a surprise on their face. I want to remind you of such similar experiences in your life which you should be proud of.

“Where there is a WILL there is a WAY”