First Habit of Highly Effective People: Being Proactive!

I am reading a book about seven habits of highly effective people ... I discuss the habits with Ra, with my friends and with my work colleagues ... I am not sure how many of them are thinking about practicing those habits but they do nod in appreciation and they do ponder about it ... at least for a moment ...well I guess so ... thought provoking I am sure it is! So here are some food for your thoughts too... my blog readers (let’s assume they do exist ... dil ke khush rakhane ko ... Ghalib ye khayaal ....)

Being Proactive as the title suggest is the very first habit! You must be thinking ... huh what with proactivity? being proactive in meetings? Being proactive in work? Being proactive in relations ... I am proactive everywhere... I will be dumped if I miss being proactive in any one of these areas!

But the fact is ... most of the times we are Reactive and not Proactive, for example …

Reactive to Kitchen weather (If only that flour were little smart ... if only it knew the magic of becoming Roti by its own ... we wouldn’t have slept hungry)
Reactive to Physical weathers (If only the mausam were good... I wouldn't have got my first ticket)
Reactive to Technical weathers (If only Bill Gates wouldn't have released that damn .Net 3.5 version ... I would have cleared the interview ... I am an expert up to 3.4999999999)
Reactive to Social weathers (If only Ra could have kept quiet ... I wouldn't have fought with him).
Reactive to National weathers (If only the gas were below 4 ... I would have driven to that donation camp instead of wasting my time in Narnia)
Reactive to International weather (If only China would have behaved properly ... I would have made friends with my colleague chaau maau)

So did you get the point ... my examples are stupid I know ... but the fact is ... most of the times we are reactive ... very rarely we want to take the responsibility on our head, because taking responsibility sometimes means agreeing on being irresponsible. If only I could understand that I am the one responsible for whatever I am going through ... If only I could understand that nobody can let me down, unless I wish to ... if only I could realize that nobody can take my self esteem unless I let it go ... life will be a lot easy and I will fly light like a bird on the top of the world guys!!!

Marriage for example of one of my very close friend is unfortunately on the brink of ... end! Husband blames wife... I wouldn’t have done this unless you did that ... wife gives explanation why she did that and they both think that their other half is the root of all the problems. My Guru Mantra says... if only they both could be proactive in loving each other rather than being reactive for what the other one is doing, if only one of them could understand the responsibility of self rather than making noise about other one's responsibility, if only one of them could think about what can be done from his side rather than concentrating on what the other one is doing ... they will be a hit like Lord Shiva and Parvati and their marriage will be saved! Okay who else needs marriage counseling?

But that’s not all ... their is a small twist in the above Gyaan ... lets think we became proactive ... now what next ... next is ... do not be on the extreme side being proactive ... okay I understand that their are a lot of things about which you are significantly concerned and you are trying to resolve these concerns very proactively ... but watch out ... inside that outer circle of concerns their is a inner circle of influence ... that means not all the concerns are completely in your hands... their are a few concerns for which you can do nothing ... they are just inside your circle of concern and not inside your circle of influence ... so if you will put all your energy on the outer circle of concern than your circle of influence will start shrinking ... but if you will put your entire energy on the inner circle of influence than your circle of influence will start expanding ... isn’t it beautiful? If you answered in negative than probably you didn’t understand my point ...read the para again and concentrate properly this time.

So the bottom line is ... Be proactive and take the full responsibility of all the concerns that are inside the circle of your influence ... and this my dear friend is the very first Habit of highly effective people !!!

(Will See Ya Next Week ... With The Second Habit ... Be Online)

If she weren't there ...

A cool thing happened to me last week, worth penning down ... so here I go ... here I go again ... racing through my brain ... and I just can't contain ... this feeling that remains ... there she goes there she goes again ... I love this song !

So the story goes like this … one of my very first pahala pyaar moment was abbbboutttt humn … mmm ... okay le me count it down … in reverse chronicle order … 2002 was my final pahala pyaar ... which gave a period to all the roller coaster rides of my life … 2001 - 02 went dawdling … I was ravaging my precious time in career building (dawdling … ravaging … career building … oh boy am I a poet or what? ) okay so back to 98 – 2000 ahha that was indeed a hit … 97 again I wasted for what I did in 96 and 96 yes this is the year that I want to expose.

So I met this girl in 1996 … who claimed on what I thought was mine and I was so very enormously messed up by her loot. I damned that girl ferociously but I am really glad that she made it through all my juvenile curses and I also appreciate her dare to come and visit my profile in Orkut regardless of all that she did to me.

So this girl scrapped me … are you not angry with me?

And I realized that no ... I am not at all mad at her … in fact I wanted to thank her from the very deep bottom of my heart for all that she did to me because if she weren’t there at that moment of my life ... I probably wouldn’t be here at this moment of my life. If she weren’t happened to me I wouldn’t have taken serious things seriously and casual things casually … if she weren’t there … than probably I were there at her place … and I am scared to death to exchange our places ... not that I feel pity for her now but only because I am very gratified with what all I have today.

So... I replied her scrap … angry what for?? For saving me?

( And I told the whole story to Ra … he paused … took a deep breadth and said … "that girl should have asked me about this ... and I will tell her how mad I am on her ... if she weren’t there … you wouldn’t have entered in my damn life ... !!!" ... you didn't meant it ... right sweeeeety ... or did you ... grrr ...??? )

Desire ...

Desire, when it stems from the heart and spirit, when it is pure and intense, possesses awesome electromagnetic energy. This energy is released into the ether each night, as the mind falls into the sleep state. Each morning it returns to the conscious state reinforced with the cosmic currents. That which has been imaged will surely and certainly be manifested. You can rely, upon this ageless promise as surely as you can rely upon the eternally unbroken promise of sunrise and of Spring ... my lil angel !

Do not ask me

who said this to whom

but I truly believe in this

and I want you to believe in that too ...

my lil angel !!

Promise yourself, to never give up

to dream what you want to dream

to go where you want to go

to be what you want to be

Because you have only one life and

one chance to do all the things you want to do

my lil angel !!!

(courtsey : DhruvWorld)

Dulhe ka Mama ... his sole sovereignty!

I was excruciating myself hard yesterday night to dig out something sensible and/or simpler like education, location, occupation ... any damn "ion" of this guy and that is when I came up with this conclus"ion" ... Dulhe ka Mama ... yes that was this guys sole sovereignty.

(This actually is a big name to type down everytime ... so lets refer to him as DKM from hereafter.)

My first rendezvous with DKM happened when he was busy banging our crockery and cursing our caterer ... charisma of his discus throw was so alluring that I could not avoid my entry into the combat zone

Me : What is the problem.
DKM: Dishes are not clean.
Me: I personally don't find them dirty. But since you are saying so, we will change them, have some patience.
DKM: If you find them clean, you eat on it, I am not gonna eat. (one more bang, this time in front of me)

Needless to say I would have showered a hundreds of honeyed words on him, had he not been a Dulhe ka Mama ... damn it. In between all this tantrum of DKM, dazzle of our yellow saaris, and all that action on the floor ... aroma of our caterers food stood up as a clear winner. Yes, DKM was seen gulping a plate full of Pakodas and jalebis moments later, immidiately after the vows of not touching our food with his sacred hands.

Crockery was changed within hours but the pride of being a Dulhe ka Mama remained unshakable, after his discus throw this playful guy named DKM tried his hands on lot of other stuffs ... to mention some, DKM threw a bowl full of soup, DKM threw a glass full of badam milk, DKM yelled on our dhobi, DKM was drunk so badly that he misbahaved with one of our maid, DKM hit a poor begger kid with something hard in his hand during barat procession ... and the list went on till we bid adieu to Mr DKM.

And than there was one Dulhe ka Chaha, and with the name of him the color of my font changes automatically ... aaila magic ... and so was the change in mausam with him, who was not just another DKC, who had a nice real name, who was a research scholar in Reliance, who had his own integrity, who was a lot more than a dulhe ka chaha and the one who made his presence felt too in everybody's heart indisputably without doing any sort of discus throw, and there were a lot of other honorable mentions, some of them were Surgeons, some Railways officers, some Banking officers ... the ones we never heard yelling, the ones having individuality of there owns, the ones who preferred to be something more than Dulhe ka something.

We were not horrified by you Mr DKM, I am sorry to disappoint you, rather we sympathize with you, for we understand the fact that Dulhe ka Mama qualification was valid only for those five days and we do care for the rest of the days of your life Mr. DKM, the days when nobody will respect you for being just a Dulhe ka Mama ... yes we feel pity for you ... because we realise that Dulhe ka Mama once was Dulhe ka Sala too ... or how about giving a new title to Miss K Kapoor Kyoki .... Dulhe ka Mama bhi kabhi Dulhan ka baap hoga ... ?

Dard-e-Disco

His (Gandhi's) last will and testament narrated by Vijayalakshmi Pandit ... yes that's what I was listening to, when I felt the itch of listening Dard-e-Disco. Creepy I know it is but I am no saint and my brain cells does go delirious occassionally ... ok very frequently ... I confess.

I listened to the urge of my brain cells and right now Vijaya Aunty is paused for the moment and Sukhi is shouting aloud ... Dard-e-Disco ... dil me mere hai dard-e-disco ... dard-e-disco ... dard-e-disco.

hmmn ... I am ashamed of myself, I am sorry Mr Gandhi ... Dard-e-Disco ... dil me mere hai dard-e-disco ... dard-e-disco ... dard-e-disco ... I am sorry I really am Vijaya Aunty.

Farah you tossed this Dard-e-Disco? Unbelievable you really did? First sensible thing you did in life dear, thx for this. I heard you talking how you used all the five elements earth, water, fire and all that in this song ... its all crap you know it darling so stop blabbering about it and tell us about this Dard-e-Disco alone.

Wo pichle mahine ki chabbis ko ... dil me mere hai dard-e-disco ... dard-e-disco ... this was really funny ... I cant believe it ... is this you Javed saab, same Javed who wrote kaththai aankhe ... but I loved the combination of dard and disco and I dangerously love humming London Pairis New York La San Fansico .... dard-e-disco ... dil me mere hai dard-e-disco ... dard-e-disco.

And Mr six pack ... kya baat hai ... you and only you can do this ... none other than you ... King Khan jiyo ... whenever I thought its now time to say good bye SRK you come back with a bang ... bigger bang ... chak de fatte ... this year is yours !

dard-e-disco itch got calmed down only after repeating the song five times and right now I am back on the track with Martin Luther King "I have a dream" !

Bye bye Mom, back to Uncle Sam...

yes I m back and I have hundreds of stories to share ... literally hundreds ... but unfortunately only one hand to type in ... no no do not misunderstand to that extreme ... my both the hands are right in place ... its just a broken collar bone that has made my left hand immobile for approximately a month or so.

pain in the @$$ to type in with one hand ... sure it is! But I m enjoying this mai aur meri tanhai thing though I have done nothing since last five days ... literally nothing ... so I woke up this morning with a promise to get myself back on the track even if it is with the minimum possible pace ... and after getting over with the crucial tasks of cleaning up my swollen mail boxes, letting my worried friends on the net know that I m alive, choosing a netflix movie to watch for this afternoon and initiating this blog ... the other trivial tasks in my list for this morning are taking up a royal bath, prepairing my resume, letting my employer know when can I start working and blah blah of the same kind.

bye bye gregarious greens, back to wintry whites

bye bye bouncy bilaspur, back to laconic NJ

bye bye parathas rotis, back to pizzas pastas

bye bye Mooommmm, back to Uncle Sam !!!

Biwi ka mood ...

I asked H (I have learnt this blog writting skills recently, not to use full names and to use only initials), so I asked this guy H

Me: Tiffin me kya rahata hai
H : Biwi ka mood rahata hai

And I stated thinking about Ra's tiffin...

wahaa tiffin me kya rahata hai?

kabhi biwi ka c# code rahata hai,

kabhi biwi ki late night movie rahati hai,

kabhi biwi ka tennis racket rahata hai,

kabhi biwi ki sql query rahati hai,

kabhi biwi ka monday blues rahata hai,

kabhi biwi ki TGIFridays rahati hai ...

aur bhi bahut kuch rahata hai

jo nahi rahata wo hai "Biwi ka mood"

And I started remembering my Papa's tiffin ...

ghee waali rotis in the ground floor,
a yum yum sabjee in the first floor,
some rayata or dal in the top floor,
and a small terrace of chatani's, salads or pickles...

And also packed inside was variety and flavor along with perception of health and a touch of tranquil affection.

is this what H was calling Biwi's mood? I am perilously missing this ecstasy of packing biwi's mood in your tiffin Ra, I solemnly wish I could pack my mood in you tiffin at least once in a while.

Oh I am gloomy today !