Life doesn’t come with an ‘ Instruction Manual ‘

 

Nor does the human brain. Or kids. Or how to deal with success. Or cope with failure. Nothing off the shelf here. You will not find an instruction manual on ‘How To Cope With A Debilitating Worldwide Pandemic ” on any book store shelf or on Amazon.

 

Any system with all the leverage at its command, cannot lead itself. So, no point in being a silent follower.

 

Yes, there are things that come with instruction manuals. For eg., a screenplay is really an instruction manual, and it can be interpreted in any number of ways. The casting, the choice of location, the costumes and make-up, the actors’ reading of a line or emphasis of a word, the choice of lens and the pace of the cutting, the background score, the advertising and promotion – these are all part of the translation.

 

That being said, the paradox is baffling. The machines and gadgets that have made our lives so much brighter, quicker, longer and healthier is that they cannot teach us how to make the best use of them; the information revolution came without an instruction manual .

 

So, what are we getting at here? Certainly not jumping out of a plane and then trying to assemble the parachute(if you have one) on the way down.

 

A worldwide calamity is not marginalising anyone or focusing more on someone. It’s even stevens for all stakeholders. How we respond and react is completely up to us, all of us, any of us, without any distinction. We can see that crisis as a possibility to take responsibility, to lead, be proactive, be generous, to help, to heal, to understand and look ahead towards a better tomorrow.

Why should it be the remit of only the frontline workers or doctors or nurses to be in the firing line? Some of us are better than the one of us.  And all of us are certainly much much much better than the some of us.

 

The Power of Now as Eckhart Tolle puts it is a great catalyst. Whether it is the climate war that all of us have to wage starting the day before yesterday or a looming food security crisis that we need to anticipate and prepare to blunt, it has to be all hands on deck. There are no instruction manuals on taking responsibility, being proactive, offering generosity and creating a culture of doing good.

 

In a ‘ business as unusual ‘ zeitgeist, pretending that it is business as usual will be a selfish pursuit. When situations like the one we talked about above are evenly distributed without any discrimination, collective survival and flourishing weighs far above the tyranny of individual profit.

 

It is a wonderful opportunity for all us. To lead, to care, to make the change.

 

Life is an equal opportunity employer. Time to take charge.

 

ENDS

Ring out the wring, bring in the ring !

Rings a bell?

 

 

Ringing relays, delivers, fulfils. Keeps up on a promise.
Ringing strikes a chord( no pun intended), builds momentum and resonates.
Ringing potentially signifies care and empathy. Ringing sets the stage for the next, the future. 
Ringing is a promise to continue. It leaves you with a lure to engage more, later. It keeps a bridge to help you go back, re-connect.
The very act of bell ringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions.
Wringing marches to a different beat. It has different ambitions.  And makes no bones about it.
You can’t prepare for everything life’s going to throw at you.
And you can’t avoid danger. It’s there. The world is a dangerous place, and if you sit around wringing your hands about it, you’ll be out on all the adventure.
Wringing gets terminalExtracting the last bit there is. There is no scope for continuity or further engagement.
When you seek to wring every dollar out of a transaction, you’ve probably and unfortunately, engaged for the last time.
The desire to wring out a few more drips of happiness almost always destroyed the happiness you were so lucky to have, and so foolish never to acknowledge. – Jonathan Safran Foer
So, what’s your view? Ringside or Wringside?
ENDS

How Steep Is Your Love?

Please pardon me if the caption of this blog post sounds comfortingly familiar to the Bee Gees classic single ” How Deep Is Your Love “. Inspired? Yes, absolutely.

 

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

 

It shouldn’t be such a difficult thing to do, but, yet it is.

 

How to love yourself.

 

One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others.

 

There will be times when you will be feeling lousy about your state of mind, your over-fifty body, your hair, you see yourself as too fat, too this or too that..it’s a rabbit hole that we all go into.

 

Yet you fantasise about finding someone who would give you the gift of being loved as you are. Contrarian, isn’t it?

 

It is silly, isn’t it, that you would dream of someone else offering to you the same acceptance and affirmation that you are voluntarily withholding from yourself.

 

The word ‘ love ‘ is most often defined as a noun. But, it is worth altering the trajectory. We would all love better if the word love is used as a verb, rather than a noun.

 

The ask here is: could we proactively offer a new ethic for a society bereft with lovelessness– not the lack of romance, but the lack of care, compassion, unity ?

 

People are divided by our society’s failure to provide a model for learning to love.

 

Should we be razing the cultural paradigm for a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for individuals and society?

 

Definitely so. Count me in!

 

As Katrina Mayer puts it, ” Loving yourself isn’t vanity, it is sanity “.

 

ENDS

 

 

Looking beyond getting ahead!

We have galloped on from an industrial economy to that of knowledge and intelligence(artificial & otherwise). Getting ahead is an industrial age concept. Based on scarcity, lack of access, secrecy, connections etc.Everyone can’t be first (the thinking goes) so you better work harder, make do with helping fewer people, and look for shortcuts if you want to win.

Today, we live in an always on,connection, collaboration sharing economy, in a long-tail world where being remarkable is far more important than being normal, where mattering is what matters and what we ideally seek. But the void is still there. It’s a gap between where you are and where you could be. Where you desire to be. A gap between the impact you can create and what you’ve been able to do. Mostly, it’s a gap between you and the change you can contribute to those around you. As they say, what got you here, won’t get you there.

To propel from your present state, to being a ruckusmaker, a toastmaster, a change agent, a denter, a doer, an enabler. A person who notices, who seeks change and, above all, a person that leaps. Takes the power in her hands, to assist the powerless, the privilege dark community. (Read how 3 designers from Ideo.org are trying to fix the refugee crisis in this BrandKnew article here http://www.brandknewmag.com/from-ideo-org-3-ways-designers-can-help-fix-the-refugee-crisis/ )

To have the spirit to care for the have not. Lets walk the torque. Devoid of the void!

ENDS

Image: Plays In Business

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