Future

Connecting the dots.

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

Steve Jobs famously mentioned these words during his address to a graduating class at Stanford.

Watching him orate his experiences and how they helped him in his life have been an inspiration for me.

Primarily because it spoke of how nothing in life is ever wasted. Even a small experience can at some point in time light a spark to take things forward!

As time has passed, I have also come to appreciate that all of us are wired differently and connect dots differently. So even though we may have shared experiences with others, the way we perceive and recall them are different.

This weekend, as I took a couple of days off and spent time reflecting on a few things, I realised this point again.

I was thinking of the various things I have done in my life till this point. And which of those have given me joy, made me learn, and pushed me forward.

Sifting through those memories, I could see some of them connected with each other in ways I had not thought of before.

Maybe, my perspective has matured. Or changed. Or perhaps, it’s just that those dots weren’t connected before in my mind, but now are.

Anyways, I am happy to have connected those dots. For they spoke of paths I am uniquely privileged to have been on.

As I reflected back on this time spent in solitude, I couldn’t have chosen a better time. I had not done this over the past couple of years and needed this reconnection with self.

Not to mention, the calm around me also helped heal the general overload from always ‘doing’ something…

Back to the Future

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

The future is a subject of intense speculation…

It is scary. It is promising. It is unnerving. It is what we think it is.

But we plan for it with all our gusto. We lay out theories and approach it with a kind of certainty.

However, the reality is that we don’t really know what it holds in store for us. And specially for our kids.

As I was thinking about this last bit, a couple of conversations popped in my mind. With colleagues and friends about how things will be for our kids.

To make some sense to myself, I looked back to when I was a child. And how things have evolved.

Last 40 years have seen such rapid progress that most of us weren’t able to fathom back then. And yet, in our lifetime, we have seen so much change.

And that was magnitudes higher than what happened in the last 60-80 years!

If I apply the same logic, the progress over the next 10-20 years will be almost equivalent to what happened till now in my lifetime.

In such a scenario, those aspects of life that I hold true now, will they continue to remain relevant?

The society won’t be the same for sure. Bonds and relationships in the new generation will most likely evolve to be very different.

Work will exist but in probably different forms. There may be more reliance on technology, higher order work hopefully.

So, it seems to me, it is best to prepare our kids for a future which is most likely going to keep evolving. And will rapidly change. And get them to adjust and evolve with it.

We cannot be sure the degrees we hold or what are relevant today will continue to be relevant for our kids10-20 years from now.

We cannot be sure about how their subsequent work life will link to what they are studying.

What we can be sure of is that if we prep them up well, they will likely tide over those changes and be successful in life.

And that to me is the challenge we, as parents, must be prepared for!

In the moment!

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

We were at a school event. Our daughter and her classmates were going to perform in front of their parents.

Seated slightly far away, we were observing the kids performances relatively calmly. When our daughter’s turn came to perform, we took out our mobiles and captured it customarily on video.

Post that day, we haven’t looked at that video even once! And I am not sure if we will ever look at it again.

Except for maybe when the photos app throws it as a reminder, about what happened that day or month back in 2024. Which will be nostalgic and a memory worth preserving.

Or so it seems…

What about the actual event and why we had been there? What about capturing that memory in our hearts when it was actually happening?

That day, as well as every now and then, when there’s something happening worth watching, I see everyone zoom in on their phone cameras. Strategically positioned in front of their eyes or just above, to avoid the swarm of heads in front.

Trying to keep our hands stable, so that the video doesn’t shake, we strive to capture the happening for posterity.

But in that process, I haven’t seen myself enjoy the actual show as much. As much as when I don’t have my phone camera switched on.

Maybe it’s me. I don’t like to double task.

Or maybe it’s my rational mind. Why waste phone memory when I have the actual event captured in my mind and heart?

Or maybe it is the pressure of not doing what everyone else is doing. And how can I not follow societal norms!

Or maybe, it’s the anxiety of losing out on this moment once it’s gone and so capturing it makes more sense.

Or maybe (the last one), I do care about posterity and nostalgia and do want to save these memories forever, for some AI to notify and auto generate albums and slideshows somewhere in the distant future.

I don’t know which maybe is the correct one here. Genuinely.

Maybe (ah!), I ought to think more about when to capture and when to just enjoy what is happening in front of me. My own AI (active intelligence)!!!

Throes of Wants

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

“Badal”, the man’s ears echoed, the Hindi word for change. It seemed like his soul was telling him to change the ways of his life.

He kept sitting and staring at the sky. It was almost sunset, with the last light few minutes away. As he watched the sun going down, his life ran in front of him…

He remembered the initial, fun filled days when he would spend hours with his friends walking around the markets. He remembered how they went to the movies and had luncheons that lasted for four hours.

He also remembered how he met his wife and the days they spent during their courtship at the cafés jotting the downtown streets.

It all seemed long ago. For as life caught on, he just got busy and somehow never got time again to do all of those things.

With work occupying his life, he had kept everything aside. For he wanted all the money he could earn to buy all the things he ever wanted.

He had spent the last decade or so amassing all those material desires. He had a big house, a couple of fancy cars, watches, suits, gadgets. The list was endless.

But today as he stared at the horizon, he was feeling empty inside. He had no friends around. His wife had left him. No kids.

It seemed as if he was all alone in this wide world.

With a heavy heart, he got up. His life was done. If he had any hope of changing it, he had to make amends. He had to give up his urge to fulfil his desires and wants, and instead focus on relationships and love.

Resolving in his mind, he turned around and walked to his car. It was time to get home and chalk out the plan for getting things on track.

Just as he was getting in, he saw the car parked next to his. It was the latest model of a new breed, something he had been researching upon.

He stood there admiring the contours. He then moved around it, looking inside to get a feel. It was expensive! And he wanted it!

It was time to hit the job circuit and get a raise to buy that car. There was no waiting. Everything else would wait, as always…

‘The Human Touch’

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

We are all human. Well, most of the time!

We want to socialize while seeking solace, we can’t live without others being around while also fighting with them, we love and hate others in equal measures for the same thing. We thrive in these dichotomies.

It’s a trait we remind ourselves about quite often. Mostly in reference to others, like, while mentioning how others ought to behave as humans while we can behave like we want to…

However, over the past couple of decades, the human element around us has been getting depleted. With some help from the internet, we are fast becoming averse to being around others, talking to them, taking help from them, and more than anything else trusting them.

We have instead started becoming more comfortable with being remote, chatting / texting, being on our own than amidst others. While, this has some benefits and brings a lot of efficiency in our daily lives, it also has some down sides.

This week, on more than one occasion, I observed instances which made me realize this side of the boundary-less world we have built for ourselves.

In the first instance, for an outstation visit, I preferred booking a cab through an online portal rather than calling up a known person in the city. I actually went through the process of identifying the cab owner’s contact no. who had provided good service earlier but stopped short of calling him. I instead chose anonymity of the new cab owner that the online platform would bestow on me because I wasn’t sure if the earlier person would again offer me a good rate / service when I wanted convenience and predictability.

As it happened, when I landed in the other city, the person who picked me up was from the same cab company. He mentioned to me how they had served me during my last visit also and requested me to call them directly for any future requirements. He in fact mentioned that I could have just called them directly this time around and they would have given me a better offer,

I hesitatingly accepted his offer, realizing that if I had just trusted them enough, I would have got a better deal for myself!

The second instance occurred while having lunch with a friend today. As is our ritualy, we caught up and chatted about myriad things for a couple of hours. The place where we were sitting was full of people with a singer belting out contemporary hits with all her vigor. We both wondered about why the restaurant had kept the speakers at such a high volume, where practically we had to shout to be heard.

But then, as I got up toward the end and was walking out, I realized that on most tables, people were sitting together but glued to their mobile phones, than engaged in a conversation. So, the music wasn’t a botheration at all. It in fact, was helping ease the uncomfortable setting that some of them were finding themselves in! So much for a lunch…

Perhaps the fault lies with us. Each one of us. By making technology an integral part of our lives, we have slowly become not only reliant on it but also caught up in its traps. Like the master turning into a slave.

Maybe, time to think about the role both of us play, unless this dichotomy caused by the blurring of the online and offline worlds around us costs us in the future…

What Changed?

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

Picture this. It is somewhere in the 60’s. A person is sitting on a bed is listening to the radio, which is the primary mode of entertainment and connection with the outside world (apart from newspapers ofcourse).

The radio is playing an advertisement and right after that there is an announcement from the future by one of those mad scientists. The scientist proclaims that in the near future, we would be able to see live video feeds in our homes on a world-wide network which everyone plugs into and it will become our go-to mechanism for everything.

What is the likelihood of the ordinary man with his radio on, believing in this? I would like to think, very less. He may just ignore it all as rumblings of some stupid mind. He would proudly proclaim radio as the best thing that happened in his generation and get on with his work.

And now imagine that person, old, perhaps in his 80’s. Sitting in front of an internet enabled TV with a smartphone in his home controlling the experience. It has turned into a reality. So long for his proud proclamation about the simple radio. Heck, he can now login to any radio channel in the world and listen to it!

This is change! Guaranteed, destined, and having arrived within a single person’s lifetime.

What is amazing is, this ordinary person adapted to all the changes life and society brought on over the years. His life became better (or worse?), it became easy (or more complicated?), and it became more liveable (so we claim!). All those advancements, not just in consumer technology, but in every other sphere of life, resulted in massive shifts. And this person lapped them all up!

We, in this day and age, have stopped questioning what is possible technologically and have rather started to take bets on when will it happen. The pace of change has hastened over the last couple of decades and continues unabated. And we continue to adapt to it in the same rhythm, to make the best use of it as per our understanding.

And yet, the change which is ever so welcome in our lives, hasn’t yet permeated to the same levels in our individual thinking about how will the evolution be in terms of social context, behaviors, and motivations. We still believe that what has happened with us, the way we have lived our lives, is how the next few generations will also experience it. It has been true for most of us but there is no guarantee it will stay the same for our children and beyond.

This week, as I was talking to a friend about how the lives of our children will unfold, I realized that I subscribe to this theory of societal change and therefore, want to consciously not plan too much for it. Not that I have anything against supporting our daughter as she grows up. It’s just that I don’t really know how her life will unfold or what motivations will guide her choices.

I don’t know how she will want to live out her life. If she would even want any help from us. Will money be a useful metric for her or not. Will she want to have a stable career or be someone who would rather accumulate experiences doing multiple things. Will she want to have a partner or not.

I could go on with the questions. But you get the drift.

The choices she will make, I believe, are surely going to be different from the ones that aided my decisions. And it doesn’t make sense for me to plan for too much but rather adapt myself and support her in the way that feels apt for that time and to her mind.

Don’t know if what I am thinking is the right approach or not. What I do believe though is that our relationships and the society will surely change in the next 60 years, just like it has for that person who is now in his 80’s…

The Green Grass…

~ Rishi ~ 1 Comment

It is amazing how time passes by and things still remain the same.

This weekend, as I met a couple of my Army course mates and we spent a few hours charting our courses and what has been happening in our lives, I was amazed to notice this being re-emphasized.

As it happened, after I moved out of the Armed forces and passed over to the civilian life (that is the lingo, the world separating those in uniform from those without), my life took multiple twists and turns. Some of it natural, some of it accidental, some perhaps of my own making.

But during all these times, I always held the greatest regard for what life once had in store for me on the other side of the fence. May be because of the childhood dream that was only partially fulfilled, or perhaps due to the realisation at multiple points in time that while a difficult life, the one in uniform is much more simpler and straight forward, with the path being set in front of you. The grass a lot of times appeared greener and fertile on that side, indeed.

And then there were my course mates, some of whom were not really planning to stay on in that life for long or wanted to gain more out of life. That simplicity and straight forward nature had become mundane and they wanted something out of turn. For them, the grass was greener this side of the fence.

This weekend, as we three friends sat down and spoke about what’s happening, we compared our lives, our work, our social circles, settings, and so on. And you guessed it, it was mutual admiration about the greener grass on either side.

Later on, as I was returning home, I was musing about how many times this has happened to me. While I smiled about how it keeps on repeating itself, as my thoughts ran deep, they took me to those other instances when I have wished to be on some side of the lawn which at that point of time appeared greener. Without realising that where I am standing also has a lot of blooming flowers and tiny buds awaiting to blossom. Without understanding that where I am today is because of so much effort and hard work spent toiling on the end of the lawn I am at. But with a lot of judgement that what I have done hasn’t amounted to much, in comparison to the other person.

It’s amazing that we routinely do this and then disturb our own happiness to seek the mirage that may not even be the oasis that it promises to be. Yet, we do it each time, habituated to find something that is not right in our lives. And that often leads to diversions in our path, which could otherwise had led us to the end goal that we were seeking.

Of course, it is not true for all of us. And there are some good reasons to move over to the other side, jump ships, take u-turns, or just branch off. I have done it and I am sure so have others.

What’s important though, before making that jump, is to really evaluate and identify the actual reason for the push. Is it born out of just the desire to be on the greener side of life, or is there something innate that is forcing us to uproot ourselves. If it is the latter, there are often good reasons. But if it is the former, perhaps it is time to look down and behind, to understand the colour of our own grass and it’s future!

Legacy…

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

It is something we leave behind and hand over to the next generation.

Something that inspires a lot of people and helps them identify a meaning in all they have done through the years.

Or something that in hindsight helps us judge what we did in that particular phase of our life or work.

Well, I have always viewed the term with some suspicion. Not because I think it is over-rated but because I think it carries a negative stress in the present.

There are a few people who leave impressive legacies behind. But not because they started with that intention. They just wanted to do their best in the moment. And whatever they leave behind happens as a natural result of that effort.

On the other side, there are those who don’t bother at all about these matters and live their life without worrying about what they are leaving behind. They do their work or live their life and pass into oblivion, which isn’t a bad option in the larger scheme of things.

And then there are those who always get bothered by whether what they are doing will be enough to leave behind that impression. Now, that’s precisely the kind of negative stress I am referring to. Trying to prove a point and do something with the future in mind, without focusing on ensuring the best possible in the present.

A lot of us these days, either due to the hype around the term ‘legacy’ or because of the added pressure we put on ourselves to excel in whatever we do, land up in the third category. For some of us in fact, sometimes it gets complicated because once we start looking out into the future with one eye, the view isn’t complete in the present. And due to that stress we sometimes end up trying too hard and not being our natural self, or worse, doing things the wrong way to reach where we want to be through a shortcut.

Not something that we would recommend to any of our friends, leave along to ourselves!

As I served my last day in a company I have been with for almost 5 years and had a lengthy conversation with a senior about some of these aspects, these thoughts came into my mind…

When I dug deeper, I realised that if we look at this issue from another perspective, it is actually not what we have done and the accolades that we have bought to the table that matter. What matters is the foundation we built or built upon, and the strength of the pillars we erected during that phase of our life or work. In the present.

Are they going to sustain after we are gone? Will those, who are left behind after us, be able to live with it? Is the structure going to soar higher from where we left it?

I think that is a more pertinent way of looking at any phase of our life or work and determining the impression that we leave behind. It also gives us the luxury of focusing on the present completely without worrying about or stressing about what happens to it after we leave.

While all of us are wishful about the impact we have or may have with our actions or work or life in the future, I guess living in the present and staying focused on what we are doing in the here and now are way more important.

At least, that gives us a chance of leaving behind a legacy, if at all!

Life and Success…

~ Rishi ~ 3 Comments

Movies, the good ones, often leave us with afterthoughts. This weekend, as I watched a couple of animated ones with the kiddo (Up and Soul, both Pixar creations and interestingly by the same director), they wound me down a labyrinth!

A labyrinth where I tried to define success – what is it? What does it mean? And how does it look like?

Is it about the outcome or the process?

Is it chasing one’s dreams at any cost and achieving them? Or is it about feeling happy about whatever best we can do?

Is it about having the most (or heaps of) whatever we desire or is it to find inner satisfaction from the outcomes we have achieved?

Is it about working for the future at all times, trying to create a better one? Or finding fulfilment in our present life and enjoying our life to the fullest?

Is it internal or external or both?

Well, as I kept zigzagging between these thoughts, I couldn’t come up to a single aha moment. It was confusing!

Perhaps because we have so many versions of success – people who have had outsized achievements as well as those who have found their true calling and succeeded in whatever they wanted to achieve.

Or perhaps because there are two contrarian points of view – one about how the famous ones have achieved what they have and the other about how to be content with what you’ve got.

Or perhaps because each one of us have our own definitions of what it really means for us to succeed. A definition which keeps changing with times.

I haven’t figured it out yet. What I did figure out was that it is a shifting goal post for most of us. One that keeps us alive and kicking, while providing the impetus to move forward in life.

What’s important is to keep celebrating the small wins, cherishing the good moments, being grateful for our lives and for where we are, and planning forward…

The Real Power!!!

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

2020 is nearing its end. With this looming end, is the promise of the new. A new beginning. And hopefully restoration of the previous normal.

As we end the year, I thought it is in order to talk about why this year has been special. And no, I am not talking about the viral nature of the year!

This year has been strange in many ways. Whether it is the way we spent months altogether, how we socialised in the distanced and isolated world, or how we have tried to return to normalcy. But in my view, all of this strangeness has helped us understand one thing – who has the mettle to rise up when it’s time to.

And while almost the entire mankind rose to the challenge, I believe the real power was displayed by the womenfolk everywhere.

Right from the labs, where the basic premise on which the approved vaccines are based (mRNA technology), which was researched and developed by a lady, to the countless healthcare staff and people deployed on the frontline, we saw women leading the field and doing better or as well as their male counterparts.

But to me the most important area where women displayed that they can be in control of each and every situation was at home. In the way they handled and managed the shutdown of normal life and transition to the new messy setting.

From work, to working out, to taking care of the kids and household chores, to supporting the family in each and everything, women aced it all.

While they had ample and able support from a lot of their partners, and hats off to all of those who helped out, women were the master of the ceremony and they orchestrated it well all throughout.

Being on the other side, I worked under the supervision of my wife but also heard from the other women in the family, as well as observed those I could, to realise the enormity of this task. And it was gargantuan.

As the situation elongated and this new messy setting of having to deal with all things at the same time became the new normal for us, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that we have retained some sanity in our lives due to all the skills that were displayed by the fairer gender.

And as we enter the new year, I hope this exposition and exercise of power leads them to discover their true self and contribute in more meaningful ways and lead from the front in all matters of life.

Thank you mothers, aunts, sisters, wives, girlfriends, and daughters. And anyone else I missed out.

To women power then!!!