How to deal with pressure.
Temperamentally, I buckle under the tiniest pressure. But, of late, one of life's inexplicable turns has put me in a situation where I work under a lot of pressure, and this is what I've learnt:
When under pressure, the inner guy who has a great deal of self-esteem (even if you consciously do not have an iota of it), and feeling of self-preservation, takes over, and before you know it - he takes command, puts your panic-stricken heart out of order, sedates your zinging mind, gets your fingers activated (to work at the computer), and puts all the concentration into the brain so that the work gets done even before you are consciously aware of it.....this procedure on a daily basis drives out every tiny vestige of alarm, and trepidation, and very efficiently quells any rising hysteria...
and so when life wanted me to learn how to deal with pressure, since advice and self-help books were obviously not working, it got me into a high-pressured situation, and now I can respond to any kind of pressure with the happiest equanimity....let pressure come on!!!!!
15 February 2012
Are we ready...
for Valentine's Day?
Every year, on the 15th, there are gory accounts of young boys and girls who have taken out their 'revenge' either on themselves, or on the ones they 'loved'.
Are our young, who teeter between irresponsibility and Bollywood in a hypocritical society, really ready to take on love?
Forget the historical background of St. Valentine, Valentine's Day, world over, is taken as a day for celebrating love.
Love, however, has certain commitments built into it:
Respect - for oneself and for the other
Responsibility - towards each other
Rapture - of a life shared
If we're looking at the Day as a celebration of love day, then we need to celebrate all love - for each other, for our parents and siblings, for friends and colleagues - the world in general...
And, if we're looking at Valentine's Day as a fun day, then we need to enjoy it as just that - a fun day - balloons, hearts, mush, and loads of plain and simple merriment...
Every year, on the 15th, there are gory accounts of young boys and girls who have taken out their 'revenge' either on themselves, or on the ones they 'loved'.
Are our young, who teeter between irresponsibility and Bollywood in a hypocritical society, really ready to take on love?
Forget the historical background of St. Valentine, Valentine's Day, world over, is taken as a day for celebrating love.
Love, however, has certain commitments built into it:
Respect - for oneself and for the other
Responsibility - towards each other
Rapture - of a life shared
If we're looking at the Day as a celebration of love day, then we need to celebrate all love - for each other, for our parents and siblings, for friends and colleagues - the world in general...
And, if we're looking at Valentine's Day as a fun day, then we need to enjoy it as just that - a fun day - balloons, hearts, mush, and loads of plain and simple merriment...
13 February 2012
Here's something...
that will hit you between your eyes...
It's from Toni Morrison's book, A Mercy:
A mother, torn by the various forces of her situation, forces a landowner, who had come to do business with her master, to take away her daughter - away from her, believing that she would be saving her daughter, and maybe giving her a chance at life...
Coming from the depths of a mother's heart, are these words for her daughter:
'to be given dominion over another is a hard thing; to wrest dominion over another is a wrong thing; to give dominion of yourself to another is a wicked thing.'
(Read dominion as control)
For, no matter that the body can be flogged, never give up control of your spirit to another....for then you are truly lost....
It's from Toni Morrison's book, A Mercy:
A mother, torn by the various forces of her situation, forces a landowner, who had come to do business with her master, to take away her daughter - away from her, believing that she would be saving her daughter, and maybe giving her a chance at life...
Coming from the depths of a mother's heart, are these words for her daughter:
'to be given dominion over another is a hard thing; to wrest dominion over another is a wrong thing; to give dominion of yourself to another is a wicked thing.'
(Read dominion as control)
For, no matter that the body can be flogged, never give up control of your spirit to another....for then you are truly lost....
Another article...
on Zizira: http://www.zizira.com/secure/literacy-and-education/
It's something that we all need to think about....
It's something that we all need to think about....
Today...
I will try - no, I have to find inside of myself the strength to say, "For now, I will accept this challenge, not knowing the reason but trusting the Universe has sent this to me for my own good and that someday I will fully understand." (From my Kabbalah reading)
Have you noticed how readings from devotional guides always offer solace for the day? Strange, but true....
Have you noticed how readings from devotional guides always offer solace for the day? Strange, but true....
12 February 2012
And again it's about...
the English language.
I cannot think of anything that is more painful for those who struggle with the English language - to speak it and to understand it. And this is only the verbal-aural aspect. The reading and understanding of written English is another story.
Yesterday, I was on the phone for almost three hours with the customer care executives of a company. My USB modem was not working, and these three youngsters, two boys and a girl were taking me through the steps trying to get it going. The girl and one of the boys, battling and struggling with English, got their instructions across. I was touched and impressed at their perseverance, and though I used some Hindi, hoping to get them to switch languages, they steadfastly battled on in English. The second boy, poor chap, was totally out of his depth - he didn't know whether to put on his faux-Yank accent, or just talk somehow-anyhow, and in the process got so entangled that not a word was legible. Though I requested him to please talk in Hindi, he refused to do so. Finally, I'm ashamed to say, I got thoroughly rattled because, neither was the problem getting solved, nor was I getting what he was saying. I knew he was struggling, but I was running out of time. I finally got him to register my complaint and get a technician to come home. However, I have sworn to myself that this will not happen again, especially when I fully understand what is happening.
The same thing with the technician - a very bright young lad who knew exactly what to do, and fixed the problem fixed very confidently. A Bengali lad with a smattering of Hindi and hardly any English, it was a joke the way we were communicating... .Once again - the English language stood like a demoniacal sceptre....The technician would have been brilliant had he been allowed to work & talk in his mother tongue. He, like all of us, would somehow have been able to manage Hindi, which is becoming increasingly a common language (except in the South). But English......!!!!!
This one thing - the English language - is what is finally going to prevent us from taking our place on the world stage. If our kids and young adults have to speak English so that it can be comprehended, they have to be taught the language as a skill. HAVE TO. Whether the school is an English medium one, or a vernacular one, or whether the background is a westernized one or a traditional Indian one.....English has to be taught as a foreign language and as a skill. It is a tool that we have to learn to use.
And believe me, once we have that tool, there will be no stopping us. But till then.......????
I cannot think of anything that is more painful for those who struggle with the English language - to speak it and to understand it. And this is only the verbal-aural aspect. The reading and understanding of written English is another story.
Yesterday, I was on the phone for almost three hours with the customer care executives of a company. My USB modem was not working, and these three youngsters, two boys and a girl were taking me through the steps trying to get it going. The girl and one of the boys, battling and struggling with English, got their instructions across. I was touched and impressed at their perseverance, and though I used some Hindi, hoping to get them to switch languages, they steadfastly battled on in English. The second boy, poor chap, was totally out of his depth - he didn't know whether to put on his faux-Yank accent, or just talk somehow-anyhow, and in the process got so entangled that not a word was legible. Though I requested him to please talk in Hindi, he refused to do so. Finally, I'm ashamed to say, I got thoroughly rattled because, neither was the problem getting solved, nor was I getting what he was saying. I knew he was struggling, but I was running out of time. I finally got him to register my complaint and get a technician to come home. However, I have sworn to myself that this will not happen again, especially when I fully understand what is happening.
The same thing with the technician - a very bright young lad who knew exactly what to do, and fixed the problem fixed very confidently. A Bengali lad with a smattering of Hindi and hardly any English, it was a joke the way we were communicating... .Once again - the English language stood like a demoniacal sceptre....The technician would have been brilliant had he been allowed to work & talk in his mother tongue. He, like all of us, would somehow have been able to manage Hindi, which is becoming increasingly a common language (except in the South). But English......!!!!!
This one thing - the English language - is what is finally going to prevent us from taking our place on the world stage. If our kids and young adults have to speak English so that it can be comprehended, they have to be taught the language as a skill. HAVE TO. Whether the school is an English medium one, or a vernacular one, or whether the background is a westernized one or a traditional Indian one.....English has to be taught as a foreign language and as a skill. It is a tool that we have to learn to use.
And believe me, once we have that tool, there will be no stopping us. But till then.......????
11 February 2012
It's worrying...
students, and most often it's the bright ones, committing suicide for the flimsiest of reasons,
students refusing to accept any kind of discipline in school
students having increasingly short fuses
teachers feeling cornered and wondering why on earth they should even bother to say anything considering they might be the next victim of a student's wrath (a student stabbed a teacher to death in a classroom in a school in Madras), or the media
parents claiming their children don't listen to them
competitiveness hitting unmanageable levels, just because there are not enough 'good' colleges or universities for kids to go to
a society which is increasingly becoming more and more demanding
an economy which divides you cruelly into one of two categories - rich and poor
So, where are we going wrong?
As adults we are just not seeing that children/young adults today are being bombarded with all kinds of things, unconsciously and consciously, every nanosecond - the nerves in their brains are on overdrive. And, very simply, they are just not equipped to handle it. They do not have the mental or psychological capacity to decipher all the stimuli pinging on their brains; or the intellectual power to process and synthesize the data coming in. As for the emotional capacity to accept what is happening, that is way, way off...
As teachers we cannot write them off, After their parents, teachers are the ones who influence these young minds. Teachers just have to find some way of communicating with these young ones. After all they have age and maturity and experience on their side...
As parents, we have to be very attentive to our children. We know them and any sign of their being or doing anything that is not 'them', should be taken as a warning light........ and we better sit up and take notice of it. Children have different ways of communicating what is bothering them or troubling them. Often they themselves don't know why they are troubled... .We, their parents have to see if they are behaving in any manner that is not their usual way... .It is up to us as the primary care givers to our children, to find some platform on which to communicate with them. If we show them that we respect them for who they are, that they are precious to us, no matter what 'society' thinks, or whoever thinks, we'll be helping them to find themselves.
We put too much pressure on our kids, adding to the outside pressure they are already under - we live our dreams through them, we want them to succeed, we want them to go higher, and demand that they get 'good' jobs, etcetcetc....but in all this, we forget that they have their own personalities - we tend to take away from them the right to be themselves - they have to be us, or what we want them to be...or else......
How can scolding or pressurizing help, when the young one doesn't even understand what he is doing or what is happening to him? It's taking him all his energies to just stay afloat - and drowning is a very painful thing whether it's drowning in water, or drowning in the huge, huge amount of varying data impinging on his unformed brain...
What our young need is unconditional love and acceptance....and to stand behind them as they strive to find their place in the sun........................................as themselves......
students refusing to accept any kind of discipline in school
students having increasingly short fuses
teachers feeling cornered and wondering why on earth they should even bother to say anything considering they might be the next victim of a student's wrath (a student stabbed a teacher to death in a classroom in a school in Madras), or the media
parents claiming their children don't listen to them
competitiveness hitting unmanageable levels, just because there are not enough 'good' colleges or universities for kids to go to
a society which is increasingly becoming more and more demanding
an economy which divides you cruelly into one of two categories - rich and poor
So, where are we going wrong?
As adults we are just not seeing that children/young adults today are being bombarded with all kinds of things, unconsciously and consciously, every nanosecond - the nerves in their brains are on overdrive. And, very simply, they are just not equipped to handle it. They do not have the mental or psychological capacity to decipher all the stimuli pinging on their brains; or the intellectual power to process and synthesize the data coming in. As for the emotional capacity to accept what is happening, that is way, way off...
As teachers we cannot write them off, After their parents, teachers are the ones who influence these young minds. Teachers just have to find some way of communicating with these young ones. After all they have age and maturity and experience on their side...
As parents, we have to be very attentive to our children. We know them and any sign of their being or doing anything that is not 'them', should be taken as a warning light........ and we better sit up and take notice of it. Children have different ways of communicating what is bothering them or troubling them. Often they themselves don't know why they are troubled... .We, their parents have to see if they are behaving in any manner that is not their usual way... .It is up to us as the primary care givers to our children, to find some platform on which to communicate with them. If we show them that we respect them for who they are, that they are precious to us, no matter what 'society' thinks, or whoever thinks, we'll be helping them to find themselves.
We put too much pressure on our kids, adding to the outside pressure they are already under - we live our dreams through them, we want them to succeed, we want them to go higher, and demand that they get 'good' jobs, etcetcetc....but in all this, we forget that they have their own personalities - we tend to take away from them the right to be themselves - they have to be us, or what we want them to be...or else......
How can scolding or pressurizing help, when the young one doesn't even understand what he is doing or what is happening to him? It's taking him all his energies to just stay afloat - and drowning is a very painful thing whether it's drowning in water, or drowning in the huge, huge amount of varying data impinging on his unformed brain...
What our young need is unconditional love and acceptance....and to stand behind them as they strive to find their place in the sun........................................as themselves......
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