Life is

Life balance

2010-11-09T21:53:00.003+02:00

Happiness and Satisfaction are two very important aspects in one's life!

Happiness is the present moment feeling here - mentally engrossed, thoughtless state, joyful state, no mental strain from thoughts and thinking! This need not be due to any productive activity which produces values for others. In this modern information age, there are so much interesting stuff around that one can practically live most of their time in happy and engrossing activities which are not of any value to other people. One good thing about this is you are always distracted from the thoughts and the mental strain that comes associated with it! Examples include playing sports, music, other arts, watching interesting videos, reading interesting stuff, any of the drug addictions etc.

Satisfaction is the worthy/achievement feeling when you look back in your life - involving thoughts, assessing life, contentment, facing truths, processing ideas etc! This will be due to the productive activities and the value produced for others in one's time. It is quite difficult to produce a great value for others in this age of distractions if you don't have any of the following,

1) a very strong self-discipline

2) an important cause or purpose that has great chemistry / passion for you

3) an addictive and productive activity, like the ones noted in the Happiness description above.

Now, the Ideal situation in one's life would be to have one's favourite activity as their main work as well! Examples for such persons include Roger Federer, AR.Rahman, or any other genius worker. This would seem the most effortless among the others. It is easier if the activity has started much earlier in one's life, say as a kid, before one's mind starts losing focus with all the interesting options! But, this can start later in life also with a focused and conscious effort. Now, this is not to discount the self-discipline they would have needed to make their favourite activity productive! One thing here though is that this may not be the value that people need the most. Because one's favorite activity usually does not start with the people's needs, but rather with the ones that is of most interest to them. So, a Federer does not produce as much value to people as a Gandhi does of course!

Now, lets look at the various life balances that are typical of some of the standard categories in human society.

1) Close to 100% Happiness & close to 0% Satisfaction

These are the extreme cases of drug addicts, TV addicts, internet addicts etc. They feel joyful and engrossed most of their time, but would have nothing good to look back in their lives.

2) Close to 0% Happiness & close to 100% Satisfaction

This is the case of Necessity or Great Cause. One works out of grave necessity or for a great cause, and the activity is not enjoyable and does not give any present moment happiness. These are typical of philosophers who live a life full of misery and leave behind a great value to others. Also includes people like Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa etc.

3) About 65% Happiness & about 35% Satisfaction

Typical balance of a modern hedonistic person's life. Having some engrossing hobbies which are not producing any value to others, a few of the common addictions, following a lot of news, being a fan etc.

4) About 25% Happiness & about 75% Satisfaction

Typical balance of a modern "responsible/steady" person's life. Accepting the job and other social responsibilities as a whole package, thrown in with some share of happy moments. A decent life balance that's quite practical and sustainable in these modern times.

5) About 75% Happiness & about 75% Satisfaction !!

Yes, the percentages doesn't add up here and that's why this is the ideal & effortless combination. You are happy and in-the-moment during your main work hours. And also you are creating great value to others directly or indirectly, using some self-discipline. I say "some" self-discipine because though a great amount of self-discipline is still needed, it works in a kind of synergetic way with the actual passion. Its definitely easier than pushing hard without that much passion or chemistry ;)

Loving tennis - My Fun Fitness story!

2010-11-09T09:28:00.008+02:00

83 kgs ( 182.6 lbs ) & 23% Body Fat, Oct 2008 -->

71 kgs ( 156.2 lbs ) & 14% Body Fat, Oct 2009 ( ..and maintaining there till date! )

This is not some kind of how-I-acheived-my-weight-target-goal story. I did not start anything to reduce my weight at all - this is the side benefit when I did what I truly enjoy! This is the change that gets externally noticed in real life by people who had known me, and then the questions & story follow! So, let me start with the same opening here!

I was not looking to reduce my weight back then in Oct '08 and I didnt feel dragged down carrying around that weight or anything! After all, my BMI (the so-called standard!) was in the normal range! Few months prior to this we had a comprehensive health check-up for our group in office, sponsored by my company. There they did various tests and told me that my ideal weight should be 10kgs less! 73kgs they said!! I was bemused by this, and thought that they are some kind of fitness freaks and that these recommendations are not for normal people! Fat percentage was 23% that time, while the normal recommended range for male adults is between 10 and 20% it seems! Okayyy, there is something here - yes, I was not in any kind of regular fitness activity during that time! I could not sustain any motivation for yoga, gym, running or any other similar fitness activity during that time! So, that kind of explains the high fat percentage! But, still in spite of all this I did not feel any special urge to work towards this, as there are always other important things!

One important thing was, I had always been a sports fan and especially tennis had a special chemistry for me since I was a very young boy! But during my childhood and teenage years, in the towns where I grew up in India there were not any decent tennis facilities, and also I did not have that much money or time, being a job-focussed Indian middle class school boy! After joining work in the Bangalore city in 2005, I found the facilities and money to register for a course! It was really awesome to learn the techniques of the game that I have followed for many, many years! One interesting thing that came out of it was that the coach and the other students in the course instantly recognized the vast theoretical knowledge I had about the game. They could see that in my execution style of the techniques - well I had so many images in my mind to just copy! ;) This is where the chemistry helps you to sustain your motivation and puts you in a positive loop!

But then, soon after we moved to Finland, and I found it very challenging to continue playing due to many reasons including lack of partner, high costs, lack of local language etc! But, I always had an eye for it and tried various possible avenues intermittently till I found a partner by chance, who also had great interest in tennis, and was at the same playing level as me! The rest is history :) We have been regularly & consistently playing for the last 2 years now! I am also part of other local clubs now & play some club-level tournaments! I acheived the current fitness levels gradually in the first year after starting and has stayed there since then! The incredible thing about this is I started waking up early for this - and I was not dragging myself out of bed, I was in fact waking up with high energy and great enthusiasm! Waking up very early had always been a difficult thing for me and hence I decided to leverage my tennis interest to manifest this habit :) Of course, nowadays I wake up at 5AM regularly whether I am playing tennis during those days or not! Even during the dark and cold Finnish winters!!

Another important aspect is I feel very light and energetic compared to two years back! As I mentioned in the beginning, I was not feeling specially heavy or anything during those times, but now when I look back from this lighter state I can see what feeling I had been missing during those times! You will know how it feels only when you lose it! Changing all your trousers from 36 hip size to 32 ones is a nice feeling of course :)

So my fun fitness story is this - its very easy to get fit if you take up something for which you have some good chemistry / passion to start with! Any sports, dance etc. This way you get a great head start, but thats not the end of the deal of course. You have to take up classes to learn the proper technique which will sustain your motivation for a long time! You have to look at it as a long-term / life-long investment! And of course, you should join corresponding groups / clubs to sustain it very easily afterwards!

This is not to say that this is a better idea compared to yoga, gym etc. But, if you are like me and lots of other people, without enough self-discipline / motivation to start with, then this is a great way to become unstuck and start moving! Of course, I understand that you have to get fit / strengthen your body to play sports beyond some level, without injuring yourself. Nowadays I am at this level where I have reduced the playing time a bit and am doing some body-strengthening exercises instead to improve my tennis when I play!! So, there is now the tangible connection and motivation for me to do the boring exercises ;)

This is quite similar to do-what-you-love-and-everything-else-will-follow-automatically story... though the stakes in your career are a bit higher! ;)

Good one :)

2009-04-28T09:34:00.005+03:00

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Petition against Genetically Engineered (GE) rice

2009-04-24T10:32:00.001+03:00

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/genetic-engineering/hands-off-our-rice/hands-off-our-rice?homebanner

Another hope in Indian politics !!

2009-04-22T13:41:00.002+03:00

Indian Youth Icon of the year 2008, an entrepreneur, Sarath Babu enters politics :-) He is contesting as an independent candidate in South Chennai !!! Lucky people one would imagine, to get a good candidate to vote for. Hope they go and vote, instead of just wishing good for him. More info in the below link.

http://idlyvadai.blogspot.com/2009/04/2009_15.html

The previous one that I came to know recently is here

Share market humour !

2009-04-14T14:22:00.002+03:00

"Obviously crime pays, or there'd be no crime." - G. Gordon Liddy

1. The US has made a new weapon that destroys people but keeps the building standing,. Its called the stock market - Jay Leno

2. Do you have any idea how cheap stocks are ?? Wall Street is now being called Wal Mart Street - Jay Leno

3. The difference between a pigeon and a London investment banker. The pigeon can still make a deposit on a BMW

4. What's the difference between a guy who lost everything in Las Vegas and an investment banker? A tie!

5. The problem with investment bank balance sheet is that on the left side nothing's right and on the right side nothing's left.

6. I want to warn people from Nigeria who might be watching our show, if you get any emails from Washington asking for money, it's a scam. Don't fall for it - Jay Leno

7. Bush was asked about the credit crunch. He said it was his favourite candy bar - Jay Leno

8. The rescue bill was about 450 pages. President Bush's copy is even thicker. They had to include pictures - Jay Leno

9. President Bush's response was to meet some small business owners in San Antonio last week. The small business owners are General Motors, General Electric and Century 21 - Jay Leno

10. What worries me most about the credit crunch, is that if one of my cheques is returned stamped 'insufficient funds'. I won't know whether that refers to mine or the bank's

Can you relate to this? ;-)

2009-04-14T11:37:00.001+03:00

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

- H.L. Mencken

Great news !!

2009-04-03T14:52:00.008+03:00

Wow, now we have a professional political party focusing on the indifferent middle class population of India. Going though their website, it looks like a really good and promising one. They are building a good platform and support structure for all the aspiring professionals to overcome the fear and ignorance of entering politics. Though the organization has a long way to go, its a great starting point I believe.

I have asked my friend in Pune to attend their 'Open House' meeting, and check it out in reality.

Please go through the website, and if you feel so too, you can spread the word. Also, you can register in their website to show your support, and you will get updates about the happenings as well. And ofcourse, if you are in India, then you can participate and contribute in various ways as listed in the link at the end of this post - like setting up the local town or city chapter in your locality.

Also, they have a 'Funding' link for donations. If you are already donating for some NGOs or other social work organizations, then you can consider donating some or all of that amount here. Because, this will be more effective in the long run - here we fix the root cause for all those problems. This is a top-down approach - rather than sweeping the bottom of the pyramid all the time when the top is still happily producing more shit, we can look to reach for cleaning the top. I am certainly considering redirecting some of my periodic donations to this cause.

Here is the link to the website.

http://www.ppi.net.in/index.aspx?Id=1

How to participate and contribute

http://www.ppi.net.in/htmlsite/AboutUs.aspx?Id=9&SubId=44

Good one !

2009-03-30T12:05:00.000+03:00

"Passion is the mob of the man, that commits a riot upon his reason."

- William Penn

A profound thought !

2009-03-26T11:56:00.003+02:00

"None of the world's problems will have a solution until the world's individuals become thoroughly self-educated."

- Richard Buckminster Fuller

C'mon its just 1 hour !

2009-03-26T11:23:00.001+02:00


Rome's Colosseum is one of many famous buildings around the world where floodlights will be turned off during Earth Hour.

Between 20:30 and 21:30 on the evening of Saturday 28 March the organisers of the Earth Hour 2009 campaign aim to get as many people as possible to turn off their lights as a mark of concern about climate change.

More than 1,000 cities and countless firms, organisations and citizens in more than 80 countries around the world have already promised to turn off their lights between 20:30 and 21:30 local time next Saturday evening. The worldwide Earth Hour 2009 campaign is being co-ordinated by WWF. The campaign has become a truly global phenomenon since its launch in Sydney, Australia in 2007.

“The latest findings show that climate change is progressing even faster than was previously assumed,” said WWF Finland’s CEO Timo Tanninen. “We hope that this year’s massive Earth Hour event will encourage politicians to take the bull by the horns when they meet at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December and create a new global climate agreement leading to significant reductions in emissions.”

Interesting info !

2008-03-31T16:30:00.005+03:00

There is this thing in Google called web history which stores all your search histories and trends. I was just browsing through it and was surprised to note that i have made about some 3000 google searches in the last 6 months. On many days, the number of searches has been more than 40 per day !!!!

I have seperate firefox search engines for wikipedia, youtube, amazon etc. So, this is just the number for google searches alone.

No wonder that I feel like being hooked into the net ;)

Is it really random ?

2008-02-26T17:20:00.007+02:00

Lately, I have become very fond of listening to music in the car. Thanks to Finland's cold climate, the windows are always closed and you dont even hear the engine noise in the new cars, nowadays. Its like sitting in a small music space - full of music, without any knowledge or demarcation of the sources / speakers. Even with the home theatre systems, I have never had this ideal sitting-in-a-space-full-of-music experience. And my car's music system is also very good - so, pretty much I listen to music only in my car nowadays :)

Well, enough background, now let me come to the topic. Yesterday morning, as usual I was starting to office a bit late - a gloomy monday morning and the weather was really lousy. Only motivation going forward is the always-enjoyable music time. Happily inserted one of the mp3 CDs & selected random play, hoping for a real pacy one, among the 150 odd songs, to kick-start my week....gave a good roll to the volume knob in anticipation of a thumpy one....

"AAA-TEQQQQUILA OOO-TEQQQQUILA, HHHHEY SUNDAYYYYYYY !!!!" the song blared out.....

Meenum muyalum !! / Fish & the hare !!

2008-02-23T17:13:00.002+02:00

Sun was shining today and this piece in our showcase had a nice glitter - then I knew what I am gonna do for the next hour - one of the few good shots :-)

Height of false promises !!

2008-02-12T14:15:00.001+02:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: India Service <indiaservice@citicorp.com>
Date: Feb 11, 2008 7:11 PM
Subject: RE:'Citibank=006-852-283' Re: Risk profile creation fails in onlinebanking

Dear Mr.Palaniappan,

This is with reference to your email dated February 06, 2008.

Due to a technical snag you were unable to view your " Risk Profile Online".

We are working on the snag , and confirm that the error will be rectified in the first week of February 2008.

We regret the inconvenience caused in the interim period.

We assure you of our best attention at all times.

Sincerely,

Officer - Customer Care

A great feeling :-)

2007-11-19T13:03:00.001+02:00

Standing alone in a natural setting with no man-made structures in sight is a feast for the soul

I have had this great feeling quite a number of times, but I very much remember the first time when I felt these words most precisely:

... early morning, on a calm day, still cloudy after the previous day's heavy monsoon rain, sitting at the edge of a small island in Sunderbans, no man or man-made structures in sight, overlooking a few small, marshy, forest islands, with lovely waterways all around.

Funny Quote !!

2007-11-13T16:02:00.001+02:00

"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city."

- George Burns

Height of 'online reading' !!

2007-10-15T12:15:00.001+03:00

In the recent past, I think I have been reading almost everything online, to the extent that today I saw the bottom left of a "paper" book that I was reading, to know the current time ;-)

Karuththu !

2007-03-07T14:30:00.001+02:00

What we need is either less corruption, or more chance to participate in it ;)

Buckle up guys, here we go...

2006-12-15T12:11:00.001+02:00

Welcome aboard in the journey to sub-zero temperatures…..goes upto -30 degrees celsius !!!

I just loved this one :)

2006-11-21T14:15:00.000+02:00

Really a moving one... :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4

Related news article !

I have become a star ... !!

2006-11-13T05:43:00.000+02:00

......well, a procrastinator basically ;)

Replying mails has always been a tricky thing for me to do it right away. I would like my reply to be good (lazy guy's reasoning?!!) , so i designate it to a later time when I will reply it properly. So, I always used to use the 'unread' option to make it stand out and remain as a reminder to me. Somehow, I dint like the read mails being marked 'unread' and also to see some mails remaining unread in the inbox!

Well, then I stumbled upon the feature (whatever its meant for) in gmail which simply allowed me to star the mails that I want to reply, rather than marking them unread! There you go...these mails silently go deep into my mailbox without annoyingly standing out!!! And someday when I am quite free, then I go through the starred mails to find that most of them are quite irrelevant to reply now :)

So, I unstar them without guilt :) ....I guess its the ruthless triaging technique, quite softened !!!!!

Talking about combination, huh?

2006-10-26T17:09:00.000+03:00

“Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination.” - Albert Einstein!

Fall is very lovely here !!

2006-10-12T11:06:00.000+03:00

For all the developers...

2006-09-29T12:13:00.001+03:00

A music video by Steve Ballmer (CEO of Microsoft) …. ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zEQhhaJsU4&mode=related&search=

Coool music phones from Nokia !

2006-09-27T12:31:00.001+03:00

Killers for the Sony Ericcson 'Walkman' mobiles in the 200 - 250 euros range…!! Even, iPod killers I would say, as these phones look very beautiful and whitish…!!! these boast high in-built memories as well…

http://www.nokia.com/A4136017?category=5200#

http://www.nokia.com/A4138057?category=5300_xpress

Multi-tasking high in Indian Family 2.0 !!

2006-09-27T10:13:00.000+03:00

This is an article from The Hindu' Epaper appeared on Sep 27, 2006...

http://epaper.thehindu.com/svww_showarticle.php?art=20060927A_026101006

What a Year !!!

2006-09-15T07:24:00.000+03:00

I dreaded, feared, screamed, shouted, shivered, shuddered, roared, vexed, yelled, dazed, and finally made it......yep, yesterday I made it to my 1st wedding anniversary !!!!!

Enuf kidding, seriously it had been a greatttt year.....:-))
so many wonderful things happened..... lots of beautiful experiences.... discovered new emotional horizons....

wow, WWWWhat a Year !!!!!!

Chaiyya Chaiyya - Hollywood version !!

2006-09-08T12:03:00.001+03:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4I477MP5VY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0odiT0eKIuw

'The Hindu' ePaper !!

2006-09-08T10:25:00.000+03:00

The newspaper-i-grew-up-with is starting its digital edition from 10th September….:-))

Chennai, Hyderabad and Delhi editions will be available from the start it seems !! Well, its free as well, for 'now' !!

http://epaper.thehindu.com/

Welcome !

2006-09-06T10:26:00.000+03:00

Hi All,
Welcome to my wonderful world !!
Cheers :-)