Time and again I’m taught lessons in humility from my friends, strangers and history. And each time I’m amazed that why didn’t I think or felt the same way. I’m amazed because I feel the ideas are so alien to the majority of people I know that they are too good to be true. Since I was a kid, when I was told by adults that people are selfish to the present now, where I see numerous backstabbing or schemes of envious co-workers or the cut throat competition in college - I’m convinced the humble man or woman are just a precious few.

I can think of two incidents of humility right out of my mind.

First, when I was in the 2nd year of college, I had contacted a company as a freelancer - and they had agreed to hire me and my friends to work on maths problems which they wanted to build for the IIT JEE (a very popular and arduous engineering exam in India) I was very happy that I will get paid for the work. Till one of my very good friends - Aadarsh Baijal said "I think we can even work for free for these guys, since by working on these problems we get so much better on our own maths." I was so stunned, you might not see it as humility but I was thinking of just about getting the money (when you are in college getting pocket money is very important isn’t it?) - but for the first time in my life I realized that how by doing something for free I could still benefit yourself - an idea very alien to me at that time.

Second, when I was in the 4th year of college, I tried to do some consulting work for IT companies. I was meeting my first potential client and they said - "We have an urgent work for us to be done within 2 days, can you do it for us for Rs. 3000". It was my first client meeting ever, and I was with one of my friends. We were very cocky, had no clue of what market rates were for the job, and greedy for money. We assumed that we should negotiate, and obviously since we are college kids the client was trying to pull one of us by asking us to work for so cheap. Plus we had our heads in the sky since we were from IIT, so we started our bid from Rs. 15,000. The client had a shocked look on the face, and I realized we had done something really wrong. Needless to say, he showed us the door within minutes. Later on, I spoke to one of my mentors and he said -"You should have done the work for free since the person was in desperate need, and later asked him if he could give your reference to other people in the market". I was stunned, for I was again so short-sighted. And again, I felt a small favor can go a long way - and I was foolish not to realize it.

These incidents are from my life. The third incident where I got amazed was when I was reading the obituary of Irena Sendler. The lady helped hundreds of Jews in Poland, and yet she was appalled as being treated as a heroine, and said - "I feel guilty to this day that I didn’t do more". Now this is true humility and selflessness.

I wonder if I will ever be this humble …

No man is an island …

I came across this line while watching “About a boy” - one of the English movies that I relished watching. The quote is attribute to John Donne, a poet from the Renaissance period.
(While reading the imdb.org review of the movie, I came to know that the movie is based on Nick Hornby’s novel by the same name. I have made a mental note to add the book to my reading list)

This quote forced me to think about another quote that I hold close to my heart, and which has oft made me think so deep that it hurts - “Know thy self” (wikipedia entry)

Why the former makes me think of the latter is because the duo suggest that I cannot know myself without knowing those that effect my life, my self, my soul. But isn’t it confusing that to know yourself you have to know others? I think we are all guilty of having a lazy attitude (if not a blind-eye) to our own fallacies of character. And thus, I do look for some assessment of myself from those I know. But then again, one cannot/should not take every advice they get - you have to take it with a pinch of salt. And this is where I like to say - “Know thy friends”.

But the more important point I want us to focus on is to “Know thy self”. This one quote is about :

• self-knowledge,
• self-assessment and,
• most importantly - self-love.

Self-knowledge
It about knowing my strengths, my weaknesses, how do I react in different situations? , how do I behave with different people? ,why do I do what I do? ,what do I like/dislike? , who do I like/dislike? What are my goals in life?

These are the questions that I feel hold the key to what I am and what I want to be.

Self-assessment
This is about measuring how close I am to what I want to achieve in my life. (From the little experience in life I have, I realize that to get the max out of my life I need to keep some of those short term, medium term and long term goals). I have to assess my self continously and keep checking whether I am on the right track or not.

Self-love
For any person to have a pleasing/confident personality I think this is the most important thing one should do. Unfortunately, I really don’t know much about this thing myself - at least at current, but I keep reading stuff about it.

Know thy self - I better get started.

Its 11.30 pm, and raining heavily outside. The rains this season have possessed a personality, I had never seen : pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter … a teasing drizzle or an angry cats and dogs show. I sit in my room with the windows and doors open, the cool breeze that is rain’s companion meets me here, for our privacy I have drawn the blinds and switched off the lights. Its just me and the rain here. (Yeah I know I’m not getting drench … but then try observing how the rain talks to you when you dont get wet.) Rain reminds me of the happy moments of my life, she talks to you in her melodious voice … pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter.

I’ve been lately beset by interleaved bouts of melancholy and glee. It keeps puzzling me that my mood has become so fickle on a regular basis. I guess I’ve overdone my act of keeping myself busy, so much so that the mind rejects what the heart wants to do. No doubt, I have the disquiet in my mind that I need silence, lest it lead way to anguish.

I really liked the idea of “pensieves”, of which JK Rowling talks about in her books of Harry Potter - an apparatus to separate out and study your thoughts as if in a microscope. It might not be fun, but I think it would help me uncover my own nature and mindset. To observe your thoughts as organisms which lend their influence on my pysche - a stepstone to a logical and rational life with unwarranted worries?

Since I don’t have these fantastic pensieves at my disposal, I guess I have to do with this digital one-dimensional text. Of late I have been doing a lot of strange things, such that I sometimes feel are not of my own will or those that I do for want of seeking solace in the unexplored paths of life.

1. I shall be teaching classes at a MBA coaching institute beginning this weekend.
2. Will be involved the NGO interaction committee of my company.
3. I keep planning to finish a book a week, and have a backlog of around 4-5 weeks!
4. Have to finish of my own office work too, lest my manager think less of me.
5. Some personal growth - what about the languages I have to learn? (I flunked the Japanese test, need to retake it this Nov. And, I might take up French classes starting this month)
6. I keep missing my home and family too much. (I guess I had enough of Bangalore)
7. Have to send my apps to the schools, the deadlines keep looming as they come closer, and I start to procastinate - a habit I dislike in others and abhor in myself, but sooner or later it catches hold of me.
8. What of the algorithms, that I had planned to practice?

This is what afflicts me, my mind, my thoughts. I hope I have written everything of it down. A doctor could say this is my diagnosis. But what is the cure?

Oh wait, there is something else too, that is not in the list. Something that is missing, something that I don’t know myself. I’m not able to exactly put a finger to it. But it is there nagging my mind, poking at me. What is it? I can’t say.

The cure ? - hmm… maybe it is to just lead my life and take everything in my stride.

Maybe.

“Blue. “, said the Man.

“Blue?”, I asked.

“Yes, Blue - it is the color of life. The color you should use to paint ‘life’ on your canvas.”

“But, why Blue? I always thought life has so many colors in it, isn’t life a painting? Everybody, has different colors in their life.”

“What do you mean different colors? Life is not a painting, it is Blue. Everybody’s life is blue.”

“But, my life is different from yours. I have different experiences, different hopes, my happiness and sadness are different from yours. Surely you are mistaken.”

“Hopes, happiness, sadness - each have their own colors. I’ll tell you colors for each of them - hope is green, happiness is yellow, and sadness is …”

“What about sadness?”

“Sadness is colorless.”

“Colorless? I don’t understand.”

Man sighs.

“I’ll explain. But don’t interrupt me.”

“Ok”

“Life, hope, happiness, sadness - these are colors. There is another color too - luck.”

“But, luck ! it …”

“Listen! Don’t interrupt!

Luck is a color too, but it is difficult to describe it. It is a shade of orange, the one that the sky is when sun sets in the ocean at twilight. Have you ever wondered which color your dreams are? Or which color can you see more often when you feel angry? Or why the candle seems so bright, when you are calm?

It is because you can see these colors with your own eyes - blue, hope, happiness, luck - when you are happy, calm, lucky. When you are sad, you don’t see anything because sadness has no color.”

“All this is not making any sense at all! My eyes don’t see these things.”

“They do, but nobody has told you about them, so you never knew to what to look out for? You have to look carefully, and with practice you will be able to see them. Look at your friends when they are happy, look at their edges, you will see happiness. When they are angry, you will not be able to see any color. Have you never noticed, that when your friends are happy they look bright? And when they look angry they appear to be dark? The reason is because happiness colors them in brightness of yellow, and when they are angry sadness colors them but because it is colorless it consumes the shine of other colors.”

“I don’t think I understand too much, but I’ll keep an eye out for detail. I guess I should get back to my painting then.”

“I hope you figure out why each color is why what it is. Best of luck!”

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are loosing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with the crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

–Rudyard Kipling

This is one of my favourite pieces from ADIDAS - Impossible ad campaigns:

Impossible is just a BIG word, thrown around by
small men who find it easier to live in a world they’ve been
given than to explore the power they have to change it.
Impossible is not a FACT. It’s an OPINION.
Impossible is not a declaration.
Impossible is a dare.
Impossible is potential.
Impossible is temporary.

Impossible is nothing.