Friday, February 28, 2014

When we stop appreciating certain qualities

What is happening in the world is, certain people are given priority, importance than others.
Certain jobs are more valued than others.
Certain qualities are more appreciated than others - let's say beauty, intelligence,

In today's world women are feeling the heat at corporates. More women are moving out of their jobs - citing excuses like lack of work-life balance and the need to parent their kids. I think 80% of this maybe false. What they're running away from, is probably being unappreciated for who they are.
For their sensitivity, for being honest, for their empathy, for the extra time they take to do a lot of research, for their lack of aggression or even for being contented where they are. Since no one appreciates these beautiful qualities, we don't feel proud to own them. We want to be like the men. We think we're inferior. We think we can never catch up. So, we quit. This is a long cycle which happens when the society refuses to acknowledge goodness and virtues and only looks at profitability and top line and bottom line. Many people will move out of these qualities and acquire more "business" like qualities so that they can survive and stay afloat.

It's a man's world out there. They set the rules. Every society (by society I mean a group of people - at families or work or outside) likes conformists. You have a bachelor who stays till 11 PM and that sets a certain tone for the workplace. You may end up feeling guilty for leaving the office at 10 PM! You may start feeling you're unproductive! With work times ever increasing, the amount of tasks ever increasing, the number of meetings you attend ever increasing - how do some people do it?
Honest answer - no. They don't. We women think men are smarter and technically better and can do a lot in a day. Yes, there is some truth to it - they're biologically blessed to handle such workplaces but they're not always honest. Many men, I have realized of late, come unprepared for meetings. They refuse to accept their mistakes and slip ups while women start crying the moment we make mistakes. No one even has to notice, we're giving ourselves away.

Men use their aggression and logical analysis to help them get through meetings they are thoroughly unprepared for, whereas we, who have done 20% but lack that aggression and logical analysis (to some extent) stay quiet. We're afraid to ask questions. We're afraid to make others feel bad. We're afraid of losing our reputation. We're afraid to challenge people. We ASSUME that everyone is superior or brilliant. We don't understand that it's a game they play and they do it so well that you don't realize it. All the while you chide yourself for not having done your homework. Where is the time to do the homework?

Again, we're sensitive. We take things to heart. But that is also what makes the world better. If the women stopped caring for men, the world would come collapsing. So, it's not right to be ashamed of one's sensitivity. We care about people. People matter to us. So we're sensitive. Men care abt name and money. They are sensitive to these things! You're sensitive to what you observe the most and what matters the most to you. So, let's accept our sensitivity while we correct any annoying side effects that it brings.

Another thing is - if we didn't do full justice to a job, we honestly tell it to our boss. Have you ever seen a guy do that? End of matter. Every one has good/ bad days. Productive/ unproductive days.
You don't have to feel bad for that.

I have realized that with the right amount of confidence, clarity and research coupled with a little aggression and "I know you're all bullshitting" attitude.. - all of which can be taught, we can bring more confident and successful women to the corporate world!

P.S: A week after this was written I heard this from Gretchen.
http://www.gretchenrubin.com/happiness_project/2014/03/story-i-love-to-see-virtue-rewarded/

How similar are we thinking!

Steve Jobs on the use of technology in education

Lovely take on money

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/13/how-to-worry-less-about-money/

The theme of money is so deep and pervasive in our lives. One’s relationship with money is lifelong, it colors one’s sense of identity, it shapes one’s attitude to other people, it connects and splits generations; money is the arena in which greed and generosity are played out, in which wisdom is exercised and folly committed. Freedom, desire, power, status, work, possession: these huge ideas that rule life are enacted, almost always, in and around money.

Four main questions :
why money is important to us,
how much money we need to achieve what’s important to us,
what the best way to acquire that money is,
and what our economic responsibilities to others are in the course of acquiring and using that money.

Our worries — when it comes to money — are about psychology as much as economics, the soul as much as the bank balance.

One thing that’s characteristic of a good relationship is this: you get more accurate at assigning responsibility. When things go wrong you can see how much is your fault and how much is the fault of the other person. 

What money brings is a certain level of spending power.

What you bring to this relationship includes imagination, values, emotions, attitudes, ambitious, fears, and memories. So the relationship is absolutely not just a matter of pure economic facts of how much you get and how much you spend.

Needs vs Wants:
“Do I need this”? is a way of asking: how important is this thing, how central is it to my becoming a good version of myself; what is it actually for in my life? This interrogation is designed to distinguish needs from mere wants. And that’s a good distinction to make.
But it is important to see that this is not the same as the “modest versus grand” distinction. Our needs are not always for the smaller, lesser, cheaper thing. The ultimate purpose of purchases, he argues, is to help us flourish.

The crucial developmental step in the economic lives of individuals and societies is their ability to cross from the pursuit of middle-order goods to higher-order goods. Sometimes we need to lessen our attachment to the middle needs like status and glamor in order to concentrate on higher things. This doesn’t take more money; it takes more independence of mind.

What we do with our lives is obviously central to who we are. What we expend our mental energy on, what we put our emotional resources into, where we deploy courage or daring or prudence or commitment: these are major parts of existence and are inevitably much connected with work and earning money. And we need these parts of existence in order to find proper application in activities that deserve our best efforts. We don’t’ want to reserve our central capacities for the margins and weekends of life.

Intrinsic worth isn not just what is good for me, but what is actually good, this is a public service as well. It’s not greedy to want to make quite a lot of money — if you want to make it as a reward for doing things that are genuinely good for other people.

Desire aims at pleasure. Whereas the achievement of a good life depends upon the good we create. And the opportunity to follow whatever desire one might happen to have is the enemy of the effort, concentration, devotion, patience and self-sacrifice that are necessary if we are to achieve worthwhile ends.





That's life

That's life..

Last night I had the strangest dream. I was in a laboratory with Dr. Boas and he was talking to me and a group of other people about religion, insisting that life must have a meaning, that man couldn’t live without that. Then he made a mass of jelly-like stuff of the most beautiful blue I had ever seen — and he seemed to be asking us all what to do with it. I remember thinking it was very beautiful but wondering helplessly what it was for. People came and went making absurd suggestions. Somehow Dr. Boas tried to carry them out — but always the people went away angry, or disappointed — and finally after we’d been up all night they had all disappeared and there were just the two of us. He looked at me and said, appealingly “Touch it.” I took some of the astonishingly blue beauty in my hand, and felt with a great thrill that it was living matter. I said “Why it’s life — and that’s enough” — and he looked so pleased that I had found the answer — and said yes “It’s life and that is wonder enough.”

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Amazing woman Anais Nin

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/02/21/anais-nin-love-life-diaries-illustrated/

Predictive analysis through my new lens

Read
http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/26/workday-acquires-hr-predicitive-analytics-company-identified/
and
http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/01/senior-facebook-netflix-scientist-joins-identified-to-help-it-fix-professional-search-take-on-linkedin/.

and
the foll text sent by Addi.
http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=22&chid=68517&w=&s=Text

Musings...
Life is full of surprises. If it hasn't been for you, you better wake up.

Predictive analytics human resources software...wah fancy long term.

The data architecture at XXX company enables machines to more quickly draw inferences about YOU AND ME based on context, natural language and a host of other signals.

So, essentially while I go figure out what the heck this LIFE thing is, which I am so unable to predict, a machine can quite accurately predict me and my choices.
So much for Darwin's theory of evolution. If I am so predictable am I evolving?

So can we say "the society works doubly hard to create perfectly predictable creatures while everything around tries to keep it as a bag full of surprise"?.

If I cannot figure out life but a machine that I created can figure out me, who's smarter? How is it possible that I can create a burger that is liked and eaten by billions of people? Are we that SIMILAR? If things are this predictable....We're not questioning...We're conforming - out of fear, out of conditioning....out of fear of losing name, fame, money...That doesn't make me feel intelligent or proud... Why on earth should my phone be smart? I should be smarter than it right? Instead of making machines smarter, I'm all for making people smarter...less in conflict with themselves...or the society..and in general happier. Sigh....

There is this Cafe Bistro Claytopia here. There some children had made 100 odd butterflies. Each one was sooo unique reflecting the child's uniqueness... Was wondering, how come we all end up liking the same McD burger? Prasoon Joshi was telling, when there was no cartoons, when you tell children a chudail ka story, everyone would imagine a different chudail! One would imagine a chudail which is very tall.. one would imagine a chudail which is one eyed.. one would imagine a ghostly chudail and so on.. We created fertile imaginary grounds in the children....to creatively explore things.. But now, with Doremon and Tom and Jerry playing always, all of them get beaten up to think of only 1 type of chudail.. 

Wednesday, February 26, 2014