Reaching There

The book of April has spilled over to May. I have been a bit lazy and busy at the same time. I wonder I am lazy because I'm busy or busy because I'm lazy! I haven't figured that out yet. The month of April started with a plan to finish a long overdue book - The Long Tail by Chris Anderson . It's an interesting and enticing concept - the long tail. Apparently you can find a long tail of almost everything; whether it's iTunes, Rhapsody or Google.  Although the book concentrates on the business side of this concept, I had a rather quirky insight when I read in one of the chapters that most of the writers (include self-publishers on Kindle, bloggers, personal websites etc) are there for the passion of writing. I can imagine you shaking your head in dismay and probably shouting "show me the money!". I would personally prefer "where's my compensation?" from Jason Bateman's character in State of Play. Either way everyone of us ha...

The  ego  gropes in darkness, while the Self lives in  light   Sometime back I wrote a post about my writer's block . I just couldn't create a new piece of writing. Although there were thousands of thoughts jumping inside my mind but I was unable to latch onto one. This inability leads to frustration which made the process even more difficult. Anybody would tell this period of inactivity is unavoidable. And my mind has been under the influence of this atrocity for over a month now. The coupling of helplessness and uncertainty leads to stagnation of not only intellectual growth but the emotions took a beating as well. In a writer's life these periods are as common & unpredictable as the seasons in a year! The last post was about the symptoms and after effects of this disease. In this post I would walk through the cure for this. I must admit the inspiration behind this post came from my father. On reading my previous post he said something that st...

Elliott Smith was probably one of the songwriter/singer who was bestowed with divine gift of music. He is popular among the masses for his Academy Award nominated song " Miss Misery " which is part of the soundtrack for the movie " Good Will Hunting ". Although he died young but his music has endured the waves of time. This post is inspired by his interview posted on youtube . In the interview he is asked general questions about his music and song writing tips for budding musicians. Although his answers sound rather simple but they do carry a certain hidden weight within them.  The first question is about his method to write & compose music for a song. He simply states that there isn't any methodical approach he uses. In his own words " It's just the divine force, and if you don't block it up it'll come out and surprise you ". So does it mean we all have the ability to surprise ourselves if we just allow ourselves to be free? The...

Source of Inspirations for this blog post. -Peter Bregman's article on Harvard Business Review -Dead Poet's Society -Mark Ruffalo If we look back at our life so far we would always pull up a list of things we should have done. This list of should haves' and could haves' has always bothered us. But do we have to carry this burden continuously? The answer is of course, yes! This is burden is ours' and ours' alone. Whew! That's a lot!    This brings me to my next inspiration. It is a movie called Dead Poet's Society. In it Mr. Keatings (played by Robin Williams) talks about getting a chance to write a verse of our own in the book of universe. As Pushkar Bajpai I am being given a chance to write something new every day. Although some of it may have already been written by others or others' words have inspired me. But every word I write down I am aspiring myself to elevate to the next level. This aspiration inspires me and fills within me an ener...

Am I growing? If I am, what is the parameter of my growth? Is it the right parameter to measure my growth? These are the questions that bugs me often these days. I try to ignore these questions. But they keep stirring in my mind as small storms which don't cause much disruption but gives a feeling of restlessness. I had a meeting  with HR department a couple of days back. The objective was to listen to employees' concerns on various matters. In a room full of twenty employees the majority of questions were about finances, promotions and hikes. All relevant questions but it left me a bit dumbfounded. Is this all to it, are we living the life with a sole aim of planning the finances? Is this the only way we measure ourselves, with the money we take home at the end of each month? So as long as my paycheck increases every year I am growing? I hope it is not the parameter of my personal success. I hope I can find and experience something beyond the bills in my hand. So what is a b...

The life is a series of lessons we begin to learn from the day our consciousness rises above our own self-existence. It was a giant leap in astronomy when Nicolaus Copernicus came up with a mathematical model which proved that Sun, not Earth, is the center of the universe. Similarly when we realize the significance of nouns (person, place, animal, thing or abstract idea) which are around us, we develop a better understanding of our surroundings. We realize the value or the reason why things are as they are, around us. As the ego melts away we become more receptive to all the positive energy coming in from various sources. Even the minutest form of positive energy can give us a big boost in understanding ourselves. There have been various examples in history of a seemingly weak ideas (energy) resulting in some of the most powerful movements. Mahatma Gandhi was the outcome of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi thrown off a train at Pietermaritzberg in South Africa. Perhaps a legend, but Sir Issa...

Why is red red? What is an amphibian? What is a right angled triangle? What is a galaxy? What is efficiency? Who was Deming? Who is God? What is spiritualism? Who are we? These are some of the plethora of questions that arise in our minds during our lifetime as we grow from an infant to an adult. Sometimes we struggle a lot before we arrive at an answer. And arriving at an answers through research and struggle brings us joy and increases our wonder.  Well, I am not going to answer any of the above said questions. However the question I am worried about is "Why do we stop asking such innocent questions as we grow up"? Particularly the last three questions which play an important role in our lives. The last three questions came in our mind a lot of times but we never delved into researching and finding answers. The inquisitiveness and sense of bemusement vanished as our age increased by a one every year on our birthday. Although the concept of learning organization is...

Actors talk about their performances as the best when they were in the moment. Meryl Streep in one of her interviews says she likes to research a lot about the role and when going to act she tries to forget all about it. In this way she is letting her instincts guide her through the process. These instincts were developed partly from the research she did and partly from her own previous experiences. Similarly for us learning about ourselves plays an important role in living our life. Unconsciously we gather a lot of information about us during our daily life. We learn about our tastes, likes, dislikes, allergies, passions, weaknesses etc. But when somebody questions us to list our strengths and weaknesses we draw a blank! Why is that? We believed we knew what we are. But we struggle to describe ourself, our passions, our goals etc. Jagadguru Kripaluji Maharaj in His discourses talks about the real "me". In ancient Hindu scriptures the real "me" is the soul while bo...

Hi, this is my first post for the year 2010. Happy new year wishes to all of you! As the year end approaches we all make new year resolutions. We decide to get rid of our vices in the new year. We all wish something good will happen to us in the new year. We believe we'll be better off than we currently are. But unfortunately new year is a moment when the date changes to a different year of the millennium. Sounds pretty depressing? For the new year I wish to share something with you. I got a chance to talk with my friend last year. We talked about our college days and how innocent we were about the realities at that time. We shared how our dreams have changed or have taken a backseat. Of course we are more mature than we were years ago. But have we lost the ability to dream? We have become so accustomed to living in the present that we are missing out on whole lot of dreams of the future. Leaders/visionaries always talk about the bigger picture and how we should always look for i...

I have always wondered what makes people successful in their lives. Although most of us relate success with only our professional lives. But our lives are a mixture of personal and professional achievements as well as failures. Both of these aspects are so interrelated that it is impossible to prioritize one over the other. There is always a need to see and continuously evaluate an holistic views of our lives.  All around us are people that we admire for their success. The success is not limited to monetary amounts but includes all possible roles we play during our lifetime. Success is about being a caring parent, an eager student, a loving son, a doting husband, a courteous clerk, a helpful manager, a great dancer, a passionate artist, a hard worker or just about anything we do in our lives. In all of these roles there a few similarities that stand out among other that all these "successful" people share. So what do all of the successful people share among themselves?...

Inside an Actors Studio: Steven Speilberg I recently watched Steven Speilberg's interview on James Lipton's Inside the Actors Studio (on youtube!). One of the biggest piece of adivce was his answer to how he direct child actors in his movies. There are quite a few movies in which his story was told from a point of view of a child (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Empire of the Sun). He answered "I don't treat them like children I treat them like my peers". He further added that the moment he begins treating them like children he would become the overbearing adult. This gave me an indirect lesson on how manager or a team leader should treat his team members. He should treat them like individuals who have their own individuality, personality, aspirations and emotions. He should respect their existence in the team and listen to their opinion with a "porous" mind. The reason I used "porous" mind because such a listener gives the oppor...

God has blessed us with an remarkable instrument which is responsible for our actions. Mind is described as the seat of the faculty of reason. Jagadguru Kripaluji Maharaj says "Mind alone is the cause of both bondage and liberation". Kripaluji Maharaj further says "It is the inherent nature of the mind that it cannot remain still even for a fraction of a second/ And the consequence of our devotion depends on the attachment of mind/ It's our mind that has to devotion not our physical senses". Even Albert Einstein said "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift". This leads me to my question "Why is mind considered so important?" Before we even try to understand the importance of mind we have to define it in simple words. An uncomplicated definition can take us farthest in our quest. Mind is comprised of intellect, memory, im...

This would be my theme picture for my blog header. It is about a man standing next to a door, looking into the vastness of nature in front of him. The question is what is he thinking? Or is he waiting for something? Or he is just simply enjoying the stillness of beauty in front of him? These and other questions alike keep us haunting in our minds continuously. The mind is like a fly inside a jar it is continuously buzzing around probably unable to understand what is it should do. So it is time we slowdown and relax a bit. Try and watch the beauty and marvel of simple things around us. Then perhaps when we are able to enjoy small thing we may enjoy bigger thing even better. Take a deep breath and for a moment try and feel the happiness inside your mind.

This post is inspired by a movie called " Dead Poet's Society ". In it Robin Williams inspires his students to bring more randomness in their lives and he tries this through poetry. All of us sometimes feel this urge to break out of the shell that seems to have blanketed us and made us apathetic to the beauty & wisdom of the world around us. But how do we get rid of this blanket and cry out loud to the heavens to shower us with this mysterious rain of emotions and discovery? The feeling does not lie in feeling the felt, reading the read, seeing the seen but going out of our limits that we have created for ourselves. We have to bring forth the little Einstein or little Whitman or little Lincoln or little Premchand or little Presley inside of us and let it flow free for at least some time during the course of our mostly mundane lives. Only then can we truly enjoy what we're doing and create/achieve something new in our lives. The more frequently we make these small ...