i-TFTD #103: Women's Day Special

March 8 was Women's Day. Some of my favourite quotes by women:

#103-1. Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

#103-2. Knowing what you can not do is more important than knowing what you can do.
-Lucille Ball

#103-3. Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy.
-Cythina Nelms

#103-4. The next thing to being clever is being able to quote someone who is.
-Mary Pettibone Poole

#103-5. You can look at a person's attitude and know what kind of thinking is prevalent in his life... It's better to be positive and wrong than negative and right!
-Joyce Meyer

#103-6. Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.
-Marie Curie

#103-7. We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up.
-Phyllis Diller

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The 3rd, 5th and 6th are profound. We can apply the last one at the organization, too. We send our juniors to assertiveness training and creativity workshops, but by the time they are seniors, how come they learn not to speak up or think innovatively? The price of maturity? Could I retain an external image of maturity and still be enthusiastic and unconventional? Russell has some good advice on this that has been helpful for me.

RG

i-TFTD #47

#47-1. Not to do what you feel like doing is Freedom.
-Swami Chinmayananda

#47-2. We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.
-Herman Melville

#47-3. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
-Og Mandino

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I normally avoid clubbing quotes on the same subject but the above three just happened to be related. What I like about them is they provoke thoughts in a logical sequence. My initial reaction to the first statement was, "How can that be?" The second quote hints at the answer by talking of interdependence. The third one pithily points out the benefit of a serving attitude. When I then re-read the first quote, it seemed to make more sense.

A couple of follow-up thoughts on i-TFTD #41: Two Lives and Resistance. My experience is that it is very liberating once we take some action on a long-pending desired action. And it becomes easy after the first few steps. So start on one of them. At the same time, it is better to revisit and evaluate such longings to see if we need to let go of them based on current reality. After all, if I have not worked on something for years, maybe it is not really important or aligning with my true priorities. Removing such vague clutter from the list of long-term To Dos frees up my mind to focus more energy on the remaining ones.

i-TFTD #42: Avoid the 99 Club

Once upon a time, there lived a King who, despite his luxurious lifestyle, was neither happy nor content. One day, the King came upon a servant who was singing happily while he worked.

This fascinated the King; why was he, the Supreme Ruler of the Land, unhappy and gloomy, while a lowly servant had so much. The King asked the servant, "Why are you so happy?"

The man replied, "Your Majesty, I am nothing but a servant, but my family and I don't need too much -- just a roof over our heads and warm food to fill our tummies."

The king was not satisfied with that reply. Later in the day, he sought the advice of his most trusted advisor. After hearing the King's woes and the servant's story, the advisor said, "Your Majesty, I believe that the servant has not been made part of The 99 Club."

"The 99 Club? And what exactly is that?" the King inquired. The advisor replied, "Your Majesty, to truly know what The 99 Club is, place 99 Gold coins in a bag and leave it at this servant's doorstep." When the servant saw the bag, he took it into his house. When he opened the bag, he let out a great shout of joy... so many gold coins!

He began to count them. After several counts, he was at last convinced that there were 99 coins. He wondered, "What could've happened to that last gold coin? Surely, no one would leave 99 coins!" He looked everywhere he could, but that final coin was elusive. Finally, exhausted, he decided that he was going to have to work harder than ever to earn that gold coin and complete his collection.

From that day, the servant's life was changed. He was overworked, horribly grumpy, and castigated his family for not helping him make that 100th gold coin. He stopped singing while he worked. Witnessing this drastic transformation, the King was puzzled. When he sought his advisor's help, the advisor said, "Your Majesty, the servant has now officially joined The 99 Club."

He continued, "The 99 Club is a name given to those people who have enough to be happy but are never contented, because they're always yearning and striving for that extra 1 telling to themselves: "Let me get that one final thing and then I will be happy for life." We can be happy, even with very little in our lives, but the minute we're given something bigger and better, we want even more! We lose our sleep, our happiness, we hurt the people around us; all these as a price for our growing needs and desires."

That's what joining "The 99 Club" is all about!

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The idea is not to stop aspiring or working to achieve something but the way we proceed towards it. I decide to go on a long drive to Lonavla, a hill station near Mumbai accessible through a comfortable expressway, but throughout the way if I complain about the traffic, worry about the rising prices and generally feel miserable, the original higher objective -- enjoying time out in scenic surroundings -- is lost.

i-TFTD #39

#39-1. The only difference between where you are right now and where you'll be five years from now are the people you meet and the books you read.

-Charlie Jones

#39-2. Don't put the key to your happiness in someone else's pocket.
-Swami Chinmayananda

#39-3. Make mistakes faster than the competition, so you have more chances to learn and win.
-John W. Holt Jr.

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Some say they have no time to read, or that books cannot teach; some are too busy to consciously try and meet new people. Not doing both of these makes us miss so many opportunities to learn interesting and useful aspects about life. And obviously impacts our career.

The second is something we need to remind ourselves constantly. We often blame external entities or circumstances for our career, our mood, our happiness. Maybe because it is easy and lessens our guilt.

Dynamic people and organizations try many things boldly, knowing that some would fail but at least some would succeed. They progress faster than those who ponder and analyze too much in trying to avoid failure.