Beyond Horizons...

11  March 2020, Who declared Covid-19 as pandemic, and the world we know changed it. It changed for never to return it to normal we knew before. Yes, everything will be normal, but new normal. Nine months into a pandemic apart from Corona, whole of the world is now struggling with constant anxiety and sleepless nights . It happened to me as well. Two months before no matter how tired I was physically, I couldn't sleep. Mind just kept wandering, irrational fears kept surfacing...All this while I was getting proper exercise, right food and meditation. It was frustrating. Switching on TV and mobile was so tempting. I avoided it. After some time sleep schedule got back to normal.  To all my friends, who are still struggling to get their sleep schedule in order, my only suggestion is NOT to give in for screens. Sometimes even after doing all things right, results may not be as you desire. That does not mean you stop doing right things. Enough sleep, Quality Sleep, is more important for

Relationships last when two people strive together , to become better . Relationship last when two people stand with each other, for each other in good times and bad. Love is not enough, you also need Respect .  Respect for each other Respect for each others choices,  Respect for each others beliefs,  Respect for each others friends & family,  Respect for each others strengths & weaknesses,  Respect for each others likes & dislikes,  Respect for each others dreams,  Respect for each others differences,  Respect for each others space Respect for each other I am glad, I am fortunate & forever blessed to have found love and respect in my life partner.  Celebrating 10 years wedding anniversary, it has been a journey of endless joy and happiness.  To Manju, forever star of my life story. Thank you for being you. Thank you for making it all so effortless.  

Have you ever seen, met person who is pursuing MBA or recently finished one? Evident characteristic of most MBAs is confidence. They are beaming with it and ready to take over a corporate job which is meticulously designed 'NOT to FAIL' Before anyone who has done MBA, decides to get offended. Let me share, I am holder of the degree. I am glad I pursued it and enjoyed good outcomes.  Yes, I believe corporate jobs are safety net for assured success rather protect you from failure. Even most risky moves, projects taken by companies guarantee 'non-failure'. Some projects, moves, products may not succeed but it does not lead these companies to fail. Confident MBAs at all levels in these companies ensure non failure. Leaders all around the world move with confidence. What they lack and never taught about is using guts.  Guts is taking a chance to be proven wrong. To fail willingly.  At no school guts is discussed. Value of failure, taking a risk when there is no guaranteed ou

When I say Indians I mean people from a country in Asia. Saying Thank you and meaning it, is something I have seen evident in western world. I have met many people who have said Thank You on different occasions. It is so heart warming. It is different. It is different from what I am used to hear back home.  Being two years in US, kid has picked up many things best I say from this culture too. She is a polite kid. She says thank you to me if she loves some dish I prepare or read a book to her. It was shocking when I first heard. I am used to now, both hearing it and saying it a lot. If my mom hears me saying thank you for a meal, she would kick me out(off course after finishing the meal) and lecture me to no end about my saying so.  Saying Thank you in India is almost frowned upon. It is a part of culture. Here are few reasons Indians don't say Thank you, It is no big deal. Like no biggie. I got you some groceries, helped your kid study or help you raise a kid, gave you a ride, or g

I am one restless millennial. 2020 has something to do with it, but mostly its me.  It mostly comes from million things I want to do in next one hour. Other times it is because of some irrational fear that my mind creates which makes me anxious. I will not say I have got it under control fully because it is not possible to do away with fears and ambitions. I am doing better. I have found system that works for me.  Writing Writing has helped me throughout. When you write, you get clarity. Whenever I feel I am anxious, I write down thoughts that led me there. It might be actions I am planning or imaginary situation I am dwelling upon. Once I write it down, I close the book. I revisit that after hours/days when I am calm. If it is a goal/action, I question whether it is relevant, important, needs my attention, when etc. details help mellow down the severity of action. If it is fear, whether its probable, chances of its happening and more importantly what's it in my control to do about

98% of people feel stuck, not because they are out of solutions, but because they don't have clarity.  It is true with every situation, every question with everyone around the world. While reading about it, asking about it definitely helps. Most straightforward and simple way of figuring out is actually doing it. I am not suggesting that everything that needs to be figured out has to be figured out by doing it 100%. Though starting to do it consistently brings clarity required to take further action. For example in 2018, I decided that I will learn to write and to draw. I started both the activities almost at the same time. After pursuing drawing with water colors for 10 days, I found out. I like drawing but not so much as to pursue it as hobby. Yet. On the other hand I really liked writing. I started doing it more, what, where and how etc.  And here we are. 20th article of this month on personal blog and More than 25 articles on Thrivearc.   Just start doing it, you don't have

Challenges are ways to change.  They say people take 21 days to create new habit. Once you do something repeatedly over 21 days it tends to stick if you wanted to.  People generally take goals of weight loss of 10 KG, Writing a book, making a billion, starting a business etc. All seems overwhelming. They are if you wanted them to be. Good thing is they seem overwhelming to EVERYONE, even to people who do it often, who've have it before. If they have done it, you will be doing it too.  How they do it? Dream Big. Act Small.  Keep your dreams big, goals as they are. Though try actions which are small, doable and repeatable. Losing 10 Kg over 6 month time seems large, but exercise 30 minutes a day is a small change. Small change repeated everyday is going to lead to big change of losing weight.  I have found 30 Day challenge is another way of introducing small changes in your life. I don't use added sugar. This has been a practice over 7 years. It started with husband and me taking

All my academic learning was continuous till MBA. After 10 years or so into corporate career, I started to have those feelings whether now is the time I should go for another education cycle with PhD.  PhD is pretty intense degree, needs all your attention. Gives you an opportunity for deep learning. You get to be known as expert in the field(well most do).  However it turned out that all these were the same reasons I didn't wanted to pursue it.  Deep learning of one subject, one topic. Research get approved by defending it, that means one's ability to know and convenience about all that they know about their research topic. While deep learning is fulfilling, making that alone as your focus  of your professional life(for rest of the life) needs a rigor, one of a kind. I didn't think I have that I could sustain that kind of rigor on one subject. Being expert is full time responsibility for all these doctors for rest of their lives. Considering pace of change that happens aro

I come across so many people who complain that it is too late for them to start. It always puzzles me who gives these people deadline of sorts? Who shares it perfectly scheduled events? If there are any I would like to meet them. I know I will not meet them. Because they don't exist. 'Late' is fictitious timeline we impose on ourselves.  It is never too late to start reading. Its ok if you haven't got time till now. Pick anything you like, comics, fiction, travelogue, mysteries, psychology, money management, cooking.  It is never too late to start exercising. Even if it is for 5 minutes. Anytime of the day. Any exercise of your choice. Walk, run, crunches, push-ups, pull ups.  It is never too late to start eating healthy. Start stocking up fruits, nuts, healthy snacks.  It is never too late to catch up with people you care about. Call them, ask them how are they doing? what excites them? what makes them sad?  It is never too late to start learning new skill, hobby. Joy

I recently finished reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. Its a fantastic read. Yuval has done a mammoth task of summarizing 70,000 years of history in 400 pages. While reading a book(or even by living in this era) you realize how fast our world has changed and continues to change. One thing is startling fact, which we all fail to realize is that brain is not keeping up that pace. It is still same from ancient times whose main objective was to survive. It also uses the same techniques on perceived danger situation, fight or flight.  The brain that is constantly on look out of danger, sensing who/what could hurt/harm us. It is obviously evolved and dangers are now shifted from physical harm to emotional.  Don't try that, you don't know how to and you could fail. People will laugh at you. Don't ask, you could look like an idiot. Don't quit your job. You will lose your social standing.  Don't share your true feelings. You will be vulnerable, People could take advantage

My life changed for good when my daughter was born. Its been learning everyday since then. My most recent learnings about life, people and things in general are from my kid and watching her learn/grow. Here are few things which I have learned from my kid, Be happy WITHOUT A REASON.  Kid is so enviously happy about everyday, its me who wants to find a reason to be happy(like any other adults) Every morning she asks me 'are you excited?' now after so many years of practice answer is yes. I repeat the question and ask why? (just so that we are on same page of being excited about today 😛) Today kid wanted me to be happy because it was her classmate Ethans' birthday. Okay. Happy Birthday Ethan!! Find work. I have never seen my kid doing nothing. She is always doing something, keeping herself occupied. It is different that her being busy is worrisome for whole other reasons for me.  Ask. Ask questions. lot of it. Nothing seems obvious once you start questioning.  How to draw bir

I may not have been writing online for last two years that often, but I hadn't stopped writing. I want to really get better at it. I write professionally on thrivearc.com. I felt writing here more consistently would get me into a rhythm. And after 14 posts in this month I already feel its working.    Many people call me lucky for many things. I just wanted to tell all of them that getting lucky is just 'going on' no matter how much you feel like giving up.  I exercise everyday. This is a habit for last 10 years. Even if it is for 10 mins on some days. There are days when I too feel skipping like many others, I trick myself to do it say 25 crunches instead of 50, by the time I reach 25 my mind is already geared up to do rest 25 :) Somedays I just do 10.  I read everyday. Even if it is 5 lines.  I write everyday. Even if it is 5 lines.  Same goes for my habits around learning something new, connecting with people I care, investing money. Which in a way ends up being seen as b

Everyone is thinking about SAME things. How to grow? How to grow in terms of money, power, connect, influence? How to improve our health, relationships, happiness? EVERYONE.  From Jeff Bezoz, Zuckerberg, Ambani, Tatas to your friend, colleague, next door neighbor and you. EVERYONE is always thinking about how to grow? It has nothing to do with where you are, how much you have? Our basic line of thinking is always the same. What differs us from one another is, what we do about our thoughts.  If it is about getting healthy, some of us are making choices to eat right food, do exercise. Results differ in proportion to inputs. Some of us are only thinking and doing nothing about it.  If it about growing ourselves, some of us are learning new skills, reading books, writing, helping others, picking a new hobby. Some of us are only thinking and doing nothing about it. If it is about improving our financial stability, Some of us are saving, investing, learning how to invest, creating alterna

Kid is learning to read a clock.  So far our wall clock has shown time we haven't heard before, 86, 33, 27, 95.... 😅 To get her enough practice both of us randomly keep asking her time. Like when we have breakfast or meals, play or watch TV.  Today is pretty exciting time travel for us, We finished our exercise at 86. Like most of normal people, we had breakfast at 9:15. We finished reading at 11:8  Lunch at 33 Kid had school at 1:45 Playtime at 27 Times are changing fast. I am scared to have dinner in 3 digits of time ;) Learning is fun. Specially when you learn with kids, every time you too end up learning something new with them. Kids have such a fresh and original perspective to everything. I envy her original mind. Go MyStar! I enjoy living in these times. Will keep you posted tomorrow at 78. Cheers!

No matter what your choices are, at any given point of time you will find people who support your choices and who criticizes it. This is true for any decision, any life choice you make. Small or big. Consequential or otherwise. You may as well choose what you want. It is a simple yet hard lifehack. One of the most life changing decision I've ever made for myself early in life.  Every time you put yourself behind others desires, you are saying No to yourself. Sometimes it is okay, sometimes it is necessary. But it is not ok if it happens more in favor of others than you or most of the time or all the time. Like, You are going to have a pizza where your friend likes to eat. You like it too, but not as much as your friend does.  Your friend likes to watch action movies, you like them to but you enjoy comedy more.  Your brother or sister wants to watch sports when you want to listen to music.  You are working on a project when your colleague comes and asks your help, or your boss comes

How this list has changed over the time and also remained same to certain extent. There is no bounds to my happiness when I do these, To be surrounded by people I love and who love me Delicious food. Outdoor Walks Reading Books Meeting new people Challenging work Beaches Travelling  Smile comes deep from my heart when I do these, Coffee Writing Movies, TV series (Good  Mysteries) Chat with a friend  Music Cooking Running  Being silent. Alone or with a friend(Oh yes, with good one's you enjoy silence too) long drives I am amazed when I look at the list now. There are so many things that make me happy! Wow!  Try it, make a list of things that make you happy. I would love to see it. 

How fast we moved from What's up to WhatsApp! I feel its an overkill. Specially in times of festivals. And we Indians celebrate many. Messenger apps have changed the way people connect, share. More than ever it has changed the way people face new day in India and the way we celebrate festivals. Both things have radically changed. Now we want to wish whole world Good Morning! and Circulate endless amount of festivities in all chat rooms.  I am not sure how many people outside India know that Diwali is five day long festival. Each day has its own significance. This year it started on 12th November. Two days into Diwali and I already have 70 Diwali greetings. Three more days to go :)💥

Happy Diwali. After four years we all will celebrate Diwali together.  2016 we three(Hubby, kid and me) celebrated Diwali together.  Diwali has always been special to me. Vibrant, illuminating festive spirit everywhere. Happy and well fed people around. Good times. Carbs and fried food always bring more joy. Diwali and New year's eve is the time I like to host friends & family at home. This time it won't be possible. Damn Corona.    I am all excited for this year's celebration.  Food  ✔ No celebration begins without food planning. Its topmost at the plan.  Rangoli ✔ It is a drawing by kid and hubby. Cleaning any sand like material from carpeted house is messy. We have experience now of two years of cleaning kids playdough varieties.  Lights  ✔ No Diya. Houses here are made of wood.  Crackers  ╳ No fans. Never part of any of our celebration.  Go on, spread the joy, happiness and kindness around.  Happy Diwali People. I would love to hear, how you plan to celebrate your h

  I want to change the world.  I have always been pro change person. I like changes.  I lead changes.  I am fascinated  by changes. Changes, that many forms life has to offer, the way we look at things, the way we do things and things itself.  Now, more than ever I see many people saying that they wanted to change the world. Its good and inspiring. I have always tried to understand what it means to change the world. Here is what I have understood,  Change people's mind - Change people's mind on what they think, how they think, the way they act. This is applicable to all aspects of life.  Use new process, new tool, new product, read, write, sleep, meditate, eat plants, don't eat plants, eat meat, don't eat meat, dairy, non-dairy, water, less water, less energy, cash, cashless, use cars, don't use cars, shops, e-commerce, internet, use social media, don't use social media etc. List is endless. Everyone who wants to change the world irrespective of their context i

My 6yo is in that phase where she understands jokes and wants to create her own and share it tirelessly. S he enjoys it a lot, why won't she? For her, even saying bum is a big joke 🙈 Most of her creations are around word play and knock knock jokes. I like jokes. Who doesn't? Its when you listen to one joke at least 26 times a day it starts to wear out its magic. So here's the one popular with kid, Kid:  Why does Banana goes to doctor?  Me: I didn't know bananas have doctors. Kid: Just pretend Mama, don't spoil my joke.  Me: ok. tell me. Kid: Because its not peeling well.  Another one...... Kid: Knock knock Me: Who's there? Kid: Owl Me: Owl who? Kid: Yes, they do.  Me: Clueless, kid explains it and now repeats it. 😳  I am getting my database of new jokes refreshed these days. So if you have one of your own creations, don't hesitate to share.

All our lives revolve around additions. Adding happiness, knowledge, love, money, power, fulfillment. Its all about additions, but wait only thing it is NOT. At least it is not the most effective way to have life you wanted.  More often avoiding mistakes turn out to be more beneficial, faster and effective way to achieve success than doing right things. Its called inversion. This way of doing opposite to what you want is called inversion. This has especially helped me keep my social circle full of positive energy. Instead of looking to develop relationships with positive, well wishing and caring people avoiding negative, ill thinking and selfish people is far easier. I have learned this the hard way. I think it is good in a way, because the learning has stuck strong with me thereafter.  Now more often I tend to think of what I would avoid, want to avoid or should avoid to achieve what I want.  While 2020 is particularly  trying for all of us, here are few things avoiding which has help

For a November in east of USA, today was warm day. Since pandemic social gatherings are not happening so our visits to parks, lakes have increased a lot. Not parks as in playground parks, where you could go on trails, hiking etc.  Today it was a visit to lake park. Willingboro Lake park. Beautiful place, it has trails to walk around the lake in the middle. Kid doesn't walk longer distance so wherever there are bike trails, we take her bike along so that hubby and me can enjoy long walks and kid can enjoy biking. Works for everyone.  I had taken 10K October challenge, where everyday I have to walk 10K steps. October was chosen as it is onset of cool weather in US, 3-4 months after that venturing out for walks is pretty challenging. I am pushing a little further and making November as well 10K month. November and December being celebratory months for many reasons for us, taking such challenges keep me fit. Or at least i like to think it does.  I have always loved long walks. I missed

I once lived like I had unlimited time and unlimited bandwidth and I could do everything that I wanted to do in life. It was most insane time of my life.  Without any surprise in my attempt of doing everything simultaneously, I was messing up many things. This was around my MBA. I was soon to enter corporate world. It was then I decided to look at everything around me through priorities. It wasn't like I hadn't had priorities earlier. However it was then I decided to always CHOOSE and never not decide. I am not sure how many people realize this but not deciding is also a decision which has outcomes.  As an individual priorities always run around self interests.  Though when you are a part of a group. Family, friends or people at office. Priorities run around what matters most collectively. Irrespective of context all priorities run around self care/fulfillment, Family and friends. Urge of pursuing many of my interests still come up once in a while, though lesson learned once se

The only thing constant they say is the change.  Losing my dad, my rock in year 2018 changed my life. It wasn't like I had never experienced loss before. Nothing came closer to this. It was pretty bad for mom, so 2019 I decided to be in India with her. While hubby continued in USA. Surprisingly kid too wanted to continue in USA, without me. It was surprising, little scary. I never thought she will last more than 15 days without me. To tell the truth after landing in Mumbai, I was almost everyday would be expecting to receive a call from hubby to come and pick her 😀 Spending time with my mom in 2019-2020 is yet another decision I am super proud of. It was a priority for me. It was much required time together for us. We laughed, we roamed around, we ate, we slept, we watched TV, we went on walks almost everyday,  we cried sometimes and more importantly we healed together. #Blessed When pandemic hit us in January 2020, no body could really imagine scale, spread of the virus, or its i

  “Roads? Where we are going doesn’t need roads.” Doc Brown says in a movie Back to the Future to Marty.  By the way he also says, ‘Marty, whatever happens don’t go to year 2020 

I was nine years old when I first went to the Post office. Well at least it was first  work  visit. Post office was right next to my house and everyone in that post office knew me. This happens when you live in a small town and when your mom regularly treats staff members with tea-biscuits. I had been to that post office countless times before. Staff was kind they would let me play with papers, ink stamp, sometimes appoint me to even sort the dispatch. It was fun. Work visit was obviously to do dad's work, which my brother used to do earlier. Any work that could happen without my dad/mom visiting in person to Post office since then was done either by my brother or me. It was fun.  I was 12 years old when I first went to the Bank. Dad took me with him, explained me Deposits/Withdrawal, counters and introduced me to few people. Unlike post office not everyone knew me, staff was lets say, less friendly. It was 90's, it was a public sector bank and still known for their staff's