Life is uncertain

I heard this true incident from my dad today. This probably happened few years ago – “A snake was wandering out in the forest, a vulture targeted the snake and grabbed it from the ground. While the vulture was flying taking the snake along, the snake slipped from its beak and fell on the ground. There was a man waiting at the railway crossing and the snake fell on him and due to the shock caused by the impact, bit the man. The man died due to snake bite and while the snake tried to escape, the vulture grabbed it back again.”

The story above describes life’s uncertainty from two perspectives – One from the man’s perspective which was nothing but sheer bad luck. Let’s just say he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. As for the snake, it was unfortunate too, it got picked up by the vulture, was able to escape only to be caught by the vulture again and in the process it harmed the man too.

We face such people in our everyday life too. People who go down because of their mistakes but in the process take few other people along with them too. For example – there was this incident I heard in my company few years ago. I was working for this company which deals with lot of customer data and one of the employees there did something that would put customer’s information at risk. Needless to say the company was responsible for the loss of the customer’s data and as a result fired the employee as well as his boss.

Firing the employee because he tampered with the data but they fired the boss just to show to others in the company how serious they are about protecting customer information. The boss in this case was the unfortunate person.

As we start the new week, all I can say is let us prepare to live each day like it was our last and give our full energy into making it our best one.

Interview Nightmares

There are plenty of articles on how to nail an interview and what one needs to do from the candidate’s perspective but there aren’t many which talks about the mistakes that interviewer makes. Some of these are really bad and gives a very bad impression about the company in general. Candidates do spread the word out, so if you do something that annoys or disturbs the candidate, it may impact the quality of people applying to your company.

Here are some examples:

Few months ago while I was interviewing to various companies I went for an interview to this company which was located in the heart of downtown San Francisco, overlooking the bay in probably the 40th or 50th floor. Everything was good until I entered the meeting room where the interview took place. This was a fairly new company and they were still setting things up. So they sort of had a makeshift meeting room which wasn’t sound proof. In the middle of my 4-5hrs of interview, there were some people in the next room talking so loudly that I could barely hear my interviewer. Needless to say I couldn’t concentrate and/or think about the solutions to the problem that was asked. I was so irritated at the situation, I even felt like rushing over to the next room and asking them to shut up, but it this was my first meeting with them and I did not want to make a bad first impression.

Sometime ago, I saw a candidate who had come for an interview at my company, being interviewed in an open cubicle. It was a tiny cubicle, with low walls and there was noise, people walking down the aisle, people sitting around in the nearby cubicles and so on. That must have been such a nightmare for the candidate.

There was another interview I attended on Skype, where I could see people peeping behind the interviewer’s desk to see who the candidate was. I had decided that very moment that I am not joining that company. A place where people do not have proper etiquette is not something people like to be part of. Another thing that I don’t like is interviewers not listening to your answers and doing something else while the candidate is talking. This gives an impression that you are not showing respect to the candidate. One should understand that even the candidate has taken time off their schedule to talk to you, so treat them well.

If you are an HR or an interviewer, one of the things that you need to make sure is that the candidate is comfortable. If you are anywhere interested in getting a fair judgment of the person’s skills then putting them in a non-private, noisy environment is not the right way to get started. A person behaves their best when they are comfortable. It is your duty to make sure they are comfortable.

Health Food Mania

I read somewhere that year 2013 is the year of Chia, just like how 2011 was for Flax seed and 2012 was for Kale. And then there is agave, gluten free food, vegan diet and so on. In this fast paced world, people no longer prefer growing their own veggies or cooking their own meal, instead people buy something that can be consumed instantly. This behavior often leads us to depend a little too much on fast food, frozen meals or canned food. Even those who cook their meals are not sure if what they are eating is healthy or adulterated food.

To balance out all the toxins that we intake every day and to psychologically make us feel better, people came out with the term “health-foods” or “magic-foods”. These are claimed to be the magic bullet to a healthy living. Needless to say, people who want shortcuts will flock the store to buy these. Long time ago, people did not know what omega 3 fatty acids were. Now everybody talks only in terms of these.

These so-called health foods are good but it doesn’t solve the whole purpose. What people fail to understand is that health once deteriorated, cannot be corrected by popping up of a pill or a few health foods. A healthy mind and body requires a balanced meal – one that involves right amount of carbs, fruits, veggies, meat, sugar and salt. Favoring one over the other will only cause imbalance.

Not just food, a healthy body also requires adequate amount of water, exercise and peace. Lot of time people eat healthy meal but fail to keep stress away thereby causing other health disorders. Everything in the body is correlated. Balancing out every aspect of life is the key to a healthy body.

What do you do when you are in trouble?

Imagine being in a situation where you are in deep trouble, the situation is gone way out of control, you can no longer revert the changes and you might end up losing everything. What do you do to save yourself from the agony?

When I ask this question to people – I get variety of answers, some funny, some that makes sense and some very dramatic. Here are few of them:

1. Run away

2. Commit suicide

3. Ask for help

4. Pray

5. Meditate

6. Talk to someone

7. Take some time off

Clearly the first two are not ideal solutions and should never be used, even though there are considerable amount of people who use them. Depending on the problem any of the rest of the solutions would work. There are many more solutions but let’s discuss these for now.

Most people resort to the first two solutions because they are too afraid of the consequences. They feel like running away is better than facing the problem. I read this story on news online where a women was reported missing for 11years but has been found. Apparently she ran away and decided because of stress after dropping her young kids in school. Sometimes talking to people or taking some time off to think about the situation helps. Even if others don’t have anything to offer to help, you can still feel glad that you have someone around.

If you think about it, nothing is worth running away or taking your life. The worse that can happen to you is that you will lose all your money, you may go bankrupt, you may end up in huge amount of loans or probably be in the bad books of few people. Anything related to money is never really important even though most people give utmost importance to it. Money is something that you earn during your life here but leave it away when you die. Having fondness to money is foolishness.

On the other hand if your problem involves breaking someone’s trust or hurting someone that is something you need to worry about and rectify. Even if you are in such a position, you should realize that time heals everything. So even if you did something very mean, if you repent and ask for forgiveness sincerely, I am sure you can heal wounds. May take time but ultimately it can be corrected.

Travel Tips

I was woken up by a phone call at 3am this morning. Those who know me, know it very well that I hate answering phone calls. Answering one at 3am in the morning that too from an unknown number is not one of my favorite things to do. I ignored the first time it rang, ignored the second, third and then when it rang fourth time I answered. I knew it had to be someone in need. Nobody in the right mind will make a prank call at that hour.

Turns out it was someone I knew who was on their way travelling across the world but had a missed connection and ended up here in California for 24hrs with no cell phone battery. Phone without battery in this era makes you paralyzed, it’s like having hands which do not work. Fortunately someone loned him his phone to make a call and he called me. I picked him up from the airport, sorted his flight schedules and dropped him back later in the evening.

Throughout the day I was wondering what would I have done if I was in the same position. Things can go wrong no matter how meticulously one plans, no doubt about that but I felt in this case, there was a little carelessness from both ends. This person had a long itinerary with schedules running back to back every other day and it is very likely that something will go wrong in such a situation. Unfortunately for him no one whom he shared his itinerary paid close attention and things were messed up.

One of the first things about travelling is to plan well. I know of people will say they like to be spontaneous. But being left in an unknown country in the middle of the night with no foreign currency and cell phone battery is not a happy situation. When travelling alone always make sure, your tickets are booked right, your accommodation is taken care of, your days are planned well and most important you have a backup plan.

Secondly, always know your flight schedule on the top of your mind. You do not have to learn the flight numbers. Just remember which day you board what and where you reach.

Thirdly, when travelling international always take account of the time difference.

Fourth, always have local currency of lower denomination handy. You are most likely to use them as opposed to higher ones.

Fifth, keep your phone/laptops charged and have the phone number of your emergency contact handy at all times.

You cannot avoid the inevitable but with the above things in mind, it will definitely be a lot easier to handle tough situation when stuck in an unknown land.
Enjoy your trip!!

Ever felt helpless?

Imagine you were the best in whatever you do. But suddenly you lost your job due to company loss or some other thing totally unrelated to you but nevertheless, everyone gets laid off. You scramble around to find a job, take up the first offer you get without even evaluating its pros and cons just because you have loans and bills and family to take care of.

You land up in this new place where things are totally different than what you are used to. Suddenly you realize that you need to start everything from square one. You used to be the “Go-To” person in your previous job but now you need to depend on other’s help to get up to speed. You feel helpless when others do not have time for you.

That’s probably not very heart touching story, here is another one. You have a pet you dearly loved and took care of it like your own child. One day it fell sick and you thought it was just normal sickness. When it did not get alright the next day, you decide to take it to the doctor but couldn’t get any appointments. You take to the doctor the third day but by then it’s too late and the pet dies in your arms later that night. You see it struggling, you see it dying yet you can’t do anything to make it live. There was nothing you could do to save it other than watching it die.

There are many more such stories but it’s Monday morning and I do not want to start your week with sad stories and thoughts. Life always brings us in situations when we feel helpless. There is nothing you can do to prevent it – that’s why it’s called helplessness. But there is something you can do to make the experience better. Learning to accept what comes your way

In most cases we do not get to decide how life turns out to be. We are not fate or destiny or God. We are just normal people and experience life as is. The only thing that can make things easier is by accepting that things change over time and nothing remains forever. Learning to accept that and recover from it as quickly as possible is the only way out. Once you do that it’s only a matter of time that you bounce back and be your old self again.

Why do people get attached?

I have lived in So Cal for more than 5years and I love it so much that I cried when I moved out of there to Bay Area for a new job. I wasn’t born there, I had just moved there for work and one would assume that you won’t get attached to something like that but for some reason it felt like home to me and I felt terrible leaving it.

Two months ago the dog in my parents’ house gave birth to four puppies. They are eight weeks old now and about time that my parents give them up for adoption but my parents are so much attached to the puppies that they can’t make up their mind whether to keep the puppies or give it away.

We all have our weaknesses and one of them is getting attached – sometimes to people, sometimes to animals, plants and sometimes to things such as house or money. There can be various reasons some of which are genuine fondness while some are just passionate liking.

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, nothing is forever. Everyone that comes into the world has to leave, everything that you earn or make in this world also is not forever. You cannot take anything with you. Getting attached to things can only lead to pain in the future. Especially material things that are very easily taken away – like robbery, natural calamities, fire, loss in business or so on.

There are certain things that you have control on and there are certain things that you cannot. Not getting overly attached to anything is something that you can control while losing what you like is something that you cannot control. As much as you do not like doing it, the only way to prevent the pain of losing something that you like is to not be attached or to be prepared that everything has an end date and can be taken away at any time.