LOCKUP

A vain locksmith would often boast that he could escape from any lockup in less than an hour. Some of his friends built a new lockup and challenged him to break free. In the presence of a large crowd present, the locksmith marched into the cell, and the door was closed. He immediately went to work. Hidden in his belt was a flexible, yet tough and durable ten-inch piece of steel, which he used to work on the lock.

After an hour of elusive result, his buoyancy began to desert him. His reputation was at stake and he was soaked in sweat. Every passing minute seemed an eternity. At the end of two hours, he literally collapsed against the door... and it opened! Actually, the door had never been locked, except in his own mind...

The door had never been locked except in the locksmith’s own mind, which meant that the door was as firmly secured as if a thousand locksmiths had put their best locks on it. Indeed it is easy to unlock any physical locks, but not the lock that lies in the mind. The locks, in our own mind, prevent us from getting out of our “lockup”.

Most of us are confined in a “belief lockup”. In order to break out, we need to first recognise the fetters in our mind. Next we need to seize ownership of situation and choose the path for true liberation of our mind. And it is pertinent to remember that to be better at overcoming the mind lockup; we must give a little push to the mental restrictions rather than exert excessive pulls that keep us confined in the lockup zone.

Let’s BE BETTER at escaping the lockup in the mind
The little progressive push is all it takes, you will find...

- Pravin K. Sabnis

SPARK

Sixty years ago, buses in Montgomery were divided into two sections... the front was reserved for the white people and the rear was kept aside for the black people. The sections were determined by the placement of a movable sign. If the ‘white’ section got filled up, it was extended by asking black persons to stand up and move to the rear. If there was no room, they had to get off the bus.

On 1 December 1955, Rosa Parks who was sitting in the front row of the ‘black’ section of the bus was ordered out of her seat as the ‘white’ section had filled up. Rosa refused and as a consequence she was arrested. Parks’ action to reclaim her dignity was not the first... there were others, too. But her civil disobedience became the spark that precipitated the historic movement led by Martin Luther King.

Rosa wrote in her autobiography that ‘I didn't give up my seat because I was tired… I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old… just forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in… The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became’

So often, we give in to unfair situations because we give up on our own personal dignity. But when we stand up for real values, we will be better at aligning with humanism and common good. We can choose to transform into the significant spark that can overcome the worst of possibilities that may loom large.

Like Parks, let’s BE BETTER at asserting dignity
Little sparks can transform imbalanced reality!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

PAPER BOAT

Last week Jagjit Singh, who harmonised so many mesmerising gazals and other songs, passed away. One of his songs from a forgettable Hindi film has seized our consciousness to become unforgettable. The lyrics of ‘Kagaz ki kashti (paper boat) refer to the lament of a person who has earned wealth but lost connect with his child-like innocence.

A first verse is a plea to ‘take away my riches, my fame, even my youth... but in return give me the monsoon from my childhood, the paper boat and the drops of rain...” Childhood is when the simplest of things are triggers for great happiness. It is time to be happy with things around rather than the futile pursuit of happiness as a commodity.

Everyone craves for the simple pleasures of childhood. Yet so often, we choose to run the dash for complex materialism. As children, we could play with an empty box or a stone or a paper boat... But as adults we tire easily of everything and we chose to be perpetually dissatisfied with what we have and hope to be better at gathering further acquisitions.

The choice is simple. Stop lamenting and choose childhood attitudes... we need to be better at reclaiming our childlike innocence and fascination for life’s simple pleasures... these are found in contentment and connect with relationships and Mother nature... and this is best done by the playful attitude where we create and ride little paper boats in natural streams caused by the falling rain...

Make the paper boat, make time to share and play
Let’s BE BETTER at reclaiming the childhood way!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

REBOOT

In 1976, Steve Jobs formed Apple and built the world’s first commercially successful personal computer. In 1985, Jobs was fired from Apple by the CEO and the board. Imagine being fired from the company you started and by the very people you helped recruit.

Early in his career, Jobs was described as someone who ruled “by force of personality, making numerous economies with his ridiculing the ideas of others, his unwillingness to hear views contrary to his own and his outbursts of bad temper”. The lack of humility finally did Jobs in.

Jobs really didn’t know what to do for a few months. He felt that he had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down. He met with David Packard and tried to apologise. He started a computer company aptly named NeXT and bought a struggling animation studio named Pixar.

In 1997, Jobs was back at Apple as “interim” CEO. His first move was to drop the very operating system developed by him at NeXT and that Apple had purchased from him two years earlier. That move wasn’t the Jobs of old. He had mellowed and seemed more open to ideas. Jobs himself was sure none of this [NeXT, Pixar, the iPod, the iTunes, the iPad] would have happened if he hadn’t been fired from Apple.

Every big setback provides us to reboot ourselves. We must be better at using the opportunity to overcome every weakness that was reason for the setback. We must follow the route chosen by the inspirational Steve Jobs who showed that ultimate nirvana needs us to reboot our attitude.

Every setback provides the opportunity to reboot...
Let’s BE BETTER at emulating Steve Jobs’ route!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

LOSING GOLD

My friend, Avinash Tavares shared a tragic scene seen on a televised Talent show. A couple of kids had won the second place but there was no trace of a smile on their faces. Their parents were weeping bitterly. Avinash raised pertinent queries: Whither sense of achievement? Whither sense of gratitude towards all those who helped the kids rise to such a performance?

In an increasingly competitive world, in the quest to be better, too many of us are insisting on nothing but the best. When we frown upon even second best positions, imagine our disdain for those that come last! All this is in sync with the media catchphrase about those who win second position: ‘You don’t win silver, you lose gold’

A real sense of achievement has to flow from the satisfaction of sincere endeavours and not from the vagaries of results. The very act of taking on a challenge has to be, by itself, a cause for celebration. An attitude of gratitude is the only fair return to all those who help in different ways from guiding, training, facilitating... including those who are audience.

More important than winning is to have a winner’s attitude that comes from celebrating efforts and sportsmanship. The score should not be allowed to douse passion. Eventually, it is never about winning or losing gold... we need to be better at ensuring that every failure turns into a stepping stone to success. After all, it is only true sportsmanship and earnest efforts that wins hearts of others... and ours too!

Losing gold does not deserve despair and misery...
Let’s BE BETTER at celebrating golden efforts truly!

- Pravin K. Sabnis