Your Call!

A popular urban legend records an interesting exchange of messages on a foggy night at sea:

“We are on a collision course, advise you to change course 20 degrees."

"Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees."

“I'm a Captain, change course 20 degrees."

"I'm a seaman second class. You better change course 20 degrees."

“I'm a battleship. Change course 20 degrees. Now!"

"I'm a lighthouse. Your Call!"

Although the story is fictional, the analogy holds a valuable lesson in the unimportance of self-importance. Many of us are like the Captain... full of our own overestimated ego. It is said that road rage in a driver is proportionate to the size, speed and cost of the vehicle that he is driving. The same applies to every case of the 'infallibility' of power.

Surely, understanding eludes us due to the looming prejudice that comes from being self-centred around one’s situation and position. We do not bother to explore possibilities to understand the circumstances. The story demonstrates the intractability of some listeners and the overwhelming need for flexibility. A columnist Russ Linden wrote of the lesson: ‘We're blind unless we know who we're talking to. While it is the captain's ship, it's most definitely not his ocean’

We must be better at understanding the significance of situational responsiveness by escaping the clutches of prejudice born of undue self-indulgence. We need to pay heed to the other side and be open-minded to consider possibilities in the predicament. For it is in those very possibilities that we shall discover the potential of clarity. After all, it is our call!

BE BETTER at escaping the self-importance fall

Pay heed to the other side, for it is your call!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

FAULTY KEYS

Milind Manerkar shared his experience on ‘facebook’ of his predicament when he could not log into his notebook. It kept providing a hint to his password. He tried various passwords but kept getting rejected. He consulted experts who suggested a tedious option: to format and reload the machine. Internet gave an easier solution: to restore its factory settings by pressing Alt + F10.

When Milind got the notebook working, he discovered the real problem: two keys were not functioning and had to be forcefully pressed to operate. All his efforts seemed needless when he realised that it was the keys that were faulty. He shared his learning that ‘problems in life are small, we make them big!’

So often, we imagine our problems to be bigger than they actually are. We are overwhelmed by our own imagination and we seek unnecessary solutions. However it would be better to identify the seemingly insignificant factors that may have caused the problem. And so often we will find that the fault lies at hand, and so does the solution.

The wise choice to make is to make out the smaller reasons behind large difficulties. We need to be better at recognizing the keys that need correction. Our keys are the tools we use: attitude, communication, listening, observing, systems, practices, response, etc. If the fault lies in our ‘key’ we will find ourselves locked out of sustainable solutions.

It is pertinent to note that in the case of the notebook, once we have spotted the faulty key, we can either change it or change the way we use it! Similarly, in life too, when we spot ‘faulty keys’ we must either unlearn the faulty tools or change the method that we use. But first, we must spot the ‘faulty keys’!

The solution can be simple, if we can only see...

the way to BE BETTER at spotting the faulty key!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

HAPPINESS DEFERRAL

In the Hindi film, ‘Anand’, the cancer afflicted protagonist chooses to be happy, despite facing a looming death. His foster sister breaks down when confronted with his predicament. Anand tells her, ‘you weep because I will die a few months later. Can’t you be happy now when I stand alive before you?’

So easily, we choose to defer happiness. We believe that we will only be happy once some stipulation is met... once we have made a defined amount of money or once we have a loving spouse or once we build a dream home. The well-known trap of such thinking is that it is interminable. The habit of deferring happiness is difficult to stop. If we achieve the desired destination, we simply create another, thus deferring happiness to an even later date.

However, happiness deferral is not only a habit for long-term. We are in the habit of suspending happiness until the weekend or even shorter periods. If we have a sprained ankle, we think we will be happy when we have a chance to rest or when the applied balm takes effect. When the pain subsides, we fill find hunger or some other thing that makes us defer happiness all over again.

In any situation, if we are habituated to deferring happiness, we keep doing it. It really makes no difference whether we are deferring it for 15 minutes or 15 years, because in either case, we are not happy right now. The only getaway from the trap is to constantly tell ourselves that the time to be happy is now! Not next month, not tomorrow, not later, but right now!

It does not matter if we have a sprained ankle... it does not matter if we are hungry... it does not matter if the dream home is yet to happen. Happiness is something that can be ours in every moment, without exception. We must choose to be better at being happy without linking it to a reference point.

Defeat the trap of happiness deferral...

BE BETTER at finding joy without referral!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

Inconvenient Truth

Everyone must watch ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ - Davis Guggenheim’s film on a moving presentation by Al Gore. Gore makes a credible argument for common sense and ethical intervention in reversing the harmful effects of global warming through personal and political accountability. He makes a compelling case that global warming is real, man-made, and its effects will be catastrophic if we don’t act now.

Gore presents a wide range of facts in a persuasive way showing animations of ancient glaciers retreat over the years... Literally before our eyes, we see fading rivers, declining species, diminishing rainforests, vanishing land… all hard facts from peer-reviewed scientific journals that deflate the humbuggery of oil-company-supported PR ‘think tanks’ about ‘natural cycles’.

For Gore, global warming is not a political issue; it is ‘a moral issue.’ He shows that the pick between economical and ecological well-being is a false dilemma. While what he says is not news, Gore puts it all together in such a devastating way that the impact is enormous. While the mainstream media may continue to insist that there is no scientific consensus on global warming, presenters like Gore and Guggenheim expose the inconvenient truth.

‘An Inconvenient Truth’ does what all great films should: it leaves the viewer shaken, involved and inspired. However, it is not a gloomy film. Though his forecast is scary, Gore does not leave us in despair. And that is the real truth… we can save our world by searching for alternatives and initiating actions to sustain our Mother Earth! But first we must face the inconvenient truth!!

May we BE BETTER at facing the inconvenient truth...
May we adopt actions that will bear sustainable fruit!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

Adopt a Tree

‘The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago.

The second best time is NOW!’ – Anonymous

The above lines outline the purpose of Chandrakant Shinde and his colleagues. They are preparing for this year’s Environment Day by asking Goans to adopt a Jamun Tree. They are using varied media to involve more citizens to their circle of commitment that looks beyond now. They want participants to not just plant a tree, but to take care of it so that it can bear fruit for the future.

Shinde and his friends, belong to Vivekananda Environment Awareness Brigade, Keri, Sattari, in Goa. Over the years, they have nurtured their love for Mother Nature with consistent and committed actions. They have kept away from lucrative career trails. They have charted their own journeys to create a legacy that will endure beyond their lifetime.

Planting a tree is an activity that has become fashionable. But adopting a tree requires the resolve of greater and consistent commitment. It is a choice made by those who connect totally to what they believe is a common good. They look beyond to become the creators of a desirable future. They do not seek immediate benefits for themselves. They are seized by selflessness.

So often, we are seized by an emotion that is well intentioned and sincere... whether planting a tree or an idea. But, the best of intentions can come to nought, if we do not back our initial act by as series of appropriate actions to nurture that tree or even that idea. So while it is good to ‘plant’, it would be better to ‘adopt’ and nurture that tree or that idea!

To BE BETTER at creating a legacy...

Do not just plant... adopt the tree!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.

Variable Vision

In less than ten minutes, the 1977 short film ‘Powers of Ten’ depicts the relative scale of things in the Universe using factors of ten. The film, made by Ray and Charles Eames, is an adaptation of the 1957 book Cosmic View by Kees Boeke.

It begins with a view from a meter above (10⁰) a man resting on a blanket. The camera then zooms out to a view ten meters above (10¹) to show that the man is at a picnic in a park. Then it pans to a view of 100 meters (10²) to show that the picnic is taking place on Chicago's lakefront. Further on we see on the way the views of Lake Michigan, our earth, our solar system, the Milky Way… the zoom continuing to a view of 10²⁴ meters - the size of the observable universe.

The camera then zooms back to the man's hand and moves on to zoom into views of negative powers of ten (10⁻¹) (10 centimeters), and so forth. The zoom moves the range from the surface of the skin to the inside right up to the proton in a carbon atom at 10⁻¹⁶ meter. The film thus travels two extreme extents of our universe.

However, the lessons go beyond the attempt to understand the universe… they guide us on how to be better at understanding our situation. We need to be better at seeing, both, the larger-picture and the smaller-picture... to see self and situation from a perspective that moves from a wide-angle outlook to a deeper insight into our predicament.

So often, so many of us are seized by a myopic vision that connects only to peripheral considerations. We need to apply the variable vision to see the larger consequences as well the minute intricacies of the situation that surrounds us. We need to be better at zooming out to the larger context as well as zoom in to the diminutive but crucial details.

To BE BETTER at understanding the real situation…
let’s zoom in and out to the entire variable vision!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India

Avert the Negative

‘If anything can go wrong, it will!’ – Murphy’s Law

Often, when things go wrong, we use the crutches of what is popularly known as Murphy’s Law to justify unanticipated failure. Thus, we shift the onus of responsibility from ourselves and condemn the fiasco to the vagaries of the unknown. Some call it fate, some call it bad luck and others employ other words. But Murphy’s Law is really something else...

This modern hypothesis is credited to Capt. Murphy, an engineer at Edwards Air Force Base in 1949. One day, on finding a wrongly wired transducer, he cursed the technician responsible by saying, ‘If there is any way to do it wrong, he'll find it.’ The project manager added it to his list of ‘laws’ and called it Murphy's Law thus giving name to an ancient pessimism.

However, the articulation of the negative was put to positive use by the Air Force. In fact, they went on to describe their good safety record as due to a firm belief in Murphy's Law and in the necessity to try and circumvent it. Aerospace manufacturers picked it up and used it widely in their ads during the next few months, and soon it became part of modern metaphor.

Murphy’s Law is not about cynical logic about our perceived vulnerability. The law’s effectiveness is in first envisioning the most remote of possibilities for ‘things going wrong’, and taking remedial measures. While it is good to do the right things; to be better we must be able to anticipate what can go wrong. Doing so is termed risk analysis in planning parlance.

Murphy’s law inspires us to BE BETTER at the affirmative…
By first predicting and then averting every plausible negative!

- Pravin K. Sabnis