शब्द शब्द

शब्द- मानवाला पशु प्राण्यांहून वेगळी/ जास्त दिलेली देवाची देणगीच म्हणा ना. लहान मुलं ऐकून- ऐकून भाषा शिकतात. शब्दाचा संदर्भ लावून ते काही शब्दांचे  अर्थ लावतात. लहान मुलांशी तुम्ही जितक्या भाषा बोलाल, मुलं तितक्या भाषा शिकतात. प्रत्येक भाषेतील शब्द, व्याकरण हे निराळं असतं. आपल्या मनातील एकाच भावाला विविध भाषा त्यांचा शब्दात व्यक्त करण्याची मुभा देतात. शब्दांचं मूळ काम तर भाव व्यक्त करणे. पण शब्द कुठल्या परिस्थितीत  बोलला जातोय त्याप्रमाणे त्याचा अर्थ बदलतो. तो कुठल्या प्रकारे बोलला जातोय त्यानेही अर्थ ठरतो. शब्दांना थोडा "emotional  drama" जोडला तर खोटं सुद्धा खरं वाटतं. "Body language " या संकल्पनेला यामुळेच महत्त्व आहे. सतत गोडं बोलणारी माणसं प्रथमदर्शनी लोकांना आवडतातच. एखादं काम करायचं नसेल तर ते गोड बोलून काम टाळणं ही कामचुकार माणसाची तर एक कलाच आहे.

"काळजी घे", " मी तुला मदत करेन" या नुसत्या शब्दांना काही अर्थच नाही.काळजी असल्याप्रमाणे वागणूक आणि वेळेगरजेला मदत हे जर वागण्यातून दिसून आलं तर काही त्या शब्दांना अर्थ आहे.

वपु म्हणाले होते , "काही काही शब्द, वाक्यं, विधानं फार भयंकर असतात. ती मोघम असतात, पण गैरसमज पसरवण्याची त्या मोघम वाक्यांची ताकद, साथीचा रोग पसरवणाऱ्या जंतूंपेक्षा अफाट असते." काही शब्द , विधानं, प्रश्न अगदी सहजपणे विचारले जातात. पण त्यामागचा हेतू सरळ असतोच असं नाही.  आपलं मत समोरच्या माणसाच्या गळी उतरवण्यासाठी भावनेला हात घालून कारणं सांगितली जातात. उदा. तुम्ही तुमच्या मुलासाठी खर्च न करून कसं नुकसान करताय अशी भावनिक सबब देणं. एखादं विधान परत परत विशेषतः भावनिक रित्या बोलल्या गेल्याने लोकं त्याच्या बळी पडतात.

"मी माझा शब्द ठेवेन" असं काही लोकं म्हणतात. याचा अर्थ जे मी बोलेन , मी तसाच वागेन. असं बोलूनही सगळे आपला शब्द पाळतात असं नाही. असं झालं तर, आपला त्या माणसावरचा विश्वास उठतो.  शब्द पाळणाऱ्या माणसाच्या शब्दावर विश्वास ठेवला जातो , आणि शब्द न पाळणाऱ्या माणसाची कोणीच किंमत करत नाही. त्यामुळे जसं माणसाची किंमत शब्दावरून ठरते तसंच शब्दाची किंमत माणसावरून ठरते.

"हा खेळ सावल्यांचा" या मराठी चित्रपटातील रात्रीस खेळ चाले या गाण्याच्या दोन ओळी( काही शब्द बदलून) लिहून मी "शब्दावरील" माझे शब्द संपवते..

जे सत्य भासते ते असती नितांत भास
हसतात शब्दाला हा दोष आंधळ्यांच्या

असाच खेळ चाले हा खेळ शब्दांचा
संपेल न कधीही हा खेळ शब्दांचा

-धनश्री

Of Conspicuous Consumption

" What plans for the long weekend?" A friend asked
"Nothing much, the usual -housework, rest and hopefully some reading too  ", I remarked
"Oh that's it, not going anywhere" she said
"No, not really", I said

Conversations like these are common these days.If you are in the age group of 25-35, you definitely have some friends who at some point of time have asked you this. Nowadays, it has become almost like a crime to not go out during the weekends. If you don't do it, it's almost like abnormal. I also remember a friend asking me given that both of us work and earn, how come we don't go abroad every year? Hotelling , weekend getaways ,regular  mall shopping, and holidays abroad seems like a norm to today's young working populace.

I was definitely not brought up in such a upbringing. For me, weekends meant change of work. My definition of relaxation till date is change of work and adequate sleep. Yet I feel the definition of change, enjoyment has undergone a great transformation in last 5-8 years. I was looking to understand what caused this.
 Then I came across a term called as "conspicuous consumption". Conspicuous consumption was a term coined by the economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen. Conspicuous consumption is the spending of money on acquiring goods and services so as to display economic power/ wealth/ status. Basically it is the kind of consumption used to signal status to others. With the advent of social media, signalling status to others is possible at the click of a button. No longer do you need to buy expensive goods to signal status. Experiences shared on social media can signal status too.

In his book "the theory of leisure class" , Veblen  summed it up aptly .. "The serviceability of consumption as a means of repute... is at its best in those portions of the community where the human contact of the individual is widest and the mobility of the population is greatest...In the struggle to outdo one another the city population push their normal standard of conspicuous consumption to a higher point, with the result that a relatively greater expenditure in this direction is required to indicate a given degree of pecuniary decency in the city "

I think this is what explains why everyone suddenly wants to look cool on Facebook. It is just status signalling in a medium where virtual human contact is maximum.Whether that is really status, or what is status is debatable. But probably status signalling by sharing cool things on facebook is super easy. And most of us being cognitive misers, chose the easy path!

( more on Veblen in next part)
- Dhanashree

The Secret Santa in our lives

 Festive season is on. We see Christmas decorations everywhere. Malls, stores seem to have a santa who gives away chocolates, small gifts to kids. We had celebrations in office too. "Secret Santa" celebrations took place. Secret Santa is basically like a gift exchange game. In Secret Santa, there is a parent (santa) and the child. The parent and the child pair are decided through random chit-picking. The rule is that Santa should gift the child. The game is so planned that each one of the participant gets a gift from his santa.

We had a pretty large group in office, so every Santa participant might not have personally known his child beforehand. When the gifts were exchanged we realised that, not everyone had got the gift that he wanted. Sometimes the santa had made great effort in finding out who the child was and gifting him what might fit his taste. In some cases, the Santa just gave what came in his mind without giving much thought to what his child liked. Yet at the end of the game, I could sense everyone was happy playing the game and getting their gifts, which may or may not match their choice.

Why not apply this approach to daily life - let's assume a secret Santa is out to give us gifts. All the situations that we face are some sort of a gift. We can't control the gifts we get but we can control what we do with those gifts. Do we feel unhappy that we didn't get what we wanted or think what best use we can make of the gift? Or do we feel too happy about the gift itself and don't put it to optimal use? (due to complacency of getting what we wanted )

In my opinion, there are situations and there are people who make the best of the situations. If we think a secret santa is out there to give us a gift , and we accept that gift and make the most of it, life would be much more happier.

I take this learning from Christmas and end my note by wishing everyone a merry xmas and a happy holiday season!

-Dhanashree

The " Pooja's" in today's generation

Back then when I grew up, it was a fact that almost everyone had a friend named Pooja or Neha. This is to just highlight the fact that these names were pretty common. Some kids were named as per famous personalities back then. So the name Sachin caught on due to Sachin Tendulkar, the name Aishwarya caught on due to Aishwarya Rai.
Now I see an interesting trend. I noticed this while looking at my daughter's nursery admission list. Call it the side effect of my education/profession , I subconsciously tend to look for patterns in data. So I noticed the following patterns:
- An abundance of short names.
-Lot of names starting with A. Ayan, Aryan, Ayaan, Aahan. There were 3 Ayaans in a list of 30.
- Abundance of consecutive similar alphabets in spellings. Seeya, Ayaan, Smeeya, Ruhee etc.Numerology effect, maybe?

Another thing that I noticed in this list is the pattern in father's name. Apart from Santosh, no other name repeated. So it seems there was a relatively more variety of names in previous generation. Whereas in my daughter's class, I found 3 Ayaan's, 2 Atharva's, 2 Ahana's  and similar names like Isha and Ishan.

These observations are based on a total list of 60 names, 30 names in each list. So the sample size is too small to conclude anything.

I am just pondering over one thing, is the current generation more carried away by majority thought, thanks to social media? So you come to know someone had named his kid something and when you hear more people naming same , you follow suit?
We have named our kid Swara and since then come across many Swara's. There might be many more Swara's before my daughter was born, but I didn't know. Now I see the wave of the name Swara as well. Don't know what explains this!
Probably the current generation might not have one Pooja or Neha, it might be multiple like Ayan, Ishan, Vivaan, Myra..

-Dhanashree

The Pinkathon Learnings

The Pinkathon Learnings

I ran the Pinkathon 3 km race today. My office had done corporate registrations for this event. Pinkathon is India’s Biggest women run. The website of Pinkathon says “Pinkathon is more than a Marathon. It is the seed of change. It is the beginning of a movement carried forward by a growing community of empowered women across India, who share a belief that a healthy family, a healthy nation and a healthy world begins with empowered women.”
Why do people run these days? Why are marathons so popular? At the first glance, the purpose of marathons is to be fit and healthy. This is obviously true. But there is a deeper meaning than this.
I think running for any marathon is a process. To be able to run on the marathon day , you need to practice regularly beforehand. You can start with smaller runs and then gradually practice and go for longer runs in the future. There is only one winner , but yet everybody practices in full zeal . What if we apply the same learning to our personal and professional life. There are a lot of goals which seem insurmountable at the start, but once you practice and persist things start getting better. Just like a marathon practice requires showing up daily to practice, a lot of professional goals require daily effort. You may not always succeed, just like you don’t win all the marathons. But every step of practice takes you closer to the goal. A marathon thus teaches endurance and persistence. As Harsha Bhogle has said “In sport , you win some , you lose some”. But losing doesn’t mean you give up. Sport teaches us not to give up. It teaches us to continue to be our best and enjoy the game more than the result.
In this Pinkaton, there was interesting thing. They had asked us to pin up the BIB with this message behind “ I have left my ……… behind” . While I was in the marathon , I noticed what the participants had written in the blank. Some of them are as follows:
Worries ( So this reads as “I have left my worries behind”)
Fear of failing/ Fears
Self distrust/Self doubt
Weakness and negativity
Mental block
Anger
The disappointments
Obstacles
Oversensitivity
Procrastination
Emotions
Stress
Negative people
Excuses
Low confidence
Negative thoughts
Procrastination
Irresponsibility
Inhibitions

Look at the above list. Isn’t it wonderful. What if we are really able to leave all these things behind? Wouldn’t we be more successful in life? If you look at it, marathon , makes us live in the moment. Just the fact you are “running” in the moment, makes us forget all these things. When running becomes a habit, focusing on the moment becomes a habit. Living in the present is very important to be successful. More precisely, as Harsha Bhogle says in his book The Winning Way 2.0 “ Buddhist monks frequently talk about living in the present and ridding the mind of the baggage of the past and the anxiety of the future.” This , I think, is one of the important factors of good performance.

My friend Priyanka had suggested that I should participate in this Pinkathon as it would be a good motivating start for running. I was initially scared as I had not practiced running. Then office opened corporate registrations and I found out that even 3 km run was an option. Hence, I decided to register for this small run. While I was running (and walking also for a lot of time), I realized that even running 3 kms at a stretch was difficult for me. I have lots to do even before I can easily run even a small race like 3 km. I hope this marathon serves as a reminder to me to continue to run. And I hope that all the good qualities that any marathon requires, also get reflected in my personal and professional life. Probably any organization which encourages employees to run also has this in mind, which I believe is an amazing employee and team motivation initiative.

I would like to conclude this with a short poetry. I had written this to summarize what I had learnt from the book “The Winning Way 2.0”. I think this marathon has taught me something similar. I may not be a good runner, but I can practice and become a best runner to my fullest potential.

“In any game, sometimes failures happen
Let them not dampen spirits, do not get shaken
For all you know, winning is not about not failing
It is also about failing and getting up fast
Winning is a journey to be your best
It's a quest for excellence and not a comparison with the rest
The winning way is a journey , it's a test
You always win it when you are better than your best”

-Dhanashree

Jab Chiku met Anushka

A poem dedicated to Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma's wedding ..

It all started with a shampoo
Much more than washing your hair, it can do

Chiku and Anushka met on a shampoo ad set
"Dil Dhadakne Do" their hearts said

In sports , "You win some, You lose some", it is said
For Chiku's loss, Anushka was blamed instead

"Jab tak hain jaan, she will support me", Chiku said
Silenced his critics, moved with his life ahead

"Band Baaja Baarat" left for Italy
Chiku and Anushka got married happily

"Chiku ho Gaya uska ", cried many hearts
"Rab ne bana di Jodi" thus a new relationship starts

Here's wishing Virushka happy times ahead

#virushka  #VirushkaKiShadi
#VirushkaWEDDING
*- Chiku is nickname for Virat Kohli

- Dhanashree

आज पु .ल असते तर..

पु. ल . देशपांडे हे प्रत्येक मराठी माणसाचे लाडके. आज पु. ल  असते तर काय बोलले असते हा प्रश्न सतत पडतो. मी माझ्या मुलीसाठी नर्सरी शाळा शोधताना अनेक मजेशीर अनुभव आले. ते अनुभव मी पुलंच्या शब्दात मांडले आहेत.
संदर्भ : पुलंचा "नवीन घर मालकांचा उत्साह". त्याची  ही लिंक आहे:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAEe3WtwgPE

आज पुलं असते तर मुलांच्या नर्सरी प्रवेशाबद्दलचे अनुभव  ते कसे बोलले असते? वाचा पुढे

सोयी हा तर शाळेतल्या  लोकांचा माहिती देतानाचा उच्छाद असतो. सोयी, काय सोयी केल्या आहेत?. Visiting faculty, extracurricular activities, field trips, creative development , learning cum creativity, creativity cum fun,माती कम दगड , एक ना  दोन. शाळेला A.C.  किती आहेत आणि वीज गेल्यावर generator कसा चालू होतो आणि मुलांना घाम कसा येत नाही याचंच कौतुक. एका उत्साही शाळेच्या  मुख्याध्यापकाने तर आपण मुलांना सगळी कामं कशी करायला शिकवतो  म्हणून  झाडू मारायला शिकवतो असंही सांगितलं होतं . झाडू कोणाला मारायला शिकवतो हेच फक्त सांगितलं नव्हतं . मी जरा भांबावलोच.

 All- round development , Visiting faculty, extracurricular activities, field trips, creative development यापैकी काहीही न बोलता शाळा दाखवणारा जर कुणाला भेटला असेल तर मला सांगा. मी टिळक किव्वा लकडी पुलाच्या मध्यावर त्याचा जाहीर मुका घ्यायला तयार आहे. आणि मालकीण असली तर... तर काही नाही हिच्याकडून ओटी भरून घेईन..

मुलीच्या शाळेचं बघताना मी अशा लोकांच्यात नेमका अडकतो. नुसतं एखाद्याने सगळ्या सोयींसकट शाळा दाखवली तरी  चालेल. पण दाखवताना आणि सांगताना नुसती परीक्षा घेत असतात. मला एका शिक्षकाने विचारले " तुमच्याकडे  तुमच्या मुलीच्या  प्रोजेक्ट साठी  वेळ द्यायला असेल ना?" मी हा प्रश्न टाळण्यासाठी "वेळ असेल का ते वेळ आल्यावर बघू  " असं सांगितलं . पण नाही इथवर ते थांबत नाही, लाखभर फी घेऊन लाखभर प्रश्न विचारायचा पगार मिळत असावा त्यांना. "अहो तुमच्या मुलीच्या भवितव्याचा प्रश्न आहे".... मी म्हणालो " मुलीचं भवितव्य माहित नाही, पण हे सगळं बघून मला माझ्या भवितव्याबद्दलचे प्रश्न पडले आहेत. आपण नक्की काय करतोय, ऑफिस मध्ये प्रोजेक्टचे काम करून पैसे कमावतोय, तीच भरपूर रक्कम शाळेसाठी मोजतोय आणि मग त्यांचे प्रोजेक्टही आपणच करतोय.. ?"

-धनश्री 

Whose choice is it anyways?

“ I let my kids do whatever they want, its their choice” is the in thing in parenting these days. I would say not only in parenting it’s the rule that new age relations claim to follow, letting people live by their choices. But think for a while , do all the people that claim to let others live by their choices really do so? What if they influence others in a way that causes them to behave as per their wishes?

What if you get so influenced by others thoughts indirectly that you start to behave as he /she wants without even realizing it? What if instead of telling you to do something directly , indirectly lot of messages by a group of people suggest the same thing. Your subconscious mind gets affected and you might end up doing as per your thoughts which are influenced by others.

So lets say a wife wants to persuade her husband to take her on a trip. The husband doesn’t want to go as he has some health issues. How will she convince him and get what she wants? The old – fashioned way is telling directly. But the wife senses that will not work . So then the indirect influence starts. So she can do the following things
• Refer to a past trip and convince him how it helped him. Mostly the benefits would be woven in a story that is an exaggerated version of the truth
• Refer to some friends examples and say how trips help them make the relationship stronger
• Invite some friends over and discuss on the same topic

Now if you notice above , none of the reasons are wrong. In the situation that the husband’s health is not good , this trip might not be entirely advisable.. Also note that the benefits of the trip are being repeated using different channels. Daniel Kahneman has said “A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.”

I am currently reading the book “The power of your subconscious mind” by Joseph Murphy. The book talks about how our subconscious mind affects what happens to us. One of the quotes from the book is as follows ..”If you look back, you can easily recall how parents, friends, relatives , teachers and associates contributed in a campaign of negative suggestions. Study the things said to you , closely examine their underlying meaning and you will discover that many of them were nothing more than a form of propaganda. Its concealed purpose was – and is – to control you by instilling fear in you. This heterosuggestion process goes on in every home , office , factory and club. You will find that many of the suggestions people make , whether they know it or not are aimed at making you think, , feel and act as they want you to , in ways that are to their advantage, even if they are destructive to you”

Hence let us be aware of our thoughts, our choices, and let us ask ourselves repeatedly “Whose choice is it anyways?” This is not to suggest that what we hear is always propaganda , but to suggest that it is worth questioning “Is what we hear some sort of propaganda?”

-Dhanashree

झटपट स्वयंपाक - गुळाचे पोळे

मी माहेरची सारस्वत आहे. सारस्वतांचे जेवण म्हणजे खोबऱ्याचे वाटण आणि जेवणाचे चोचले.वन-बोल मील हा प्रकार तर नसतोच. चपाती भाजी भात आमटी आणि सोलकडी/ताकाची कडी. अगदी संध्याकाळी भरपूर खाल्लेलं असेल तरी भात जेवल्याशिवाय झोपायचं नाही. आता काळानुसार काही पद्धती बदलायला लागल्या आहेत. आणि घरा-घरानुसार तर पद्धती बदलतात. 

ही सगळी प्रस्तावना देण्यामागचं कारण असं कि सारस्वत पद्धतीचं जेवण मला जरा वेळखाऊ असतं . त्यामुळे माझ्या आईने जेव्हा मला एक सोपी रेसिपी दिली तेव्हा मला अगदी मस्त वाटलं. ही रेसिपी आहे गुळाच्या पोळ्यांची. पोळे म्हणजे आपण धिरडी म्हणतो तसंच . माझी आई म्हणते शाळेतून आल्यावर जेव्हा त्यांना भूक लागायची तेव्हा आजी तिला हे पोळे करून द्यायची. तर यांची कृती याप्रमाणे. -

जितकं कणिक घ्याल तितकंच गुळ घ्या. गुळाचा पाक आधी करून घ्या. पाक करताना थोडंसं पाणी घाला. पाक थंड होईपर्यंत एका भांड्यात कणिक काढून घ्या. त्यात चवीपुरतं मीठ घाला. पाक करून झाल्यावर थंड होऊन द्या. थंड झाल्यावर कणकेत घाला. मस्त एकत्र करा, पाणी कमी जास्त करा आपल्या सोयीप्रमाणे . या पिठाची consistency साधारण आपल्या डोश्यांचा पिठाप्रमाणे असावी. पीठ तयार झाल्यावर नॉन- स्टिक पॅन वर थोडंसं तूप लावून डोश्याप्रमाणे हे पोळे काढा.

हे पोळे संध्याकाळच्या खाण्यासाठी मस्त आहेत. कधी ऑफिसमधून आल्यावर काही करायला वेळ नसेल तर हे अगदी पटकन होतात. फक्त दोन प्रमुख घटक पदार्थ - कणिक आणि गुळ.

-धनश्री 

The Winning Way 2.0 - Book Review

What exactly is winning? How do you cultivate the right mindset so that you turn out to be a champion, not merely a winner? How do you explore your potential to the fullest? If these are the questions that come to your mind, The Winning Way 2.0 by Harsha Bhogle and Anita Bhogle is a must read. The Winning Way is the name of the workshop conducted by Harsha and Anita that takes lessons from sport and applies them to organizations. The book is a written version of the same thing with this newer version 2.0 capturing more contemporary topics and stories.

The book starts with capturing the traits and the essence of winning teams. It talks about self-belief and hope as an essential ingredient for winning. It talks about the importance of consistent practice, something very similar that Malcolm Gladwell talks about in Outliers “ The 10,000 hour rule” . The book quotes an example of Dravid, who set slightly higher and challenging performance goals. Even if you may not achieve all of them , you are likely to do much better than when you set small and easily achievable goals. One of the most important parts of this book is “ The Winning Triangle -Ability, Attitude and Passion” . Ability can take you upto a certain level , but it is the attitude that matters after that. And this combined with extraordinary passion will ensure that you have a hunger , a hunger to learn , a hunger for winning constantly. But this drives us to the question , is winning that important? What if you don’t win ? What exactly is winning? Quoting from the book “ .. the overall concept of winning that it is a byproduct of the pursuit of excellence remains constant. Winning is a journey to explore your potential to the fullest , to discover how good you can be..” The book discusses the importance of having the right mindset, self- belief and calmness for winning.

The style of the book is narrative and replete with examples from the world of sport and business. As you read the book, you will also be able to relate with examples from you personal and professional life. You might be better able to analyze why you failed or succeeded at whatever you did. The book is very logically organized into chapters which can be re- read depending on the situation you are in. So if you have not done really well( for whatever reasons), you can open the chapter on “ Learning while Losing” and it will throw up some very interesting insights.

To talk about books in a similar genre to this, I find "Grit" by Angela Duckworth and "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell in similar league. These books talk about grit, passion , practice as essential to success. They are replete with examples too , but I feel they are too detailed to address core concepts of winning. Sometimes the examples are very specific that you may not be able to relate. Also outliers discusses the external factors and the timing of success to a large extent to analyse successful people . Whereas the Winning Way 2.0 focuses on making the most of your current situation and measures success as the maximisation of one's own potential. It scores above by having very practical, relevant examples. It not only talks about winning but also about dealing with losses, dealing with change and also about the influence of external factors on winning. I have read Harsha's previous books " Out of the Box" and the first version of "The Winning Way" but this is best book of all.

For some, this book might be a motivational book, it is to me as well. But most importantly, it is a practical book. It has learnings and insights that can be applied by everybody depending on the context. It is not just “gyaan”. I read some chapters twice and I feel that every time you read it, you can relate and draw newer insights. Hence " The Winning Way 2.0 " will be in my bookshelf forever.

A small poem on the book Winning Way...

Dear Mom,I want to win everyday ,
Dear Mom, please show me the Winning Way

You do not win only in the end,You win or lose everyday
With hope, self-belief and great work- ethic, everything is possible I say
Practice makes a man perfect , practice everyday
Practice makes you better , winning is not a child's play

Ability you have, it can be improved
Marry it with attitude, results will be proved
Let passion be the fuel in every single game
Champion you will emerge and receive lot of acclaim

In any game, sometimes failures happen
Let them not dampen spirits, do not get shaken
For all you know, winning is not about not failing
It is also about failing and getting up fast

Winning is a journey to be your best
It's a quest for excellence and not a comparison with the rest
The winning way is a journey , it's a test
You always win it when you are better than your best

-Dhanashree

Of Hope, Right Mindsets and Winning

I recently finished reading the book "The Winning Way 2.0" by Anita Bhogle and Harsha Bhogle. One of the things they talk about in the book is hope as an essential ingredient of winning. It says that "One of the strongest weapon a team has on the field is hope. Till such time as hope is alive, they believe that they can win. Once hope dies, the end is swift".How true is this!

How many times you felt a task was insurmountable but somewhere your heart said you could do it, and you actually did it. Imagine the reverse. A seemingly simple task but due to some reason you didn't get result initially and lost hope. More likely than not , you might have not succeeded in that task.

In my personal experience, I didn't succeed in CAT ( MBA entrance) in my first attempt. But I continued to prepare with full zeal and finally in my future attempts made it to IIM Bangalore. In this journey , I had my own self-belief plus an amazing group of teachers , family and friends who made me believe it was possible.

Now imagine the reverse, what if someone tries to kill your hope? Is it possible? In my opinion, success has many enemies. So if you are on a winning streak, one of ways to get you down, is to play with your psyche, "mind-games" you may call it as well. "Mind-Games" are a powerful tool to manipulate a person and get what is desired from him. So lets say you are doing very well professionally, one "mind-game" that can be played is reminding you how you have failed to contribute to the family. You might be contributing as well, but since this can't be quantified its very easy to pin-point on this topic. The main thing with mind-games is that they try to affect you emotionally , so once your opponent realizes that your psyche gets controlled by what he/she says, you are the target for manipulation.

I remember in my student phase, sometimes friends would remark that there is no use studying, paper is anyways tough. Now since I come from a family of teachers , my family always told me to focus on work and get unaffected by what others say. Now when I remember this , I find this remaining "unaffected " as a very important thing. I can also link it to the fact that "no use studying" might have also been a mind-game to divert my attention. Since the competitor can't directly tell you to stop studying/doing things, using indirect speech to do so acts as a powerful tool.

So hope and right mindset is a very important thing. There's one simple way to keep hope and mind within your control. Keep an eye on the goal and every single moment, focus on how you can achieve it. If you feel somewhere some event/person dampens your psyche or makes you feel worse, ignore them immediately. Because if you don't ignore. your goal gets ignored. We live in a "FOMO" world, where constantly there are enough avenues to give you the feeling of "Fear of Missing Out". The skill is to focus, to know the most important people and tasks and never lose hope. Our mind and our attention is the most powerful resource we have, hence we should be aware of who controls it and we should be controlling it predominantly.

Let me conclude by Edward Bernay's quote from Propoganda,

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. ......... ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”

So let our heart and mind be the "government" controlling our actions.

-Dhanashree