Psychology - On Parenting

I am no parent myself, but I spend enough time to read reasearch articiles, blogs and experiences. I also observe around my life, people and their mistakes on this bit, parenting. 

Well, it makes sense that I am starting to write exclusively on Parenting, as the topic is very broad and way too deep. It simply cannot limited to a single post.

Well today, let me write in brief about the most common mistakes parents do. Children these days are smart, and there is no denial there. Babies are far more intelligent today, learn quick and emulate the surroundings way fast and quicker than the children in 70s, or 80s. The intelligence they carry, via the genetic memory or in their DNA from their parents combined with the kind of exposure to technology, takes their IQs more than the parents. As much as an individual learns, the genetic memory + acquired knowledge of the child, keeps the child far more intelligent than the parent. And sadly this is a gap that keeps increasing similar to a Fibbinocci series. There is no reversal to this. Understanding this perspective and accepting that the child is far more intelligent than the parent, is one first step. 

But the second and crucial step, is very important. Don't every play dumb to your kids. Many parents do the common mistake of presenting themselves naive and ignorant, to give a moral boost to their child to feel proud of him/herself. That is totally wrong. You may handle any other means and methods to encourage your child, to make them feel better. But DO NOT, belittle yourselves. It may be nice at the beginning, but as years progress, the pespective the child develops in its mind is that you are dumb and not intelligent. The child may begin to admire someone else within the family or from outside the family. Apparently the child begins to choose mentors outside the family, and wrong examples the child sets for itself are costly.

Read here - The Confusion Prevailing over Mentors

It becomes a constant battle, between the child and the parent, once the child begins to have the notion that his/her parent(s) are not intelligent enough to learn from/emulate. 

Keep an intelligent poise and let your child realize his/her parents have had battles and life experiences that are valuable to look up to and learn from. Do not do the mistake of playing dumb to your child, for his/her confidence or feel good factor and repent as he grows in to adolescence assuming you aren't intelligent enough. To change that perspective would be a much tougher battle to fight.  

Love,

De Old Sage!

Coming back to where I belong the most!

Hello World!

Quite a time, hasn't it been since the last you happened to see me around or read a post from me? Well, I am pretty much alive. I apologize to those of you who were ardently following my posts. That can rest in the past, as I am back to action! I am hoping now, as I am penning this post, that this time after such a long break, I will continue to maintain the momentum that I once paced at and write more frequently. But it definetly goes a long way to see your comments on my posts. It gives me the motivation that my work meets you, helps you and the time i have put in writing for you, is productive and fruitful. So, please comment and share your opinions and thoughts!

I will write posts going forward on understanding human psychology, and cover about parenting, self improvement, motivation etc. 

I will also write about Financial Insights, and share the very limited understanding and knowledge I have gained all along. 

I shall also write about Cautions we need to be aware of due to gimmicks and fraudlent ways businesses are shaping up these days to lure money from us. While it may be threatening, I strongly believe that this is a needed evil among my posts, for the fellow community members to be aware of. 

I shall also write on my favourite topics on productivity, ideas & innovation, value creation and other Management studies related insights. 

Ocassionally you may see me sharing some poems and life experiences, posts related to travel, itenerary ideas on how you can back pack and escape for a weekend. 

Wow, I feel excited to be back, and hoping you are all equally excited as well. Share your thoughts on the comments section. 

Love,

De Old Sage!

The Universe Gives You Everything

Little does one realize that the plentiful universe has everything one needs.

The design of universe with availability of Flora and Fauna and the beautiful way the two coexist while one gives out CO2 and the other takes it in for its living. The release of the oxygen by flora is vital for the living of the fauna.

The universe has blessed us with plenty of all that one needs, as humans, most of us have access to clean water, air, food. We have the leverage to choose and make options of what we want too.

There's a saying, every grain of rice that we eat today, was sowed several weeks and months ahead before it reached us today. Such is the blessings of the plentiful universe.

Apart from basic needs, we also have family, society with/in which we live and exchange a lot of support, given to us by the universe.

We also have social needs, to be rich, famous, well traveled, possess brands and tags that boost one's identity.

And the universe, kind universe is so awesome and acknowledge all our needs and wants.

All that we need, desire and wants are around us. The universe has seeded the thought of what one needs, wants and desires based on what it has to offer.

While the plentiful universe gives us all that we want, it also gives us what we don't want.

It does gives us bad experiences, bruises us physically and emotionally. We fall and make mistakes. The unconditional universe gives us pain and gain equally.

The only difference is, whether one may deny or not, the needs are always fulfilled and given to us. But what one doesn't need, is a choice the universe leaves with us.

The universe gives us what we need to ensure that we give back what is expected of us.

But, It's up to one's own choices to choose what he/she doesn't want to own. It's at the individual level to reject what one doesn't need. It's up to us to refuse bad company, a bad partner, a possible failure and a bad/misled investment.

The universe gives the good and the bad unconditionally. It's up to the awake soul to stay away from what isn't needed.

Love,

The Tamil Story - Pongal Celebration

The Tamil Festival, celebrating the most important person and it's associated God, the farmer and the Sun.

The Evening Before:

As part of the rituals, we clean and level our entrance with a coating of the cow's dung. For those of you who are unfamiliar about this, cow dung is an antiseptic and all things and forms enter the house through the entrance. Spreading the entrance with a natural source of antiseptic is aligned with nature.

We use ground rice flour to to make rangoli, that serves as a meal to sparrows, squirrel and the finer granules are taken by the ants.

The doors are decorated with turmeric, vermilion, mango leaves. There's another bundle with two local variety of flowers and neem leaves.

On the day of Pongal:

We wake up and make two or three variety of boiled rice, pongal being the over flowing water and milk from the vessel, decorate the puja room, take the harvest from our garden/backyard/field, and along with the boiled rice, offer it all to the great visible God to our naked eyes, The Sun, who with his light is responsible for all forms of life, plants and it's produce.

It's a thank you note to the Sun and it's labor, the farmer whom we thank for the food that is the most basic need and keeping us alive and healthy.

Wishing you and your family a very happy pongal.

உங்களுக்கும் உங்கள் குடும்பத்தில் அனைவருக்கும் இனிய பொங்கல் திருநாள் நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்.

Love,

Be polite & Emphathetic

We are all running too fast in this world, not knowing our destination. We're hoarding more than we can consume. We're not living at the present.

We are focused on interacting with someone else over a call or a messenger application and not showing bare minimum politeness to the person next to us.

We send emojis with fake intentions. How many of us really smile or really happy on our faces as we use such emoticon?

We pass the hatred we have for someone else to a wrong recipient. How often have be done this and/or faced this!?

We can see some shop keepers so rude and shout at some people and ask them, "Are you mad?" Little do we realize if the other person is autistic or challenged.

Some shop keepers do not want to donate a meal to a person who is so badly hungry, foreseeing the other person to come back every day.

Where's humanity in us? What are schools teaching to children? How are the double income couples raising their children?

Empathy seems to be the most wanted and mostly missing thing.

Be kind and empathetic. Don't pass your hatred or grudge on someone to a wrong recipient.

This Christmas & New Year, look at reflecting on these aspects.

Love,

SoundCloud

Listen to Vanakkam Thamizhagam! by kartikvenkatesan #np on #SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/kartikvenkatesan/vanakkam-thamizhagam

The confusion prevailing over mentoring and mentors

Yes, I know it's been a while I reached out to you all! It's been looooong since you all happened to read my posts. Sorry! It's been a one off unfortunate exception that's happened in the last 8-9 years of my blogging.

Read my old posts from my previous blog, here!

Well I thought I wanted to give some clarity on the prevailing confusion of mentors & mentoring.

In this era of social media, we see a lot of words, catchy and start using them, not knowing the meaning of them. We're not even clever enough to look up on Google for an answer.

So back to mentoring, it's a very highly commendable and reputed position, mind you, I'm not referring it as a profession, although it can be, it needn't be always. Such a reputed position is held by very revered, well knowledgeable personality over flowing with the rich experience they have gained and continue to accumulate.

These mentors don't go on mentor every Tom, Dick and Harry. They do so to the ones who are truly deserving, and in those whom they believe possess a shared vision or cause or calling.

Just because someone knows something more than the average person, doesn't really mean that they qualify to be a mentor.

The world is full of ignorance living in a lot of us, and the slightly better person might look too great. We fail to see a mentor in a Kalam, Einstein, Musk or Jobs because, we can't really think big.

So we go on to consider the slightly more than average person as a mentor. And it's very unfortunate that, the wrongly chosen mentor takes immense pride in being one, cos you see, even they can't really think big.

The bottom line is that, mentoring is a highly reputed and a responsible position (not profession always). The next time someone calls you a mentor, please remember this post and do justice by telling them you are actually not. Of course be willing to help and share information and insights. Just don't let it take that to your head, if you realise what I mean.

Love,

Success?

What is success?

There's a lot of lack of clarity in what the most wanted and most sought after word means.

Multiple people within the same homogeneous group will have different perceptions of what success means to them.

In the entertainment industry, a person might want to be the most famous personality and want lot of fan base following them. Another person in same industry might want to earn the highest paycheck. Another person might want to access technologies and catch up with latest developments and see sucess as being the most knowledgeable personality with a quench for thirst for their own knowledge.

A common man too might fit in above categories and seek social acceptance or riches or have a quest for knowledge. It can also be a combination of one or more of the examples and have more and personal perceptions of success.

So sucess and being successful is a personal perspective rather than emulating and comparing it to a different person.

Such clarity doesn't usually exist among most of us and we compare ourselves or our beloved ones to someone else and get distracted from what we like doing.

It takes a different level of maturity to gain that understanding.

Have you got it today?

Love,

iPledge

As a mother, You gave me life!
As a sister, You gave me love!
As a friend, You taught me to share!
As a wife, You make a better me, my better half!
As a daughter, you mark me a blessing!

I promise to comfort the mother in you!
I promise to protect the sister in you!
I promise to be the shoulder to cry for the friend in you!
I promise to share the burden of a wife you bear!
I promise the safety a daughter deserves!

iPledge to protect the woman in you!
iPledge to keep you safe!
iPledge to keep you happy!
iPledge to keep you at comfort!
iPledge not to touch you without your consent!

One Woman, with several hats!
If not for the Woman, would there be life!?
- -

Let all men take this pledge!
Let's fight the word and the thought of rape!
Let's make this place a beautiful one for the Women of our lives!

Let's make our country great, again!

The simple reason that a lot of leaders from well known organisations such as Facebook Google Uber Twitter etc National Leader from Canada are voicing out their stance against the immigration ban and the executive orders of the President shows their ability to embrace inclusivity and diversity.

Diversity and freewill will only enhance the world to go to heights and enable trade and flow of business.

In a letter written by one of the Presidents of a prestigious institution, it acknowledged the security reasons for the country while at same time the ban needs to be reconsidered.

A while lot of popular figures like Sergey Brin, Sundar Pichai, Jack Dorsey and Hollywood figures like George Clooney and others are against the move that has upset a whole lot of people.

This move is also named irreparable loss which might continue to create it's own impact.

Immigrants (who have the free will, choice & politically stable country) must go back to their nations and make their own country great again! That would probably show what a loss this ban means!

Love,

To repay to God!

Serving His kids and His creations is a way to serve Himself. To help the one nearest to you, in small and in very insignificant contributions makes huge difference to the reciever.

The reciever calls it in his own heart as blessings in disguise.

There was this incident which took place between an intelligent person and a wise man.

The intelligent person said, "God had given me abundantly and more than what I need. And I'm giving it back to him in the temple donation collection lockers. I don't even see the denomination of the currency note as I deposit it."

It indeed was true that God gave him abundantly and it is a beautiful emotion to give back to the form who's blessed us so much.

Filtering the emotions from facts, and applying a rational opinion, the wise man replied, "come out of these temples and see aged and old women, who are barely clothed and suffering for a mouthful of food. They have no access to clean water. At an old age they have nothing to offer to make money in order to feed and cover themselves. Make your unconditional donations to them. For taking care of His children is as much as returning the favour to Him."

Doing so is a blessing in disguise for the one who recieves it. Take care of His children and His creation, pay attention to nature and respect the resources He's given. God will not feel offended or feel he's been taken advantage of.

Is there a better way to pay Him back? Write your opinion in the comments section below!

Love,

Lessons from a Leader: Mark Zuckerberg

I'm glad to have lived in a time when Artificial Intelligence has taken a huge leap from fiction to a form. But the level of our surrendering to IoT is a question to ponder about.

Above the leader

Mark Zuckerberg, the Founder & CEO of one of the most active social networking, Facebook has taken a challenge for 2016.

Mark Zuckerberg is creating history by coding Jarvis. What we saw as Jarvis in our favorite Iron Man series has taken a form from being a fiction.

Basically, Mark Zuckerberg had created an internet switch for all his home based needs like fetching a fresh tee shirt, toasting breads, turning lights off or on, to say weather updates, meeting schedules, to play a song. The actual switches are connected to an internet switch. Several items like weather updates, music from Spotify had been reverse engineered and programmed and coded to create the new Jarvis.

Lesson from the Leader

Mark runs the most active social networking site, Facebook as a CEO. A position that requires so much attention, talking to, meeting so many, addressing a lot of issues, having a global presence as organisation, managing new businesses, expansions, facing several challenges, considering legal and so many unending views. I'm sure 24 hours a day is simply never enough for someone like him.

Apart from being a CEO for one of the most influential organisation, he's also married, has a child and manages a perfect work life balance.

Irrespective of managing such a great organisation as Facebook, managing his personal life, he's still figured out time to code and create Jarvis. How well should someone manage his time to achieve so much time!

Now that's a lesson to take from Mark and raise our standards to achieve so much and yet continue accomplish several new challenges.

Have you chosen a challenge for 2017?

Love,

Lessons from a leader: Stephen Hawking

A leader need not be the most qualified & most influential person in a common interest group or organisation. He who sets an example, and lives by it for even someone at a far end on the other side of world is also a leader, who leads by example.

Situation

Why do I go through so much pain? I am so talented which I either know myself or my mentors have realised and said so, yet I don't get the opportunity to shine. Why do I not have enough of what it takes to be successful? Why do I face so many restrictions. Why am I unable to stretch my feathers and fly? Although I have been given wings, why are the broken that they are only a burden, rather allow me to fly?

Are these questions running in your head? You are simply not alone. Each of us are equally gifted and equally created. Yet what we do with our abilities lies at our very own will. Although a few might have the power of will, have restrictions or other suffering that might tie us down from performing our duties.

How we chose to dump our weaknesses back and still have hopes to complete our duties, requires mental strength. Which, unfortunately takes time to gather for each of us.

Leader

Stephen Hawking one of the greatest physicist alive and one of the most intelligent person was diagnosed with ALS (yes, the same for which almost few years back Mark Zuckerberg & Bill Gates followed by the rest of the world took up the ice bucket challenge).

When he was initially diagnosed with the disease, he was told he had two years to live. His condition was that his voluntary muscular movement was restricted. Doctors considered to even take him off the life support once. Stephen Hawking took it up positively and reminded himself that he had work to complete. Thanks to his love life, who supported him and took a great call to stand by his side.

Stephen Hawking went on to accomplish a lot of achievements, written titles and books at an advanced stage of the disease where he wasn't even able to speak.

Had Stephen Hawking allowed his mind to crunch negative thoughts, would he have been so successful in life? Had he thought he had only two years to live and chosen to live it without any focus, would he now be known for what he is?

Lesson

Now, read the questions, in the last paragraph before the leader, and ask yourselves a last question, do you want to continue cursing yourselves about your restrictions and limitations? Do you not want to achieve and show the world your abilities that you overcame in spite of the limitations and let someone like me write your success stories?

Think! Arise, Awake & Stop Not Till The Goal Is Reached.

Love,

Embrace the Difference

Four of us are sharing a car ride from our office, on the way we happen to see an incident where a young girl was loudly crying. It's not quite the normal scene and hence a crowd was slowly getting attracted to the spot.

As we pass by, one person assumes a sexual assault could have taken place and the girl could have been attacked. The second person says the girl who possibly was driving hit her vehicle and fell off the road. The third person says a thief could have snatched valuables and disappeared in to the neighbouring deserted area covered with overly grown weeds and trees.

Can you relate to such a situation? As in where multiple people taking multiple assumptions? These perspectives from different people arise due to differences in thought processes which are totally different according to each individual.

Such differences in thoughts are the genesis for differences in perspectives, such different perspectives lead to different approaches, motivations and intentions.

The above is just a small level analysis in terms of differences. Now take a huge perspective where the sample size is hundreds of people taking approach to same situation.

Such differences of opinion should be celebrated as it provides insights and exposes us to a different thought process which we otherwise might neglect or be ignorant about.

So the next time you want to argue about the difference in opinion, try embracing it. You get a new perspective free of cost.

Love,

Sibling Rivalry

Wherever you are in a public place like a railway station, airport or temple or any random place with a sizable crowd and families staying put, take a look to see children of age 4 to 5, and how they deal with their younger siblings below age 2.

Most likely one could spot sibling rivalry or abuse of the elder one. This so happens because of the sense of insecurity and losing importance by the elder child's parents, especially that of the mother's.

The elder child feels he or she lost the attention and love and begins to feels the rivalry against the root cause, the new baby which now has become the center of attraction.

The elder child feels it's territory encroached and feels being competed upon for the mother's lap, mother's attention, and being given importance by several others in the family.

A child of two or three or four has no maturity to realize that the new source of competition is actually his or her own belonging.

As the younger one matures being subject to ill treatment or physical abuse of the elder one, the rivalry intensifies in an array of issues such as belongings of toys etc, as the siblings get mature with age, the boundaries get wider and more hatred gets developed in various aspects.

How to tackle?

Parents should well prepare the elder one mentally with regards to the new arrival and create a sense of welcoming home of the new baby.

Once the new one arrives, the parent, particularly the mother must spend enough time with the elder baby as well.

Depending upon the age, the elder child should be given very small and basic responsibility to care for the young one.

The sense of togetherness must be inculcated at a very young age which will reduce the friction of sibling rivalry.

Write back to me in the comments section below.

Parenting is an art! How ready are you, as a parent?

Love,

What's lacking in this selfish world?

As the title outlays the theme for the post, today's world is taking its steps towards a selfish living. This is mainly because we're lacking a basic trait, empathy!

Empathy is largely different from sympathy and is most often interchangeably confused.

We humans are losing the most important qualifier for emotional intelligence by not being empathetic.

Whether it's at work where a manager has unrealistic expectations not actually knowing the basic intricacies of work outcomes or personal relationships where we fail to think of the perspectives, emotional and other needs, intentions or motivations of our partners.

There's this saying, people were meant to be loved and things meant to be used, sadly it's otherwise and this needs to be addressed at grass root level, parenting!

Love,

Water, water everywhere

Water, water everywhere, no water to use!?

A small summary as to how we can manage water and still live in peace.

Guess about a decade ago, the ADMK party while in power introduced the rain water harvesting scheme. Steps were religiously followed, and checks were done to validate that each household had a rain water harvest provision. This helped collect the rain water and increase the ground water table.

Are the audits continued now to check rain water harvest? If not, can we reinstate the good practice and bring it back to life?

Well, apart from the long struggle that won several cusecs of water that was released and the chaos that's stirred between the two States and the insecurities raised amidst the people of two States, is there a long term solution that we can do from our own side?

I believe yes, the entire Tamil Nadu state highways and key road routes can create rain water harvest pits every kilometer, and can be directly managed, implemented and funded by local corporations or districts, thereby collect the rain water, rather let it mix with drainage or loss to sea.

There's a correlation and causality between deforestation rate and rain fall deficit. A whole lot of trees are being chopped and new saplings are not being replaced, causing impact with increased warm temperatures. As I grew up in my school we were encouraged to grow at least one tree per household. But that was during a time when apartments or flats were not even existing. Now households per acre have increased several folds requiring more trees be planted.

I wonder if people have lost the thought in their mind that flora and fauna coexist with circulation of oxygen and carbon dioxide between each other.

Another alarming factor is the water bodies being converted as lands and real estates based on illegal poaching of lands which were once water bodies.

A lot can be done in terms of water treatment of sewage or drainage which can be reused in various ways.

If penny saved is penny gained & each drop makes an ocean are true, a lot of water can be saved and ground water table can be increased.

Thoughts? Write below!

Love,

Why Saying No Is Important

Well everyone of us has been there. I'm sure there's not much contradiction here. It's very very difficult to say no, immaterial of how difficult it is, one must practice the art of saying no.

While a lot of you who have a sales background might be familiar with the funnel of conversion from lead to deal, might well relate to this post as to why a no, a genuine no serves as a bliss.

Be it an interview result from a recruiter, a sale deal from a customer, an approval from a parent, a decision maker plays the most important role of saving time of the negotiator who's at least following up a minimum of three attempts in order bring the deal to a close/drop.

A sales person will very well be aware of the fact that from a 100 contacts a bare minimum of 3-5 deals might strike. But to judge which of the 100 calls might make it to a deal is a strenuous task.

A lot of us, are unable to say no; merely for the sake of not possessing the courage to say no or merely for the sake of being nice. If our true intention is to be nice, the best thing to do is to genuinely say no, thereby save their valuable time so they buckle up and track down the next prospect.

A lot of time and energy will be saved in terms of negotiations, if we merely possess the ability to say no.

Love,

The Beauty of Being Disconnected

Eight days without a smart phone might sound like less than a luxury for many of you. But if one chose to be without it, and experience the beauty of it, the realization strikes that it indeed is a luxury to live a life without it.

My temporary phone didn't support me to download the most popular chatting application. I was disconnected from a lot of you, including this blog app I use to write to you all time to time.

The first day was really restless, I continued to unlock my temporary phone time to time to check notifications and felt disappointed to see nill notifications. It took me two whole days to detoxify myself and fully realize the mental state we currently are in. How restless have we become in terms of constantly checking notifications and texts.

The third day and subsequent days were spent in a whole lot of peace of mind, an unexplainable calmness took over where I began to stop being constantly being distracted to my phone in the name of being connected with loved ones.

The days of being disconnected from my smart phone, allowed me to connect to  myself more deeply with a calm and peaceful mind. I fell asleep much quicker these days without waking up to random chats and notifications.

Life indeed was beautiful to stay disconnected this way. While it's too difficult to stay that way forever, I believe such a short term detoxification is necessary time to time.

While a lot of you out there might get ready with a lot of moderately acceptable abusive comments to write below, try  once to have a digital detoxification.

It's worth giving a try!

Love,

One never knows it all!

One of my friend makes a remark that it's time he leaves his current organisation, with less than a year experience. An article from Harvard suggests that the current job hop rate is at 4.6 years per organisation. And the article also recommends strong reasons to decide when it's time to switch.

The one point not pointed out, and that as an excuse for my pal to switch is probably the most ridiculous of all I've ever encountered. I'm told, there's nothing more to learn. I've learnt it all. I need to switch to another organisation to improve my learning further.

To know, is to know you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.
- Socrates

I guess the context of my post is revealed with the above saying.

Now for those of you who are patient enough to read the rest of the post gets a chance to read a personal experience which made me get my thoughts even more stronger on the above lines.

I traveled to Singapore recently and I did everything possible to have my home work about navigation, food etc. Since this was a trip all by myself, and to a new country, I covered as many details as possible in order to be well prepared.

I guess the incident occurred just to make me realise my ignorance levels. My first local bus trip on my first day of landing turned out to be the epic embarrassing moment for the rest of my life. The lady who drove the bus didn't know English and I didn't know Chinese. We exchanged sign languages which didn't help and she couldn't even read my phone which displayed texts in English.

It was quite a scene before the whole crowd until a local lady stepped up to translate for the two of us.

No matter how prepared we are, how much we have learned, there's still so much more left that is even beyond our imagination.

Will someone tell this to me friend?

Love,