Photo by sergio souza on Unsplash National pride is one common factor that binds all its citizens together.  The definition of the word says: Patriotism or national pride is the feeling of love, devotion, and sense of attachment to a homeland and alliance with other citizens who share the same sentiment. Why do we indulge in it? Simply because it makes us feel happy, to see positive change. Makes us feel happy to see collective progress as a large group of people unanimously feel the same sentiment. It also validates the feeling of Collectivism. But do we wonder what is the cause of national pride for different countries? Some nations have been built over the years and dramatically transformed into great civic countries. They enjoy a sense of civic pride. At the same time, there are countries where there are more reasons to feel proud of ethnicity and history than civic developments. It is important to understand what is the reason for our national pride. Are we having all the rig...

  I read this book - The gutsy girl by Caroline Paul and obviously, I am inspired. "Gutsy Girl" will resonate with everyone ( more so women) who were ever told, they couldn't or shouldn't... but then they went on to do it, anyway. The book revolves around encouraging girls to take on a life of adventure and have fun because after all when you look back on your life, an eventful one will feel better than a perfect one. There is no denying that adventures throw challenges that only teach you how you navigate through them, making you less and less averse to hairball situations. "I have the butterflies in my stomach. I don't know why but I go looking for them"                 - Said every brave, happy, successful woman Pic courtesy: The Gutsy Girl by Caroline Paul, Illustration by Wendy Macnaughton While the illustration of the flow chart is to help our mind decide if we should jump off the cliff, quite literally, I am looking at it metaphoricall...

Sometimes all of us need some help to break out of the loops in life.  A few years ago, I noticed a strange change in myself. There was a constant feeling of unease..I felt like danger looming... a catastrophe going to happen. I tried hard to track down the reasons, but my mind was not giving me answers. I realized there is no apparent reason to feel this way if I can't point to it, right away. I thought to myself, "After all, there are scores of people in real situations at hand, and they don't worry! Why do I?" It was a valid point, and my logical self wanted to believe it badly but somehow I wasn't convinced. Soon, I started showing physical symptoms like feeling shortness of breath and general hot flashes. This is when I paused and thought to myself - "This can't be normal". I do realize now that when my mind space was such, I would also have been defensive in my demeanor in public. I tried to shoot back counters to anyone who wanted to judge me ...

Photo by Goutham Ganesh Sivanandam on Unsplash It was a laid back weekend afternoon, a perfect day for home shopping. I was walking with my extra-large cart, through the aisles of Ikea. Blinded by the colors of the pillow covers, I was oscillating between looking at the items on display and my way ahead. Maneuvering through the narrow bends, I pushed my cart cautiously. Just then, a lady (middle-aged), engrossed in picking between the two pillow-covers in her hand, stepped backward and appeared right in front of my cart. Obviously, you guessed it - We crashed! My instant reaction was "Sorry". Sorry because, firstly, most probably just like me, she was blinded too, by the colorfully tempting cushions on display. Secondly, it was a mishap. No one decks up and leaves home planning to accidentally hurt someone at Ikea. My "sorry" was not an expression of regret. It was an expression of sympathy. I do understand, English can be complicated. Maybe something the East Indi...

Photo by  Patrick Hendry  on  Unsplash Life rewards us in mysterious ways. You "blend in" and get immediate results that amount to gratification and happiness. You may "Stand out" because you are a natural, but the world will question your worth.  "Standing up", is the real deal.  Just like fitting in, Standing up is also a choice... the tougher choice that we make to be true to ourselves. At first, it gives nothing back to us except fear, hate, and friction. But if we hang in there using this friction, we will start to see us as an evolved version of ourselves. We will be someone describable in a few good words. We will find our identity. Even in the literal sense, Friction is the force that opposes motion. But we know that it eventuall y   helps us. Without friction, we would touch but won't be able to feel, would draw but won't be able to leave the impressions of it, would try to climb but won't move upwards, would flow with the current but ...

Photo by  Ladd Greene  on  Unsplash There is an old story of a frog in boiling water. It is relevant even today in the context of how we look at our jobs. It might be useful to learn a thing or two, looking back at this story in new light. The stories goes like this. There was a frog that deliberately hopped into a pot. The pot had fresh water so it indulged in swimming around a bit. Not too long later, the pot of water started getting warm. Frog didn't know that the pot was set on flame to warm up. The water was getting warm, warmer and so on. Frog could now foresee that its only going to get hotter from here on. It contemplated taking the leap out of the pot but, since frogs have the skill to withstand temperature up until boiling point, it stayed on waiting for that point. Once it got too hot to handle, coping with heat was getting difficult. Soon the frog got to a point of exhaustion and it simply succumbed. It could no longer make the leap. All its energy had been sp...

Pic source : pixabay  Today is Mother's day. The day when our children cluelessly wish us "Happy mothers day". It is a special day when we acknowledge the hard work that goes into being a mom.  A roles of a mother has so much dichotomy. We wear many faces but have to make sure that the most pleasant face is the one showing. While you are trying to manage all your ten roles, the most important is the one that makes sure your kids see you as a juggler supermom, who means well and not as a scary monster, who is out to get them. As a mother and in general, why do we feel the need to juggle so many roles? Simply because it's mandatory to be perfect and better than the others.  Thats what they said. And they still say so much. If you have a career, they say you are too busy for you kids. If you are a stay at home-mom,  they say you can do more. And if you do both well, and get close to their "Perfect". They'd simply change the goalpost If you cook well, they s...

Image by : Gerd Altmann from Pixabay The world has made "being opinionated" synonymous to possessing mastery. Achievers are described as people who have strong opinions and are not afraid to push it through. Having strong opinions is almost heroic. But, in this ever changing world, where there is no "permanent", aren't your rigid opinions, hardened by your experience, replaceable for the better? Even in case of successful negotiation, there are many studies pointing to the fact that flexibility, self-awareness and EQ are the cornerstones. Almost any consequential social interaction involves a degree of negotiation. Hence, working on mastering negotiation might make life easier. One of the first questions one must answer, in the process of negotiation is - "Who are you negotiating with?". This doesn't just mean knowing the person but understanding the other person's view point and priorities. Being able to think flexibly is a virtue an...

Image by Gordon Johnson Pixabay Sequel of " Our Identity is our Masterpiece" We all go through the confusion about what are our core strengths, at various stages in life. More so, in the middle age when we question our achievements. Isn't it worth the while to identify the root of this line of thought and build a cognitive wall to keep unwanted things far from affecting us? Here is the story of little Hope that might relate to every one of us. One mid summer day, in a ritzy hospital on a bustling street in the middle of an express city, Hope was born. Little Hope's birth marked the beginning of Mum's long maternity leave. Mum was ready to hold her little one and spend the rest of her days in a dreamland where there are no meetings, reports, client, calls or releases.Those were the days that felt surreal but only until it was time to step back into her real world, get back to office and revere the present, the present that challenges her capabilities, h...

jozefmicic/Adobe Stock Disclaimer : I am not an aspiring shrink. I might be a few years too late for that attempt Hi my readers! ( yes, all 4 of you out there! :-) ) I often think about why people suffer Identity Crisis. All of us have or do face it on and off. The key, I feel, is in how we answer just one question. A very important question; How do I describe myself ? It might be fruitful to introspect and find out what our answer to that question has been. More importantly, if we have answered it ourselves. Is it our own authentic answer? when someone asks us to describe ourselves, the first few things that pop into our head might be: 1. What job do we do? 2. How good or bad we are at it? 3. What belief do we relate to - religious, political or others 4. What is our role? 5. What is our social status? 6. How we look? and so on. But think about who has actually answered these questions. We rely on our boss to tell us what role we play and how good or bad...

Are you a parent yet? Most part of childhood, our children equate their parents to Superheroes. In your child's eyes, a Superhero doesn't err. And I am sure we parents recognize and agree to Spiderman when he says  "with great power comes great responsibility". I do believe that parenting is a scientific process as much as an emotional journey. Every action has an affect on our child's brain. You might notice, there are famous parents' children who are infamous for the way they are handling their life. On the other hand there are celebrity children who are as driven as their parents. We also see most successful people are self-made. As a parent, I wonder, if we are doing all the right things or are we doing what we know as "right"? A Seal , starts teaching its young one, from the age of 2 weeks, to swim in the sea and identify the right air holes in ice to pass through. An Orangutan  makes its child a young apprentice to learn to pick th...

My fellow rational animals! We may be in the middle of a Pandemic. We may even be in the middle of the biggest global crisis. But you see, all you really have to do is;  be that Tree.  Be the Tree, you see outside your window. Rain or shine, just like that tree, the only thing you have to do is, Grow . This is the most natural way to respond, so be that Tree. Keep taking in the fuel even though no-one waters you, shed the leaves you don't want anymore, strengthen the branches that make you what you are. I am convinced that this is the only way. Freedom of movement is taken away, for our safety. We are huddled up in our homes. Some of us might have material losses that are not in our control. But for most others, its a new and uncomfortable time of crisis that we can control through our rational brain. What has really changed for us? We have lost full control of our plans Our routine is disturbed We are wary about what future holds We might have more fre...

Pic : Venice   in Middle Ages Did you ever think you will see such a day? Across the globe, governments are doing everything to ensure people stay home. Some are urging us like Singapore, some are coercing like Russia,  some are imposing curfews like India. World leaders are holding press conferences covering wide range of subjects all the way from Billion $ Covid-19 response stimulus to asking people to stop hoarding tissue paper rolls. I read an article recently with a picture of Rajasthan and the headline said "will this town in India, be the next Italy". Being a hopeful Indian, I eagerly opened to read further, only to be disappointed. No points for guessing that the article was not about the progress but about Covid-19 effects. There are a hundreds of differences between India and Italy; economic status and population being the most obvious ones, but maybe we can draw subtle parallels between Italy and India, in-spite of these stark differences Italy and I...

Coronavirus a.k.a Covid-19 is the invisible, invincible virus that came and reset our laptops and entered our heads while the anti-virus was scanning. Alas, it was scanning the wrong place. Like psychologists suggest, every human has two sides. While we are naturally getting attracted to the startling apocalyptic news items, we have a hidden die-hard optimist inside,  who must be intensely looking for signs that point to the end to this mayhem. Today we have more than 300,000 Cases across the world and "new cases" graph is only going up and up. The death toll graph is  pointing upwards as of now and from the ~100,000 "closed cases", 12% have ended up with death.  These numbers can push up the stress levels, for sure. But, only if you feel like you have to protect yourself from it. Don't get me wrong, but for a change try pretending like you already have the virus and just don't want to pass it to anyone. This way, complying to the directives of Socia...

Have you ever read about the cognitive behavioral concepts? These concepts are formed around understanding human cognitive distortions, unhelpful behaviors and emotional regulations that we form through our lives. It is but obvious, that every human being goes through many experiences through out their life and while going through them they learn about themselves and form beliefs about their own capabilities. Every belief that a person has of  him/her self is based on the past experiences. For example, if I have tried to play a sport a few times and have not been able to do well and in-turn have had bad experiences of facing associated humiliation, I would think a thousand times before I can try another sport. This is because I have formed an unhealthy opinion that I am not good at sports. On the other extreme, if I have baked a cake and everyone has loved it, I will have high level of confidence to try baking cake or cookies or anything else that I think needs simi...