Maybe it is the natural instinct to be free,to seek freedom that prompts me to start blogging....Maybe its because its a fad that any so called 'thinking individual' has a modern day diary...Maybe its because am bored...Maybe i succumb to pressure from friends....Whatever the reason, here is my private garden,i plant the seeds,i water them,marvel at my handiwork and share it with loved ones;-)
I slept through the first half of the movie Inception. My friend jokingly commented ‘You got incepted’.
In the recent weeks I found a cradle.
No. Not my bed.
The 3-wheeled cabin cycle that grunts its way through the haphazard traffic in Bangalore streets, popularly known as the auto-rickshaw is my bassinet.
In the 45 mins ride from home to office, I undergo at least 2 stages of sleep. Each time I woke up when the disgruntle vehicle rudely rouse me up. Then off I go comatose again.
It makes up as a good story during snacks time in office.
My team-mates take turns in joking about it. They imagine hilarious situations where I could fall asleep landing myself in an awkward plight.
All is good, until it dawn on me that my old friend Sinusitis is back!
Sigh.
It’s a drag to wake up in the morning. A huge annoyance!
The head weighs a ton, you slowly pull through the day, wanting to sleep all the time.
I need to take care of this unwanted guest
But, arghhh… steam inhalation is too much work. Damn.
Today while meditating & praying,I came across this passage that pinpoints what we often feel. It's nice to know that we can chose to turn to our Shepherd, the author and keeper of our lives. He restores our souls. This is an excerpt from one of the chapters in 'Our Daily Bread (Annual Edition 2010)'
In his classic book A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, W. Phillip Keller gives a striking picture of the care and gentleness of a shepherd. In verse 3 when David says, “He restores my soul,” he uses language every shepherd would understand.
Sheep are built in such a way that if they fall over on their side and then onto their back, it is very difficult for them to get up again. They flail their legs in the air, bleat, and cry. After a few hours on their backs, gas begins to collect in their stomachs, the stomach hardens, the air passage is cut off, and the sheep will eventually suffocate. This is referred to as a “cast down” position. When a shepherd restores a cast down sheep, he reassures it, massages its legs to restore circulation, gently turns the sheep over, lifts it up, and holds it so it can regain its equilibrium. What a picture of what God wants to do for us! When we are on our backs, flailing because of guilt, grief, or grudges, our loving Shepherd reassures us with His grace, lifts us up, and holds us until we’ve gained our spiritual equilibrium. If you’ve been cast down for any reason, God is the only one who can help you get on your feet again. He will restore your confidence, joy, and strength.
My confession: I have felt like a cast down sheep many times My testimony: A hand has always reached out to me at the lowest ebbs of those times, hug me, soothing me and helped me get up on my feet.
Out of the blue, my 2.5 years old niece, moved her hips, slides her little hands from her chest to her tiny butt crooning ‘Baby, baby, baby ooh Like baby, baby, baby noo Like baby, baby, baby ooh’
Stupefied, shell-shocked, we all stopped whatever we were doing, stood agape for a few seconds, before we all burst into laughter!
The little one was belting out Justins Bieber’s ‘Baby’ song & doing his moves.
Lily, Charlotte’s adopted kid in ‘Sex and the city’, picked up a ringing cell-phone & said, ‘Sex’ into the phone. She’d picked up the word from the conversations the adult women were having around her.
I go all warm & softy inside when the little boy Ray in Jerry Macquire movie says ‘D'you know that the human head weighs 8 pounds?’ and then goes into giggling fits, apparently proud of what he just said, even though am unsure if he understood the weight of his statement.
Kids are so impressionable!
They imitate us. They see what we do, hear what we say. Their mind gets a ‘validation message’ that it’s a good thing to do, right thing to say.
The news that my 16th year old cousin sister and my 11 year old niece are ‘on a new fad diet’ is a concern. The obsession with being thin or becoming reed-like thin, is not a new fad amongst teenagers and adults. But the fact that it’s becoming a trend with kids as young as 8 years is disturbing.
Advertisements like the ‘New Garnier Hair Color’ which sends messages like:
Your worth is the worth of your hair. If your hair greys-out ( bad hair, not so good looks etc) 1. your boyfriend would ignore you or leave you 2. other boys would not show interest in you Two mutually exclusive events: grey hair and an ignoring boyfriend have been deftly molded, to make it look as if they are dependant of each other (cause-effect).
--- does not help!
The much criticized Fair and Lovely commercials too are so misguiding for young impressionable minds. You are beautiful only if you are fair - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubbufbkbovY
I love my niece and my sister. I wish that they grow up into emotionally stable, physically confident, morally upright, wholesome individuals.
Their self esteem should not be hampered by such visual feeds.
I vote for more wholesome Dove commercials. Their campaign for real beauty , an effort towards societal change in redefining beauty is commendable.
Real juice commercial promoting ‘healthy lifestyle’ is laudable.
Cute as it is when she warbles ‘Baby, baby, baby ooh Like baby, baby, baby noo Like baby, baby, baby ooh’,
I pray that my niece would be arm with the right information to make the right choices. As she grows up, life happens, she'll bid goodbye to innocence.
She might not sleep this peacefully at 30 years, but I hope she gets all that she needs to keep emotionally fit, mentally sharp, and is able to live to her fullest potential.
3:30 am, awake in Bangalore city, alone, working into the wee hours of the morning. Lately it’s become a routine.
No, I am not in office.
I am in the confines of my bedroom, sitting in bed, propped up by pillows, cradling the laptop on my lap (how apt!), trouble-shooting reported bugs, responding to queries from my counterparts in the US. While it’s the dawn of my today, for them it’s the evening of my yesterday.
Most nights it’s quiet. I work in silence. Sometimes, an imaginary ghost does send a chill down my spine; that is, if I allow my mind to wander.
Sometimes, a sense of loneliness takes me by surprise. Its coldness brings up a charge of tears.
At other times, your mind gets lost in thoughts of someone dear. It’s ironic that in such moments of melancholic silence, that one person who swore to be by your side is out of sight.
My cell phone lies beside me. I yearn to pick it up and make a call, nip the misery and solitude at the bud. But realization sets in.
There was a time when you could call a friend anytime, anyplace, whether in sunshine or amidst a storm. Now, I can only remember those bygone years.
Today, it’s selfish to expect, it’s impolite to visit without having made an appointment first. People are wary to commit because of the fear of expectations. Give me your time, give me your love, but please don’t expect the same. That’s the mantra.
The other day I read a quote which said:
‘The worst in life is ‘attachment’. It hurts when you lose it. The best thing in life is ‘loneliness’ because it teaches you everything and when you lose it, you get everything’.
Whoever came up with this must have had it real bad, to come up with such an over-stretched, trying hard to make it sound good statement.
But alas, it’s an undeniable truth. We are a generation 24/7 connected (cell phones, internet, gizmos and all sorts of gadgets, what have we not?). But emotionally, we are disconnected from oneself, from our peers and those who matter. Emotionally bankrupt, we are.
It’s raining outside. I can hear the pitter patter of the raindrops, the swishing sounds of the leaves as they sway in the breeze.
Likewise, my mind wanders.
How did I get to where I am now? At the beck and call of a job, when did work-life balance go so askew? Putting my priorities in the wrong set of things, wrong set of people, is like feeding my pearls to pigs. Bad food, bad habits, less sleep, no exercise, we all started out swearing we wouldn’t succumb. Scattering and unaligned priorities, in the blink of an eye, we’ve fallen hook line and sinker into a pitiable lifestyle.
Ting! There goes the email alarm in my outlook inbox.
It’s 4:15am. Another query to answer, electronically!
I’ll do that and then maybe my laptop would crash and I’ll catch my Zzzz’s.
No worries. I am not yet at the point of no return.
I can still swing my life around. Right back up, to where it belongs!
A – Whereas the saying “all is fair in love and war” is absolutely correct;
B – Whereas for war we have the Geneva Convention, approved on 22 August 1864, which provides for those wounded in the battle field, but until now no convention has been signed concerning those wounded in love, who are far greater in number;
It is hereby decreed that:
Article 1 – All lovers, of any sex, are alerted that love, besides being a blessing, is also something extremely dangerous, unpredictable and capable of causing serious damage. Consequently, anyone planning to love should be aware that they are exposing their body and soul to various types of wounds, and that they shall not be able to blame their partner at any moment, since the risk is the same for both.
Article 2 – Once struck by a stray arrow fired from Cupid’s bow, they should immediately ask the archer to shoot the same arrow in the opposite direction, so as not to be afflicted by the wound known as “unrequited love”. Should Cupid refuse to perform such a gesture, the Convention now being promulgated demands that the wounded partner remove the arrow from his/her heart and throw it in the garbage. In order to guarantee this, those concerned should avoid telephone calls, messages over the Internet, sending flowers that are always returned, or each and every means of seduction, since these may yield results in the short run but always end up wrong after a while. The Convention decrees that the wounded person should immediately seek the company of other people and try to control the obsessive thought: “this person is worth fighting for”.
Article 3 – If the wound is caused by third parties, in other words if the loved one has become interested in someone not in the script previously drafted, vengeance is expressly forbidden. In this case, it is allowed to use tears until the eyes dry up, to punch walls or pillows, to insult the ex-partner in conversations with friends, to allege his/her complete lack of taste, but without offending their honor. The Convention determines that the rule contained in Article 2 be applied: seek the company of other persons, preferably in places different from those frequented by the other party.
Article 4 – In the case of light wounds, herein classified as small treacheries, fulminating passions that are short-lived, passing sexual disinterest, the medicine called Pardon should be applied generously and quickly. Once this medicine has been applied, one should never reconsider one’s decision, not even once, and the theme must be completely forgotten and never used as an argument in a fight or in a moment of hatred.
Article 5 – In all definitive wounds, also known as “breaking up”, the only medicine capable of having an effect is called Time. It is no use seeking consolation from fortune-tellers (who always say that the lost lover will return), romantic books (which always have a happy ending), soap-operas on the television or other such things. One should suffer intensely, completely avoiding drugs, tranquilizers and praying to saints. Alcohol is only tolerated if kept to a maximum of two glasses of wine a day.
Final determination:
Those wounded in love, unlike those wounded in armed conflict, are neither victims nor torturers. They chose something that is part of life, and so they have to accept both the agony and the ecstasy of their choice.
And those who have never been wounded in love will never be able to say: “I have lived”. Because they haven’t.
It was my final term MBA paper at the institute.
Scoring an A on Business Strategy was the last leg of my run.
It was my key to the hall of fame for 8.point.something CGPA holders.
An hour left, it was time to start on the 40 marks C section. I literally saw the letters blurring out. A single line appeared twice. I couldn’t read. My head started spinning. I stood up, ran to the washroom, pop in a stemetil (thinking it was a migraine attack) and gingerly walked back to the examination hall. I attempted to write but how could I, if I could not read. To cut this story short, I submitted an incomplete paper and landed a C.
Wanna hear a funny story?
Here goes…
I attended a final job interview, looking (presumably) dapper in a salwar-kurta piece.
The interview went well. After the interview, I headed off to the job I was holding then.
Sometime later, a colleague walked up to me and pointed out that I was wearing my kurta inside-out.
I looked down.
Seeing the inside stitching standing out in all its glory, I shrieked!
Red faced, I realized what I had done.
I had attended an interview with the insides of my kurta all hanging out, so to speak.
This was 4 years ago. I laughed at it now of-course (Btw, I did get the job. Maybe, wearing clothes inside-out is my lucky charm. :P )
Walking into a room and forgetting why I got there, forgetting my employee number, atm pin, phone number, a friend’s name (not kidding), fumbling over words while speaking, are all not signs of dementia, for me.
They were simple signs of ‘lack of sleep’.
The night before the final interview, I was on a night shift. For two nights before my Business Strategy paper, I was up awake studying for other papers.
Last week, I was doing an almost all night-all day shift at work. Intermittent sleep, short stressful naps for 5 whole days, took a toll on me. My skin broke up zits, my back ached, my body retained water, in short, my body was screaming for rest. A deep sleep on Friday night, wasn’t enough. All through Saturday afternoon, I was still tired and drowsy.
I slept through the weekend.
The usual me would have called it a wash-out, flop, disappointing, complete fiasco weekend.
Why?
Simply cause I slept through the only 2 days in a week, the only days I can socialize, meet people, eat, drink and make merry!
But, no I wouldn’t say that.
Because by cutting down on sleep “we learn less, we develop less, we are less bright, we make worse decisions, we accomplish less, we are less productive, we are more prone to errors, and we undermine our true intellectual potential”
I read an article on sleep by Poitr Woiznak who studied student personalities for over 10 years now(http://tinyurl.com/23vqp3w). The crux of his findings can be expressed in this one sentence ‘Sleeping well appears to be one of the most important factors underlying the success in learning’.
Naturally, common-sense would tell us that this holds true for all walks of life. We are more energetic, optimistic, stress-tolerant, attentive and able to take quick good decisions only after a good night sleep.
Reading his article further, I was astonished by these startling facts:
• 40% of truck accidents are attributable to fatigue and drowsiness
• There is an 800% increase in single vehicle commercial truck accidents between midnight and 8 am.
• Major industrial disasters have been attributed to sleep deprivation (among these, at least in part, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, the gas leak at Bhopal, Zeebrugge disaster, and the Exxon Valdez oil spill). (This fact was a shocker! )
o Three mile island disaster -http://preview.tinyurl.com/2j92yt
o Chernobyl gas leak disaster - http://tinyurl.com/yra55a
In all the above disasters, one common cause you’ll find is the human-factor. In general, a human factor is a physical or cognitive property of an individual or social behavior which is specific to humans and influences functioning of technological systems as well as human-environment equilibriums. The Human Factor Model, in its study of the science of understanding the properties of human capability, has highlighted the importance of ‘rest and proper sleep’ for the optimal performance of any worker in any industry.
Robert Stickgold, assistant professor of psychiatry at Massachusetts Mental Health Center came up with 3 concepts:
• As we snooze, our brain is busily processing the information we have learned during the day.
• Sleep makes memories stronger, and it even appears to weed out irrelevant details and background information so that only the important pieces remain.
• Our brain also works during slumber to find hidden relations among memories and to solve problems we were working on while awake
How can a simple snooze make most of your problems lighter if not go away completely? Incredible!
But Robert Stickgold must surely know what he was talking about because he is a preeminent sleep researcher and has dedicated his life to understanding the relationship between sleep and learning (I wiki him out).
And then I found this video:
I guess I’ve said enough.
I hope I’ve equip you with enough food for thought (which you can process after a good night sleep, of course) on the importance of sleep.
I’ll leave you with a few statistics on sleep : (FYI:- I tried to look for statistics by Indian researchers. But all I could find are by the AASM- American Academy of Sleep Medicine)
• Humans spend about 1/3 of their lives asleep.
• Newborns need about 16 to 20 hours of sleep per day.
• During adolescence a change in the body clock keeps most teens from feeling sleepy until 10 p.m. or later.
• Adults who don’t get enough sleep tend to act sluggish, but sleep-deprived children may be hyperactive.
• Sleeping less than seven hours per night increases your risk of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and depression.
• Drowsy driving is associated with almost 20 percent of all serious car-crash injuries.
• During a full night of sleep most adults go through four to six sleep cycles that each last about 90 minutes to 110 minutes.
• During the stage of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, your limb muscles become temporarily paralyzed to prevent you from acting out your dreams.
• It is estimated that 50 million to 70 million Americans suffer from a chronic sleep disorder.
• People with untreated sleep apnea have a higher rate of death due to heart disease.
• Insomnia is the most common sleep complaint, affecting about 30 percent of adults.
• For every time zone that you cross during a flight, it takes your body about one day to adjust.
Just a reminder (not a scare tactic ): The real killer of Ranjan Das, CEO and MD of SAP Indian subcontinent was lack of sleep. (http://jaipar.multiply.com/journal/item/1099)
Seriously, go get your Zzzzzz’s people!
If I live long, I don’t want to live alone :P
I am not a fan of fat sloppy lazy lasagne-crazy Garfield.
But he is my sleeping hero.
Hail Garfield!
(Rambling at midnight...restless spirit, disturbed soul)
Back were the days when skipping rocks on a pond, Leapfrogging on the lawn, Light spirited, fun was a norm. Blithe and breezy, jovial and sunny; Like Peter, I’d shout, “I’m youth and I am joy. I’m a little bird that has grown out of the egg”.
Quietly the fog descended over the hills, So you learn to toil, and it soon became drudgery. Loaded is laughter, tinge by melancholy. Here and there, now and then, One taste of glory, One mouthful of sky.
The heart is indeed a lonely hunter, For the one that walks besides you is your shadow, Awaiting the break of dawn, longing for my aurora.
Life continues to test me.It seems to be saying 'I will be all over you like a moth on a streetlight, buzzing around trying to find out all i can about you'.
Life never fails to surprise me. Everyday I learn something new.
There is nothing that I've learned and imbibed so far that have not been experienced by someone else out there. These are some of their thoughts which i share.
‘Honor your father and mother,' and 'love your neighbor as yourself.' – Mathew 19:19
‘One of the things my parents taught me, and I'll always be grateful for the gift, is to not ever let anybody else define me.’ - Wilma Mankiller
‘Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver.’- Barbara De Angelis
‘Love is a choice you make from moment to moment.’- Barbara De Angelis
‘The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention.... A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.’ - Rachel Naomi Remen
‘You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’-Eleanor Roosevelt
‘The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.’-Elizabeth Foley
‘The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.’- Theodore Hesburgh
‘Faith by itself, if not accompanied by action is dead’ – James 2:17
‘Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?’ -Mathew
