Art of Building Relationships...

Art of Building Relationships...

Come to think of it.. Man is a social animal. It means, we are genetically coded to look for relationships in our life for survival. We need communities and associations to belong to, and feel we are living a normal life.

We start forming these relationships from a very early age. The bonding between a baby and mom. Baby feels the comfort in his/her mom's voice, her sight and just about anything that connects to her presence. A bond between a child and father. And then the friendships we formed very early in our life in schools. The common thread in these early relationships was TRUST. We trusted the world to be a perfect and beautiful place where no one would hurt us. An unconditional love pouring over us.

But as we grew, we started experiencing the diversion from the golden belief of ours. A friend who would choose some other classmate over you as a best freind :). Having a sibling, and as a result, losing parents undivided attention etc. None of this denotes a negative behavior, but just brings us into the real world. The only side effect is we start getting careful about who we trust.

The implication of this is that as we grow up, we are more careful in our relations. The TRUST is, to some extent, replaced with EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE. We trade the pros and cons and devise strategies in forming relationships. Look at US and Russia today!! In this state, you protect yourself from being vulnerable. But is this a real relation at all? Or is this an arrangement ?

The relations from the childhood tend to be more deeper, longer lasting and trustworthy. The ones we form later in life are more thought out, safe, but purpose centered. Somehow, these safe ones are not as fulfilling.

Wonder if there is a lesson here from our childhood that we need to connect with while forming our relationships for the later part of our life. To live a more happy and fulfilling life, and growth, both personally and professionally !!

As always, share your thoughts :-)

Sachin

Memory Lane

This place, I wish to capture the snippets of the memories I have from my childhood, which form the treasure trove for me to reminisce on.

I remember:

1. Being in Bandra Govt. colony. I was about 4-5 year old. My dad taught me how to ride the red bicycle. I had always admired that bike when I would visit my grandparents (Mamma and Babuji) in Ghatkopar. It was my cousin's bike.. an attractive cherry red color. One day, it was handed down to me.. and then my dad was teaching me how to ride. He had initially attempted to teach me how to balance on a full size black bicycle. Neither my legs would reach the paddle or barely my hands reaching the handle (can tell my dad had high expectations from me :) .....). I had freaked out and introduced myself to fear ;-). But the story was different on this little cute red bike. I quickly grasped the technique and was already paddling it fast and riding it away. Dad was holding the seat and running by me to make sure I would be fine. We were doing this on the street in Bombay, India with traffic around. Makes me think how comfortable we were with it compared to the upbringing of my kids now in US. One incident that stands out is.. there was some roadwork happing on the street on my first ride. I was still enjoying the ride not realizing my dad probably asking me to steer clear of that area. While I was about to drive into the pile of dirt and stones dug out, my dad had to help me out. In the process, he got a cut on his hand and it bled. I felt very sorry for him. I don't remember telling him about how I felt.. and I know I learnt to ride my bike.. so he just ignored the injury and we continued with the training.. but my mind goes into this dark abyss for the rest of the memory of this SNIPPET.

Challenges & Satisfaction OR Success and Satisfaction.. Which group do you belong?

 

Up until now, and may be influenced through the heroic tales from the childhood and bollywood movies, I always pursued challenges in everything I did. As a result, I have a handsome collection of memories and happy stories to tell. So, yes, I am very satisfied with the course of life I was privileged to witness, be it education, career, family or social.

However, listening to some of the global leaders, and observing the common factors behind the successes across the globe, I am coming to a realization that there is another set of individuals who spot and pursue the opportunities, and have the surroundings in their favor. As a result, these individuals are able to achieve a lot more success in life, and I am sure they also have a good collection of success stories to share.

So now, I am at crossroad.. wondering where should I head next. While I loved the path I walked until now, I would not regret adding some favorable winds to my journey. May be the answer lies somewhere in between the two extremes. I would like to see if I can seek the balance of right amount of challenges, and right amount of favorable current to help overcome the challenges and also be a launch pad for a big success.

Stay tuned..

Cheers,
Sachin

Attitude - Key to your experience of life..

So, we have heard many times that attitude is everything.. Your success depends on your attitude.. What you achieve in life is dependent on your attitude, both in personal and professional life.. but here is what I realized..

Attitude would determine what your life experience is going to be.. Will you have a fulfilling life, or will you struggle to achieve peace and satisfaction regardless of the success you achieve. Mind you.. that statement is "regardless of success you achieve".

We all live a limited time on earth. I have heard mentioned before that time is relative. It goes fast when you are enjoying and happy, and is a big drag if you are sad or bored. Remember how time flew in the most loving company, and how much of a drag it was in a boring lecture in college :) ? As a result, we get a very long feel of time and experience it when we are not happy and a very short experience of the moment when life is good. Thus, most of us keep chasing the event to derive satisfaction from our achievement in life which is bogged down with memories of not so satisfying events. The only way to turn this around is to see your glass half full even when things are not great. There is always something positive to look into every situation. I truly hope I find that wisdom.

Cheers,
Sachin