Three buckets of action

 

This topic actually came up when I was having a discussion about life with a friend of mine from college (Thyagesh). It has been close to 5 years now after we had the conversation now and it has had a very pleasant effect on my life.

Let me set the context here I am not talking about any action towards others which have the following attributes

• Someone pays you to do something ( Job, Contract )
  
• There is a direct & immediate tangible return for you (money, fame etc..) to do that action
  
• You do something out of fear
  

There is an important criteria what action qualifies for discussion below. I define it as – "Any action done for no direct benefit to the doer but for the person to whom this is being done for".

Some examples to make this very clear

• I take a relative of mine to the doctor when he is sick
  
• I take care of my neighbour's dog while they are out of town.
  
• I guide a colleague when he is stuck in work late night by sitting with him to fix an issue.
  
• I take my brother-in-law for some examination
  
• Taking my parents to a temple
  
• Giving money to my domestic help for her kid's education
  
• Helping ease out traffic at neighbourhood junction
  
• Giving money to an orphanage
  

  
   

Please note that none of the actions listed above have a direct benefit to the doer (i.e. me).

In general in our daily life there is a good probability that everything we do for others is categorised by us mentally as a Help we have done the other person.

The thought is pretty simple, when we do an action for somebody else it falls under one the following 3 categories.

• Duty
  
• Obligation
  
• Charity
  

Let me explain each one of them in detail

Duty – This is something which I have to do for others regardless of what or how I feel about it. These are defined by ourselves .So simply you go ahead and do it when these action present themselves in front of us. Examples of them are

• Taking care of my sick parents
  
• Educating my kids
  
• Voting on election day
  

Obligation – This is something which I have to do for others but I make it clear to them that it is an obligation and I expect something in return. Examples of them are

• When my neighbour asks me to take of his dog instead of quietly accepting and doing it I make it clear ti him – "Sure I can do that. It is little difficult but I am sure you will take of receiving the courier when I am out of town and you would not mind me giving you contact number"
  
• Help a colleague at work but tell him "I can help you with but you will need to help me out next week with the assignment – right?"
  
• 
  

The basic point is when you are doing an obligation, make sure the other person has to return the favour in explicit terms. In corporate terminology "Set expectations explicitly and clearly"

Charity – This is an activity which we do and should not expect anything in return and is done of sheer free will. Note this is different from Duty in that there is no external requirement to this activity.

• Helping out a neighbour drop the kid at school
  
• Taking out my wife's uncle for a shopping who is visiting from out of town.
  
• Giving money to my driver when his father is sick
  

Now that we have defined the 3 categories, we need to deal with them. We should be careful in life never to mix the categories which lead us to heartburns, disappointments and spoilt relationships.

It is a simple 2 step process

1. Before doing any activity for others categorize mentally into one of the 3 buckets and do it.
   
2. This is the most important step – Do not mix the items in the bucket after the activity is done ever in the future.
   

The tough part is that there are activities which can qualify as under any of the above, so it is up to each individual to classify it accordingly. For example I can say that "Doing the laundry or the vessels" is an obligation to my wife ( ok I am going to get a talk about this statement with my wife) but on the other hand I can also classify it as a duty as a husband or a father.

So you need to be clear in your mind on how you are doing the categorization and never ever shuffle the contents of buckets. Look at buckets as a post box into which an activity can be categorized and dropped but can never be taken out.

A typical example of falling into the pit hole – I pay my driver some money for his kid's school fees and at the time of giving the money I categorize it as charity
but may be some months I ask the driver to come on a Sunday and he refuses. I feel hurt recollecting that I helped but he is not helping me or I tell him so now, which is even worse.

To summarize – Help others by categorizing your actions and never change it after you have done it.

Being in Shit doesn't mean bad.

( Got his off a site )

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold, the bird froze and fell to the ground in a large field. While it was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on it. As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, it began to realize how warm it was. The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung and promptly dug him out and ate him!

Management Lessons:
1) Not everyone who drops shit on you is your enemy.
2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
3) And when you're in deep shit, keep your mouth shut!

Can we be always happy?

Actually this question was asked by Aloysius which inspired me to write this blog.

Yes we can we can progam our mind to think in a particulatr fashion.I derive this from a concept of "Paradoxical intentions" mentioned in the book "Man's search for Meaning". An awesome book for how bad a life can get and how you can derive a meaning to life and hence happiness.In the book, experiences of concentration camp detainee is mentioned. Life can only be miserable there right? Wrong. The book talks extensively about that.

The following is how I derive my thought.
1. Every action has a result - Success or Failure.
2.Both these results are are how we JUDGE them.
3.If we cheat ourselves into judging them different then we can categorize even a failure as success.

Some examples :
1.Searching for a job and hope to get it in 1 week - Success( Got a job) or Failure ( Did not get a job )
Now applying the above logic - Success(Got a job ) or Failure( spend another week to hit the gym and lose that extra weight). This example was I personally experienced because I was in between I spent my time learning swimming.By job search was stretched by 3 months but at the end I had a job and knew swimming.
2.Looking to get married - Success( found a spouse) or Failure ( could not find the right one )
Now applying the above logic - Success is of course define or Failure ( enjoy your bachelor hood). Save more to buy things for the house you need after marriage.

In short if we can re-program our mind into not judging results negatively we can be at the least be neutral if not happy.

Night Viewing of Taj

Recently I was in Agra and thought night viewing had been banned.Lot of misinformation. So got this photo below which should be of help to others.
"Read it as Full moon night and two nights and not (tow nights)".:-)

Why do we shout in anger?

This one is a lovely mail and you should read it….. A good one too……..I am sure you will like it.

A saint asked his disciples, 'Why do we shout in anger? Why do people shout at each other when they are upset?'

Disciples thought for a while, one of them said, 'Because we lose our calm, we shout for that.'

'But, why to shout when the other person is just next to you?' asked the saint. 'Isn't it possible to speak to him or her with a soft voice? Why do you shout at a person when you're angry?'

Disciples gave some other answers but none satisfied the saint.

Finally he explained, 'When two people are angry at each other, their hearts distance a lot. To cover that distance they must shout to be able to hear each other. The angrier they are, the stronger they will have to shout to hear each other through that great distance.'
Then the saint asked, 'What happens when two people fall in love? They don't shout at each other but talk softly, why? Because their hearts are very close. The distance between them is very small...'
The saint continued, 'When they love each other even more, what happens? They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer to each other in their love. Finally they even need not whisper, they only look at each other and that's all. That is how close two people are when they love each other.'

MORAL: When you argue do not let your hearts get distant, do not say words that distance each other

Good Coffee

Got this in a floating mail. But liked it very much.

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite -telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups... And then you began eyeing each other's cups.

Now consider this: Life is the coffee; the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of Life we live.Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee.

"The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything."

Is it possible to beat these chemicals?

I am talking about Dopamine, Endorphin and Serotonin. I was reading about stuff and stumbled upon these chemical inside each one of us. I posted on twitter and had got a nice response from Sukumar on the blog he had done on the same topic only his intent was different. Sukumar takes a nice look at how this phenomenon or attribute of a human system can be leveraged for some thing good.

Keeping up with the theme of this blog I was motivated to look at if at is it possible to beat these chemicals. As you read through Sukumar's blog and the references he quotes it becomes pretty evident that the above two chemicals are tightly integrated into the human brain's way of working.

My thought on this was that I am subject to behave the way these chemicals make me react. Kind of makes me feel like a puppet. A chemical get secreted and I start behaving in a specific manner. I don't like the feeling of being a puppet.

As I like to keep my posts short. We can do some things to get of this cycle. This is no small task. People, spiritual leaders, sages spend years breaking out of this cycle. I could co-relate ( could be a figment of my imagination ) this breaking away from this cycle to Moksha. I get excited by connecting stuff. Here I am linking human physiology to spirituality.

There are a lot of methods in the yogic way of living to handle the above cycle. Obviously that is a huge area to be explained and of course I am not an authority on yogic way of life.

But one this that can be done is for us to observe the above cycle happening within us. Basic philosophy in yoga is first to observe the mind so that we can know to handle it. Meditation is a way of helping our mind relax, so that it can observe the cycle happening consciously. Once we have the results of our observation we will know how to act next and stop being puppets. This is a first step towards breaking the cycle.

You barely exist !!!

The Earth has been around for 4.6 billion years. Scaling this time down to 46 years we have been around for 4 hours and our Industrial Revolution began just 1 minute ago.

Looking at it with above scale out life on earth is so negliblably negligably small that we don't practically exist from a cosmic perspctive. With respect to universe if we don't exist how can our problems,success failure exist. May be this can be co-related to the "Everything is an illusion form Gita".

All I am trying to say - "If we can reduce the weightage we give to success/failure that hits us everyday, we can stop these from getting to us. This means we have better inner peace."

Real World Ahimsa
Let me begin with a basic statement. I don't like Gandhi for a lot of reasons. But that is not the focus of this post. But the philosophy of Ahimsa I feel is relevant.It is funny contradicts the phrase "Criticise the idea, not the person" in this case "I like the idea, not the person". This is similar to I don't believe Krishna , God-demons but I do believe that Gita and its philosophies makes life better to live.

Ahmisa is the opposite of Himsa which means "Violence" this needs to be interpreted as not just physical violence but mental violence. I consider violence is an act performed to inflict PAIN be
it physical or mental. So ahimsa is the art of not causing pain to others in any form.

In this blog my quick thoughts at Ahmisa in the house and at work.

Himsa at home

• As children we talk back / defy parents.
• As spouses we scold / put down / insult / scorn our partners.
• As parents we do the same to our kids.

Himsa at Work

• Admonish subordinates when they make a mistake.
• Put down support staff.
• Launch verbal/non-verbal attacks on peer when in competition.
  

Somethings which come to my mind

• Never insult or scold loved one.
• React in a delayed manner. Hold back instant reactions.
• Consciously make sure you do not hurt anyone with words. Pain caused by words never heal.
• NEVER EVER INSULT people. You can never win by insulting, maybe you can put them down for sometime. It is difference between capturing and winning over.
• Even though people around you don't meet your standards in ethics/ hard work/ cleanliness/ sincerity whatever THEY STILL HAVE TO RESPECTED AS HUMANS. Having a bad habit is a criteria to treat another person as a lesser mortal. I guess that is also DISCRIMINATION. Discrimination in any for is bad.

I can hear people saying - "Dude, this is easier said than done , Thanks for the advice." :-)

Let me share some tips that I do to practice to achieve the above. It is all about mental conditioning.

• Never think low of another person just because the other does meet your expectations. He does deserve respect as a human being. For e.g. this could be your 3 year old kid who did not drink milk for the 100th time.
• There is no way you can expect to get respected by someone who you just insulted.
• More often than not the ones who are subdued momentarily look for a chance to rebel. A friend of mine after adjusting to his parents for 30 years refuse to come to India just his parents stay here.

If we make a conscious effort not to inflict pain even unintentionally to people around us , our lives will become better. I guess there is a "Self-fish" motive of wanting to do this , that being I having a peaceful and harmonious life with my surroundings.

Would love to hear from others if I am practical or too theoretical here.

Me compose and sang a song. WOW!! what is world coming too,

This is a song (listen here) I created by a cool software from MSR. Not for the faint hearted music lovers. :-) :-)

My own lyrics ( pretty naive..)
Life is so simple
If your time was ample
But it is never simple
Coz of the tangles
We get in every angle.
Rather than wait for angels
Let's change the angles
To break our shackles
To break our shackles
To blow our blues
Break our shackles
Blow our blues
Life will become simple
Life will become simple
And FUNNY!!!