~ Bringing awareness to self-indulgence ~

I finally managed to complete the movie 'Barah Aana'. Nothing great about the story line. A simple story which revolves around 3 people who go by their day- to-day life. Depicts human emotions, short comings, economic imbalance, governance, self-respect & how the M factor drives the world.

I loved the message at the end - "What do you need to survive in this world? Two meals, shelter, pair of clothes & respect. Little Respect" Watch the clip here.


The message got me thinking. Once you have the basic necessities for living - food, shelter, clothe & respect, one can afford to think of achieving or doing something else in life. Everything else comes later. Money is such an essential commodity in the present world which decides many situations in our lives. 


Many of us have a decent job & steady income and get on with our life without much worry for the necessities. Then there are those, who are struggle to meet the ends for basic necessities. 


Looking back at the past 4 years, I have been operating on the lines of materialism. Somehow there is never an end to the affinity towards certain materialistic world. There is never an end for your desires. However, one can strive towards being contented in the materialistic world and stay grounded.


The movie has definitely brought some amount of awareness & sense in my materialistic indulgence. The next step is to apply it while staying in the world capital of Materialism i.e. United States of America.


Completed a month in the US as of today ;)

~ Stay away Mancini ~

Mr Mancini now wants to sign the Premier League leading goal scorer, Robin Van Persie. Common Man City don't you already have enough forwards in your team? Why target #Gunners every time? 

You already have signed Samir Nasri, Gael Clichy, Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor. Isn't that enough? Stay away from Arsenal, Mr Mancini.

~ The ONE ~

There can never be replacement to an individual nor individual's ideas. No matter how much vision documents he has left for the life of the company. A person in-flesh & blood would make a lot of difference than on paper.


Today's iPad event shows how ONE man's vision brings a change in perspective towards a Product. You are missed Mr #Jobs. Good Night!

Very sad & disappointed.

~ Apple 25 billion counter ~

Few of my colleagues have been following the Apple's App store counter for over 2 hours now, on regular intervals.

If you see the counter rate at which the apps are downloaded, they are more surreal - like 500+ apps per second. If you want to check out visit www.apple.com or http://www.apple.com/itunes/25-billion-app-countdown/

Open the above links on multiple tabs & see if you get the same count value. You don't see the same value, not sure if the data feed which is coming from the server side is synchronized. There is definitely an REST call which is happening. Check out the video here.

Open you Chrome debug console, click on Console window and execute this command 'downloadCounter._currentCount'. Thanks Samee for helping me out ;)

Also, here is the Thank You message which Apple will splash after 25 Billion downloads :P 

~ Consume. Burn. Repeat ~

After starting workout on the 15th Feb 2012 & being consistent for 3 days in a week, all I can say right now is I am enjoying it.

Here are some of the positives:

1. Focus
2. Better time management
3. Building discipline 
4. Adapting to change
5. New Ideas
6. Discover new music
7. Listen to audiobook
8. Self Motivation 

Above all "You are your biggest Opponent. You gotta discover yourself" :)

~ Workout ~

I have hardly kept the habit of workout for a long time. Be it during school, college days or present; it has always been in sprints of weeks or maximum of 3 months. After that it just fades into the horizon.

Be it - jogging, yoga, walk or exercise - none of them have lasted. Today, the second day of workout, while I was enjoying it even though the legs were aching and tired in 20 minutes. Never felt like stopping & just continued it for the next 40 minutes. During those next 40 minutes I pondered upon what kept me going this time. Here are some of the thoughts

• Our habits. Habits decide our lifestyle & health
• Cultivating an habit (good or bad)* needs repetitiveness. Like it or not, bad habits are developed easily & they stick too :P 
• Procrastination - ONE major factor which has worked against me in taking up a workout

Above all, the desire to workout has to come form within. Not because my dad has been practicing yoga for the past 25 years; Not because my (ex)colleagues go to gym or do workout during lunch hour or play football; There needs to be a genuine urge from inside to take up an activity. If you try to take up a sport or do yoga or hit gym or run or go cycling just because someone else is doing. Then I bet you wouldn't last more than 2 or 3 months.

I feel everyone should have some kind of workout to stay fit & healthy. We will stop complaining for lack of time when we organized & disciplined to cultivate the habit.

Ultimately the individual has to be driven from within to achieve it ;)

Few people who have inspired me to stay focused on my workout are - Dad, Girish MP, Nilesh P, Karma B, Andy C, Bryan G, Deepak HJ, Abhijit K,  Chris S.

*BTW good or bad are just perspectives which change according to time.

Go out & workout. 

Essentialism

All of us are consumers & have their own needs and desires. Some of these needs are a necessity, while other needs are basically for pleasure. The basic necessity applies to all stratas of the socio-economic across the society.

While an individual's pursuit for pleasureful needs never cease at any point of life. The pleasure oriented needs may be driven by technology advancement, professional, peer related or status symbol.

The necessity needs are necessary for survival. However, the pleasureful needs can spread its wings based on a person's economical might to accomplish the object or goal. All of us fail to understand what actually brings the pleasure. The branded object or the way we project that object which inherently drives the pleasure.

Here is an interesting article "How Expectations Can Turn Anything From Worthless To Priceless" by Paul Bloom. Paul is is a psychologist and author of How Pleasure Works.

It all boils down to what 17th Century poet John Milton said - “The mind is its own place, And in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”