Through my interactions with many people over the past few years, I’ve come to see how brilliantly equitable we are at work but blatantly discriminatory at home. Up until the office became an escape, everything was fine. Even if not all homes or workplaces are discriminatory and not all offices or workspaces are equally fair, corporate environments are often better because they must adhere to set policies and rules. Remote employment reveals societal flaws
You cannot install an air conditioner in your room during a temperature of 42 degrees because there are other rooms in the house where other family members reside, and you cannot afford to install air conditioners in all of those rooms. Additionally, installing an air conditioner in your workspace (if you even have one) will not look good. Being a woman makes it even more challenging.
When a husband and woman work from home together, the man typically gets an office or at least a set-up with a table, chair, and designated space, among other things. Most of the time, the wife may have given her husband space voluntarily. By now, everyone is aware of how having an ergonomically, physiologically, and mentally safe workspace affects our ability to perform successfully at work. In the long run, this may deter women from seeking employment or a career goal. It may also result in unpleasant marriages and lives, which will again have an effect on everyone.
Office space is one of the aspects, the other area is whether you work in between family responsibilities like cooking, child care, and other responsibilities or you get a fair 8 to 9 hours to work uninterruptedly.
As opposed to working from home, where some people may have an unfair advantage due to their family’s financial situation, access to infrastructure, etc., two persons working from an office have equal opportunities to perform and contribute in a work environment.
I am aware that going to work presents a number of challenges; as a result, firms must establish standards, regulations, and facilities to guarantee that every employee has an equitable environment to work. Work-from-home policies must be developed by the government to guarantee that workers are treated equitably in their actual working environments. Families must, above all else, make sure that their working members have a fair opportunity to further their careers.
Strength has never been a masculine character but from ages when we think strength we think muscles, heavyweight, and men. Even when we represent strong women we tend to wrap them in masculine robes.
Although Bharat has always represented power as a feminine character but still mind tends to incline towards physical strength when we refer to strong people.
Understanding that you are fallible, you have scope for improvement, serving humanity is a primary duty, having the courage to initiate a difficult conversation and daring to be vulnerable are true qualities of a strong individual.
Strength is in silence, in patience, in knowledge and in peace. Strength is soft, gentle and wise. Strength is the undieing spirit to win yet celebrate the success of others.
While growing up, I listened to stories of the Freedom struggle. Seeing photos of Mahatma Gandhi, Gopabandhu Das, Rabindranath Thakur, Jawaharlal Nehru, and my grandfather hanging on the wall of our school and listening to their stories, I felt I wish I could be a leader. Hope I can have a positive influence on the people around me.
One day, I asked my father, “Can you teach me to become a leader?”. My father said, “Go ask your mother.” I went running to my mother, she was busy cooking lunch for us. She took a break and made me sit on her lap. She said, you are a leader already, but you have to find within yourself. I asked with amusement, “when something is already within me, why I have to find it.” She said, its a gift. Would you give a gift to anybody unwrapped? God has gifted you and wrapped it so that you enjoy the process of unwrapping and finding it yourself. “I am anxious now. How can I start unwrapping?” I asked. She said, go ask nature. Each one will teach you how to unwrap each layer. “What do you mean by each layer? How many layers are there?”, I enquired. She said the more you ask, the more layers will unwrap. The more you unwrap, the more refined leaders you will become. I said, “I am going now….” and my mother watched me vanish in thin air in front of her proud eyes. I went running to the end of the village. Standing on the ground, I looked up to the sun and asked, “Sir, Can you help me find leadership in me.”
Bureaucratic Leader
He said, “Leader establishes and enforces rules, the Leader’s decision is final, and all must follow. All must be disciplined. Just like me, I rise on time and set on time. I never break the rules and expect others to follow the rules stringently. People call me bureaucratic, but that’s the best way for a leader to lead”. A cloud came from nowhere, and the sun went invisible.
Authoritative Leader
Few farmers nearby had put fire to burn the hays. I went running there and asked the fire, “Hey, can you help me find leadership in me”, He raised his flames and said, “Leaders don’t run around on the fields. You must have a clear goal. And you should just focus on it. Follow the path that’s prescribed and reach the goal”. I asked, “But, how would I know..” Fire interrupted, “Don’t ask questions, just follow the path.”
Pace Setting Leader
Air blowing heavily and making the fire rage dragged me to a corner and said, “he is ‘Authoritative’ can’t expect any mercy from him, but he is right.” I asked, “Understood, But I want to find leadership in me. How can I find”. Air said, “come with me.” I continued running at her speed. “You just do it. Keep moving. Be the example you want others to become. Be the role model. Don’t talk; just do it. Set the Pace for your team.” Her speed increased, and I found it challenging to maintain Pace and then I tripped over a bush and fell on the ground.
Altruistic Leader
Mother earth hugged me with all love and affection. She said, “I see you running around to find leadership in you. Leadership is a commitment to serve others like your mother. You create and make the best out of everybody around you. Listen to them with empathy and build a community of people who will help develop”.
Innovative Leader
Few birds flying in the sky came and sat next to me and said, “mother earth is an altruistic Leader.” Mother earth smiled and said, ” These birds are Innovative Leaders. ” Birds said, “Yes, leaders are innovative. They come up with new ideas, new ways of getting things done. They are creative. Mother earth added, just like these birds build their nest or collect their food. always news and innovative.”
Democratic Leader
True, Banyan tree nearby said, referring to earth and birds. “They both are great leaders.” One of the Birds said, “Sir, you are a leader of a different league.” Birds went and sat on a branch of the Banyan tree and continued, “You are so accommodative of everybody. Even a snake gets the same priority as a bird. A human gets equal rest under you as cattle. You give opportunity to all and take everybody’s opinion. “. “Ha Ha Ha! Thank you”, Banyan Tree laughed and said, “but I am too democratic at times”.
Coaching Leader
I was pretty happy with what I learned when I met mountain on my way back home. He smiled at me and said, “You have unwrapped a lot in a day.” I asked, “Excuse me!’. He said, “Your leadership journey got a good start. Let me tell you another quality that I follow. Help others grow and reach their potential. It’s their growth that makes you a leader. Pay individual attention. Use Coaching as a Technique to lead.”
Affiliative Leader
A mini-forest nearby was listening to the conversation and said, “Creating a cohesive unit of collaboration, Teamwork, and harmony is your responsibility as a leader. You build a team where every member feels like the best place on earth to take risks, do new things and enjoy the process of development.”
I came back to my mother and shared with her the learning I got. She said, now work on these; you will find a Leader within you.
Over time, I developed myself as an Affiliative like Forest. I tried building a safe environment for my team, coached people to explore their individual potential like a mountain does and preferred a democratic approach of consulting all before taking any decision. I am a bit innovative but need to work more on my authoritative, bureocratic and Pacesetting like Fire, Sun, and Air.
“Seriously!” I thought in front of a sobbing colleague.
I was speechless to hear the life events and the situation he was going through. And this is the 6th such incidence where I listened to a person going through hell in their personal life.
Somewhere ‘your own’ don’t care for you and some other place ‘you’ stopped caring for yourself.
I have the privilege to live many lives in one life. I have the fortune of listening to people and get a trailer of their life due to the profession and passion I chose. Listening to people makes me realize every day how foolish I have been in understanding people. I have used logic and tried to be rational, and there is nothing stupider than that to understand human beings.
When you see the color of the dress another person is wearing or the expression the person is carrying on her face, you logically assume the positive mental state. Most of the time, the selection of the color or expression is just to hide the opposite.
Almost every time, it is the opposite where the person is just expressing his pain. We see anger, frustration, annoyance on the face or behavior to safely conclude the person is thinking of himself highly, hence ridiculing others. But due to our misinterpretation, we mostly give more pain through our actions than relieving.
A tirelessly serving person gives us the impression that she is motivated and generous, whereas often, it is to seek attention and love. But our misinterpretation lets us safely give her less attention and enjoy the service.
Our ability to apply logic has made us insensitive, uncaring, and foolish. What we need is to understand others and their core feelings. We can not achieve this when we have so many layers of misinterpretation in our eyes. Hence here are the steps to throw the logic away and see people the way they are.
Drop ‘I’: Your emotions, needs, and feelings are the biggest blocker in understanding others. If you genuinely want to understand another person, drop yourself from the story and make the other person the story’s protagonist; you will listen. You don’t even exist, so don’t even compare with your pain, your abilities, or your logic.
Invoke “Love”: Love the person like you would love your lover. Deep love makes us understand the other person entirely. The absence of ‘ego’ is not possible without deep love. Your logical self can not be ignored until there is the existence of love.
Just “You”: You are now ready to listen to the other person (You) irrespective of the presence of words. The ‘You’ becomes the primary person, and you see the world from that person’s eyes. As they say, You are now in their shoes to understand and walk their life.
You can not change their life. You cant solve their problem. You can’t live their life, but being there to listen to them and hear their heartbeat can give them the strength to fight the world. An active engagement that naturally occurs when you are with them has so much healing power; even the best doctors can’t offer any medicine to help achieve that.
“Don’t worry if it is taking time. Make sure efforts are on. Question yourself if you have put in the right amount of effort and try to stretch yourself a bit more than yesterday. You will get it.”, a teacher said to its students who were struggling to get the concept.
As teachers teach from home due to pandemics, the Teacher’s ten-year-old son was sitting next to him. After the class was over, he asked, “Maa, you speak so nicely with your students, but when I tell you that I am not getting it, you scold me, ridicule me. Why?”, Teacher was not sure how to respond, but it made her think deep into her behavior towards her son.
Is this Teacher an exception, or are we all like that?
You address your friend’s problem with so much gentleness and care so that your friend is not hurt, but when it comes to your spouse, you possibly ridicule her or him for not doing something right.
A hammer and a key both can unlock a lock, but we prefer a key when we want the lock to be used for a long period and a hammer when we have no other option but to unlock it for once. A perfectly designed key to get into the lock’s core or heart puts the right amount of pressure in the right direction for it to open. At the same time, the hammer hurts the lock so much so that lock opens out of desperation.
Are we behaving like a key to our loved ones, or do we not have the patience to do that? Whereas we have the patience to give direction to our friends, colleagues, and unknown people. Do we use the hammer technique and expect the lock to work for years?
Why do we lose patience when it’s our loved ones with whom we live day in and day out, whereas we hold enormous patience for outsiders.
As we grow up, it starts with siblings, then mother, spouse and this lists keep on increasing.
Have we started taking people for granted, and the result is we miss the tenderness in dealing with them?
Question these to realize yourself and may help understand certain behaviors by the same people towards you. Some might have gone silent over the years, and some very, very violent.
And by the way, even if you are the one who got hurt by the hammer technique, still show the kindness for the other person and use the key technique as that will help him or her to realize. Tit for tat is good for ego but very harmful for heart.
Many people think sitting quietly and stopping the random thoughts is called meditation, and many declare that is impossible for them to do; hence they don’t like meditation. With my limited knowledge, I would like to share what I consider meditation.
Let’s reclaim the family space, let’s not take them for granted, let kindness towards them be our default behavior. This practice is meditation. This practice will expand your heart, and you will be more successful in your life.
A kid playing with a punctured tyre he acquired from a dustbin next to his house became the talk of the Basti. He is not eligible to work due to his disability; hence his parents leave him alone at Basti and go to the nearby construction site. A half pant, swollen belly, thin limbs, and a big smile is his identity. He is an expert in making the tyre go in any terrain using just one hand. His friends in the Basti are jealous of him. Even the kids in the nearby apartments. They can’t resist but follow this kid running around balancing the tyre. Even if you stop him to ask something, he will not let the tyre fall. He will go around you or make the tyre go around him, but at no condition, it should stop.
P.C. Sayali Patil Quora.com Post
When he was younger, his parents were working for an apartment next to a railway track. As usual, he was playing all day. He found a small puppy under a stationary goods train on the railway track. He went slowly and extended his hands to grab the puppy and make it his own. The puppy was scared and was pulling itself out, and suddenly the train started shunting, and his left hand got trapped under the wheel. He cried a lot, but there was nobody to hear. It was trapped under the monstrous steel wheels for more than half an hour, and when it was released, he ran to his parents and then to the doctor. The only option left was amputation.
He is the one-handed tyre hero of the basti and nearby areas. Kids whose parents bought them PSP, XBOX, cricket kits, and many other expensive sorting equipment were jealous of him. They wanted to play with him, compete with him, and someday win in a tyre race. But these unfortunately educated, well-to-do parents could never understand. They used to follow him and see how he balances the tyre over a railway track, on a rough road, rolling over potholes, rocks, and stairs.
One day a news channel featured him, and help started pouring from all over the world. He got admission into a good school. He and his parents are now living in a housing society built by them for the poor migrants. He wears a uniform to school and otherwise also dressed. But he did not leave his iconic half pant and tyre. It still roams all over the city and attracts kids to play inexpensive outdoor games.
Not sure what caught your attention in the above story, but whatever caught your attention most determines your heart set.
Suppose you were sad about his financial condition, you cherish material pleasures more.
if you are proud of his expertise in rolling a tyre, you value human capacities more than others.
If the kids all around following him are what you felt more excited about, you respect fame and attention the most.
Acknowledge and appreciate your choice and work towards it. Nothing wrong with any of these; wrong is when we deny what we like, wrong is when we encourage falsehood for the sake of being idealistic. Being honest to ourselves is the biggest form of meditation.
Another point I would like you to pay attention to. It is not his poverty or amputated hand that made him popular. Instead, those were the setups for him to lead a pathetic life, but his passion towards one positive thing and just one positive thing, how trivial it may be, made him deny the predestined life and create his destiny. He enjoyed life with whatever he had. He valued his belongings, whether the punctured tyre, worn out half pant or his ability to make a tyre roll. He valued them and did not choose different things on different days to entertain himself. He valued his belongings so much that they became his identity.
Many people think sitting quietly and stopping the random thoughts is called meditation, and many declare that is impossible for them to do; hence they don’t like meditation. With my limited knowledge, I would like to share what I consider meditation.
Identifying where your heart is, what you already have, and making most out of it day after day without adding new entertainment tools is a form of meditation. Enjoying every bit of your belonging is meditation.
Bramha-rishi is the highest form of the spiritual scientist as per Indian philosophy. Very few gain this title.
Brahma-Rishi Viswamitra of Gayatri Mantra fame was not born rishi. He had to do many of the toughest Tapasya (penance) to reach a higher order of rishi to gain all the powers a rishi could get. He could reach maha-rishi, the second highest order in spiritual scientist rank. But he was determined to reach the highest order.
His purpose of getting Brahma-rishi was to defeat Brahma-rishi Vashist. But despite all attempts, he could not achieve it.
After several attempts, he realized that he had not expressed his weakness. He meditated upon it to realize his most profound weakness was to take revenge, defeat somebody, punish somebody, teach a lesson to somebody. Despite all his efforts, he could not get to the highest order due to this weakness. Then he contemplated, ‘the very reason I did all these is to take revenge, but I can not reach this level without getting rid of the thought of this revenge.
But.’ as a social scientist, he realized his service to the world would be more meaningful than taking revenge. He mediated to get rid of the thought of revenge, and he reached the rishi of the highest order and made a lot of discoveries in the spiritual world that is still helping the human race.
Your vulnerabilities, fear of exposing your weaknesses, those hidden tears of expression must be out for you to live a free life. How much ever the intellectual knowledge you gather, you will be incomplete without your ability to expresses your deepest wounds, aching guilts, and sincerest confessions. Expressions are tricky because you don’t find that trustworthy person who can give you those non-judgemental ears in need of critical expressions. That leads to the second-best opportunity to write them down in your journal and write as if nobody were reading. But the expression is a must.
Many people think sitting quietly and stopping the random thoughts is called meditation, and many declare that is impossible for them to do; hence they don’t like meditation. With my limited knowledge, I would like to share what I consider meditation.
Identifying your deepest scars, weaknesses, guilts and expressing them to somebody you trust is the essence of meditation. Let the tears roll, let the wound be visible, let you stand naked in public, but the expression is the must.
A nice cool breeze in the summer morning feels like cuddling the pillow and sleeping for some more time, but a burning thought where an action that is expected from you else you may get ridiculed doesn’t let you rest few more minutes.
You prepare an entire day perfecting your content and yourself for that one meeting to avoid any negative comment from an individual, and you do nothing but that one work entire day.
You remain on your toes to ensure nothing goes wrong the entire day to avoid negative feedback from that one approver.
You act to avoid a negative reaction from that approver, and you feel your day is the best day when that approver appreciates you. That approver can be anybody. It may be your wellwisher or your worst enemy. It may be your spouse, manager, parents, in-laws, children or anybody.
You live your life to satisfy that one individual. You don’t quit that relationship or leave those people despite torture because your only aim in life is to get positive feedback from that individual.
There are many suffering from domestic violence, and their reason for sticking to that relationship is not because of love or duty but waiting for that approval. They have never thought of their life beyond the purpose of achieving approval from that one individual.
Many hate their manager, supervisor but still continue to stick to the situation. Not because of their devotion to the company or helplessness of not getting a job anywhere but to get approval from that individual.
It’s not just other people; certain environmental situations drive you crazy. You do not stay in your usual self. Your goodself exits when you encounter such environmental condition. For some, when they see mud or dirty water or they step into dirty water or mud, they get out of their mind. Some individuals turn crazy when they hear somebody behind them is honking. Anybody shouting at our dear ones or joking about our near ones get some people angry.
Sometimes your own beliefs about your body, financial situation, standard of living becomes the cause of turning on your negative self. You live in that body or situation but you hate it. This is also a bondage.
These are bondages. The moment you are not in your own self, but any external individual or situation turns you into a different self, its a bondage. Many do not even realize that they are in bondage.
If you spend a day identifying the bondages you might be having and listing them down, you will immediately find your outlook towards the world will change completely.
When you analyze each of those bondages and try rationalizing your behavior in such situations, over some time, you will find these bandages will vanish, and you will behave at your good self even in such situations or with such people. Some will take less time to be freed from, and some may take longer if you keep trying judiciously.
Many people think sitting quietly and stopping the random thoughts is called meditation, and many declare that is impossible for them to do; hence they don’t like meditation. With my limited knowledge, I would like to share what I consider meditation.
Identifying your bondages, listing them down, rationalizing each of them till they vanish is the essence of meditation.
Many people think sitting quietly and stopping the random thoughts is called meditation and many declare that is impossible for them to do hence they don’t like meditation. With my limited knowledge I would like to share what I consider as meditation.
Resolving the unresolved, resting the unrest and realizing the truth is the essence of meditation. Let me explain you how.
A used tissue on the floor next to your work desk since last night’s snack, raising its hand and crying loudly. It pleads to pick it up and send it to its dear dustbin home. We pass through that several times but somehow did not get that motivation to bend and lift that entity and give it some solace.
A dying plant, whom you brought with lots of love, placed in the kitchen and promised to take care of, is dying out of thirst. You forget every time to pour few drops of water.
Thirty minutes of exercise, which you could have done instead of scrolling up and down through the Instagram posts and funny videos, always felt left out from your life.
These and a million other thoughts you pretend you forgot are sitting in your mind and conspiring against you every day.
They are the ones who make you angry, sad, irritated, tired, and stressed.
Multiple priorities and our heroic belief that we are multitaskers leave many unsettled tasks poking us now and then. They are not urgent but may be essential or even unimportant, but they are constantly running in our mind at the subconscious level, and at times when we are at peace, we come to our conscious level and give us few adrenaline shots. We again push them back with the dopamine of procrastination or some other lazy reactions. They are like those jobs and apps that we do not use but constantly drain our battery and memory.
Rest, Resolve or Realize is what they need. Find some time during the day when you are your energy at its peak. Think of those pending tasks. Don’t create a To-Do. Just do it. First, pick all easy and quick ones and complete them one by one. They need 3 types of actions.
Some tasks may not need any action as it is just an annoying worry. Think through up to your satisfaction and put it to rest.
Some tasks require action. Act on them or at least initiate a process of taking action for those.
There are some which require you to realize, learn from it, understand something. Do that.
You will find these tasks will vanish from your mind and give you so much space to do the real ones you need energy for.
Life as Sakti 