What happiness means to me!
Seemingly prosperous, India’s silicon city Bangalore has the highest number of suicides and cases of depression in India. Engineers working as coders are nothing but white-collar coolies busy as hell.
Double income coolie families have all the luxuries but rangolis are missing in front of their houses. They have airconditioned bedrooms with all the modern gadgets but they are full of stress and have restless sleep. While they all have laptops, they don’t have children playing in their laps. Their children are being taken care of in the city’s crèches.
Just look at homeless people sleeping in the open and observe how peaceful they are. Take a walk in any slum around six in the morning. The surroundings may be unhygienic but every house has a rangoli. Their livelihood may be uncertain but their contentment is far greater than that of our engineer coolies.
While we have created Xerox copies of engineers, we have lost the artist, the master carpenter, the sculptor and the painter. Child labour is generally frowned upon but child labour in the form of preparing for various tests for admission to educational institutes is encouraged. The number of students appearing in admission tests like GMAT keeps multiplying.
Individuality, aggression and competition have become virtues while co-creation and co-existence are becoming taboos. And our moral fabric is being audited through the western lens. Our happiness index is measured by the frames which have no relevance to us and we miss the whole point of being happy. True happiness is not in multiplexes and pubs but in grandma’s stories.
Can we reintroduce humility, sharing and caring in our people? Can we bring originality back in our lives? Can yoga be revived? Can we reinvent our happiness DNA and get back in touch with our innate talents and create economic self-sufficiency?
That will mean happiness to me.
S. Deenadayalan is an HR professional doing pioneering work in the field of high-performance work systems.
You will like these as well!
|
Featured Tickles  Heal Your Relationships to Heal YourselfIt has been rightly said that this world is a mirror. It reflects back our inner/true reality to us. As within, so without. Everything in our life; our job, our economic condition, our dwellings, and the people in our life reflect one or the other aspect of our reality. Isn’t this a beautiful arra The Power of UnlearningAs I picked up the vacuum machine and started vacuuming the carpet in my living room, a sense of dissatisfaction loomed over me. It had been just about a year since I bought this vacuum cleaner and it was already low in its efficiency. The buzzing sound of the motor from that machine sounded healthy 15 elephant tethers that stop you from being creative!The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a building filled with archaic furniture. Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it. - Dee Hock When still a baby, the elephant is tethered by a very thick Smoking a cigarette is like talking to your mother-in-law because...Once upon a time, many years ago, in prehistoric times, at a time when there were no cities, no buildings and perhaps even no villages, there was a hunter. He had had a successful day and was walking through a forest back to his tribe. He had slung a deer across his shoulder with some homemade rope Here Is Your D-I-Y Kit For A Leading Edge LifeManagement gurus and their disciples, thinkers, strategists and business process re-engineers have been busy propelling the modern world into not only coping with, but also keeping in step with the rapid changes of an ever shrinking, increasingly competitive and exhaustingly demanding global market. I Wish I Were A GoldfishI am told that a goldfish cannot remember anything beyond a 3 minute time frame. One of my favorite pastimes is to sit and watch our goldfish swim around lazily and rising up only to gobble at the food before going back to their contented existence. Their swimming around actually reminds me of chil The Fine Art of Persuasive Communication!There are many areas to look at in communication: a message is communicated through visual, vocal and verbal means. From that, comes the importance of body language, how we present ourselves, and so on. The visual and vocal elements are indeed very important to effective communication, but we will Teaching the teacherThe arbiter of knowledge and skills, the teacher, is a revered figure around the world. In India, the teacher is known as the guru, the wise one who can be trusted to lead the knowledge-blind and shine the light of competence and skills in the darkness of ignorance and incompetence. Over time it ha How To Nurture A Successful RelationshipHave you ever wondered how certain couples were able to stay together for many years? What are they doing right? What are the factors that contribute to the success of healthy, long term relationships? There are a few fundamental components that will improve your chances of having a successful relat Waves Of InspirationI stay in the coastal city of Chennai and one of my favorite pastimes is to explore the coastline that borders one side of the city. Starting from the crowded marina and Eliot’s Beach to the less crowded and secluded ones that dot the East Coast Road (or ECR as it is called), I have always found How To Be Depressed"Depression was, indeed, the hand of a friend trying to press me down to the ground on which it was safe to stand--the ground of my own truth, my own nature with its complex mix of limits and gifts, liabilities and assets, darkness and light." Parker Palmer I've never been through pregnancy depress Make an ass of yourself but do not let the world know...Many a time we are swept by that overwhelming feeling to bare all. Not to be mistaken with confession which is done after ensuring that there is nothing further to lose on account of reputation. I am referring to pure tear jerker stuff. Born out of righteous indignation. Or plain stupidity. The form Time management with the monksOne mile south of Georgia O'Keefe's beloved Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, thirteen miles down a cliff-hugging dirt road in the heart of Chama Canyon, you will find Christ In The Desert. The Benedictine Monastery is cloister to about twenty monks. I'd fantasized about retreating to the remote monastery Forcing yourself to get up early in the morning is pointless!A google search on early rising gives 1,500,000 results. Amazon has 6699 books on getting up early. Countless self-development ‘gurus’ have written books and articles that extol the benefits of getting up before your friendly neighbourhood rooster does. They have together compiled a list of 10 5 Reasons Why I Got Off My Tail And Found A New Passion!I've taken some time this month to clean out my Gmail inbox, the main goal being to have a completely empty inbox. I went through each email one by one, until I got to the very last entry. It was labeled "journal" and dated 12/14/06. I knew it was there for me to print and tape into my actual jour If Excellence Is Your Ideal Everything Else Will Fall Into PlaceA young man went to Gautama Buddha and sought the Master’s guidance on how to achieve Enlightenment. The conversation, which in my opinion must be required reading for anyone, went roughly as follows: Young Man (YM): Master, how long will it take for me to achieve enlightenment? Gautama Buddha ( |
Loading ...
Twitter 
Facebook
Subscribe
Nice message. During the recent Satyam mishap, one of the authors’ observed that the mishap was not due to the greed of a single individual Raju, but the collective greed of coders, share selling housewives and more. So only when the cumulative greed comes down can the working pace of IT industry be brought down. A handful of activists for work-life balance cannot bring about a sea change in the fast paced industry.
Hmm. The grass is always greener on the other side.
If you are so envious of the ‘peaceful’ homeless people, then join them.
I don’t see droves of wage slaves giving up their material goods to live a less stressful life in the slums.