To realise the value of one year,
Ask a student who has failed in his exam.
To realise the value of one month,
Ask the mother who has given birth to a premature baby.
To realise the value of one week,
Ask the editor of a weekly.
To realise the value of one hour,
Ask the friends who are eagerly waiting to meet.
To realise the value of one minute,
Ask the person who missed the train.
To realise the value of one second,
Ask the person who survived an accident.
To realise the value of one millisecond,
Ask the person who missed gold medal in the Olympic yard.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Sunday, January 6, 2008
STOP CRIBBING
Sports today...
Ah that sinking feeling....déjà vu.... having passionately followed Indian cricket for the past fifteen odd years…u could almost sense that happening again…
....a fifth day pitch…men round the bat…and the much revered starry indian batting line up failing to last two sessions! Another loss…and the blame game begins…this time though it was easier…. bad umpiring and the occasion to point fingers is dished out on a platter.
To begin with, I don’t intend to defend the umpires here. Definitely, the umpiring was substandard and dismal to say the least. But then how far is it fair to use it as a shield? A shield to hide our flaws? A shield to deny credit to the deserving victors. And the media simply heightens the feeling by repeatedly pointing fingers to umpires? Why not question the non-performers in the team? Or the bowlers who gave away 400+ in the third innings of a match? Or the batsmen who failed to last two sessions? Or the tail enders who could not an survive an over from a non regular bowler, Michael Clarke. It hurts to see your team crumbling like ninepins within a day.
It hurts that a game which is almost a national religion and which undoubtedly gets more than its share can let you down on a fine Sunday morning.
It also hurts that the same old ghosts return to haunt you about the affairs of Indian cricket.
Let us not use umpiring errors as a reason of our defeat.Why don’t we accept that a better side beat us? A side, not with superior abilities, but with a stronger mental make-up. A side, which constantly redefines sporting standards. A side, with a never-say-die attitude, which believes in only competing with itself. Umpires are bound to make mistakes.
Technology can simplify things and should be encouraged, as professionalism becomes another name of the modern day sports. But that should not dilute the praise that a world-beater unit like the Aussies deserve as they extend their winning streak to 16! In our bid to stop them from equaling their own world record streak , how often do we forget the sheer magnitude of this winning streak. To add to it , they have done it twice in last decade. The moment you club it to their hat-trick of world cups and an unbeaten run of 32 matches in world cup games, you realize the sheer dominance they command in this arena. It would be fair to say that the Aussies are miles ahead and the rests simply compete for the runners-up tag in cricket.The umpiring decisions did go against India, but that is how this game is, with the human element adding to the charm and uncertainties of the contest.
And that aspect itself lends it a unique parallel to life.
Better take it in your stride that on any other day they might have gone in your favor as well.
Life everyday...
...And not only in cricket, don’t we do it every time in our lives?
Time to stop cribbing.
Cribbing gets u nothing. When will we learn to accept defeat with grace? When will we learn to accept that we were outdone by a smarter adversary.
When? When? When?
When will we start being a sporting loser? Losing itself is not a crime. Nor is losing continuously either. But it is absolutely awful when we club defeat with disgrace and club it together with complaints or cribbing
Life is also like sports, if not a sport itself. There are often elements in lives which are beyond your control and which add to the frustrations by conspiring against your honest efforts. But then cribbing is not a solution.
The problem lies in our attitude, in our inability to accept that our opponent might be smarter or plain lucky, in either of cases whereby, cribbing will get u nothing. The problem lies in our inability to accept defeat and credit the efforts of others.
Probably the answer lies in the way we are brought up and trained to be winners…nothing less than winning will satisfy. We are taught that winning in every field is an absolute must. U have to win in the academics, in the sports- field, in the dance competition, in the writing competition and so on. We are trained to attach a stigma to losing and it is accentuated by a constant comparison with our peers. This cultivated attitude becomes a pain as we begin competing larger battles on the canvass of life. It becomes stifling where we encounter people with talent in arenas of their strength and begin weighing our worth against theirs.
It is always the losers who crib.
They always have reasons.
Always.
Something or the other.
Always something to point fingers to and blame.
But how often do we sit and contemplate about ourselves? What was lacking in our efforts? May be hard-work, may be sheer timing of some events or maybe the field itself is not your forte.
The solution is within you and only you are responsible for the state you are in.
No one has enough power to chart your path, but you
Ah that sinking feeling....déjà vu.... having passionately followed Indian cricket for the past fifteen odd years…u could almost sense that happening again…
....a fifth day pitch…men round the bat…and the much revered starry indian batting line up failing to last two sessions! Another loss…and the blame game begins…this time though it was easier…. bad umpiring and the occasion to point fingers is dished out on a platter.
To begin with, I don’t intend to defend the umpires here. Definitely, the umpiring was substandard and dismal to say the least. But then how far is it fair to use it as a shield? A shield to hide our flaws? A shield to deny credit to the deserving victors. And the media simply heightens the feeling by repeatedly pointing fingers to umpires? Why not question the non-performers in the team? Or the bowlers who gave away 400+ in the third innings of a match? Or the batsmen who failed to last two sessions? Or the tail enders who could not an survive an over from a non regular bowler, Michael Clarke. It hurts to see your team crumbling like ninepins within a day.
It hurts that a game which is almost a national religion and which undoubtedly gets more than its share can let you down on a fine Sunday morning.
It also hurts that the same old ghosts return to haunt you about the affairs of Indian cricket.
Let us not use umpiring errors as a reason of our defeat.Why don’t we accept that a better side beat us? A side, not with superior abilities, but with a stronger mental make-up. A side, which constantly redefines sporting standards. A side, with a never-say-die attitude, which believes in only competing with itself. Umpires are bound to make mistakes.
Technology can simplify things and should be encouraged, as professionalism becomes another name of the modern day sports. But that should not dilute the praise that a world-beater unit like the Aussies deserve as they extend their winning streak to 16! In our bid to stop them from equaling their own world record streak , how often do we forget the sheer magnitude of this winning streak. To add to it , they have done it twice in last decade. The moment you club it to their hat-trick of world cups and an unbeaten run of 32 matches in world cup games, you realize the sheer dominance they command in this arena. It would be fair to say that the Aussies are miles ahead and the rests simply compete for the runners-up tag in cricket.The umpiring decisions did go against India, but that is how this game is, with the human element adding to the charm and uncertainties of the contest.
And that aspect itself lends it a unique parallel to life.
Better take it in your stride that on any other day they might have gone in your favor as well.
Life everyday...
...And not only in cricket, don’t we do it every time in our lives?
Time to stop cribbing.
Cribbing gets u nothing. When will we learn to accept defeat with grace? When will we learn to accept that we were outdone by a smarter adversary.
When? When? When?
When will we start being a sporting loser? Losing itself is not a crime. Nor is losing continuously either. But it is absolutely awful when we club defeat with disgrace and club it together with complaints or cribbing
Life is also like sports, if not a sport itself. There are often elements in lives which are beyond your control and which add to the frustrations by conspiring against your honest efforts. But then cribbing is not a solution.
The problem lies in our attitude, in our inability to accept that our opponent might be smarter or plain lucky, in either of cases whereby, cribbing will get u nothing. The problem lies in our inability to accept defeat and credit the efforts of others.
Probably the answer lies in the way we are brought up and trained to be winners…nothing less than winning will satisfy. We are taught that winning in every field is an absolute must. U have to win in the academics, in the sports- field, in the dance competition, in the writing competition and so on. We are trained to attach a stigma to losing and it is accentuated by a constant comparison with our peers. This cultivated attitude becomes a pain as we begin competing larger battles on the canvass of life. It becomes stifling where we encounter people with talent in arenas of their strength and begin weighing our worth against theirs.
It is always the losers who crib.
They always have reasons.
Always.
Something or the other.
Always something to point fingers to and blame.
But how often do we sit and contemplate about ourselves? What was lacking in our efforts? May be hard-work, may be sheer timing of some events or maybe the field itself is not your forte.
The solution is within you and only you are responsible for the state you are in.
No one has enough power to chart your path, but you
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
A “NEW YEAR”
I have always wondered what is it about the New Year that makes the world go crazy with celebrations, partying and resolutions! To me, it is no more than an excuse, an excuse in this age of cutthroat competition and furious paced lifestyles.
So what’s new in the “new year” anyway?
Ask the sun, which would continue to take the same old path as day before, unaware of the hopes attached, by us mortals, to its journey.
Or the stars, which will come out as the dusk descends in a habitual manner, unaware that we expect them to turn our fortunes in what we call the new year.
Ask that beggar on the crossing, who has passed the previous week chilling, and is counting days for the spell of winters to pass away.
Or that old –woman, I meet on my way to work, who’ll wake up and drag herself religiously to the temple, yet another day
Ask that dreamy- eyed clerk, who will continue to fight the hassles of life, a nagging wife and carry on his struggle to get his child into an English medium school.
Or the man in the grey jogging gear, I’ve seen without a miss in the joggers park this year, who’ll continue to be as strange to me as he has always been.
Ask the politicians, who’ll carry on mud slinging and dishing out promises of building a newer inclusive nation.
Or the “aam-aadmi”, who’ll continue pointing fingers with a “chalta hai” on his mind and toeing the dictates of life in the same old fashion.
It is only the digit, which gets replaced year after another, a digit that is only symbolic of our progress in the journey of life. A journey, independent of any calendar or symbols, which in any case continues to march with every passing second.
It is a mere convention … yet another one in our stereotyped lives, where we train ourselves to enjoy symbols. It is yet another sign of a blinkered path-led thinking.
Isn’t it the man who created and designed this convention of a 365 days period to be called an year, and thus limited the dimensions of his vision.
Why is “new year” so special? Why celebrate only “ a new year “, when year itself is a human created entity? Why not celebrations to mark “a new month”…or for “a new day”…”a new hour”…”a new minute”…or rather each “new second”!! When each second has the potential to alter your life, why not give it the value it deserves? Why wait for seconds to accumulate till they form a year for that party to happen? Why postpone the celebrations and resolutions? Why have we begun to look for such reasons to celebrate or resolve when every passing second deserves the celebration of lifetime? Or why not simply make celebrations “a way of life”--- celebrating our existence, this beautiful world, the gifts of god, the simple things we never care about…. celebrating life….
Engineers & Managers
A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost.
She reduced altitude and spotted a man below. She descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago but I don't know where I am."
The man below replied, "You're in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You're between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."
"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.
"I am", replied the man. "How did you know?"
The man below responded, "You must be in management."
"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"
"Well," said the man, "You don't know where you are or where you're going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise which you've no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems."
She reduced altitude and spotted a man below. She descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago but I don't know where I am."
The man below replied, "You're in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You're between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."
"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.
"I am", replied the man. "How did you know?"
"Well, answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I've no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help at all. If anything you've delayed my trip even more."
The man below responded, "You must be in management."
"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"
"Well," said the man, "You don't know where you are or where you're going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise which you've no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems."
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