Proactive Change

The results of transformative change are all around us this summer. Sunflower plants busting out from seeds where they have slept tightly curled, butterflies leaving behind their worn out cocoons, flowers dressing up the bare limbs of trees. This time as the financial year begins it is the time for the 3Rs rest, relaxation and rejuvenation of proactive change.

Change is the only certainty in an uncertain world. This year you will change merely because everything around you will change. What you can decide is whether you will lead the change or become a victim of it.

Think about proactively changing things in the following areas of your life.

1.       Personal

2.       Family

3.       Professional

4.       Social

Personal: Create goals that will improve your skills and build on your strengths. Tap into the passion that you have kept tightly leashed because you had no time. Did you always want to learn to play the guitar? Sign up now. Was Bollywood dancing what lights your fire? Do it. Sign up for a distance learning programme.

Family: Ask your family members to suggest change each of them would like. Try to see if it can be done. Don’t be a casualty of the corporate rat race.

Professional: Have a chat with your team mates. Volunteer for a tough blue sky job. Create a daily ‘huddle’ in your workplace so that everyone can meet and talk for a few minutes every morning. Make sure everyone participates. Work on making it a fun place.

Social: Create a face book page for your family and friends. Keep in touch, share pictures, keep them informed and interested and involved in an interesting activity: a get-together for all your friends, an annual family reunion, a pot luck meet and eat for all your neighbours.

Things will change anyway. Make sure they change in the way you want. And remember a butterfly is not an improved caterpillar. Just as a sunflower is not an improved seed.

Physical Wellness

Health is the foundation for a feeling of well being and joy. It is very difficult to be full of enthusiasm if you are not in a state of positive health. The absence of disease is no indication of this state of perfect health. It is only a hygiene factor for improving your Happiness Quotient.

Just as you would not tolerate a minor malfunctioning in your car, so too, you and your doctor should be vigilant for the slightest disturbance in your state of health. Minor problems, aches and pains should be dealt with immediately, rather than be endured with gritted teeth.

Listen to your body. If you are tried, rest. If you are hungry, eat. If you are lonely, communicate, ask for a hug.  If you are angry, deal with your anger constructively, resolve it.

The body is our vehicle for the journey of our soul in this world. You may be an immortal soul who happens to own a body, but the body-vehicle has to be maintained in good condition, so that we may achieve the goals for which we were created. 

Create a positive field

Ø  A mental process which draws a magic circle of love around all those who are participating.

Ø  A prayer or mantra said together.

Ø  A common exercise, a company song, common goals.

Ø  A handshake, a friendly look, an encouraging word.

Ø  Thinking, believing and acting in a positive manner.

Ø  Laughter and shared jokes.

Elevate everyday experiences to the level of sacredness!

When work is done with love, it fills the body and mind with bliss and transforms any place into a sacred space.  As Khalil Gibran writes in The Prophet, “What is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth from the strings of your heart, as though your Beloved were to wear it.” What is required to fill your blood with the chemicals of bliss is an attitude transplant.  Soar on your positive attitude.

Decide to approach all events, all people, and all things with affection, reverence and ‘Sraddha.’ This reverence is due to all, because of the divine spark that dwells in everyone whether he is a legend or a failure.  Sometimes it is obvious. It is the silent flame of consciousness that reaches out to you from a flowering creeper or a healthy pet.  Sometimes this life force has lost its vitality and is dimmed by dirt, lethargy and lack of care. Clean the glass of your Life’s lamp.  Make the light shine through.

It is essential to look into our emotional, mental and psychological environment, as our thoughts and emotions directly contribute to our wellbeing or otherwise. Meditation can clean up the field and contribute enormously to an individual’s psychological and physiological wellbeing.

Celebrate the Positives

Celebrate the positive in all interactions. Rest assured that God did not create you for the sole purpose of correcting others or making them unhappy. When we say namaste, we say ‘I bow to the Divine in you’. ‘Vasudeva Kutumbakam’ say, our holy book – the whole world is your family. Imagine the rich network of love you could create, where your children can be nurtured if you believed and practiced this.

The most inexpensive ticket to happiness is helping others and making others happy. So spread happiness like Amul butter on bread. It will stick to your fingers. Create a happiness committee in your street, which meets every month to create a happy street. Every month as you decide to install comfort touch, celebrate Diwali or have a painting competition for kids, neighbours become friends.

Action Plan to protect your legacy

·         Commit your dream to paper. Be clear about your legacy – give details.

·         Build ownership in those empowered to take it forward. Listen to divergent opinions and let go.

·         Start detaching yourself and don’t give too much advice and cramp the style and enthusiasm of those on the job.

·         Remember life is short.

Let not your legacy become ashes and dust when you die. You have responsibility to leave the world a better place. Start the task now!

Steps to increase everyday happiness

·         Do the crossword as you age

·         Take up a course of study that will improve your work skills: may be computer literacy

·         Eat a piece of dark chocolate 4 times a week.

·         Have at least four interesting, intimate conversations with family and friends every day.

·         Spend at least two hours outdoors.

·         Participate in at least one group activity.

·         Have a good belly laugh.

·         Forgive and forget and what you cannot forgive, forget.

·         Find a meaningful job to do, even if unpaid.

·         Live in the present and enjoy it.

World Kindness Day

The world kindness movement began incorporating NGO’s on November 13^th 1988. The actions on this day make everyone feel that kindness is cool. Young, trendy people, caring adults, celebrities participate to make kindness so viral.

Corporates who participate in my year long Innovation Initiatives have a Make Things Better (MTB) Board in the front office. Anyone can post a note which says ‘You made things better by ………………, about a team member’. The person who gets the maximum MTB notes, is recognized, as also the person who posts the most MTBs.

Kindness, generosity and co-operation can spread faster than violence or hatred. A study conducted by San Diego and Harvard Universities provide laboratory evidence that co-operative behavior is contagious.  When the people benefit from kindness, they “pay it forward” by helping others who were not originally involved, and this creates a cascade of collaboration that influences dozens more in a social network.

Research and Shakespeare have both shown that kindness benefits both giver and the receiver, filling the blood stream with neurotransmitters of relaxation and contentment. Serotonin and endorphins elevate the mood. Doctors have to do less when people are kind and content. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about the ‘most curative herbs and agents’ of gentleness and kindness is ensuring health and well being.

So on World Kindness Day, start a daily, lifelong habit of kindness.  Let’s start to:

1.       Hug all the loved ones in your life who rarely get a hug – your parents and grandparents.

2.       Write love letters to them recording how you feel, before it is too late!

3.       In Singapore, they gave away 45,000 yellow flowers last year.

4.       Canada had a Kindness Concert.

5.       Put out grains and water for birds to feed.

6.       Adopt a elder who has no visitors and cheer up that elder by visiting him once a week or fortnightly or monthly – whichever is feasible.

As the Dalai Lama said, “My religion is simple. My religion is kindness.” Send this to all your friends. Let’s go viral with this.

Children’s Day

Children’s day is celebrated in India on November 14^th, Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday. It is a day to celebrate the child. Children are the family’s greatest wealth and asset. Without Santhana Lakshmi (the goddess who bestows happiness in children) there is no joy in the family. The laughter, the mischief and newness children bring into the world is irreplaceable. As the Japanese say, ‘Children bring the ‘Oh!’ into your life’. It is also a day to pledge support for children suffering from abuse, violence, discrimination and death –all avoidable.

One child dies every 90 seconds in India - this means 1.7 million children every year. Many children are motherless because women in India have only a 50/50 chance of skilled help during childbirth. A woman dies in childbirth every 10 minutes in our country. The Taj Mahal, the greatest monument to love, was built for Mumtaz Mahal by Shahjahan in Agra. She died at child birth, giving birth to her 14^th child. The ‘State of World’s Mothers’ places India 76th on a list which shows the best places to be a mother. We lose more women every week because of this cause, than they lose in Europe, in a whole year. This is the same as having 400 Jumbo Boeing 747 planes crash annually. What is shocking is that one third of child death and 1/5^th of the maternal death are caused by lack of nutrition. 153 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are bonded into child labour.

So what can you do to celebrate children’s day:

1.       Write a beautiful letter to each of your children about how much you value them in your family

2.       Send a gift to their teachers with a letter thanking them for giving them the gift of knowledge

3.       Plan a special family outgoing, which they find interesting and exciting.

4.       Children are great imitators. Be a person worth imitating.

As Magic Johnson said, “All that kids need, is a little help, a little hope and somebody who believes in them”. On this day give some poor child some of these gifts.