Be Happy – Socialize Yourself.

Human Beings are social animals. We mean that as per our nature developed from the primitive stage to day, we like to live in society. Civilization took further steps and our need towards materialism grew up. We know that when a lion gets hungry, he searches out some animal and when he gets his food, he goes to take rest. He does not care for the future that for tomorrow, he may hunt for some more animals and put them into his refrigerator for the use tomorrow. But as human beings, we try to arrange for our next generations. This gathering attitude makes us so mad and unethical that we are not able to think that what we are doing exceedingly, may eat up others’ genuine share. Our forefathers did not do so. They had Vasudaiva Kutumbakam’ as concept of their living.

Actually, Vasudaiva Kutumbakam  was ingrained in the way of  their method of living,  as an integral part of their culture. Their vision encompassed the whole humanity as one’s own part. There was no place for exploitation of natural resources, in fact animals and plants and even rivers and mountains were venerated. Their actions were seeped in a concern for ‘universal welfare’. Their interactions with alternate beliefs, faiths and even civilizations reflected tolerance and pluralism.

When sects like Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism emerged as reformist movements, even though as rebellion to what their propagandists considered wrong in the society, they had the freedom and space to grow. They had the knowledge of the eternal truth, the truth of the wholeness of universe. They knew it was a oneness and a perceived separateness from this oneness as an individual identity was a matter of awareness. Thus any action at any point in this oneness would affect the whole. The whole is aware what happens at any point in the universe and a response is triggered to every action.

Scientific researches of modern day confirm their knowledge of oneness of universe. Non locality is if you take two quantum particles that were twins and separate them billions of miles apart, and then do something to one particle here, the other particle billions of light years away will “immediately” come to know about what you did to that one particle here!! This quantum property has been confirmed by experiments. In fact, “all” particles in this universe are twins, in the sense they all can be traced back to a common ancestral origin. In other words, what happens to every particle should become known to every other particle in this universe! So the whole universe is “interconnected”?!’

It was this knowledge thousands of years ago that made our forefathers proclaimed ‘Vasudaiva Kutumbakam’ – ‘the world is one family’. Present day drivers of globalization can take cue from this knowledge. Though we have divided ourselves into political units – it is India, that is Pakistan, that is China, that is US, UK and so on. But if we see deeply, we understand that the people living in the different parts of our great earth are linked to each other in some definite terms. But our vested interests make us divided. Some of our groups fight with others just to gain some superiority or snatch away some of the holdings the other groups have. Why? You too can have. God has gifted you the same physique what the others have. You need to sharpen yourself and have genuine claim. No, materialism has made us blind. We fight with each other, but we forget what will happen if in the process itself, we take our last breath and everything for which we are fighting for will be left here.

With our efforts to gather, we have been busy so much that sometime we forget our duties towards our nears. Even our neighbors are not able to recognize us if we meet somewhere else instead of our own doorsteps. At the time of emergency, we do not get cooperation because at their time of emergency, we were busy in meeting our own schedules. Mostly, now-a-days, the society tends to work on reciprocal terms. Some people still believe in donating some part of their income to the charity, whatever be the reason of doing so – whether that is under religious dictates or surplus illegal amount to be converted into legal amount, such charities help needy people. It does not bring about eternal peace of mind. We need to purify the process.

A little socialization process of ourselves can make wonders in our lives. How? Through our frequent meetings with other persons can make us acquainted with their nature, changing environment and reconciling with them identifying their needs and putting forth your helping hands if they ever need. None is independent in the society – for some of the needs, everyone has to look on the other. If you have a lot of money, your money alone can not gather everything if you do not have contact with the producers of the materials you need. What will happen if you slip somewhere and there is none known to you to lift you up? Your moneybag will not lift you up if there is no helping hand. Undoubtedly, you are able to have helping hands around you, with your money but for how long so purchased hands may help you if they are lured by your enemies with better price? You need to win their hearts too and that is possible if you socialize yourself.

Become a part of your society, interact with others very frequently, very politely and with wish to help them out if ever they need graciously. One day, you may get better results if any emergency you face in your life.

Be Happy – Socialize Yourself.

With the advent of civilization, we, the human beings started to live in society. As our numbers grew, our needs also grew. Our growing needs made inventions and discoveries in search of the resources. The people formed groups and those groups became states with passage of time. By going through history, we find that in search of the resources, the people wandered here and there. Where they saw ample availability of the resources, they settled. After settling themselves, they invited other people and slowly their numbers grew up. Sometime, differences among them arose and there had been fighting to snatch the control of the resources. This is still going on.

Our interests to meet our needs clash with those who too are interested to meet their needs. Materialism promotes our wish to gather as many things as we can and in the process of gathering, some of us give up ethics too. Today, earning of money is accorded top priority by majority of us without keeping care of our health, time and other important factors. Our imbalanced chasing of money/resources has made us mad sometime making us forget our relationship, status, understandings, ethics and our character too. If we do not get success, we are not making introspection of ourselves as to what wrongs we made that we could not achieve success but we see someone else’s working to be responsible. Instead of improving our process, we start to plan to harm the person, we understand, to be responsible for our failures. Sometime, our greed also makes us attack others to capture their resources in illegal and unethical methods. This creates discontent and results into crimes.

We must understand that it is the rule of nature that those who take birth vanish one day. Nature has gifted to everyone a limited time to live, not a single second thereafter. Further, you are not allowed to keep anything, any person with you after your time to live be over. The quantum of that time is not known. Your time can expire any day, any time, any moment whatever be the reason and you may take your last breath, that too, beyond your control and without your own permission. Then, why do you gather all those things which you are not able to enjoy during your life time? Do you gather for your next generations? How do you assess that your next generations can enjoy them? There are many cases when we see father/mother witnessing death of the kin during own life. We gather the materials to enjoy during our life and surplus for our next generations without knowing about the future. But we are doing it. Actually, we are committing the sin of hoarding those materials which can be used by other ones too. We are depriving them of their genuine share in the gifts given by the nature to the mankind.

This is true that this universe belongs to those who are brave and active. Those who wish to live easy life without doing any thing, should not be allowed to have comforts on other’s cost, labor and action. If you wish to live your time happily, you need to sweat yourself. It is our duty to groom up our progeny so well that at their time, they must understand the importance of the work. We must learn from the birds. When a bird sees its chic to have grown up sufficiently to fly through its own feathers, it kicks out that chic through the nest to earn the food itself. The chain goes on. We must follow. The day our generations may learn how to earn, we would be able to live happily by concentrating our efforts on our earning limited to our needs of the present and some savings for the emergencies. If we care for our present, the future stands insured itself.

Our forefathers had propounded the concept of  Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. It is  a Sanskrit phrase. If we break up this phrase, we find that  "vasudha" means the earth, "iva" is as a; and "kutumbakam" means family. That means that the whole world is one single family. The concept is not just about peace and harmony among the groups in the world, but also about a truth that somehow the whole world has to live by some rules like a family, set by an unknowable source. This is the reason why we think that any power in the world, big or small cannot have its way disregarding others. The nature balances every thing. If we disturb the process of nature, we find many calamities in result.

If we go through the history, we find that in the Vedic thought thousands of years ago, another verse which was in the form of a prayer “Loka samastha sukhinau bavanthu” – May the world live in peace, had been promoting pleasures for all. The people did not just pray for the happiness of humans alone. They prayed for every living creature in the world. “Sarve sukina santhu, sarve santhu niramayaha” – May every living being be free from ills and miseries and attain peace.

Today we talk of ‘global village’ and ‘globalization’. Globalization by definition is ‘the process of transformation of local phenomena into global ones, a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together’. While globalization started as an economic phenomenon driven by business interests, it is today perceived as a unification of economic, technological, social, cultural and political forces. However, although globalisation aims at diluting and dissolving the political boundaries of nations, nationalities, cultures and diversities, the world today is witnessing strife, wars, conflicts at all fronts and on all accounts i.e economic, political, social and cultural !

Why so? We are not honest at our heart. We talk of globalization but we eye at the markets and resources available at the other ends. We need to be honest. Our forefathers who proclaimed 4,000 years ago that ‘world is one family’ were not seen to be in such conflict. Although the underlying objective of the two concepts appears to be the same, there obviously is a difference between the process of ‘globalization’ being attempted today and the principle of 'Vasudaiva Kutumbakam' that was ingrained in the culture and way of life of our forefathers. We will have to go back to the philosophy of our forefathers.

Today, globalization has been motivated by economic interests and not out of a concern for ‘universal welfare’ – economic interests of those searching for new markets and better resource mobilization. Its advocacy for free trade was adopted by different countries as it did lead to cash flows in otherwise deficient economies. However, the whole process being motivated primarily by economic interests of a few powerful nations and corporations, the emphasis is on pursuit of financial gains. It leads to satisfaction of economic needs of many people in less developed countries, though not all, thus nations’ policies and actions have started to get structured around greatest financial gains to benefit their societies.

Though we are happy to see that progress and success has started to be measured in material terms, other concerns such as environmental issues, or human perspectives of emotional richness or social well being, are not necessarily cared for. Moreover, the survival in the new global business markets is dependent on improved productivity and increased competition and in such highly competitive environments, human actions are getting centered on self interest and greed.

In this pursuit of material progress - production, distribution and consumption of an increasing number of goods and conveniences is the creed and each competes with the other to produce more with less. More skills, better technology, better access to cheaper resources even if through the exploitation of natural resources of the earth or through better, bigger bombs to maim and destroy opponents, all in pursuit of more financial gains! Although many of the wars being waged in the world appear to have religious and ethnic basis, the underlying motives are now being perceived to be economic – competition for dwindling resources of the world. Troops and weapons are being deployed where local people threaten corporate investments and returns!

We need to rethink over our policy of globalization and come back to Vasudaiva Kutumbakam’ in its letter and spirit. We need to live together and live happily by adjusting our needs to promote peace and fraternity amongst all the human beings with care to other creations as well.

Be Happy – Live Together and Live Happily.

Be Happy – Concentrate at One Job at One Time.

Generally, we find our computer to hang out when we impatiently give a number of commands successively. Sometime, we feel that our computer is working slow or has stopped to work for a while. But it is not so. It continues to work and execute our commands, but one by one. When it feels overburdened, it stops to work and we have to re-start. It applies to our bodies too when we feel overwhelmed?

It's not just the number of hours we're working, but also the fact that we spend too many continuous hours juggling too many things at the same time. What we've lost, above all, are stopping points, finish lines and boundaries. Technology has blurred them beyond recognition. Wherever we go, our work follows us, on our digital devices, ever insistent and intrusive. It's like an itch we can't resist scratching, even though scratching invariably makes it worse.

Tell the truth: Do you answer email during conference calls (and sometimes even during calls with one other person)? Do you bring your laptop to meetings and then pretend you're taking notes while you surf the net? Do you eat lunch at your desk? Do you make calls while you're driving, and even send the occasional text, even though you know you shouldn't?

The biggest cost — assuming you don't crash — is to your productivity. In part, that's a simple consequence of splitting your attention, so that you're partially engaged in multiple activities but rarely fully engaged in any one. In part, it's because when you switch away from a primary task to do something else, you may enhance the time it takes to finish that task by an average of 25 per cent.

But most insidiously, it's because if you're always doing something, you're relentlessly burning down your available your own energy over the course of every day, so you have less available with every passing hour.

I know this from my own experience. I get two to three times as much writing accomplished when I focus without interruption for a designated period of time and then take a real break, away from my desk. The best way for an organization to fuel higher productivity and more innovative thinking is to strongly encourage finite periods of absorbed focus, as well as shorter periods of real renewal.

If you're a manager, here are three policies worth promoting:

1. You May Maintain Meeting Discipline. Schedule meetings for 45 minutes, rather than an hour or longer, so participants can stay focused, take time afterward to reflect on what's been discussed, and recover before the next obligation. Start all meetings at a precise time, end at a precise time, and insist that all digital devices be turned off throughout the meeting.

2. You Must Stop demanding or expecting instant responsiveness at every moment of the day. It forces your people into reactive mode, fractures their attention, and makes it difficult for them to sustain attention on their priorities. Let them turn off their email at certain times. If it's urgent, you can call them — but that won't happen very often.

3. You Should Encourage renewal. Create at least one time during the day when you encourage your people to stop working and take a break. Offer a mid-afternoon class in yoga, or meditation, organize a group walk or workout, or consider creating a renewal room where people can relax, or take a nap. 

It's also up to individuals to set their own boundaries. Consider these three behaviors for yourself:

1.  You May Do the most important thing first in the morning, preferably without interruption, for 60 to 90 minutes, with a clear start and stop time. If possible, work in a private space during this period, or with sound-reducing earphones. Finally, resist every impulse to distraction, knowing that you have a designated stopping point. The more absorbed you can get, the more productive you'll be. When you're done, take at least a few minutes to renew.

2. You Can Establish regular, scheduled times to think more long term, creatively, or strategically. If you don't, you'll constantly succumb to the tyranny of the urgent. Also, find a different environment in which to do this activity — preferably one that's relaxed and conducive to open-ended thinking.

3. You May Take real and regular vacations. Real means that when you're off, you're truly disconnecting from work. Regular means several times a year if possible, even if some are only two or three days added to a weekend. The research strongly suggests that you'll be far healthier if you enjoy your vacation period fully, and more productive overall.

A single principle lies at the heart of all these suggestions. When you're engaged at work, keep yourself fully engaged, for defined periods of time. When you're renewing, truly renew. Make waves. Stop living your life in the gray zone.

So you've got an idea for some business activity on a small scale to start with. Congratulations! Now, it's time to figure out how to make it one that survives and even thrives.

Many would-be entrepreneurs are held back by fears of failure due to the risks of starting a business. But there are ways to lessen those risks -- by taking a sane, step-by-step approach to getting ready to launch. 

Here are seven fundamental steps for planning a low-risk launch:

1. You Should Know how you'll fund it. There are many costs to starting a business, even if it's an online one. Do you have money saved up, or access to a credit line you could tap? Will you work a side job? Get relatives to help you? Have a strategy for meeting the preliminary and working expenses.

2. You Should Be realistic about ramp time. Even with a simple business idea, expect it will be at least six months to a year before the business starts throwing off enough cash to support you. Know how you will cover your living expenses until then.

3. You Should Keep overhead low. See how you could start getting sales before paying rent on a big retail store. Try a kiosk, direct sales, e-commerce or even renting space within an existing store.

4. You Must Have a business model. Just because a good venture is started without any idea how the business would make money doesn't mean you should do the same. The reality is the vast majority of businesses that begin this way will fail. Figure out a revenue model at the start.

5. You May Test your idea out on prospective customers. It's better to find out if nobody would buy your product before you invest time and money in launching it. You may get primary or secondary data about whether there is a real market for what you want to sell.

6. You Must Be ready to evolve your idea. Venture funders like founders who know how to "fail fast." Don't cling to what's not working. One key entrepreneurial skill is quickly recognizing problems and testing out new twists on an idea until you find the approach to which customers respond. 

7. You Must Build your network. You will not succeed at this alone. You must  search out other associates in business and similar industry, who will be a sounding board and share their experiences.

If you decide to go for it and start a business, be committed to it. If you're not passionate about what you're trying to do, you probably won't stick out the inevitable bumps in the road.

Be Happy - Concentrate at One Job at One Time.