Top five regrets of the dying

A palliative nurse who has counselled the dying in their last days has revealed the most common regrets we have at the end of our lives. 

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself,
   not the life others expected of me.
   Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.
     
2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
   They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. They deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.
     
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
   Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others and they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming.
      
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
   Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.
      
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
   Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to themselves, that they were content.

Read the source article

Parents can help children to succeed in life

In the wake of the recent college admissions scandal, in which rich parents paid thousands or even millions of dollars to bribe coaches or have someone else take standardized tests for their children so that they could get into elite colleges, there has been a lot of discussion about admission to elite colleges and about what it takes to succeed. Going to an elite college can help, mostly in terms of networking and resume-building, but it is not the ticket to success.True success and happiness in life comes from being able to create, persevere, roll with life’s punches, and work with others. Parents and caregivers can teach children these skills from infancy onwards. 

Here are five ways parents can set up their children for success.

1. Reinforce executive function skills
   Executive function skills are our ability to pay attention, plan, troubleshoot, multitask, control our emotions, negotiate, and delay gratification. These are skills that children learn as they grow and can be taught and reinforced. There are activities and games that parents can do with their children that help build these skills, many of which involve using their imagination and interacting with others — which works best when devices are turned off, and when time is not filled up with scheduled activities.
2. Let children be independent — and let them fail
   Many parents limit their children’s independence for good reason of safety. But children cannot grow into independent adults if they never get to explore the world around them and make choices for themselves, which inevitably means that they will make at least the occasional bad choice. Learning from mistakes is some of the best learning we do. Control temptation to jump in and save them, but limit that to the real emergencies. They will do better, if parents are supportive and help them think it through. They will also learn to survive the mistakes.
3. Foster resilience
   Resilience is the ability to manage adversity, to deal with setbacks and failure and get back up again. Letting children be independent and fail helps build this. Having the consistent support of loving adults is key.
4. Build social skills and empathy
   Children need to learn how to make and keep friends, how to listen to others and care about their thoughts and feelings. From teaching “please” and “thank you” and taking turns, to getting them involved in activities involving social interactions, to getting involved in community and volunteer activities, there are many ways that parents can build these skills.
5. Encourage curiosity and creativity
   Go places like parks or museums or historical sites. Explore together. Go to the library and get books. Have lots of paper and paint around. Make things together. Watch documentaries; read the news and talk about it. Make up stories. Build things. Help your child see the world as full of fascination and possibility. Help them understand how much ability they have to create.

These are the skills that make a difference, not where someone goes to college. These are the skills that help people find their way, succeed at what they do — and have fun doing it.

Read the source article

Children may not make you happy

It is a taboo that one is not allowed to say children make one unhappy and the obvious issue is why we should expect happiness from our children in the first place. It is a mistake to expect happiness from anything. Not only that, but having children ought not to be about one's personal happiness. Do we really have children only for the most selfish reasons – to please ourselves? Is it actually possible to "make" anyone happy at all? Don't depend on children because in their priorities, you get feeling of neglect. Never meddle in children's lives. Their life is theirs, not yours. Finally, reducing luxuries, minimizing expenses and simple living is sure road to happiness.

• Wanting offspring is hardwired, but for most of us, the decision to have a child is intensely personal that  has become all the more daunting in recent years that parents are miserable and stretched to the limit. 
• Parents experience a high point of happiness & euphoria when their first child was born. This is because in our areligious society children will give our lives meaning (as well as being our most likely stab at an afterlife).
• Too many parents link their well-being to the mood of their offspring and end up miserable and guilt-ridden. Our happiness is inseparable from the happiness of our children. 
• Once the initial thrill is past, do children make parents happier? Having children does not make parents happier at all and more often children make their parents unhappy. And the more children you have, the unhappier you are likely to be. Parents are no happier than their childless peers.
• Some studies find that parents are happier and more satisfied than their childless peers but some studies find no difference, and some studies find the reverse. The question of whether parents are happier than non-parents is not a meaningful one. Rather, it depends on the parent and the child.
• Parents have a tremendous fear of unhappiness. Parents are in the mad hope that their children will be consistently content. And it is daft because to be alive is to be inconsistent and sometimes to be unhappy.
• Nobel prize-winning behavioural economist Daniel Kahneman reveals that Texan mothers put childcare 16th, almost at the bottom of a list of ordinary pleasures (after sleeping, shopping, talking on the phone). Children have a detrimental effect on marriage (parents are spending more time with their children, less with one another). 
• Parents are needed for their children's survival. Happiness is neither here nor there. The best happiest times with my children are usually the least planned. We should try and lift the happiness pressure as parents. Happiness does not come when it is called. But, in the end, parenting is not about happiness, it is about love – not the same thing at all.
• Young parents and parents with small children are particularly unhappy, while other types report high life satisfaction, happiness, or meaning. Whether or not children go hand in hand with happiness depends on many factors, including our age, marital status, income and social support, as well as whether our children live with us and have difficult temperaments.

People without children are as happy as those children with them. It is the childless who often turn out to be the most creative, generous and en rapport with other people's children. As a parent, one quickly runs out of steam as a child entertainer. Perhaps it is as grandparents that we may reasonably predict future happiness – because the relationship with grandchildren is lighter, part-time and with no responsibility.

Read the source article

Retired Life - Rules for happiness & peace

Money must be spent for your comforts; it may be given away to others. 

But wealth accumulated may end up with King or under the earth.

 ... a Sumathi Satakamu poem paraphrased

Children are the source of our greatest joy and our greatest sorrow. Children give our lives purpose, infuse fun and pride into our lives, and enrich our identities. At the same time, they are also vectors for worry, anger, and disappointment; they deprive us of energy and sleep; and they strain our finances and our marriages. Keeping these findings in mind, 94% of parents say that having children is still worth it, despite the costs.

Marriage is a gamble

When it comes to selecting a partner people either take too long to take a decision or get married in a hurry. This is inscrutable. That is one of the reasons for increased divorce rates in India.  The divorce rate in America was 32.8% in 1970 and rose to 49.1% by 2000. Higher divorce rates reflect a lack of commitment and a decline of moral character that have harmed adults, children and society in general.

• Whether it is a love marriage or an arranged marriage, the fact remains that at the end of the day marriage is essentially akin to a gamble. 
• Marriage is a commitment between two people who exchange vows to stay together through thick and thin. True love transcends the physical laws of attraction between a man and a woman.
• Struggling marriages make people more unhappy, while healthy marriages have some of the happiest couples in history.
• These days people expect more out of their marriage. If these higher expectations are not met, it can suffocate a marriage to the point of destroying it.
• When a husband and wife are bickering forever, it is their children who bear the brunt. Having healthy arguments is one thing, quarreling day in and day out is quite another.
• Loveless arranged marriages somehow have been sustained even as love marriages have crumbled due to cultural disparities and ego problems that surfaced after the marriage. Many arranged marriages have also failed as a result of irreconcilable marital discord. 
• When the situation becomes uncontrollable or unmanageable, it is always better to seek a legal separation. Sometimes this is in the interest of both the parties. In case of celebrities, moving away from an abusive marital relationship is not an option; it becomes a necessity.
• Children often become the binding factor in unhappy marriages but this cannot always be the solution if there is far too much acrimony between the couple. A warring couple can cause serious psychological hurt to their progeny, the couple remaining unaware of the adverse impact.
• Marriages are all about give and take. It is all about making adjustments. When these adjustments make life a virtual hell, then it is time for a hard decision. There are so many women out there who suffer mental abuse and domestic violence and there are men too who become unsuspecting victims in a loveless marriage.
• Marriage is a tight-rope act. One has to walk with a fine sense of balance. Accepting each other’s shortcomings is one of the ways to develop an enduring relationship between partners. Where there is lack of tolerance and misguided expectations between a couple, marital discord is bound to swell.
• In these modern days marriage has become tricky and challenging but also potentially rewarding. Obtaining a sense of fulfillment from partner, meeting the expectations and feeling satisfied in marriage is harder than ever. Couples in healthy marriages are more happier now than in the past.
• It is hard to define a formula for a successful marriage, but where there is true love, marriages will manage to sustain! Couples need to invest time and resources to sustain strong marital bond.

Eli J. Finkel, a professor of psychology suggests a quick fix. A love hack is a proven technique that 

takes 

little time or effort and doesn’t even require cooperation from your partner that can take just a

few 

minutes 

a month. It’s not going to give you a great marriage, but it can certainly improve things. 

Simply allowing the relationship to slip off is far worse.

Read the source article

In marriages, no guarantees

A good husband makes a good wife

Don't look to your marriage alone for personal fulfillment. If you want a lot from your marriage, then you have to give a lot. Most people who are very happy in their marriage are also very happy in general. One of the secrets of successful marriages is to accept other person as he/she is and keep expectations from spouse to minimum. 

Advertising

• Advertising is a means of communication with the users of a product or service. Advertisements are messages paid for by those who send them and are intended to inform or influence people who receive them to buy their products or services.
• Advertising is attempting to influence the buying behavior of customers or clients by providing a persuasive selling message about products and/or services.
• Politics is what happens when two or more human beings interact. Every organisation is political, and everything it does involves politics. Advertising itself is an intensely political activity. 
• The phrase “The customer is always right” was originally coined by Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridge’s department store in London in 1909, and is typically used by businesses to: (1) Convince customers that they will get good service at this company and (2) Convince employees to give customers good service. More and more businesses are abandoning this maxim because it leads to bad customer service.
• Advertising encourages more consumers to buy products and services. As the demand for products and services goes up because of advertising, more people are needed to manufacture, supply, ship and test those products and services. Thus, more jobs are created.
• Advertising positively impacts society because it helps maintain mass communications media, i.e. newspapers, radio, magazines, and television making them much less expensive for the public.
• Advertising aims to present a product in the best light and the dramatization usually crosses the line into falsely representing a product.
• Political advertising is vast and multifaceted. Conventional wisdom holds that political advertising in general  and negative advertising in particular  is harmful to democracy.
• Advertising plays an essential role in the production of consumerist demand by inventing false “needs” and by stimulating the formation of compulsive consumption habits, totally violating the conditions for maintenance of planetary ecological equilibrium.
• Children do not have the ability to identify advertisements as marketing messages until they are in their teens. This means that marketing messages can be perceived as truths and those messages can stay with them until they become adults.
  In a study, the effects of branding were looked at and 3 to 5 year olds were given two portions of identical foods. One portion was given in McDonald’s wrappers. When asked to point out which foods tasted better, the children said that the ones with the McDonald’s wrappers were better.
• Advertisement leads to branding and branded products are not only expensive but also taxed more although they seem to be more clean, less adulterated and higher quality.
• An average child is exposed to over 40,000 commercials through TV every year. Children are spending more time watching TV than they are in school, meaning that they are viewing more advertisements.
• Consumption of fast foods has increased among children due to the advertisements. The rising popularity of fast foods and snacks has led to an increase of obesity, heart problems, diabetes and other serious health issues among children. Young and healthy-looking models are used, hiding the fact that these foods are some of the unhealthiest in the world.
• Many advertisements these days use beautiful young women to attract buyers. This will no doubt have a seriously negative effect on how children think. From chocolates to clothing, almost every ad seen is sexual in nature. Children then think that they need to look that way to be accepted.

The customer is always right until she or he chooses not to buy.

In today's intensely competitive world of consumerism most advertisements are eye catching with slogans. In colorful advertisements, untruths are glorified and truths appear in small print. Children should be protected from the ill effects of advertisements. Consumer awareness is important for understanding and evaluating the product will meet their requirements or not. Buy only what you really need. While in doubt, don'y buy - especially if it involves credit card loans or bank personal loans. 

Gender wage gap?

• The gender pay gap is the average difference between a man's and a woman's wages or salaries.
• The Constitution of India guarantees the right to equality and prohibits discrimination, and the 1976 Equal Remuneration Act reinforces this without prejudice to special measures like maternity leave. But laws are rarely enough.
• Gender wage gaps begin at home. In fact, early feminist posters would state that women have to do twice the work men did to earn half as much.
• We value anything that men do more than anything that women do. 
• Men work in sectors that are better organized, better regulated and better paid. 
• Women in India earn 27 per cent less than men in most places;
  If a man got Rs 100, a woman can expect to get Rs 73, for the same job.
• In the United States, in 2015, women working full time typically were paid just 80 percent of what men were paid, a gap of 20 percent?
• At every level of academic achievement, women’s median earnings are less than men’s median earnings, and in some cases, the gender pay gap is larger at higher levels of education. The gender pay gap is worse for mothers, and it only grows with age.
• Unequal pay for equal work is only one explanation for why women earn less.
• Poorer childhood nutrition results in poorer health lifelong and lower productivity.
• Lack of access to educational opportunities lock women into low-skilled or unskilled jobs, which, by definition, pay less.
• Society keeps women from acquiring more than functional literacy locks them into poverty.
• With poverty comes vulnerability to displacement and exploitation.
• In a crisis or downturn, women are the first to lose their jobs and the last to receive compensation. 
• They rarely own assets and, lacking capital, struggle to raise money for entrepreneurship. 
• Patrilocal marriage means they start adult life without the social capital men have that enables them to find work, raise credit or identify mentors.
• In India, women make up only 28 per cent of the labour force.
• On an average, women work 537 minutes a day and men 442.
• 66% of the work women do is unpaid as opposed to 12% in the case of men.
• The ILO estimates it will take 70 years to close the gender wage gap.
• Society expects that women will put household and family needs above their professional growth. Girls often make educational choices that reflect this limitation.
• Women make up only 15% of those who work in the area of research and development.
• Throughout their careers women are likely to take time off to have and raise children or care for family elders. Anticipating this, they are offered less money and less responsibility at every stage.
• Women make up only 10% of publicly traded company board memberships.

While unmarried women earns almost equal to men, marriage and unequal work division at home effects their earnings and career growth. Motherhood and subsequent child care compels women to commit less time to work and that effects their salary. Children are particular in damaging woman's career. The causes of the gender pay gap are complex. In the past, a substantial proportion of the gender pay gap was due to factors such as differences in education, the occupations and industries that men and women work in, or the fact that women are more likely to work part-time. The majority of the gender pay gap is now driven by “unexplained” factors impacting negatively on women and differences in men’s and women’s choices and behaviors.

The most important obstacle to wage equality, however, lies in our attitudes. When women value themselves enough to fight for their due, and when society values all human beings equally, the gender wage gap will cease to be an issue.

My View:
Pay parity and lack of presence in leadership roles are issues worldwide, not just in India. Every where in the world, women are underpaid at work and unpaid for their domestic work. A lesson in the textbook in Chhattisgarh in 2015 claimed that “working women are one of the causes of unemployment” in the country indicating regressive mindset prevalent in the country. Women carry out at least two and a half times more unpaid household and care work than men. The invisibility of such women workers is essential for the survival of society and provides a huge and unnoticed subsidy to the formal economy. SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya says that few women get to the top because for most, it’s almost determined at entry that they would quit midway through their careers to take up responsibilities at home. If women could participate in the economy on an equal footing with men, India could add $2.9 trillion i.e. 60% of the $5 trillion GDP by 2025. Even if India manages to match the best country in the region on this measure, it would add $700 billion to its economy and increase its growth rate by 1.4%.