Life is beautiful , when you know how to live

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.

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The myth of meritocracy

Meritocracy represents a vision in which power and privilege would be allocated by individual merit, not by social origins. According to the meritocratic ideal, jobs should go not to people who have connections or pedigree, but to those best qualified for them, regardless of their background. Reservations allows for exceptions – for positive discrimination, to help undo the effects of previous discrimination. In moving toward the meritocratic ideal, we have imagined that we have retired the old encrustations of inherited hierarchies. But that is not the real story.

• Meritocracy is an ideal in which riches and rule were earned, not inherited. Democracy would give way to rule by the cleverest - not an aristocracy of birth, not a plutocracy of wealth, but a true meritocracy of talent.
• Education mattered as a means of mobility, but also as a way to make people more forceful as citizens. Wealth reflects the innate distribution of natural talent, and the wealthy increasingly marry one another, society sorts into two main classes, in which everyone accepts that they have more or less what they deserve. 
• The eminent know that success is a just reward for their own capacity and their own efforts. Nearly all parents try to gain unfair advantages for their offspring. When you have inequalities of income, people with extra money pursues that goal. If the financial status of your parents helped determine your economic rewards, you would no longer be living by merit.
• Higher education in the US and Britain was seen as a great equaliser. But higher education is a great stratifier. Elite US universities – including Brown, Dartmouth, Penn, Princeton, and Yale – take more students from the top 1% of the income distribution than from the bottom 60%. Yale law professor Daniel Markovits argues - American meritocracy become precisely what it was invented to combat: a mechanism for the dynastic transmission of wealth and privilege across generations.
• Emerging cohort of mercantile meritocrats who had achieved advancement not on their own merit but because they were, as somebody’s son or daughter, the beneficiaries of nepotism. The newcomers believes they have morality on their side and there is almost no block on the rewards they arrogate to themselves. The carapace of merit had only inoculated the winners from shame and reproach.
• In US, liberal elites look down on ordinary Americans, ignore their concerns and use their power to their own advantage. Working-class men often think that middle-class and upper-class men are unmanly or undeserving. American white working class has been persuaded that they do not deserve the opportunities that have been denied to them.
• Talent is capitalised efficiently only in high tax brackets and that we have simply failed to achieve the meritocratic ideal. If you were upholding meritocracy, then your equation was sponsoring a larger inequality.
• The central task of ethics is to ask what it is for a human life to go well. A plausible answer is that living well means meeting the challenge set by three things: your capacities, the circumstances into which you were born, and the projects that you yourself decide are important. Because each of us comes equipped with different talents and is born into different circumstances, and because people choose their own projects, each of us faces his or her own challenge. There is no comparative measure that would enable an assessment of whether your life or my life is better. What matters in the end is simply that we do our best.
• The capacity for hard work is the result of natural endowments and upbringing. So neither talent nor effort would determine rewards in the world of the meritocracy. People who have been repeatedly labelled ‘dunce’ still have capacities and the challenge of making a meaningful life. The lives of the less successful are not less worthy than those of others. There is simply no sensible way of comparing the worth of human lives.
• Money and status are rewards that can encourage people to do the things that need doing. A well-designed society will elicit and deploy developed talent efficiently. The social rewards of wealth and honor are inevitably going to be unequally shared, because that is the only way they can serve their function as incentives for human behavior. But we go wrong when we deny not only the merit but the dignity of those who were unlucky.
• People will inevitably want to share both money and status with those they love, seeking to get their children financial and social rewards. But we should not secure our children’s advantages in a way that denies a decent life to the children of others. Each child should have access to a decent education, suitable to her talents and her choices; each should be able to regard him- or herself with self-respect. We need to apply ourselves to something we do not yet quite know how to eradicate contempt for those who are disfavored by the ethic of effortful competition.
• Most CEOs of big corporations, Wall Street mavens, and high-priced lawyers got where they are because they knew the right people. A prestigious college packed with the children of wealthy and well-connected parents is now the launching pad into the stratosphere of big money. Elite colleges are doing their parts to accelerate the trend.
• Jared Kushner (Ivanka Trump's husband)'s father reportedly pledged $2.5 million to Harvard just as young Jared was applying, in 1998. The young man gained admission, despite rather mediocre grades.
• The monstrous concentration of wealth in America has created an education system in which the rich can effectively buy college admission for their children. It has created a justice system in which the rich can buy their way out of prison. It has spawned a political system in which the rich can buy their way into Congress and even into the Presidency. (Donald Trump, perhaps Starbuck’s Howard Schultz). And a health care system in which the super-rich can buy care unavailable to others (concierge medicine). Ditto in India also - even more blatant. It seems, everything is for sale. 

We live in a plenitude of incommensurable hierarchies, and the circulation of social esteem will always benefit the better novelist, the more important mathematician, the savvier businessman, the faster runner, the more effective social entrepreneur. We cannot fully control the distribution of economic, social and human capital, or eradicate the intricate patterns that emerge from these overlaid grids. But class identities do not have to internalize those injuries of class. It remains an urgent collective endeavor to revise the ways we think about human worth in the service of moral equality. 

We live in a system that espouses merit equality and a level playing field 

but exalts those with wealth power and celebrity however gained. - Derrick A. Bell

In India, a typical entrance test for medical admissions is competed by over 200,000 students for 2,000 seats i.e. 1:100. Almost all successful students belongs to wealthy, well-connected and attended very expensive & unethical coaching classes. Any system that ignores level playing field for poorer sections must be disbanded. The present entrance exam could be used as a qualifier test to select 20,000 merit students i.e. top 10%. And the final 2,000 students (among the qualified 20,000) should be selected purely on lottery basis, with no weightage for skewed merit. This would enable elimination of non-merit candidates and disbanding of all kinds of reservations. Women reservations (among merit qualified only) may continue for some more time. Aspiring poor candidates need not go through expensive coaching classes route to get into merit list of 20,000 because a real merit student could easily get qualified with self preparation. Thus coaching classes would lose their sheen and exploitation of aspiring students will come to an end.

Criticism is important

Criticism is a useful tool in any relationship. A relationship is the connection, or lack of, between two people. Many people see criticism as something negative. The actual content of criticism carries a negative connotation, but the purpose of criticism is not to insult but to improve. Most people don’t like is being told they are doing something wrong or that their work is not good enough. That is why the delivery of criticism is so important. 

Irrespective  of the dynamics of the relationship, if two people work together for a unified goal then criticism is the only way to keep the relationship healthy, efficient, on task and successful. Taking criticism can be a difficult thing. But you can use criticism to give you a competitive edge. Criticism in its true sense is a feedback and is an opportunity to learn and do more to convert critics into a satisfied customer or audience member. 

Success is limited only by how much attention you can get for yourself, your products and your ideas. The right amount of attention will always attract criticism, even haters. While criticism is never enjoyed, it should be anticipated. The longevity of a project is determined by the quality of what you offer, but the success of your project is determined by how much attention you can get for it. Without the right amount of attention from your target audience, no one will know you or your product, regardless of how good it is. 

The problem with getting attention is threefold:

1. Taking enough action to get the ‘right amount’ of attention, 
2. Knowing how to handle the negative criticism that comes with attention,
3. Continue to get attention, despite the attacks, until admiration.

The goal of criticism is almost never to actually help. When criticism does not offer a solution, it is always with the goal to reduce you and your efforts. Your success in the world is only limited by the amount of attention you can receive in the world. Your ‘haters’ don’t really hate you, at best they are threatened, envious and jealous. Little thinkers and little doers criticize in an effort to keep bigger thinkers and bigger doers small.

Don't take criticism personally even if you feel you're being criticized unfairly. Don't retaliate with an extreme knee-jerk reaction that can harm your reputation as well. Even when the criticism is personal, remember that people are fallible and it's important not be offended by someone's remarks. A good professional will take criticism and even personal attacks to make them work to his advantage or, if all else fails, politely conclude the partnership and leave with their reputation intact.

Here are some reasons why criticism is good: 

1. For someone to criticize you, it means that he/she cared
2. You are reaching new people.
3. People would have ignored you, if you were unworthy to be criticized.
4. Criticism lets you see things in a different light.
5. Criticism is a form of honesty.
6. Criticism helps you to improve.
7. Criticism lets you learn about your defense mechanisms.
8. Criticism helps you to learn more about others. 
9. Criticism sometimes jolts you into action.

I learnt a lot from my critics and nothing from my admirers ... Mahatma Gandhi

A good friend will always stab you in the front ... Oscar Wilde

God save me from the friends. I can protect myself from the hackers.

People should be open to reasonable and well intended criticism and must be open to giving way to the wishes of the other. A good critic will also offer a solution to the problem that had led to criticism. Receiving excessive criticism is a sign to pause and mend your ways. Never waste your time dealing with habitual critics. If the criticism is mainly coming from one person and is in violation of your rights, put these people in their place by asserting your rights. Cut away chronic critics if you have to. But accepting criticism and using it to make you work better is too valuable of a resource to ignore. Without critics, you end up with a stagnant medium that refuses to grow and change with no self-awareness and no real progress.

The art of giving up

The irony of life that as soon as you think you have things figured out, the rules change.

• The simple rule of success is - More! Acquire more words. More food. More toys. Take more classes. Earn more degrees. Once we enter the working world the objective remains the same. Acquire knowledge. Gain experiences. Get better. Take on more. And More! 
• Life, it would seem, is about the acquisition of more knowledge and more skill and more responsibility. And those most likely to be successful are the ones with the greatest capacity for more.
• But then the rules of success change in the second phase of life which is about giving up. Doing less. It is about focusing on what you were meant to be doing, leveraging your greatest strengths and passions, and letting everything else fall to the side.
• Most successful are not the ones who can do everything, they are the ones who can do something, and do it exceptionally well. It is their confidence in the few things they excel at.
• An obsession with success can have negative side effects on what matters even more in life: being happy. Are successful people necessarily happier?
• Kids today face tremendous pressure to succeed, but is such success worth it?
• Most of us sacrifice our present-day enjoyment for the sake of a future that may never really arrive. Researchers interviewed people in the winter years of their life, and asked them what they would change about their past if they could re-live their lives. The study revealed that people consistently wished that they had been a little less work-oriented, a little less focused on being successful, and a little more pleasure-orientated, a little more focused on enjoying life. 
• When looking at success over the span of an entire career, it is our willingness to give things up that matters much more than our capacity to take things on.
• The acquisition of knowledge and experience is an extraordinary gift. But once you find it, you must summon the confidence to let other things go. You must delegate to others more talented than you. You must focus on the challenges that most excite you. This is what authentic leadership is all about.
• Success to a point requires gaining as much knowledge and experience as you can get your hands on. But breaking out to achieve the life you are capable of living eventually requires the strength to let it go.

But even more basic than figuring out which goals to pursue and which ones to abandon, is having the clarity to accord the goal of leading a happy and fulfilling life your number one priority. Do you have it? If not, be aware that you may grow to be one of those who, like the participants in the study, regret having sacrificed enjoyment for the sake of success.

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Life lessons

1. We must love.
   It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. It’s a truth so profound we can discuss it only with aphorisms. Yes, we must love, even if it breaks our hearts—because, unless we love, our lives will flash by.
2. Love isn’t enough.
   Although we must love, love is not enough to survive. We must take action to show others we care, to show them we love.
3. Happiness is not for sale.
   We can’t buy happiness. The stuff won’t make us happy. At best, material things will temporarily pacify us. At worst, they will ruin our lives. They will leave us empty, they will leave us depressed, and they will leave us even more alone.
4. Success is perspectival.
   Success is neither amassing wealth nor possessions. Having a six-figure job, the house with too many bedrooms, the luxury car, the tailored suit, the expensive watch, the big screen TV, and all the trappings of the material world would seem make you look successful. These things can make your family and friends proud of you but that is not success. All these luxuries are not luxuries after using them 20 times.
5. Make change a must.
   I didn’t have the feeling in my gut that things must change. I knew they should change, but the change wasn’t a must for me, and thus it didn’t happen. A decision is not a real decision until it is a must, until you feel it on your nerve-endings, until you are compelled to take action. Once your shoulds have turned into musts, then you are ready for change.
6. The meaning of life.
   Giving is living. The best way to live a worthwhile life is simple. Continuously grow as an individual and contribute to other people in a meaningful way. Growth and contribution is the meaning of life.
7. Health is underestimated.
   Our well-being is more important than most of us treat it. Without health, nothing else matters.
8. Sentimental items are less important.
9. Your job is not your mission.
   There’s nothing wrong with job and hard work, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of life’s more important areas like health, relationships, passion.
10. Finding your passion is important.
    Passion is not preexisting. You can cultivate a passion that aligns with your principles and desires.
11. Relationships matter.
    Every relationship is a series of gives and takes. For the relationship to work, both people must contribute to and get something. If you just give but don’t get, you’ll feel used, exploited, taken advantage of. If you only take but don’t give, you’re a parasite, a freeloader, a bottom-feeder.
12. You don’t need everyone to like you.
    We all want to be loved but you can’t value every relationship the same. You can’t expect everyone to love you the same. Life doesn’t work that way. When people don’t like you, nothing actually happens. The world does not end. You don’t feel them breathing down your neck. In fact, the more you ignore them and just go about your business, the better off you are.
13. Status is a misnomer.
    Similar to success, our culture places an extraordinary emphasis on material wealth as a sign of true wealth, and yet too many people of  “status” are miserable. They don’t seem wealthy. One’s true worth is not determined by his or her net worth.
14. Jealousy is a wasted emotion.
    Competition breeds jealousy, although we give it prettier labels like “competitive spirit,” or “ambition.” Jealousy is ugly. It is never a way to express that we care. It’s only a channel through which we broadcast our insecurities.
15. Everybody worships something.
    There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.
16. I am not the center of the universe.
    It’s difficult to think about the world from a perspective other than our own. We are always worried about what’s going on in our lives. Why am I not happy with my life? We are strongly aware of everything connected to our lives, but we are only one ingredient in a much larger recipe.
17. Awareness is the most precious freedom.
    Minimalism is a tool to rid ourselves of excess in favor of a deliberate life. It is a tool to take a seemingly intricate and convoluted world, cluttered with its endless embellishments, and make it simpler, easier, realer. It is unimaginably hard to remain conscious, attentive, and aware. It is difficult not to fall back into a trance-like state, surrounded by the trappings and obstructions of the tiring world around us—but it is crucial to do so, for this is real freedom.
18. Be on the mountain.
    This term as a metaphor means for living in the moment. When you climb to the peak, don’t immediately plan your descent. Enjoy the view. Be on the mountain. Just be.
19. We are scared for no reason.
    We are often scared of things that don’t have a real effect on our lives (or that we can’t control, so we’re worrying for no reason).
20. Change is growth.
    We all want a different outcome, and yet most of us don’t want any change in our lives. Change equals uncertainty, and uncertainty equals discomfort, and discomfort isn’t fun. But when we learn to enjoy the process of change—when we chose to look at uncertainty as variety—then we get to reap all the rewards of change. That is how we grow.
21. Pretending to be perfect doesn’t make us perfect.
    I am not perfect, and I never will be. I make mistakes and bad decisions, and I fail at times. I stumble, I fall. I am human—a mixed bag, nuanced, the darkness and the light—as are you. And you are beautiful.
22. The past does not equal the future.
    My words are my words, and I can’t take them back. You can’t change the past, so it’s important to focus on the present. If the past equaled the future, then your windshield would be of no use to you. You would simply drive with your eyes glued to the rear view mirror. But driving this way—looking only behind you—is a sure-fire way to crash.
23. Pain can be useful, but not suffering.
    Pain lets us know something is wrong: it indicates we must change what we’re doing. Suffering, though, is a choice, and we can choose to stop suffering, to learn a lesson from the pain and move on with our lives.
24. Doubt kills.
    The person who stops you from doing everything you want to do, who stops you from being completely free, who stops you from being healthy, happy, and passionate—is you.
25. It’s okay to wait.
    Sometimes it’s okay to wait a little longer for something. Why rush if you don’t have to? Why not enjoy the journey?
26. Honesty is important.
    Honesty, at the most simple level, is telling the truth—not lying. It’s supremely important to be honest, and it’s hurtful when you’re not.
27. Openness is just as important as honesty.
    Openness involves being honest while painting an accurate picture, shooting straight, not misleading other people, and being real. Openness is far more subjective, and you must be honest with yourself before you can be open with others. This doesn’t mean you must put your entire life on display. Some things are private, and that’s okay, too.
28. Getting people’s buy-in.
    Adding value to other people is the only way to get their buy-in. That’s how you get their buy-in.
29. Hype is cancerous.
    So often we fall for the hype (“Buy More, Save More!” and “Three Day Sale!”), and we are suckered into rash buying decisions because of scarcity and a false sense of urgency. We can train ourselves, however, to not only resist such hype, but to have a vitriolic reaction to the hype that we avoid anything that’s hyped. 
30. I’m still trying to figure it all out.
    I don’t intend to promulgate my views and opinions as some sort of maxims by which you should live your life. What works for me, may not work for you. Hell, sometimes it doesn’t even work for me.

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More lessons:

1. It’s not about how people feel about you, but how you make them feel.
   Growing older has shown me the cool kids aren’t always the happy kids. I realized what people think about you isn’t nearly as important as how you make them feel.
2. Consider all advice.
   It’s amazing how much smarter our parents appear as we we get older. In many instances, if I had listened to my parents’ and grandparents’ advice, I could have avoided learning lessons the hard way. I told myself that even if I didn’t agree with what someone was telling me, I would at least consider their advice. This has forced me to look into the mirror to consider what I must change.
3. Happiness comes from within.
   Happiness comes from within, not from the things we own.
4. You’ll never be happy with more until you’re happy with what you have currently.
   It’s as simple as that. I discovered I usually don’t get rewarded in life with more until I appreciate what I have currently.
5. Forgiveness is incredibly important.
   There is a profound saying in the bible: “Freely forgive others as you forgive yourself.” When I learned how to let things go and easily forgive others, I was a much happier person. In fact, I found the bigger the wrong I forgave, the better I felt.
6. You can count your closest friends on one hand.
   As you grow older you find out who is actually your friend and who isn’t.
7. Being honest is always the right thing.
   Even when I have royally screwed up in life, I have found honesty punishes me less and gains trust more.
8. If you lie, you will get caught.
   If you lie, you will probably have to tell more lies to cover up the original lie. It’s a vicious cycle.
9. Although honesty is important, I don’t have to be completely transparent.
   Just because something is true, I don’t have to say it. I needn’t spew forth every thought that enters my head.
10. People are inherently good.
    Even the people who’ve treated me poorly are still good at some level. None of us are perfect. This has helped me be less cynical.
11. Slow down.
    We all need to slow down, breathe, and pace ourselves when we get overwhelmed.
12. Friendly people at work aren’t necessarily your friends.
    Be careful whom you open up to at work.
13. Stay true to yourself.
    If it doesn’t feel right, if it doesn’t feel good, if it doesn’t feel like you—then don’t do it. I’m much happier when I follow this advice.
14. Every decision matters.
    Every decision we make affects our future. There is no such thing as a zero-sum decision.
15. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
    Every decision we make costs us something: be it time, emotion, money, etc.
16. “Act as if…”
    Be the change in the world you want to be. Either way, this line has helped me throughout my life.
17. “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” —Eleanor Roosevelt. 
    You needn’t care what people think or say about you. What they say or think is only true if you believe it’s true. Don’t let anyone get the best of you.
18. Some of life’s most profound advice is found in platitudes.
    “You can be anything you want to be,”
    “Life’s too short,”
    “Time heals all wounds,”
    “Good things come to all those that wait,” etc.
    Don’t dismiss it just because it’s a platitude.
19. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
    It’s easier for me to avoid jealousy, it’s easier for me to forgive, and it’s easier for me to overlook the negative things in life.
20. It’s all small stuff.
    Until you have a few life-changing experiences, this isn’t clear. I have had a few close calls with myself, friends, and family which have shown me how small my problems are.
21. If you don’t take care of your health, it will fade fast.
    I don’t think I need to articulate this one any more. 
22. Relationships are important.
    Don’t burn a bridge with another person if you can avoid it. You never know who will decide your fate.
23. Live life with passion.
    If I didn’t have passion in my life, I would be bored to death. If you’re bored, focus on your passions. If you don’t have time for your passions, make time.
24. If you’re not growing, you’re dying.
    If you’re not growing in life, you are simply living out your days.
25. Contribute.
    Contributing to someone else, or to a community, will make you feel good. Contribution is what makes me feel the most alive. Contributing to others keeps me going, gets me up in the mornings, and continues to inspire me.
26. In twenty years you will regret the things you didn’t do more than the things you did do.
27. Life is happening now!
    Don’t forget to live life in the moment.
28. Learn to let go.
    This was a hard lesson but it serves true. Sometimes it’s just better to let things go. 
29. Everything changes.
    Things don’t look different day-to-day, but when you look back ten years it’s all different. Change is an absolute, and we should plan accordingly. Don’t fool yourself.
30. Procrastination is useless.
    I realized that no matter how long I put something off, it’s still there the next day. 

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Health is wealth

Health is defined as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity. Just because your body is free of disease doesn’t mean you are healthy! Health is as important to a person as is wealth. Only a healthy person can work with efficiency to earn wealth.

Earning more money is good, however forgetting our responsibility towards health is not right. To earn more, one needs to work more. But bad health reduces our body and mind capacity to work more. An unhealthy body gets tired very easily. And a tired body easily loses motivation and self-confidence. If the youth doesn’t acquire healthy habits the nation can’t become strong.

Maintaining good health requires regular good habits and a disciplined life to be healthy. Good habits like regular exercise, balanced diet, positive thoughts, cleanliness and fresh environment help to maintain a healthy body.

Physical exercises are planned repetitive bodily activities that are done to gain good health and maintain physical and mental fitness. Physical exercises repair the body or a part of the body. It strengthens the body and makes the body muscles stronger. It helps to lose excess body weight and prevent obesity. Also, it helps to delay the process of aging and keeps a person healthy and young for a longer time.

Balanced diet helps to maintain or improve overall health. Proper nutrition is required for the organs and tissues of the body to work effectively. A healthy diet provides all the essential nutrients to the body. A balanced diet provides an adequate amount of fluid, protein, essential fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, and calories to the body.

Personality traits such as optimism and pessimism can affect many areas of your health and well-being. The positive thinking that usually comes with optimism is a key part of effective stress management which is associated with many health benefits. An unhealthy mind results in an unhealthy body. Good mental health helps you to make the most of life and enjoy it.

For attaining a healthy and disease free body cleanliness is very important. A fresh environment leads to a fresh and healthy body. It reduces the risk of catching communicable diseases. A disease free environment is called a healthy environment. And to obtain a fresh environment it is the responsibility of the people to inculcate healthy habits.

Now is the right time to start working on one’s physical and mental fitness. It is never late anytime. Whenever a person realizes the importance of good habits, it is the right time to start working on it.  One should keep this in mind and take healthy steps for a better tomorrow.

Who lives medically, lives miserably ... a Latin proverb

Hard work is not the path to well-being. 

Feeling good is the path to well-being ... Abraham Hicks

Income grows, when you grow

• Income is materialistic and quantitative representation of your success.
• As you earn more, you succeed. But without success there is no monetary benefit.
• To be rich, to earn more and to make the income grow, one needs to grow & succeed. 
• Success comes to those who grow rapidly both as a person and as an employee as well.
• It’s all about the mindset and the personality you develop. So your developments, your prosperity is in your hand. The faster you develop those skills, personalities and competencies, the easier it will be for you to grow and earn more.
• The moment when you become comfortable in your zone, you cease to grow.
• The more you plan and procrastinate, the longer you will take to grow.
• Invest in your academics in early day. This will facilitate your entire career. A full time course from a renowned institute always adds value. Work hard to crack those premium institutes. You professional prospect will be limitless in those colleges.
• Identify your weaknesses and strength. The sooner you figure that out, the better for you. Work on the weaknesses and try to improve them. Hone your strengths for further improvement. 
• Networking, strong determination and integrity are other three factors which help in overall growth and development. Lastly, a sound financial knowledge is mandatory to earn, save. Invest and thereby grow.
• So once you are aware of the right mix of the above ingredients, you start growing. This growth needs to continue till the time you breathe your last.
• Learning new subjects, language has always been proved beneficial. Upgrading and honing technical skills and competencies need to happen simultaneously with your full time job.
• Massive layoff in IT firms for the past few months is due to obsolescence of the existing skill-sets. Those paid off employees are opting for courses for their career growth or just to bag a job immediately. However in such scenarios, it is always advisable to be pro-active than reactive.
• The day you stop learning and growing, your career will go for a toss. 
• You gather knowledge, experience and skill, the industry will be ready to grab you with the best compensation or you will be ready to come up with a unique idea for entrepreneurship. 
• Be unique and strong in whatever your strength is. That will differentiate you from the rest of the workforce and help you brand yourself to the industry. 
• The concluding advice is don’t run after money, concentrate on your own growth and money will follow.

Everything good in life is either immoral, illegal or fattening ... Nicole Richie

He who wishes become millionaire in a year will get hanged in two years.

My View:

Money is not that difficult to earn. Look at the people who earn money effortlessly by connections and manipulations. Money is only difficult to earn ethically, morally & legally. Compromise in all these three, then money will flood you. God seldom gives riches to good people. Morality is generally incompatible with amassing wealth. Most wealthy people in this world have committed some kind of abuse on society or nature in their path to riches. No good man has ever become rich. 

Things that destroys your career

Some good, hard-working people makes honest mistakes that often carry hard-hitting consequences killing their careers. Most people kill their careers in subtle, decidedly undramatic ways. While some people had made a blunder that had catastrophic results for their career, reputation, or business, and some had done other things that had damaged their careers. The consequences could be denial of a promotion, a raise, or even a job. Sometimes it damaged a working relationship and destroyed their reputation. Little things can add up over time and undermine your career just as much as one huge lapse in judgment. But if you stay aware of them, these are all things that you can control before they creep up on you and kill your career.

1. Playing politics. Instigating conflict, choosing sides, undermining colleagues, spreading rumors, and all of the other things fall under the umbrella of “playing politics.” If you find yourself sneaking around or if you’re embarrassed if some of your behind-the-scenes manipulations come to light, that’s politics. Stick to strategies you’d be proud to discuss in front of your colleagues.
2. Over-promising and under-delivering. The moment you promise something to someone, they expect nothing less. You end up looking terrible when you fall short, which is a shame. You could have done the same quality work in the same amount of time with great results if you’d set up realistic expectations. Perception matters more than reality. Just be realistic about the results you can deliver so that you’re certain to create expectations that you will blow out of the water.
3. Complacency. If you become complacent, and complacency is a real career killer. It’s what happens when you’re just along for the ride and assume that nothing will ever change. But we’ve seen enough disruption - technological and otherwise - to realize that change is inevitable. If you’re always too busy to learn something new or to expand your network, you’ve got your priorities mixed up. If you make continuous growth and development a priority, you’ll be ready for whatever comes your way.
4. Fear of change. Fear of change is another form of complacency. It actively works to keep things the same. Things are changing too fast these days to latch on so tightly to the status quo, and the costs of doing so can be huge. Successful employees are the ones who can adapt to the changing workplace. Change is a constant part of our lives, both personally and professionally. You don’t have to love it, but you do have to learn to stop resisting it and to start adapting to it.
5. Having an inflatable ego. Success is great. It definitely boosts your career, and it feels really, really good. If you start thinking that success is going to last forever and that you’re entitled to it. Never, ever be content with resting on your laurels. Once you start thinking that you’re the cat’s meow, you’re setting yourself up for very painful failure.
6. Low emotional intelligence. Everyone knows that you can get fired for being unable or unwilling to play nicely with others. If everyone can tell when you’re bored or irritated or that you think something a colleague says is stupid, this lack of emotional intelligence will catch up with you. Emotional outbursts, belittling others, shutting co-workers down when they speak, low self-awareness, and just generally being difficult are other ways that a lack of emotional intelligence will do great harm to your career.
7. Sucking up to your boss. Some people suck up to their boss and call it managing up. That doesn’t go over well with colleagues who are trying to make it on merit. You might want to bolster your relationship with your boss, but not by undermining your colleagues. For a boss-employee relationship to work, it has to be based on authenticity. There’s no substitute for merit.

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that they can only damage their careers by making one huge misstep, but the reality is that it’s usually not that dramatic. 

What ever is worth doing, is worth doing slowly & correctly.

My View:
The bottom line is that you will have your job/career as long as you give more than you take. Be nice to all and productive and you earn respect. Punctuality & discipline are ways of respecting others. Always find a way to be punctual, no matter what it takes. Try to achieve goals with merit and hard work, never by manipulations. Honesty makes your presence warmer and simplifies communication. Strive to avoid mistakes and blunders, which at times could be expensive or even catastrophic. Remember accuracy is more important than speed. The secret is filling vacant time slots intelligently rather than wasting it. Never procrastinate, it won't solve any of your problems. Be a patient listener to know others better. Never compromise long term big benefits for short term small gains. Finally, be worthy of it than having it and never have it and not deserve it.

Success and Failure

Success is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.
Failure is lacking success.
While succeeding is important, the road map to success is even more important.
Success as a result of illegal & immoral means is worse than failure.

Ingredients of success

1. Vision & goal definition.
2. Tenacity and perseverance.
3. Research, planning & resource mobilization.
4. Developing sound business model.
5. Due diligence and risk mitigation.
6. Timing and luck.
7. Execution.

Managing success

1. Managing success is harder than handling failure.
2. Neither success nor failure are permanent. 
3. Hard work is the only path to true success.
4. Elation of success or depression of failure are unnecessary.  
5. Identify and acknowledge contributors for success and reward them.
6. Never let ego destroy business. 
7. Take time to celebrate success and pay attention to the lessons it offers.
8. Eliminate wastage and optimize costs.
9. Innovation to stay succeed.

Lessons from failure

1. Failure is never the end of road. It is just a turn.
2. Reshape values and redefine priorities
3. Become more compassionate.
4. Improve perspective on finance.
5. Revisit approach and realize true friends.
6. Realize that success isn’t everything.
7. Re-envision goals.
8. Become more passionate about mission.
9. Develop a deeper sense of community.
10. Learn to never give up.

Resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot 

be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer. 

Choose some other occupation ... Abraham Lincoln

The progress towards the goal will be in exact 
proportion to the purity of the means. As the means so the end. 

It is not the end that we can work with but only means ... Gandhi 

My View:
Both success and failures are a myth. They are simply results of choices, actions and luck. Results are never in our hands nor predictable. Otherwise, we will not see so many great people fail in the history. What is in our hands is preparation, mitigation of risks and execution. Rest is luck. Ironically, money reflects success. Money is important for comfortable living. But there are many things which money can't buy. Peace & happiness has nothing to do with money. They are mindset. Many poor people live happy and meaningful lives. In this world, no good man has ever made a fortune. The more morals and ethics are compromised they more one can make money. In most cases enrichment is consequence of destruction of ecological assets. People succeed with inside advance information of government policy changes which is a punishable crime in any democracy and reflects its association with crime, corruption and bribery. With all ills of the society there are ample opportunities for good and honest people to do business and earn decent income.