The Friends Train

There was a group this morning on the local trains here in Mumbai celebrating the 50th birthday of one of their members for the 20th time. These 50-60-70 year olds were like young children sharing slices of cake and handful of chips across the seats and among those standing. The treat are extended even to lowly bystanders like me who gracefully declined on the pretext of a diet! But the laughter and conversations are hard to resist with the giggles getting through you even if you weren't quite what the joke was!

They say from an evolutionary standpoint we evolved from monkeys: a group of animals who without a clear language and clear reasoning still had a strong sense of bonding and friendship with its fellow monkeys. Friendships then were based on dominance and power and one with a bigger butt or stronger body still ruled the roost.

While we may have moved away from the big bum criteria, our need for friendship and the dynamics of a friends circle stood the test of time! From cradle to grave, we go through the effort of making Playgroup Friends whom we cannot even recall playing with in our later years to Kindergarten Friends, School Friends, Building /Colony Friends, College Friends and work friends. Even religion is not spared with Community Friends and Association Friends being part of this friendly crew! Then we have paradoxical groups like Family Friends which honestly speaking needs you to make up your mind: are they Family or Friends?! And then the oddest of them all called Train Friends. While I call them Train Friends they are Friends we make on our commute and could easily mean Bus Friends, Car Pool Friends or Frequent Flier Friends in you corner of the world. They are part of a large tribe of friends we have who are what I call 'Friends by Presence' (referred to hereafter as FbPs) that is they are your friends because you happened to be catching the train at the same time. And yet they are quite like the family you have: You can't choose them, your destiny (in this case your job) chooses it for you! You would perhaps have many such FbPs.

We still have an alpha male (or female in a gender neutral society) who just like a patriarch binds the group together and acts as the pseudo gatekeeper of who enters and leaves the group. We have the matriarch who nurtures the new entrants and calms the nerves in case of an uproar. We still have children in the group and elders within the gang. It's this bonding that drives them to make it on time (almost) every morning and leave the same time every evening. The same camaraderie that drives them to jump into a perfectly empty train and catch seats for their group. And yes the same passion bordering on frenzy that drives ever so often people to stab someone who sits in their seats and break the sanctity of the group.

Nationalism, Religious Zeal, Patriotism, and other associations are forms of FbPs we cherish in our lives. It's what drives us at times to barbarism but it is also what keeps us human. And for that, I think one should stick with their friends: even if they happen to catch the same fast train as you do!

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Bringing Beliefs into Being

"The flapping of a butterfly's wings in one corner of the world could cause a hurricane in the other corner"

This quote that eloquently describes The Butterfly Effect speaks of seemingly insignificant events adding up to create a major change in the world. Wouldn't the same be true of our minds and the worlds it holds within it?

The Christopher Nolan Sci-fi flick Inception explores this idea through dream hacking. They use a person's dream to hack into his subconscious mind and not just extract information but also put ideas into the person's mind. The key elements that came through the idea of Inception are:

a) The change of an idea must be very simple yet highly layered which touches one's thoughts, feelings and beliefs and

b) The new idea must be introduced without the person being conscious of its introduction but the person must be able to sense its impact.

If you look through all the gizmos and gadgetry involved in movie, the thought that a simple idea could change the way we live is extremely powerful. In a world that is filled with many promises of the behaviour alteration programs and confidence camps but perhaps none with a high impact this holds great potential.

Let us explore this through a case study. Till about the age 24 the longest running challenge I had in my life was being underweight. I had spent the entirety of my childhood and teenage struggling to gain weight to no avail. My parents and loved ones also invested significant amount of time coming up with ways and means to help me bulk up but it did not work. And then there came a major change in my life: I moved out of my home to live in Mysore and then Pune. Within about 6months I went from 65kgs to 56kgs and boomeranged back 65kgs. Within a year I was touching 70kgs and within 1.5yrs I was 75kgs!

So what happened? Comparing the 2 states I was in the key differences you can see are:

a) My appetite which was minimal earlier was first lost and then regained with a new found vigour and

b) The fear of change and others' expectations which perhaps gripped me before was replaced with possibilities and independence.

The core belief that drove both these differences perhaps was:

I cannot survive the world on my own!

But then I reached a corner where I had to work in a city away from home and stay by myself. I had to take care of my own health and realized that the world has better things to do than to judge me. And so in a matter of a few months I started eating well and put on an astonishing 17kgs!

All that changed was my belief: I can survive in the world on my own! In fact the new belief helped me become more independent in other areas of my life as well.

Now think about the last time you were in a similar situation: maybe it was a weight issue or an employee motivation issue or a relationship issue or a business challenge or an academic challenge or something entirely different. How many tips and tricks have others given you? How many of them have you tried? And how many times have they worked? And how long have they worked? And how effective have they been? All of us are entrapped by the world's promises that it can solve our problems when the answer to the problems was inside us all along; in our beliefs, feelings and thoughts.

So how do we bring new beliefs into our lives? We can take a cue from an aspect of our life most commonly associated with belief: religion and religious acts. So how do we become part of the religion that we are currently part of (even atheism is a religion in that sense since they too have their own practices an ideologies!)?

a) With simple statements/dogmas at the core of one's everyday living,

b) Reiteration of those dogmas in thoughts, words and deeds,

c) Positive reinforcement of those dogmas through the celebration of every instance it is met.

d) Building an ecosystem around you that would nurture those dogmas deeper into your life.

But the step before the first step is to know you need to take a step. As someone who is working daily to help people realize their potential I have realized that you can never help those who think they don't need help. So start with one area, from one corner, from on thing that you wish to transform and reach to the core belief that is driving it. Who knows, it may change your life completely!

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Love Means A Million Things

Love means a million things to a million people
Love means a million things to me!

It means Hope to someone
It's Patience for another
It is something we earn and not receive
It shatters some to oblivion
It raises some to a new life.
It's so much more than what our eyes can conceive.

It's in the jokes that you crack
It's in the prayers that you say
It's in the silence that speaks between you.
It's in your fights and your brawls
It's in the names that you call
It's in everything you do to be true.

It's in the dreams that you share
It's in the cross that you bear.
It's in just doing the hardest things.
It's in surprising the other
It's being there for each other.
It's when you change so that the other you complete.

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