What I like about Facebook

So I have been coming across various people and online memes criticizing the whole point of being so active on Facebook.

Their point is that its cooler not to have so much time at hand to be involved in telling it to the world what you are up to.

If you are seen on Facebook a lot, it inevitable means that you don’t have any better things to do. Moreover people have the same kind of conversations over and over again. Whatever is trending is what everyone is talking about.

Well, I agree with all of it as something that may be true for them and many others. So I am not really criticizing their thought process.

I am merely utilizing the opportunity that social media has given me to voice my opinion. Whether I am heard or not, or agreed with or not doesn’t really matter for me. What matters is that I said what I felt like and that’s more than enough.

I can have an opinion without being cut short in the middle, being misunderstood over translations and passed on versions and most importantly, without feeling the need to check with the mood of the room.

Apart from the talking and the commenting, there is another very important aspect for which I cannot thank social media and especially Facebook enough and that is the facility of posting pictures.

I have posted pictures of all the important and happy times of life and I continue to do so. And as life passes on, I keep visiting my own profile to revisit all those times that I have lived in the past.

When I look at my old pictures arranged in the chronological sequence, I realize all the hardships that have gone into to be able to live those happy times.

So whenever I am sad or out of ideas or scared of the inevitable that lies ahead, I go back to my profile and revisit all those pictures and those happy times. They give me strength to have patience and wait for my time to come. 

For whatever hardships, sadness and rejections that I have faced in life when it was dark and gloomy and I had no idea what to do next, the happiness that followed them has always been worth it.

And it is for this reason that I firmly believe that the greatest thing about Facebook is that along with staying connected with your friends and family, it gives you an opportunity to stay connected with your past. Memories may get deleted but a post doesn’t. It can actually take you back to what really happened.

The ~ism’s of my world!

I am an idealist and a perfectionist in a sociological sense, though a lazy one. I think idealism is all about being brave enough to stand by what you believe is true for you and for others, the way this world around us should be.

Sure it’s a task chasing the impossible all the time but isn’t that our job as people on this earth to chase goodness and betterment in any case!

Add to that, perfectionism makes me crave for a better version of things around me almost all the time. But don’t get me wrong. My life is not so stressed out as it seems.

Laziness and constant quest for peace and happiness do manage to keep me sane, most of the time. Balancing out is the theme. It may not be a winning formula for all times. But overall I feel like this is what I want to pursue for as long as I am convinced with it.

My description of it all seems very condescending, and trust me when I say that in an ideal world I too would have found this superior showcasing for a display of character as kind of a bore.

But imagine my surprise when I tell you that all these listed qualities are exactly why some people have always chosen to mock me! Yes, I have been mocked for being an idealist and a perfectionist time and again.

The so called realists have always thrown their understanding of the “real world” as the supposedly winning argument to justify their beliefs in dishonest and morally corrupt people, manipulation by the system and bigotry citing ‘that is as good as it gets’ as the getaway line.

In fact calling them realists will be wrong as the meaning of that term actually goes much deeper and cannot be used as a label for people who live a life of fear. Incongruous is more like it.

And I have a reason to put it like that. Idealism can easily be interpreted as a positive view to life and surroundings so even if a realist doesn’t chose to totally buy into the idea of idealism, they will still be ok with idealism and realism working hand in hand.

So why is it that some people simply feel so threatened?

I feel the answer is fear. Giving in to a world order or the system which doesn’t work towards betterment of every participant only for a few short term goals, not being able to stand by what they deserve and thus accepting manipulation and bigotry as part and parcel of the times they live in is a strong indicator of the fear that lies within.

The fear that giving into whatever little is available rather than struggling and waiting for the real deal for it may never come is what the manipulators sell.

Added to that is the fear that if they let idealist be, it may in some way make them realize their own weaknesses which they may have to come face to face with and then courage might be the only option left. The thought of being courageous itself is kind of scary and indigestible to some.

So all I really want to say is be an idealist or a realist or hell! Be a surrealist, just chose not to give in to your fears and become a noise instead of a voice of reason.

Amazing is the new Normal

Read somewhere – “If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.”

I think that’s something that doesn’t seem to be working in favour of the corporate career these days with many individuals who find themselves trapped in the daily routine stressful life on offer when working in any standard MNC company and the fact that there are quite a few of us who are employed with them – the fact that the life achievable by a nice corporate career is at most – normal.

How can normal be not enough. Some of you may call me completely out of my mind to suggest that the idea of a normal life is something people may be ready to easily let go of. I agree, it isn’t so easy. And nobody knows it better than me (3 months notice with absolutely no work to do is pretty much close to hell for me). Corporate life has been till date my only tool to claim my freedom and independence from the world too ready to dictate its terms and conditions to the extent of bullying you to death for not complying. Out of the many advantages of having a career is the fact that work or no work, you receive a pre determined sum of money assured at the end of every month as a sign that you belong and that you are being compensated for everything that you mean to a certain set of people. Add to it the fact that you get to plan your day around it giving it some semblance of an organised way of living. Not just your day, you get to plan ahead for your life – your next car, the big house, the readiness of the banks to give you loans, latest laptops, cell phones, lavish dinners, movies at the mall, weekend shopping and the list can go on. Your job makes all these things possible for you from the moment you step out of your college – a luxury that was not so easily available to our parents, the ones we saw our whole lives working hard to achieve all those things that are so easily available to us now. Of course that’s what makes it even more clear to us why this is an ideal way to live life when there are people we know spent their whole lives just to be in our shoes.

Agreed !! But then some of us are not happy. Some of us in the corner of our daily lives have started to feel that its not enough. That if the whole life is spent only trying to attempt a normal life then it is in a way an injustice to the mind that has been allotted to us which may be capable of experiencing much more than what we make ourselves eligible for in our struggle to attempt this normal life.

I still remember how I swore off against HR function while choosing for my MBA stream post clearing CAT just because the undertone of the suggestion sounded as if the challenge of normal life was perceived to be so huge in my case (like taming of my revolting behaviour to suit my future mother-in-law’s liking, getting married, bearing children, et al) that the choice of a mediocre course would have somehow compensated for the big deal that life was supposedly about to become for me. Though I chose Finance for myself, but more than becoming a specific stream person, I concentrated all my energies on becoming a better manager instead, of life and everything else.

After MBA, I finally graduated from a banker-wannabe to a banker. And like every other graduate I too was mesmerised by the dangling shiny pendulum of riches and add to that the fact that the moment you are hired, people start thinking of you as some kind of a financial whiz and expect you to know anything and everything even remotely associated with the word ‘bank’ and ‘finance’ and you are forced to follow the line because it feels cool to belong. More like the Brahmin of the society of ‘normals’. Even my fb pics showed the expression of ‘inner peace’ every single time. I don’t know where was this coming from. I entered the scene, worked like a horse, tried learning as much as possible about finance, did great PowerPoint presentations and Excel creations, lengthened my resume for many to sit up and take notice. But eventually, gave up on forcing myself to live the lie any longer.

Working unusually long hours, to put up with abnormally high levels of stress and sacrificing personal time to be able to live something that has been constantly failing to define me for myself did not seem like a great idea any longer (Yes, the money part is a lie too. It is usually reserved for a select few, the rest just follow the market standards and that too at a very high ‘cost’). When you hear stories like people teaming up to create entrepreneurial opportunities for people from Himalayas migrating in large numbers in search of work, a great man pumping artificial blood into the sanitary pad he is wearing in order to do his research on female requirements from a great sanitary napkin just so that he can sell it to them for free, someone converting their love for games into becoming a video games company creating 52 games, spending 6 years and achieving nothing but eventually becoming the most popular of them all with just one game which was the 53rd one in the list.

When you go through such stories of the lives of the individuals who just got bored with the normal life, you know your chosen path may be risky but it will sure be worth every penny spent.

New age Housewife

Well, I have decided to quit (I am talking about my corporate career and not what you thought at first)… Finally! Yes, that has been long pending and finally I seem to have taken the plunge. Not that I am not a risk taker, I am. Its just that the idea of making myself reach somewhere and then calling it quits in the middle (in some sense it is the middle) seemed ill prepared and sort of unlike me (atleast I think it isn’t me). Anyways, its not about the whys and hows of my quitting business. Its about what I discover as I start on the adventure trip of my life that I (may be) have set foot on via exposing myself to joblessness (thats going to be tough. God help Sumit), raised eyebrows (you know them who love to stereotype you), smirks (hah ! another housewife bites the dust… we knew!) and what not. Frankly saying, it wasn’t easy at all. Putting my papers down hours before I left for my honeymoon with no back up plan in place, then coming back and applying for jobs I no longer believed were worth wasting my time on, reading and preparing for interviews which totally sucked as I hate hate hate rejections, eating my husband’s brains for every possibility that he may show aversion to my idea of independence or foolhardiness, who knows which one.

In any case, here I am, 20 days shy of complete freedom from the utterly worthless corporate world and totally determined to make the most of whatever that I have set to achieve even though I may not be totally sure what is it exactly that I am looking for or asking from this world to share with me.

For starters, I need some exploration and me time, especially after a really hectic gone year. Me time definitely required me catching on with whats happening around the world. Politics, society, businesses, people, etc. Which means lots and lots and lots of reading. And though reading is my favourite hobby and something I miss the most when I am stressed, it can get a bit too much and you have to mix it with things so that life doesn’t lose its colors. So while I was busy adding my own shades and checking contents on the internet I chanced upon some really cool websites online with refreshingly new ideas. They are so imaginative, quirky, never-done-before and useful that
I am beginning to say to myself that probably Startups may be my thing. But before anybody gets a heart attack, I have just given it a thought and its still in the nascent stages. Please don’t start interrogating me on my future cashflow management strategy!

Anyways, back to the cool websites. Here is a list of what I found to be absolutely cool and refreshing. Hope you guys will have fun!!

– http://planmy.travel/: The service connects travellers with experts who have knowledge about destinations and various activities. Based on the traveller’s request, the expert customizes a personalized trip itinerary, and clarifies all questions thereafter – entirely online.

– http://www.weareholidays.co.in/: Holiday recommendation engine

– http://indiauntravelled.com/: offbeat rural getaways

– http://roomlion.com/: portal for finding and booking short term rentals in India – with special emphasis on serviced apartments

– http://youandindia.in/: a unique concept for creating a platform for travellers in India, in order to make them feel safe and secure and help them realize everything that they aspired for, before travelling to India.

– http://exotel.in/: Exotel provides businesses a smart virtual phone number to manage their calls & SMS, with smart applications such as IVR, Missed Call, Call Recording and more.

– https://mettl.com/: Powerful online assessment platform for hiring, training, contests

– http://eko.co.in/: Banking services at affordable costs to vast sections of disadvantaged and low income groups

– http://www.limeroad.com/: India’s most extensive lifestyle platform for Women’s shopping

– http://www.streak.com/: Chrome/Gmail plugin that allows you to manage your outbound sales funnel from within your inbox

– http://housing.com/in/: Map based real estate portal