Give Yourself Reasons Why You Can

Negative thoughts and negative talks affect our brain and our ability to perform even simple tasks.

Giving in to the reasons why you can’t is a form of a self-imposed stress. Instead of giving yourself reasons why you can’t, give yourself reasons why you can.

For most of us it is very easy to spend our energy in comparing ourselves to others and common standards.

Image: Free Digital Photos

For a change, acknowledge your uniqueness and abilities. Nurture what is best in you. Go and fulfill your dream.

Here is a popular short story of Monty Roberts. You may have already read or heard about this story, still it is good to read it again as it can teach or remind us of valuable life lessons.

A Nightmare on Tech Street

The Wizard. The word has become a sobriquet for techies or tech people.



Webopedia has three definitions for the word and and all of them technology related. It has become synonymous to a person who is an outstanding programmer. The system administrator for a chat room. Or a utility in an application or computer program that directs you through different steps to accomplish a task.

Though the term was flattering as it is true in a sense - tech people can make the usual burdensome tasks into a magically easy way through the use of technology. Well, actually there's no magic. Programmers do the task in their logical steps.

Since, business systems has been with us for quite a time now, most businesses has come to rely on them. As their dependence grows, their expectations of the system and their programmers grow disproportionately.

How? Business mindset of budgeting is a major consideration. Always. And the IT Department is not immune to it. They expect more but they would not allocate enough (so how could you operate on a shoestring budget?).

As technology ages there come tools and methodologies that evolve, and they expect us to know everything and be updated with these new methods and tools. We may be wizards but one thing certain is we are not omniscient.

I may sound bitter or doubtful of my profession, no I'm not. That's one of the challenges we face. Voila! We usually get over those kinks in our programs so why can we not get over the kinks in our lives?

What You Choose Is What Matters

Saturday night and there was nothing much to do at home. Left with grown up kids at home who have their own things to do, I was left with no choice but to decide how I would spend my night away.

At first I seem can't decide what to do, either watch a movie or read a book. I opted for the first. After a hard day's work I needed the rest and respite. Yes, Saturday and I was still working. I have a project to do and meet deadlines on the work I have set out for myself.

I needed something light, I thought... something really entertaining. The list of videos I have contains some heavy stuff, luckily I found something - Kung Fu Panda 2.

It was really a nice sequel to the original with the story revolving how the identity of Po came about. Where he came from and how he end up being a son of a goose up to the point he understood what happened to his real parents. The realization of what his life is meant to be.

There is a  moral lesson I picked up from the movie. It may be made for children and the young ones, but thinking deeper, it really have some moral teachings you can pick up.

"Your story may not have a happy beginning, but what matters is the rest of your story." This is a very strong statement. The choice always falls on our shoulder how we intend to finish each stories in our life. In every day we live we can choose how we end up our day - winning or losing.

Every instance of our day is a story on its own that keeps on adding to the big picture that is our life. Always there is a chance and the hope to attain a happy ending, in spite of a sad beginning.

"Your story may not have a happy beginning, but what matters is the rest of your story." How you choose the ending of your story is what really matters.

--()--

Image: courtesy of digitalart

Keeping Our Sanity

There are times when we have to take it easy. Take off to some quiet place like a beach, a park or any place we can spend some peace and let off our mind to the stresses of our work. Not to be burdened with so many serious stuff else we burn ourselves out.

But there are also times that constrains us not to be able to take off. So what do we do?

I received this story sometime ago. I find it amusing and would like to share it with you. At least to keep our sanity.

The spoon: 
A lesson on how consultants can make a difference in an organization.


Last week, we took some friends to a new Indian restaurant, 'Muthu's Place,' and noticed that the Indian waiter who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket.  It seemed a little strange. When the busboy brought our water and utensils, I observed that he also had a spoon in his shirt pocket. Then I looked around and saw that all the Indian staff had spoons in their pockets. When the waiter came back to serve our soup I inquired, 'Why the spoon?' 

'Well, 'he explained, 'the restaurant's owner hired Andersen Consulting to revamp all of our processes. After several months of analysis, they concluded that the spoon was the most frequently  dropped utensil It represents a drop frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table per hour. If our personnel are better prepared, we can reduce the number of trips back to the kitchen and save 15 man-hours per shift.' 

As luck would have it, I dropped my spoon and he replaced it with his spare. 'I'll get another spoon next time I go to the kitchen instead of making an extra trip to get it right now..' I was impressed.


I also noticed that there was a string hanging out of the Indian waiter's fly.


Looking around, I saw that all of the Indian waiters had the same string hanging from their flies. So, before he walked off, I asked the waiter, 'Excuse me, but can you tell me why you have that string right there?'


 'Oh, certainly!' Then the Indian waiter lowered his voice. 'Not everyone is so observant. That consulting firm I mentioned also learned that we can save time in the restroom. By tying this string to the tip of our you-know-what, we can pull it out without touching it and eliminate the need to wash our hands, shortening the time spent in the restroom by 76.39%.'


I asked quietly, 'After you get it out, how do you put it back?'
'Well,' he whispered, 'I don't know about the others, but I use the spoon.'

Haha! Ok, back to work!


Reference:
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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