These are very simple yet powerful four words. This phrase is an adage which signifies that we can use it at good as well as negative moments. It helps you to maintain a balance when you are elated or you are grief stricken or in a tough phase of your life.
The origins lead to Arabs kings although I have not dug much on it.
Indeed I heard a fable around it which I would like to narrate here.
Emperor Akbar belonging to the Mughal dynasty during 1560 had a flair and love for arts, culture and literature. He had a wise courtesan called Birbal. There are many folk-fares of Akbar and Birbal which are famous in the Indian sub continent however this one is short and inspiring.
So once Akbar was having a walk in the town with Birbal and suddenly he asked him “What is the phrase which can be used in both happy and sad moments. When I am sad it will make me feel happy and when I am happy it would make me feel sad.”
Birbal very wit-fully replied, “Majesty it is indeed, This too shall pass“.
When you are happy it will make you feel sad that this enjoyment is short lived and soon the moment will vanish. When you are low it will make you feel good that it is not here to stay.
Although there are separate origins of the saying and you can do a wiki, I wanted to share this with you all as it is short and inspiring.
Stay blessed and happy…. and keep posting . Celebrating #NaBloMoPo.
This was the time of life when I was having a bumpy ride in my life. I don’t want to dig you deeper in my life however the story is around this.
When you face the toughest challenges in home, work or life, you need to remember two golden words “HOLD ON“, don’t give up and stay till the end before you call a quit and always remember the saying This too shall pass.
When I was having this situation and badly needed some motivation and inspiration my Dad narrated me a short story, not exactly a story but a motivational thought.
He said look son, people are afraid of putting their hands on fire(situations), they don’t want to take risk and some have fear of getting exposed(these are the one who want to remain encapsulated). Once you are into the situation (with others too) just remember to firmly keep your hands above the fire until the flames douses off.
Diya: An Earthen Lamp, lamp made from mud
Always remember that no matter how severe and devastating the fire is, at the end it always douses off. Have you ever seen or heard anything contrary to this. Be it a matchstick or a massive fire, it always goes off. These simple yet powerful thoughts shared by him made an impact, a connection in my mind which gave me motivation enough to recollect and re-build myself and my inner strengths to fight the situation.
During such situations in life we should have this ability to persist, and firmly hold on until the fire goes off, i.e. the situation is well handled. People often do the mistake by quitting earlier; Feel the heat, Bear the brunt and remember thy shall come out victorious.
To end with my motivational story telling I would like to share with you all the Billy Joel track “We didn’t start the fire”, which came to my mind while writing this post:
We didn’t start the fire,
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning.
We didn’t start the fire,
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it.
I am back…. feeling good and proud and what a time to be back, its NaBloPoMo. National Blog Posting Month is here, so raise your sleeves, get your writing juices flowing and make a rocking start for this month.
Coming back to the post, I was going through a tight schedule and repented not getting time to post. Suddenly something cracked, Ahhhh! my Note 3 was down and it blacked out.
Owing to the busy schedule I was not able to run it through the service center. So I got disconnected from the world. Fortunately my life and work survives as long as I am sending and receiving emails.
I wanted to share this wonderful feeling that I have been through i.e. living without my mobile. No worries to carry it, now fears to forget or no handle with cares. Checking emails over mobile was gone so all worries gone while I am eating, relaxing, sipping coffee or with my family, no intruders.
You just feel so relaxed and suddenly I was getting connected to more and more people around me and talked to them more than I used to do.
Going through the current ordeal I would like to speed up the process in which repairing any faulty devices takes less time.
Thereafter I would like to speed up the process of getting babies born may be 9 weeks. A little bit of time is good as my wife and myself enjoyed this duration, however at times you feel to shorten it.
Speed up the recovery of people suffering from critical illness.
Speed up the week days and down the week ends.
Enjoy your weekend and have a blast, come back here and share some words to last.
“Perhaps too much of everything is as bad as too little.” – Edna Ferber
If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.
Opening lines from Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare.
Duke Orsino is so drenched in love that the show opens with the Duke saying this.
This reminds me of an incident in my life when I was in London which I will share. Once I was shopping for my wife to give her a surprise on the occasion of our anniversary. She love fragrances, eye make ups, so I was there at the Debenhams and being assisted by a young and vibrant girl. She was very happy that I was purchasing it for my wife and told me details about various items. I bought a fragrance and some other stuff.
When I was about to go for billing she insisted that I take some more of them, to this I replied to her which I always remember and she applauded to this.
Eyes that make me happier, Pearl with her eye make up done by her mother, she had a school skit.
I told this young lady, see child happiness should always come in small installments, otherwise the importance dilutes.
Good and bad are part and parcel of life and they make us feel these emotions only when they are balanced and rotated. The day only feels good as we have a night. Excess sugar or salt spoils the dish.
So in a true sense I wish that we get our daily dose of happiness, sadness, fun, surprises and that wow moment all in manageable proportions.
I would end this by sharing a Bee Gees song which comes to my mind:
People are trained time and again to inform or mitigate risk in the team by raising the red flag.
“To raise a red flag it means that something potential is blocking which needs immediate attention”. In Agile world it is termed as an IMPEDIMENT.So team members raise a red flag when they are stuck and cannot proceed, this may be due to some internal or external dependencies.
When presenting topics in a seminar the organizers have special dedicated persons who peep in when the last few minutes are left to make the speaker aware that they need to wind up quickly to allow the next person otherwise he may eat up his slot. Some even use a small alarm bell.The point of concern is while we have observed, heard, demonstrated and made people aware of this philosophy; I still find two most important point people forget while administering this:
1-People tend to defeat the very purpose
Why the flag needs to be raised, although they raise the flag but still the aim is defeated for which it was raised. Let me dig more into this as to why this happens.
Imagine the scenario of the seminar mentioned above, the person just waves a flag and leaves without having confirmed that the speaker has had an eye contact with him. This was not the aim after all…The aim is to make him close the event on time, and if he did not notice he will continue as it happens on most seminars when in the last minutes Q & A sessions are in full bloom. So the very purpose of showing the flag was defeated.
Although raising the flag promptly is a proven practice, more important is to ensure whether the flag has been noticed.
We often hear, I have emailed to the database DBA that the database is down so I took up another task. The server was not connecting; I have emailed it to the IT guys since morning and also raised a ticket for this.
And the most wonderful among these were I saw a person put up a red flag on his seat.
People are aware of the fact that the task they were having was of high priority and his manager has made some commitments based on it, they feel they are doing justice as they have some impediments or blockers which is beyond their scope to resolve. So by shooting an email their job is done.
A person with a higher sense of responsibility and ownership will be chasing this down with the external party involved in the transaction and then conclude on it. He might call up the person and request him to look over to the email or note he has left for him. So there is just a change in the way you think and work.
The reason I am highlighting this is because the person on whom the dependency is on, might be having other high priority activities, and your email does not bother him for the day. He might have a look in it after 2 days. So once you chase it up it just gets fast, albeit taking the proper channels and having the correct communication.
2-Have you tried other alternatives:
This is another subtle point but ignored most of the time, before going further and raising an impediment have we explored what all options are available.
There are other alternatives by which I can complete this, raising the red flag should not be taken as a handy tool to pass the buck to other person.We should look for all possible ways to resolve the challenge which in our way to proceed.
So to sum it up we always have different option in our hand; It is for us to decide how to get to the problem solving approach rather than just raising the red flag.
An approach to resolving an impediment :
The person does not explore all possible ways he can resolve the impediment.
A smarter way to work before terming an issue as an impediment:
The person explores all possible ways he could think to resolve the issue before raising an impediment.
How are you at receiving criticism? Do you prefer that others treat you with kid gloves, or go for brutal honesty?
As they say Kites rise against the wind not with it. Similarly criticism is the flight towards a better you.
The more criticism you face the more is the likelihood of your being famous, rising as a star, creating a niche everyday and continuous self-improvement. Criticism should be straight forward and honest. It should be true and authenticated.
One must also keep in mind that the criticism should be thought of when given in a good light. Is the person aware of the area in which he is criticizing you. Is he himself a master or leader to give a note good enough to propagate your instincts in the correct directions or it is just another passers-by comments which needs ignorance.
A vital factor in criticism is that people often intend to sandwich criticism, they mix the good then the bad (criticism) followed by positive points again. It is indeed a sandwich criticism. This dilutes the criticism and it is not taken correctly by the receiver. To make it more adaptive it should be direct and to the point.
So to conclude we must be receptive to criticism and at the same time use our senses to plead further.
If you had to come up with one question, the answer to which would determine whether or not you could be friends with a person you’ve just met, what would it be? What would the right answer be?
Does it sound interesting to you all, at least it does to me.
Litmus test on life @http://agileopedia.com/
So the question which I would throw at the person would be:
What keeps you busy all day and is it a reason good enough to lend me $2000.
This will help me comprehend that what he does as a daily journal in life and provide a hint of whether he appreciates it or not. The way he narrates will help to understand whether he is contended in his life. Does he bestow respect for family, moral values, society and culture? This will indeed let me get a sneak peak in his life.
His preferences towards life on his daily routine, whether he is self employed, entrepreneur, working professional, Jazz artist, rock-star and the like.
The question will open up the Pandora ’s Box from his side which will be not only good to hear but at the same time provide a spring of surprises to me.
Whether he lends me a stranger 2000 bucks will decide his ability to trust persons and to make a friend forever. If he gives the money he will be ready to take a challenge and risk in life. I would like such a person and moreover he is providing me with some money, albeit I won’t accept it at the end.
These stints will be enough for me to concur whether I have a take or not.
This was my short and sweet view on the litmus test on strangers, do you have some other opinion or believe in what I said.
Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, is it true?
As far as nature is concerned my thoughts are that all beauty is not contingent on a subjective point of view.
Show me a person who does not like the beauty of sunshine, the smile of rainbow, the beauty of rain, the beauty of winds blowing past you in the hills, the lush green meadows and the snow falling on X-mas.
Beauty of Sun Rise: Sun rises behind the trees
People might have a perspective of favorite seasons or they may or may not like rain or winter, however when it comes to the beauty which nature has provided us I can’t find someone who coins a different opinion on this.
When it comes to beauty relating to people or objects it does have meaning that we can have different versions from different eyes for the same people or object.
A painting which I may like is quite possible does not go well with others. The smile on a face may bring cascading smiles and some may frown on it.
As I write the post I just have the vague thoughts, here we discuss about beauty and eyes and what about those who have an impaired vision. they only imagine the beauty of rain, sun light, rainbow, lovely smiles. they stay happy and contended with what is around them and don’t have any regrets on whats good, bad or ugly. They are blessed with the power of sensing – hearing, feeling and touch. May God grant them courage to beat all odds and be inspirations to people who refrain from admiring the beauty in and around them.
As a closing note on Absolute beauty I would like to add a line I heard long time back:
You’re sitting at a café when a stranger approaches you. This person asks what your name is, and, for some reason, you reply. The stranger nods, “I’ve been looking for you.” What happens next? Continue reading to know more about this adventure.
It was a warm morning and I was enjoying the last sip of my coffee at Starbucks as the part of my daily routine. I was running through my mind the to-dos for the day, the meetings, appointments deadlines when I felt a drift from behind and someone called out to me “Yes you, can I have your name”.
Intrigued by this behavior I turned around to discover a person in a black suit standing behind me carrying a bag. He did not carry the looks of the marketing or sales person, rather he was very calm and had an impressive persona that of an intellectual. I was wondering what led him to this behavior.
I replied “Hiya, this is Subhi, How can I help you gentleman”.
“Ahh! There you are, I have been looking for you since the last few days; I am John Prescot”.
This took me back again and I wondered what on earth I have done to become so demanding. I inquired “Why are you looking out for me”.
Strangers or Dangers @http://agileopedia.com/
“Mr. Ben has sent me to contact you” replied John.
“Sorry! Mr. Ben, who is Mr. Ben.” I inquired.
“You know him very well; indirectly you are working for him and helping him out”.
“I am getting late”, I started to walk for my office.
“Mr. Ben, Ben Huberman, remember, WordPress, the daily post, writing prompt, community pool.” shouted John.
“You work for him daily, respond to his daily post and participate in the community pool.”
John said “He is very impressed by the posts in your blog” and added “He wants me to invite you to be in the editor’s community at WordPress”.
I thought it was enough and it might be some prank from my friends but then John revealed his identity by showing his cards and other detailed documents and photographs.
“Sir, you are invited to be a part of the community and we will send you details recently” said John politely.
The morning turned out to be amazing for me and I was very elated.
He asked me to follow me to a convention being held at a corporate hub near to where we were.
He stopped a bus and got in; while I was gathering my belongings the bus started to move, owing to the traffic. The stranger Mr. John waved his hand out and prompted me to rush.
I felt some resistance and tried my best to reach out his hand, somehow I cannot move, walk or even run. Someone was holding me very firmly and pulling my hand.
At last I got up in a flash and found my daughter pulling my hand. She said Dad, what strange things you have been doing and saying while sleeping, get up and get ready for office, drop me to school too.
I paused, smiled and gave her a hug, then I suddenly realized what I have been doing all these days, working forMr. Ben for all these days although not directly but he is driving me and all bloggers out there.
But thanks Mr. Ben, would for sure continue to work for you.
That’s my take with the stranger, keep coming back for more.
Subhash Chatterji's World 