Consistency

We are all familiar with the famous proverb - "Little drops make the mighty ocean". Or its variants. சிறு துளி பெரு வெள்ளம். Mountains are climbed one step at a time and marathons run one K at a time. Of course, the marathon version is a little close to my heart and I have really lived through this. At the 25th Kilometer marker of a marathon, one often does not feel the exhilaration of having run 25K, one feels the dread of having to run another 17K. More often than not, runners just employ the "take one K at a time" attitude and finish the race. I personally keep going back to this every time I encounter a problem that appears fairly formidable to begin with. Recently, I read this nice article where the author gives tips on how one can read more. The answer is simple -- just keep reading a small number of pages, for example 20, every day. I just employed this technique to finish a 1100 page novel in less than a month. I set a goal of reading 25 pages every day, so I should have been able to complete it in about 44 days. However, there were a few holidays in between where I read more and hence completed this in just a little lesser than a month. All that is good, but I feel there is one small factor missing in making this "small effort at a time leading to a big reward" thingy. It is this -- you need to be consistent in your small effort. We cannot say -- "Let me run 1K at a time and then loiter around before running the next K". We may still complete our marathon, but it will take an inordinately long time. Also, the chances are that we may bail out much earlier. Putting in effort on a task, over and over again, is difficult if we are unable to realize the progress. That progress is achievable only with regular effort. The key word here is "Consistency". In the above referenced article, while the answer is to read "x" pages every day, the key phrase to make this reality is "every day". To achieve any big task, you not only need to take tiny steps towards it, but you need to do it regularly. Needless to say, using will power to achieve this consistency is not only difficult, it may also not be sustainable. One has a better chance of being consistent if one can weave these as habits and slowly ingrain them as a part of life. Like all good things, it is easier said than done. Nevertheless, we should definitely strive for it.

சிறு துளி பெரு வெள்ளம் will happen only if the  துளி flows in consistently!

Art of Answering

Most of us seem to have developed a penchant for answering questions in an convoluted way, rather than just being just straight forward. I thought it would be amusing to recollect a few instances.

1. The other day, we had Ragi Mudde in our menu for lunch at work.
Colleague -- "How does it taste?"
Me -- "This is a healthy/nutritious food".
That seemed to have answered the question beyond any doubt.

2. Typical conversations with my daughter.
Me -- "Did you have chocolate today?"
She -- "Anna (brother) had chocolate today" or "I did not have chocolate yesterday".
That response serves a dual purpose -- Answering my question and pretty much absolving her of all sins for eating that chocolate.

3. Conversation between a long distance runner and his friend.
Friend -- "How did the 5K marathon go?"
Runner -- "Can you please stop calling 5K run a marathon?"
Nothing can irritate a runner more than calling a 5K a marathon :)

4. Paraphrasing from "Stiff Upper Lip".
Wooster -- "Do you know how many folks from Drones have asked me where I got this hat from?".
Jeeves -- "No doubt with a view to avoiding your hatter sir".

5. Sashi Tharoor and a journalist.
Journalist -- "What do you think about this?"
ST -- "Exasperating farrago of distortions, misrepresentations&outright lies being broadcast by an unprincipled showman masquerading as a journalist"

P.S: This blog will perpetually be WIP. I am still editing this...

Phoenix

Well, as you might have guessed, the title of the post has nothing to do with the city by that name or worse, the mall by that name in Bangalore. It of course refers to the mythical bird that gets reborn automatically. I am hoping that my blog posting is reborn like Phoenix, after a pretty long hiatus.

For the past several months, I have been sharing my ride to the office with my colleague Deepika, a young, cherubic and vivacious person, if I  may describe her so. Last week, she shared one of her writings with me, a post about her grandfather and what she had learnt from him over several years. It was pretty well written, but also had this interesting side effect - it just reminded me of how I have just paused my writing over the past few years (not that I was writing profusely before, but it had come to a screeching halt now). I went back and read my previous blog posts and it made me feel good. I had always felt good writing and was wondering why I do not write much.  As I think more, writing is similar to running, my other passion, in a few interesting ways.  One almost always feels great after a long run, irrespective of how difficult it was during the run. I suppose that is true for writing.  You need to put in some effort to write the blog, but the output of the exercise is something that you will likely cherish -- Make no mistake, we are not talking about creating literary masterpieces here, but it is just as interesting to see how your thought process and perspectives have evolved over a period of time, a fact that is very easily detected in ones writing. Like running, writing is also very individualistic and personal, but it does feel good to share your experiences with others. So, the natural question -- Why, come rain or shine, I run religiously, but just do not write at all. No valid reason, whatsoever.

Given all of the wise thoughts and revelations above, I do hope that I do start writing a little more regularly, going forward. But then, as one of my colleagues told me several years back, "Knowing does not mean doing". I just hope, I really "do". Time will tell.