Reflections

Have you ever wondered that sometimes it does take 100% effort to achieve something -- 70% or 80% would not do. For example, if you are dieting and want to reduce your weight in a given time frame, it is not possible to say "I will diet 5 days in a week and indulge myself the other two days" and still expect to achieve the desired outcome. You might be tempted to say "After all I have kept my deal 70% of the time". No, it does not work that way. Dieting 5 days would certainly help as compared to not dieting at all, but the difference between dieting all 7 days and 5 days is too wide. The pay off drop between a 100% effort and a 70% effort is not linear, rather exponential. This phenomenon is even more interesting when applied to the moral and ethical fronts. For example, can you say I would be honest 80% of the times? I would be truthful to myself and others 75% of the time? Is such a line of thought possible? Can person's character be evaluated by some averagin...

One of my friends forwarded me the link to this website http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html. I really liked the site, Annie Leonard makes a pretty powerful presentation. I would strongly recommend visiting this site if you have not already. This presentation certainly got me thinking. Is there something in that presentation that I did not know already? Not really. I might not have known the finer details, but I certainly knew the overall picture. Have I done anything about it except for occasionally feeling guilty about not doing anything? Not really again. Why? Am I too lazy? Probably yes. But I think the most important reason is that subconsciously I feel that it would take a huge effort to do something. Somehow I get into this mental framework where I convince myself that the only sensible thing to tackle the problem is to do something grand -- like gather people and organize rallies to raise awareness. Or something similar. Since I can easily convince myself that I do not have...

Experiences running the PF Chang RNR Arizona Marathon 2008 Last week, about the same time, I was sitting in the same couch as I am now, with paining knees and quads, but with a sense of achievement. I had just completed the PF Chang RockNRoll Arizona marathon, 2008 (http://www.rnraz.com). Running a marathon had been a life-time ambition and completing it was a really good feeling. The day (13 January, 2008) started with my cousin dropping me at the start area at around 6:30 AM. It was dark, cold and buzzing with activity. People were there all over the place, in stalls, in those temporary rest rooms, everywhere. Because I was hitchhiking a ride (I do not have a car), I was alone without any family or friends, but just being there at that point of time gave me a sense of exhilaration and excitement. I kept repeating to myself that I should take in as much of this atmosphere and ambience as I could and not let the nerves of running my first ever marathon overwhelm me. I had a banana an...