It is Better to be Envied,
than Pitied

We have all heard the Onida TV slogan, "Owners pride, Neighbours envy". Yet many of us do not want to live an enviable life or rather we are afraid of living an enviable life. I was probing, why this could be and a few answers flashed my mind. 

It is a general tendency for people to believe that if we live a good life, we become an object of jealousy and so there is a likelihood of getting into trouble or being harmed by people who have bad intentions towards us. There is also a wide spread belief in our culture, which we call "Drisiti". It is the belief that when people envy us, something bad will happen to us. So, people don't want to attract the evil eye. So, even if one lives a good life, he doesn't want to tell the world about it, because it is often mistaken as being boastful or being a show off. Moreover, we have been taught to be modest about our achievements, right from our young age and so we tend to play it small.

 

Whatever may be the reason, people are wary of envy. As a result, people do just the opposite of ‘attracting envy’ and that is ‘seeking pity’.

 

I come across, two types of people. One set of people, who are always talking about all the good things in their life, their achievements, their happy experiences and enjoying a good life style. On the contrary there is another set of people who are constantly complaining about their life, their misfortunes, their bad past and how miserable they are. They are cursing God or the world for being so unfair to them.

 

So, is God partial to one set of people? The answer is NO. Everyone has their own share of troubles and worries. No one in the world is immune from it. But it is the way we deal with them that makes all the difference. We can either be happy, content and accept our life as it is or we can be unhappy, discontent and worry about all the things that are not going well  in our life. We can either look at our life as a curse or we can look at our life as a blessing and this attitude alone will decide our happiness.

 

Self pity is a shame, and people should realize that. It kills one’s own self esteem. It is a negative way of seeking attention. Though, at the outside people seem to feel sorry, deep inside they feel that person is worthless and tend to avoid them.

The root to self pity lies in comparing oneself with others, and feeling frustrated. What they fail to realize is their own uniqueness and special abilities. They take all God’s blessing for granted, and fail to appreciate it.

 

As a saying goes, when we fail to appreciate what we have it starts to diminish. The same happens with people with self pity. The more they pity themselves the more worse their life becomes. It is a sort of a negative spiral. Ultimately, self pity de-powers them, rather than making their life better. People who are victims of self pity need to consciously get out of this circle and decide to be more positive and say positive words. As a result their life will change for the better.

 

Deep in our hearts, we are all dreaming of living a good life. We desire a posh house, a better car, having the latest gadgets, enjoying more luxurious life. We want to live a particular lifestyle, but owing to the fear of envy we want to just be one among the crowd. So, it is a paradox.

 

Just because we don’t want to be envied, is it OK to live a miserable life? Now think for a moment. Does it make sense? The obvious answer is a NO!

 

So, what do you chose to live: Pitiable life or Enviable life?. Don’t you agree, “ It is better to be envied, than to be pitied.” 

   D. Senthil Kannan,

    Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

    Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

    Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

 

A Healthy Financial Diet

We are all aware that in order to stay physically healthy, we need to have a healthy diet. The same holds good for our finances too.  If you are the breadwinner of the family, it is time you take this more seriously and plan your finances, in a more appropriate fashion. Let me share just 7 tips,  that would do you a world of good when it comes to managing your finances.

Make saving yours first spending: We are all excited about the monthly pay check or the monthly earnings we take home from our business or profession, but let your excitement not lead to spending it all, impulsively. Make sure that, you apportion atleast 20% of the amount as savings, before you can spend on your monthly requirements. Try to fit your lifestyle to match that budget.

Go for a systematic investment plan: Never under estimate the power of compounding. Power of compounding is said to be the 8^th wonder of the world, because you cannot imagine the amount of net worth you can create by investing small amounts of money over a long period of time. There are many options such as Recurring Deposit, Mutual Funds where you can invest a fixed amount of money on a regular basis, over a long period of time. So, get into the habit of investing regularly.

Don’t mix up insurance with investment:  Insurance agents tend to confuse you with insurance policy that also gives you a term cover of death benefits to family. Make sure you separate the insurance part from the investment part, so that you can invest more wisely in better return yielding investments. Take a pure term cover for a value which you think would be needed for your family, in your absence. So, how much insurance cover do you need. A  simple thumb rule is 10 to 12 times your annual income, irrespective of your age.

Diversify your risks: There is a golden rule – “Don’t put all the eggs in the same basket”. This applies to investments too. All of us are inclined to a particular type of investment, because we feel  that is most easy or comfortable to us. But, you need to balance risk and returns. Investment in low return financial instruments is a risk too, because it may not be able to take care of the inflation needs. So invest in a mix of Bank Deposits, Shares, Mutual Funds, Bonds, Gold or Real Estate.

Take a Health Insurance: Health risks are inevitable and the cost of quality medical treatment is becoming more and more expensive. So make sure you have adequate health insurance, not only for yourself but all your family members. Make sure there is accidental cover also included, in this policy. This will help you to get uncompromised healthcare in times of emergency.

Take care of yourself, before you take care of the Taxman:  No! I am not saying to evade taxes, but to take advantage of tax exceptions schemes for your benefit. For example, there are investments which are tax exempted, such as ELSS, ULIP, Capital Gains Bond, Insurance, PF and many more. Also you can claim deduction on interest paid on home loan. Donations to Charitable Organisation are also exempt from Tax.

Do Charity: The happiness of our hard earned money can be found, only when we share it with people who are less fortunate and need our help. So no matter how small the amount is, always have a heart for charity. Do it generously without any expectations. Believe in Karma – “God helps those who helps others.”

 

 D. Senthil Kannan,

Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

 

Are You A Perfect Fit?

We have often heard this idiom “A square peg in a round hole” which simply means that a person is unsuitable or unqualified, to handle a particular job or serve a particular position. We also come across so many people in our daily lives, who are not able to cope up with the many changes happening in the society and we call them a “social misfit”. Am I right?

Now it is time to question ourselves as to how perfectly do we fit into the current world?

We are all aware that, not all that is happening in this world is as per our wish or our way of thinking. We have a set of rules in our mind, as to how the world should operate and keep endorsing the events happening in the world as either, right or wrong. We are constantly judging people and condemning them of their behaviour, if it is not in accordance to our convictions. We comment upon someone’s dressing style as inappropriate or we are sceptical about relationships which don’t fall into the framework of our ideology. For example, intercaste marriages were seen as wrong in the past but marriage of the same sexes, are now becoming legal. We see more women in the pubs, than before. What was once a man’s thing, now seems to be common for both men and woman. Though these things feel shocking to us, this is the new reality.

There are so many value based differences, which is a cause of conflict between the younger and older generation. Old values don’t seem to sync with the youngster and the values of the youngsters seems outrageous and unacceptable to the previous generation. Haven’t we seen people talk about the “Good old days” when everything was in good order. They tend to look back at the glorious past and wish it could return - the values, the culture, the relationships and so on. But thing are not going to return to what it was before. A quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes, goes like this, “One’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions”. The same applies to all aspects of human evolution, because evolution itself is nothing more than an idea.

So, does our opinion really matter to the world?  Unfortunately, it seems not.

The world is changing at a rapid pace and it doesn’t bother whether you approve of it or not. It is we who have to change to fit into the world and not the way around. If we can’t fit into the world, we too would soon be called a misfit.

I am not endorsing that whatever is happening in this world is going in the right direction, but what I am saying is that most of the changes happening are irreversible, like the river, which twists and turns on its path, but only moves forward. So, it doesn’t really makes sense to brood over the current situation, by glorifying the past. It would rather be wise to accept the new changes and see how best we can operate in this new environment. Instead of seeing this as cultural deterioration, it is time to look at it as a cultural change. This would help us to find peace with ourselves.

Moreover, this change is going to be constant. So, we need to periodically validate ourselves in the context of the changes happening around us, and update ourselves to the world and the people who share the time space in this planet with us. It is about being open to unpopular ideas, being broadminded and be willing to widen our perspectives.

Time to ask yourself, “Am I a perfect fit, in this evolving world?” 

   D. Senthil Kannan,

   Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

   Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

   Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

Do Men and Women Lead Differently?

The above was the theme of a 5 day TCI (Theme Centred Interaction) workshop, I attended a few years ago. The workshop was led by an elderly TCI practicing couple from Switzerland.  

TCI workshops are slow paced, open model workshop with no fixed agenda and no planned input. The workshop evolves by itself,  based on a theme of discussion and fully engages the participants. There is no other workshop of this kind, where the participant plays such a big role in shaping the outcome of the programme. There were some valuable experiential learnings in the workshop and I would like to share one vital learning.

In the workshop, the facilitator asked us to pen down the list of women, who have made a personal positive impact in our life. It was not about some external person, but people with whom we have personally interacted. It could be our mother, our spouse, our sister, our grandmother, our aunt , our teacher , our friend who so ever. Once we had done it, he asked each of us to identify and isolate the quality from each person, which impressed us a lot and list it separately.

Once we were done with it, he brought together the qualities listed by all of us, after striking out the common ones and the ones which had similar meaning, into a chart under the heading “Admirable Women Qualities”.

He repeated the same exercise, by asking us to write the list of men, who have made a personal positive impact in our life and the same process was continued and we also arrived at another chart of “Admirable Men Qualities”.

After this was over, the male participants were asked to identify the qualities from this list of “Admirable Men Qualities”, which we thought were essential qualities, needed to be a good leader. And similarly female participants were asked to identify the qualities from this list of “Admirable Women Qualities”, which they thought were essential qualities, needed to be a good leader.

At the end of the activity, we were asked to figure out individually, how much of those qualities we had in us. We found that each one of us had many of our gender specific qualities.

Then the facilitator asked, “Are you happy with the leadership qualities, that you possess or would you like to take some qualities from the opposite gender?”

Seeing the list of qualities displayed in the chart, we realised that if we had some qualities of the opposite gender, it would be a great value add to us. We found that many male participants; needed some female qualities and many female participants needed the male qualities.

He then asked us, “What is stopping you from not acquiring the qualities, of the opposite gender?” It was a point of deep reflection and awakening for many of us. We realised that it was our gender bias that was preventing us from acquiring the quality of the opposite gender. He highlighted how some generalisations, such as men are brave and women are emotional, can have an adverse impact on our leadership styles. He also pointed out, how we need a healthy mix of both the qualities to be an effective leader.

So we were now asked to go ahead, to choose and make a comprehensive list from both the male qualities and female qualities that we thought were valuable to be a good leader.

What he tried to bring out was, irrespective of being a man or a woman, there is no need to stick to gender boundaries. Men should strive to imbibe the good qualities from women and women should strive to imbibe the good qualities from men, in order to be a good leader.

Now it is time to ask yourself, “Are you a wholesome leader or a leader with gender limitations?” 

   D. Senthil Kannan,

   Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

   Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

   Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

Participation = Value

A few years back, I attended a programme titled “Play to Win”, which was conducted by an Australian Trainer, Mr. Clinton Swaine. It was an activity based learning programme. Throughout the programme, the trainer was stressing on one specific point, which was “Participation = Value.”

I am sure many of you are members of a number of trade or business organisation, social forums, service organisations, whatsapp groups and so on. Now, tell me honestly, how many of you derive maximum value by being a member of these.? Not many! Am I right?

I have heard many people telling me, “I am a member of so many organisations, but I am so busy that I don’t have the time to attend any of their meetings or being part of any of their projects or initiatives.” It makes me wonder, why then, do they have to be a member?

But then the answers are obvious. It could be just for a social standing or peer pressure. Many of us, might be like that. For example, if you are in business and you are not a member of the local chamber of commerce, then you don’t seem to be an outcast of the business fraternity. So, we take a membership, just pay the membership fee but don’t engage in any of the activities. We like to call ourselves passive members. But as long as we are a passive member, we do not derive any value from any organisation. It is only by being active, do we derive value.

One of the reasons, people fear to be active is that, if they are active they would be asked to leadership roles, which they are averse of. But, tell me, where else can we get such leadership opportunities. Is it not a great feeling to lead?

I have been a member of a number of social organisations, such as JCI, Giants, Rotary, CII, Toastmasters, BNI, YES, Chamber of Commerce and few others. When I do a deep introspection, I realize that the amount of value I get out of any organisation is directly proportional to the level of my participation.

Let me relate this with the example of one organisation that has added a lot of value to my life  JCI. The initial years, I was just a member, but I used to be regular for meetings. As days passed by, I attended all the training programmes offered by this organisation. It was a lot of new learning for me and it got me interested in the field of training. This motivated me to develop my speaking skills, which in turn changed to training skills. I slowly rose up to the level of a National Trainer. I also readily took any small leadership roles given to me. This gave me the confidence to handle bigger roles. When I performed well in my roles, I was recognized and given awards. I then climbed the leadership ladder to the extent, I aspired for. I was able to network with a lot of people which helped me to create a strong network of friends.

The same principle worked well with my participation with other organisations too. The more I participated, the more value I got and the less I participated the less value, I got. So, the simple secret to unlock value is participation. Without participating, we will not get any value from any organisation.

There is a saying, “You have to dive deep into the ocean, to get the pearls.” The same goes with social organisations too. Unless we make the dive, we are not going to get value from anything.

So, always remember this mantra, “Participation = Value.”

 

 

 

   D. Senthil Kannan,

   Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

   Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

   Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com