Bless the People Around You

We are conditioned to think that ‘Blessing’ is a big word and that it is often connected to God or the elderly people. But in fact blessing is a very common thing that we keep giving to others in our daily life, either intentionally or unintentionally. 

Don’t you agree that every genuine act of love is a blessing? In this way, the love of your mother is a blessing, the care of your spouse is a blessing, the smile of your children is a blessing, the appreciation of your friend is a blessing, the motivation of your peers is a blessing; and the list is endless. So are they all not blessing you in some way?  But the irony is we never take time to appreciate it. We take it for granted.

It is the same thing with God. We wake up every morning, but don’t feel blessed that God has given us one new day to live. We have more than enough food to eat, but never realize that we are blessed so much as compared to a millions of people who are starving. But every morning, we make it a ritual to go to the prayer room and pray God to bless us abundantly, while he has already blessed us with abundance.  This is a beautiful line that justifies the above, “When we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives, but are grateful for the abundance that is present… we experience heaven on earth.”  With the abundance God has given us, it is our duty to impart his blessing to the people around us.

Even if we should assume that blessing is an act of God, then we need to realize that God cannot come and bless each one of us individually. He blesses us through some human form.  There is a belief that as it is difficult for God to do favours to every human being individually, he sends an invisible guardian angel along with every human being who is born on this earth. That angel is always there with you, listening to your problems and trying to find ways to help you.  At the appropriate moment, she will bring someone in your life to come and help you. The person may be someone close to you or someone who you have never met in your life before. If you ponder a while, you will be able to relate some event in your own life, when you felt blessed by an unknown person.

When somebody needs help and you are there for them at the time of their need, are you not blessing them? Let us say your friend, is in a financial crisis and you go and lend him some money and tell him “I know that you are in need of some money now. I have some savings, which I don’t need at the moment. I am not in a hurry; you can pay it back when you are comfortable”, will he not find it as a blessing. A blessing is a way of answering someone’s prayer.

It need not be that only elders deserve to bless the young ones. Anyone can bless anyone. The age is not important, but it is the genuineness of the wish that is important. For example: When you give alms to a beggar, he or she says, “May you live happily”. Do you ever question, whether the beggar deserves to bless you. You just take it as a positive statement. Is it not? When somebody helps us, we feel so thankful to them that we say some nice words, which is a blessing to them. So blessing is reciprocal. When you bless someone with your kind deeds, you are blessed back with their kind words. So when we keep doing good things to people around us they will keep blessing us, with good words and genuine smiles. The more blessings we receive, the more our day will be happy and good, because of the positive vibration that comes with it

What we need to understand is that, every genuine wish is a blessing. Every noble help is a blessing. Donating blood is a blessing. Helping someone in a road accident is a blessing.  Caring for the elderly is a blessing. Saying ‘Good morning’ to someone is a blessing.  Wishing someone, ‘All the best’ is a blessing. When someone conveys good news, and you congratulate them and wish them well, it is a blessing.

Start blessing the people around you and see the positive change it brings in your life.

D. Senthil Kannan,

Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

Smart Work Can Never Replace Hard Work

“There is no substitute for hard work.”
Thomas Alva Edison

Of late it is becoming a fad to say, “Don’t do hard work, just do smart work”. By the face value of this statement, it sounds justifiable because today there is so much of technological advancement in every field which has cut down the need for hard work.

 

Right from home automation, office automation, industrial automation to farming automation, we have found easier ways of doing thing, which otherwise was very time and labour consuming. Some examples;

In a home scenario, a mixer grinder or a washing machine can do the work in minutes which would normally have the house lady working hard on the same for few hours together.

A computer at office, is more efficient than 5 accountants using pen and paper method.

One Machinery at the factory can produce millions of PCs within limited time with 100% accuracy, which was not possible when things were handmade.

A tractor in the farm can plough vast areas of land within an hour, which would take days to do, in the days of  bullock cart.

 So these are smart ways of doing the same work, we did before but in much lesser time and that too without much effort. So every advancement in technology has led people from working hard to work smart. This in turn has given way for ample free time, to engage ourselves more productively.

 

So let us try to figure out, why then do people emphasize so much on hard work?

 With the invention of the calculator, technically there is no need to know any mathematics to do a simple calculation. All a person needs to know is the numerals 0 to 9 and the functional symbols for addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. So, for example, if a person wants to add 2345799988 + 427256560, all he needs to know, is these numerals and plus symbol, printed on the keypad and when he presses these in the right sequence, the answer will automatically come. This is a classic example of smart work. But let us say if the same person, needs to know the logic behind the answer he needs to do the hard work of calculating with pen and paper or counting with fingers or some mind crunching, to understand how the result is arrived. So, true knowledge lies in hard work.

 

Every invention or a discovery is a result of sheer hard work.  Thomas Alva Edison worked very hard to invent a light bulb, and so there is a famous saying by him, “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work”. Similarly the great voyagers tried many routes, before they could reach the intended destination. The culmination of all this hard work is the basis for creating all the smart technologies, available in this world today.

 

This is an evolving continuum. One advancement leads to another. There is a saying, “Don’t re-invent the wheel”, which means you don’t have to start doing anything from scratch. We just need to build up on the existing technology. Every new technology is an upgrade of the existing technology. For example, handwriting became typewriting, type writing became computer typing, and now computer typing has moved to speech recognition typing or predictive typing. So, one technology leads to another. But imagine if someone had not taken the pain to form different types of alphabets, give it phonetics and put strings of letters together to form words and again strings of words to form sentences, then there would not have been any written language in the world. The process of creating such basic structure, upon which all developments are built is the core of hard work. Speaking the language thus created to communicate, is the core of smart work.

So, to simply state, “All creation is hard work and all application is smart work.” The point to understand is that hard work cannot be replaced, because while smart work can accelerate the speed of work, it is hard work that gives substance. 

 D. Senthil Kannan,

Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

What is in a WORD?

The language we speak is made up of words. Each word has a specific meaning and the appropriate usage of a combination of words helps us to convey a message, either orally or in writing, to others. Our thoughts become words, and our words become action.  So our words have the power to inspire someone or hurt someone. That is why it is said, “Words have so much power, that they can either make or break, a relationship.”

We cannot neglect the importance of right usage of our words, because it is not only an integral part of our communication process, but it also carries an emotional dimension.

Take for example; we generally call a person who cannot see, as a blind person a person who cannot hear as deaf, a person who cannot walk properly as lame, so on and so forth. The dictionary meaning of the word would be undoubtedly right, but on an emotional level, it sounds a little harsh.  There is a better way of saying it. You can call the person as a “physically challenged” person. The same goes for words such as “insane” or “mad”. The better word that could be used is “mentally challenged”.  I am aware that by changing the word the status of the person does not change, but it gives an implication that he is one among us , who has a specific challenge to face in his life. This puts him on an equal status or may be in a priority status.

Recently there are more welcome developments on this aspect. The terminology “differently abled” has now come to replace the terminology, “physically challenged” and is widely used in Govt.offices and newspapers. When you call some one as “differently abled”, it means that, though they have a challenge or a difficulty in one aspect, they have a special ability in some other aspect, which helps them to cope up with their inadequacy, to some level.

It is said, “When God closes one door he opens the other”. I have found it is true. If you would have noticed the physically challenged people closely, you would come to know that they are well talented in something or truly superior in certain skills. I have noticed that they were very creative with poetry and with singing.  There is an organisation in Mumbai called the “mouth and foot painting artists” www.imfpa.co.in. Though they are physically challenged, they are differently abed in the sense that they can paint wonderful painting, using their mouth and foot, which a normal person cannot do. Their paintings are printed and sold as post cards and calendars. The money generated by the sale of these items, goes to support their life and help them live a dignified life. 

Similarly, we find the usage of words like “Orphanages” and “Old age homes”. The better choices could be “Children Rehabilitation Centre” and “Retirement homes” respectively.

It is also noteworthy, that in the recent usage of English, a child with inborn intelligence is called a “Gifted Child” and the child who has a learning difficulty is called a “Special Child”. This means a special child is one who needs special care; someone who needs extra effort on the part of the parent and teachers, to make him understand concepts that are easy for a gifted child to understand. We cannot condemn a child as a dunce or academically poor, without taking an initiative or extra effort from our side.

These words enable a change in our mindset and ultimately the way we treat them. It helps us to shift the focus from condemning someone to taking social responsibility. Just the change of words has the magic and power to change our perception of a particular situation. So, let us be sensitive to the feelings of others and be sensible in the choice of right words.

Let us choose empowering words, for it is the mark of a progressive civilisation.

D. Senthil Kannan,

Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com 

Sundays are Fundays

Sunday is a holiday, everywhere in the world, excepting for the Islamic countries, where Friday is a holiday.  This drives home a point that everywhere in the world, people have acknowledged the need for ONE DAY break, at the end of  6 days of work.

Take a look, at what you do on Sundays. Do you catch up on some pending office work? Are your children busy catching up on their school work?  Is your wife busy, with her daily chores? If yes, then don’t you think you are wasting a precious Sunday?

Sunday is a day of rest & recreation. Nothing more. A day to reward yourself for the good work you have put in throughout the week. A day to recharge your physical, mental and emotional batteries, to face the challenges of the week ahead.

Remember the proverb, “All work and no play makes jack a dull boy”. While a 24 x 7 ATM is a brilliant idea, thinking about a human being as a 24 x 7 mechanism is really ridiculous.  So, next time your boss gives you a weekend assignment, tell him NO, even if the monetary rewards are tempting. The purpose of earning money is to enjoy your life, but what is more important is, you need to have time to enjoy the money you earn.

So, now on, when it is Sunday, get up from your bed and shout out loud, Eureka, today is a holiday. I am going to enjoy this day to the fullest. Think of creative ideas to make your Sunday’s interesting.  Spend more time in your shower.  Pamper yourself. Pack your bags and take your family on a one day picnic. Have a light heart, with a mood for fun and laughter.  Make it a “no rules day”.  Don’t catch your children wrong, and spoil their day. Don’t talk to them about school, exams, marks so on and so forth. Let your kids enjoy doing whatever they like to do. Allow them to get dirty in the garden. Say NO to Computers that has been a week long strain to your eye.  Instead, go watch the latest kid’s movie in town, with your family.  Laugh loud along with the kids, even if you think the joke was too silly. Play a game of chess or checkers, with them. Allow them to win and make them feel proud. Lose a bet and buy them their favourite chocolate. Go to the beach or park.  Make sand castles and play with your children.  Take them to a restaurant and let them choose from the menu.  Don’t say no to ice-cream. Just one day let them know that you are there fully, for them. The ideas are endless.  The Sunday can create the desired bonding your family needs. So don’t waste your Sundays. Make sure your Sundays are Fundays.

 D. Senthil Kannan,

Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

Power of Networking 

In most of the seminars I attend, I find that a lot of stress being laid stress on the Power of Networking.  Here are some of my insights, on networking.

 

In this competitive world, the speed of your growth will be determined by your capacity to network with people.  We have always been apprehensive of initiating a talk with new people. The fear of doubt, when meeting a person for the first time, far surpasses the fear of opportunity that may arise out of talking with them. We are so very cautious, that we even think twice to stretch our hands to shake hands with a stranger or greet someone with a friendly smile. We fear that a relationship with an unknown person will let us in doldrums. This is often due to the fact that some of our previous experience with unknown people have been bad. This experience has deeply encroached upon our subconscious mind, a feeling of suspicion in dealing with strangers. What is more, the news paper and magazines flashes so much news about frauds and cheats. All this in totality has made us hostile to our surrounding. We like to be insulated from all dangers.

 In doing so we have consciously let away opportunities that comes to us in the form of different people.  Day in and day out we are searching for new opportunities, but we fail to see the opportunity hidden behind each person we meet. Each person may have a hidden opportunity.

 

Just for an analogy, think of a typical situation like this: You come across a person with a brilliant idea, but he does not have the money to make it a successful venture. You take the idea and keep it with you. You then come across a millionaire in disguise, who has so much money and doesn’t know where to invest it. Now you give this idea you have got from someone, to the millionaire who gets excited about the idea and offers to fund your venture. He is willing to make you a working partner.

 

Does it sound like fiction? It can happen!!! I believe so… This is what networking is all about. The secret lies in talking with people, all that is in your mind, know matter how they judge you.

 

How many of us sincerely believe that our friend’s friend, is also our friend. If you believe so, you will start making more and more friends everyday because the chain keeps growing. This is how you can make your networking stronger.

 

What happens in real life situation is when one of your friends introduces you to his friend, you formally say hello, shake hands, and know each other’s names and that is it. You do not care to go any further. So, this unknown stranger has now become a known stranger. Nothing more… To put the power of networking to work for you, you have to be sincerely interested in people.

 

If we should make a honest introspective of how much we really know about our  friends, our relatives, our colleagues, we will be sorry to find that we just know the periphery, because we are always afraid of exploring the inner territory of others, for the same fear of exposing our true self. If you really look into people, we will see that there is so much of potential within the person which is not brought to focus. We could be the miner, who could dig out the Gold, from within the person.

 

God will never give the bread in your basket. He will just show you where the dough is. It is up to you to make the bread. God shows you opportunities through people. It is up to you to capitalize upon the opportunity hidden within them.

 D. Senthil Kannan,

Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

The Silver Linings

There is a beautiful English phrase, “look for the silver lining in the clouds”. I am actually witnessing a number of such silver linings, recently.

 

An unfortunate road accident, in Madurai ring road highway, had left my wife’s right arm fractured. The first silver lining was that, the accident did not kill any of us, nor any one in the car in which we collided with. As my wife was whining with pain, at the moment of the accident and I was trying to reach out to my relatives  through my mobile to get her transported to the hospital, one passer-by – a young gentleman cared to stop his car and volunteered to take us to the hospital. We took his help and made a quick exit from the accident spot. Here, was one more silver lining.

 

In just a day after the accident, my wife got operated and had a steel plate fixed in her arm to reconstitute the bone structure. With many relatives and friends visiting us at the hospital, we found a lot of solace. The feeling of being cared for and being important was another silver lining.

 

We mentally got prepared for a month long rest and healing time. There were just two issues which created a lot of unrest to us. One was the Children’s Summer Camp which was had plan to organise the first week of May and the other one was the proposed family cum friends overseas trip to Thailand and Malaysia, which was in Mid May. After some contemplation, we decided to postpone the Summer Camp to the last week of May. The holiday tour we had promised our kids, was the only concern left, unaddressed. With little worry, we told the doctor about our foreign travel plan. We had no clue that the doctor would give us a green signal. He said, that she will be perfectly alright in 10 days and she can travel anywhere, provided she takes a little precaution.  It was now a matter of our own choice. It was a great mental dilemma, whether to go or not to go.  Normally, any one would opt to cancel the trip and stay back. With mixed feelings we took a bold decision, to go ahead with the tour.  The decision turned out to be good. We enjoyed a great holiday abroad and came back recharged with a great feeling of accomplishment.  If we would have stayed back, we would have undergone more mental agony and depression. The tour created a positive mindset. The focus on pleasant experience made the painful experience minor. This again was a silver lining, I should say.

 

It has always been me, telling my wife to do this and that. Now that she was unable to do many things, I not only had to do all my work by myself, but also had to assist her to do her work. However, I felt it was a great opportunity for me to serve her and pay back a little of her care. I realized how much, I have taken her for granted. We never realize the importance of electricity until there is a power cut. Similar, was my situation. This realization, I feel is one more silver lining.

 

I have read these words quite often - every experience has got something to teach us. This experience indeed taught us a lot. It helped us to realize the value of each other and the value of our own life. This I think is the greatest silver lining of all.

 

Every one experiences difficult moments in life. It is the ability to bounce back fast that really matters.  We were able to bounce back fast, not only because of the miracle of modern medicine, but also owing to the love, care, support, motivation and prayers of our family members and our close set of friends and relatives.

 D. Senthil Kannan,

Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com

 

Why Be A King, When You Can Be God

Nowadays, it is a trend among youngsters, to keep updating their whatsapp status to reflect their moods or to just express what they are feeling. A few days back, my son had updates his whatsapp status as “Why be a King when you can be God”. When I saw it, at first sight I got a feel that it was an arrogant statement to make. When I asked him, he said it is just a line from an English pop song and there was nothing in particular about him of having it as his whatsapp status. As I was contemplating the sentence, I could realise that there was a very strong message behind the words. It is quite common for someone to aspire to be a king, but to aspire to be God is something way beyond expectation. It is like asking, why do we have to settle for something small, when you can become something higher?

If we take a closer look at people and their aspirations, we can predominantly classify them into two types: One type of people are those who are material oriented, and the other type are those who are spiritual oriented.

The material oriented people are the ones who aspire to be KINGS. They are generally self-oriented. They crave for leadership positions, social recognition and public admiration. They achieve this by striving hard to be the No.1 in their chosen field. For them their dreams, their goals and their achievements are important, than anything else. In the process of achieving their goal, they hurt many people but to them that is a part of the game. To them winning is everything. We find this type of people in every field, be it business, politics, sports, cinema or any other. We hear phrases such as “King of Cricket”, “King of Bollywood” so on and so forth. The pomp and glory of being a Supremo, gives this type of people immense pride and delight. A typical example, is Lion which is called the King of the jungle. It holds its status as a King, not only by its might but also by being ruthless when coming to deal with an opponent. There is no empathy. Kill or be killed is the law of the jungle. In their world, MIGHT IS RIGHT.

Then there is the other type of people, who are spiritual oriented. These type of people are not self-oriented, whereas they are people oriented. They work hard to make others happy. They do not bother much about their own welfare, whereas they are always concerned about the welfare of those around them. They are not selfish, jealous, greedy or egoistic. Their love energy flows in the form of selfless service and touches everyone they come across. 

History has many stories of people who have transcended from KINGS to SAINTS, because at some point of time they found a divine calling which was more appealing than their worldly pleasures.

We have heard the story of Lord Buddha. He was born as a prince and lived a very luxurious life. He indulged in all the worldly pleasures and enjoyed the life of a King. However at  some point of time, as he got exposed to the realities of life he understood the futility of being a King and went in search of the eternal truth and became a Saint, and ultimately became a God.

The story of King Ashoka, also reveals of how he transformed from a ruthless warrior to a noble ruler, after seeing the bloodshed and tears of innocent people in the war of Kalinga. He realised the fallacy of war and chose to transform and govern his kingdom based on the principles of dharma. It is this period that is called as Golden era in Indian History. Even today, Ashoka is remembered for his good works, that he did in the later part of his life.

The lyrics of a Tamil song, goes like this: “Manidhan enbavan dheivam aagalam”, which means Man has the inherent capacity to become God. Does it mean, anyone can be God? Perhaps, YES, if we are willing to take the hard path of righteousness. It is difficult, but not impossible.  It is just a matter of choice. It is not a position to aspire for but just a state of mind to attain.

Think it over – “Why be a King, when you can be God.”

D. Senthil Kannan,

Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com