If there is one thing I would love to have in life, it is to have as wide and as deep a perception that we can gain on any of our life situations. At least those that are troubling us currently or those that have long term consequences. Too often, we either due to lack of training, or lack of time or even our lack of wisdom we tend to have too narrow view of our situation and make snap judgments. Based on those, we arrive at quick decisions and take fast actions only to regret later in life.

The best we do, is do a little thinking (if at all we do) or ask around. We take it for granted our friends and relatives (with due respects to them) are better equipped than we are. If they had been to the same schools that we had been to or live in the same neighborhood, chances are their perception of our problems would be no better than our own. More likely they would tell us what we want to hear.

To put this discussion into perspective may I suggest you see this movie (a good one in my opinion) Gone Baby Gone. Torn between professional ethics and common sense or personal obligations, Casey Affleck (Patrick Kenzie in the movie) has to choose and make the right decision. For that he has to have the right perspective and not see life through his ‘little window’ as Morgan Freeman (his adversary in the movie) suggests. Quite true.

Incidentally do we ever realize why rich get richer and have enviable life styles? It is because they seek professional help. They are able to hire professional consultants in many walks of their life. They hire (the best their money can buy, to do better in life) a personal trainer, a lawyer, a physician, an investment adviser or even a life coach!

So how do we gain a wider perception (a.k.a wisdom)? I am not an expert, but I think for a start we can do the following:

There comes a point in our life, when we take stock of our life situation. We realize we didn’t get what we set out to achieve or recognized for what we are worth. The struggles we go through in our day-to-day existence pales into insignificance compared to the inner turmoil or disappointment we feel inside. I hear someone say, “We all have ambitions, but very few have talents.” But I am talking about the few who have talents, but who either didn’t get an opportunity to show their merits or they have shown their merits but are not rewarded adequately enough or some quirk of fate intervened.

Those of you who have seen the movie Deal and the part played by Burt Reynolds will understand what I mean. Though he was a gifted player at the Poker table he was not destined to achieve greatness in his time. He happened to lose everything, and to preserve whatever is left, (including his relationship with his wife) he maintains his promise to his wife that he will never play cards for the rest of his life. And for the next 20 years he chose to remain as a spectator. But every time he sees someone achieving championship at the game of Poker shown on TV, we could see the pain in his face. It appeared to me, that he was saying to himself, “It could easily have been me on the TV lifting that championship trophy.”

In order not to break his promise and thereby hurt his wife’s feelings, he sets out to train his protégé. Though in the movie, it is shown that he is motivated by the money; my feeling is he was living his life through his protégé. Seeing the amazing success his protégé has (with a few simple tricks he learnt from his mentor) at the table, the player in Burt Reynolds decides to go for it again. But this time alone and all by himself. That meant risking his marriage even. We are told that he was going after the cup that he didn’t win. And that he was reclaiming his lost dignity.

I am sure it will strike a chord in all of us, who are still in the race, hoping to make it big one day. Tiger Woods, Warren Buffett have claimed their cups but we haven’t. You have not heard of me other than through this blog which is nothing and I don’t know you, the gentleman or the lady who happens to read this blog. Of course I am thankful for your time, but wouldn’t it be great if you are famous and in some way extremely talented in your chosen field and have a few words to share with the rest of us?

Incidentally those of you on the verge of giving up, or have already given up; I recommend this article from Fortune to read. I guarantee you it will be worth your while. Either you will be back in the race or running ahead of us. Good Luck.
read. I guarantee you it will be worth your while. Either you will be back in the race or running ahead of us. Good Luck.

“I have all the time in the world,” thinks an 18 year old. Thinking about my career options, so did I when I was 18! Now that I am old, I can almost laugh when I hear someone asking a kid, “What would you want to become?”. In this respect, I can relate to most of what is written in this blog Why Career Planning Is Time Wasted except the one below.

The experiment outlined in the blog says the test group that got to choose a week in advance, different sandwiches for each day of the coming week turned out to be unhappy with their choices vis-a-vis the other group that chose spontaneously what they want each day as the day rolled in. The interesting thing is that the latter group chose to stay with their familiar sandwich for each day of the week. The point of this exercise was to prove the futility of making a choice in advance and the lesser likelihood that we would enjoy what we choose: it may as simple as ordering a sandwich or as big as making a career move.


My personal experience with sandwiches goes even further to prove the above theory (Miswanting). Being a strict vegetarian, by design, I can choose only type of sandwich at my favourite Subway restaurant viz. Veggie Delite. So that means turkey, tuna, egg, ham, roast beef etc are out. Restricted to just one type of sandwich, I should be happy with my choice isn’t it? Not really. Given the bewildering array of sandwich components offered, I have to carefully navigate my way to building my sandwich. Else I would definitely be feeling something is wanting. As tempting as it may be, it is treacherous to stray the course.

“Oh God! Why did I make this change today?” is often my response to any adventurous detour in the menu offered. I am not exaggerating. If you see the following conversation I have with the waitress at the Subway restaurant you will see why.

Waitress: What would you like to have?
Me: Veggie Sandwich
Waitress: Footlong or 6″ ?
Me: Footlong please.
Waitress: Brown bread or white ?
Me: White.
Waitress: Which bread would like to have ? (She points to a board with life size images of 4 or 5 different types of bread)
Me: Parmesan Oregano
Waitress: With or without cheese?
Me: With cheese.
Waitress: Which one – cheddar or mozzarella ?
Me: I point to the one I am more familiar with.
Waitress: Toasted?
Me: Yes please.
Waitress: Now choose your vegetables (She points to the neatly arranged bowls of fresh vegetables behind the glass partition: lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, olives, pickles and more )
Me: Everything except Jalapeno. ( I want value for money, you know)
Waitress: What kind of sauce you want? (She again points to an array of sauces on display)
Me: Southwest sauce
Waitress: Anything else?
Me: A little bit of mustard would do.
Waitress: Is that all?
Me: Can you please top it up with some salt and pepper?
Waitress: Is it for here or to go?
Me: To go.
Waitress: Would like to make it as combo with a drink and a cookie or chips ?
Me: No just the sandwich would do.

By now, you are exhausted, right? So am I, at the end of my transaction. Believe me, any misstep along this maze of choices, I would have come out feeling miserable about my investment (!!) in sandwich.

This is just ordering a sandwich. Imagine how much more complex is planning a career move and your probability of liking it.


So, “What do we do? you may ask. Honestly I don’t have an answer other than to reproduce verbatim the conclusion in the blog:

“The best strategy for career planning is this: make your best guess, try it out and don’t be surprised if you don’t like it. But for heaven’s sake don’t mention this in your interviews.”

“Always Collect”, screams one collector card advertisement. “Every time you swipe your card you collect valuable reward points,” says another ad at a gas station. “Make your dream vacation come true sooner with our miles card’ beacons the bill board at the intersection. Then this ‘this week only offer’ from another chain store “Swap your in-store loyalty points with your collector card points or the other”. “Open a new bank account or switch to another for 500 or 1000 points on your collector card,” is an enticing offer from a bank! Never mind you have money in neither.


My wallet is bulging and is heavy not with cash but with umpteen cards that reward my loyalty to this product or that service. Those are in addition to the numerous credit cards in my wallet; to buy on credit, such products and services, just so I can collect some points.

There was a time when I was an avid collector of points, stamps etc to cross out one item off my wish list and to proceed to the next. All that has changed now. While I have not become old enough to preach, “We are not our possessions”, I am getting a little wiser to suggest that the journey is more pleasant if we travel light in our life. Imagine our difficulty in letting go of things we collected in the past when we move our place of dwelling. I should know, for I have moved to a new country nearly 7,800 miles away from my home town.

This blog is an offshoot of what I read in another titled “Shedding Possessions“. Though it is lengthy, it is worthwhile to read it to the end.

Every time I move, I ponder such questions as, “Do I take this with me or leave behind? What if I need it at some later date? Oh, I love this one, can’t I take this with me?, Imagine the difficulty I went through collecting this” and so on. Luckily time and space constraints put an end to our agony. We move on with whatever we think are valuable at that point of time, only to find those to be excess baggage at a later date.

Even so some businesses dangle this ‘1$/month storage for the first 6 months’ offer enticing us to move our stuff to their ‘climate controlled’ storage shelves. Does it make sense to move our excess baggage to some self storage facility 10 miles away from home or perhaps in another city? What are the chances of our needing them if we can keep them that far away?

If I have not convinced you against collecting things as a maniac, I suggest you listen to George Carlin’s stand up comedy on ‘stuff’. I assure you, even if you don’t become a convert, you will have a good time listening to him.