Thursday, November 14, 2013

Can you weigh the feelings?

When you feel happy you tend to feel very happy and that everything is right but on the other hand when things are going haywire, you tend to feel really sad. Can you weigh these feelings of happiness or sadness and cancel them out and say your life is at neutral position? At least in the Harry Potter series, they could take out their memories and put them into a bowl. Is it possible to drag out our feelings and place them in a bowl too, to measure their metrics? Well! I am not sure. But we still use phrases like, 'my heart is heavy with feelings'.
 
To just dig into the background processing of how these feelings are created, we find that feelings are internally generated but externally triggered. People and situations around us give rise to different sorts of feelings. Though it's not exactly possible to weigh the amount of these feelings directly, we can try an alternative route to do the same by measuring the quantity that gets replaced by such feelings. Whenever we are down and feeling bad the negative thoughts revolve in our minds which replace the thoughts of any kind of work. As a result, majority of the work gets stalled. The amount of work can easily be measured in terms of the growth it would have brought to us either in monetary terms or kind-wise. The amount of time our brain is devoid of work thoughts and filled with feelings that obstruct the working thought-process, is the exact amount of time lost which can be exactly measured and if you can charge yourself on an hourly basis, you can calculate the loss in terms of finances as well.
 
After a series of disturbing experiences all that I realized was that if there are CEOs who are unhappy with what's going on in their lives, even I can reach some good position like them even if I'm hurt and feeling bad or sad or unhappy at certain points of time. It's difficult to fight against the feelings and work, I agree, but there is no way out. Work has to happen and life has to move on. There is no point worrying and sitting down with hands tied. Allow the heart to be under turmoil while you're exercising your brain to carry forward the work because more the lack and loss of work, more the sadness.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Poor jokes? or Poor people?

Just few days ago, I was in a school to take up a session on leadership for the students. I had reached almost 45 minutes earlier and had had a heavy lunch just two hours ago. Naturally, sleep was catching up on me. I was in no state of taking up an energetic session but it was inevitable. I tried to take a brisk walk to awake myself from the day-sleep. It worked to an extent. I wasn't completely up and going. Then I entered the school and took a seat on a nearby bench. Just twenty minutes before my session was about to begin, the first grade students ran out of their classes to the quadrangle. Here comes the twist in the story.
 
I have a bad habit of cracking jokes and making people around me laugh. I started it with these young angels. I asked them, "A for ..." They replied, "Apple!" and I reverted, "A for Anna Sambar (food item in Kannada language). All of them chuckled. I asked once again, "C for ..." They replied, "Cat!" but I retorted, "C for Chitranna (yet another food item in Kannada language). Once again these first grade students laughed their heart out. This continued for few more alphabets where I was replacing their answers with food items and that too in a regional language. With each answer their laughter raised in decibel level and my energy state raised in quantum levels. Hats off to these kids who have the charm of enjoying every little happiness that's hidden around them, and who, in return, charged me up for my session.
 
If I had done the same exercise with other people around me apart from these kids, they would have neglected the humour in it and categorized it as PJ - poor jokes and not even energized me. It would have happened with you too many times when you tried to bring out humour and your friends made fun of you by calling your joke as a PJ- poor joke. As people grow, they tend to lose the fun-loving-kid inside them who can trigger happiness and bliss at every joke possible. It doesn't even matter if people aren't ready to enjoy, unfortunately they break the source person's enthusiasm also while sharing the joke and turn off his/her mood. I feel more than the poorness or richness of the joke, it depends on the poorness or richness of the ability in people to enjoy life. People have gone poor on the scale of enjoying humour. So, don't worry next time when someone condemns your thought as a poor joke. That someone might just be a poor soul on the planet. Go ahead and enjoy the nectar of life called laughter. So what say? Do poor people exist or poor jokes?