Life

“Study hard, Vishal! You have to become ‘something’ in life someday. Don’t waste your time roaming around here and there with your friends. Remember that these are the two most important years of your life. Go and make full use of them.”

These were my father’s words as I was packing my bags. I was leaving for Mumbai to attend an MBA course. This was the year 2001.

I had heard such a sermon from him so many times in my life earlier. Being a civil engineer and a topper from his batch, my father was a well-educated and well-read man. He had been a very caring father, but in those days, I often took his extra care for me as interference in my life’s decisions.

He knew the payback for hard work, despite the fact that he himself could not practice engineering due to the needs of joining the family business. But he was very particular that his son needs to study hard and become “something in life someday.”

[Read more…] about To Parents, With Love

I recently came across this thought-provoking paragraph from the English actor, comedian, and writer Stephen Fry, while browsing a notebook I had scribbled thoughts in some years ago –

Oscar Wilde said that if you know what you want to be, then you inevitably become it. That is your punishment. But if you never know, then you can be anything. There is a truth to that. We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing — an actor, a writer — I am a person who does things — I write, I act — and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.

~ Stephen Fry

[Read more…] about You are a Verb, Not a Noun

Nassim Taleb is one of my favourite authors, and his book Antifragile is one of the best books I have read.

One of the book’s chapters that interests me particularly is titled ‘Via Negativa.’ Here, Taleb argues that the solution to many problems in life is by removing things, not adding things. Like, avoiding the doctor for minor illnesses or removing certain food from one’s diet to improve health. Taleb writes –

I would add that, in my own experience, a considerable jump in my personal health has been achieved by removing offensive irritants: the morning newspapers, the boss, the daily commute, air-conditioning, television, emails from documentary filmmakers, economic forecasts, news about the stock market, gym “strength training” machines, and many more.

He then adds –

If true wealth consists in worriless sleeping, clear conscience, reciprocal gratitude, absence of envy, good appetite, muscle strength, physical energy, frequent laughs, no meals alone, no gym class, some physical labor (or hobby), good bowel movements, no meeting rooms, and periodic surprises, then it is largely subtractive.

[Read more…] about Nassim Taleb on True Wealth