Calling the Creator

A very fine senior and life long teaching institute Prof. Akyurek once told us a story. By some way he came to know 2 young ladies who were transferred to a remote district of Van city located in South of Turkey. They were to serve as teachers at a local school. He himself being well known in the area introduced them to the deputy governor of the region. The deputy governor told the young ladies to contact him in case of any need especially considering that they did not belong to that specific area. One evening the deputy governor received a call from one of the ladies saying ‘respected deputy governor we have a problem with our water taps, can you get them fixed’!

Any reader may conclude immediately that a request of this scale should never ever been made to the executive level of deputy mayor. We in our worldly affairs are very careful to ask some one in accordance with our need and position of the counterpart. If the problem is of minor level we proceed to those in power in accordance with the need.

The great expert on human civilization Ibn Khaldun wrote in his book clearly that worldly affairs are cared to minimum by the  creator of this system. He further elaborated that after giving all the sense and power to humans the creator has given them choices to make. However the results are prefixed in accordance with the choices made. If some one chooses not to study for example he or she can not be expected to pursue an academic career with rare exceptional cases. 

Most of people living in developing world consider the creator responsible for their every task smaller or bigger. This goes against all the logics. As president of a country is not responsible for every day matters but instead is considered responsible for creating and implementing vision for a country the creator is also responsible for some mega projects only. He has full authority over all issues but has empowered humans also to a degree so that they can take care of their lives to a sensible level. There is a certain system which we cannot understand and that is huge difference between people born under different circumstances. Many may have clear advantages over others like their economical status or family situation. These disadvantages do not hinder a person to improve his/her situation although he/she may not move up the ladder with ease but he can certainly improve his life through his choices. It should not be forgotten that choices made and hard work spent to pursue them makes the real difference. Calling the creator for every bit of problem or daily life course is not the solution.

Rise & Fall of Nations

Especially people who belong to nations that ruled the world once, the changed situation might be quite frustrating. Nations which were or are given chance to mange the world affairs have one common trait. It is their ability to manage the affairs in a way better than others. Many from countries against current world manager may say that it is not always 'better'. Those from Muslim civilization are frustrated due to their existing conditions. They are frustrated due to two reasons i.e they can't accept how they (rulers of the world a century ago) are now humiliated at all fronts and secondly as per their belief they were chosen to manage the world by the creator (as per their belief) but current situation is far from that promise. 

For those either muslim nations or other frustrated ones I generally state a very simple example. Lets say that you have established a beautiful production facility for some products, what would be your preference for its managers? Would you prefer those who are not able and lack capability to manage the facility? Never! So you'll select the capable.

Considering the creator who created flawless universe would never leave his creation to fools or incapable ones. Therefore we see in past from time to time different nations managed the affairs of this world. This happened because they were considered capable of running this facility by its creator. Therefore instead of cursing the nations ruling the world or managing it others should try to prove themselves capable for the task. 

Lastly always follow what Khalil Gibran wrote,  Pity the Nation.

Pity The Nation…
Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.
Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave,
eats a bread it does not harvest,
and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.
Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero,
and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.
Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream,
yet submits in its awakening.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
save when it walks in a funeral,
boasts not except among its ruins,
and will rebel not save when its neck is laid
between the sword and the block.
Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox,
whose philosopher is a juggler,
and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.
Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting,
and farewells him with hooting,
only to welcome another with trumpeting again.
Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years
and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.
Pity the nation divided into into fragments,
each fragment deeming itself a nation

Environment, Genetic Code and Happiness

Dear all I am so sorry for delay in new post. My previous blog was about the lesson a clock in Zurich taught me.  While still in Zurich I heard about sad demise of a close friend of mine then I was planning to write about two topics i.e. Dead End and Song of life. For the later some material is till missing.

In the mean time on Friday the last, I had a chance to take dinner with a great teacher of mine Prof. Coskun Yurteri and also his teacher Prof. Selcuk Soypak. During the dinner Mr. Yurteri mentioned about a book stating that in order to understand nature one must observe behaviour of all living beings especially animals. He has also observed that animals while passing each other do say hello and also give regard to to territories of each other. Secondly he mentioned that as animals live in wild nature they always have fear of death or trouble especially during night time. However when they wake up every morning they are happy mainly because the fearful night has passed and actually they reset themselves for each day.

This implied that although environmental factors are important some genetical codes can not be altered or in other words should not be altered. In Eastern cultures it was very common to see especially the older generation people to thank the creator every morning they wakeup.  In fact people were reseting them every morning. The famous book The Secret written few years aback also highlighted this very same issue. It stated that when in morning one touches ground with the feet he/she should thank God. This triggers the wave of happiness and thankfulness. 

Reseting oneself every morning is very important for the success. It helps people to go in to mode of happiness and gratefulness from the mode of stress and the fear. Therefore leave every day's problems there when night falls and restart your life each morning. However don't loose the ground you made till that time and if you need to consider the old problems, consider them from a new angle each morning!

Lessons a Clock in Zurich Taught Me

Today early after noon while standing at a small railway station just at outskirts of Zurich a traditional clock hanging at platform taught me a wonderful lesson. Swiss are famous for their watches and time keeping but the lesson this conventional hanging clock taught me was some what very remarkable. 

When I arrived in Zurich today, I was very calm to enjoy the re-experience. One tip I would like to share about travel is, don’t hesitate to pay a little more if that makes you reach any  place well in day time. At airport exit by chance I met a person Alberto who accompanied me to the train station mentioned above. We took tram, walked and talked. He seemed to be a warm blooded European and soon I discovered the reason, he was an Italian!. 

Any way coming back to the clock. Please watch the video embedded at the end of blog of that clock. All clocks work in same way but this clock was remarkable in sense it was clear and attracted my attention. It is story about continuous movement of second’s arm and movement by minute’s arm by one minute. I noticed that second’s arm start from 12 (our starting point for the case), passed towards the minute’s arm slowly, passed it and moved towards the place of 12. The minute’s arm only moved one minute ahead when the second’s arm passed the position of 12 and not when it passed the minute’s arm.

This was great lesson of the day and based upon that lesson I prepared following illustration. It presents a wall clock with Minute’s Arm and movement of Second’s arm in two colors, blue and red. Lets analyze this illustration starting from top right corner numbered as 1, and move in clock wise direction. 

In the top right corner the minute’s arm seems  to be at number 1 on clock. In second figure it is about at 5, in 3rd it is at 8 while in last one it is at 11, nearest to ultimate goal i.e. 12. I call the blue track of second’s arm’s movement as Asset while that in red color as Credit. The clock taught me following two lessons about success in life especially in career.

When you are in starting phase (like figure 1) you have very less amount of Assets and you have to put a lot of effort as Credit to move just one step ahead. As you build up your skills, the amount of credit required decreases with being minimum shown in figure 4. In this case you rely on your asset and need very small extra effort to move ahead.

The second and more important lesson was related to the instance when the minute’s arm move a step ahead with respect to the position of second’s arm. As you’ll notice from embedded video below, the minute’s arm did not move a step ahead when second’s arm reaches it or crosses it. The minute’s arm moved ahead only when a certain amount of extra effort was put in place beyond the existing level of existence of minute’s arm.

In simple words, you always need to build on assets to maintain your position, always need to invest (credit) to move ahead and finally in order to move ahead a single step you may need to apply an effort of few steps (depending upon your assets value).

Here is the mentioned video, please comment.

Professionally being in Quadrant IV

In my previous blog dated 15 August 2012, Professional Life, Where do you Stand? I introduced a simple Quadrant Tool to find your position in professional life. Following was the mentioned simple Quadrant.

One needed to assess him/herself on two scales i.e. Passion about what he/she is doing and his/her ability to do that certain work.  Scoring was done with 1 as least and 5 as the highest score for each category. Based upon this scoring one would be located in one of the quadrants shown in figure.

We have already discussed Quadrant I known as quadrant of Satisfied people and Quadrant III of struggling people. Today we'll discuss the Quadrant IV which is labeled as of Incompetent. 

It is easiest to understand but very difficult to diagnose & figure out. No one would like to call him/her incompetent and that is true. No one is incompetent but the most important issue for this tool is to make assessment against the work being done at the moment. You might landed in type of work you are currently doing due to one or another reason. You might have also developed some skills and passion for it. If this passion is natural or you developed it to limits above score of 2.6 with ability still below 2.5, you'll be in Quadrant IV.

People in this quadrant might be under great stress, much more than those in quadrant I of struggling people. People in Quadrant I are struggling both with ability and passion but they have less degree of frustration because they also don't have enough passion for the said work. However those in Quadrant IV have enough of passion but can not perform the job and this creates a lot of anxiety, stress and frustration.

There are two ways to get rid of this problem. The first one is to develop passion for something you are able to do, which seems less practical. The other way is to develop the skills in the work you are doing with great passion. Now-a-days as lot and lot of skills building tools are available like online learning the two most important issues are about selection of appropriate tool and devotion of time.

You must invest a good amount of time and may be financial resources also to find the most appropriate skill building forum. There are many free but in actual there is no free lunch. Quality level training and development needs financial investment to some degree. You must also be patient while developing your skill and follow the learning curve without trying to jump over to few stairs up in one go. This seems appropriate if you are experienced in the field you are studying but it will for sure leave some connections in the chain weaker. A chain is as much strong as its weakest link is!

In summary if you have passion for the work you are doing but lack the ability then you and your work both deserves improvement. Choose from simplest doable tools like free reading stuff, listening to gurus of your profession at Youtube, reading books, attending seminars and webinars and finally attending the paid on campus or online courses. If you find a master who is willing to teach also then you can also learn a lot but don't forget no matter what you learn you have to validate it through a certificate or diploma. There are only few professional branches in which you can move up based upon your work but that movement is also limited. CEO of Yahoo,  Scott Thompson was able to move to top but his work could not keep him there as he could not validate his skills through a legitimate source.

Happy Children and Stressed Adults

Concerning happy and somewhat careless behaviour of children, it is stated that their lack of full understanding of events is behind this cheerful behaviour. Unfortunately I have to disagree with this diagnosis. Children can be considered as miniature of adults. We are still not sure if the brain usage in children is above, equal or less than that done by an adult. Children of ages less than 7 have shown remarkable achievements in many fields. Although this has happened in selected children and not all, the idea can not be generalized in both ways. We can’t say that all children can be genius and we can’t say that they are not. It all depends upon what circumstances they face during their childhood.

As children grow we see more and more stressed adults coming out of them. Has it been related to use of brain or other capacities it should be the opposite. Now able to use brain they must have been happier. Taking responsibility and need to earn the bread and butter may make the adults less happy than their counterpart children. We don’t have all the adults stressed but most of them are stressed except one category of adults mentioned by Hazret Steve Jobs. In his speech of 2005 at Stanford University he finished by quoting, stay hungry stay foolish from Whole Earth Catalogue’s last edition.

This is the key to happiness of children and selected adults. 

Children are foolish as they don’t care for norms, conditions and customs and try to behave the way they consider right. They try to learn the things their way and mostly through experiments. On the other hand among them who face strict controlling mechanisms fade out either due to restrictions or forced guidance to behave in a certain manner. A child starts learning by exploring his/her bed and its surroundings in random way. A child is asked to paint in circle and if left alone he/she would paint the whole page without caring for the border of circle. On the other hand when he/she is forced to paint within circle, he/she may learn it but for sure the child would be less happy. In addition to this when a child understands that society wants him/her to behave and learn in a certain way, the learning process becomes that of disciplined mind. The child when grown up might be successfull but it would be only a small part of the original potential, most of which is destroyed during the disciplined process of teaching rather than learning. 

Coming to the first part of the statement i.e. stay hungry is simple to understand. It means that one should always create space for new food. This new food is learning. A famous quote in this regard is, ‘children are happy as they learn’. If as an adult one wants to stay happy he/she should stay hungry for new food (for thought). 

As a result it can be stated that a simple way for adults to remain happy and less stressed is to keep on learning and especially in unconventional way. 

I want to give a tip to adults in this regard. When you  want to learn something or try to do something new, stop thinking like an adult and go ahead in the way a child would have gone. This would demolish the barriers around your thoughts restricting the way you think and act. 

Don’t forget adults learn through acting (same true for children till age of 7-10, after which they are accustomed to learning through books). Therefore take a risk and go for learning under unknown environment and new situation. 

For many of the professionals who left their schools years ago, jumping back in to a session at their or any other school may recharge their thought process in a different way.

Those who can’t dare to jump this much (after passing years in the disciplined system), I suggest to take some casual courses to lower the barriers before a revolutionary step can be taken. A course on logic is going to be offered soon through Stanford University and its free, click for details!

Internal Perception and External Factors for Happiness

Some good 17 years ago I was reading a book on Psychology in which perception phenomenon was explained. It was explained so remarkably that I still remember it and would like to share it with all. It was like this.

You are coming back to home after a hectic day and very busy evening making you leave office at time to fetch the last metro to your home. Everyone in the compartment was tired like you, trying to rest with closed eyes. When the metro stops at a certain station, suddenly a person with two children of ages 5 and 3 enters the compartment. They sat on some vacant seats but just after a minute or so the children start playing, running and shouting in the compartment. The guy however did not take any notice and kept on sitting silently sleeping with open eyes. 

Question was asked what would be your and most of other passengers’ reaction? Most would consider the person irresponsible for not caring about other people and children as non-disciplined. Finally you stand up and ask the said person to control his children as every one was tired and upset due to the noises being made by children. 

The guy looks at you and says, ‘I am sorry, I can’t do any thing (you and all others re-assess him as irresponsible). Their mother was diagnosed with cancer some time ago and about an hour ago doctor told us that her body is not responding to any type of treatment. Tell me how I may tell this to these playing kids?’... the author of book asks about your and others’ reaction now to same event (noise making children).

This hypothetical story explains the link between our internal perception to external factors and our reaction very clearly. Students of Psychology know it very well that the cycle of behaviour runs through an event-our perception-our reaction to it. Let me try to further elaborate it with another hypothetical example.

You along with your family plan to go on a brief picnic. Packed in your car you drive towards city suburb for green fields.  Kids are happy, their mom is happy, you are happy to spend time with family. At the last traffic light you are forced to take the side lane due to rash driving of some youngsters driving their cars. They were about to hit your car, you become angry and upset. Now from here onward, it is your internal perception to this external factor shaping your reaction and life.

If you perceive that this event has ruined your mood, your reaction would be staying upset and angry resulting in a disastrous picnic for you, your kids and the partner. On the other hand if you perceive this event as one, not in your control, not due to you- you will perceive it as a non linked issue to your life and your reaction would be not caring for it and not allowing it to ruin your picnic. This can save your and yours’ day.

Now lets say that you were so upset that your reaction to the event ruined whole picnic program. Analyze what  you achieved, the event took place without your input but it destroyed your plan. So in other words you allowed an external factor to influence your own life. 

In cases where you really feel it impossible to control your mood, I suggest to do following. Try to be calm for few seconds and imagine yourself as not part of that specific situation. Tell yourself, yes this specific action has made my mood bad but if I also allow it to affect my picnic plan the situation would be much worse and not better.

One of the major issues is, if you consider yourself and your loved ones as ‘centre of gravity’ of your life or some external factor. Secondly if you allow some external event to destroy your life or any planned activity which will have double bad effect i.e. you allowed that event to make you feel bad and you missed your own planned activity and its happiness. Therefore be sure about who or what is centre of gravity for your life and never mind asking if you get stressed and mess up some planned good time, what was your gain? If you consider these two simple tips not to effect your life and its events you may feel happy under different circumstances.