Why we buy What we buy

We have a friend who could not resist buying bigger sizes clothes for her children during the seasonal sales though it will take 2-3 years for them to catch up. The prices and deals are too irresistible for her.

Impulsive buyers do not limit themselves to the cash at hand but can access future income to spend today. Unfortunately most of it is spent buying stuff that were neither planned nor necessary. While some people love to brag about their ability to clinch a deal that no one could, other love to peel off the price tags to reveal the original price to make them feel good.

This picture was taken at home.

Deep inside, we are impulsive buyers like the child who cries for a toy in the display window. But is impulsive buying a problem?

The answer is yes even if one has infinite budget or unlimited space. This disrupts the budget and leave us with little money along with stuff that we never needed. This prevents the creation of good and lasting financial habits that would allow to save up for larger planned purchases.  If not controlled this to could lead to a much more serious condition known as compulsive buying disorder (CBD), or oniomania.

According to Wikipedia this is characterized by an obsession with shopping and buying behavior that causes adverse consequences. This "is experienced as an irresistible–uncontrollable urge, resulting in excessive, expensive and time-consuming retail activity [that is] typically prompted by negative affectivity".

Impulse buyers are not likely to consider the possible consequences of their spending. Some of the reasons are:

• Extreme urge to possess an object as the person In China who traded his kidney for an IPhone.

• The love of buying new things because of a temporary high we experience upon buying a new item.

• Fear of missing out (FOMO) and being left without something that friends already have.

• Because of Brand affinity and a discount sale appears irresistible.

• Want to save money and believe the more we buy the more you save.

• Have a notion that buying a particular item will make them happy and improve their mood.

It becomes difficult to resist a situation once we see something in a store that is a great deal, but the reality is that it will probably just sit around your house and gather dust.

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Disclaimer – Any Similarity with People, Leaders, Politicians was intended

This post is about life of antelope in the Okavango Delta in Botswana, one of the sprawling grassy plains in Africa. Because of its seasonal flooding it remains a lush animal habitat for all types of living species. Notable heavyweights among the 160 species of mammals that thrive there are the likes of hippos, elephants, crocodiles, lions, leopards, rhinos, giraffes.

Also found there are Lechwe, a species of antelope family that stand 90 to 100 cm at the shoulder and weigh from 70 to 120 kg. They dominate the marshy areas feeding on aquatic plants while staying within knee-deep water to avoid the predators. With legs covered in a water-repellent substance, they have the perfect tools to run off any big cat in the knee deep water chase.

The males have long spiral structured horns they use it for fighting over territory and females. The sound of one horn hitting another sends clear message to the lions that another territorial fight is in progress and they are quick to cash in on this opportunity. The Lechwes are so engrossed in their fight that don’t realize that a predator has sneaked in and when they does, it’s too late.

Whenever we as human has taken our guard off because of our in-fighting, we too have paid for it dearly. It always pays to be careful and remain vigilant from predators, who sometimes hide behind a mask.

The post has been inspired by this picture posted by Natgeo on the Instagram.

Meraki

I got introduced to the lovely sounding word “Meraki” & its meaning had a great impact. 

Yes, I too thought it was a Japanese word but it turned out to be Greek. For some reasons, it didn’t sound Greek to me and pun is intended!

It means doing something with soul, passion and creativity. Although “Meraki” is thought to be one of the untranslatable words, we can still extract its meaning.

“Work with your heart and soul” is a phrase, we grew up with while not many realized the depth of it but “Meraki” takes it deeper.  Whatever we do, do it with great love and so much passion that a part of our soul remains there. This way we are eternally connected to all that we do or create and isn’t it wonderful!

Now on let’s do everything with Meraki and I have trust that the results will be nothing less than any Miracle!

Do You Still Put Ink On Paper?

I believe we need to put the ink on the paper to cement new knowledge in minds. Being from an earlier generation, I follow the analog process …. Like those good old days. 

Whenever possible, I try to write, scribble or doodle on my journal like notebooks as I get along a presentation, webinar or the process of reading a book or website. While the main purpose of taking notes may be to implant the material in the mind, it serves a secondary purpose as we grow older.

These notes turns into our Visual Aids every once in a while as we refer back. Being grown-ups, we can follow the subject, its logic, and sequence with relative ease but when it comes to holding it back in the memory, we are hopeless.

Once a notebook runs out of space, I digitize it for convenience but it makes a difference to see my handwritten notes as compared to my MS Word typed notes on the screen.  More often than not, I can relate the time-space aspects of a handwritten note, which brings in another desirable dimension to the whole process.  I do use programs like “evernote” to organize materials gathered through web research but wouldn’t prefer to record the audio from a webinar. 

Please leave your thoughts on your viewpoint on this matter and how do you prefer to take notes.

The following is one of the pages from a webinar explaining how International Standard Organization (ISO) adopts new terms and definitions.

It is good to remember that a vehicle with two wheels, a handle bar, a seat and driven by a pedal wouldn’t qualify as a bicycle if the chain is replaced with a shaft. This is how critically a definition is attached to a term.

The Tiger is Back on the Prowl

This week we celebrate the marvelous win of Tiger Woods and there are many good reasons to do that. This is such an epic moment in history that united Donald Trump and Barak Obama in their thought and action.

Tiger Wood is the sporting hero and for his fans, the fact that Tiger doesn't know them is inconsequential. He might be a mentor to a fortunate few but as a hero he will continue to lend his imaginary voice to inspire countless admirers. 

In 1996, Woods became a professional golfer at the age of 20 and by the end of April 1997, he had already won three PGA Tour events and his first major. Woods was not only the dominant force in golf but his name became synonymous with the term “Winner” for decades. Having won thirteen of golf's majors, and placed in the top ten on sixteen occasions he was at the pinnacle occupying the top golfer in the world position from August 1999 to September 2004 and again from June 2005 to October 2010. His name then became synonymous with the term Golf.

He took a self-imposed hiatus from professional golf from December 2009 to early April 2010 in an attempt to resolve marital issues and his many alleged extramarital indiscretions. His physical injuries added to these complications and the world watched with disbelief as the mighty Tiger dropped out of the world's top 1000 golfers.

But Woods worked relentlessly and made steady progress to the top, winning his first tournament in five years at the Tour Championship in September 2018 and his first major in eleven years at the 2019 Masters.

Without delving into his personal life and morality or immorality of his action, I believe it takes massive strength of character to regain one’s position. Human being make mistakes, they slip and sometimes falls on the hard floor but this getting up by giving 100% is what will inspire generations.

This reminds me of Monica Lewinsky and her affair with Bill Clinton and how unfairly the world ostracized her for life. At the age of 22-23, she made the mistake of falling for the US President, a very powerful matured person. Being constantly the butt of joke all around the world, she asks an honest question…… how many young people fall in love with the wrong person at that age not thinking of consequences. Does everyone pay such huge price?

Let the injustice meted towards one not diminish the celebration of the other.

Who Kills Our Creativity?

I wish I could use the tag line …”choose your school teacher with caution”. The reality is that we rarely get an option to select our school, let alone who would teach us.

A student has to write the answer exactly as teacher did or follow the steps of mathematics with precision to avoid deduction of marks. In such a system, a teacher has very little to contribute as the requirement is to repeat the same stuff year after year to a new set of students. This most certainly deters the bright minds from joining the profession. The personality traits of the teachers leaves a lasting impression on the student's life but the teaching hardly does. To inspire brighter individuals into the teaching profession, the profession itself has to be more innovative rejecting the “one size fit all” approach. We shall then have teachers who are loyal to what they do rather than how to make money. One who never dreams of teaching while growing up will rarely find the situation motivating and look up to monetizing for motivation. This is obviously, not applicable to the thousands of teacher who toil constantly to illuminate the life of their pupil. 

Mass education system is akin to factories processing a large population that can be operated by algorithms. Obedient, punctual, trained to receive instructions, harmless followers and most importantly doesn’t deviate from the set course through innovative ideas. A mass that could be easily manipulated by religious or political leaders will vested interests is another unfortunate byproduct.

The present schooling system worked well for centuries since its inception during early 18^th century. Fruits of this system contributed heavily to the industrial revolution under the British and went on to change India from an underdeveloped nation to today’s position of power. It also produced a large middle class, maybe the largest consumer base that any nation possess but with a disproportionately low number of industry leaders or innovators.

The writing on the wall is clear; our education system is not only flawed, its obsolete.

Today, we envision that the world will require less and less of such organised workforce. Businesses have drastically changed during the past decades and giant corporations have gone out of business without a trace. Organizations that employed people to carry out tasks with predictable outcome have either replaced their employees with less expensive ones or computers. This has already created unemployment and redundancies across the country and imagine the time when AI backed by machine learning completely takes over. Eventually all these tasks will be written with algorithms and operated by machines.

We need to change our system to nurture the child’s innovation, leadership and creativity traits. Our teachers shall teach them to research their own answers and guide them to look at things from a different perspective and not from a set perspective. We want our children to understand more and learn less. We can unlearn what we once learnt but having understood, one can never UN-understand! We want to prepare them to be adaptable to the changing needs of the world as no one knows what skill-sets will be necessary 20 years from now. But when today's child arrives at the job market, we want her to be creative, confident & ready.

Once in junior school, my daughter saw things differently. While the obvious description was a circus, she saw teamwork but unfortunately she was corrected. This is how children are conditioned not see or think outside the box and imagination is strangled. 

Once we succeed in changing the system, we shall witness more teachers making teaching their career choice and that too for their sheer passion for teaching. After all there ain't a profession nobler that teaching! The incentive /remuneration should be adequate but as the teachers knows better, money is not the key to happiness or fulfillment although a necessity!

The excerpt from her paper says it all.

This post is written as part of #IndiSpire269.

Faith - Yours, Mine, Today & Tomorrow

G, O and D are three letters placed one after the other. Human being have associated a sound and meaning to this composition, if you like. Then  a variety of images and tales were intertwined to represent this in various forms and shapes. This however, is not language specific, we find it resonate in almost all languages or dialects that exist or ever existed. Conflicts apart, we have the right to have our own meaning and understanding of what GOD represents in whichever language and that’s our FAITH. A very personal realization.

Looking at the creation of life with all its complexities and our attempt to replicate bits or pieces of  this complex life through engineering projects  have proved beyond doubt that there is someone out there with much superior know-how. Know-how, knowledge, wisdom or power whatever way we choose to define. Whether they constantly monitor us or listens to our prayers will probably remain a mystery to be solved at the aftermath of this lifetime if realization does exist in that zone. Therefore let our own conscience monitor our thoughts and action to make this world worth dwelling.

We, having biodegradable physical characteristics will become dust in no time and those dust shall continue to be part of a new entity till the eternity…..but the spirit if there is one, will remain as a form of energy and that is my faith. I will not argue if you think this is a pagan philosophy! Because that's yours faith.

My cousin and I were once going through a particularly rough spell in our lives. One night having dined and wined along with lot of complain about HIM and HIS justice, we stepped down into the Kolkata footpath. Walking towards the car, I observed a lady saying her goodnight prayer outside her shanty home. It was width of the footpath and so low that she could not stand up once inside. She was saying her good night prayer….probably thanking the Almighty for his blessings and wishing for a brighter tomorrow.

That’s her faith and by far is the most beautiful albeit blind. But blind Faith is the force that will keep human being going. Because we know so little about our existence!

‘This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.’