Oxy and Moron

Mark Twain once said that it usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. I am not sure of the context of that statement but there is no doubt that it is a good example of oxymoron. The dictionary tells me that the rhetorical term “oxymoron” was coined by joining two contrasting Greek words meaning “sharp” (oxy) and “dull” (moron). Everyone uses such phrases in their everyday life without being an oxy or moron or anywhere in between.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the famous German philosopher and author had famously said that “we learn from history that man never learn anything from history”. While George Bernard Shaw, the Irish dramatist and socialist had endorsed this statement is in his lifetime, I find this more relevant today with all the conflicts around then anytime else. That makes this a timeless truth.

That was an example involving famous personalities and serious subject with deep meaning. But there is one such phrase that attracts us lesser mortals like the pied piper of Hamelin and they most certainly are not children. If you still have not guessed it, it is the famous marketing adage

….“ The more you spend, the more you save.”

This is quite a contradicting sentence to put one off, but that’s not what happens in the real world. Once back from such a shopping misadventure, the expression is equally rhetoric….

…”I paid too much for this, but it is worth it.”

Technology has not spared most of us and if you are a windows user, Bill Gates has ensured that we always click Start to Shutdown our computer.  

Donald Trump once said that “the budget was unlimited but, I exceeded it”. I too have managed to exceed the length of this post, though my estimate was limitless. But With all my friends and followers keeping quiet, I can only say that this silence is deafening to my ears. But I will still continue to post new pieces no matter what …. Thank God, I’m an atheist.

Characteristics of Successful People

Once in a while we come across an article analyzing the characteristics or habits of successful people. Not that we always agree with the traits listed the article but I am not one of those whom the world considers being successful and moreover there is no bee line of followers behind me.

I've spent plenty of time reading about successful people, which could or could not be considered to be a research.  Whilst all of them have the skills, talents, and characteristics that enable them to succeed, I haven’t been able to identify any magic trait adopting which will instantly transform me into a celebrity. Perhaps some of their qualities are more dominant and play a greater role in their successes but incidentally we all too possess these skills, talents, and characteristics within us to a certain degree. What we lack however, is the recipe to concoct and deliver a commendable success.

One important fact is that successful people does not always do everything by themselves nor can do everything easily and effortlessly. They have their strengths and weakness and look for others to complement their shortcomings and get associated with person or group of people who possess the skills, talents and training that they require. The associates later become their teammates with a defined relationship which could be either a partner or advisers or employees. It is this combined talent and skills that make an organization grow, prosper to reach the pinnacle of success.

Some of the most commonly discussed traits of successful people are as follows:

• They have the audacity to dream big
• They plan their steps well
• They're willing to work hard.
• They don't take no for an answer.
• They are not deterred by setbacks and failures

The success story always begins with one belief that one day you will succeed and one has to believe in success to become successful. As a toddler we do not feel ashamed to get up and walk even if we stumble and fall hundred times but why should it be any different when we are grown up. Most importantly, failure is only a state of mind and nothing explains it better than the follow statement by Thomas A. Edison.

I have not failed 10,000 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.

That is how Life is ....

If you look at what you do not have in life, you feel miserable due to the long list of have-nots, but when you look at what you have in life, you most probably have everything that you need. You may consider this to be a fallacy but this is the fact of life.

Sometimes we do not make any effort to value what is around us. Imagine sitting by the window with a cup of coffee and you lift the cup, take a careless sip to realize the sugar is not enough. Too lazy to go for the sugar, you manage still somewhat enjoying the coffee. On finishing you discover sugar crystals settled at the bottom. That is how life is.... So look around, may be the sweetness is closer than you think.... 

90/10 in Everyday Life

Stephen R. Covey and the 90-10 Principle are now well known though not as much understood or rather practiced. How we react indeed makes all that difference and it is never more obvious than when you are driving during rush hours. Once I had an experience when the other driver confessed that he was an idiot and asked me what was I?  

http://sumandebray.blogspot.com/2011/01/never-fight-with-idiot.html

That was an eye opener that one has to refresh that 90-10 principle from time to time and that is the exact intent of this post.

One day a taxi was driving in the right lane when suddenly another car reversed out of a parking space right in front of it. The taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and somehow managed to avoid the crash by just inches! The driver of the other car honked and yelled at the taxi. My taxi driver was very friendly and just smiled and waved at the guy. 

How could he just do that when this guy almost ruined the taxi car and sent him to the hospital? This is where the 'The Law of the Garbage Truck' comes to play.

Many people are like garbage trucks and they run around full of garbage which are extreme frustration, anger and disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and anyone could be a victim. 

 We need not get impacted by that but Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Else we end up carrying their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets.

Life is ten percent what you don’t control and ninety percent how you take it!

Life and Death in this world

  

This week's prompt is Friday Writings #227: As You Wish

When I think of a quote from the movie The Princess Bride, I remember: 

“Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.”

Those words reminded me of something I had written many years back, and I felt like sharing it once again....

Life, death, and life after death have always been the turf of philosophers, thinkers, and religious gurus. Through the ages they have reflected, debated, and put forward their own theories about the beginning of life on this planet and what possibly awaits beyond it. 

Scientists, on the other hand, have been peering into outer space and digging out fossils from the earth, trying to uncover clues about the advent of life on our planet. Life and death are also part of our everyday existence. So naturally, we lesser mortals have never been totally immune to developing our own theories and discussing them passionately with anyone willing to lend an ear. 

The debate continues endlessly — whether there was indeed a creator behind all earthly life forms, as suggested by the watchmaker analogy, or whether life evolved gradually according to the theory of Charles Darwin. And perhaps the even bigger debate, cutting across both scientific and non-scientific minds, is whether life truly continues beyond death. 

It is a question that has fascinated humanity for centuries, yet remains wrapped in mystery despite all our knowledge and progress.

But once in a while, we come across incidents that unsettle our logical ideas and leave us wondering.

Recently, two news reports involving accidental deaths caught my attention, and I thought I should share them here. Were these merely coincidences, happenings dictated purely by chance? Or is there indeed some invisible conductor orchestrating everything that goes on in this world?

Questions like these leave us thoughtful and unsettled, with no practical way of ever finding a definite answer.......

Zooming In Disorder

One day, a few years back  I had a strange urge to pinch on a photograph  on a construction magazine while reading an article. I wanted to expand a picture to find out more about a detail and almost did it. It would have been perfectly normal if I was reading the same article in the iPad, but unfortunately it a conventional paper version of the weekly magazine.

Yesterday we wanted to read the details of an address written in in very small fonts on a bottle wrapper and this time we wished we could pinch to clarity.

Pinch here describes a gesture used with two fingers used on a touch screen interface to zoom in and out. We pinch inwards to zoom in on a picture and outwards to zoom out of a picture or object.

As the line between our digital and non-digital life gets blurred, can this be then considered to be a "zooming in" disorder! I am quite confident that with the dominance of touch screen steadily increasing in our lives, others are suffering from this disorder too.

This post from 2014 has been edited and re-posted as it relevance has increased exponentially. 

Its True

I was prepared for a call at two in the morning. This was to let me know that they have landed in the Doha airport. I had planned it well and slept early. I would have little time to sleep after picking them up in the middle of the night. But my wife woke me up at 11:30 with a call from an unknown number. This was to let me know that she had lost her phone at the Dubai airport and I was not to expect any call when the plane landed in Doha. My immediate grief was that I will no longer have the luxury of sleeping till they landed, but have to go early and wait in the arrival lounge. 

The loss of the Samsung galaxy made us sad. The realization of losing those pictures of our last vacation made us sadder.  Early in the morning I went to Vodafone store and blocked the number temporarily, stopping any misuse of the phone number. We had heard and read a lot of stories of people getting back stuff from various parts of Dubai during our stay there. These were firsthand accounts that were published in the local newspaper by the grateful souls conveying their gratitude after getting back their belongings. We were hopeful that we will get the phone back by some miracle.

The other thing she had to do was to change passwords of various websites and accounts like FB, emails etc. 

So I had to get into action right in the morning. First decision was not to lose hope. So I went and blocked the SIM card without taking the option of a duplicate SIM card of the same number and the balance transferred. 

Next step was to log into Dubai airport lost and found department and make an online application. I called the airport too but got directed to various other agencies including Dubai police airport division.

We were reflecting on statements like “why this happens with us" and "why it does not happen with us" and “How I could not check this”etc.  It was like the pain of a child losing his favourite toys than anything else. All of a sudden there was this one phone short in the house.

But all this while they have kept me engaged. I have been asked to provide details of the item lost and followed by the model of the phone, colour of the phone, the colour of the cover, so on and so forth. After three days I received the following email: 

“Good day,

After checking of our system records, we are glad to inform you that this item is with the custody of the Emirates Lost and Found Department under reference number 8795 (Date of received 27Aug) Please advise where to forward it so we can prepare documents and advise flight details.

For further assistance or clarifications, please do not hesitate to contact Emirates Lost and Found at +97145057538

Note: we are keeping the found items only for thirty days from the date of received.

Thanks and Regard,

*****                        

EMIRATES LOST AND FOUND

Emirates Airlines - Dubai International Airport Terminal 3

Tel: 00971 4 5057538         

Fax: 00971 4 2200104 "

That was one of the happiest emails that my inbox have ever received. However this wasn't the end of it. We were then requested to furnish detail and specific information related to the phone. For example we were asked provide at least five names and numbers from the phone’s contact list, records of last few calls made and received if we could, etc. 

Finally the phone arrived at the emirate airlines office at the Doha airport on an evening flight. We went there without wasting any time and collected the phone by filling up a form. Before handing over the packet the officer asked my wife ...........“Did you expect to get it back?"

"No! Just hoped", I replied. 

After a month our neighbour lost her iphone in her school bus but never for it back. The moral of the story is not to lose your phone and if you happen to lose it at the Dubai airport, do not lose hope. The people at the Emirates are too good.

This post is to express our thank Emirates Airlines and all people at the Dubai International Airport.