Passion vs Reason

What do you choose? Between passion and reason.

Why I ask this question? Let me explain.

Saturday morning.

I have an argument with my dad. Regarding the new stereo system that we were planning to buy. Well, my dad really loves his music and wanted to buy this really expensive hi-fi 5.1 channel DVD system.

And me, who's used to ending up at the nearest multiplex at the drop of a hat, was like who will ever watch a DVD/movie at home?!

So I argued that we should instead go for a nice stereo system that will be cheaper and drop the plans for an expensive DVD system.

I stopped arguing when I saw a little hurt in his eyes. So I finally agreed, but was not convinced at this 'waste of money' as I saw it.

Sunday afternoon.

The brand new sleek and sexy box arrives at our home. And am blown away just by the looks! And then we play a DVD movie. It's a song I have heard many times before.

And I am totally blown off by the sound I hear. Crystal clear and distortion free. Loud but no noise.

I couldn’t help wondering this was a song that I had heard so many times before and yet here I was hearing sounds that I had never heard before! It was an exhilarating experience!

Today one of the reasons I rush home every weekend is just to lie down in front of my music system and hear my favourite songs. I can even play the mp3 collection on my laptop through this!

It's amazing the kind of joy this has brought me. And I am thankful to dad for not giving in to my reasoning.

So that's it. What your passion says may not always seem logical, but the amount of happiness that it can bring to you, is unimaginable.

Never again will I let my passion be subdued by reason.

Because what I may gain, is a hell lot more than what I may lose.

So follow your passion, wherever it may take you.

There’s no other secret to happiness.

Discovering Oneself

24 years of my life, I never felt like taking pictures. Never thought I had anything special in me.

Then one picture changed everything.

The reactions to that one picture made me realise that I may have something in me. And much more than anything else, made me realise just how much I enjoy taking pictures.

It’s amazing, how is it that you never knew you could do something and then one day you suddenly realise that you may actually be good at that something?

How does it feel to discover that you may have that spark in you?

Makes me wonder what other things I have in me which I have not even attempted to discover.

And if I never try how will I ever find?

Appraisals

It's April. Another appraisal season.

It was one such pressure filled season years back,that made me think about the importance of appraisals. And I found myslef asking if appraisals really mattered to me? They do matter as an employee ofcourse, but do they matter to me as an individual?

Why do I do the work I do? What is that makes me do it well? What is that makes me want to stay back in office, work hard, sacrifice my pleasures?

An A in my appraisal? A 1 ranking among my peers? Awards?

Is that all that motivates me?

And I then realised that , No, I don’t crave these. The only thing that matters to me, is my own satisfaction, my own joy, my own thrill, my own sense of achievement.

What if I dont get any awards. What if I get a 3 ranking or a B-?

Would that make me someone less worthwhile?

Would a folded up,crushed 1000 rupee note lose any of its value? Would it lose any of its value if someone calls it anything less?

Would you become less wothwhile just becomes someone thinks so?

What matters to me is the difference I have made to the people with whom I have worked. No awards and no rankings can make up for that.

So another season is coming up soon. And I no longer care what I get. Because I know the work that I have done. And I am happy with it. But not content yet, because there's so much more to do and learn.

At the end of day, the insight that I have gained is that, the fun is in the journey ( doing your work well and learning from it) , and not in the destination. ( Awards! )

Insights!

Insights! There’s a difference between knowing something and knowing the secret behind something.

Be it Life, Love or Technology.

Secrets which are secrets because they are not obvious at first glance and choose to reveal themselves somehow someplace while you are working on the questions to which they are the answers. Or sometimes when you are happily doing something totally different!

And that’s when you gain the insight! And your mind becomes somewhat enlightened. And from then on you see things in a different light.

I find great delight in such little insights that I get from time to time, mostly when I am least expecting it.

Like the time when I was working on a really tricky problem, debugging late into the night and decided to give up for the day and go home. The moment I reached my place, the solution struck me like lightening! And I couldn’t wait to reach office the next day and try out my solution. It’s a really painful feeling to know that you have the keys to the treasure but you can’t open it till morning!

And next day early morning I walked into my office mumbling to myself the way to solve the problem, to the amazement of my colleagues. And boy did it work….

Or Like the other time I remember when we had been given a tough problem by our Physics Prof., which no one could solve. And the solution suddenly came to me while, of all the things, I was taking bath!

I know how Archimedes must have felt when he found the solution to the King’s problem by discovering density while laying in his bath tub. Legend says that he was so elated with his discovery that he actually ran out naked shouting “Eureka! Eureka! I have found it!!”

Nah, I didn’t dare do the same at that time. That was Greece, 200 B.C. This was India, 2000 A.D.

Jokes apart, this blog really is to share with you many such insights, some delightful, some enlightening and some plain funny. On Life as well as Technology.

And I hope you will feel the same sense of wonder and agreement I had when these insights struck me.