Listening

I've noticed that most people don't listen. Irrespective of what the speaker has to say. And the parts that they do hear, are those that endorse their own opinions. And they have extremely strong opinions. Most of the time not based on knowledge or data or evidence.

Interestingly most successful people listen. Even when the speaker has nothing to offer. Most important they have an open mind about even their strongest beliefs and so are able to absorb all new information and then process it through objective analysis and evaluation not hindered by the baggage of preconceived notions.

I've gotta go and listen. And if you have any thoughts about this or anything else, please do let me know. I'd love to listen. To an expert about how to listen.

I believe, oops think, that developing this one quality could make a major difference. At work and more importantly in Life.

Happy Birthday Freia

Dear Freia,

Yesterday you went from being a teenager to a young lady.

I had written down quite a few thoughts and words of advise. And then while working through them stuck them down one by one. I realized that you're far smarter than me and probably knew all of it.

And so on your 20th birthday, I have but just 1 thought.

"Aaika Jagasa, Kara Manasa",
which loosely translated means, "Listen to the world. And follow your heart."

Happy birthday. We're very proud of you and all you've managed to do.

Lots of love,
Pa

p.s.: Actually, we'll be very proud of you, no matter what you do.

Being Happy

I've always felt that if you did what you enjoy for a living, you'd be very happy. Unfortunately life doesn't always work that way and most people aren't able to get to do what they love or even like.

In my mind the answer was obvious. If you can't do what you love for a living, love what you do for a living.

And yet, most people are not very happy with what they do for a living and wish they were doing something else. I could never understand why if they couldn't start liking what they did, change and did something that they did like. Whilst most of them had a zillion reasons, I was never convinced, simply because it wasn't a short-term choice that was being discussed but a life choice. What exactly was the point of going through life and not ever enjoying its moments.

This week, I came across a very interesting talk, "The happy secret to better work". And it had an extremely interesting take on work and happiness. "We believe that we should work to be happy, but could that be backwards? In this fast-moving and entertaining talk, psychologist Shawn Achor argues that actually happiness inspires productivity.

I'm feeling very lucky. I love what I do. And so get to be happy and productive. And best of all, I even get paid. Sometimes.

A capella

Yesterday Reia got me to view a Hindi song on YouTube which was sung by a Middle Eastern person. It sounded awesome. The interesting part was that there was no instruments used and the singer had provided all of the music himself with a combination of vocal sounds, clapping, tapping his body, ...

I was fascinated and asked Reia what this was. She looked at me as if I had just landed from Mars and said "A capella". I looked it up and this is what Wikipedia has to say about A cappella.

"A cappella (Italian for "in the manner of the church" or "in the manner of the chapel") music is specifically group or solo singing without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It contrasts with cantata, which is accompanied singing."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_cappella

Here are my favorite 5 A capella pieces.

This is my favorite, mainly because it was my first. The performer, the extremely talented Alaa Wardi.

A collaboration between Alaa Wardi & Peter Hollens. All you can say is Jai Ho !

I realized that Peter Hollens has a zillion A capella releases. MY favorite, the "Epic Disney Medley" with Alex G.

My all time favorite band ABBA. And so the ABBA A capella by Perpetuum Jazzile naturally makes it to this list.

And there's an International Championship of Collegiate A Capella (ICCA). Here are the 2014 champs.

What color is that ?

A couple of days ago Reia showed me a image of a dress and asked me what color it was. I said it was White and Gold. She asked me to look again and said it was Blue and Black. I tried and it looked exactly the same. White and Gold.

The image and the dress went viral. And in addition to the social media the regular media also picked it up. CNN had an article on it with an explanation of how and why different people were seeing different colors in the same dress.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/27/health/science-of-gold-blue-dress/index.html

It was fascinating to know that our concept of "I saw it with my own eyes" is not only relative, it may neither be true nor accurate. Perception is reality takes on a whole new meaning.

Beau Lotto's TED Talk "Optical illusions show how we see" is an eye opener. Literally.