The only people I have ever known to have no problems are in the cemetery, says Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. If this reality hasn’t hit you in the face, let me make it clear – If you are alive, you will have problems and obstacles in your life. It is as much a truth as the air we breathe, and the earth we walk on. Yet we live all our lives avoiding problems or solving them. What an irony?

When Lance Armstrong says that cancer was the best thing that ever happened to him, and that if he would have to choose between his Tour de France wins and cancer, he would choose cancer, he is saying a lot. He won the Tour de France seven times after recovering from cancer to give a light of hope to the millions of cancer patients out there, and his tryst with cancer has given him the purpose of his life, the LiveStrong Foundation .

Even in the Mahabharata, Krishna saw fighting as an opportunity which Arjuna saw as a problem. The way we see the problem is the real problem, and if every time we face a problem we ask ourselves – “What… Read the rest

I can without doubt say that 2011 was my best year ever, and I am grateful for a lot of things which happened this past year. As we all move ahead into the new year 2012, I want to list out ten things which we all should not do in the years and decades ahead. As human beings there are so many habits ingrained in our behavior which we don’t even realize. Some of these habits help us in moving forward, while others stop us from realizing our true potential. It takes a lot of conscious effort to break free of these habits or patterns. Hence this list of ten points below are those habits which I am going to stop doing -

1. Stop Running From Our Problems

It is very easy to shut our eyes during a problem, blame someone else or the situation and look in the other direction. In the new year, we should face these problems head on and stop running from them. We should aim to learn, adapt and solve the problems over a period of time. But we shall not close our eyes and assume the problem is no longer there. In the process, we will realize that we have become a better… Read the rest

Found this story somewhere and I am putting it down followed by my views on it -

Once a professor began his class by holding up a glass with some water in it. He held it up for all to see and asked the students, ‘now, my question is: What would happen if I held it up like this for a few minutes?’

‘Nothing’ the students said.

“OK what would happen if I held it up like this for an hour?” the professor asked.

“Your arm would begin to ache” said one of the students.

“You’re right, now what would happen if I held it for a day?”

“Your arm could go numb; you might have severe muscle stress & paralysis; have to go to hospital for sure!” Ventured another student, all the students laughed.

“Very good. But during all this, did the weight of the glass change?” Asked the professor.

“No” was the reply of all the students.

“Then what caused the arm to ache; the muscle to stress?” After a pause the professor asked “Before my arm ache, what should I do?”

The students were puzzled.

“Put the glass down!” said one… Read the rest

We, as a nation, stand today in a moment of reckoning. We are at a fortunate junction where our actions will decide the course our nation and 1.2 billion people will take in the coming decades and centuries. If India’s history were to be written 200 years later, what we do in the next few years will certainly play a very important role. We have broken from the shackles of the license raj and taken the flight of globalization and economic growth. We are expected to be third largest economy soon. But at the same time, we are plagued by many social evils like poverty, illiteracy, corruption, etc. Whether and how we act in this moment of reckoning will decide whether we rise like a phoenix in the 21st century or again loose the opportunity to reclaim the title of “Sone ki Chidiya“.

We have a feel good mentality about our future now. Incomes are rising, jobs are plenty, multinationals have set up shops in different cities and amenities are galore if you want to go out for eating, recreation or just fun. We are one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and… Read the rest