When the going gets tough

The tough might be too tired to get going.

Responsibilities grow when you grow older. The sooner one learns this lesson, the easier it becomes to tackle. I didn’t want to just rant on this blog and just do for the sake of it. But sustaining a daily blog can work only if the schedule is created for it. If left as the last thing to do before sleeping, it won’t work out. It needs to be the first thing in the morning rather.

Again, planning and organizing needs a reboot.

Discipline

This is often said “Confidence comes from mastery. Mastery comes from repetition. Repetition comes from discipline.”

Having said that, discipline is actually the hardest thing to achieve. There are several factors at play to distract one from staying disciplined. If discipline was the peak, it’s a very pointy peak and all sides around it are a slippery slope pulling you back to the ground.

If one wants to latch onto something to stay at the peak of discipline, that is the freedom one can get from Organizing. While the process of organizing itself can make people anxious, once achieved, it gives all the freedom possible to bend and break the rules within the scope of staying in the disciplined realm.

New Year Resolution starts now

Every year, I tend to start working on my resolutions from Feb 1. By this time, gyms are back to the normal footfalls, people have forgotten their promises, and I am left with no choice but to start working out again.

The year 2020 has been a year that took me off guard. By me, I mean everyone. However, some people took it upon themselves to not lose out on their physical activities. Some started running, some played sports, and some started on some routine. I sat longer on my computer, wreaked havoc on my eye sight, and basically gained weight.

But all can be forgiven if I start back doing things from Feb 1. Because once the world becomes Corona-free (whenever that is), I don’t want to be left behind as the dullest of them all.

Declaring on the blog in public and never doing it has been a forte of mine. But here’s a chance to change that.

Onwards Feb 1, let’s see how it plays out.

My profession is Better than Yours?

In any office cafeteria in today’s day and age, there would be flocks of people coming in and going out during lunchtime. They would come in groups or alone, sit at some tables, have their lunch, and go back. There’s nothing unusual in this. But there would be a bunch of folks who would clean up the table after a set of people are done with their lunch before the next set comes in. Normally, it should be the people themselves who should clean up after they have done eating but that might be too hoity-toity for many of us privileged junta.

Continue reading “My profession is Better than Yours?”

So I recently read: The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

I didn’t read but I listened to the audio book actually.

I am following blogposts of Morgan Housel for some time now and I find them really insightful. Moreover, this book got enough good praise so it was due.

Some key lessons which I learned from this book are as follows:

Compounding Works

Money might grow in short term but wealth doesn’t. Short-term thinking is good only for the short term. The longer one stays in the game, the more the wealth (not just money but it applies to everything else too) gets enhanced. There are some great stories shared in the book which tells about people who took their time in getting the returns out of their savings. while also some examples of people who spend too much away, too quickly.

Money means different thing to different people

I find this one particularly true. I belonged to a family in which taking risks with money has been a strict no-no as generations have been service class. Do your job, do it better, and let it speak for you has been the mantra. While some of my friends had money, stocks, Demat accounts, and businesses being discussed daily at the dinner table since they were kids. That conditioning plus an individual’s own mindset makes money appear differently. For example, a discount offer not availed is just a missed opportunity for me. While for one of my friends it was considered a loss.

Luck vs Skill

This isn’t given as much importance as much skill is given. But luck is highly important. An example of Bill Gates is shared in the book. Bill Gates is indeed a genius but we shouldn’t overlook that how lucky he was when he got access to a Computer in high school. This was the time when having a computer in a school was not even a notion anywhere in the world. People didn’t even think that Computers had a place in academia. The same lesson about how the skill in the market is just a pseudo-barrier created by some lucky people was told in this Podcast by Deepak Shenoy on Amit Varma’s The Seen and the Unseen.

Never Enough

This lesson is timeless and not obvious till you don’t have it yourself.


I found ‘The Psychology of Money’ by Morgan Housel a good and easy read but impactful in every sense. It is one of the first books I have ever read about money in general and I am glad that I started with this. It is not about investing or saving but just the thought that our perceptions about money are different than our perception about time. Increasing our wealth requires time, effort, and the ability to take risks. And of course, luck.


Photo by Mathieu Stern on Unsplash