21 Lessons for the 21st Century - Part 1

I just finished reading the book - 21 Lessons for the 21stCentury by Yuval Noah Harari. Yuval is my favorite author, he has written three books: Sapiens, Homo Deus, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. The writing style of Yuval is very descriptive, scientific and information. He does a lot of research on each topic, he writes. Everyone must read his books, to learn how the humankind and other species evolved, how the future will be and how the present is going on.

In this post, i am going to share the learning from the book: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. There are 21 lessons shared y Yuval in this book, and i am going to cover all the lessons in one series of the lessons from the books, in this post, i am going to share the first five lessons from the books.

1: Disillusionment - The end of history has been postponed

"Humans think in stories rather than in fact, numbers or equations, and the simpler the story, the better."

We all just the believer of the stories, whatever we heard from our birth via our friends, family and other people, we start believing on that and we think that is the only truth in the world but, it’s not. it's just a story that is told by many from a very long time. We don't think about the relevance of the story, we just don't want to go against the mob, who believe in the story. We try to play a safe game. Why, it is best explained by Yuval as:

"It is much harder to struggle against irrelevance than against exploitation."

In old time, we hear the story by the people but in today's time, the stories are conveyed via media, social media, movies etc. What is the real purpose and how much truth, we don't know. Everything is business in today's world, don't blindly believe.

We are surrounded by imaginary stories, you can check in all your surroundings, whether in politics, entertainment, religion, education, friends, family, technology, media, social media etc. So, what to do - 

 "instead of directly believing on everything that come s to in front of you, find the truth, find your own truth out of it and then believe."

2: Work - When you grow up, you might not have a job

We are living in a too competitive world, everyday modern technology invented, new machines are replacing the human hands, new software’s are replacing the human minds. The Internet of Things, Artificial intelligence, Robotics, Big data, is continuously changing your world. There are new algorithms in development, that may read your mind before you now, this algorithm knows you better then you know yourself. There is continuous follow-up of your daily routines, daily buying/selling habits, daily eating habits. In short, whatever you do, they know it all. And you are the one who is giving this all information to them via social media, online shopping, online bookings, whatever you do on a computer or mobile, it’s all tracked and stored in their servers. And they can use it in whatever way they want to use it.

In Yuval words - 

"Human have two types of abilities - Physical and Cognitive. In the past machines competed with humans mainly in raw physical abilities, while humans retained an immense edge over machines in cognition. Hence as manual jobs in agriculture and industry were automated, new service jobs emerged that require the kind of cognitive skills only humans possessed: learning, analyzing, communicating and above all understanding human emotions."

But now AI (Artificial intelligence) is outperforming the human on the cognitive skills and we don't know of any third field of activity- beyond the physical and cognitive - where humans will always retain a secure edge.

We are in the problem of jobs in near future, there will be no job or very less jobs for the human in the coming future. The new jobs require a lot of intelligence and specific skills that everyone cannot learn. So i am not sure where the human society is going without any job. We will be living in a world without job soon.

The main reason the threat of the job losses does not result merely from the rise of info tech. It results from the confluence of info tech with biotech.

So, what are the new questions coming in front of us - 

What to do to prevent jobs from being lost; what to do to create enough new jobs; and what to do if, despite our best efforts, job losses significantly outstrip job creation.

Yuval suggest on the job threat for the future:

"If we manage to combine a universal economic safety net with strong community’s ad meaningful pursuits, losing our job to the algorithms might actually turn out to be a blessing. Losing control over our lives, however, is a much scarier scenario. Notwithstanding the danger of mass unemployment, what we should worry about even more is the shift in authority from humans to algorithms, which might destroy any remaining faith in the liberal story and open the way to the rise of digital dictatorships."

3: Liberty - Big data is watching you

 As i mentioned above that, our privacy is going to become public with time. The big data is watching everything that you are doing on line and storing it in their servers and making your life decisions without your knowing it. if you don't believe, just start analyzing about your buying habits, your eating habits, your travel habits.... this all is decided by the online algorithms based on your previous buying or selling or routines stored in their system.

In a famous interview in 1987, Thatcher said that - 

"There is no such thing as society. There is a living tapestry of men and women... and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves."

With the big data, the control of our life is given to algorithms and big data systems. Now the feelings aren't based on intuition, inspiration or freedom -  they are based on calculation. Based on your previous actions stored in big data systems and via this we are losing our liberty to the big data and algorithms.

We normally think that no outside system can understand my emotions and feelings better than me but now it is a myth. The big data and AI is watching you 24 hours and they are closely analyzing all your emotions, all your decisions, all your actions. So, now they know more about you then yourself.

We are now just playing the drama of decision making. We are just the actors now; the writer of the decision script is the big data and AI systems.

Winston Churchill famously said that -

"Democracy is the worst political system in the world. except for all the others."

Rightly or wrongly, people might reach the same conclusion about big data algorithms, they have lots of hitches, but we have no better alternative. Already, today, the truth is defined by the top results of the google search. For everything, we depend on google now, going somewhere, take help from google map, for eating outside, take help from google, for booking anything first take help from google. Whatever in the world, you want to know, just take help from the google.

With time, we are just going to live in a digital dictatorship world. The real problem with the technology is not the technology but the inventor and the user of those technologies. As with the robots, the problem is not their own artificial intelligence, but rather the natural stupidity and cruelty of their human masters. For example -  I July 1995 Bosnian Serb troops massacred more than 8000 Muslim Bosniaks around the town of Srebrenica.

So, what Yuval have for us in terms of Liberty - 

"Digital dictatorship are not the only danger awaiting us. Alongside liberty, the liberal order has also set great store by the value of equality. Liberalism always cherished political equality, and it gradually came to realize that economic equality is almost as important. For without a society safety net and a modicum of economic equality, liberty is meaningless. But just as big data algorithms might extinguish liberty, they might simultaneously create the most unequal societies that ever existed. All wealth and power might be concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite, while most people will suffer not from exploitation, but from something far worse- irrelevance."

4: Equality - Those who own the data own the future

In the last few decades, people all over the world were told that humankind is on the path to equality, and the globalization and modern technologies will help us get there sooner. The 21st century might create the most unequal societies in history.

As mentioned above the rise of AI might eliminate the economic value and political power of most humans. people will depend on AI and big data for everything soon. In the book, Yuval have warned us as - 

By 2100 the rich might really be more talented, more creative and more intelligent than the slum-dwellers. Once a real gap in ability opens between the rich and the poor, it will become almost impossible to close it. If the rich use their superior abilities to enrich themselves further, and if more money can buy them enhanced bodies and brain, with time the gap will only widen. By 2100, the richest 1% might own not merely most of the world's wealth, but also most of the world's beauty, creativity and health.

So, now the question arises, who owns the data? - Yuval, explained it as: 

"The data is owned by attention merchants. They capture our attention by providing us with free information, services and entertainment, and they then resell our attention to advertisers. Yet the data giants probably aim far higher than any previous attention merchant. Their true business isn’t to sell advertisements at all. Rather, by capturing our attention they manage to accumulate immense amount of data about us, which is worth more than any advertising revenue. We aren't their customers- we are their product."

"In the longer term, by bringing together enough data and enough computing power, the data-giants could hack the deepest secrets of life, and then use this knowledge not just to make choices for us or manipulate us, but also to re-engineer organic life and to create inorganic life forms."

"A popular app may lack a business model and may ever lose money in the short term, but as long as it sucks data, it could be worth billions."

"As more and more data flows from your body and brain to the smart machines via the bio metric sensors, it will become easy for corporations and government agencies to know you, manipulate you, and make decisions on your behalf."

Everywhere, everything is consuming your personal data and feeding in their systems to manipulate you as per their convenience and indirectly use you as their product and sell you to other organizations. So indirectly you become the product instead the consumer and the funny thing is that you don't know about it.

5: Community - Humans have bodies

The new trend of mobile, TV, computers, people started forgetting themselves. Observe, while eating, travelling, spending time with family and friends. Most of the people now, spends most of the time with their mobiles. They are too busy with their mobile, that even don’t notice, what's going on in their surroundings. On the misuse of mobiles, i have written in another post, you can read it here.

Yuval also mention this in his book as - 

"Humans have bodies. During the last century technology has been distancing us from our bodies. We have been losing our ability to pay attention to what we smell and taste. Instead we are absorbed in our smartphones and computers. We are more interested in what is happening in cyberspace then in what is happening down the street, It is easier than ever to talk to my cousin in Switzerland, but it is hard to talk to my husband/wife over breakfast, because he/she constantly look at his smartphone instead of at me."

"If you don't feel at home in your body, you will never feel at home in the world."

Instead of knowing people from other countries over the glob better to know your neighbors, better to know your close friends and spend time with them. Everything has a meaning, while eating if you keep looking in your mobiles, your attention is busy with the mobile instead of the food that you are consuming. It will impact bad on your body, because you are the product of what you consume. And the way you consume your food, decides how your body reacts out of it.

Take care of your energy your body and your time. It’s not everlasting. It is getting old and weak day by day.

We will discuss the remaining lessons learned from the book in other posts of this series. The other lessons will be on the topics from Civilization, Nationalism, Religion, Immigration, Terrorism, War, Humility, God, Secularism, Ignorance, Justice, Post-truth, Science fiction, Education, Meaning and Meditation.

I recommend the book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari to everyone, it’s a very good and knowledgeable book and while reading the books, it challenges you to think on many topics covered in the books.

The learning from the book will be continues in other posts, stay tunes and subscribe and follow the blog.

Thanks

-Mahesh

Fools say they learn by experience, I prefer to profit by other people’s experience

As we grow in life, we learn new things every day and it is important to learn new thing, as there is only one thing that is constant, and that thing is the change. So, the change is the only constant thing in the world. Whatever happen, the world will keep changing, it will never stop for anyone. So, to survive in this continuously changing world, you need to keep learning new things.

To learn new things, it depends on you, how you learn. With the speed the world is changing, it is very difficult for an individual to learn with the same speed as the world is changing. And to learn from your own experience is very limited, so what are the other ways, that you can learn from.

I can suggest, as you can learn from your experience, you can learn from other's experience, you can learn via reading good books, you can learn via reading good blogs, you can learn via teaching others, you can learn via writing blog or your personal journal.

On learning from others experience, Otto von Bismarck said:

“Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.”

people normally argue on why to read books, blogs, why to write blog or personal journal. They give common excuses like they don't have time, they are very busy, but they are not, instead they are not appropriate time manager of their own time. One thing you can observe in this world, the higher the position one man/women can have, the more work he/she must do, and he/she only save more time to do such activities like writing books, blogs or reading books. Any great personality of the world you can read (like Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet), they have time to perform all this activity. And i don't think that we are more responsible and busy then those leaders. So instead of arguing on it, just read the below quote in image and learn what we are. 

Bismarck famously said -

“fools say they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by other people’s experience.”

Whatever is that we are doing and trying to accomplish, other people have already gone through that and it’s all written down. People have been moving West, leaving school, investing their savings, getting dumped or filing for divorce, starting businesses, quitting their jobs, fighting, and dying for thousands of years. As Lord Chesterfield advised his son:

“Surely it is of great use to a young man, before he sets out for that country, full of mazes, windings, and turnings, to have at least a general map of it, made by some experienced traveler.”

So instead of learning from your own experience, start learning from other people experience as well and the best way to learn from other people experience is start reading good books, blogs and start teaching your learning to other people via any medium like writing blogs.

Let’s me close the post with the beautiful quite from Leo Tzu-

"Knowing others is intelligence, knowing yourself is true wisdom;

Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power."

So, to know yourself, you have to think about yourself and to think you need to read, so keep reading and keep learning.



-Mahesh

No problem so bad that we can’t make it worse

Think what the scariest thing you've ever done in your life?

That's how retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield opened his TED 2014 talk in Vancouver on Monday evening before describing what's it's like to blast into space.

"There is no problem so bad you can't make it worse" Hadfield said

During liftoff, Hadfield said, "you are in the grip of something vastly more powerful than yourself." He added: "It feels like being in the jaws of an enormous dog and foot in your back pushing you into space."

How do you deal with the very real risk and danger? "Having the goal in mind directed me to thinking about all of the small details." 

Its a lesson for us, and guide us how we can deal with the real risk and danger in our life. Always have a goal in mind and act accordingly and in the direction of your goal. I think a //TODO checklist will help us to work in the direction of our goals. We must prepare our weekly, monthly, yearly and long time goals and prepare the everyday //TODO checklist in the direction of our goals.

When dealing with such complicated machinery, the only thing you can do is prepare. 

In his TED talk, the astronaut advised us on with many life lessons, like always prepare yourself for the dangers, risks, so at the time of adversity you can fight against it.

Chris Hadfield is the author of "An Astronaut's Guide To Life on Earth" the star astronaut reveals more about astronaut training, spacewalks, and preparing for disasters.

You can watch the TED talk via the below video:

I do investment in stock market, and what i can relate here is the everyday volatility of the market. If you are a long term investor then stop looking at your stock price and performance daily. It will make the problem worse.

The daily market already too much volatile and on top of it, if you look the fluctuation in your holdings, it will force you to make more decisions of buying or selling. And at the end, you will end up with the loss only. So stop looking the holdings and the performance on daily basis.

The same is true to the major decisions of your life. Things will take time to reflect. So, just do right things at the right time and patiently wait the right outcome to come but remember, change your process of decision making and decisions when the facts change. You can read more about it here.

You can find the similar things in your family life, there are some quarrels in family and via reacting to that in wrong way, you are just increasing the problem not solving it. What you just need is, let the moment pass, be calm, be patient, you get the reward,let the bad moments go.

Remaining cool-headed in times of crisis and adversity is one of the most critical skills. The worst that can happen is not the event itself but the event and you losing your cool.

Chris Hadfield, the astronaut, reminds us that there is “no problem so bad that we can’t make it worse” and panicking is the best way to do that. Resolve, like John Adams did in a 1776 letter to his wife, that “the Panic may seize whom it will, it shall not seize me.” You can buy the collection of all letters here.

Keep reading, keep learning

-Mahesh

Death smiles at every man, and all a man can do is smile back

There is a line in the movie gladiator - now improperly attributed to the real life Marcus Aurelius in countless memes—

“death smiles at every man, and all a man can do is smile back.”

there is only one ultimate truth in this world and that is death. it will happen one day. whoever get birth, must die one day.

every religion has different explanation for death. like Hindu dharma says, that we just possess the body, but the soul is eternal, it will neither get birth nor die. it just changes the body like we change clothes. so, we should not worry about death, we just have to focus on our karma, we should just enjoy the journey between birth and death. this life is given to us just to enjoy the time on this planet with the given body and do right karma.

the writer of the bestselling book the outsider, Wolfgang Borchert writes a very interesting fact about death:

a man dies ... only a few circles in the water prove that he was ever there. and even they quickly disappear. and when they're gone, he's forgotten, without a trace, as if he'd never even existed. and that's all.

you can test, recall you grandfather, then your grandfather’s grandfather, i think you don't remember if you are not from any kingdom family or not from any celebrity family.

on this earth, out existence is only till we are alive, if we are a normal person, not any celebrity in any region. then why to think about other, about what other will say or think about your action or inaction.

William Shakespeare, the re-known poet, playwright and actor wrote about death: 

cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste of death but once.

it's true, we afraid of doing many things in our life that we want to do. one aspect of it is, we are sacrificing the desires that we want, for the sake of avoiding the problems in the future. in one way we are killing our actual desires and without desires we are not more than a dead person. the courageous person does what he wants to do, he faces problems and solve them and enjoy the life and then at the end like everyone he dies but he doesn’t have any desires left, that he regret. to explain the above argument, read the below quote, it will help to clarify the fear of death resides in us:

death is nothing; but we fear, to be we know not what, we know not where.  --John Dryden

the best lines, on life and death is by the poet Bhartrhari in "against the desire of worldly things":

morn after morn dispels the dark, bearing our lives away; absorbed in cares we fail to mark how swift our years decay; some maddening draught hath drugged our souls, in love with vital breath, which still the same sad chart unrolls, birth, eld, disease, and death.

...........

god satisfies the snake with air, grass to the cows is food and bed, man's nobler soul is clogged with care, struggling to gain his daily bread.

.............

i have not wasted life, but life hath wasted me, i have not chosen pain, but pain hath been my lot, some men make time their fool, but here time's fool you see, i've long been dead to joy but passion dieth not.

...........

insults i've borne, but not with patient mind, pleasures forborne, to which my heart inclined; put up with hunger, nakedness, and cold, not for the love of god, but love of god; thought much on wealth, but not on siva's feet, and broke my slumbers not to pray, but cheat; i've lived a hermit's life without his creed, made earth a hell, but gained no heavenly meed.

............

wrinkles deform my face, and hoary hairs my head, withered my youthful grace, but avarice blooms instead. the joys of sense will vanish soon, what do we gain thereby? those only store up merit who in all themselves deny; when pleasures flee, they leave behind a never-ending smart, but he who hurls them from him fills with heavenly peace his heart. as knowledge grows, content expands, and fell desire abates; but worldly joys, if long embraced, a baneful influence gain; thus indra, like a mortal king, hopes, trembles, loves, and hates, from having held through endless years an undisputed reign.

the above poem is full of wisdom on life and death. 

death is the natural part of your life, so instead of getting afraid from death, embrace it and enjoy the life. do the things that you really want to do. keep learning, keep exploring, keep experiencing the life, keep reading and keep writing.

-thanks

Mahesh

The Quiet Moments Are The Best Moments

In search of peace, we go to temples, churches, mosque, hills or any such place where noise is very low. We look peace in this place, instead inside ourselves. We have the calmest place inside our self.

We can meditate, can do Yoga, can do Dhyana (One form of Meditation) or just simply sit quite with empty mind. Do it just for 15 min daily and you can observe the new energy within you.

There is a line from Lao Tzu.

“Peace is in the emptiness. Emptiness is in the fast of the mind.” It’s in the quiet, still moments that we feel what matters in life. Standing on the shore of a lake. Looking out over a canyon. Resting your head against someone else’s. It’s a shortage of these moments that give rise to the feeling that we haven’t lived enough, that we have to keep going. Seeking them out, encouraging them is what makes you feel like you’ve done plenty."

In quest of gaining more, we forget the power of less, we forget to enjoy those, that we already have. We forget to spend time with our loved one's (Parents, Spouse, Kids etc.). We are just running behind an imaginary goal.

Just do a postmortem test on your life, think you are at the age of 65, now you are retired, you don't have any work to do, your desires are less now, you want to spend the time with your loved one's but unfortunately some of them is not with you now: It's life my friend! Your kids are young now, they are married, and they have their own life and they are too in the race of life. They also don't have time to spend with you now, the same as you were not having time to spend with them in their childhood.

We normally, skip the very important things for later in life, but my friend life does not stop for you, it will continue, and that later moment never come. Whatever is there, it is now. Spend the time with your loved ones, do the work you want to do now.

And when you realize this, when you are in quite moments. Spend some time with you only, alone. Just sit calm in one corner of your house or on any natural place, far from any kind of noise. Let the soul talk to you, that is the best conversation you would have in your life.

In a fast-paced world driven by noise, excitement, and continuous connections via mobile, Facebook etc., thanks to technology, I think we’ve lost an appreciation for something essential to the human experience: Quiet moments.

Each person has their own way to spend time with himself, t can be just sit calm and close your eyes and try to empty your mind, it can be just sit and start reading any good book, it can be exercise, it can be swimming. It can be anything that you enjoy doing.

In today's world, we are too busy with technology, mobiles, Facebook, twitter, WhatsApp, movies, news, TV etc. This all things do not matter to you most, when you think in a long term. News and TV programs are momentary, just collecting facts or information does not help you to improve the quality of your life. Increase the number of friends and like on Facebook and twitter does not help you to get a loyal friend and it also does not help you to improve your life. Too much use of mobile also not good, it may damage your eyes and there are many case where people lost their life while they were too busy with their mobiles.

Technology have both the sides, if you use it in proper way, it will help you to improve your life and your work. But if you misuse it, it will ruin your life, your relations, your health.

Now the question come, how do we overcome this noise in our lives and reconnect with our inner voice? Do we abandon society’s progress and values?

The answer is different for each person. These quiet moments can be a simple fifteen minutes unplugged on the deck in solitary reflection. They can be a trip to a local park or outdoor area or a temple, mosque, church. They can be a walk in a quiet section of town with a loved one or an afternoon on a lounge chair. They can be a long, hot bubble bath or an hour on a secluded exercise, swim.

These quiet moments come in all forms.

These moments remind us what truly brings joy and purpose to our lives. They remind us to live the life we have today, and to focus on the beauty around us in the present. They remind us there is so much to be thankful for and that life is a journey we need to appreciate every step of the way.

So, take a moment, take a break, and take some time to find the quiet in your life. For a moment or an afternoon or even a full day, let the sun and the outdoors be your life’s soundtrack from time to time. Let the quietude of your surroundings remind you that life is beautiful and meant to be appreciated.

Most of all, let the quiet moments in life remind you that your inner voice deserves to be heard.

I think the below image is the best help to get more quiet moments in our life.

-Keep reading, Keep learning

-Mahesh

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what you want, the other is getting it

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what you want, the other is getting it.-Oscar Wilde

In life, everyday we need to make many decisions and the outcome of those decisions decide our future. Sometimes the outcome is in our favor and sometimes it's not. When the outcome is not in our favor, we feel measurable and it becomes a tragedy.

Every action of ours have a defined wants to achieve something and outcome of the action had only two possibilities, either we get what we want or we don't get the want.

We always desire something that we even do not know what it really is, but the problem, here, we will not be satisfied by our desires even we get it. There will be always some missing elements, and even our desires will change its forms. However, the interesting part is that when we lose it, our desires for that object will boil up again, which is the other tragedy that we all experience in our lives.

For a moment, let's imagine, that I make you the offer of a lifetime:

I am going to give you rs 100 million, but…you have to accept this money publicly during a widely televised event.Would you take my offer?

Before I even finish this sentence, your mind is already racing about what you could do with rs 100 million. You could own your home, you would never have to work again, and you could say goodbye to your boring job forever. Wouldn’t life be big? Accepting the money is a no-brainer, right?

But think about what else this offer entails. You are worth rs 100 million and everyone knows it. Long lost lovers and friends that you fell out of touch with are coming out of nowhere. They apologize for being too busy to keep up with you, but were “just thinking of you” the other day.

In fact, You now have hundreds of newly found “relatives” who can’t wait to meet you. Unscrupulous financial advisors are blowing up your phone and every charity in the world is trying to convince you why their cause is the most worthy. Forevermore you won’t know who actually cares about you and who just wants to get closer to the money. Who is legitimate and who is a charlatan? Who can you really trust?

It’s easy to see how rs 100 million would arguably improve your life without even trying. However, it’s much harder to imagine the 2nd order (and higher) effects of having this much money.

Remember, money and fame can destroy lives too. It can happen to anyone. While the upsides are clear, the downsides are obscured. You can imagine the benefits, but not the hidden costs.

Felix Dennis writer of How to Get Rich: One of The World’s Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets:

Still, let me repeat it one more time. Becoming rich does not guarantee happiness. In fact, it is almost certain to impose the opposite condition—if not from the stresses and strains of protecting wealth, then from the guilt that inevitably accompanies its arrival.

Or, how about what one of the greatest modern financial writers George Goodman wrote in The Money Game:

I have known a lot of investors who came to the markets to make money, and they told themselves that what they wanted was the money: security, a trip around the world, a new sloop, a country estate, an art collection, a Caribbean house for cold winters. And they succeeded. So they sat on the dock of the Caribbean home, chatting with their art dealers and gazing fondly at the new sloop, and after a while it was a bit flat. Something was missing.

Yet, this goes beyond just getting rich. Time and time again I have seen how our society idealizes things that are littered with hidden costs. We want the great body, but without the exercise. We want the returns, but without the risks. We want the lake house, but without the frozen pipes bursting because we forgot to put in antifreeze.

We can idolize wealth, status, fame, and beauty all we want, but we don’t think about what happens if we ever actually get them…

Be Careful What You Wish For

“There are only two tragedies in life:one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it ”

I believe it’s a perfect example of human thinking, we humans really don’t know what we actually want in life.We keep on discovering what we desires from life.

If somehow we discover what one wants then by “not getting it” you end up by chasing your desire with accomplished DEPRESSION for not getting it.

If somehow “someone gets what one wants ” then you will LOOSE it’s worth soon and it all will seems as a basic thing of life.

When we finally get the things we are chasing after, will they truly make us happy or fulfilled?

-Keep reading, keep learning

-Mahesh

Eisenhower matrix - How to prioritize, what matters

“The most urgent decisions are rarely the most important ones.”—Dwight Eisenhower

We are the result of the decisions, that we made in our past life. It may be the education stream selection like I selected the post-graduation stream as computer and become a software developer, it may be the physical health, mental health, it may be your social life, it may be the habits you choose. Your decision of choosing, decides your future.

We always complain that we don't have time, we are always busy, we are fatty etc. This all are the outcome of our bad choices. We need to manage our time and life properly.

So, it is very important that we should choose right decisions today, so we never regret in future. Now the question is, how we take right decisions? 

We take hundreds of small decisions in our daily life, and some of them are very quick. It's fine to take some less important decisions quickly without much thought but there are many important decisions, we need to make in our life, that may define our future. For those important decisions and slightly less important decisions, we need to give proper thought and then take decisions and do the actions.

To make the right decisions, Dwight D. Eisenhower has developed a decision metrix. It is very simple and help a lot to make the right decisions in our life.

Eisenhower’s productivity is legendary not only because of his accomplishments but also because his methods stood the test of time and worked in various situations. Through various roles and environments, Eisenhower delivered with remarkable consistency for decades.

The Eisenhower Matrix is his best-known technique. It’s a simple decision-making tool that you can  start using today.

The Eisenhower Method

The Eisenhower Matrix has four parts, which you use to categorize the work in front of you:

     1: Important, but not urgent

     2: Urgent and important

     3: Urgent but not important

     4: Not important and not urgent

If you think about it for a second, you realize that the Eisenhower Matrix can help you not only with prioritizing what you work on today, but also with deciding which big projects to work on. The matrix helps you distinguish between what is important and what is urgent.

Whenever something comes on your desk, begin by breaking it down and deciding how to proceed.

The key to making the Eisenhower Matrix work is distinguishing between the urgent and the important.

Urgent tasks are time sensitive, sometimes because we have put them off until we can’t anymore. These tasks can be anything from responding to emails and returning phone calls, to realizing that you’re almost out of gas and have a report due in 20 minutes.

If we’ve put off doing an urgent task that’s also important, then when we finally tackle it, we’re probably not going to think about it as much as we had intended to or as much as we should. We’re setting ourselves up to make poor decisions.

Important tasks are more strategic. They are things we want to get done, such as launching a new product. These tasks are deliberate. We want to pay attention to them and they mean something to us. Rather than being reactive and irrational, we can, with the right planning, be thoughtful and engaged. Because we’re not reactive, we can avoid mistakes. This will free up future time.

For those, who always excuses that they are busy. Tim Ferriss said the below quotes:

“Being busy is a form of laziness — lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.”—Tim Ferriss

Ask yourself when you’re going to deal with things that are important but not urgent. Ask yourself why you’re avoiding what’s important but not urgent. Are you scared of something? Are you procrastinating? Are you too distracted?

How to use Eisenhower Matrix in Practice

I use this matrix routinely as part of my productivity system. It’s helped me stay focused on where I want to go and not get too bogged down in things that don’t add much value.

The conventional wisdom is that you should do the next thing on your to-do list.

Important and non-urgent tasks are scheduled and generally worked on in the early afternoons.

Important and urgent tasks are worked on right away or scheduled and are always evaluated.

The urgent and not-important tasks are usually, though not always, delegated. Take help from someone to help you on this kind of tasks.

The not important and not urgent tasks in the list, no need to attend, just remove from the list. It will save you lot of extra time. example of such tasks: Watching television, doing time pass on mobile, you tube etc.

Time management should be your key decision of the day. Do it properly.

-Keep reading, Keep learning

-Mahesh

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated

Confucius had said 2,500 years earlier, 

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”

Jon Jandai gave a TED talk on simplicity of the life, have a look here. 

the crux of what he says is that we don’t have to do what society tells us, we can have the life we want, and our choices determine if we get such a life.

Consider saving money and investing it well over a long period of time. This is all you need to create wealth. Simple, right? But the question again is, like Jon asked, why do we make it so hard?

Of course, money isn’t everything in life. But it sure does help to consistently spend less than you earn and invest the difference well. Over time, compounding will do the rest for you.

Living a minimalist, no frills, life is a powerful idea

The quicker you grasp this simple idea about saving versus spending, the quicker you will be able to start living like a free bird…even if you don’t have many millions in your bank.

Charlie Munger once described the secret of success as 

“take a simple idea and take it seriously.”

Spending way less than you earn and investing that difference well over a long period of time is that simple idea.

This is a very simple blog post and very small in size but it will help us to live a very fulfilled life.Think about it.

-Keep reading, keep learning
-Mahesh