Waziristan Champions

Waziristan has been calling for attention for quite some time now. Education system is nonexistent in the region. Local clerics have been acting as judges, law makers and law enforces. Foreign military has been bombing the area for years now killing tons of innocent people. As a country, we never cared.

Finally something happened in Waziristan that opened eyes of the whole country. For once the whole country was talking about nothing but Waziristan. They decided to celebrate Eid a day ahead of the rest of the country.

Suddenly Facebook and twitter were flooded with updates about Waziristan. Sarcastic jokes and comments took the social media by storm. There were talk shows about the situation in  Waziristan. People took the liberty to blame 'Pathan mentality' and 'naswar' for the early sighting of the moon. I want to make one humble request. Sarcasm aside, why did it happen?

Claiming to have sighted moon before the moon was born is an act of sheer ignorance. But is 'naswar' to blame for the situation? Lets have a look at the regional situation from a layman's point of view since the so-called-independence. What have we done as a country to eradicate ignorance in the region? Have we built a university there? Have we raised our voice when colleges and schools were being closed down? Did we raise concern when local clerics termed anti-polio campaign 'haram' and decided to make their own laws? Did we even think about investments and job market in the area? Did we do anything for 'Mujahideen' who fought against the USSR? Next time you point a finger at them because they decided to celebrate Eid a day ahead, take a moment to think you understand the whole moon birth thing because you went through a school, a college and probably a university.

On Eid day there were at least two drone strikes in Waziristan. Facebook and twitter heroes decided not to say a word. People of Waziristan will probably have to celebrate another Eid a day or two ahead of us for us to remember them again.

PI: The Popularity Index

When you open your text-books, one thing you realise right away is that you don't have to be a genius to have your own theory. Every Tom, Dick and Harry have their own theory which most of the times don't make sense. I would hereby present a theory and become either Tom or Harry. I have serious issues with being the other guy!

If you appear daily on national television and on every other billboard as we drive on the highway, probably no one would question your popularity. But the problem is that we are not the red-carpet superstars. We are superstars in our very own unique ways. How popular is everyone? This is where the theory comes handy.

The theory states that there are certain indicators that measure your popularity. These indicators are SMART. Specific, measurable.. err... whatever, they are just smart! The indicators are listed here in no specific order and the list is not exhausted. You are always allowed to make me say "Why didn't I think of that?"

1: The frequency of your facebook status updates:

XYZ person is thinking of cleaning the room - 2 minutes ago - 239483 people like this, 39842 comments

XYZ person is getting up to clean the room - 1 minute ago - 3234098 people like this, 39287 comments

XYZ person changed their mind and is not cleaning the room - less than a minute ago, 343834508 people like this, 34294732 comments.

Sounds familiar? Yes that person on your list that you hate. Specially if you are the one who updates their status once every few weeks and get no comments. Remember, you are not the only one!

2: Incoming talk time Vs Outgoing talk time on your cell phone:

The devil made me check that on my cell phone one day. I swore to the heavens above that I wont check it again. Or even talk about it again. If you want to know the 'ugly truth', please do so on your own risk!

3: The number of people who say 'Hi' as you walk from one end of the campus to the other:

This one is particularly deceptive. It is usually assumed to be a measure of popularity but it could also be a measure of being a nerd. Think twice before you include this in your final result. But the rule of thumb is: if people from opposite gender were at least twice the number of your gender, it is more likely to be a measure of popularity.

4: How many people poke their noses in when all you try is to have a cup of coffee with your beloved:

Another very risky method to use. It could be your near-celebrity-status that keeps you from having some private time. Or you could be so unpopular that people might find it hard to believe that you actually are having a cup of coffee with someone from the opposite gender. That gives them a very good reason to drop by and say hi!

The list could go on for ever. Everyone may have their own measures. But the question to me is not how popular one is. But how important one is. It doesn't really mean a thing to me how much I score on the tests above, but what matters is how many people think about me before they hit the bed. More importantly who thinks about me before they hit the bed.

PS: The author was formerly a sane person. The government has recognised his skills by advising all the citizens to avoid taking his words seriously.

Wise and the Fool

Presley sang: "Wise men say only fools rush in". But even he couldn't help being the fool. What is so wrong with being the fool? What is so wrong with rushing in anyway?

If you happen to be a student of finance or a related area, something that you will hear over and over again is that there is no free lunch in this world. And that great rewards come only with great risks. If you happen to be going through any motivational material, you would most probably be urged to take that half opportunity. Ignore what people say but just 'rush in'. In short, everyone asks you to be the fool. So what is so wrong with being the fool?

The wise, the ones thinking twice before they take a step are missing out on joy of taking the risk. As if they give up living their life so they can arrive at their death bed in a good shape. What good is a life if you never lived it?

I would love to take my half chances. I wouldn't regret jumping off a cliff if I believed I could fly. I would love to be the fool. The only wisdom I need is to know that all I want to do is to fly. Its no rocket science.

But being the fool isn't as simple as it sounds. There is a lot to suffer, a lot to give up and in the end could leave you with nothing. Half-way through the jump from the cliff you could realise that the calculation was a mess and you couldn't fly! But who cares? You never could make it if you didn't gave it a go! In the end when you look back at life, you would at least know that you gave it a go. At least you dreamed, at least you lived.

Moral: The finance guys are right when they tell you great reward comes with great risks. May be that is the reason everyone 'rushed in' to buy the subprime securities.

PS: I'm no writer. I'm no wise man. If you be the fool and fly, good on you! If you don't fly, you must be a fool to listen to a fool. But cheer the fact that you tried.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

IN the Australian court of law, and I’m sure in majority of other courts as well, everyone is assumed to be innocent until proven guilty. Yet the courts are often perceived to be a horrible place to end up in. In layman terms it means that if one is not convicted, they walk away free of any blame. For this presumption, I think courts are not as bad as they generally look.

Now, lets have a look at the world outside the courts.  Lets walk into the world of prejudice and social-stigmas, the world of stereotypes and labels. Suddenly we find that we are no more innocent. Even though nothing has been proven against us, it seems like we all walk as convicts. Everyone seems to have their own court, themselves being the judges. Everyone is tried in these courts all the time.  The worst part of this court is that the only real element is its judgement.  There never is a free trail. But the judgement and the consequences are very real.

It would not be practical of talking about a world with no ‘personal-courts’ and judgments. So it is through empathy that we can get any near to a free trail. Before judging anyone, wouldn’t it be great if we walked a mile in their shoes? The ‘paradigm-shifts’ would change the very way we think. We would learn to keep our thinking so broad that we don’t feel like an idiot after we have those ‘paradigm-shifts’.  

Lets learn something from the court of law. Let everyone be innocent until proven guilty. Lives are not as easy as they seem. Lets get ready for the blisters we get from walking in people’s shoes. Let empathy be the first rule

 

PS: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Personal experience and thoughts, a few judgements helped me write all this. Please ignore the writing style as I am not a writer.

Luck, Bad-luck and Destiny

Some genius said 'Luck equals opportunity times preparation'. In mathematical terms, Luck = Opportunity x Preparation. Most of the times it just sounds non-sense, but for me the key is always to assume that the opportunity is 1. So if you get one opportunity, your luck should be equal to your preparation (its basic math. If you don't understand ask the guy sitting to the left. The one on the right is probably a mathematical idiot too). For most of the 'bad-lucks' that we have, its probably lack of preparation. Its when you get the opportunity and you cant make anything out of it. Instead of blaming ourselves, we put the blame on luck. Good management skills!

But what happens when you are fully prepared to take the opportunity which you just thought existed. In fact it never did. Would it be called destiny? Or should we scrap the above definition of luck and go on to label it as bad-luck? Some of us play the blame-game in a different way. God takes the blame in this version. What ever the version is played, anyone but ourselves are to take the blame. This seems pretty logical as the existence of the opportunity is not always in our circle of influence. Taking personal responsibility in such cases seem quite hard or even illogical at times.

It is probably only after we give up that we look for someone to take the blame. Should we ever give up and start playing the blame-game? The answer probably 'no'. The answer being no, lucky people are the ones who never give up trying. Those who never start the blame game but keep on trying. Trying, sometimes however, makes no sense. It makes no sense to me right now. I feel tired. So I look for someone to take all the blame...

PS: I'm no writer. Its just an attempt to put feelings into words. Please ignore the short-comings. Some of the concepts are taken from various books that I've read and lectures that I've attended.

Something

“I will do something about it”, he said while thinking. What? Do something about it? SOMETHING? There is nothing called something. So its safe to say that something is nothing. And what he actually meant was that he was doing nothing about it.

Go back in your life and see if I am talking about you. Don’t worry about the he and she stuff. There is already a huge debate going on about that on some other blog. We have more important things to discuss. Whenever we feel lazy to do ‘something’ we usually end up saying ‘I’m going to do something about it’. Unless and  until you don’t know what thing, its safe to assume that its nothing. So its all about planning? Kind of! You need to know what your next step is. For that you need to know what your destination is. What your direction is. As someone (I don’t remember who) said something like, “No matter how fast you are running, you will never reach your destination if you don’t know where you are going”. And thats as true as it gets.

But plans never work out. Things always go wrong. But does that means we should stop planning? Yes! Just like road accidents mean that we should stop driving. And ladies should seriously stop driving! They had enough chance to learn but I think they should give up now. But again, we have a more serious issue to discuss over here. When things go wrong, when things go against the plan, that exactly is the moment which tells the men from the boys. And we are not talking about ladies here anyway.

Moral: You have to know what you want and plan for it. And remember that things don’t always go according to plan in life. But the real success is when you know that nothing has gone according to plan and instead of looking back and wishing things were different, you look forward and see which path to walk now.

Life: The roller coaster ride.

They say life is just like a roller coaster ride. If that's true, I am on the most boring roller coaster ride ever. I wake up every morning, go to the office/class, waste my day there and then I don't have energy left for anything else to do. I mark days on calender just to know how many days are left till the next weekend. On weekends, I have too many things to do (or just watch Formula1).  Doesn't seem like a roller coaster ride, does it?

Now lets go back to the amusement park. Back to the roller coaster. Remember how the ride starts? It has to gain kinetic energy. The formula for kinetic energy is.. this is not a physics class! The point is that you have to go up first. Remember that part of the ride? There is nothing too special about that part of the ride itself. Just like the life I am living today. But what do I do? Sit there and say that this is the most boring roller coaster ride? Of course not! I smile and my heart beats like a drum. And the only reason behind that is that I am sure that this is going to end soon. Once I am on the top, this is going to change. This is going to be one exciting high speed ride. But for that I will have to take all this pressure and rise to the top.

Now life isn't forever. I should know where the 'top' is. Or life would be topless. In some cases that would be better, but that's not all you want. I know I should be getting back on track. The point is, that you should know where the top is. Where your ride should begin. Where all the tension goes and you just take that high speed ride. The problem: Most of us don't even know where the top is. We don't have an idea that life isn't just going up but the ride too.

We need to sit down and think about it. We need to decide where the top is, how we are going to reach there and what is our ride going to be after that. It is not as easy at it sounds but it certainly is possible. It wouldn't take you long to describe your friend but when asked to describe yourself, you'll probably say your name (or your cell phone number, depending on who asks).

Once  you know what the top is, you need to decide what kind of ride do you want. After being at top you deserve the ride. Imagine someone throwing you down just when the ride is about to start. And that's you yourself. 

Moral: Life IS a roller coaster ride. Its up to you to make the ride more interesting than just going to the top at snail pace.

And once you decide where the top is, stick to it. Because life never is perfect. You can always say "Hokai! This is good but what if the top is a little higher?". And that way you may always be following the top and miss the bottom where all the fun is!

Moral-2: Know where the top is. Know where the fun should start.