Manifesting a Beautiful Environment Around Us

On World Environment Day, it occurred to me that the most important environment is not spoken about: The 'Inner' Environment.

How will the environment around us change, when we internally remain the same?

Religion, spirituality and science, all agree in unison that the external environment is a manifestation of the inner self. Which leads me to believe that a green, clean, unpolluted earth will manifest from a commensurate mindset.

If Workplaces Functioned & Graded Like Traditional Academics...

Yet again, it's that time of the year: When students in India are being ranked on their ability to rote learn their yearly quota of "curriculum".

But, if education is expected to prepare students for a career, shouldn't it be more in sync with how workplaces function?

For amusing ourselves, let's imagine what a workplace would look like, if it followed the grading rules and methods of educational institutions and exams:

- You should work individually and not in a team.

- You cannot share your work and reports with others.

- Each person in the meeting must take down a separate Minutes of the Meeting and it should not be shared with others.

- The Minutes must be memorized as the Boss can ask you to repeat them at another time. If you cannot speak without referring to your notes, you are stupid, incompetent, nincompoop, and your daddy is wasting money on you.

- You cannot collaborate on projects. You can be fined, punished, suspended, detained or even thrown out for collaborating.

- You primarily get paid for showing up, and you can generally get by, by applying sly memory methods taught by tutorials 

- You cannot use a calculator, a mobile phone, messaging apps, collaborating apps, or Google. These are taboo, and can be a serious offence leading to end of career.

These examples can go on and on, of how a workplace would be like if it followed the amusing practices followed by educational institutions and systems to grade students. Can you think of some too? Add to the comments below and we'll have some more fun, poking the system.

"No! Not Ambitious Enough..!"

Recently, I was drawn into a conversation about Ambition and Ambitious-ness by a parent who was seeking admission for his daughter. The impromptu conversation led me to making statements and some interesting realizations:

- Tangible Vs. Intangible:  Ambition is not something that can be measured tangibly. Nor can we take a preset criteria and announce that X is more ambitious than Y because of A, B and C.

- CXO Vs. Rat Race: Corporate success cannot be the measuring rod for ambition. Can a CXO who wakes up and isn't thrilled about going to work on Monday morning, be called ambitious? Or is s/he just another one in the rat race?

- Happiness Quotient: Can happiness be an ambition? Can a person who is very happy, be considered ambitious? Or is that person the anti-thesis of ambition? Because, by concept, ambition seems to mean striving for something you right now, either don't have, or aren't.

- Family Vs. Career: If a person chooses to be a stay-at-home parent, and is happy about raising a good family, isn't that person ambitious too?

- Head Vs. Heart: What about a wanderer who follows his heart?

- The Buddha Conundrum: And if we return to the typical definition of ambition, wouldn't we classify Buddha as an unambitious escapist, who left the palace and kingship for the woods and solitude?

Defining ambition is an awkward attempt, at best. I think its best that we not try to define it for others, nor let others define it for the self. Let each of us decide our own life paths and what we will consider as a life well lived. And that, is ambitious enough.