45 Life Lessons

45 Life Lessons - Fetched from Internet..

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short not to enjoy it.
4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will.
5. Don’t buy stuff you don’t need.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Stay true to yourself.
7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for things that matter.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye… But don’t worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful.  Clutter weighs you down in many ways.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It’s never too late to be happy.  But it’s all up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Overprepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words, ‘In five years, will this matter?’
27. Always choose Life.
28. Forgive but don’t forget.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give Time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d
grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. Accept what you already have, not what you think you need.
42. The best is yet to come…
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

An intersting timely article from Times

Are you sizing her up?

A category of women willingly takes advantage of a man’s weakness for the female anatomy, seeing nothing wrong with using their sexuality as bait

Vinita Dawra Nangia
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

    SIZING her up, are you? Ah ha, and you think she doesn’t have any idea what you are up to? Think again. For, she knows. A woman has eyes at the back of her head when it comes to a man looking at her in a particular manner. Her antenna starts beeping and she reacts or responds, depending on how she feels about you!
    So knock those eyeballs back in and roll your lolling tongue right back. For, she could be having a good laugh at your expense. And, the woman who is with you? She certainly knows what you are up to as well and is just waiting for you to turn and look her way. Seen the new Anne French ad? A guy swivels around to look at a pair of silky smooth legs that walk into a restaurant. His eyes follow the legs as they are crossed sensuously, one on top of the other. As he turns back to his female companion, he is greeted with a resounding slap. Camera pans to Kareena; she winks at the girl, who winks back, and they exchange a smile. Kareena looks into the camera and says, “Breakup karwana ho ya gorgeous skin paana ho, naya…..Anne French Roll. Life is on a roll!
    An apt representation of reality. The only one who’s left feeling the fool is the man now alone at the table. The women have conspired, taken advantage of his natural male weakness and played a trick on him. And, why not? If you go around begging for it, anyone would take advantage. If you show your interest so blatantly, you are bound to be taken for a ride!
    If men have been accused of sexual harassment at the workplace, women have their own brand of harassment which uses their own sexuality as their most potent weapon. This is “the raunch culture” that Ariel Levy blasts in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the rise of Raunch Culture. She blames present American culture squarely for encouraging women to objectify themselves, because of which young girls believe they have to be “the hottest” and “the sexiest” rather than “the most accomplished”.
    “If Male Chauvinist Pigs were men who regarded women as pieces of meat, we would outdo them and be Female Chauvinist Pigs: women who make sex objects of other women and of ourselves,” says Ariel, dripping sarcasm in her book. In doing so women seem to strangely imagine they are furthering the cause of Feminism. In reducing the amount of clothing we wear, in piercing our navels and whatever else, and in exposing cleavages and thongs, we imagine we are exhibiting the freedom of choice and spirit of independence. As if in the display of skin and the stupefying effect it seems to have on men, we are empowered. And men seem not to understand the game in which they are led by the …er…nose, willingly enough.
If the boss is lascivious, there is a certain kind of girl who will take full advantage of his weakness and think nothing of exploiting it. She will string him along, flutter her eyelashes, smile enchantingly and give him wet dreams for a long, long time. She may even throw in some suggestive jokes on the cellphone or a naughty message just as he gets ready for bed at night. And not just the lascivious ones, even men who are obviously in awe of pretty yo u n g things and all but pant at their sight, are likely to be led d ow n t h e g a r - den path by a girl skilled enough at the art, with no compunction.
    The middle-aged Indian male is a sitting duck for the Lipstick Feminists who think nothing of using their sexuality as bait and consider sexual allure as synonymous with women empowerment. So make no mistake. When she leans over to hand you the papers, she knows exactly where your eyes are straying and staying stuck. When she bends to pick up the papers that have slipped to the floor, she knows you are trying to decipher the tattooed words just above her butt cleavage or admiring the colour of her thong. And when she is explaining the intricacies of her labour on the project you gave her, she knows as you stroke your chin thoughtfully, you are more focused on the images playing out in your mind rather than her words!
    Despite your words of encouragement and lavish praise, she knows it’s not her work that inspires those words of admiration, but your hope of what else she may be willing to
do for you. The younger the girl, the more the older boss is flattered by her attentions. And if she knows this, why then would she not take advantage of the guy’s slippery morality to further her own cause? She may or may not give you what you want but she will certainly string you along and milk you for what it’s worth!
    As women shed clothes and inhibitions, Ariel complains in her book, “Spectacles of naked ladies have moved from seedy side streets to center-stage, where everyone — men and women — can watch them in broad daylight. Playboy and its ilk are being ‘embraced by young women in a curious way in a post-feminist world’, to borrow the words of Hugh Hefner.”
    However, much as all men are not predators, all women out there are not using their sexuality to lure men either. Most of us, men as well as women, just do our own thing….

THE SHOE BOX

A man and woman had been married for more than 60 years. They had shared everything. They had talked about everything. They had kept no secrets from each other except that the little old woman had a shoe box in the top of her closet that she had cautioned her husband never to open or ask her about.

For all of these years, he had never thought about the box, but one day the little old woman got very sick and the doctor said she would not recover.

In trying to sort out their affairs, the little old man took down the shoe box and took it to his wife's bedside. She agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the box. When he opened it, he found two knitted dolls and a stack of money totaling $95,000.

He asked her about the contents.

'When we were to be married,' she said, ' my grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and knit a doll.'

The little old man was so moved; he had to fight back tears. Only two precious dolls were in the box. She had only been angry with him two times in all those years of living and loving. He almost burst with happiness.

'Honey,' he said, 'that explains the dolls, but what about all of this money? Where did it come from?'

'Oh,' she said, 'that's the money I made from selling the dolls.' :)

Hit the communication Bulls-eye

Most top managers around the world tend to overestimate the strength of their communication skills. They often think that since they communicate at work, and since they are successful at their jobs, they must be good communicators.

However, more often than not they are wrong. They are rising through the ranks for various reasons, but they’d go even further in their careers if they worked on their communication a bit. What are they doing wrong? All too often they are talking to other people as if they were talking to themselves.

What they need to remember is just as different people have different personalities, different people have different communication styles, too. Expecting others to communicate the same way they do is as unrealistic as expecting everyone to have the same kind of personality they do. Managers stuck in that unrealistic mindset get less of their message across, and only hear a fraction of the messages being sent their way.

The key to improving communication with coworkers is to understand their different personality types. They don’t need to be psychologists to understand personality types. All that they need is some basic observational skills and the willingness to adjust communication techniques for different types of people.

First, it's important to understand the coworkers’ personality types, then find ways to tailor the style a bit for each one. More of things will get across to the people, and we could receive more of their messages, too. The more every team member understands about every other member, the better this approach will work. We could find the team far more effective when everyone is communicating well with each other.

- Mani.

Be a part of the game!

Social networking has become a ubiquitous feature of online life. It can change the world! Yes. Barack Obama's campaign itself provided evidence that the tools of "Web 2.0" - the community-driven web - can really make a difference.

Even people who don't own a computer know what blogging is. Everyone is talking about it. Heck, even the Doonesbury comic strip ran a few panels on the subject. Anna Kournikova even has a blog for crying out loud!

So, if you can find a decent subject to blog about, there is no reason NOT to get blogging!

Good luck for the few fellow contributors, who have accepted my invitation to blog.

-Mani.

Trust

What is trust and how is trust usefully defined for the workplace? Can you build trust when it doesn’t exist? How do you maintain and build upon the trust you may currently have in your workplace? These are important questions for today’s rapidly changing world.

Trust forms the foundation for effective communication, employee retention, and employee motivation and contribution of discretionary energy, the extra effort that people voluntarily invest in work.

When trust exists in an organization or in a relationship, almost everything else is easier and more comfortable to achieve.

Trust is of components: "the capacity, the perception of competence, and the perception of intentions."

The capacity for trusting means that your total life experiences have developed your current capacity and willingness to risk trusting others.

The perception of competence is made up of your perception of your ability and the ability of others with whom you work to perform competently at whatever is needed in your current situation.

The perception of intentions, is your perception that the actions, words, direction, mission, or decisions are motivated by mutually-serving rather than self-serving motives.

Trust is the basis for much of the environment you want to create in your work place. Trust is built and maintained by many small actions over time. Trust is not a matter of technique, but of character; we are trusted because of our way of being, not because of our polished exteriors or our expertly crafted communications.

So fundamentally, trust, is the cornerstone, the foundation, for everything you'd like your organization to be now and for everything you'd like it to become in the future. Lay this groundwork well.

Trust is telling the truth, even when it is difficult, and being truthful, authentic, and trustworthy in your dealings with customers and staff. Can profoundly-rewarding, mission-serving, life- and work-enhancing actions get any simpler than this? Not likely.

- Mani.

Boss Vs. Leaders

I often find that many people confuse leadership with positional power. We tend to believe that a person in a position of authority or someone with a title, has their position or title due to their leadership qualities. However, in many cases there is no correlation between someone’s position and their leadership quality. Just having a title does not make one a leader, leaderships is about influence. Title only buys time to exercise true leadership, and in this time leadership either increases or diminishes and eventually fails. There is a huge difference between being a boss and being a leader…! Consider the following…

• A Boss creates fear. A leader creates confidence.
• Bossism creates resentment. Leadership creates enthusiasm.
• A Boss says "I". A leader says "We".
• Boss says "Get here on time". Leaders get there ahead of time.
• A Boss fixes blame. A leader fixes mistakes.
• A Boss knows how. A leader shows how.
• Bossism makes work drudgery. Leadership makes work interesting.
• A Boss relies on authority. A Leader relies on cooperation & good will.
• A Boss drives. A Leader coaches people.
• Boss says "Go". Leader says "Let's Go".

People follow the boss because they have to and if they want to keep their jobs. People follow leaders because of who they are and were they are going. Too many leaders today rely on their position to lead. How about you?

- Mani.