Signs of a closed mind

"This is who I am." "This is how it has always been done." "Because that's our culture." These are just a few statements we hear people around us saying or saying ourselves, either casually or purposely. We use these statements to demonstrate that our prior experiences dictate our current and future decisions. However, in reality, we are expressly admitting that who we have been in the past will control our future, and we are not open to any challenges to our beliefs and values. In short, we accept that we are prisoners of our past. This is not a sign of self-growth, but one of the signs of a closed mind. The general perception is that people who do not have access to information or knowledge suffer from closed minds. However, this perception has been proven wrong as even with access to unlimited information people are becoming more guarded about their beliefs. That is, they chose to close their minds rather than being open to contrary information. 

Why do people do this? Well, there can be multiple reasons, but one of the major reasons is, fear of change and comfort of the status quo. Change is uncomfortable, especially, when we have to change or update our beliefs, or modify our behavior. We do not like to accept that we are wrong, especially, when it comes to our personal, religious, or political beliefs. We feel these beliefs are part of our identity and are reluctant to change them. We try our best to resist change, no matter how factual or accurate the evidence is to prove us wrong. This is when we show the symptoms of a closed mind. We take shelter from whatever lame reasons we can find to justify our stance. However, no matter how much we try, it is not possible to run away from facts. Truth doesn't disappear just because we close our eyes. A closed mind might offer temporary comfort, but sooner or later we are bound to face reality and if we remain truthful to ourselves realize our mistake. 

What's the solution? Check regularly if you have any symptoms of a closed mind. If yes, consciously try to update your knowledge and make sure that your sources of information are diverse and verified. We have access to resources that were not available to humans at any point in history so far, it will be shameful if we don't make proper use of these resources. Be informed and be open-minded. All the very best. 

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

No one is watching

We all are told that someone is watching us all the time. I was told as a child that god is watching all the time, once that didn't work I was told that some ghost was watching, if that failed it changed to the police are watching, once the effect of this also waned, then some other scary thing was watching. I feel the intent behind making people believe that someone is always watching is to stop them from doing wrong things. Especially, if that someone has the power to control and punish you we are supposed to behave to get the approval of that entity by behaving as per that entity's will. This myth was busted at some point when I witnessed so many wrong things happening in front of my own eyes and that powerful entity who was supposed to watch and take note of things didn't do anything to stop these atrocities. I realized that no one was watching. No one can watch everyone at the same time and monitor what they are doing. We are on our own and there is no virtue in doing something good just because someone is watching us. One should be good irrespective of whether anyone is watching or not, otherwise, it is a forced act not spontaneous or based on our own conscience. 

Religion particularly uses the concept of an omnipresent god who is supposed to be present everywhere and watch everyone all the time. All who believe in religion accept this notion of this omnipresent entity, addressed by different names in different religions. However, after witnessing various atrocities committed in the name of religion one can see that this threat is clearly not working. Communal violence is a glaring problem even today and all religions are guilty of this. People who believe in a real sense of community welfare and peace will behave with compassion and love with or without religion. Any civilized person does not need any threat or lure to behave compassionately towards others. Hatemongers will perpetuate hate and violence by using whatever tool they get, religion, politics, or anything else. Hence, ask yourself how will you behave with others if no one is watching. This will give you an understanding of your moral compass. If you behave nice because of fear or some lure like heaven, try to be nice without fear or lure. If you hate someone because of their religion/race/gender/sexual orientation/nationality/caste, try to ask how will you feel if someone hates you just because of your identity associated with those tags. If you feel inclined to justify hate and violence against certain communities ask yourself what if someone does the same to your community. These questions may make you feel uncomfortable and may challenge your perceptions and beliefs that are the result of years of brainwashing, but they will also help you to see your own hypocrisy and encourage you to get rid of your double standards. These questions did make me feel uncomfortable when I asked them myself, but they helped me to improve and become a better person. I hope you don't harbor feelings of hate and violence against any religion, community, or person just because they are different than you. I hope you are nice to others even when no one is watching.     

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

Parents are always under training

Parenting is a tough job. If it's not the toughest, it should be ranked among one of the toughest jobs in the world. It is tough not just because of the onerous requirements of time commitment or physical effort, but also because of the other complexities involved with parenting. Even though there are various manuals and books on parenting, most of them are pretty useless except for the initial months when you only need to feed and clean your baby. Once a child develops its own personality, there cannot be any pre-written manual for that child as that child never ever existed before and every human is unique in the way they think and behave unless they are forced to think and behave only in a certain way, for example, if they are brainwashed or emotionally abused. Parenting is also tough because of the uncertainties involved in it. As I said, as every child is unique there is no way to assume that what worked for one child will work for sure for another child also. I am writing all this with the assumption that parents want their children to develop their own unique identity and personality and don't expect their children to follow some standardized behavioral pattern like a robot. 

I understand that nowadays many parents rely on experts and self-help books to help them with parenting. However, the problem of following any manual for child upbringing is that we unintentionally force them to fit into a mold. No matter how well-intentioned, when parents try to mold their child into a person that they believe to be an ideal person, they are basically trying to replicate that ideal person, this experiment is risky and most probably a sure failure. The child may not only not want to be like that ideal person but also may lose his/her ability to figure out his/her own identity. This is where most parenting mistakes happen, when parents try to charter a safe path for their child, thinking that they are doing this for the good of their child without giving that child a chance to decide. This is one of the reasons no matter how careful we are, all parents make mistakes, many mistakes. This is why I say that parents are and must be always under training. Parents need to continuously learn from their children and adapt accordingly. The biggest mistake parents make is that they always think that their job is only to teach their children and not to learn anything from them. As I said, every child is supposed to be unique, so the parents need to observe, learn, and then develop a unique way to raise each child. Children give many hints expressly or indirectly and as a parent it is our job to try to catch most of them. No doubt, we are going to miss some of them, but the aim should be to catch more hints and miss only a few. The general assumption that kids don't understand anything and are too immature to decide for themselves allows parents to dismiss most complaints and suggestions from their kids on important matters related to that kid. There is no harm in listening to your kid patiently, considering what's their point, and giving serious thought about what they say rather than reacting based on a pure parental impulse. As our children grow we also need to grow as parents. Parents not only need to be aware of their children's material needs but also of their physical and emotional needs. Some conversations might be awkward or difficult depending on the society and culture from where parents come, but the research shows that these conversations are necessary and parents should not shy away from them. Remember, if we don't talk with our kids about these things, someone else will, they will get this information from some source and that source could be unreliable or misleading, so, it is better that we become that source and provide them with reliable and authentic information. Children not only need someone who can feed and protect them, but they also need someone who can understand them and allow them to be themselves, and there is no one better than parents who can do this job best, please don't miss this opportunity. Yes, often it will be frustrating and annoying, but remember you are under training and your kids are also learning as much as you are. Please learn from your child, I learned a lot from my children and it only helped me to become a better parent.

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

We must focus on human touch

Since witnessing all the amazing things ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, can do that too in a fraction of the time humans may take to perform these tasks, people are worried about AI replacing them. The worry is not that AI may replace humans in some riskier jobs or jobs with only mechanical skills, but replacing them across the job market, each and every job, including doctors, lawyers, judges, writers, actors, and so on. The fear is not completely irrational, the phenomenal capability of the AI to process tremendous amounts of data and learn from it is unmatched by anything humans have witnessed so far. 

AI is a formidable challenge for humans, something none of our predecessors faced before. Everyone is worried that AI may replace them everywhere, at their job and in their relationships. However, I feel that this worry or fear is not because the AI is better than humans in every aspect, but because humans are behaving like an AI in many aspects. Our writings, emotions, and responses are getting so standardized and predictable that it is possible for AI to guess accurately what will be our next action or next sentence. We are consuming data and that data is dictating our actions. There is no uniqueness, humans are behaving like herds. Anyone can guess our preferences based on information about just a few categories like our religion, political affiliation, income, and education. We are getting so predictable, as an individual as well as as a group. 

How did we reach here? The question sounds simple but the answer is very complex. Our families, society, culture, education systems, and technology, all are responsible for this. For example, we are told to write in a certain way because that's the correct way according to some experts; we are told to dress in a certain way because that's the proper way to dress; and we are told what is proper and improper based on standards decided by majority. This homogenizes our society and makes most things associated with us predictable, and we cannot beat AI in anything that is predictable based on the available data. 

Data availability is the key to AI's success, however, just data is not enough, the data needs to be accurate and big enough to make predictions accurate, and we are providing enough of that. There has been unprecedented data collection about human behavior in the last decade or so. Our patterns of behavior have never been exposed so clearly that AI can predict our shopping, food, clothing, and even friend choices. As a Democrat, we hardly interact with Republican websites or read pro-Republican articles, the same is true for Republicans. One group never bothers to know about the other group's viewpoints. Our silo chambers provide us with comfort and needed validation to feed our ego that we are the only righteous ones. These chambers are so insulated and biased that we view human tragedies also through the partisan prism. Even any mediocre or narcist politician can fool such people, forget about intelligent AI. Humans have lost their human touch. We are no more individuals with different identities but herds of people who think alike and behave alike. This is why AI scares us, it can replace each one of us as there is nothing special to us, we are replaceable just like a part of an assembly line. 

So, to fight the potential takeover by AI, we need to be unique as individuals, not by qualifications or by appearance, but by our performance. We need to bring the human touch that AI can never bring. We need to bring our own emotions and experiences that are unique to us and are not part of any data. We are not just workers but human workers. We must not forget this. We need to demand workplace changes that encourage diversity and inclusion, without diversity, humans don't stand a chance to win this battle. I don't know how many out there appreciate diversity and encourage it, but I hope most of us want humans to win this battle, if this is the case, then buckle up and work towards diversity. Diversity of emotions, diversity of views, and diversity of cultures. Human touch doesn't automatically come to anything done by humans, if humans behave mechanically and do things without any emotions and passion, the AI will definitely do a better job, as it is not only devoid of any emotion and passion it is also more accurate than any human to do such mechanical tasks. The human touch comes when we allow humans working on that project to add flavors of their own perspective. Somehow, this has been discouraged so far at every workplace. Our workplaces have become devoid of any fun and genuine emotions. People put on an act like a puppet show when they are at work, this needs to change. We need to focus on the human touch or perish. This is not a suggestion but a warning. Ignore it at your own risk. And yes, this post has not been generated by any help from any AI.

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

Bias affects quality of our interactions

We all get affected by stereotypes and biases, either our own or someone else's. Either way, we get affected. Nowadays, a vast amount of information is shared widely, without being verified for either its content or accuracy. People who receive this information use it as factual truth if it validates their bias and outright reject it if it even remotely challenges their bias, thereby making their bias even stronger. When such people interact with others around them their interactions are affected due to their prejudices and biases that are validated based on all the misinformation they received from various unverified sources. This is happening everywhere, one can see this happening in WhatsApp groups, on people's Facebook walls, and even when people interact personally during social or family functions. The spread of misinformation is so rampant that people don't even know from where they got the information they are sharing so confidently. This is why we are witnessing a highly misinformed and polarized society. We are living in a society where everyone's interactions are heavily influenced by their biases that are strongly validated by all the misinformation they consume. 

To be clear, polarization or bias is not a recent phenomenon, in the past also people used to have political disagreements and various biases, and there used to be heated debates on various sensitive topics, but rarely there used to be so much downpour of blatantly false information from both the sides. This is happening across society at each and every level, starting from top government officials to family dinner tables, thanks to the internet and social media. Surprisingly, most people who are doing this are neither aware of this nor are bothered by this. Everyone is convinced that the other person is misinformed but not them. I am amazed when people shart arguing based on unverified and blatantly false information and if someone points this out to them, they are not even surprised or apologetic about their behavior. The quality of people's interaction is so much dictated by their prejudices and biases that most people only communicate with people who agree with them, with others they just argue or don't even bother to communicate at all. This is where we are currently, everyone is siloed, living in echo chambers where they only hear their own voice, nothing else. Everyone is strongly opinionated and convinced about their opinions. Being opinionated is not a bad thing in itself, but forming those opinions only based on our prejudices and biases built on false information is a terrible mistake. I wonder why people don't try to verify the information they receive even if it validates their beliefs. I had to change so many of my beliefs when I discovered reliable and verified information contradicting them. It was tough but necessary. However, to my astonishment, there are many who still carry the same beliefs that I had to change even after the same information proving those beliefs wrong is available to them. So, this is not about the availability of information, but about willingness to challenge our own beliefs. Not many are ready to do this. Either they lack the courage to challenge their beliefs or they are not intelligent enough to understand that they are being fooled. I don't know how many after reading this blog will start verifying the truthfulness of the information on which they base their opinions. I wonder how many of them will review their own prejudices and biases to improve their interpersonal interactions. If you care about the people around you, if you want to have a supportive and loving atmosphere around you, please check your biases and be aware of them. Most of us cannot remove all our biases but at least we can be aware of them, this will definitely help us to improve the quality of our interaction with others.      

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

Self-acceptance and self-improvement are not mutually exclusive

Feeling of self-doubt is not uncommon, especially in today's times where we are overexposed to other's well-curated version of life on social media. This makes us feel that we are not good enough. We tend to look back and realize that we made some mistakes. Sometimes we face a series of failures even after our best efforts. Many times we are exploited by others for being too nice. This all makes our self-esteem go down, also, many times we are too harsh and unforgiving to ourselves compared to others. We know that we have made some mistakes and need to improve on a few things to have better control of our lives, but we hesitate to accept our weaknesses and mistakes because self-acceptance doesn't come that easy. It is not easy to accept that we have weaknesses, because if we do, then the next step is to work to improve on those weaknesses. Also, for many, accepting our own flaws dents their perception of themselves. Therefore, self-acceptance doesn't come that easy. We believe that if we accept we are not good enough, then we put a hindrance in our own progress. We are made to believe that self-acceptance and self-improvement are mutually exclusive, but they are not. Rather, unless you go through the process of self-acceptance, you cannot self-improve.

Self-acceptance is embracing our flaws, and recognizing that we are not good enough today. Self-acceptance is accepting our mistakes and weaknesses today so that we can start working on them and improve tomorrow. This helps us to get a reality check and figure out our blind spots that lead to those weaknesses and mistakes. Whereas self-improvement is about working to overcome our weaknesses, learning from our mistakes, and moving on. Knowing that we are not good enough today should not hinder our desire to be better tomorrow. Rather, it is necessary to go through this cycle of self-acceptance and self-improvement regularly if we strive to be better humans. Without self-acceptance, there is no self-improvement. Self-acceptance is not a surrender to our flaws of today, it is not a validation that our flaws are permanent, but it is a recognition that some work is needed today so that we can be better prepared for tomorrow.  

People who listen to all seld-improvement talks, and videos, or read self-improvement books try to copy or follow someone's recipes for self-improvement without realizing that humans are mentally complex animals and without deep self-analysis, no method or recipe is going to work for us in the long term. We may see some short-term benefits but unless we have self-analyzed and determined what areas we need to work on, nothing is going to help. A right prescription for a wrong diagnosis is still the wrong treatment. Therefore, self-acceptance of our own drawbacks is the first step towards self-improvement. There is still a long way to go, but as a society, we at least started discussing topics like mental and emotional health. There is professional help available in the form of counseling or wellness experts. These things were never discussed just a few years back. We should make use of these resources to initiate our journey towards self-improvement. 

No two humans are mentally the same, we all face different mental and emotional challenges, that is why we cannot base our own psychological well-being based only on someone's experiences and opinions. We need to do self-analysis to understand who we are and what are our weaknesses. This process is an ongoing process as we not only grow physically as we age we also grow emotionally and mentally. As we age our body and our mind also changes. As our body needs care and nourishment the same is true for our mind. Going through the cycles of self-acceptance and self-improvement is important for our professional and personal lives. Remember, today may suck, we may commit mistakes, and we may fail miserably, but one mistake, one failure, one bad day, or one bad month doesn't define our life or personality. It is in our hands to learn from all our experiences, good and bad, and work towards a better tomorrow.   

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

Writing can help in healing

I wonder sometimes why I started writing a blog and continued it for more than a decade, that too in English which is not my first language. I tried to find the reasons, but recently I realized that the main reason for this long journey is that my writing helped me to deal with various mental turmoils that occupied my mind since my childhood. That is, writing the blog helped me to heal. It's not that I got rid of all of the trauma, but writing provided me a way to share my vulnerability and struggles with others and realize that I am not the only one who is going through this, there are many like me. Also, writing the blog was a brave act for me, it is not easy to open yourself to the public and share your thoughts and vulnerabilities. I was scared to do this but did it anyway and now I am glad that I did it. 

I have written diaries since a very young age. I still have the diaries that I wrote during my teenage years. They provide a window for me to look into my past and see how my life and the world around me have changed. That writing also helped, but it was personal writing, no one read it or provided me with any feedback. However, the blog is different, what I write here is available for anyone to read and comment. It is open to criticism and praise. I received a fair amount of criticism for some of my posts but at the same time, there was a lot of support and praise. All the support from my readers helped me to realize that there are many who feel like me, think like me, and struggle like me. This feeling of sharing emotions helped me to overcome my disappointments and frustrations. I suggest anyone who is suffering from trauma, depression, frustration, or any other personal challenges give writing a chance. Please write to yourself, to a trusted friend, or if you feel comfortable share with people around you or with the public. You will be amazed by the amount of support and encouragement. This will help to deal with part of your struggles and motivate you to seek more help if required. People used to have a pen friend and share letters with them. But with the advent of social media, the concept of having a special friend just to share handwritten letters became outdated. I still feel it was a nice concept and if you have someone like that please continue the exchange. Social media has increased our frequency and width of communication. We communicate with many and too often, but it has come at the cost of depth or personal touch in those communications. We see so much happiness or sadness around that we have started reacting automatically, we just press emojis and move on. Whether it is a happy occasion or a sad one we have a standard response, many times we don't even have to compose these responses, our phones or computers, and now AI can compose messages for us, all we have to do it to send them. 

I try my best to maintain my individual touch in whatever I share on this blog. Many have criticized the choice of topics, the quality of English, no clear ideological inclination, or the progressive tone of my blogs, but this is how I as an individual think and speak. This blog is not written by a person who is an English major, whose first language is English, or someone who aligns himself with a certain religion or political ideology, or someone who grew up in a privileged neighborhood, hence all this will be reflected in whatever I write on this blog. The blog is about my personal experiences and opinions, and its tone and language will reflect my personality. My experience of living in a chawl in India, studying in Marathi medium, reading many Marathi books, watching movies, witnessing suppression of women, casteism, and my experiences with bullying, racism, socialism, and capitalism, and many other things are going to be reflected in my writing. My writing is the only way I can get all this out of my system. This is another reason why I stopped getting any help from AIs like ChatGPT after trying it for a couple of posts as it didn't sound like me. My blog needs to reflect my thoughts in my language. I hope this encourages others who are still debating if their English is good enough to share their ideas and thoughts. Readers relate to your emotions, language is secondary. If you are someone who has a lot to say but doesn't to how and where, start writing. You don't have to write a blog or publish your writings anywhere if you don't want to, start writing a diary and see if it helps. Find someone you trust and share your thoughts, we need to have some good listeners around us, I am trying my best to become a good listener and happy to help. My writing has helped me to heal and hopefully, it will help you too.  

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

Men always mattered, now it is the turn of women and others

"Do you think Taylor Swift has a cultural impact equal to Michael Jackson?" My daughter asked while we were chitchatting during a commercial break of the TV show Survivor.

"Not at all, MJ has a huge cultural impact, Taylor has just started, there is no comparison," I responded immediately, without even pondering for a second.

"What about equal to Beatles?" the follow-up question came immediately. 

"Again, no, she is too young, maybe in a few years," I replied.   

"As expected, men will never accept that a young girl can be a cultural icon, such misogynistic thinking," she replied. 

Ouch, that did hurt, especially for a person who calls himself a feminist. But was she wrong? Might be a little harsh and exaggerated reply, but maybe that's what was required for me to learn more about Taylor. No matter what I call myself, I was born and raised in a misogynist culture where females were treated in a certain way, and no matter how much I deconditioned from all that cultural conditioning, I think some residues still remain in the system and show their subtle effects. Much has been written about feminism and how it is helping women to break various barriers. This has resulted in a sort of counter-attack from some people by calling feminism anti-men, starting male-matters movements, or shamelessly glorifying toxic masculinity. I personally feel pity for such attempts, but one cannot deny that all these are desperate efforts to counter feminism, counter attempts by women to claim their place in society for the first time in human history. The problem with movements like "all lives matter," "male matters", or with counter statements like "not all men," is with the timing and intent, they are started not to raise those issues but to divert attention and raise doubts about the intentions behind the movements from which they want to divert the attention. For example, feminism is not against men but it is against toxic masculinity, patriarchy, misogyny, and other prejudices against women. Fighting against these social evils also helps men as much as it helps women. Fight against sexual harassment, patriarchy, toxic masculinity, or misogyny is not a fight against men, but it is a fight against the mindset that confines men and women in certain categories and doesn't allow any freedom. Feminism is to about replacing men with women but about providing women their own space that was always occupied by men not because men were more capable but because women were never given a fair chance to fight for it. Also, people fail to notice how inclusive and pivotal feminism is. Just look at various other movements that started after feminism to assert their identities and claim their place in society, for example, the LGBTQ+ movement. It did not conflict or clash with feminism, rather, feminism has created a path and space for all such movements to start and flourish, often this aspect of feminism is ignored. Men always mattered, but they like it or not, it is the turn of women and others to also matter. And women and others are not taking men's space but they are claiming their own space and controlling their own narrative that was always controlled by men. 

Now coming back to Taylor Swift, no doubt she is talented and famous. She worked really hard to earn her fame and success. Many celebrities attend football matches, but when the NFL tweets about your presence in the stadium that's not a small thing. When your concerts fill the biggest stadiums in different parts of the world, that's not a small thing. When a generation of young females look at you as their inspiration and icon, then it is not a small thing. Yes, she is a cultural icon like any other music legend in their prime days, nothing more, nothing less. I was not aware of it, but my ignorance doesn't change this fact.  

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

Sibling rivalry

Having siblings comes with its own pros and cons. The good part is that you always have someone to talk to and someone to look for support whenever you need it. On the other hand, you have to share almost everything with your siblings up to a particular age, you have someone nagging you all the time, and there is no way to escape this person even if you want to. Hence there is a popular phrase "sibling rivalry," even though siblings are not supposed to be rivals of each other. It is true that most sibling relationships go through a very volatile phase, this phase mostly starts in their teens and continues in their twenties, and then slowly things cool off and settle to bring some normalcy to their relationship. How strong the sibling bond remains largely depends on how tremulous was that volatile phase and how long it takes to cool things off. Another thing that complicated this is that most siblings are not good communicators with each other no matter how articulative and patient they are otherwise. One can easily notice the anger and contempt for no reason when siblings are having an argument with each other, these feelings are not with malice or any other bad intentions but they are there. Too much proximity and continuous presence in each other's life generates some unwanted and unavoidable hostility towards each other. Sibling rivalry is no fun either for siblings or parents, but it is an unavoidable phase of their lives that is impossible to escape, therefore, it is better to learn some valuable lessons from it. This rivalry only results in some positive results when siblings use it for healthy competition and get motivated by each other. It does reach to this stage in many cases but not without its own struggles. 

Can parents help? Not much. Parents are not the reasons for this problem and they can do little to resolve it. Even the forceful use of parental authority that most parents use when they run out of ideas is of little use in this case. Parents can definitely help by not making things worse by comparing siblings with each other and they should make sure that things don't get out of control and get physical, but beyond that, it is the siblings themselves who can resolve whatever issues they have. Acting as a mediator can be an option but most parents don't give enough time to develop such a relationship with their child where they can have candid conversations about various issues their child is facing, hence this option is not available for most parents. As mentioned earlier, things largely depend on how and when things cool off. Arguments and friction are unavoidable, but one thing that siblings don't do with each other which they do in their other relationships like their friendships is that they don't offer the same benefit of the doubt to their siblings that they offer to their friends. 

Siblings can be a great support to each other and this relationship should not be taken for granted just because this is a family-originated bond. Siblings must put some effort and invest quality time in building this relationship as they do with any other relationship. Like any other relationship, this also goes through its own ups and downs, and if not given the attention it requires can disintegrate and get damaged beyond repair. However, there is no need for parents to panic, keep an eye and don't get involved too much, there is no need for firefighters if there is no fire. Siblings should be able to sort out all the issues on their own with little help from their parents. 

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

Whose scorecard are you using?

Do we really need any scorecard to evaluate our lives? Not really, but we all use one. It is inevitable to review and judge our personal and professional lives using some parameters or scorecards. The problem is we all use the scorecard handed over to us by either our parents, friends, family, religion, or society. We are told what it means to be a successful person. Some common items of that scorecard are a degree from a reputable college/university, a high-paying job in a reputed company, a nice home, and a car, even better if you have a private jet, a loving family with kids (better if they are biological), regular vacations at exotic locations, and early retirement. These are just a few parameters ingrained in our minds to evaluate a successful person. The question is not whether these parameters are right or wrong, or whether we should judge our lives based on these parameters, but whether these parameters are selected by us or by someone else. There is nothing wrong with desiring things prescribed for a successful person by the media or society if that's what we want. However, the question is do we really want them? It would be really odd if everyone in any society wanted to live their life based on one standard scorecard. Humans are complex animals and it is impossible for all of us to desire the same things unless we all are brainwashed. We all should have our own scorecard to live a more balanced and fulfilled life. But the problem is we are not taught to develop our own scorecard. Neither our family nor education teaches us to do that. We are given examples of previously successful people are are told to idolize them. The result is most of us either have no clue how to develop our own scorecard or adopt a scorecard handed to us as our own and evaluate our lives. Once we fail to develop our own scorecard, we may score high on the one we are using but still feel empty or unhappy from inside and keep wondering why are we not feeling the happiness and fulfillment that we are supposed to feel. The reason may be that what we chased we never wanted in the first place, it's like running in the wrong race and after winning not being happy with the award. Everyone has to climb their own Everest, my challenges, difficulties, and limitations are different than most around me, I cannot judge my success or failure based on someone else. Similarly, everyone needs to have their own scorecard, other's scorecards can be used as a template but ultimately we need to come up with our own. Only and only a scorecard prepared by us by carefully analyzing our goals and limitations will do justice to measuring our success and failure. 

We all have our outer success, based on the parameters that society, our family, and other people around us value, and our inner success, this what we feel based on our own desires and passions. Most of us care a lot about outer success because that's what we are made to believe to be a universal parameter to measure success. However, only we know what defines and matters for our inner success, it may or may not include all or any of the parameters set by others defining everyone's outer success, this is why I am emphasizing preparing our own scorecard and evaluating our life based on that not based on some standard template. So, whenever you feel frustrated, feel that you are a failure, or going through a low phase in your life, don't forget to ask, whose scorecard are you using?    

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com