Need for awareness on organ donation

Last year, I got to support an unknown for his wife's liver operation.  He had to raise a 50L fund. Though he reached the essential 35L mark for the liver transplantation, by then his wife's liver infection spread and it was too late to take any action. His wife eventually died leaving behind a nine year old son.
I happened to speak to this gentleman recently who is yet to recover from this loss.  What he said makes me think. He said if he had received the liver in advance, his wife could have been saved. He said everyday 200 people die want of donar organs. I dont know about the stats, but I am thinking about what would be happening to the less privileged.
I started thinking about the conditions of the Govt Hospitals across companies.  He said, the actual cost is for the equipments and if the government can make them available in plenty, the transplantation cost would come to mere 2 Lakhs.
I felt very disturbed because health care is one of the silent problem areas of our society - not just our country, everywhere in the world. We have just allowed healthcare to be expensive.  We have created an industry and host of scams around this.
I told him to get associated with a NGO who would create awareness about organ donation or he himself would start a NGO.
I remember TOI organizes organ donation campaigns yearly once. I wish there is more awareness to this.

Reasons to quit WhatsApp

There are hundreds of benefits using https://www.whatsapp.com/. An effective communication tool and everybody is wondering how this is made available free to them.

Many are deeply engrossed onto this cute app - morning through midnight.  The day starts with it and the midnight, latenight ends with it.

People try all sorts of "Account > Privacy" settings to show their uniqueness.

WhatApp is very addictive and we the elders, may be teaching something wrong to the  kids to show this as a relationship tool.


I am currently on WhatsApp Fasting. 

I have not quit WhatsApp but trying to stay away from WhatsApp.  Atleast from Xmas through New Year through Sankaraanthi, I dont want to be online and looking at the messages.

There is element of artificial-ness lifestyle set in using WhatsApp.  Our brains are getting tuned to something unnatural.  I can clearly see thats creating some problem in day to day life. 

• The morning light alerts give a false sense of urgency on the messages that arrived
• How much time to wait anticipating a favourable response? (Why not pick the phone and talk?)
• We stopped saying good morning and good night to the folks at home sincerely (but those on Whatsapp get all those well-crafted greetings with emoticons)
• Reading, workouts, writing, interacting, ...all the times have reduced

If you want to practice MINDFULNESS, stay away from WhatsApp for sometime.

Here are the steps:

1. Decide to quit WhatsApp for 2 full weeks
2. You may fail for the first two days (based on the relationships you have) but start all over
3. Dont worry about how people will share important pictures, and messages.  NOTHING is important in this world
4. Even if you dont greet someone good morning and good night, they will be alive
5. Explain politely to anyone who asks about it - that you are trying to reduce distraction and not to stay away from relationships
6. If you declare this first and then try to go on WhatsApp fasting, people may pull you off
7. Switch off mobile data and wireless options for the two weeks period
8. By doing the step 7, the added bonus is you are not going to check FB as well
9. Now that you have more time, find the useful things you can do in life
10. After two weeks, on a Sunday, you may check the messages - you will naturally tend to skip all the forwards.  You will naturally respond to the one that is very important.
11. Try this every two weeks
12. Stop anything in your life that takes away your power, focus and authenticity!
 

The Happiness of Pursuit - the book I ordered

Received the book The Happiness of Pursuit by Chris Guillebeau today. I already have his "100$startup" and recently picked "The art of non-confirmity" from the office library. Very inspiring man he is!

White Fang - Book I ordered

Received the book "The call of the Wild, White Fang, and other stories" by Jack London today.

Happiness is the only goal

Of all the goals I and you pursue, there is one single goal we should be after - Happiness.

In any situation ask yourself:
1. Am I happy now?
(This is for happiness awareness to the self)
2. Irrespective of the response "what can I be happy about now"

After practising repeatedly, the question can be simplified to "what can I be happy about right now?"

I have some beginners luck and it works for me. I am happy blogging now.  Several related thoughts are unfolding.

1. By being aware I can be happy, I am actually happy
2. I figured out what to focus on. Otherwise, mind drifts towards the negative streams of life
3. I figured out that I can create additional and new meanings to the current situation

Ten minutes willpower

Willpower is a muscle we have been constantly allowing to grow WEAK by not exercising it.
We all have aspirations to be, to do, to have something big, significant but we miserably fail due to lack of willpower.
We all know that everything is in mind yet we donot do what we know. Lack of willpower!
There is a simple cure for this and it takes only ten  minutes. No theory nothing though we will add little more to it later.
Every day do something that is very important yet you don't like it. Get involved in this for ten minutes and stop after minutes. No questions asked.
Do this for a week without break.
It's like eating the bitter gourd for the next few says and you chew it for ten minutes.
What happens when you do something that is important that you don't like?
1. You are creating newpathway in nervous system. You are telling your brain the new change you are preparing to.
2. Ten minutes in 24 hours is nothing. We know people who eat or spend 90 minutes over lunch.
3. At the end of the 7th day, you probably start thinking seriously that this task is important and only you could do it
4. You start building a responsibility layer on your brain and your shoulder.
5. You realize that this you are about to create a new identity for yourself
6. Probably you get a sense of freedom and breathe differently
7. You just proved to yourself that the 70 minutes is what it takes in a week overall to get better at something - to start with.
I am sure you spent less than Ten minutes to read this and I Thank you for that.

How rejection fortifies us

There is real magic in rejection. To experience this magic, one should experience rejection repeatedly.
I have been rejected in several ways:

• Career: I was denied a job by many companies after my post graduation
• Money: I was denied money as low as Rs.10/- by some caretakers which hurted and provoked me at young age
• Relationships:  Some good friendships and relationship turned sour because I did not understand the relationship at all
• Opportunities: Many opportunities to do something worth, to be someone worth, were all denied

There were times I was literally at the mercy of fate,  literally at the mercy of the other person - I thought so. 

Even biggies like Google have rejected me - not for job offer - but when I applied for Google Ad Sense :) few years back.

Why am I writing this blog now?  Because, my heart says every single minute folks are getting rejected by someone, something on which they have attached value.

please read the above statement again.  People feel hurt when they get rejected by those on whom they attach value.  The lanky boy? A big company? A big opportunity?   All these may not have value by itself, but someone attached value, significance, importance, what not?

While there are 1000 companies in the world, why the narrow heart weeps for the one single biggie?
While there are lakhs and lakhs of girls, why do boys persist on the single individual?
While there are ever growing opportunities, why people end their lives for having lost one?

Because we attached meaning.   There is no other meaning to anything other than the one we choose to give.

How to handle, effectively handle rejection?  Here is a list (I am a list lover), you can add yours:

1. Change the meaning to the relationship, offer, opportunity
2. Treat rejection experience as a submarine travel experience.  Yes, there is some turbulence on the ocean, but be inside the submarine to get to the other side - a new land, new people..
3. In every situation of life you feel less resourceful, ask yourself 'so what'?  You lost it - ask yourself 'so what?',  someone would laugh at you - 'so what?' ,  your image is at damage - 'so what' ?
4. When we like something, we see only positives. But we never realize that every individual, every organization, every opportunity has a dark side. Its just that you are blind-folded.
5. Re-equip yourself :  refill yourself with new set of knowledge, new set of muscles, new set of beliefs, new set of work, in order to make you very resourceful
6. The rejection is an opportunity given to you to be better, to be different, to be more valuable. Don't underestimate it.
7. If you were rejected by a girl of a boy, don't abuse the person, don't throw acid. Its just that person does not same level of attraction with you.  Otherwise, the other person is actually good. Don't plan to hurt them.
8. Dwelling deeply in a sad state of mind, actually hurts us.  We make ourselves less resourceful. 
9. Write your feelings down. Write in such a way, you drain your feelings onto the paper. Write till you conclude 'I love myself so much'.  Then you goto sleep.  You will find yourself very calm.
10. Grow big, very big to-be-precise, to the level that you will reject somebody. 

This is a partial list.  This world is full of possibilities.  This world is set in motion not because someone was granted, because someone was rejected.  Because, the entire mass is rejected and we all go in search of something to handle rejection.

Above all, you are the only one who is very responsible for your life.  Handle yourself with respect and responsibility.