Dilemma

There are two parts to every human being. The rational and the emotional. The manifestations of both is of varying degrees in each gender. This would also change depending on the set of circumstances you were raised in and the other factor that influences it is the set of circumstances you presently are in .

I wonder how people behave when faced with a dilemma. I am sure all of us have faced one or the other during our short span of life. The unfortunate one's go through a lot many of them(whether they learn something or not from such situations is a topic of another discussion which would entail a lot of psychological analysis).

How exactly do we define dilemma ?? Dilemma is a situation where you have two paths in front of you to choose from, none of which is good or probably both of them can be good. A simple example of this would be that 2 of your best friends have had a fight and you need to take a side. Both seem equally justifiable but in a different sense and when you look at it from both individual's perspective they are right. Now where do you go ?? Both can be emotionally right or logically right or it might so happen that one is emotionally right and one is logically right. Lets come back to this at a later time when you have figured out the mystery. 

Breaking down dilemma's into simple equations is not possible but why not give it a shot and see where it leads to. Dilemma when represented mathematically would mean that you have 2 options in front of you i.e. P1 and P2 and if you take P1 you would reach A and if you take P2 you would reach B. The problem is that there is no surity whether you would reach A or B whichever path you choose (P1 or P2). To make it a little complex lets try to put in the concepts of profit and loss here. Path P1 will make you gain G1 and Path P2 will make you gain G2. Again here G1 and G2 are not assured. 

G1 and G2 can be your priorities, goals in life, destination you want to be at, your ambitions or however you want to define them. Now lets take a scenario where you gain G1 and G3 if you choose P1 whereas you gain G2 and G4 if you choose P2. In such situaions the choice is easier where all you would like to know is whether G1+G3 is greater or lesser than G2+G4(we still assume there is no surity of getting either G1+G3 or G2+G4 whichever path you choose). To complicate things further lets introduce the concept of probability here. There is a 30% chance that when you take path P1 you might end up with G1+G3 and a 45% chance that if you take path P2 you might end up with G2+G4.

Who has said that there can be only gains when we take a risk. Can we try and account for the losses that come with the any of the paths we choose. Again it is safe to assume here that these losses might be in form of your priorities in life, ambitions etc. A final equation that I can arrive it would be as follows:

Upon taking Path P1 there is a probability of 30% that I might end up with (G1+G3+G5-L1-L3) and upon taking Path P2 there is probility of 45% that I might end up with (G2+G4-L2).

The above equation can be formulated based on the number of gains and losses you will have or stated correctly what goals you would be able to reach if you choose a path and what sacrifices you would be making when choosing the same path. Various situations might arise depending on the magnitude of G1, G2, G3.....L1, L2.......

For example if G1, G3 and G5 magnitude is small i.e. small goals are achieved whereas G2, G4 are big goals then it might be worth taking path P2 for there is more probability of success but if we reverse the situation where the magnitude of G1,G3,G5 is large whereas the magnitude of G2, G4 is smaller then would you take Path P1 considering there is a low probability of 30% of it being a success?? Now do consider the losses L1, L2, L3.....and draw up similar situations and see where you find yourself. Have we arrived at a conclusion yet? 

How much ever we try its not easy to calculate our paths or decisions that we are going to make, for the beauty of life lies within the fact that it is unknown.  Most decisions which are taken depend on the state of the mind of the person who is taking the decision. It would primarily depend of the set of circumstances that a person was raised in i.e. the values and attitudes that he has gained from his/her surroundings. Its a perennial battle between the "head vs. heart" and we try to justify the decisions which we take. Most of the times decisions taken by head may be called as "practical" but does that mean that the heart has no role to play. Why is it that most of the successful people took the greatest decision of their life from the heart??? M K Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi), Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mother Teresa to name a few were great personalities who followed their heart and the world knows them for it.

Having said that we cannot deny the role their head played in their lives in achieving the kind of success they have. Why is it that when the head takes the upper hand we are able to justify it really well but when you make a decision going by your heart and you succeed in the same you attribute it to luck? Are we afraid to take our chances in life and see if we can make the best out of it? Or do we want to play it really safe and live a mundane life like everyone else does? I so wish to know how Richard Branson would have been today had he not taken his chances. 

I would leave you to ponder over the eternal "head vs. heart" debate for it has no correct answers but I would definitely like to end with a quote:

"Every time you take a big risk in life, no matter how it ends up, you are always glad you took it."

Rab ne Bana di Jodi.....

Oops yet another movie review i guess....

Yash banner has done it again ....they have bounced back in the business with a blockbuster, thats what people call Rab ne..., after a couple of lackluster performaces on the box office. Rab ne... at best is a feel good movie which all the Sharukh khan fans are going to like, typically girls. "Alls well if it ends well" is a concept beautifully employed in this movie but lets try to look at certain aspects of the movie.

The movie starts on a simple note of Surinder falling in love with Taani at first sight and progresses into a typical bollywood movie. The simpleton played by Sharukh Khan i.e. Surinder Singh epitomises the core Indian value of sacrifing himself(not literally) for his love. He goes through all the pains in trying to show his love that there is another aspect of him which is fun loving. He almost succeeds when his brain racks up the stupid idea of trying to figure out whether Taani likes Raj better or Surinder. Had i been in Taani's place i would have slapped Surinder a.k.a Raj during the dance finals, for Taani's emotions were being manipulated by both the characters that were being played by SRK. 

As humans we are influenced by what we see and hear.What i see in the movie is that "we should manipulate our fellow human beings to get the truth out of them". The director has successfully created a complete mockery of human emotions in the movie. What is the effect that this portrayal of mocking on human relations without respecting it have on the general junta that watches it???

On the lighter note, we can say that it was just a movie and movies are not taken seriously by the public. Is it ???  

In Search..

A couple of days ago one of my friend came to me and said ” You know what someone tried to commit suicide”. My reaction was at best negative . “What ?? How can someone do this?? Your parents pay up so much so that you get the best of the education and this is what you do of it. I think the selection panel doesn’t know anything to shortlist such candidates and put them in a place like this. How can a person be emotionally so weak as to take such a step??”. Those were some of the first few things i heard myself saying after i got to know of it. I then questioned my friend about why the person took such a drastic step. The reason as i came to know was pressure of unable to cope with studies coupled with inferiority complex ( God knows what inferiority complex a person can have at such a place ). Well that seemed to be a contradiction to me( Many of my friends would agree to this and they definitely know the reason as well ).The day passed and the incident took the backseat in my mind and i went about my work. While going to one of my classes today i suddenly overheard two friends of mine. The snapshots of the conversation go as follows.
Friend 1 : I think we should go and encourage her.
Friend 2 : Yes we should. I heard her mom is not here yet to see her.
Friend 1 : I would disown my mom if she did anything like this when something happens to me.
Friend 2 : I think her dad is here for sometime.
Friend 1 : Sometime ??? Thats ridiculous . From when did parents start behaving like this ???
Friend 2 : Anyways i think we should go and visit her, she would feel better if we go.

By this time i was intently listening to the conversation and had more or less joined it. I said i would be glad if anyone would take me along when they would go to visit her( the case being i did not know the concerned person as she was a junior ). As soon as classes got over i decided to make a move. I thought I would call along my friends but it seemed they were busy. I had to make this journey alone . I reached the ICU and went inside wondering where to look for the concerned person. There was only 1 bed that was occupied which spared me the trouble of asking people. As i reached the bed i discovered that i was looking into an innocent face. She even spoke like a kid flashing her sweet smile while talking. She seemed confident enough to me. Anyways i decided to give my best shot to allay all her fears about the course. I tried my best to give her the hope and encouragement that i could .While heading back towards my college i was still thinking “What is that that made her take such a drastic step ?. Life is not easy and we all know that and if we are bogged down by such small hurdles then what about the bigger challenges in life. Yes at times we are faced with choices that are hard to make but that does not mean that we give up our attempts to solve the problem. Does this not show the inclination towards negative thinking that this girl has ?? Why is it that we always so quickly take to negative things and fail to see the positive aspects of a situation ?? Does it call for a total change in the education system that is followed in our country ?? Where do you learn how to be positive ??? Can these things be thought ??? Can attitude be changed ??? If yes how???”

I cannot revert what has happened but am in search of answers to these question which may possibly give me the reason as to why did someone have to do what was done .

Clutch your Life

It has been on my mind for quiet sometime now and i have thought quiet a lot about it. Now this
was during the time when i was learning how to drive a four wheeler that this idea struck me. We all have driven a vehicle at some point in time or the other. One peculiar thing about a two
wheeler or a four wheeler is that they employ the concept of clutch . Now we all know that when
the clutch is operational or more so when it is pressed the vehicle is under free wheeling motion and it tends to go faster than when under the influence of the clutch. Let us try to draw a comparison
between two seemingly unrelated things. Let us assume that the human body is like a vehicle.
Now we know at there are various factors that influence our behaviour and the choices we make in our life. We
may be greatly influenced by the society that we live in or may be our family has greater
influence in deciding what we end up doing in life. Also it can be the case that being human i would like to emulate my role model if i have any. From this we can conclude that at any point in time our actions are not independent, they are a result of a collusion of various such forces that are acting together to influence the outcome of the decision. Now there has to be a primary force amog these and all the other forces have to be secondary. Primay force is the main motive for pursuing that desired goal and the other secondary forces are the external factors that influence you to pursue that goal. For example I might want to learn dancing because i donot know how to dance which will be the primary force but if i say that dancing is good for health or i want to learn dancing because all my friends are doing it then these will come under secondary forces . Though the secondary forces are genuine but they donot motivate you enough to classify as the primary force.These type of various forces that help us decide in favour of or against a decision act like clutches in their own way . Yes i agree to the fact that without taking anything into consideration and deciding in favour of something would be foolishness( that is opting to do a certain task without deciding whether there is some value addition or not to be gained from it ). Then there is the will of our parents who want us to pursue something which we donot want to. This can again be classified as a secondary force . This article necesarily focuses on the affect of the secondary forces and not the primary forces on our life. The primary force will motivate us enough to pursue our goal , for example, i want to be a successful CEO of a multi national company for which i need an MBA degree which inturn can be acquired only when i get through a good business school. Now to get into a good business school i need to appear for any of the management entrance exams. The primary force acting here is that i want to be a succesful CEO . Some of the secondary forces that are influencing this situation are as follows : Preparation for the management entrance exam, unnecesarry worrry about the difficulty of the exam, managinig my own work/studies while preparing for the entrance and other such forces . Now if the preparation for the exam is done keeping in mind that the candidate wants to be the
CEO and not worrying factors such as the difficulty of the exam, the competition faced by other students etc then it is guaranteed that the candidate will be able to perform far more effeciently
in thein the exam. What i want to communicate is that we shoud clutch all the secondary factors that tend to
influences our life in negative way and let the life move freely on the accelarated road powered
by the positive energy.Let the life go on its own way and donot constraint it with unnecessary clutter .

A Beginning

IF IT IS TO BE IT IS UP TO ME ....the epitome of human learning is reflected in this line ....yes it is true that everything that will hapen to me is a consequence of how i will take it up or view it ...my perception about the happenings in life will determine my actions which in turn will trigger a series of actions which will set into motion the dormant side of the very thing that i aspire to effect...or may be not the so dormant side ..but it will defenitely have some effect which i desire ...whether the effect is with the same intensity or not is a different matter ....atleast this is a beginning ...all things have to start at some point in time or the other ......"WE LEARN" ......by doing new things we will learn ...new things will only take into effect when we begin somewhere .....so here i am on a journey to discover what is more to life than the mundane things that i do everyday.