Growing Rich Everyday... My Weblog

As 2007 comes to an end, I am more than just happy and content. It has been a very great year for me, quite eventful and quite productive - both personal and professional.

It was a year of parent visits - my in-laws visiting sometime between April and June and my dad visiting sometime later during the year, it was a year of travel and a year of some good goals.

A year of lotsa travel !!
Tapan and I decided to make the most of our vacations by traveling to quite a lot of places this year.

It started off with a trip to Sanibel-Captiva Islands just off the west coast of Florida, in January 2007.
In March 2007 , we visited California (San Francisco, Monterrey, Big Sur, Lake Tahoe and Sacramento).
In May 2007, we looped around the Grand Circle (Las Vegas, Grand Canyon - North and South Rims, Zion National Park, Bryce National Park).
In September 2007, we visited Atlanta and the Smoky Mountain National Park and in October 2007 it was a trip to New Jersey and New York.
Of course there were a couple of trips to Orlando's theme parks - SeaWorld, Epcot and Magic Kingdom.

A year of goals !!
Learning to swim was a major highlight for me this year especially so when it took more than 2 weeks for me to shed off my fear of water. It was a very determined effort although it would be frustrating at times, but it gave me a sense of accomplishing something above all fears and inhibitions.

Professionally it has been very very fulfilling and that kind of calmed the restless soul in me. I switched jobs in March and since then it has been no looking back. I love my job (it took almost 3 years and 3 job switches to find this one) and I look forward to achieving even more than I think I can with it.

And finally the most easy to do, but most difficult to achieve results ! It's none other than shedding off your pounds ! After a lot of persuasion by Tapan, I was finally convinced to exercise regularly and maintain a good fitness level. That included frequent jogging for a mile, Pranayaam, and of course working out at the gym pretty regularly. Albeit slow, the results were somewhat comforting - I lost about 5-6 pounds from September through December.

Finally we started to blog. I had been wanting to do this since quite some time, but never had the "Do it now" attitude to get it started. I now hope to be regular at blogging and grow it into a professional venture for 2008.

And there were quite many small goals too, but the above qualified to be the best of all.

A year of some good books !!
During the start of 2007, I happened to be a part of a book club. However that fizzled out during summer - [:(]. Some good books that I read during 2007 were Serving Crazy with Curry (author: Amulya Malladi), Memoirs of a Geisha (author: Arthur Golden), The Indians, This I Believe (Dan Gediman), The Secret (Rhonda Byrne) and The World is Flat (Thomas Friedman).

Definitely a rich 2007 [:)] With this I look forward to a great and richer New Year with new dreams, aspirations, books, goals and much more !!!!

[Title adapted from "Brave New World" - a very popular work of Aldous Huxley]

There is definitely an evolution in the way workplace and work are being perceived in the everything2.0 era, and the ideas of workplace and work will still evolve in the future. However in my opinion , I can describe this evolution to pertain to only the corporate lifestyle. It would not apply to professions like school teachers, physiotherapists, nurses, doctors or any profession where healing, nurturing the other person is the main crux of the job.

Professional bloggers like Penelope Trunk, Marci Alboher have their "current" careers revolving around the same concept. In short, they precisely articulate this new work-attitude wave, and are definitely a motivation to everyone who feel trapped in their current work lifestyle. And if that wasn't enough, they enrich us with quite many positive ideas about improving workplace productivity, time-management, self-promotion, negotiation skills, shifting careers etc.

I read Penelope Trunk's blog quite regularly, and I have just come across Marci Alboher's blog quite recently. I have always felt quite the same about some of the topics that they focus on. Here is a sample of just three of them.

1. Change should be made a constant factor in career life. I believe in working in several different roles throughout my entire span of work-life which can be easily be between 30 to 40 years. Apart from my current job as Software Engineer, I am much interested to be a Librarian, Market Research Analyst, Entrepreneur, School/College Teacher as of now. I feel it is the variety of the work we do that will make our lives more fulfilling rather than dedicating one's entire life just climbing the ladder all the way to the top in just one profession.

2. Job titles are just fancy vocab games that actually limit our potential from delivering work to the best of our capabilities. Also we really do not work in a confined manner as described by the job title. The more we deliver "out of the box" of our job title, the better are the chances of us growing faster.

3. "Work-from-home mom" is the new blend for women who want to raise their kids by themselves instead of sending them to day-care, want to have a job, do not want to quit and stay at home full-time. Basically they want to have it all. There is of course some kind of compromise for the highly career-minded woman, as work-from-home may pose to have some kind of set-back to her desire of rising to the top in a fast-paced manner. But at least something is better than nothing at all.

Of course there are many more such ideas that will continue to evolve and fill up this blog space.

"SMART" - It is a mindset. It is believing that you can be better at your job, your hobbies and your life. It is knowing that as part of an intelligent and vibrant community you can expand your interests and achieve your goals.

- From FAU SMART program Brochure.

I am addicted to them everyday. Fortunately they are on the same frequency - FM 97.3 - better known as CoastFM. However I get to listen to them only during my commute to work and on my way back home.

The one in the mornings is "Those 2 girls in the morning" - yes, the title is as point blank in your face. That's what they are - the two girls - Julie Guy and Tamara G, connect to everyone in an instant. That indeed is talent enough. They do a bunch of activities in the morning session, but primarily they discuss issues that everyone of us go through or is vulnerable enough to go through at some point in life. And the best part is, they invite the people around to provide their opinions/solutions to the issue being discussed. Most of the topics they discuss are quite interesting, sometimes amusing !

The one in the evenings is Delilah hosted by Delilah herself. Well, Radio Delilah is a featured program that runs on a hundred different radio stations across US. It's Delilah's warmth, her captivating call to people to "sit back, relax, enjoy and share" the finer moments in life is what appeals most of her ever-growing audience. People call in or write to her show to share their stories of love, hope, difficulties and how they have overcome them and much more. I feel I can relate to so many of them, it is always the "I am just like her/him" . Many people call in to thank her and appreciate her good work.

Both the shows have one common appealing character - the one of people trying to reach out to you to share their opinions, suggestions, stories, inspirations...

What is the most obvious thing that an Indian fresh-off the plane to US notices? In my opinion, it is the fact that everyone greets and everyone is greeted with the most humble expressions - "Thank you" and " Hi, How are you doing today, Sir/Madam". It is ubiquitous - in the grocery stores at the cashier's counters, in the buses, at movie theaters - in fact at any place where there is a possibility of human encounter. Some may take it as a mere mindless activity people engage in as a matter of habit. But I feel that most of the time people ask genuinely. This is because the general sense of respecting the other person is generally high in the US than in India. In India, nobody would care to ask you "How are you doing today" out of the blue, or nobody would even care to say "Thank you" to the bus conductor/driver while boarding off the bus.

It is also this sense of respect for human beings that makes labor very expensive in US, which is why we wouldn't have maid-servants , cooks, laundry-men coming to our homes everyday. This is precisely why people learn to take care of their chores by themselves without any sulk. Most of the Indians opine that they would love to go back to India to enjoy these services. But for me, that would mean not bothering to respect the maids as human beings.

Over the last month, I have been reading the book "This I Believe" by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman. I would say this has been the most remarkable book I have read so far, that has shaken me enough to search and be aware of my own beliefs, thoughts and convictions. "This I Believe" started as a National Public Radio series in the 1950s. It was a national media project engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values and beliefs that guide their daily lives. It is now an international project and calls for people to contribute their essays. Everyone was and is still invited to share their beliefs ; people from all walks of life - ordinary , extraordinary, scientists, artists, teachers, poets, playwrights, politicians, industrialists, war veterans, immigrants as well as the most common man living right down the end of the block.

If one were to ask about one's belief's , it is very easy to state in negative terms.."I don't believe in this", "I do not like that.." etc. But to come up with what you truly believe in and stating your convictions in positive terms is a daunting task. Each of the beliefs is extraordinary. People spoke about responsibility, integrity, patriotism, courage, freedom, forgiveness. But the most common belief that almost all of them held was that of love, empathy and compassion, goodness and kindness guiding their lives through thick and thin.

"This I Believe" project now has a dedicated website which archives all the essays that have been aired on the radio so far.