The fact that I am asking you this should tell you what the answer is. And yes, they are crazy but true!!!

1. Which animal has killed more humans in Africa? Hippos or lions? (I could not believe this)
2. Which animal can go more days without water? A camel or a giraffe? (What? What about that ship of the desert thing????)
3. You have a white cat which has blue eyes. Therefore it is deaf. True or False? (Go figure this one)
4. Which one is more likely to kill you? A champagne cork or a poisonous spider?
5. Which is the food most number of people are allergic to? Cow’s milk or peanut? (Bad news for my folks back in India)
6. Every year, which one of these kill more people? Bees or snakes? (Wait till Sharmila finds this out 🙂 )
7. An average bed has how many dust mites? About a dozen or about as many people are there in this world? (There goes my sleep in a Marriott bed tonite)
8. Which kills more people every year? Coconuts or sharks?
9. Which accelerates faster than the other – by about 50 times of the other? A flea or the space shuttle?
10. Which one of these two animals have been proven to prefer blondes over brunettes? Man or mosquito? (Really? Who came up with the study? Incredible!!!)

At this point I decided to stop reading any further. Else I might come across something absolutely crazy like a hippo can run faster than humans or something like that… What? That is true too?

I give up! Good night folks!!

Yesterday, while visiting my doctor, I heard something that made an impression on me. We were discussing my theory of splitting up our retirement period and taking long time offs multiple times in our life and pursuing other interests than work. My doctor himself regularly takes time off to go serve in Haiti, Honduras etc.

As we exchange notes, one similarity came up in both our experience of discussions on this topic. Most folks worry of the financial stability aspects of taking time off. And the consequential never ending pursuit of financial stability since the goal line keeps getting moved as we even remotely approach the goal line that we had set for ourselves before.

He told me a story of an old friend of his who had put this in a great way. Evidently, what he said was that he did not need a lot of land. He just wanted to own the properties adjoining his!!!

That is an awesome picture of describing a never ending goal!! Had a hearty laugh!!

The guy on the top is Roberto Cacelen. He is from Peru.
And he is 43 years old. To put it in perspective, he is less than five years younger to me.
He started skiing in 2005. To put it in further perspective, that is when I started running.
He competed in Sochi Olympics for cross country skiing!! To put it in furthest perspective, I cannot get a medal in my age group in our neighborhood races!!

And he did not get any medal either. Came dead last last. 87th to be precise.
But he did it with broken ribs because of an accident a couple of weeks back.
Now that is courage! That is competitive spirit at the highest level.

The guy on the bottom is Dario Cologna.
He finished the race in nearly half the time as Roberto.
He won the gold medal.
He is world number one in his sport. Proven at the highest level of competition.

After finishing the race though, he waited patiently for 28 minutes at the finish line for the last guy (Roberto) to show up.
And when he did, he went up to him to give a hug and congratulate him…

We do not need to know Dario’s country. We do not need to know his age.

What he did is what we as humans are all supposed to do.

In this hyper selfish world where sportspeople resort to steroids, politicians get thrown in jail for kickbacks and corporate bigwigs resort to illegal activities for personal benefit, I sure am glad that there are people like Roberto and Dario to help us understand what GRACE is all about…

Here is a question that has been vexing me for some time. I have come to the question watching my dad’s condition – physically, getting up from bed is a chore and he is completely devoid of any desire to live. On those long flights to India once every 90 days to see him for two days and back, I get a lot of time to reflect on. After all, there is precious little you can do at 30,000 feet in the air in a pressurized aluminum chamber once the iPad battery runs out 🙂

The question is : Is it time to retire the traditional idea of retirement? For at least most people who do not do physically intensive work?

My research indicates that the concept of retirement came from the agricultural and then the industrial days when people primarily did physically intensive work. You know, like tilling land, pushing the lathe machine, shoving coal in the blast furnace and all that. It stands to reason that after a while, time took its toll on your physical abilities. It was desirable both for you as well as your employer that you call it quits. So, the model was you work very hard, save a lot of money and then call it a day. Then you enjoy your hard earned money and time off.

And that was the way it was supposed to be for my dad. He certainly pushed himself hard thru his working life, gave an unbelievably great running start to his children and then retired. With his life savings in his hand. With the life savings, he bought a house, built a garden – ready to enjoy life as it were.

Except he didn’t. He suddenly realized that he was in his mid-sixties. There was no way he could enjoy the stuff that he would have enjoyed in his thirties. Or forties. Or fifties. He had the money. And the time. But not the physical condition. Or like minded friends, to be honest. He could not travel as much as he would have liked to. He cannot kick a ball anymore (he loved playing soccer)..

That house? His kids visited his great abode once a year. Till we moved him and my mom next to our sister last year, the grand kids saw him once a year. My mom has grown her own interests in life and certainly much more physical issues.

All this makes me wonder – “That was not the plan. Could this happen to me too?”

Like most of my friends – and a large segment of today’s population – I also have become an “intelligent” worker. We do not till land, do not throw coal at anything but use our brains and intellectual faculty – invariably with a computer – to do whatever it is that we do at office. (That, and we do a lot of meetings 😉 ).

Theoretically speaking, I should be able to work as long as I live – as long as I am not crippled by Alzheimer’s and such ailments that fundamentally impair by ability to be an “intelligent” worker. There is no need to retire. I can work till eighty, if I wanted to. In fact, two of my peers at work are over seventy and they are doing a fantastic job at a C level post in a medium size very successful public company!!!

I assume I will not necessarily earn then as much as I do now. But really do I need to earn as much? Most of my financial responsibilities will be over – kids’ education will be done, spousal welfare would span over a far shorter time frame, and I certainly will outgrow the fascination of “owning” stuff (I am relying on maturity that comes with old age on that last one).

If I put all this together, is the logical conclusion somewhat like this – work till you die or cannot work; spread your retirement time from now on? Which means work for a few years, retire for a couple. Come back and work again for a few years and take again a year or two off. Enjoy the things I can enjoy when I am in my forties. In my fifties. In my sixties.

Maybe I should have started this in my thirties? (Heaven knows, I cannot break the six minute running mile barrier any more now!!)

Have any of you had such thoughts? I would be very interested in understanding your opinions or points of view. I would gladly call you if you wanted to spend some time on this topic.

“By far the greatest impediment and aberration of the human understanding arises from [the fact that] . . . those things which strike the sense outweigh things which, although they may be more important, do not strike it directly. Hence, contemplation usually ceases with seeing, so much so that little or no attention is paid to things invisible.”
-Sir Francis Bacon

Seems like Facebook has converted all my friends into movie producers…. 🙂

#1 Offense played #1 Defense

Finally got the answer to the good old question: What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

Evidently, the immovable object prevails!

Interesting take by Daniel Gilbert on the history of control of our own happiness…

“Most of us make at least three important decisions in our lives: where to live, what to do, and with whom to do it. We choose our towns and our neighborhoods, we choose our jobs and our hobbies, we choose our spouses and our friends. Making these decisions is such a natural part of adulthood that it is easy to forget that we are among the first human beings to make them. For most of recorded history, people lived where they were born, did what their parents had done, and associated with those who were doing the same. Millers milled, Smiths smithed, and little Smiths and little Millers married whom and when they were told. Social structures (such as religions and castes) and physical structures (such as mountains and oceans) were the great dictators that determined how, where, and with whom people would spend their lives, which left most folks with little to decide for themselves. But the agricultural, industrial, and technological revolutions changed all that, and the resulting explosion of personal liberty has created a bewildering array of options, alternatives, choices, and decisions that our ancestors never faced. For the very first time, our happiness is in our hands.”

At Westlake High School in Atlanta. Niki was sent from her school for a Technology Fair competition. It is amazing to see the talented kids. Some of the parents – umm, not so much.

Okay, admittedly, there is some confusion about room assignments. (Niki was shifted twice). And some are running too close to their allotted times. But what is the big idea yelling at the volunteers? For the record, the volunteers are going out of their way to be helpful. One even loaned his laptop to a competitor whose laptop crashed.

It is terrible how such seemingly bright students are picking up the wrong examples of how to treat other people.

In any case, here is Nikita setting up her project….

On this first day of the New Year, there are many ways of expressing my best wishes to you. None can match what I want to say as well as Bob Perks did in his short story “I wish you enough”.

From the bottom of my heart, my friends, “I wish you enough”.

If you are curious about the story, you can go to http://www.bobperks.com/wish.htm

or read it here…
———-
I never really thought that I’d spend as much time in airports as I do. I don’t know why. I always wanted to be famous and that would mean lots of travel. But I’m not famous, yet I do see more than my share of airports.
I love them and I hate them. I love them because of the people I get to watch. But they are also the same reason why I hate airports. It all comes down to “hello” and “goodbye.”I must have mentioned this a few times while writing my stories for you.

I have great difficulties with saying goodbye. Even as I write this I am experiencing that pounding sensation in my heart. If I am watching such a scene in a movie I am affected so much that I need to sit up and take a few deep breaths. So when faced with a challenge in my life I have been known to go to our local airport and watch people say goodbye. I figure nothing that is happening to me at the time could be as bad as having to say goodbye.

Watching people cling to each other, crying, and holding each other in that last embrace makes me appreciate what I have even more. Seeing them finally pull apart, extending their arms until the tips of their fingers are the last to let go, is an image that stays forefront in my mind throughout the day.

On one of my recent business trips, when I arrived at the counter to check in, the woman said, “How are you today?” I replied, “I am missing my wife already and I haven’t even said goodbye.”

She then looked at my ticket and began to ask, “How long will you…Oh, my God. You will only be gone three days!” We all laughed. My problem was I still had to say goodbye.

But I learn from goodbye moments, too.

Recently I overheard a father and daughter in their last moments together. They had announced her departure and standing near the security gate, they hugged and he said, “I love you. I wish you enough.” She in turn said, “Daddy, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Daddy.”

They kissed and she left. He walked over toward the window where I was seated. Standing there I could see he wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on his privacy, but he welcomed me in by asking, “Did you ever say goodbye to someone knowing it would be forever?”

“Yes, I have,” I replied. Saying that brought back memories I had of expressing my love and appreciation for all my Dad had done for me. Recognizing that his days were limited, I took the time to tell him face to face how much he meant to me.

So I knew what this man experiencing.

“Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever goodbye?” I asked.

“I am old and she lives much too far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is, the next trip back would be for my funeral,” he said.

“When you were saying goodbye I heard you say, “I wish you enough.” May I ask what that means?”

He began to smile. “That’s a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone.” He paused for a moment and looking up as if trying to remember it in detail, he smiled even more.”When we said ‘I wish you enough,’ we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them,” he continued and then turning toward me he shared the following as if he were reciting it from memory.

“I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much
bigger.
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish enough “Hello’s” to get you through the final “Goodbye.”

He then began to sob and walked away.

My friends, I wish you enough!

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