Kids these days.....

Talk to any parent of the current gen and they will tell you that Kids these days are beyond Comprehension. Super fast, too much , too intelligent are some of the adjectives to this proverbially developing population called our next generation.

At a point like this i was tempted to compare my childhood with that of my kid's. They have schools that don't stress on academics alone and want the child to have overall development. They have parents who want them to go to schools like those. My parents put me in a school because it was close to my house and was good enough like all other schools. Not once do i think my Mom or Dad asked the school what was "Their Philosophy". I'm sure they wanted the best for us but i guess the definition of Best just morphosed into something else over the years.

They are surrounded by luxury. A ton of gadgets that we got familiarized with during our 20 somethings are there for them to use or throw when they are not even 4 something. Desktops, laptops, palmtops, mobile phones and so much more. Did someone just coin a term "Born with Multiple Golden Spoons".

But like all other things in life there is a flip side to this. The kids of today have all the luxuries but are wanting on Time from their parents. I as a mom feel guilty several times of not being able to spend enough time with my 3 ish old son, who is a bundle of abundant energy. But, i manage to take time off and spend time with him, to feel connected to him and to have a meaningful conversation with him.

I have made a personal choice to leave my home dusty, my food uncooked - ordered from outside just so that i can spend that time with my son trying to figure out if the gun he is drawing needs to have a bigger nozzle or not. During all my interactions i realize that there is much more information that they internalize. So if its playing with the X-box or practicing Phonetics at the age of 3 my son does have his share of fun and fight. Then there are friends with names like Akarsh, Mayukha, Mrinmayee, Kaivalya, Akashith - a challenge in itself. My friends names were much Simpler.

Their childhood is more challenging than our childhood. But all in all they are all set to take it with the same Gusto that we took up ours. So maybe that's how the equation gets balanced. Along with luxury comes more responsibility and a more complex world.

As parents we can help them Hope for the best while they have the strength to prepare for the worst. We must try and give them the wisdom to differentiate between a want and a need and instill those necessary human values that will form the pillars for their charachter.

Guess What I saw today !!!!!!

On a busy Monday Morning like this especially after a long weekend - this is the time when things like these happen i guess. So while i was too busy pushing myself to get to work that's when i saw It.......

and when i saw it, it seemed as if everything around stopped, it had been really really long since i had seen it. It was as if i had forgotten about it's existence. Our relationship had been severed due to circumstances. This encounter had really stirred up a lot of memories.. from the past.. fond ones.. not so fond ones.. sad ones and many more like these..

Now before you start drawing conclusions - what i saw was a "Post Box".

Thanks to Internet and email, life has become much more easier but it has also somewhere lost the human touch to communication. I still have letters from my friend of school who went away to Vijaywada to do her engineering and its full of stories - trials and tribulations and the respect that you discover you had for you parents.

Then there is this cousin of mine who loves drawing cartoons, his letters were like a monthly Archie's comic for me. Now we hardly really talk - except for the customary courteous exchanges, thanks to email, chat and of course social networking sites.

The most dreaded moments were those when the postman got my marks home in a postcard. I remember vowing to kill that person who had this brilliant idea in school to increase parent teacher interaction. I can bet all other kids felt the same too.

There were those days when i was new to the computer and my granny had no idea what it was. I used to type the letter in a language conversion software - type in English and it writes in Telugu and then i would print that out and post it to my granny.

All that and much more has been eliminated by the email. Now when we read an email we try to read in between, beneath and over and above the mail to figure out what the person is saying. Its personal but still very impersonating.

And that's why i had a bout of nostalgia when i saw my dear friend - "The Postbox".

My dose of Motivation

Aug 05 2008 - Yesterday - A memorable day of my life..

I had the good fortune of meeting Ms. Kiran Bedi. Seeing her in person and having a chance to have heard her speech - truly inspiring.

Also had a chance to see and listen to Mr. Subroto Bagchi (the brain behind Mindtree consulting). One of the finest and most inspiring speeches i have ever heard till date.

As a retrospective i am now thinking about life in general, and my aspirations towards it in particular. How i can improve over myself. What drives me? what are my passions and so on.

It has truly been a "Self Discovery" exercise from then on and i am sure it will continue to be one. Somewhere in the recent past i have decided to define success for myself.

Success as i see it not as per the society's norms, also not as what my peers see it , sometimes not even as my spouse sees it - Simply as I see it.

Because towards the end it's Me that matters the most. I am back with a new zeal , that will ensure that i become a better person.

Come to think of it - i have realized that all of us are unique and this is really important. So when we want to be better we can only be better than our current selves.

On a closing note - i am quoting what i heard from the leadership of my company..

"Aspire to become what your 5 year old thinks you are."

PS: If you don't have a 5 year old then consider your mom / granny or whoever thinks you are a Super Star...

Wishing you all a Very Happy Journey on the path of Self Discovery...........