Waves

Few days ago, I wrote an article for Club Echo’s blog. For the reader’s convenience, I have reproduced the same article below. Read it and tell me how you feel.

Stress is very common. Everybody has it. Everybody faces it. Without even a bit of stress, everything in this world would come to standstill. That is because stress is the critical component that moves things around; that gets things done. But, one thing to remember is that, stress should not overtake permissible limits.

Apart from work stress, there are other kinds of stress that knowingly or unknowingly affect us. Together, all the stresses collate at the end of the day and tire us out. This article is going to be about killing the extra stresses so that life beyond work will be awesome!

Stress outside work occurs when the mind is chattering unnecessarily. “Chattering unnecessarily” means that some thought or the other keeps doing rounds in our minds. To attain peace and relief from stress, one must try to stop the mind from chattering. If there is no work to do, engaging in a hobby or two is a good thing. Learning new skills is another. Meditation for even a few minutes is great. A luke warm water bath does so much good. … See the point? There are a lot of things to do if you WISH to do.

Chattering mostly occurs when we are doing routine tasks. That’s because the mind/body is so used to doing the routine tasks that it just doesn’t concentrate on the task at hand and starts wandering. Most popular routine tasks that fit the bill are riding, walking, reading, cooking and watching TV.

There is one simple solution to get the mind to stop thinking uselessly – Condition it. Do you think smoking is bad? If yes, it means that you are conditioned so strongly to believe that smoking is bad. Similar conditioning of the mind is required to keep it from chattering. Every now and then, when you start drifting and realize it, stop then and there and COMMAND your mind to stop the useless thoughts. Keep doing this repeatedly. This is a very simple task. Once you get used to it, after a certain period of time, your mind will not go on its own; which means, you enjoy the task at hand. Slowly, as and when more and more tasks are getting done, we even get better at multi-tasking.

May be there could be a Leonardo Da Vinci in the making 🙂 . Here are a few solutions to some common problems:

• You are having a heavy fight and you are immediately moving out somewhere. Of course, you will have a foul mood and your driving will be rash and your mind will go crazy of thinking how to punish the people who made you feel bad. Right? A wise man is one who doesn’t act when he is angry. So, as soon as you are away, stop aside, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, relax and then resume driving. Spend some time alone and do not let your mind wander.
• You are just out of an unusually hard day at office and you are about to date your favourite girl 😀 but the foul mood continues 🙁 . So, the most simplest thing you can do is, keep repeating to yourself that office is over and you are going to have an awesome time 😀 . It will save lot of energy and you will be radiating optimism.
• Drink lots of water. That way, even if you don’t want to, you will walk to the restroom. It will keep you away from boredom and will keep you productive.
• Write simple articles like this 😉

There are many other simple problems that everybody faces day in and day out. It’s all up to us to manage them and conquer them. Share your simple problems in the comments section and show us how you tackled them.

How was it? Liked it? Have suggestions? Let me know in the comments section.

Thanks for reading!

A few of my good friends have come with this initiative of filling up potholes in the Chennai city. They will be doing it over a period of 2 days, starting yesterday night and resuming again tonight. Please visit the wiki for more information.

I may be joining them tonight 🙂

As expected, the rooms running the internet, mobile and startup collectives are packed. Will keep this post updated as the day unfolds 😀

…for BarCampBangalore 4th edition :D. I’m taking part in the Ruby and the Startups collective.

I attended a few sessions on the Internet collective. But they were pretty boring.

The session by the co-founder of Sloka Telecom, one of the selected companies of the Proto.in first edition, gave an awesome pep talk on how he built his own startup. They are 3 years into it and doing a pretty good job. He made the whole thing look so easy that, the next thing that you want to do after getting back home is to form a startup 😀

Another guy from PicSquare (sorry, I forgot his name) also shared his experience. I’m with the ruby collective now. Will keep you updated on this.

Very much looking forward to the Startup collective that is going to continue tomorrow morning.
Oh! yah.. met some pretty cool people, including Freeman, who is organizing SkillsCamp in Pune.

Having a nice time! 😀

Update: The ruby collective was damn interesting yesterday. The crowd seems more interested in the internet, mobile and startup space. So, hopefully day 2 will be packed of such sessions.

Hi guys, Good Morning !

Just to try out a change in the everyday breakfast, I decided to have cornflakes. So, since this Monday, I’m on cornflakes. Here’s my preparation for you to try out.

1. Take a nice bowl and put 2 to 3 handful of cornflakes. Spread them out evenly.
2. Take a small cube of jaggery (called vellam in tamil) and crush it well. Add it to the cornflakes and mix it well by hand. Now, sprinkle some raisins (also called kanja draksha in tamil).
3. Get a half litre packet of cold milk and pour half of the “half litre pack” of milk to the mixture of cornflakes, jaggery and raisins. Don’t mix it now.
4. If you have honey, add a dash of it 😀
5. Get a banana, preferably ones that are big, such as the famous nenthirampazham or the pachai vazhai pazham (the bananas with the green skin). Cut them into small pieces and add them to the bowl.

Take a spoon and mix it well. Let it rest for a few minutes and then devour it 😀

Now, since this is mango season, instead of banana, you can use that also. Take a mango, a ripe one preferably. Peel off its skin properly, cut it into small pieces and add them to the bowl of cornflakes. That would make it delicious. Yesterday I tried out a mixture of both banana and mango and the resulting turned out to be awesome!

Try this out and let me know 😀

What is love at first sight? According to me, it is the emotional surge that you get when you see something so beautiful or interesting (its relative… meaning, what is beautiful for you may not be beautiful for me) that for a brief moment, it captures your heart and holds your attention. During that hypnostic moment, your eyes don’t see anything else, your ears don’t listen to anything else. All the available body resources are pooled in to enjoy that “love-at-first-sight” moment. When you come out of the trance, you just laugh it away and all body resources come back to normal.

Yep! as if you had not guessed it by now, I got affected by the love-at-first-sight moment yesterday. And yeah! it nearly burned a Rs.1000/- hole in my pocket. I was shopping yesterday and 1 particular shoe’s design caught my eye and I couldn’t take my eyes off it 😀 It was breathtakingly superb. Just loved it. Therefore, I bought it heheh!

Anyway, I’m back after a well-deserved month long break from blogging :-). You can see me posting more frequently from now on.

Cheers…

Was just wasting some time on the internet and found this funny test named “Which file extension are you?”. Click on the image below to take the test yourself 🙂

Which File Extension are You?

CRAP !

Read more reviews here.

Hi guys, I should say a hell a lot of exciting things have been happening for quite some time. Here are the list of events which has been keeping me busy.

Proto.in 2007 SE
Proto.in was a good success last time. Proto.in second edition has been fixed for 21st and 22nd July 2007 at Chennai. Exact location will be put up soon at the proto.in website. As usual, I’m taking care of the website along with Siddharta. An interim website for Proto.in 2007 SE is up at http://www.proto.in/proto2007se. You can also go through the old proto website to learn what this event is about.

If you are a product based startup company, you can nominate yourself now. The nomination closes on 5th June 2007. As last time, 30 companies with amazing products will get a chance to present them on the day of the event. Registrations for participants will start after the nominations are over. Read the blog for more information. Subscribe to the ProtoTalk group to keep yourself updated with the latest happenings.

MoMoChennai
MoMo = Mobile Monday. The venue for the first episode has been fixed as IIT and the event is scheduled for 6th May 2007, which is a sunday. Therefore, this event can also be called as MMS (Mobile Monday on a Sunday) :-). More details here and here.

PodWorks
This is a two day event, focussing on podcasts. This event will consist of crisp workshops on podcasting and hey, you will definitely walk away carrying a lot of satisfaction on acquiring your new skill :-). More details coming soon.

BigRace
This is a challenging race in which with just about Rs.1000/- you should to travel to the farthest destination possible and come back in 10 days. You are not encouraged to carry any money and in case you are in want of money, you can do small part time jobs on your trip :-). This should be very very exciting and if I get a 10 day off at work, then you can see me there. More info at bigrace.pbwiki.com.

*Wipes sweat off the forehead*

Exciting times ahead!!!

Starting this April, Chennai is going to witness a new event called “Mobile Monday”. The Chennai version of the event will be spearheaded by Varun Krishnan and interested others can pitch in. The event is supposed to be of 3 to 4 hours duration with talks on various technical and non-technical topics with new product demos etc.

You can get more info at the following places.
1. Wiki.
2. Mailing List.
3. Email Varun.

The first Mobile Monday is scheduled for 22nd April, 2007. Info on the venue and timings will be available soon.