My weekly tweets archive for the week ending 2011-12-12

The Value of a Smile

“It costs nothing, but creates much. It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give. It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits. It creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is the countersign of friends. It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and Nature’s best antidote for trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is no earthly good to anybody till it is given away. And if in the last-minute rush of the business-day, some of our colleagues should be too tired to give a smile, may we ask you to leave one of yours? For nobody needs a smile so much as those who have none left to give!” – Anonymous

You're never fully dressed without a smile. ~Martin Charnin

You're never fully dressed without a smile. ~Martin Charnin

I think the above quote is enough for achieving the goal of this article, but let me add something in my words. According to me, our smile is the best asset we have, and we are never going to run out of it, irrespective of how rich or poor, happy or miserable we are. It is something which can make each day beautiful, for us and also for those around us.

I feel that life will always give us many reasons to be sad and unhappy, but it is our choice and decision whether to stay sad or not. It is a matter of choice and not of situation that we smile or frown. It is said that a child smiles 400 times per day. Now think about how many times we genuinely smile (don’t count the plastic smiles) each day, and by comparing our count to 400, we will get a measure of our happiness.

When we smile, it brings out the best in us. In a way, you can relate smiling to being in a state of real joy and love, just like a child. A child has no worries about the world and fully experiences whatever he/she does. By smiling more often, we can often connect with the child within all of us who has been over-shadowed by the various tensions and pressures of this world.

Smiling makes everything easier for us. Try to smile and be sad at the same time. If you keep smiling, it will be very difficult for anybody to make you sad. It is the best first impression you can make on anybody. It can open closed doors for you as it can dissolve tension in any room and leave everybody with a feeling of peace and warmth.

And a smiling face rarely goes unnoticed. Have you ever noticed that it is very difficult not to smile back at a smiling face. It is one of the most pleasurable moments when somebody smiles back at you. So smile at your kids when you go home today, smile (and laugh) with your colleagues at work during a serious meeting, and if you really want to test it, smile at someone who is angry at you, either on the roads or at your work. More often that not, that person will smile back at you, and you can be proud of the gift you just gave him (and yourself).

My weekly tweets archive for the week ending 2011-12-05

10 Things I am thankful for in the year 2011

As another year (2011) nears to an end, it’s time to look back at what all I did (or didn’t do) this year, and what were the various joys, sorrows, mistakes and lessons over the last 11 months. When I look back, I realize that 2011 has been nothing but amazing for me. The kind of things I have done in this year, I would not have even imagined on Jan 1 this year, and I am totally excited by what I see is in store for me for the next year.

In this article, I am going to list 10 things or people to whom I am grateful for in the year gone by :-

1. My Family

This year brought our whole family (all 4 of us) together in Bangalore after many years, and specially after the last two years when the four of us where living in three different cities. My brother moved to Bangalore with Wipro and my parents are also here with me for the time being, making the last 5 months very good as a family. We have shared a lot of time together, went out to places like Mysore and Shivasamudra, which were perhaps the first by us as a family in around 20 years.

2. Bangalore

I completed three years in Bangalore recently, and I can’t be more grateful to this wonderful city and the amazing people here. As an article on FirstPost remarked, “Bangalore’s true, enduring grace is her people: Unselfconsciously and warmly cosmopolitan and broad-minded; intellectual and cultured without pretension or design; easygoing and friendly because they have nothing to prove – to you or the Joneses. Bangalore and Bangaloreans let you just be.” Thank You Bangalore..

A big thank you to all those who are reading this :)

A big thank you to all those who are reading this :)

3. Anna Hazare & IAC

It was only by chance that I got associated with Anna Hazare and the IAC movement in March this year while organizing the Dandi March in Bangalore. This was before any of his two fasts unto death this year, and even I heard his name for the first time then. What amazed me was the kind of group Anna Hazare, Kiran Bedi, Arvind Kejriwal and others have formed all over the country and how the country reacted to his fight against corruption. The sight of people on the roads with tricolor in their hands and holding candle light vigils in every Indian city was very heartening to see. I also got an opportunity to meet and listen to a lot of amazing people like Santosh Hedge, Kiran Bedi, among many others during this year. Thank You Anna Hazare, Thank You IAC, Thank You India.

4. Pick a Fight Team

It was during the Dandi March and the first fast by Anna Hazare in April, that the seeds of Pick a Fight were born. In the coming months, we started operations in Bangalore working with a few NGOs, and now have teams in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi. There have been some amazing people who have come out to be a part of this team and I want to thank all of them, especially Anupama, for their efforts in making this world a better place. I am also grateful to people from various NGOs like Gift Your Organ, Beyond Carlton and other orphanages and old age homes which we have visited. These people have inspired me with the amazing work they are doing. Thank you all!!

5. Friends

I have made some amazing friends this year from all walks of life and I am grateful to all of them for making this year a wonderful one for me. I especially want to thank Kinshuk and Tripti, talking to whom has always been a revelation. Tripti joined Yahoo this year to again become a colleague after InfoEdge and I have always admired her wisdom and valuable advice. Kinshuk, despite being in New York, has never seemed away and talking to him always make me feel that he knows me better than I know myself. Thanks for those long hours of talks we have had over phone over various subjects, ranging from business ideas to ‘cant-write-here’ stuff 😉 I also want to thank all my other friends from Delhi, my college friends in Bangalore, and various other people whom I have made friends this year.

6. Yahoo – the Good

Working in Yahoo was my first experience of working in a truly global company, and it was a much needed exposure I got. I got to talk to people and work with teams from the US, UK, France adding to Brazil and Singaporean people with whom I interacted with last year. I also got a lot of ideas and understanding about how business and teams work across different time-zones, cultures and languages.

7. My Blog sumit4all.com

I really started to enjoy my writing this year, and according to my readers, my writing itself has got a lot refined and better this year. I can see the evidence in the fact that some posts have got really popular and shared well on different social networks. I am also left with so much joy after seeing various comments on the blog and hearing from many different people how they have enjoyed reading my articles and poems. I am grateful to all of my readers.

8. Health

I don’t know what is the affinity of cancer with my family, but I see it everywhere in my family, both from paternal and maternal sides. It has taken away many people away from our family, and even in my home it gives a guest appearance every now and then, the last time being last year. So I was glad I didn’t had to see any more of it this year, and everybody in my family is healthy. Even my own health this year has been the best it had been in many many years, and I am really grateful for it.

9. Yahoo – the Not So Good

Obviously, working in a big corporate environment means you have to go through the usual bull-shit of office politics, long and boring meetings and mundane work happening at slow speeds. For somebody like me who has worked in startups for most of his career, this culture at Yahoo got a little frustrating at times. But I am really grateful for this too as it seems to be pushing me where I truly belong, at a startup, either mine or of another entrepreneur. Thank you Yahoo, for both the good and the not-so-good parts…

10. Rahul Dravid

OK. This had to come on this list. I am a big fan of cricket, and especially Test Cricket and Rahul Dravid. Seeing him this in the prime of his form, scoring runs all around the world while the whole team struggled has been anything but pure bliss. Thank you Rahul Dravid for the visual treat which watching your batting is, and which has been visible in plenty as you marvelously scored your 1000 runs in Test Match cricket this year.

I am not sure living gratefully is unselfish or the most selfish thing you can do. In the moments when I receive gratitude, for a caring gesture or a little act of help, I feel wonderful. I propose all of us end this year by being grateful for the various people and incidents which have made a difference in our lives this year.

My weekly tweets archive for the week ending 2011-11-28