Monday Blues: Can positive attitude lead to success?

Can we push ourselves towards success by maintaining a positive attitude? Studies in the recent times point out to that effect. 

Did you know that people suffering from mental health issues have 6 times higher mortality rate than others? 

If they are identified and diagnosed on time, with help, we can bring people out of depression and help cope up with mental issues. Whatever the issue is - job, money, relationship, education, failure, health, just talk it out. Maintain a gratiude attitude and talk to someone who can help you.

Here are some easy ways to stay motivated, especially in these tough times we are going through. 

• Keep A Gratitude Diary: When you have a gratitude journal beside you, it will give you the chance to jot down all the things you are grateful for. You can write about things that you like and how lucky you are that it exists. Doing so will surely bring a lot of happiness. 
• Eat Healthy: A study has provided evidence that consuming a regular proportion of vegetables and fresh fruits can improve mental well-being. When your mental state improves, you will surely feel a lot happier than before. 
• Moving Your Body: Conducting cardiovascular exercises regularly is viewed as one of the best antidepressants of all time. You can also transform your regular exercise or a workout into a social experience like playing some sport rather than walking alone. Playing basketball, golfing, soccer can surely keep you in good shape and also increase your happiness. 
• Social Connectedness: Communicating or interacting with people will surely make you feel happier. You will get the chance to learn new things, discuss important topics and get to share opinions and advice with others. You will not just gain happiness, but it will make you feel a lot more energetic and confident. 
• Being Cheerful: Visualizing all the positive outcomes and circumstances will surely increase your happiness. This is ideal for all those individuals who aim to fulfill a new objective or goal. 
• Using Your Strength: You must identify all the strengths and commit so that you can use them in brand-new ways. Doing so will allow you to gain a lot of happiness, which will also increase your chances of becoming successful in the things you do. 
• Be Kind or Humble: Showing kindness is one of the best ways to become happy in life. When you help someone, giving support and love will also help in your own sense of well-being. This will ultimately lead towards happiness. 

Happiness is something that you can easily achieve through many things. Being kind and cheerful will surely allow you to stay happier. Eating healthy food products and doing some exercise or playing sports can also increase happiness. When you feel happy, it becomes easier for you to gain success in life.

Be the light

Be a light in someone's life. When you can. Even if it is negligible. Shine on them. #TalktoTiger #PositivePsychology

Lessons from the coffee bean - COVID 19

Coffee beans are extricated from the plant to make great espresso. As somebody who cherishes a well brewed espresso, some of the times more than tea or ice cream, I wanted to take a couple of lessons that I learned and check whether they can be useful to you. I am certain you will cherish what I'm going to explain since this is something that we are experiencing in these difficult times. 

GRINDING PROCESS 

The extraction procedure of coffee from the beans looks extremely simple when it is plucked from the plant however it is definitely not simple. After the seed is sun-dried, it is required to experience a grinding procedure. At the point when the coffee beans are placed in the processor, they lose their shape, their structural integrity, and are changed over to what exactly may appear to be an aimless powder very different as what it was previously.  But this is just the beginning of the process because they are to end your more into becoming something. If you get coffee bean to talk at this stage, it might say that is been through a really tough time and it has lost its entire identity as it has gone through the painful grinding process. But we don't get the coffee powder to make good coffee unless the bean is ground thoroughly. So when you are going through tough times it is not always tough on you for a bad reason but it might be an opportunity for you to endure this pain and learn something nice and become something better. When you compare coffee beans with coffee powder, I prefer coffee powder because that is ready for me to do something with it and even smells better than the bean. So hang on when the grinding is happening because it is going to make you and your life better. Learn what you can during this grinding.

SIZZLING HOT BAPTISM 

If the coffee bean thinks that its pain is over and it is ready to flourish as a good cup of coffee, it is in for a surprise. The extracted powder that just endured the grinding process, is then suddenly sent into another tough process where is put through more pain where it is added to hot boiling water. The sizzling hot water baptism burns the coffee powder and takes only the essence out of it leaving the remaining coffee powder, which is of practically no use. You might say that the coffee powder has served its purpose but if you think of the bean or the plant, it is just discarded at this stage and can add nothing more to the coffee. So when you are going through tough times I encourage you to look at the better side of life. You have a significant role to play in whatever you are doing. Take the good in. Ardently see how you can pass on your essence and give whatever your character is to make the way better further. Don't just be there and exist or survive through this but thrive. Strive to add something to your work, family, or someone else so that you are able to change from what you are to better. Many of you are making the best of this time by creating content, working better, by helping others, by being with your family, by taking care of your parents, by rekindling relationships that are lost or teaching your children helping out with chores. Some of us are taking additional responsibilities at work, helping people who are down, managing our finances better, and so on. Make sure this tough time helps you to learn what is important and encourage you to be ready to bring the best in you out. 

THE DRESSING CONUNDRUM 

Let's go back to the journey of a coffee bean. Are we at the end yet? Now that we have a sizzling hot cup of black coffee, many people are happy at this stage as they might prefer black coffee. Some of us like to add quite a few things to our black coffee like milk, cream, cinnamon, chocolate, icecream, froth, or all to make it interesting. So at the end of the entire tiresome grinding, being put through sizzling water, the coffee is then taken to add more elements to make it interesting or personal to someone. Just like the basic dark coffee that comes out of the coffee machine is the same, each of us is going through the toughest of times our generation has ever seen. But each of our experiences is different just like how we can customize by adding your own flavors & choice of ingredients to make it better. 

HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR COFFEE? 

So when this unavoidable time is upon us and we are forced to go through this grinding process with health scares; hot sizzling water like situations that have led to job losses, financial struggles, lock-downs, delayed loan payments, mental health issues and uncertainty about future, I urge you to add your own flavor to it to make this bitter experience better. Add love, joy, caring, compassion, and empathize with people around you to make this bitter experience better. 

Needless to say, if you share your cup of coffee, whether it is a cold one or a hot sizzling one with cream on the top, with someone you care about or even a stranger it always enhances the experience of having the coffee and takes the bitterness out of it. So today, take this opportunity to connect with somebody that you'd love to share your story or send me a message and I would love to hear from you #TalkToTiger and I promise to get back to you at the earliest. 

Time for a cup of coffee and driving the blues out. Wishing you an August day ahead.

Monday blues: Grow like there is no tomorrow

Grow when there is resistance. Grow when they say you can't. Grow when you are stuck. Grow when there is no way forward. Grow when your own mind says you can't. Grow when there is negativity. 

Grow with faith. Grow with passion. Grow with sweat. Grow with hard work. Grow without fear. Grow with commitment. Grow even when there is no more space. Grow while you learn. Grow everyday. Grow with hope. Grow with others. Grow like there is no tomorrow.

#grow #TalktoTiger #PositivePsychology #growthmindset #salesman #Tiger 

#likesforlikes #followforfollow #2020 #plantsofinstagram #coconut #MondayBlues #redblooms

Don't give up

That is the potential each of us have. Every day, we can move forward and start a new day, a new life. Everyday is a gift from the Lord and it is your responsibility to ensure you make it worth it. Sky is your limit. You can reach it. Don't give up yet. 

Don't give up even if things don't go your way. Even if that friendship doesn't work, even if you don't get that job, you can't repay the loans. can't make it big, can't get what you want today! Remember tomorrow is another day, another chance, another fresh start. You never know what you can become if you don't try. Don't give up yet. Don't quit. This is not a race. This is a marathon. You should be in for the long run. You have many people who love you, care for you and are rooting for you. Don't quit.

If you feel depressed, feel that your life has no meaning, feel that the world is closing on you, feel that you are alone and don't have anyone who can understand how you feel, still, DON'T QUIT. Find someone who will listen to you. Take help. Call a friend, brother, parent, teacher or someone who will listen to you. Visit a place of worship, help someone in need, take a walk, join a gym or do anything that will keep your mind busy. Just DON'T QUIT yet when your life is a story about to unfold. You are important. 

If you feel you are #depressed and need to talk to someone who will listen to you without judging and can help you, mail me or message me. If you have a friend who is going through stuff, refer them ti someone who can help too. I am always ready to lend a patient ear, warm #coffee and a comforting hug. 

God has put immense potential in you and you have to give it a chance to bloom. Be a blessing to many people and you will see how many people care for you and love you. If everything else fails, talk to someone you love or #TalktoTiger write2tiger@gmail.com

Lessons from Chennai Super Kings and Shane Watson in IPL final 2018

Congratulations Chennai Super Kings and well played Sunrisers Hyderabad. Here are some quick takeaways from the super charged final of IPL 2018. 

1. 1. Face the tough times:Watson had been resilient in these situations like the final twice - today with the calm Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and with the instigating charged up Wahab. In both situations, he maintained his composure, didn't let the situations dictate his moods or actions and came out as winner. Just like this, Each of us will have many tough things we have to go through in life, work, relationships and there are no two ways about it. The best way when nothing is working your way is to hold your head high and absorb everything happening around you and make that as your experience.
   
2. Have a plan and a back up plan and another back up plan:
   What makes leaders differ from others is that they are always thinking about strategies and have a plan to back up if things don't work out and always keep improvising and put things they planned in to execution. Keep thinking on your feet, all the time. When Watson had 9 dot balls on his score card, he wasn't thinking about the match or the bowler, he was focusing on how he can start going back to run a ball and then accelerate. Be in the how and hold your peace.
   
3. Believe in yourself and your team:While things weren't going well, Watson got enough support from Raina, Bravo and team in the dugout who didn't have a tense moment as they believed he would come up with a cool knock. You could see Dhoni in the dressing room keeping his cool and pacing calmly.
   
   Believe and depend on your team to help you get out of tough situations and be there when someone is not doing well. You need to back your team and work together. Working as a team and focusing on the enemy will help everyone move forward.
   
4. Training and process pays:Did you observe Shane Watson was not able run singles? His lower body wasn't helping him and he decided not to push himself in running singles and strategically played to score 4s & 6s. This applies to our business and life too. When you know you aren't going well in any area, play to your strengths and recuperate where you are down. Simple logic but very useful. If one of your products isn't doing well, focus on the better moving ones and help rework on what is not working.
   
   Having the best training where you can see all possible scenarios and work on them before going to the field.
   
5. Winning is not everything:
   While it is important to win, it is not everything. Going there in tune with your value systems, trust, respect makes it as important. Williamson proved this just right. Thrust upon the responsibility to captain a team who lost their leader in an ugly scandal, he evolved into one of the top leaders easily this IPL. Dhoni has his share of points in this as well. He could come back after a gap, regroup and live up to the tremendous pressure of the fans, management and himself. In business world we need to always remember the values you have for yourself and your team. Respect, trust and honesty are virtues you need to live for and this will be with you even after you have moved on with the situation you are handling.
   
6. Family is equally important, if not more:
   Seeing visuals of Dhoni carrying is daughter, Sakshi, Anushka and lot of family support in the ground actually helps show how important it is for the players and the fans. Spending time with the family and sharing your thoughts with the experiences help your reduce stress. Giving equal importance to the family helps you think clearer and be peaceful. Make time for the family.
   
7. Keep yourself fit.
   Several players in CSK are over 30 and no one seemed slow or easy to go. This shows the amount of importance given to physical fitness and mental strength they have. Dhoni is as for as ever. Time to bit the gym and lose those extra pounds and get fit. Being fit helps you take things to a different level.

What is your takeaway from today's game? Share in the comment below!

Photo courtesy: i.guim.co.uk

Be remembered for Good

I came upon this wonderful video by Avijit Dutt from the Good Crusaders series and what a joy we can feel watching him narrate stories of how he helped create the child abuse helpline. If you are determined and be consistent and you will find a solution for the problem you are worried about. Avijit Dutt recalls how he was shooting a film on child abuse and his coincidental meeting with MTNL helped form 1098 which is available across the world now and helps save several children from the clutches of child abuse, provides counseling among other things. 

In another experience, he mentions about how generalization and extrapolation of urban data is used to bring out statistics to take decisions on health care policies. Avijit Dutt and his team worked on a health care camp to do tests generate reports and use the data (big data) to help find patterns of non-communicable diseases and thereby prevent them from happening. Also, he explains how the use of these tests, when made available to the patient, can help save a lot of money and also stop doctors and pathologists from cheating people and getting unnecessary tests from being made. This study of this vast data can help in making informed valued strategic decisions that will, in turn, help the people. This knowledge also equips the villagers and beneficiaries to be knowledgeable and stop diseases.

In another interesting episode, he explains how an idle mind can be a devil's workshop or sugar factory. The cause was 'worry'! Can you just imagine that? Worry. People had everything from money enough to last a couple of decades and this money was from land deals they sold out to the urbanization. When they were in the farms sweating day in and day out, they were happy and healthy. But once the money came in and they had no work to do, they started worrying about today, tomorrow and which helped grow weak to health problems like diabetes. Simple understanding situations like these are used to create awareness and use the CSR funds of companies and use them to create sustainable happiness and bring about change in the world around us. 

Another beautiful story is by Rashmi Tiwari who explains how her horizons expanded when she visited a village which was in absolute poverty and these poor people had too little to live and were ready to sell out their own children. Such economic deprivation pushed them to take extreme measures and how hunger can drive you to any end. How Rashmi Tiwari helped the tribal girls to get educated, motivated, knowledgeable and help reduce the human trafficking through Ahan foundation! The videos in this series would open your mind to endless possibilities in helping others in the society. The Good Crusaders is a platform created by 100 Pipers to help bring positive stories that would warm your heart and show how simple it is to make a change one life at a time. Compassion breeds happiness manifold and we need as much as we can!

#TheGoodCrusaders #100Pipers #BeRememberedForGood

Quest on

The pundits would have giggled when they formed the word Question. As we are talking about self help tips and positive psychology to succeed at workplace this month, let us talk about learning through questioning.

As kids we all are open to ask question. Remember your school days? But as we grow up we shy away. Each day when you go about your work question yourself how do we do this better? Is this the best way to go about this work problem or can I find a more interesting way, more easier way or more fun way to do this. Then try and do it some other way and see how it works out. If there is an easier way you should find out, find it out!

When you come across any word you cant decipher, check it out. Find out the meaning right then and there. You need some tools on your phone, ipad or on computer to set that thing on. Learn how to write better, speak better. Keep learning.

One thing I am addicted to is reading. Reading can open up your mind and change your perspectives, help generate new ideas, give solutions to problems, create new ones :) Basically help you in changing the stautus quo. Pick books that matter to you and talk about things you are interested in. Read life histories, read leadership, management books (time, life, people, love and so on). Pick up fiction, poetry, music whatever motivates you and keeps you going. Pick anything you want but keep the quest on.

At work learn new things you can do, learn what your colleagues do, superiors do, what you can do to go to the next level and perform better. Question the status quo and see that you understand, change, lead and motivate yourself and others to perform better.

At home ask questions to your wife about her day. She would have have an exciting day too. Check that out. Lend a genuine ear and empathise with her work and life and celebrate her success more than you celebrate yours. If she wins, you have already won. Question your kids about their day at school/college/work and encourage their victories, make it a big deal, lend an ear to their troubles, problems and see how they can work it out. Question your parents about their day, issues and what not. Seek the kid in you to be alive with the curiosity quotient at the peak and keep learning for the day you stop learning and questioning is the day you cease to live and just exist. Don't be a zombie, be alive - Question.

#PositivePsychologist
#ConsumerPsyche
#Question
#AtoZChallenge
#MondayBlues

Negative attitude

This is a part of a series of articles I am writing for the self help techniques and positive psychology and here we are today with the topic of negative attitude. 

If there is one thing we can all do without is this quality - Negative attitude. Trust me when I say it can kill! Let me give you an example - a negative Shaguni could kill a 100 strong princes and a positive Krishna could lead five brothers to victory and beyond. A negative minded Bhijjala Deva in Bahubhali could lead a prosperous kingdom to doom and unhappiness to all. Hitler based his campaign on negativity to jews and other people and ended in destruction to others and himself. A positive Tippu Sultan dies defending a Hindu Temple and is worshiped as a legend even today. 

What do we do to avoid negative attitude and people. People you should avoid. Negative attitude is like cancer and creeps slowly into your brain and makes itself comfortable there spreading silently binging off the positive cells and thoughts. Self doubt is one such thing we need to avoid at any cost. Negative people and thoughts always come off as very decent, realistic, positive good meaning but never are so. Whenever you want to achieve something, plan something or start there would be someone who would caution you, listen to them and many more but take your own decision. There is no need to stop because there are risks, take calculative risks and listen to naysayers but use that to strengthen your resolve and take precautions. 

Never forget training, preparing, planning before execution of the idea or task. When given a task to cut a tree in eight hours, a smart guy would sharpen his axe for the first 7 hours and cut the tree in the next one hour. Plan, prepare and go on to execute. If you fail in the attempt, don't let people or failure pull you down, try again.

#PositivePsychology
#ConsumerPsyche
#NegativeAttitude
#AtoZChallenge

D for Dressing up @ Bangalore Fashion Week

Models getting prepped up before walking the ramp for Bangalore Fashion Week. Backdoor access is not for everyone and I got to see some exclusive candid shots.

It is a tough world when you have to get dressed up and walk out in under 180 secs and a thousand cameras, eyes, lights, high resolution super zoom cameras are aimed at you and even a small smirk, blemish is blown up and seen in a magnifying glass. There was noise, there was chaos, shouting, calling, dusting, foundation, changing, smiling, chattering, texting, eating, drinking, napping and snapping yet there was some sense of peace when professionals went about doing their jobs in calm fluid like motion where they were delivering with excellence and perfection and while the model walked out to the ramp in full glowing bulb lit six feet wide ramp and enjoyed the glory of 30 seconds the team just moved on to another model, washing, wiping, removing, adding, prepping and continued the rhythm. It shouldn't stop, it shouldn't pause; you cannot rest, you cannot fail as the show... must go on. There is so much pressure, so much tension but there is professionalism, so much positive psyche in the room as well.

Life is actually so fast and things happen so fast. If you are not ready to keep up, it will crush you, demolish you and discard you like a banana peel under a truck tire. So there should be enough practice, enough momentum and learn to adapt as quickly as possible. 

Let me connect you from the world of fashion to the workplace, train yourself in your field and keep learning even after you have been at work for a few years. Learn to be ahead of your game. Whenever there is a recession, downsizing guess who will stay and who will go! There is no excuse for being lazy or recluse. Learn the skills of the game. In today's momentary blink and miss it world, every second counts.

Also be a great team player. You need to learn to work with others, be helpful and be nice and charming in your work. Dress up to the occasion and you never know how things can turn out to be. A prepared, dressed up, planned model is more classy and relaxed. Time to get ready. So dress up!

#AtoZChallenge
#ConsumerPsyche
#DressingUp
#PositivePsychologist

C is for Coffee, chocolate and caring for yourself

What is so special about coffee that I choose to write about it? Almost all my regular readers know that I love coffee and that it forms a way I indulge myself in. Coffee, chocolate and ice cream in that order. If I get a coffee with chocolate ice cream on the top, nothing like it. Now you might be thinking. Well wait a minute. Didn't you say you are writing about positive psychology and what is coffee doing here? Read on how to beat Monday Blues everyday!

Today we are going to talk about indulging yourself. When I mean indulge it doesn't just mean eating something but it is about taking good care of yourself. It may be your favorite food, drink, dressing up well, grooming yourself, going for a walk, run, swim, shopping, participating in a charity, helping someone, reading a book, writing a blog post, going on a trek, diving, cooking, practically anything. Anything that you do for yourself.

In the hum drum off life, we tend to ignore the most important person in our life - YOU!. If you don't take care of yourself, who will? So taking good care of oneself is as important as taking care of your children, parents and everyone else. How would you do that? Here are some tips for you to do that. Hope you follow them and be happy by doing so.

1. Watch your health - take good care of your health, sugar levels, signs of cholesterol, what you eat, drink. Go for a run, have some exercise routine fit in to your daily schedule.
2. Get your health checkup done once you cross significant milestones like 35, 40, 45 and so on. You might want to start early if you have someone in your family with heart problems, cancer and stuff like that.
3. Read a lot: I love reading and I am sure you should be liking it too. Whatever genre you might like, do make a point to have a book on your table or bedside and read it. Books are windows to a different world that runs on your own imagination.
4. Drink enough water: One of the simplest things we forget is hydrating ourselves. Usually we are already thirsty when we seek water which means we are late. Water forms over 70% of our body and needs to be hydrated all the time.
5. Write awesome stuff: Well you need to be kidding me when you think you will
   l be remembered when you don't even write? Leave enough paper trail and notes for people to find out more about you. A thousand years later somewhere someone would be reading this on his eyeball and thinking, wow!
6. Take up a cause: It can be anything. Don't seek anything in return from that but take up a cause. It can be recycling, helping out an ngo, volunteering or donating. Spend your time and yourself.
7. De-clutter: Take time to sort your sh*t out! Well you need to do that and do that regularly. We spend too much time on unnecessary things like searching for stuff all around the house. Same thing with your laptop, work desk and life!
8. Family time: Spend time with your family but you be the one who is served. Once in a while change the game and demand to be taken care of.
9. Gift yourself something! Isn't it too long since you bought something for yourself? Do it today. Buy that dress, bag or whatever you wanted to buy but kept it pending. Go indulge.

Now where is my coffee.

#AtoZChallenge

#ConsumerPsyche
#IloveCoffee

A for Ask

This is a series of articles about positive psychology and human psyche and how we can improve our performances and deal with depression, anxiety and negativity. These might just be the tips you are looking at to succeed at the workplace and life!

Today we are talking about the alphabet A and A for me is about Asking!

While it may sound very simple to say, it can be really difficult to ask something. Most of us usually pass on without asking. Ask for help, ask for a explanation, question, learn and try to see what the other person, situation wants from you. If you are unclear about what is to be done, then how would you come up with the solution to it? Some of the most complex situations can be helped with a simple question and that begins with you asking more information about it. 

Never think you would be losing out on your stature or be kindled by asking. It is never so. As kids we all have this curiosity bug that makes us continuously ask questions but as we grow up we stop doing that and lose our focus. Most leaders ask relevant questions, questions that make you change the chaos to order, that make sense out of nonsense. 

Have an attitude of learning. You need not always ask questions to others, you have Google! Ask Google anything and everything that you don't know. Seek answers to questions that bug you, that irritate you and make you feel less knowledgeable. Make sure you have a positive attitude for learning and that you learn one thing new every day. It can be anything, can be simple and yet learn. 

The beauty of positive psychology is that it begins from you and grow out of you so much that it starts effecting the environment around you in a positive way. You opinions change, your relationships would be better and when you set the expectations right about what you ought to be doing, you tend to do them better and all of that begins from a simple action of asking! So let us learn to ask the right questions, seek solutions, answers and make life most energetic and meaningful. Keep that curiosity bug in you alive. What will you ask today?

#AtoZchallenge
#positivepsychology
#TalktoTiger

Monday Blues: Take Timeout

Every now and then we are bogged up with routine and the way things are going at home and work. 

As it is important to have a break from work (usually on our week offs), we also need some space from home/family routine. This applies for both husband and wife and kids. Basically, you need to get a chance to step out of the treadmill, monotonous schedule and get a break. Yes! Monday blues can be handled better if you catch a break. So today's post is about beating the Monday Blues or Tuesday Blues by taking a time out and relaxing.

Now you must be thinking that everyone knows that a break will help and what is new with this post? I am not talking about the break from work. I am talking about the break from family. Special timeout for you from your family. I agree that holidays with family are relaxing too and would help in your rejuvenation but the best way to take a break personally is to just go out of the family and let yourself unwind. I am talking about the break with your friends, childhood mates, other people who would help you unwind. 

Once you step out of the family, you would have enough freedom (pun intended) to do whatever the hell you want to do or not do. This will reset your clock and attitude and help you realize how important you are for your family and vice versa. Thus Monday Blues wouldn't have a chance to creep back to your family life and would be purged regularly.

I for one believe in letting my partner off the hook when it comes to chores sometimes and also believe in letting her relax alone with her book, music, movie or her friends or go shopping without bothering about our kids, dinner or anything for that matter. These ME-timeouts would help both of you. Just like once in a while you tend to take out your phone battery and let it relax, you need to give timeouts and take some too. This would unclog your brain and help you come back with more passion, more love and more respect for what you have. 

So go ahead and take your timeout today. Kick the #MondayBlues with a #Timeout. Be where you can be, want to be and who to be. Make a difference in your life and in the lives of people who interact with you. 

D is for Do!

Today's letter is the A2z Challenge is D and hence the word I have chosen is DO! Most times we are more interested in saying things, planning, bragging and hoping they would happen. You know what? That is easy. The toughest part is to go out there and perform. To do!

Like the great bard claimed To Do or Not To Do is the question. Most of them don't even bother to answer and prefer the naught answer. Doing things isn't easy. It takes effort, planning and commitment. It takes guts to step up and commit oneself to doing things and guess what only they can get things done and move forward in life. Let us promise ourselves that we wont just be thinkers and quitters but be the DOers and let us make things happen. Let us do so many things that give us pride, accomplishment and help us remain on the top of the game and live like a boss.

Go out and DO!

Things you learn from a dog!

The need for emotional hygiene

Stay messy stay creative

Psychologists are exploring the relation between being messy and being creative.

Read this article.

All our lives, we’ve been told to “be organized.” Organization has always been pegged as a direct key to success.

Whether at home, school or in your bunk at camp, organization is something that has been instilled in everyone pretty much from birth. On the other hand, being messy has been equally condemned and made to be a quick path to failure. And, honestly, no rebuttal could say otherwise.

I mean, what good can come from being disorganized, right? Perhaps more than you might think. More recent studies, conducted by the University of Minnesota last year, provide us with a new side of the debate. The pro-messy one.

There has always been this sort of “urban legend” that has floated around modern society deeming people with messy desks as having a high affinity for creative reasoning.

Frankly, I initially thought that people with “messy desks” had to be creative, out of necessity, to survive outside the boundaries of organization.

Last week’s take home test, still undone, in one corner. A page from last month’s Playboy ripped out and crumpled next to the bottle of cocoa butter in the other. Empty Arizona cans distributed across the surface, like a battlefield.

Your desk is a mess. Then again, it’s your mess, and thus, it feels very in-control. When you habitually fail to put things in their designated place, you’re bound to get creative figuring out ways to make everything, I don’t know, fit. And fit comfortably.

While it might look completely random to strangers, a lot of times, a person’s mess is very methodical – with respect to himself.

Psychological scientist Kathleen Vohs, from the University of Minnesota, who set out to debunk this urban legend, didn’t confine her study to solely the desk. No, Vohs, clearly a creative mind, chose to think outside the desk. She just sounds messy. The creative kind of messy.

Using a paradigm consisting of one messy room and one tidy room, and a series of trials, Vohs concluded that messy rooms provoke more creative thinking – and provided scientific evidence!

The next question is, what exactly constitutes “creative thinking,” and how will your pig sty of a room help?

Creative thinking, in its purest form, is thinking outside the lines of “conventional” reasoning. When considering this, it should be no huge shock that messy rooms containing possessions misplaced from their “conventional” locations would promote creativity.

I suppose if you prefer to “lay,” and I use that term very loosely, your clean clothes on the floor of your bedroom, when the empty dresser is only a few feet away – you’re certainly thinking outside the lines of conventional reasoning. And that same concept could be applied to more abstract conception.

Consider this from Albert Einstein, “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, then what are we to think of an empty desk?”

Obviously, Einstein’s desk looked like a spiteful ex-girlfriend had a mission to destroy his workspace, and executed it rather successfully. Yet, there’s no denying Einstein’s creativity.

Einstein wasn’t alone. Mark Twain, too, had a cluttered desk. Perhaps even more cluttered than that of Albert Einstein. Mark Twain was one of the most imaginative minds of his generation.

If the likes of Einstein and Mark Twain don’t catch the attention of Generation-Y, I give you Steve Jobs. No wonder he invented iBooks, it’s clear he had trouble maintaining his real life ones. His desk, and office alike, were f*cking disasters. I suppose this just added to his brilliance.

So what does this mean to you? Trash your desks, trash your rooms and hope for a touch of genius? Not exactly. The relationship between messiness and creativity is by no means causal. Being messy won’t find you waking up one morning more creative.

The two are, however, correlated. If you are “messy by nature,” perhaps finding a healthy medium between your usual mess and that urgency to clean, is optimal. By curbing your sloppy desk, room or tendencies, – keep in mind – you might also be curbing your overall creative tendencies.

Ultimately, the only way for you gauge the effectiveness of your mess-induced creativity is to go out and experiment for yourself. So, go ahead, make it rain with all your important files and paperwork, toss your clean clothes across the room, have a blast. See what you come up with, after.

PSA: If you have a roommate, tell him not to send me any hate mail if your dorm room turns into a zoo while you experiment with this. I am not liable for any of the future messes my readers may create.

Open doors

This month, open doors, open opportunities, give chances, make choices, help other improve. Be a change agent, a positive one.

Monday Blues: Get well soon Neymar Jr.

This Monday let us all look for hope, doors to open, brighter times, realized dreams and step ahead. When in pain, look for hope. Neymar shows why he is still as star and why he has such huge fan following. Get well soon. Don't give up yet!

#MondayBlues

Facebook's study got it wrong: seeing our 'friends' happy can make us sad

Apparently facebook was trying to either depress you or improve your mood. I never knew! Here is a clinical post by Jess Zimmerman.

It's cute that Facebook was apparently trying to make me sad by suppressing my friends' good-news updates so that I feel surrounded by anxiety and illness, in order to measure the effects of "contagion" on users' emotional states. Well, "cute" in the manner of a creepy social experiment on uninformed participants, so maybe not really the standard usage of "cute". Remember Dexter's Laboratory, the cartoon where the little kid was always plotting world-destroying antics but was also two feet tall and six years old? Cute like that.

Anyway, the point is: bless their invasive little hearts, but this was doomed from the start. People don't get sad because their Facebook friends are sad. We get sad because our Facebook "friends" are happy.

This is not me being cynical – of course I'm capable of empathy for the people I care about, and vice versa. No, this is a matter of Facebook not understanding its own product. For the average Facebook user, only a fraction of our "friends" are actually people we love – people whose setbacks strike us near to the heart, people whose triumphs uplift us along with them. The rest are former co-workers, friends of friends from that party that one time, people who were jerks to us in high school but not big enough jerks to reject their friend requests, and exes. Screwthose guys.

I realize that scientific progress sometimes means performing rigorous research on questions that seem self-evident. (I also realize that thisresearch is supposed to be done on people who know they're participating in a research investigation; never mind that right now.) But you don't need a study, informed or not, to tell you that the connection between our emotions and those of people around us are a lot more complicated than "sad=sad". All you need to do is look at a happy Facebook pic from your ex's wedding.

The study in question, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, reports that, for a week in January 2012, some Facebook users saw an altered timeline wherein posts with either "negative" or "positive" words got suppressed. A lot of the hand-wringing horror over this unauthorized experiment stems from the reality that users who were exposed to more negative content responded by making more negative posts, which implies that they were more sad. In other words, they were materially harmed by their experience as social-science abductees.

But the study doesn't seem to control for the possibility that people simply match their tone and word choice to that of their peers, to avoid being the tall poppy. In the end, it's not clear that Facebook found out anything about emotional contagion. It sounds more like semantic contagion to me.

If Facebook really wanted to make people experience unhappiness, suppressing "positive words" isn't going to do the trick. Emotions are way more complicated than the mere words we use, and it's not always posts with negative words that make us sad.

For its next mad-scientist foray into emotional manipulation, Facebook and Co should instead try building a news feed where users see only the following:

• Notifications of career success from an acquaintance who is in the same field as you, but younger
• Mushy "Happy anniversary, baby!" notes from your ex's new significant other
• Cute snapshots of your friends' young child who they say is doing so well since they opted not to get him vaccinated
• Triumphant posts of celebration from people who root for a different team/candidate than you
• Memes involving a photo of a beach or flower overlaid with encouraging platitudes with at least two obvious typos
• Off-the-chart FitBit stats
• Profile pictures making it clear that the mean, gorgeous queen bee from high school is still – against any reasonable expectation of biology or justice – extremely gorgeous
• Birth announcements from dear friends who gave their offspring really stupid names

I doubt there would be a "negative word" among them, but I guarantee you the emotional contagion would be off the charts.