Never thought I would write a poem! In fact, I looked away from poems, because to me, they contained complicated words, many times unable to be understood. Okay, I got to be fair when I say this that this is from a “layman” perspective – not your Bell curve’s extremities!
And then came a day when I was looking at this picture, and I just decided to write a poem – my first official one.
Photo by Qingbao Meng at UnSplash.com
By the way, I should probably thank Qingbao Meng for making me a poet, because many times I have tried to rhyme words, but never got the courage to express the words as a poem AND publish it!
I write about environment, different aspects of it. I take the voice of the trees, animals, and the nature, and talk from their perspective. Because they need a voice. More than ever, now!
See you soon, at my YouTube channel and the Instagram account! I hope you enjoy my poetry!
To me, it has become the way of life these days. Do I like something, write a blog about it. Do I have to put out great content to develop my business? Write a blog. Do I have to improve my professional chances? Write a blog. Do I have to rant about my city’s and my country’s state? Write a blog.
This is the reality. Often, with the topics that I deal with on a day-to-day basis, it looks like I have to write a blog daily. I am not that much of a writing person, although I like to share stories. I am a storyteller. So, I feel like starting my blog as ‘So, what happened was…’!
Be it blog, a tweet, or a Facebook post, I realized that writing and letting others know has become imminent. Sharing builds communities. In today’s interconnected world, we make contacts and friends whom we have not even met. Although the ‘windows’ through which we engage them are limited to the context and scope, I found that it’s still valuable and nurtures connections.
Putting out something in public is not easy for everyone. There could be concerns relating to privacy and security. And then there is this “If you write something in Internet, it stays for ever!” There was this meeting in one of my previous companies, where a very zealous ‘manager’ declared the above statement while talking about sharing something in the company intranet. We all humored him by saying, “Before the company takes action, I (the writer) will be dead!” So, one has to overcome this “out there in the Internet” fear too.
In spite of all these, one still has to write, speak, and be visible to be successful, to build contacts, connections and get opportunities. I used to be a lab-rat for many years. I didn’t build my connections based on my skill-sets. But, no regrets, I am here now. And writing.
It was one of those strenuous days in 2017. I had too much to do in 3 or 4 activities spread across the day. I like focus, and that’s the way I have been for the past many years. I like channelizing my mind, body and my energies in a task. But then, there are some boring moments when you would like to just get off for a minute or two, wander your body and your mind, and then get back to the task.
Social media (Facebook, Twitter, et al) have been a cure (or a curse on how you see it). That one of two minutes of wandering of the mind away from the task using social media extended to 10 minutes, 20 minutes, and before you know, it had consumed a full 43 minutes!
“Well, that’s not good”, I told myself. I decided to take a mental inventory of HOW the time is spent on social media. I sat down and wrote a diary of all the posts I read, I liked and shared, and just “browsing”. Though it was just my break time that I spend on social media, I wanted to justify myself on how the time is spent, because it’s my precious breath and life after all, moment after moment, before I die!
My findings!
The notes I saw alarmed me. 89% of the time was just browsing post after post in Facebook and Twitter, without any focus, learning or practicing a skill. A typical “browse” Facebook session contained a book advertisement from a book club, an advertisement on how to “opt-in” more customers to your blog site, a post in a school group asking whether this school is better or that, a post in a music group with a picture of a guy with a violin, a group post about the latest trend in western cinema, a post in a railway group about that fantastic engine….You get the drift.
A rattling mind and the consequences
If your mind travels this fast with no focus on a specific subject or related thinking, you know where you will get to – nowhere. It not only puts your brain in an ever-shifting mode, it will strain your brain to no-end resulting in nervousness, a sense of loss, depression, anger and a deprived feeling! Many studies have also shown the same.
Social media tools for streamlining
Social media tools that help you segregate topics as streams based on hashtags or keywords are helpful. It helps browse through the social media posts and organize your thoughts on one direction, learning a thing or two about a topic and participating in a discussion. But many of us do not use those tools on a native basis, but login to the social media sites directly. In this year, I have reminded myself to use these tools instead of logging into social media sites directly, and save myself of the mental stress! If I ever wanted to take a 2-minute break, that should not be and won’t be on the social media sites, but a short walk, a visit to the restroom, a cup of water and then back to work again.
Not just the break time!
We all know the three things that are required to excel – Learn, Practice, Network. A typical successful person’s time management has these components. For all of these, accessing the Internet has become a necessity. For learning and networking, social media has become important. We just need be careful that our learning and networking time is used productively, not just during the break time, but during our work time also, and be conscious that our precious time is not wasted in endless, mindless browsing.
So…
I thought I would just share my thoughts on this, which I had been postponing for a while now. I wrote a Facebook post (there you go!) on this sometime back, but not sure how many people it reached, so here I am, writing a blog. Hopefully it’s useful for you!
Thanks for listening!
Constant evolving is the key for an alive human being. Learning keeps happening, and one wonders when and where it stops.
Somewhere along the line, I learnt that my life is an offering that could potentially be used for needy purposes. And I also figured that gives me a fulfilling life. It is a transformation from the fear of ‘being used’ to the joy of ‘being useful’. And that’s still work in progress.
While writing about India, it’s in a context, because I live here. It’s not that I am restricting myself to the wellness of India alone. There are multiple things where work needs be done in India, and that excites me. One gets excited only when there’s a possibility of something that can be done. Even in advanced societies, there is work that needs be done, but in India, there’s so much need be done just for the daily life of 70% of people.
These are my top 10 posts that are most liked over a few years of time. Check them out!
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