A day full of introspection

Today the day went with peeping into different lives. We got to see many short films and a movie as well. It was fluctuation of thoughts and feelings. Different stages of life, different people, different pains and different strengths. There was introspection with each story. Somewhere I was connecting with parts of stories, on personal level and even at societal level. What 1 thing I felt common in all the stories was ‘experience’.  Every body has to fight their own inner fear, and that experience leads a step towards power. Let us see what we experience tomorrow in day 5 of Eta.

Integrity Reflection #2 [CD]

The Integrity sessions have been really intriguing and catchy. The sessions are so light and relatable that it becomes really easy for us to connect. The thought provoking movies and videos do help us to connect at an even more personal level. Guilty was one such movie that we were shown. It so wonderfully portrays us with the reality of how there is a biiiig problem with ‘Acceptance’. People are not ready to accept or face the reality and same is the case with us. We are so happy and comfortable being in a knit position where nothing can affect us that often we overlook the storm approaching or happening outside. But deep down that fear accumulates and overtakes your subconscious eventually, which is really really bad for the mental space.
I understood that ‘Acceptance’ of things, no matter how hurtful they many be, is really really important.  Integrity classes is really helping me understand my insecurities, and reveal it in a way or process or accepting it myself.

A ‘Critical’ Journey…

So when I decided to join ‘Critical Thinking’, I was really skeptical as to what the sessions will entail. But then, all my paradigms about these sessions were broken on the very first day. All the sessions till now have been highly informative and they have been huge ‘eye and mind openers’… 😛

I am really enjoying these sessions and have surprisingly started applying it to my routine life. There are discussions happening on a wide range of topics, especially the controversial ones! The session on the various biases was so relatable and made me really look into myself as person and how I can make myself better. Now, if i want to buy something or make a decision, every single time I try to apply critical thinking in that situation rather than acting upon my biases. It was a tough thing to ‘murder my darling’, but I was so proud of myself when I could say it out loud! It really upgrades your thought process and leads you in the right way.

Looking forward to more of these sessions and hope they are equally interactive!🤞🏼

Deep Work Is Rare

The favourite example for me from the book is the example of Facebook and its work culture, It talks about how it has an open office concept wherein the employees can freely interact and communicate with each other which is paradoxical to the idea of deep work as it leads to a lot of distractions and a majority of time is wasted in non-productive work.

I find the book fairly realistic as the examples given are from real life and we being a part of the working class and being in the same situation as described in the book can easily relate to it. The anecdotes are realistic and we can see them, in reality, happening in front of us.

I learned a lot of things from the book but the best was how busyness is perceived as being a symbol of efficiency and productivity. People tend to show that they are busy and working by replying to emails on time and being indulged in social media communication and by doing such shallow things, considering that this will give them an image of being diligent, hard-working and productive which is not always true.

If fortunately, I happen to meet the author of the book, I will definitely ask him to give ideas or suggestions to change our mindset and behaviour and to move towards deep work and to avoid doing shallow work mostly. Maybe some tips on how to come out of this paradoxical situation of deep work vs shallow work and to avoid the distraction of social media and internet while doing deep work.

In the beginning, when I started reading the book, I thought that this will be another boring book but as I read further, I started liking it especially second chapter onwards as it is full of real-life examples and anecdotes.

This book indeed changed my perception towards the work habit as even I used to feel that we must have an open work culture wherein we can interact and communicate with our colleagues and also answering to emails on time and being active on social media was considered to be imperative, but after reading the book I realised it’s going to affect my productivity and attention and will hamper the production of quality work.

My journey of Critical thinking life class

Is Critical thinking essential? Do I need to use it everywhere? Do I tend to confirm my beliefs by finding bias information? How biases are influencing my preferences and my decision making and so on.. In the last few sessions of Critical thinking life class, I’ve pondered on social and personal aspects of my life. Becoming aware of biases doesn’t actually make you any less susceptible to them. You become more aware of the bias blind spot, which is our inclination towards identifying how biases affect others, while simultaneously maintaining an inability to recognize how our own judgement is affected by biases. Becoming more open to multiple perspectives. In other words, educating ourselves about biases does not mean we can use this knowledge as a lens granting us unwavering vigilance for all the biases out there which may affect us.
Definitely, it is essential to know where to apply and where critical thinking is not needed. It can’t be applied in all the situations but important life skill to develop to have a broader view and looking from multiple lenses/factors.
Being a rational being, humans have the power of reasoning and can find the truth on the basis of personal experiences or evidences which are from reliable and credible sources. Knowing how we know, what we know, challenging the thought process by finding disconfirming evidence for the claims made. Thus getting a wholesome view and then analysing it in order to make informed decisions in life. Enhancing critical thinking skills is a lifelong learning journey.
Overall I’ve enjoyed the past few sessions. Thanks to all the participants and facilitators for the enriching journey.

Short Book Club – Who Moved My Cheese?

Title of the book: Who moved my cheese?

Author: Dr. Spencer Johnson

The genre of the book: Self-help

Key Characters of the book: Two mice Sniff and Scurry and Little people Ham and Haw.

The setting of the book: A gathering (reunion of old friends), a maze with different cheese stations with Station C and Station N the main ones.

The plot of the book: Who moved my cheese is a fable about four characters who live in a maze and they all love cheese. When the cheese disappears, Scurry and Sniff enthusiastically head out into the maze to find new cheese. On the other hand Hem and Haw feel betrayed and complain. They waste their time and energy hoping the old cheese will return. Hall realizes the old cheese won’t return so he sets out into the maze in search of new cheese. He writes what he learns on the walls hoping that He will follow him. Eventually, he discovers new cheese and sees that Scurry and Sniff were already there. Cheese a metaphor for what you want to have in life. It could be a good job, a loving relationship, money, or health. The very core message of the book is this: things constantly change so we must adapt. This story brings us to a few lessons on Change:

LESSON 1: Change Happens

LESSON 2:Anticipate Change

LESSON 3:Monitor Change

LESSON 4:Adapt To Change Quickly

LESSON 5:Change

LESSON 6:Enjoy Change

Your personal opinion about the book: As Spencer Johnson rightly said that “Life moves on and so should we”. We all need to change with time and situations. If we don’t do that; we will not be able to survive and our life either will stop or come to an end. This book has some powerful lessons in a very simple language and a story that we can all relate to. That makes it easy to understand and apply (if one is willing to).

Have you read something like this before? Can you talk about that experience ?:

I don’t remember reading any similar book but FISH is one book that has some similarities. I definitely relate to my own experiences. All of us including me at some point in our lives have lived like Sniff and Scurry and Hem and Haw. I myself have lived these characters in different phases of my life.

Should people read this book ?: Anyone can read this as this relates not to work only but personal lives as well. The story depicts anything a human strives for. It could be money, fame, reputation, happiness, success, achievements, or anything else.

Key takeaways: There are many lessons that we can relate to. Fear of change can paralyze anyone from moving forward. Don’t let it. You need to reflect and pushed forward is where the growth happens. I have a victim mentality at one point in time but one needs to take charge of their lives and don’t let anything happen because of any external factor. We at times take things for granted but it’s where we find it difficult to understand the reasons for our failure and take hold back of circumstances. We think that wrong happens because of others but don’t see our shortcomings. At the same time become complacent when we get success and think that we have achieved everything in life. What is required to be done is Monitor change. Prepare for change. Change quickly. Adapt. And Enjoy Change. Don’t over-complicate things. Don’t use complexity to run from what you don’t want to do. Don’t get bitter and blame anyone or anything else for where you are in life.

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