A Better Version of You (Rather Than a Bitter One)

Its been a while and a lot of unwritten thoughts. Today's will be about the way we handle difficulties in learning a new skill. Lets take stamp-collecting as an example. Its a rather tame one but I have chosen it for a reason :). I go to the stationary store, buy a stamp album, start writing loads of snail mail to my facebook friends in exotic countries and blackmail them to at least send me a blank letter back for the sake of those little square pieces of paper that are probably licked onto the envelopes ;). Then I have to learn the value of each stamp which depends on its rarity, categorization of stamps according to shapes (diamond, triangle, regular, etc), countries, year, blah. And then I learn the fine art of shameless bargaining. "I will give you two triangles for one of your 1980 retros". And the learning continues.

This is easy compared to skills you have to build that involves people like Public Speaking, Sales, and Seduction (yes, its a skill). Why? I am sure you didn't ask me that LOL. The reason being that there is this teeny weeny thing called rejection. You try this, you try that and you look for the things that click, discard the ones that flop. Same as in any skill acquisition but the feedback is instantaneous about whether what you are doing is a success or a failure. And this is one thing I have learned to handle. The only way to get through all the shit is to-get-through-all-the-shit. Because when you get used to people getting bored of your speeches, people not being impressed by your sales talk, people being put off by your social etiquette, thats when you learn and most importantly, that's when you realize that what other people think should never stop you but inspire a tough person like you to get it correct the next time.

(thumbs up)

saints and sinners

Heard at church the other day...

dad, mom, daughter: (praying)

son-in-law: There's a picture of thieves posted on the wall of the church.

son: I guess people might end up thinking they are saints and praying to them.

son-in-law: LOL

gmail theme-it-up

Looks like Neo is using gmail these days ;-). The google customization craze (beginning with being able to change the themes in iGoogle and Orkut[yuk... learn from facebook, guys]) has spilt into the popular email as well. Have fun wasting time wisely...

mass production

So dad had gotten one of his teeth "uninstalled" for the price of a... shall we say, a whole new head? And that triggered a spontaneous murmur of appreciation of Heaven from mom:

mom: imagine if the price the dentist charged for doing this is so high, how does God afford to make so many human beings, with all their parts perfectly

son: well, looking at the population, i am guessing He is cutting costs by mass producing us... maybe there's a factory in china or something

dad: hahaha

mama's boy

So i was looking at a resume of one of my friend's friend and i was thinking to myself "the guy's got some nice work experience... hmmm... wait a frickin second..." and thats when i reached the hobbies section. And here it is in its full, copy-and-pasted, glory:

Hobbies: Surfing Internet, playing Cricket, Helping mother.

okay kid... its not like the rest of us don't give a hand once in a while... and i just can't help wondering: "what about dad?" ;-)

digest this

Heard at the dinner table yesterday...

dad: research has shown that chewing the food thoroughly reduces obesity... blah blah blah

son: no wonder buffaloes look like slim beauty queens

mom: hahaha

baby in the hood

A purchase of four samosas and one choc drink later...

Baby walks tentatively, eyes on the ground. Her mom is holding her hand and smiling proudly. As i approach her, on my way to zeus knows where, the kid looks up to check me out. I smile. She smiles. She trips. "Woops"...