Cause of Human Unhappiness

All of human unhappiness comes from one single thing: not knowing how to remain at rest in a room. - Blaise Pascal

Key to Happiness - Marcus Aurelius

The happiness of those who want to be popular depends on others; the happiness of those who seek pleasure fluctuates with moods outside their control; but the happiness of the wise grows out of their own free acts. - Marcus Aurelius

The Greatest Investors: John Templeton

The Greatest Investors: John Templeton: "'Rejecting technical analysis as a method for investing, Templeton says, 'You must be a fundamentalist to be really successful in the market.'

'Invest at the point of maximum pessimism.'

'If you want to have a better performance than the crowd, you must do things differently from the crowd.'
'When asked about living and working in the Bahamas during his management of the Templeton Group, Templeton replied, 'I've found my results for investment clients were far better here than when I had my office in 30 Rockefeller Plaza. When you're in Manhattan, it's much more difficult to go opposite the crowd.'"

Courage under Fire

This is one of the best movies depicting the meaning of true leadership. Absolutely mind blowing performance by Denzel Washington. When you watch him on screen, you can feel the emotions that he is going through. Must watch movie for all would be leaders in any field. Its been quite a while since "Braveheart" that I saw a movie that depicted Leadership in such a powerful way.

P.S. I Love You

This is one of the most romantic movies I have seen in recent times. It touched me very deeply. This is the kind of movie that puts your life into perspective and pulls at your heart strings. For most of us we do not realize the importance of something till we loose it. We take many things in life for granted. And its more so when it comes to relationships. And it takes a very strong life altering experience to really make us understand what are the most important things in life.

I think along with Health and Wealth, it is very important to have people in your life with whom you can be yourself. With whom you can be totally honest and share anything and everything. For most people this person will be your spouse. For some it might be a best friend or relative. When you have such a person whom you can trust and who brings happiness to your life, make sure that you don't take it for granted. Do your bit to nurture and nourish that relationship and not waste too much time in fighting and arguing over petty things.

Life is too short and it goes by in the blink of an eye. We should make the most of it by investing our time wisely in realtionships which contribute to a happy life. And when we are ready to die, we should be able to confidently say that we have no regrets.

All the above thoughts were trigerred by the movie "P.S. I Love You" which I just saw. I would recommend this movie to all of you. Watch it once and let me know how it made you feel.

Random musings on Travel, Politics and Economics

I think after travelling a bit I have finally started understanding why it is important to travel the world while you are young. Since I work in the Information Technology industry I had the good fortune of visiting countries like USA, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Hong Kong, China, Belgium, India.

Travel really is one of the best education a person can have. It is one of the best ways to have fun and learn at the same time. It gives you the oppurtunity to learn the best things that different cultures have to offer. It also gives you a good idea of why some countries offer a better quality of life to their citizens than others. Travel gives you the oppurtunity to see for yourself which Political, Economic and Business Models work well in practice and which ones look good on paper, but when it comes to implementation, fail miserably.

So I guess if you want to improve the quality of your own life and have ambitions of improving the quality of life for the citizens of your own country, make it a point to travel to some of the countries who have already done some good work in the areas where you want improvement.

I spent the first 20 years of my life in Mumbai, India where the biggest challenge was infrastructure and cleanliness. So when I travelled to the US I was very impressed by the Highways that connect the different States within the US from the East Coast to the West Coast. When I lived in Singapore, I was very impressed by the Public transportation system which connected all of Singapore using the Metro and Bus services.

I sometimes wonder, if we have some of the best brains in the world who are doing cutting edge work in various disciplines, why are we not able to improve conditions back in our home country. I personally feel that the political system has degraded drastically since independence and the rampant corruption has made it difficult for honest people to really make a difference. But on a positive note I also believe that the change in economic policy unleased in 1991 by Dr. Manmohan Singh and P V Narasimha Rao is finally beginning to make a difference. There are more oppurtunities for the next generation of young Indians to really compete in the Global markets and contribute not only to the Indian Economy but to the Global Economy.

I hope that by 2020 more and more Indians feel that India offers a quality of life that is better than or at least at par with some of the best countries in the world today.

Eccentricities

"Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you grow old, people won't think you are going ga-ga." - David Ogilvy

Brilliant Management Vs Bad Economics

"When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact." - Warren Buffet