Continual Improvement at its best

Continual improvement - a most recurrent word in today's corporate world...
Every morning on my way to office, I see a banana vendor on street with his cart standing right at the point from where Industrial Belt starts. He comes much early might be around 7.30 am. Everyday somehow I see at his cart. Few days back I found a new person selling bananas on the cart. Workmen going to work either buy bananas and take with them to their work place and many stand there itself and eat bananas as their breakfast.
This new boy realized that people throw banana skins on road next to his cart. So he placed a small polythene bag besides his cart so that people eating bananas at cart can throw skins in the plastic bag. But I am sure that wouldn't have worked well as people have a tendency to hurriedly throw away once eating is done.
Next day I found him keeping a plastic sheet  spread on road next to his cart. But surely that would have looked shabby and will attract lot of flies. Then I was on leave for a week's period.
And today morning the banana vendor surprised me when I saw that he had kept a used laundry basket which he must have bought from scrap...

Nothing to a small plastic bag to a plastic sheet and then to a scrapped laudry basket!!

Isn't it a wonderful experience of continual process improvement.

When the New Year arrives, it brings new ideas and hopes for us to make our lives good to better and better to best. Happy New Year !

Very rightly I just read-

New Year is not about changing the Dates but Direction;

It's not about changing the Calendar but Commitment;

It's not about changing the Action but Attitude:

It's not about changing the Fruit but Faith, Force and Focus!

May You Commit and Create the Best New Year Ever !! 

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2015

The National Disaster - Uttarakhand Floods

Uttarakhand floods incidence has been a nightmare. The lucky few who were survived & are alive have nowhere to go - few rescued and many are waiting for help. The dead lie where they fell. The rescued survivors have horror stories with them....its very painful and horrible...People narrate of incidences when they saw their beloved ones dragged by the nature's fury in front of their eyes....We cannot even imagine this instance... Way back at home, many are desperately waiting to hear about the well being of their dear ones... The death toll is definitely much higher and 17th being Monday, the number of pilgrimage might have been the highest in the week..No food, no water, the pathetic scene around can we just imagine how would have the survivors actually battled all this after their survival from the flood in the devastated area...News of dogs preying the dead bodies, water being sold @ 200/-, chopper @ 1000/-, jewelry being given by people for food & water who do not have money, and some such happenings coming forward which I cannot even write here ..Devastation is huge and the rescue team is scare...There may be many survivors stranded there who might break by the time the rescue is available to them... May God give them courage till rescue reaches them...Prayers for all those affected... Army doing a great job....

But this has been Nature Vs Mankind...Let us learn from this shocking incidence to take care of the environment now...Way back in schools we have learnt that the trees prevent soil erosion and floods.. What are we doing - cutting those trees to construct and fulfill our selfish needs....We need to protect and plant trees and cut our carbon footprints..We need to save ourselves from being the generation responsible for devastating the Mother Earth ....This is a devastation in some part but this could be the future of the whole earth if we do not take this as a very big alarm from the environment... No individual can do anything alone but if each one of us contribute our individual efforts we together can SAVE OUR PLANET...

Running As A Metaphor of Life

I woke up last morning with a determination to run. Put on my shoes, decided a 6 km route, and began. It was about 5 am. It was still dark though the chirping of the birds made it clear, light is about to envelope everything.
Oh no, I said to myself as I crossed the first km as I was already sweating. The first thought after that was, 'This is why I don't like to run. I have to push myself to run'. And I smiled at my wicked mind that was going all out to demotivate me.
I decided to defeat my mind. Convincingly!!! I switched on the voice recorder in my iPhone (I was going techno now) and started speaking...
I will run through sweat.
I will run through rains.
I will run when alone.
I will run with people.
I will run in summers.
I will run when I am not feeling fit.
I will run when I AM feeling fit.
I will run when I feel loved.
I will run when I feel no one loves me.
I will run when I am frustrated.
I will run when I feel boisterous.
I will run in spite of people drifting in and out of my life.
I will run in spite of family life being dysfunctional.
I will run in spite of family ties being super strong.
I will run in spite of guilt.
I will run in spite of regrets.
I will run to win over myself.
I will run to challenge myself.
I will run to prove a point to myself.
I will run to be myself.
I will run to enjoy.
I will run just to run.
I will run to be fit.
I will run to be fitter.

I chose to take control over my life. Running is a metaphor. It helps me to visualize the relationship between me, myself and life.
Running helps me to be healthy, strong, energetic, one with existence.
Have you discovered what helps you to experience the strength of great living and makes you feel one with existence? Do you do it regularly?
Would love to know your thoughts.

To complete this LSM -- "Do not be a person who wishes challenges to disappear. What does not CHALLENGE you, does not have the POWER to TRANSFORM you."
So run when it is easy and run when it is difficult too.
Smile when it is easy and smile when it is difficult too.
Believe in yourself when it is easy and believe in yourself when it is difficult too.

Paper Boats

Paper boats have always fascinated our childhood.....A beautiful poem by Rabindranath Tagoreji that my school friend reminded me of today.......

Day by day I float my paper boats one by one down the running stream.

In bid black letters I write my name on them and the name of the village where I live.

I hope that someone in some strange land will find them and know who I am.

I load my little boats with shiuli flower from our garden, and hope that these blooms of the dawn will be carried safely to land in the night.

I launch my paper boats and look up into the sky and see the little clouds setting thee white bulging sails.

I know not what playmate of mine in the sky sends them down the air to race with my boats!

When night comes I bury my face in my arms and dream that my paper boats float on and on under the midnight stars.

The fairies of sleep are sailing in them, and the lading in their baskets full of dreams. 

- Rabindranath Tagore

Authentic

Dearest Darling Readers,

Authentic is a very powerful word.

Being authentic is being real. It is being genuine. It also is a process of being honest to yourself. It is in finding alignment with our hearts’ desires, to our values and in 'not pretending. It requires courage. It is uplifting. It may be tough but it is worth every bit of it. It is in taking a stand point for our beliefs and in not escaping unpleasant situations.
It makes us love ourselves even if the world does not. We may 'have' less. We will still 'be' more. Isn't that fantastic?

In my work, being authentic has meant different things at different times. Sometimes, it has been in forgiving. Sometimes it has been in making a new beginning. Sometimes, it has been in listening to criticisms without replying, waiting for my work to do the talking. Sometimes it has been in letting go while sometimes it has meant to hold on. I have experienced that following this path has always pointed me toward rightness, peace and flow…

Eternal Laws of Swami Vivekananda

Here are a few gems from the teachings of Swami Vivekananda:

1. Love Is The Law Of Life: All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore, love for love's sake, because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.

2. It's Your Outlook That Matters: It is our own mental attitude, which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light.

3. Life is Beautiful: First, believe in this world - that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you do not understand it in the right light. Throw the burden on yourselves!

4. It's The Way You Feel: Feel like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.

5. Set Yourself Free: The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him - that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.

6. Don't Play The Blame Game: Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.

7. Help Others: If money helps a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.

8. Uphold Your Ideals: Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.

9. Listen To Your Soul: You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.

10. Be Yourself: The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves!

11. Nothing Is Impossible: Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin - to say that you are weak, or others are weak.

12. You Have The Power: All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.

13. Learn Everyday: The goal of mankind is knowledge... now this knowledge is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside: it is all inside. What we say a man 'knows should, in strict psychological language, be what he 'discovers or unveils', what man 'learns is really what he discovers by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.

14. Be Truthful: Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.

15. Think Different: All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.