Monday, March 30, 2009

Experience - The Best Teacher

Hello Friends.

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

While I was travelling from my home town to Bangalore last night, numbers of thoughts were rambling in my mind due to couple of comings and goings in my life. I was thinking of my recent experiences and lessons I am taught by them…therefore got a thread for this post.

Yes, I am absolutely convinced that experience is the best teacher in our lives. First Person Experience in particular is the “Bestest” teacher. I agree that its always good learn lessons from others experience and not to burn our finger once again to learn things. Yes reading biographies, listening to experiences, seeking wisdom from our elders are all means of taking lessons for us to make our lives easier. What we learn through experience is more lasting than that acquired through reading. It is accurate, complete and permanent. It is first-hand knowledge. But, nothing can teach us as good as our own personal First Person Experience. I’ve learnt that, grueling experiences at some point of time will always be a great saviour at some later stage in life and I am sure it’s pretty much true for all of us. A child does not stop playing with fire till he burns his fingers. He learns from his own experience.

Moreover, involving as a first person brings in all the senses of ours into the situation and our brain precisely records that experiential learning so that, it would be readily available for us in future at the right moment when needed. Before crying out “Why Me…?” we should understand that the experiences we have had all through our life is not just to test our faiths in some unknown beliefs, but only to make us as strong as what we are today. We should be thanking the experience and feel blessed for having given this wonderful opportunity to learn. There is profound meaning and purpose to everything that happens to us. May be we are not aware of the purpose right when things are happening to us, but certainly looking back we can very well understand that, its all well connected to our present:

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer said,
You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.


It’s also interesting to know that, two of us exactly experiencing a similar experience may feel entirely different based on so many factors. It may depend on our child hood, up bringing, society, family values and many more. Hence it is important to experience the experience personally in first person to get the best out of it.

Experience is the "bestest" teacher that always results in the most enduring lessons.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With love,
Anbusivam

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Alcoholic Leadership

Hello Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

I know you must be wondering, what's this Alcoholic Leadership...???

Its all about taking leadership over alcohol and not letting that bottle take over us. We had an excellent session this morning in our counselling class by Mr.Vincent representing AA (Alcoholic Anonymous, a world wide organisation), Bangalore. He shared his personal life experiences on his 25yrs of addiction and how he poured alcohol completely out of his life 15yrs ago. Since then from 1995, he is very instrumental in working with AA, Bangalore reaching out to alcoholics and their families to get out of alcoholism.

AA defines alcoholism as "A physical allergy, coupled with mental obsession, leading to spiritual bankruptcy".

Alcoholism by itself is a deadly disease that succumb mankind to a lowest level in life. I personally knew few of them in my family and friends, who are alcoholics leading a miserable life.


Image courtesy (http://images.inmagine.com)

Its not that they wish and happy to lead life in a miserable way, but they've no other choice as they are programmed to the core with the barrels of alcohol that have gone in all through these years. Even if they badly want to come out of that misery, they will not able to do so, as things have gone out of their hands and mind. Hands starts shaking and shivering without that peg in the morning, mind is out of control fantasizing that one day every thing will be alright. Most importantly they make a promise every day not to drink, though they very well knew that their day is going to end up drinking anyway.

AA is an excellent self help group that has made a remarkable change in thousands of lives all over the world. Here is their famous twelve step program to overcome addiction.

THE TWELVE STEPS PROGRAM OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

In these days of widely accepted social drinking, its very very important to be aware that, alcoholism starts with a very first drink in some point of time in our life. I am not here to say don't drink, it is absolutely an individual's choice to make. All I would like to request is

"Let us be the Leaders in this world and not allow those mere bottles to take over us".

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,
Anbusivam

Note: If you are willing to help an alcoholic in Bangalore, please get in touch with me to know further details on AA, Bangalore fellowship. Thank You.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Great Indian Democracy..Where is it heading...?

Hello Friends,

Welcome to Anbusivam's Blog Page.

Now, time has come for the Great Indian Democracy to reinvent itself. I strongly believe this is one of the best times that the younger generation of this wonderful nation can assertively make their voice heard to the country. These days we hardly see any politician who also works for this society and the people those elected him/her. One can clearly see every where from north to south, east to west, the inability of our Indian politicians to rise above their very narrow mentality and their own personal agendas.

Where are we heading....??? I am afraid, if this trend continues for next 10 years, our entire democratic system will collapse and people will take up law and order in their hands, which may lead to dire consequences. We very well know that, all we need is a Great Leader of all times, capable of taking the nation to next greater level.

It's more than enough and we the people are badly badly sick of

dynasty politics,
ruthlessly selfish leaders,
ridiculous freebies,
undelivered promises,
criminal and unethical law makers,
corrupt minds,
opportunistic hearts,
money and muscle powerplays,
madly power greedy,
thoughtless actions,
useless statements,
absurd behaviours,
and on......and on.............,

I am seeing a number of so called leaders willing to become the top brass of our country, and I wonder if any of them even think truthfully if he/she deserves that......??? I can understand that in a democratic country like our's anyone and everyone can have that wish, but as a common sense they should also think about their credentials and abilities to deliver on commitments.

Oh....I am sorry to talk in an alien language "deliver on commitments" what's that....???

One of my friends asked how to choose a better politician....how do I know whom to vote for....?

I think we should not be having that dilemma at all. I know a simple rule. In fact that's is pretty easy, all we need is to just choose between what we want, "worse" or "worst"......?


Let's make our vote count.

Thanks for visiting my page.

With Love,
Anbusivam