Dealing depression, by practise of maintaining daily diary entries.

Depression to a large extent is still a dirty word. The most important thing about depression is that one never knows when or who it will strike. In today's world trusting people have become a rare factor in human relationship. It is so low that children don't share their problems with parents nor couples share their problems with each other. The trust deficit in relationship is so high that we don't share our issues or concerns among humans, rather we would only share our fake happiness to our invaluable of friends on social media whom we hardly know well.

Earlier the bonding among the humans was so strong that we used to share problems to humans who used understand our issues in much better way unlike today, where we keep updating our moods on artificial platforms which doesn't even find solution nor console us. The issue of self respect complexity  never intervened while sharing our problems with our loved ones earlier because of the strong bonding humans had at that time, hence the term such as depression, anxiety disorder etc. was rare and abnormal at that time.

Forget about talking to friends. The trust deficit among humans is so high these days that, even when we know we are severely under depression or facing some sadness we don’t open up ourselves to professionally trained counsellors about our real issues thereby making counselling a technique to escape from depression ineffective.

Now we can’t ask the situation or the circumstances to change, rather we need to fight the issue of depression with tools and techniques which is available at the current time. And one of the ways which I found to deal with depression is writing and maintaining a routine diary which has the power of self introspection and self consoling. During the course of the day many events and activities takes place but there is hardly any time for reflection. The practise of writing a daily diary entries will give a person an opportunity to slow down, look back and revisit key events of the day, describing not only what happened, but also recalling thoughts or feeling of that moment. After recounting the day’s events, one can also spend a few minutes about the lessons of the day, and “practicing” alternative ways to react to stress, handle relationships and recognize and appreciate life’s positive moments.

Thus writing and maintaining a diary is great tool for self introspection and self consoling technique especially for people who feels to talk to someone about their  issues but doesn’t have the guts to open up their mind to people because of the trust deficit. This habit  also helps people to fight against the addiction of drugs or alcoholism which is a result of depression and loneliness to a large extent.

 

- Francis Lazar.

"Mother" the first women in a sons's life can play a vital role to many social issues.

Mothers should openly talk & teach their sons in their early young age to respect women!

The #MeToo campaign appears to have impacted discourses about sexual harassment and abuse globally, highlighting the phenomenon of silence and shame of females whereas it is male perpetrators who do the shameful acts.

In a patriarchal Pakistan, a debate about safety of female children for once, has become headline news after the horrific rape-murder of a seven-year-old girl. Similarly in India the case of Nirbaya made women across the nation to raise their voice. It seems that everywhere women and even men have started to voice their views about a subject that is as ubiquitous as the polluted air most of us breathe in every day but is still considered a taboo for fear of "shame" - of the female victim/survivor, and her family. In our part of the world, the premise of a man's honour is connected to the anatomy and behaviour of female members of his family, and the rot starts very young, imperceptibly at first, blatantly later. It starts at home. It starts with the mother.

The recent issue of kathua shows that raising voices is not just enough. The focus should be eradicating such cases of rapes permanently from the society. I admit the fact that, the more the  people speak out the more likely system is going to change but it also matters who is speaking and to whom it shall be spoken to.

It starts with the mother teaching her daughter to be good instead of imparting the value of gender equality teaching her son the don'ts. It is about both parents, especially fathers, incorporating wrong ideas of masculinity couched in outward signs of physical power.

Whether your son studies at a private or a state-run school, whether he is a mathematical genius or a football star or both, whether he is being raised like a prince or is a daily wage-earner, the onus of the formation of his early personality is on the mother, and in the absence of his mother, his primary caregiver. Fathers, schooling, friends, external factors and experiences all play a role, but how a man treats a woman starts with his mother. Even in an abusive environment a mother's love and guidance can help a child learn how to overcome the odds. This is what I believe, teach your son to be a good human being who should be kind to all around him - siblings, cousins, friends, class and school mates, neighbours, people working in the house, in school, shops, restaurants, the underprivileged, and of course animals - and as a man he will not grope, harass, exhibit sexism and misogyny, disrespect women, or inflict violence of any kind on a child or an adult.

Women's rights are human rights, and it all starts with the first woman: the mother. Let's learn to acknowledge one another beyond the labels, beyond the judgments.

Sometimes great success can be achieved by taking small steps of actions.

-Francis Lazar.

Employees and their workstations.

 

Change is inevitable and change is always required for the need of improvement.

     In many service sector, employees work in a jailed environment. The reason why I use the term jailed environment is because an employee is alone at his workstation with less interaction with humans and spending more time on their computing machines. In such conditions the bonding between an employee and his workstation grows. And as time passes by, an employee will start finding more comfort and joy at his desk or work station. And as the saying goes…“ whether you own a small size house or big size house it doesn’t matter, you will find comfort and peace at your home rather than others.” The same ergonomic logic can be applied here to define the relationship between an employee and his workstation.

     It is often found that in service sector especially in IT & consultancy sector; employees are made to swap their workstation frequently based upon the projects the company engages in. This is because of the fact that a project team may require composition of different competent people to come together, however it is always found that, often employees who are not involved in projects like people involved in support services are also made to change their workstation for project employees. Such a frequent changes of workstation of support staffs are often considered to be employees harassment at workplace, leading to a situation wherein employees feel they are been treated as a third class employee whose values are of no importance to organization.


     These matters may sound lightly but are of great concerns and are sensitive which may or may not be expressed by employees due to its own good reasons. However organization should look into such issues, this is because when an when an employee don’t feel affectionate to his workstation due to frequent changes, the loyalty of employees towards the organization also reduces simultaneously. An employee’s affection to his workstation is one in many other factors which holds back an employee to stay in the organization rather than leaving it.

     As mentioned earlier change is inevitable and is always required to coup up with changing business environment. And organization needs to engage in different projects one after the other for its sustainability. However taking small steps of actions such as creating workstations of similar kind, without grade differences & seeking employee’s permission for workstation swapping will increase the morale and corporation from employees rather than resistance and losing employees loyalty towards the organization.

- Francis Lazar.

Will "Artificial Intelligence" pose threat to new job opputunities?

 

 

 

As the average age of the world is declining, except India and china, in such situation organizations around the world will have to hire people from other labor markets or will have to outsource their project to countries with surplus human resource. Recently outsourcing has been the trend of companies to deal with such deficiency in human resource. But however insufficient number of competent human resource or political pressure would force the business organization to find alternate ways to sustain.

Just as,  in western countries  automation or semi-automated production lines in manufacturing sector was introduced  due to their own good reason like to deal with deficit number of labor availability. Similar adoption of production system was introduced in countries like India wherein labor supply was high, but due to poor trade union & employer relation, which later resulted in rise of unemployment to skilled labors in India.

Similarly in the run to find alternate ways to sustain business due to unavailability of competent human resource in service sector has given rise to introduction of artificial intelligence services (AI’s)

Artificial intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. These processes include learning (the acquisition of information and rules for using the information), reasoning (using the rules to reach approximate or definite conclusions), and self-correction. Particular applications of AI include expert systems, speech recognition and machine vision.

Recently driver less car, which uses artificial intelligence, replacing intelligence of human driver were seen successful in their test operations. And it won’t be late that in next 4-5 years we can expect such cars running in our roads.   

One of the major jobs which is trending high and has recently seen an increase demand in such job openings in service sector is the “job of business analyst” ( include-financial analyst, market analyst etc.)  Is the one which is going to be affected with the introduction artificial intelligence. Therefore I argue that job opportunities for business analyst would be limited in the long run.

This is because the role of business analyst include long procedure from sourcing to interpreting the data collected but however in this era where we have system which automatically collect and interpret the data, sourcing is the only difficult job as such.

Secondly the internet service providers extract and saves all our information in big data plants, and will serve as provider of information such as our taste & preference etc. for commercial purpose to companies who is in need of such information. The term cyber security & privacy is only limited to the fact that internet providers can’t reveal one’s personal details such as bank pin number etc.  But that doesn’t restrict them to share our other information to companies for commercial purpose.

The role of the analyst is often disconnected from the day-to-day machinations of the business and market, because the career path for an analyst doesn’t generally include several years in the frontline sales, marketing, operations and finance roles that give people the experience, context and perspective to generate actionable insights from data. And while current human analysts may be sourcing, organizing, grouping and mapping data to search for underlying trends and patterns, these are all tasks that can now be effectively undertaken by an AI. Now only time will show the intensity and what more areas will  be affected in coming years with introduction of artificial intelligence.

- Francis Lazar.



Being The Big Fish In Small Pond Is Better than Being Small Fish In Big Pond.

 

In years to come India will be a nation wherein majority number of manpower will belong to the “Y generation” (25-35yrs) age group. If we look at India’s educational system, a student has to complete studying a huge amount of syllabus. However, this huge amount of knowledge which these students owns after graduation is hardly useful while joining a well-established company. This is because a well-established company already has an existing procedural work culture, which act as a barrier for a new entrant to showcase its talent. This work culture demands a new entrant to work in a restricted manner, underestimating their talent and energy to work for the organization. This also decreases the morale of the new energetic entrant.

Earlier a students used to aspire to join a well-established big firm due to lack of employment opportunities in the country and for the recognition a student earns in the society by joining a big company. However, as the time passes by, recognition at work place was considered to be more important than a recognition a new entrant could gain in the society by joining a big company.

Job satisfaction started playing more significant role in attraction and retention of talents than a mere compensation package of the company.

Today’s Generation “Y” category tends to be-

• energetic and seeks challenging work.
• seeks regular and immediate feedbacks with regards to their work
• seeks to work in an organization which has participatory decision making policy.
• Seeks speedy power & recognition for their performance at work place. 

With this attributes of generation “Y” according to me, in coming years joining start-ups companies would be a better option than an big establishment, wherein there is more autonomy and power to take decisions, work with less restriction , getting more openness to experience and most importantly being recognized for your hard work at work place and ultimately resulting in achieving both intrinsic and extrinsic expectations. Hence being a big fish in small pond is better than being small fish in big pond.

-Francis Lazar



Parenting Is Like The Art Of Making Clay Pot.

 

 

     At the birth stage human kids are utterly helpless, lacking the ability to do even the simplest of task. The reason is not that kids are inherently stupid; it is because brains and bodies are underdeveloped at that stage. Hence kids are dependent a lot on parents and they learn a lot of things from the surroundings they are brought up. By relating this phenomena with art of making clay pot we can say that the strength and the beauty of the clay pot are partially dependent on the shape and design given by its maker. The quality of the clay can't be blamed all time. Similarly the quality of genes of a human can't be blamed all time. This is because human’s character is nourished by its parents and surrounding people like you and me. Therefore it is very important for us to mind our  deeds and action as it as long lasting impact on upcoming coming generation.

 

If we just go through the newspapers or any media, we would find that we are constantly surrounded by hate bubbles, our world breeds negativity and polarization each day, even if we play no part in it nor may be mere passive recipients. And nourishing a child under such circumstances is difficult as a task but not something impossible.

 

One often wonders whether a child is inherently good-natured or whether it is a trait that can be developed. What makes little children mean, and why are some meaner than others? Is it inherited, is it what they are watching or eating, is it their home environment?

It is certain that kindness needs to be taught as much as survival skills.

However, teaching children to care about others is not simple. Kindness also needs practice. It doesn’t come from nowhere. Kindness is more show than tell. Our children are always watching us, and most of what they learn is through observation. If you linger long enough around kids, inevitably someone ends up being teased, left out of a game, or bossed around.

It’s as if children are constantly testing out being nice, mean, or silly to see how their peers react. Early childhood, especially the pre-school years is also a time when kids begin to figure out group dynamics. When you watch them, it’s obvious that a lot of the insults, grabbing, and put-downs are part of this experimentation.

Very often, children display complete disregard for the feelings of others and unless the other person displays overt signs of hurt, don’t even notice it. On the other hand, there are parents monitoring their children’s moods all the time. Why are you sad today? Are you upset about something? This obsession with their feelings makes children think about themselves constantly, and not enough about that new child in their class who is lonely, or that one who is being bullied.

 

When we focus too much on our children’s feelings and too little on their behaviour towards others, we are also telling them that we value their feelings over anyone else’s and that is a dangerous situation.

But if we even vaguely understand where the meanness is coming from, maybe we can make sense of it in our own minds, and ultimately help kids to be kind and compassionate people.

 

Children may not be listening to what we tell them but they are always watching us — how we behave, especially towards people less privileged than us, the way we talk to family members, friends, the invisible people and the world at large. All of this shapes a child’s mind in a million different ways.

     And as I stated earlier the design and  the shape  given by the pot maker determines a clay pot's strength and quality.  Similarly we need to ensure that kindness, compassion and empathy stay with our future generation via people like me and you through our deeds and action which is been observed by kids around us.

 

 -Francis Lazar.

Life Beyond Happiness; The Way Forward...

 



In today's world trusting people have become a rare factor in human relationship. It is so low that children don't share their problems with parents nor  couples share their problems with each other. The trust deficit in relationship is so high that we don't share our issues or concerns among humans rather we would only share our fake happiness to our invaluable en-number of friends on social media whom we hardly know well.

Earlier the bonding among the humans was so strong that we used to share problems to humans who understand our issues in much better way unlike today where we keep updating our moods on artificial platforms which doesn't even find solution nor console us. The issue of self esteem never intervined while sharing our problems with our loved ones earlier because of the strong bonding humans had at that time, hence the term such as depression, anxiety disorder etc. was rare and abnormal at that time.

Today the ultimate goal in life has turned out to be pursuing happiness. But in the run, to pursue happiness people are becoming hopeless and full of emptiness causing depression. This is because people are so obsessed with pursuing happiness in life rather than having meaningful life.

For the  information of my readers; psychologically “happiness” is defined as a short term state of well being where as “meaningful life” would result in eternal happiness.

Hence I would say a life beyond happiness i.e. living a meaningful life is much better than just pursuing happiness.

Now the question which arises is how one can live a meaning full life?

According to me there are four factors or pillars which lead one to live a meaningful life and they are -Belongingness, Purpose, Transcendence, self-consoling.

Belongingness-

Let me start by mentioning to my readers that a true belongingness is a state where you are valued for whom you are, and not for whom you are not. If you try to live in fazard life for the sake of creating a network of belongingness with the people whom you wish to, then let me tell that in the long run this won’t work out because the fazard life you showcased will disappear as you feel that the belongings you have created really understand  you.  But in reality the circumstance would be in another way because you were valued for whom you were not. So in short let me conclude by saying that one should have network but at same time one should try  to spare time to create belongingness among the society which really values whom you are, and supports you at the time of the need.

Purpose-

In order to live a life meaningful, one should have a purpose in his/her life. Purpose really drives person to live in this world. No matter if you fail in your life you won’t attempt to suicide or end your life. This is because a person in this world who has some objective won’t look back until and unless he achieve his purpose.  And happiness will automatically follow once you achieve your purpose.

Transcendence-

Transcendence is a state of going beyond reality. For some people transcendence occur by attending some lecture or seminar and for some people transcendence occur while they stay alone. One should have the daring power to doubt the existing realities and come out with empirical solution or alternatives resulting in giving life for meaning full. This is because one can’t be happy in the long run by believing the doubtful.

Self-consoling.-

Self-consoling is very important key to live a successful life.  Self-consoling is an ability of consoling oneself during the times of failure and empowering oneself to believe in his/her abilities.

A person like Bill Gates who failed in his life during his early stage won’t have built a successful firm like Microsoft if he didn’t have self-consoling ability.

     Hence as I mentioned earlier and by taking the example with reflection of people lives such as  Bill Gates, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Swami Vivekananda and many others, living a meaningful life is much better than just  pursuing happiness in life.

-Francis Lazar.



India and its Human Resource.

     In my opinion a Nation's strength is in its human resource. If we take example of India among the developing nations India has the highest GDP. One of the main reasons is its huge population. The same reason goes with China. However India is different, we can’t compare  china and India on same scale, as India is a democratic nation which has bureaucratic policy making procedure. However India still retains the position among the successful growing economies in the world due to its successful large scale of human resources.

(Image courtesy- Google)

    Based upon my observation, the Indian population has a great aspirations and the thirst to earn money resulting because of the differences people see between the minority rich class’s lifestyle and the poor. From the beginning, life on earth followed the natural laws, but human being always tried to learn by experiments even though divine knowledge spotlights everything. In India the thirst for making money under huge competition of employment challenges have already started affecting its human resources.

     And the question is does India really recognize its strength and does India give its due concerns to its human recourses? The answer is simply “NO”, in India both employers (except few) & employees  doesn’t give due concern for  work life balance programs even though they hear about it a lot that, work and an employee’s lifestyle, social life, health, family etc., is greatly linked with employee productivity, performance and job satisfaction. Where there is proper balance between work and life, employees tend to put in their best efforts at workplace.

    The fact that unemployment, job insecurity and huge difference between rich and the poor is still a challenge the world is facing and for India it’s much bigger challenge due to its huge population. Today we find 25 year old diagnosed with heart attacks; the rise in depression and anxiety among the young people is increasing at higher rate each year.  Hence there is high possibility that what is India’s strength today contributing to its GDP will decline tomorrow. The pressure of increasingly demanding work culture in India is perhaps the biggest and most pressing challenge to the mental health of employees. Stressful job conditions and work-life imbalance are pieces of a more complex puzzle.

    If the employers take a step ahead and try develop their current employees  resulting in career opportunity in the same organization they working for, and provide job security rather following the policy of HIRE AND FIRE. At the same time if government proactively work on unemployment issues and reducing the difference in classes. The country could retain its biggest asset or else the country may start seeing a decline in its biggest asset contributing for the growth and become a country for immigrants like U.S. wherein the nation’s own majority of the people are unemployable, hence to sustain we may need to depend on immigrants.

-Francis Lazar

Guru-Shishya Parampara

   We all must have heard the term of "Guru-Dakshina" from a story of Mahabharata when Dronacharya asked for the right thumb from Ekalavya's right hand, which Ekalavya offered to his guru Drona without hesitation. What made Ekalavya possible to render his thumb to Drona without hesitation was the trust and the thirst to gain knowledge from a person like Drona whom he admired.

     If we relate this story in current scenario between students and teacher's relationship we would hardly see a Guru-Shishya relationship like we have seen between Dronacharya and Arjun.
     In today's world sacredness level between Guru-Shishya relationship is to the lowest point including country like India which had an existence of rich ethos talking about such relationship. Today many people end-up becoming professors,lecturers & teachers only to avoid the heat of the corporate organizational politics which they would face in the corporate world. However by doing so, such professors or teachers do not give up their thirst of earning income like they could earn otherwise in corporate sector. This  made the educational institutions and its components to loose its sacred objectives and turn itself into another corporate sector. Even from students perspective considering Teachers or Gurus equal to God has became an history. Students started seeing teachers as employees working for students to provide them with the required amount knowledge. Hence the thirst to gain knowledge by students is only limited to the point till the teacher whom students thinks as their employee behaves in accordance with them.
     In economical terms we can argue that due to huge awareness programs by government and sound educational policies such has increase in scholarship programs or ease in availability of study loan etc,the percentage of graduates is higher than the percentage which it used to be earlier 15-20 years back. Therefore, since supply for graduates is more, the unemployment rate is increasing. However this argument could have been rejected if we had sound educational institutions turning young graduate students into entrepreneurs by removing all their ambiguities  rather than making them job seeking executives.
     In India there is a streyotype that instituions such as IIM's,IIT's,AIIMS are the only ones which provides quality education in their respective fields. However according to me these institutions may provide with sound placements but it can't be referred as an institution which provide quality education. Institutions selecting students who are already bright through entrance examination sounds low as "quality educational institutions" when we compare it to an institution which turns an average student into a bright student. However, according to me an educational institution can only be referred as a sound institution when there is a presence of sacred bond between students and teacher.
     This sacred bond include overcoming the trust deficit in the relationship. Students should have faith and thirst to gain knowledge from teacher. And teacher should have the thirst to empower their students and not just consider students as a source of their income.

-Francis lazar