Conditioning -1

26-Apr-2026 

First a disclaimer regarding the title of this post - what I mean by conditioning here.

I have been feeling quite low off-late due to some personal and professional setbacks. After wallowing in self pity and bitterness for a good 5-6 weeks. Now I'm in a relatively calm state of mind. I hope writing this post will help me further in clearing the cobwebs from my mind and allow me to focus my chain of thoughts. So here we go. 

As I was dwelling in the dark space, it was taking toll on my mental and physical health in a big way. I have talked (actually written) a lot about the physical aspect of fitness. Recovering from a bad Covid, I have been considerate about my health even though I'm guilty of lapsing into unhealthy patterns time and again. But I have shied away from the mental aspect of it. Even though my COVID experience had told me that the mental aspects were far more scarier than physical hardships (Brain fog, cognitive decay and insomnia to name a few). My recent foray into the rabbit hole gave me a rude awakening about it. Hence the focus (and post) about Physical and Mental Conditioning.

So what triggered all this, As most of the things in my life; It started from my work. As we were winding on first quarter of this year and side by side analyzing actual business achieved in last year. It become clear that the business across the group is under-performing in a big way. The geo-political situation and simmering tensions between USA and Iran was having its effect and our business is a global business and a big chunk of order in Indian operations has always been overseas orders. We managed to scrap one order in India at almost no margin to "keep the lights on". But it is not enough from sustainable or profitable perspective.

In business profitability is everything, so if  the business is in bad shape, you can say your chances of growth bye bye. And the irony is that the same geo-political events which cause the business to under-perform. The same events will ensure that your household expenses will sky-rocket. squeezing you from both sides. As money is still a necessary evil for everyone, when the reality hits you and you see it reflecting in your bank account. Your mental calm is the first casualty closely followed by your physical fitness. And it keeps on spiraling from there onwards.

So I find myself gaining weight (work from home means you are more prone to stress eating as kitchen is always well stocked with snacks), having irregular or very minimal sleep and constant headaches. I had the realization that I need to work on my physical and mental fitness but not able to find necessary willpower for the same.

The communication (or rather the lack of it) from management does not help at all. The formal communication that your bonus / variable salary will not be disbursed this year is a very bitter pill to swallow. But the uncertainty regarding this is even worse. As you continue to hope that you may get it after-all. The continued suspense does not do your moral any good.

2026-1

 So, first month of this month was over before I even know it.

And like every year in my life so far, Some things are same and yet others are quite different.

February is as good a time as any to take stock of your new year resolutions. Or whatever is left of it by this time. And in that context, its again a mixed bag of sorts (which I don't mind actually). Great consistency and momentum in some (staying away for too much OTT, movies, daydreaming), Scattered progress in others (Health, new Skills) and falling short in some (Mindfulness, focusing on only one thing at a time). And there again, life can be as complicated as we make it. I can choose to focus more on resolutions where I'm doing great (as they say, strengthen our strengths) or put all my focus on resolutions where I'm failing so far (working on weakest link in the chain). Or which is most probable in my case, just go with the flow.

In fact, the same template is present in corporate side of the life as well. Where unlike my personal life; I don't have the freedom to do whatever I want. And also I'm more dependent on external validation (appreciation, acknowledgement, promotions). At senior leadership level, there is always a tussle for control. You may be very keen to get involve in a particular initiate and may have the prerequisite experience and skills for that as well, But if in the eyes of "Top Boss" you are not the right person for that role, nothing else matters. And its very hard of accept and reconcile with this (I'm still struggling to let it go)

So even if I believe very strongly that my core strength is customer interaction and communication, And I can add a lot of value in business development, the owner does not think so and wants me to concentrate on operations and cost calculation of products that we make.

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Adding to this post in mid of March. As I manage to sneak in a moment when the house is dark, cool and quiet in early morning, And I'm wide awake (though its more a result or my erratic sleeping patterns than a sign of healthy lifestyle). I'm sort of battling the "Mid-year" crisis (similar to mid life crisis which I'm experiencing as well). The month of January was great in terms of relative consistency. February was okay..ish and first half of March, almost everything stalled. Gradually and painfully, I'm trying to bring it back on track. 

Starting march, we had an annual get-together, which is an yearly ritual in my company for last three years now. In this, we take the complete team out for a day and play some sort of sports and adventure activities. I never visualize myself as the most active or fit kind of person. But I had built a self made perception that I'm making slow and steady progress to improve my fitness. But I was in for a rude awakening, the progress was more slow than steady. I'm making some adjustments in my daily routines now that I have seem that walking or trudging 10k steps at a snails pace is not going to take me anywhere. I'm adding small section of sprints (at the same time keeping my heart rate in check) and also adding (very) small sets of weight training to complement the daily regime.

Having a travelling job does not help, As the momentum breaks when I'm travelling. And regaining it is not always easy. (the fact that my travelling involves taking red-eye flights at ungodly hours, doesn't help at all)

Lastly regarding the company that you keeps, I read a very cliched saying "you become average of five of your closest friends". By that token, I should be very fit as all my friends are super-fit enough to give me FOMO. So now, my friends are racing ahead in their fitness journey and I'm lagging behind (PUN intended).

Wrapping up 2025

 27 Dec 2025 : The date when I started this post. It’s (relatively) early morning, the house is dark and quiet. The family is sleeping as it is Saturday. The kind of setting which offers you peace of mind. The setting that I like for blogging.

Peace of mind. You can call it by different names like mindfulness but it’s the mental state that I crave. But first a disclaimer. I have no intention of listing out the events unfolded during the year in this post. One year is a long duration and I'm far too lazy for this initiative. I'm keener to lay out my current frame of mind as 2025 is drawing to end.

I have managed to resist the temptation of making long and elaborate list of goals and objectives for new year (so far!). Next in line was the usual dilemma for me this time of the year. The dilemma regarding how to spend (or effectively utilize) the few remaining days of this year. On one hand there is temptation to indulge in so called non-productive but rewarding activities of binge-watching OTT content, eat out to your heart's content and you can get rest of the gist. Basically, enjoying our life to the fullest leaving the boring grind to new Year. As alluring as it sounds, I somehow end up choosing the other option, which is to utilize this time as a launch pad to build momentum for next year. Once that decision is made, I have to deal with another one of my long-time enemies, try to do too many things and in the end do nothing. All the usual signs like embarking on a new habit or initiative, but the minds start drifting off on first sign of something which looks hard or monotonous. And then you start chasing the next goals, Goal which looks fantastic till the time you realize it also involves hard and monotonous steps only. Which brings me down to the current topic of my fascination (after taking a long and winding detour). MINDFULNESS.

To say that I have struggled with Mindfulness or in simple words "living in the moment" will be an understatement. As highly neurotic personality, I take too much stress imagining worst case scenario some of them never materializing. On the flip side as well, I have tendency to indulge in daydreaming as an escape route. Because of this I come across as a very serious, upright person whose face always shows lots of stress. Too an extent that I have never really enjoyed occasions like family functions, socializing with friends or vacations. Because to enjoy these events, you have to be fully present in those moments; both physically and mentally. 

In fact, I have realized that having too many goals is not the problem and it’s different from multi-tasking. Problem is that I start planning my next task without completing the one in hand.

So, as I wrap up this year (Actually the year is drawing to its end on its own due to cosmic events). The mental state that I want to be in is the state of Mindfulness. As has happened in last few years. The plans will fail next year as well. Life will keep throwing curveballs. And most of the time my time will not be in my control. But whatever small pockets of time I find and control and next year. If I could achieve mindfulness in those instances. I'm sure next year will be more rewarding than this one.

 

A post on "no posts"

 Ah the irony! A post on not posting enough (lately)

I feel so clever just on the idea of this post. Its like the neurons in brain has started firing again after a sort of hibernation of two years. 

the funny thing is ever since I started started this particular post (on 21st Oct to be exact). I have managed to write and publish two posts utilizing the looong weekend (actually it was almost complete week off due to Diwali). And I have beaten the grand record of last year (when I has published only one post). I have demonstrated my resilience to continue my legacy (of posting which nobody reads) from 2012.

So even though this post serves no purpose now (like most of things that I do or maybe like the life itself). Why not continue riding the momentum and see where this post leads up to. Whether it will eventually materialize into a published post or it will languish in heap of my drafts which could never see the metaphorical internet sun.

The issue is unlike my standards posts (where I languish in self pity), I intend for this post to be clever and witty, traits which gel with my personality like chalk and cheese. One of the idea that I was contemplating quite seriously was using prompt "write a funny and witty post on procrastination" and essentially use that as reference material. But to my credit, I have managed to resist the temptation of doing it so far. So the post upto here is as original or unoriginal as my thought process. And the poor LLM models has no role to play in the same. 

As the post matter is increasingly resembling the speech of current POTUS. I should focus and look at the topic of the post to remind myself the original topic, which is "NO POST".

So why these blogs post has hit a road block from last two year ?

Why I seems to have time for every trivial thing that I could think of but not blogging ?

My blog or speech style is always more on colloquial side. The flow state as its called sometimes, whenever I do manage is to get into that state, the conversion flows easily. And generally I feel good about myself. In some aspects its like meditation as I'm in present "in the moment" at that point of time. Off late that state is missing. Too many distractions and that familiar sinking feeling to trying to do too many things and in the end achieving nothing. The timing (its 21st December today) doesn't help as well as New year resolutions generally means long list of aspirational goals.

So why no posts!. As either I was contemplating too many things, getting frustrated with my jobs. Or whenever small pockets on relative calm I could find, I was devoting on other aspects like fitness or working on technical skills (Not to say the progress on both these aspects has been very dismal as well).

so resisting the temptation of making a long list (which includes the goals of more blog posts next year as well). But working on controlling my mental distractions. Lets see how I fare till New Year !

How to be Assertive

 How to be assertive. First a disclaimer, the post title is incredibly cheesy and clichéd. I will be very disappointed if this is final extent what I could think of creatively. However since I'm trying to be back on track after a long hiatus in blogging, I would focus more on the post right now than fretting about the title. (Plus going with latest trends. there is always AI to lend you a helping hand :) )

So why I'm venturing into this rabbit hole now. Because at different stages of your personal and professional journey, your focus area shifts as it should be. Sometimes you are trying to reinforce your relative strengths, to leverage them for better growth. And other times you try to work on your relative weaknesses as your find them dragging you down. In last few year ;my professional growth has been really good and it rubs off on your personal aspects as well as subconsciously you find subtle changes in your personality while handling bigger and bigger responsibilities. I have decent communication and technical skills (humblebrag alert !). Strangely contrary to conventional wisdom (which says you need to focus on communication and motivational skills when at senior leadership level), My major focus was on hard, technical skills only. I acquired certifications in Project Management and Functional Safety and recently was looking in area of Artificial Intelligence. My current role gave my liberty to focus on any area that I wish (as the company is evolving) and I choose to see myself as a CTO.

But that is changing now, I'm beginning to focus more on Business development aspect (as we are seriously lagging behind in sales). And at the very top level, everything is about numbers. So there is pressure to deliver. Another factor which accentuates the situation is that I'm working in this company for more than five and half years now, And in the Indian team, I'm the oldest as well as the senior most members. So I have to carry the baggage of all failures, lost initiative, missteps by previous management. Based on my previous experience, When the organization is under-delivering on the whole. The owner starts looking for "superstar". The prospective candidates who promise the moons and stars and everything in between, More often than not, these people are smooth talkers and sly as fox. So unless you can communicate assertively, There is no saving you from decline on slippery slope from where there is no coming back.

So here I am, getting increasingly less and less chance to speak and participate in core leadership group. And whenever I do get a chance to speak, its like walking on eggshells. Anything that I say seems to trigger the top boss (who is incidentally the owner of the company as well). Its not doing my confidence a world of good and I have no option but to be walk the fine line between assertiveness and aggressiveness. As becoming a passive spectator and letting things take their own course is not an option.

I'm an introvert person by nature so blessed (or cursed) with trait that I'm a better listener than speaker. The group interactions, where all other senior manager jostled for attention of top boss, are not my favorite events. My natural cadence or pace of speech delivery is also on the slower side (based on feedback received from multiple people.

 The exact situation and struggles before my company; is a subject that merit another post as it will be too technical and specific to international business and packaging automation. So I steer off from that topic for now. This post is more on the communication part.

So to form the vague outline of  plan, I divide the communication into two parts, Tone and the content. As I need to work on both the aspects.  I believe I need to add a third element of context here as well. 
First the third one, broadly I speak on three type of occasions. Explaining something to customers or giving presentation, the kind of occasions that I enjoy. As I wear the technical hat (not sales or commercial). More often that not; customer is keen to hear what I want to say. So I have no problem in communicating even though I encounter a whole spectrum of customer and it a good challenge to vary your message depending upon the occasion.

The second type of occasion is meeting within India team. Here also I have smooth sailing mainly because I'm senior most person (that is about to change very soon..) and us being a very hierarchical society; other team members does not oppose my views openly. In fact these kind of occasions are easier for me to practice assertive communication skills.

The third is the most challenging and difficult one, My interaction with core group which is senior leadership group that takes most decision. And it includes owner of the company as well who has headstrong personality and dominates most of the discussion in the group. This is the platform where I have to be at my assertive best.

Now coming back to other two aspects, tone and content. First is about content. The major part of it is about the homework and preparedness. When interacting with top boss, you are supposed to be on top of all things and have every information on your fingertips. The owner would love to catch you off guard. So he will change the pre-set agenda and ask some vague information that is not relevant and not expected. More often than not, it tests your confidence and on the spot thinking. If you fumbles for information at that instant, you are gone.

Regarding the tone, I have a very monotonous tone by nature. I had enrolled into Toastmasters (https://toastmasters.org/) more than 10 years back which is like a club focused on public speaking. I manage to complete the first stage of certification (which includes 10 speeches). The feedback was very consistent on few aspects. One that I have a serious expressionless face while delivering the speeches and I looks very stressed. And Second my natural voice tone is very flat. Not much modulations so I come across as very emotionless (Not sure if its a bad thing in high level business interactions though)

As I still don't have a action plan other than having more conviction in my ideas and show more confidence (which is easier said than done). I don't have anything to add on that front and should conclude my post here. 

PS : I tried to look online for any solution and did not find anything great apart from some generic advise.

2025 Post -1

 19th April 2025 :

What about Title of this post, lack of  creativity or writers block or plain laziness ?
Perhaps all of the above or I'm not sure if I'm going to write more than one post per year now (the way things are going off late)

And what's with the date as the title of the post.

Its the day I'm writing this post, Perhaps it will be weeks and months before I could conclude and post it. So a nice litter reminder regarding how many days it takes for me to write a post.

Plus its my parents 47th anniversary; And birthday of one of my best friend (at least we were when in college). We have drifted apart now and its almost impossible to repair the relations. Its sad but inevitable as don't have many common interest area and we are separated physically as well (both the factors are important as my experience shows with other friends)

21st October 2025 :

The date above is a giveaway that I'm opening this page now in October after April. Which means almost a whole year gone by just like that. 

This is the second year in a row where I have spent spent almost no time on activities that I used to like and devote time quite regularly; reading and writing. And coincidently, this is the second year of my so called promotion. (I was promoted in November 2023). So probably I'm paying the price of growth. Anyway more on that later (in another post maybe...)

Since this post is more like a diary entry. So first few lines on why this date. Well first of all 17 October was my birthday followed closely by Diwali festival which was yesterday. So here I'm; on very next day after Diwali, in relatively early morning when the house is nice and quite. Weather is usually nice this time of the year and I could hear birds chirping outside. But I could also sense horrible pollution as a consequence of firecrackers burned last time. AQI is close to 350 and I could feel minor irritation in my throat.
Partially because I don't feel like exercising due to this pollution and partially because we have holidays after Diwali so I don't have to attend some urgent senseless official meetings today. I could spend some time in writing this post. Not to say I'm perfectly capable of wasting time on not doing anything, So this should count for something.

My birthday has been a trigger point for my writing for a long time time. You could find a lot of posts on my birthday or new year where I try to introspect, plan for future and the post serve as a platform where I try to put my thoughts into writing, A brain dump if you may call it so.

So the broader trend looks something like this, I write a post on birthday, ruing lost momentum and opportunities in last year. Reaffirming that I should get serious now. And this mood continues till new year which is resolution time for most of the world. There I make plans on how this year will be different and my personal milestones that I wanted to achieve. Sometimes these goals includes no of posts that I wanted to write as well. This time was similar is some ways yet quite different in others. One I was feeling quite tired and jaded, I was trying to build a fitness routing and included brisk walking so partially because of that. But there were others reasons as well that I cant really put a finger on right now. I actually forget how many years older I'm now. Maybe the sign of getting older that birthday gives you more guilt than joy. The guild of wasting one more year and seeing your life wasting away on the whole. And your constant feeling of tiredness in part physical and part mental. On Diwali as well I'm was unusually bitter, I had a bad episode on office; an usual case of office politics but it was not the trigger point. It was more like the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. I was feeling bitter before this episode as well and this particular incident just added oil to fire. When your mind is not really into it. These activities just feels like a waste of time. And I'm getting drawn into concept of "Time rationing" off late as well. So I sort of went through the motions and today morning my relative calm is more from the sense of relieve that its over now. So much for the occasion of Diwali which should rejuvenate you and fill you with positive energy. 

Continuing the brain dump for second day as well as the pollution from Diwali is still very much there, with AQI is the range of 400 to 500, Exercise is not advisable and as I'm still in Diwali break so I can spend some quality time in rummaging thoughts. 

I have written so many times regarding planning the goals and objectives that I actually have nothing to add to it. Though we can argue that situation every year is different and unique which should be factored in while tailoring the plan. After so many years, one thing is certain that the new year resolutions just doesn't work. Perhaps its due to my tendency to do so many thing at same time that I end up getting overwhelmed, or perhaps I can't sustain my focus and motivation at consistent basis on long term. 

So Maybe its better to sort of "live in the moment". To take thing as they are. And see where we end in the end. New year is around 8 week away. And even if I could sustain these minor changes for these 8 weeks, there is still hope...

 posted on 22nd Oct.

2024 Diary -1

1st Jan :

So, we are well and truly in 2024. Even though we can’t take much credit for it as we have done nothing except staying alive (which might count for something in present scheme of things). It was the natural progression of thing, the earth completed one more rotation as per its pre-defined natural order and because of that the calendar dates shifts by one more day. So here I find myself. physically in Pune as I was travelling from Delhi to Pune on the first day of this year. As the very cliched saying goes that you are bound of repeat the activity that you did on first of Jan for the rest of the year; I see myself shuttling between Delhi and Pune more frequently. As far as physical fitness goes not in the best shape by a fair bit of margin. My pre-declared objective of becoming more fit in this year cannot have a worst start that this (pattern of sedentary lifestyle for last two years coupled with irregular sleep pattern and a Spain trip just before Christmas where I managed to catch a severe bout of cold). Now that I'm on the wrong of wrong side of 40, time is catching up with my biological clock and I'm already late on this journey of getting serious about my health. After hitting rock bottom as I had a severe bout of Covid in 2021. I'm recovered after battling with its side effects aptly called "Long Covid". But I was guilty of not taking my health seriously at all. I went down with Covid in May and had my second daughter in October. Even since then, my sleeping and eating schedule is in total disarray. I had made it one of my major new year resolutions for this year to get back in shape. Let’s see how this goes in coming days and years. 

Professionally I found myself in a good space. After a long time, I'm keen in retaining my place rather than thinking about further growth. I was recently promoted in November last year. And I’m coming on terms with added responsibility and how best to manage it. Though I was aiming for this position for many months and in the end, it was a quite dragged-out affair (which did not help my motivation for later half of last year), I don’t have any false sense of entitlement here. I’m very clear in my mind that this is one of biggest challenge in my overall carrier spanning around two decades now. Performing in this new role will not be easy for me and I need to be at my productive best to do justice to this role (And frankly to avoid getting fired).

Intellectually (as the mind seeks new challenges and you want to see yourself growing holistically), I had always identified goals and challenges for me. Majority of times I had failed in achieving them or sometimes even to make even a small progress towards them. But it has kept my mental outlook in a stable frame of mind (As I’m high on Neuroticism personality trait and tend to slip into overthinking leading to depression time and again). Again, taking my Covid illness as a starting point (as it’s a good benchmark personally for me). I more of less recovered in June, then enrolled in a course called “Becoming a morning person” in July / August, basically it was sort of 5am club habit building course. I could retain the habit of getting up at 5am sharp for a few months after this course, and had few other takeaways like gratitude journalling, habit tracker to name a few. In October I had my second daughter (which again is a good person benchmark) after I was forced to let go of this habit as my sleeping and eating schedule went for a toss.

In April 2022, one of my friend and ex-colleague suggested to go a PMP certification and as typically of my impulsive nature, I had dived headlong into this without thinking in detail. It clashed majorly with me personal life (due to small child at home). However professionally I was not doing great as my company was in a great turmoil and we are fighting to survive. PMP certification is not easy and the more time and energy I poured into its preparation, the less time I had for overthinking and undue worrying about my company and my professional future. I managed to clear PMP in staring of 2023 (Even though I had to renew this every three years). I allowed myself couple of months to relax and enjoy this achievement. But I was on constant lookout for my next step or next level of skill enhancement or professional certification to collect. Coincidentally at the same time, my company’s fortune changed dramatically as I become more and more busy. I could figure out the next certification after some time (CMSE) and finding out the way to acquire this certification still took bit more time (as getting these certifications or any academic degree for that matter is a process and a big part of success is to figure out the correct process including resources to consult). But the problem was that I was very busy and was not able to spare time required to study. Also as stated earlier, my mental motivation was not high which did not help my case at all. In the end I had to postpone this plan for 2024.

The last missing link was learning new language. I become really interested in this aspect in last few years. I had always held polyglots in high esteem. Unfortunately, due to my background and upbringing I’m proficient in only Hindi and English unlike majority of Indian who can speak at least three languages. My mother tongue is Punjabi but I’m very limited in the same as my education was in Hindi only (another reason why I’m a big advocate of primary education in local languages). Ever since I joined my present company (around 3.5 years back). I become interested in learning Marathi (as my company is in Pune) and Spanish (as our head office is in Spain). The progress is not great at all and its more of start and stop (ironically like all my other goals) but I’m still stubbornly clinging to this goal. I do get selective opportunities to immerge myself (when I’m travelling to Pune or to Spain). And I had colleague to converse with me in that language but I need to be more disciplined about it, and let go of initially reluctance to speak in that language and make mistakes but not worry about it.

Travel to Spain - Dec 2023 - Part 1

 This is my third trip to Spain as I’m working with a company (for around 3.5 years now) that has offices in Spain. Writing travelogues has been a struggle off late. In any case business trips leaves you with very less time to indulge in general site-seeing and immersing in local culture. Still as its almost end of the year and ‘writing’ has been a constant in new goals, objectives for new year resolutions all those years. I will try my hand once again and see if I can write a nice travelogue (in my own eyes) about this visit.

So, here I am in Spain on a week preceding Christmas, the official agenda is to participate in annual business meeting for taking stock of last year progress and deciding next year’s objectives. The unofficial agenda is that company top management does not want to travel to India so close to Christmas, and they would rather have us travelling Spain. The added cherry on top is that there have been some recent top-level hires at group level. And this visit gives us a chance to meet those guys face to face. Plus, I have been partially promoted and I’m now expected to be a part of these events.

Though I have had my fair shares of overseas trips in the past (courtesy my job profile). The novelty of the experience starts right from airport itself (specially if you are travelling to Europe which is much away from middle east. Total flight timing of around 11 hours plus airport lay overs in between are not a joke, specially if you are wrong side of 40 and has food limitations. The only thing breaking this pattern is horde of Punjabis’ (I’m myself a Punjabi too) queueing up in lines at Airport check-in counters. We are sort of like global travellers and there is a unique class of persons travelling at airports. Normally these are aged parents travelling to be with their children settled abroad. In our culture and society, the parents send their wards abroad by spending their lives saving in the hope of a better future. Then if they become settled enough, they call their parent to live with them. Hence you will find old people from remote places in Punjab at airport. They are very limited in English communication and probably are travelling outside their state for the first time. My flight was from Turkish airlines with a lay over in Istanbul, which is apparently a convenient place for travelling to Canada which is like a mini-Punjab outside India. 

My flight timing was 6 in the early morning, considering international flight and state of rush in the Delhi airport. I had to be at the airport maximum by 2 in morning (or night?). So, it was almost an all nighter for me on the day before I travel. As my travel frequency has increased lately (for both domestic and international travel), I have been trying to plan my schedule to makes it less hectic on my body (enough of early morning and late nights flights for me as I’m not getting any younger now). But I don’t have much of options this time around. Generally international flights are scheduled at an ungodly time in India. Also, my total flying time was around 11-12 hours and adding 2.5 hours of layover and accounting for the time difference, it means I was landing in evening in Madrid and my hotel was further 2.5 hours away in Burgos. So, I was reaching my hotel just in time to catch enough rest before reporting to office next day. I was flying by Turkish Airlines this time and the layover was in Istanbul. Both the airlines and the layer airport were new to me.

I had an windows seat for first leg of journey, and I was looking forward to it. As it means more comfortable journey where you can use the windows as head support, and nobody to disturb you in sleep for bathroom break. But as the luck would have it. I find one old lady already occupying my seat in plane. Apparently, she was travelling to her family in England and as She was in a wheelchair. She boarded before everyone one. She was more comfortable in the window seat, and I don’t have a hear to ask her to move. Even if it means spending a long flight of 7 hours in uncomfortable middle seat. The layover was uneventful even if I can’t find anything to eat and I reached Madrid without any major issue only a bit hungry and tired. The driver was there to pickup us up, his car was as comfortable as you imagine it to be but there was a strange smell of smoke in the car. Either it was some peculiar brand of tobacco or some other drug (I decided that I don’t really want to know). As a result, when I landed at hotel in Burgos, Spain. I was already feeling a bit ill. 

 

 

That time of the year

 That time of the year.

I have mentioned this in many earlier posts as well. About this so-called time of the year. In financial terms, you can call it the last quarter of the year i.e., from October to December. For people like us who live in an area prone to extreme weather conditions. The onset of winters comes as a big respite after months and months of scorching heat. I feel it’s more than sheer coincidence that all major festivals in our religion happen to lie in the period of pleasant weather. In my case, I have added incentive that my (and for that matter even my wife and one of my daughter’s) birthday falls in this period as well.

So, it culminates in a period of reflection, introspection and ultimately planning for next year which coincides with new year eve on 31^st December.

08-Oct-2023

The major milestone is my birthday which falls on 17^th of October. This serves as a reminder for me to spend some time in introspection. More so as I will be officially on wrong side of 40s after this date.  It’s very natural to have this feeling that life is slipping by, and you are a failure or under-achieve at best. Even more in my case as I could have gotten a promotion just before my birthday which would have sweetened the deal a bit more. But the decision was put on backburner for some time due to a bit of corporate politics (a topic for another post when I’m in relatively calmer state of mind). So, to avoid digressing further, I had reasons to be resentful (as anyone will always have). But there are reasons to be happy, content and grateful too, even if it’s not really apparent. Some months back, I decided to work on a smaller set of goals lest I get overwhelmed by the big list of so-called objectives and very litter progress to show. So, I selected only two major objectives if my memory serves me right. One was to focus more on my fitness, it’s still a work in progress but slowly and gradually, I’m building on my consistency on this. The second objective was to learn Spanish. It’s not easy at all, but here again I’m taking baby steps in its direction. Now I feel I can be bold enough to embark on my third objective, which perhaps is going to be toughest compared to the previous two but will help in achieving the previous two objectives as well if I could even partially achieve it. And that goal is...

Discipline against distraction, on social media and elsewhere. Mainly time guzzlers like Facebook, Quora, YouTube, OTT and general random scrolling on chrome.

14-Oct-2023

Getting close to the D Day now. And so-called Fate or destiny has found a nice way to assert themselves and bite me. As I was getting a bit ambitious with my plans and all. And I hit a roadblock in the form of variety of ways. First, I had minor physical discomfort like body pain and tiredness which persisted for the better part of the week. Then my daughter who is not even two years old. Start showing some tantrums (maybe it’s a result of change in weather conditions) But She was not sleeping soundly from last one week. As a nuclear family without the support of grandparents. This effectively means that me and my wife can’t sleep either for the last week. And as if all these things were not enough, I had some urgent official targets as my workload is increasing day by day.

So, it all resulted in a sort of daily routine which was very different from how I want it to be. Waking up late in the day. Feeling sleepy for most of the morning and working till late night to finish the urgent work. So, my so-called daily routine which I had built very painstakingly went down the drain. And the positive momentum is all but lost.

Now I am feeling a bit better at-least physically (I think partially it was due to so called intermittent fasting that I was following to lose excess weight, as you are not in best of the spirits when your stomach is empty. So, I’m trying to recalibrate my approach. Ensuring that I’m well fed and well hydrated most of the time. And slowly increasing my intensity towards the shared goals again. It’s quite frustrating to lose the momentum and start all over again. But still, it’s much better than wallowing in self-pity.

So, I had a very little workout in the morning today (even though I literally had to push myself and my body and mind was screaming to get away). And Now I’m penning down (or typing to be more accurate) these thoughts to ensure that I continue to write as well.

My goals remain the same as before.

Physical Fitness

Proficiency in Spanish

Less Distraction (Phone and PC)

 

17-Oct-2023

So, the D here is here ultimately, the weather seems pleasant today after unseasonal heat wave for many days.  The year gone by has been quite eventful to say the least but ultimately more good than bad. I generally avoid spending too much to dwell on the past too much. I would rather utilize my time in planning for the future. Still spending time in introspection and reflection is a necessary evil. Perhaps I will do that on 31^st December, which is also not very far way by the way. Today I will indulge myself and take it a bit easy. There is a full one year ahead (at-least I would like to think so even if life is very unpredictable.)

My objective as stated above remains fixed, I’m not going to add any other names to that list. At least not officially. You can make the list of your so-called goals as long as possible. But unless you have a small list of priorities. You will find it difficult to focus, and it high time I get really serious about my health (No 1). Also, I’m working in a company with head-office in Spain for around 3.5 year now. And If I really wanted to learn Spanish, I need to achieve this target within next one year. The third target is also not going to be an easy one to achieve as it’s a sort of an intangible target.

 02-Dec-2023

This is the time when you can claim that end of the year is officially here as we are into the last month of the year. Based on my experience and observation, different group of people behaves differently as this time of the year. Some are in the mode of enjoying their life to the fullest, throwing caution to the winds convincing themselves about enjoying one last time before they will turn up all disciplined and focused come 1st of January. However more often than not, it becomes even more difficult as discipline is something that builds up gradually. Another set of people who are actually in minority, use this time to prepare themselves for easing into the new year routing that they have envisaged for themselves. A third and even rarer group is the one who had actually plotted and selected goals for themselves last year, And are actually tenacious enough to not to let go of their goals and try their best even when they realize that time is running out very fast. I cant be in the third group but I definitely aspire to be in the second group.

 

Solitude

Solitude is a very alien concept to contemporary Indian psyche. Its partially due to the sheer size of population that we have and partially due to the innate curiosity to meddle in the affairs of other person. Its a strange contradiction of sorts as we are supposed to be the pioneers of mediation which can be loosely defined as contemplating and focusing in solitude only. On perhaps these are two different aspects co-existing in our society. Even human personality is actually an amalgamation of big five traits of Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. Still we are not really new to concept to solitude on mental level thanks to spirituality and meditation. Drawing on my personal experience, my mental state is like a pendulum which swings from one extreme to another depending on various factors some tangible and some intangible. As this multi-variance analysis is beyond my cognitive abilities right now. I'll avoid the temptation of delving into probable causes for my so-called mood swings. But the fact remain that sometimes we really crave solitude (mainly when we have realization that we are running in circles in this rat-race), On the other hands its really difficult to draw the line between solitude and loneliness. On the other extremities we felt lonely even while surrounded by tons and tons of people. The contrast is right there when you look at empirical data and find that being burnt out and depression are two common factors affecting mental health today.

Ironically, one of the major areas for me where I need solitude is the one that I'm focusing on right now, writing. For last few weeks. I have outlined few areas where I'm tying to be more consistent. And reading and writing both figure quite prominently on that list. Out of these two, reading is considering as the easy part more-so if you don't set your expectation too high and compromise a bit on the quality, In other words, searching for good book to read can be quite a challenge. But if you lower your expectation, Than there is no dearth of matter to read. 

Writing on the other hand, is far more complex and demanding endeavor on my part. I do run into the very cliche writer's block. I start writing on something and after first few lines, run out of ideas to explore it further. Also the strains of personal and professional responsibilities is making it tougher and tougher to find solitude as a certain degree of mental piece is required for writing anything worthwhile. Even 5-10 minutes are enough for me to read few pages at least every day. But I need longer slice of me time to articulate my thoughts and put it on paper.

As I have indicated few times already in previous blogs, I'm prone to neurotism aspect of personality types. I'm guilty of indulging in overthinking or day-dreaming in the past. One of the option to keep this tendency in check is to keep yourself busy. But when you are trying to find time for meditation, then there is a risk that you can fall back to these habits.

The other part which is quite pedantic compared to first one is pure laziness or sleepiness. I have a little one a half year old devil in my house who neither sleep herself nor allows others to sleeps. She wants to play with me (and her mother off-course) at 3am in the night. I have prided myself as a early riser for a long time (I even have tried my hand at so-called 4am club for a while). As the body conditioning does not happen overnight and even it does not deteriorate overnight too. I still can wake up early in the morning without much of an issue. But... the cumulative lack of sleep shows after a while and you tend to feel sleepy all the time. So sitting in a relaxed posture and closing your eyes is not a good idea at all when your body is craving sleep.

As I touched earlier too, both physically and mental fitness is required to keep up with an increasingly demanding job and in a way, both of them are actually related to each other. 

Pune - Gurgaon and Back

 Actually the correct title should be Gurgaon to Pune and back. Because that's the title of an email that I write monthly to travel agent for ticket booking purpose.

However my relationship with Pune City goes beyond my first company. So as a (im) famous politician has said. You have to understand the chronology. I started working after I completed my education in 2004 (a good 19 years back). And since 2006 I'm associated with project based job which involves fair bit of travelling. Apart from some abroad visits (which generated quite a buzz in my personal circle), My major travel used to be in Delhi NCR or Mumbai. So though not directly to Pune, but I had started traveling to Mumbai region quite early. I always had a funny feeling even back then that these places are my so called karmabhoomi in future.

I moved jobs and shifted to Gurgaon in 2011. Which I now relate as my actual home. So one of the wishes come true.

"Back on Track" or "Finding your Way"

 The dialogue "I'm back" has such a nice ring to it that many movies, novels etc. had look to use it. Strangely we find it much more powerful than lets say a dialogue like "I'm here" or "I got it". Mainly because the story of loosing your way and than making the comeback is the universal story that appeals to everyone. 

Okay, to come back to the main point without further digressing. I'm in a short of comeback mode from last few weeks. That is, I'm trying to restart the activities that were put in a standby mode. The reason or should I say 'excuses' were the usual ones. No free time, No mental peace, I'm not that interested or invested in this anymore or I have got a new and better plan, objectives. Even though I should have known better, still its easy to fall back to this line of thinking.

Anyways, now that I have at-least succeeded to get my immediate attention back on the original objectives. I have been trying to build the momentum and side by side trying to learn from my last failures (and there have been many, a bit more than I would have liked). So that I try different ways of attacking the same problem and see if I can succeed this time.

PPS : One of the main challenge that I face whenever I embark on this endeavor is how to make effective use of my time.  Based on my experience and one of the book that I'm reading right now (12 rules by Jordan Peterson). I have realized that total active time available to you in a day (excluding of sleeping time although you can cut on your sleeping time to inflate your active time for short-term), Can be divided into 3 major groups. Time devoted to your official endeavors (basically the time which pays your salary), Second is the family time (your obligation and responsibility towards your family). Third and the last slot is so called Me time (which is actually a very cliché word and most often than not a very misunderstood and abused concept. 

Now all the activities and task that you plan for your holistic growth will eat up this personal chunk of time only. So either you compromise on your official time. 

I have experienced that at the starting point of my carrier and upto some extent I still experience it, I had friends who were pursuing distance education side by side while working in full time job. But very evidently, this education was equally important for them as the job. I, on the other hand, was into this education thing a bit half-heartedly, As my main focus was on my job. I was working longer hours even eating into family time (there was almost no me-time for me at that period of my life). In the hindsight and after a good old decade has passed, Its interesting to see how that experiment went for me and any friends. Initially I found good success in my present company and I was ahead of the curve slightly, then the work-related pressure got to me and to add to that, I had serious personal issues cropping up in my personal life. As a result of it, I was asked to resign from my job and I came very close to having a nervous breakdown. My friends on the other hand, were initially growing at a smaller pace but later on they managed to clear their exams and went on to get high paying jobs leveraging  that degrees. I agree that this is not a multi-variant analysis and should be taken with a grain of salt. There were multiple factors at play like my and their personality traits. Our family background. There is so much I don't know about them and off-course there are some thing within my psyche that I don't even know about me either. Still I can draw some conclusion from this episode. Number one conclusion sounds very cliché but its actually true that you should love your job, not your company. Secondly more often than not, its your job insecurity which forces you to work longer hours at-least you want to be perceived as someone who works longer hour than others. And last that confidence is supremely important in your corporate life, Imposter can be pretty successful in the long run. 

If I have to define myself back then in terms of personality traits. I was very high on Neuroticism and Agreeableness. Which is a recipe for disaster ever. And to make it worse, I was very low on Extraversion. Even if I was high on conscientiousness, it was not going to save me. I'm not really sure, where do I rank on Openness scale. 

PS : Very recently one of my friend (we are from same college) has enrolled in a reputed institute in Gurgaon to pursue his executive MBA. I think it was a big and brave step on this part. We are on same age (40) and finding the time to invest is a major challenge. Not to mention the financial aspect of it which is also an substantial amount. This further motivates to work harder on my goals. I know he has to attend classes from Thursday to Saturday every week which runs till 10 in the night. His job is quite easy and like me they also have two small kids. So I know its not easy to manage this for the period of 2 years. I also know from my personal experience that if somehow if you could bear and manage through this period. You only stand to gain in longer run.

Another friend and ex-colleague of mine has moved into software and control system (He was selling conventional printing solutions for many years). He is around 6-7 years senior to me if I'm not wrong and to be able to pivot your job at that age and side by side maintaining / increasing your salary is commendable in my books.

My travel experience to Philippines - part 1

As someone who loves to travel. I consider myself reasonably lucky to land in the job where travelling is part of my job profile. And to add to it. I'm based near Delhi (Gurugram) and my company's India head office is in Pune. How we came to arrangement is topic of another post. So to cut long story short, I have been travelling a lot off late, Mainly within India but sometimes overseas too.

Recently I had to travel to Philippines for some office related work. The duration was around 1 week. My past experience with such business travel proves that these kind of trips are very hectic. Generally the only places that you see are airports, your hotel room and customer factory. But this trip and the background related to it was quite eventful. So here's what happened.

I started working quite young in 2004 as I travelled overseas for the first time in 2006. At that time, things were not so user friendly. To apply for VISA sometimes we need to come all the way to Delhi (I was working in Chandigarh then) and to reach embassy in the early morning. The era without stuff  like online banking, Ola Uber etc. seems really ancient whereas its only around 10 years in the past. Now we take getting the VISA for granted. So I was not really prepared for the teething problems that I was about to encounter while applying for the VISA. Seems like government of Philippines is making conscious efforts to discourage people coming from other countries, specially South Asia and Africa. When I heard their conditions from my travel agent like original copy of the invitation letter from the inviting party which should be verified by Notary. I was surprised to say the least. On top of this, initially it was planned that our top management will also join us there. So there was added pressure on me to finish the documentation related formalities at the earliest as I was perceived as the bottle-neck in scheduling the trip. For getting Philippines VISA, I need to go to their embassy directly (they don't have facilitation center). They have made one small make-shift office for VISA application in the main embassy itself. Few weeks later when I will be in Philippines itself (no this story has a happy ending in a way that I did managed to get my VISA and travel to Manila), I realized the this country is still quite close to Europe or America in the pop culture which is one area where I find my country quite different. So in VISA process itself they are special provision. And there I'm not talking about the privileges' bestowed to European nationals to visit Ph without any VISA requirement. That's purely a case of how strong your passport is in my mind. I found out that if I have US or Schengen or for that matter even Japanese VISA. I can travel to Philippines without any further additional documents. Other remarkable thing is the number of people from my home state (Punjab) applying for this VISA. I very well know that we people (Punjabis) do travel a lot and are a sort of global expats. We have almost reverse colonized Canada and Australia but even Ph seems to be quite a popular destination for us. Some of the poor souls who were probably travelling to meet their children and grand-children were like deer in front of headlight there. Understanding English was already a challenge for them and to add to it the Pilipino accent was making it almost impossible for them to decipher the questions. 

I also had some minor issues as the original letters that I have already asked our agent in Ph to share, has not reached me yet. I had to convince the lady in counter that I will duly submit the original at the time of collection of VISA. Also I wanted to process the application in fast track mode but apparently my agent has paid for normal mode only. Anyhow this issue was settled (I paid the extra amount in cash). And I got my VISA just in time for my travel to Manila.

The whole trip planning was done in a great haste and I was not really in sound state of mind when the travel agent booked my ticket and itinerary for the visit. My stress subsided a bit on receiving the VISA. And then I realized that my ticket to Manila (with a halt in Kuala Lumpur in between) has the half of only 75 minutes.  As I have lived in Kuala Lumpur for 7 months, I know that they have two terminals connected by train. So I asked our agent to reconfirm that both arriving and departing flights in my case was from same terminal only. Still I had a bit of stress on my mind when I boarded the flight. And, as the luck would have it, the flight take off good 15 minutes late. Even though flight carriers (even in domestic circuit) has lot of in-build buffer to cater for such delays. Still, somehow the flight landed also 15 minutes late. Just before the flight was about to land, I asked the air-hostess if the flight to Manila will also depart from the same terminal. She replied in the negative. And I was left with no option but to stand up the queue in aisle anxious to get off as soon as possible (I used to laugh at people who has no patience and start queueing up as soon as the plan lands (perhaps, it was karma getting back at me in a way). Murphy law was also in play on same day (my queue was moving slower than other). As soon as I got of the plane, I asked for the way to get to other terminal and started running. 

Few other Indian guys who had a same connection started following as we Indians are quite good in following other blindly. Last time when I went to Malaysia (a good 6 years back), they used to have train coach connecting one terminal to another. For some reason those were out to operation and instead they were using buses to ferry passengers between terminals. So I had bigger distance to travel and also had to ask for directions time and again so that I don't get lost. Somehow I landed at the right place and get into the bus in time but alas.. I had to wait till the bus in full before it started moving, In a funny sort of way, It reminded me about back in India when I used to go to my native village from Chandigarh (I used to live in Chandigarh back then). I had to use the infamous state transport buses to reach the last mile stop. These bus operators want to earn as much as they can so they use to cram passengers into the buses like chicken. If the bus is rated for 50 passengers, they will load at-least 200 to 250. People who have already boarded the bus used to get annoyed and anxious. So here I was getting really anxious and annoyed as the bus-driver was waiting for the bus to get filled in. My Indian companion who were trying to follow me while I was running without giving them full instruction also managed to get in and were giving me wicked smiles when the bus moved out to parking slot. I would still reached my boarding gate with good 10-15 minutes to spare but had no time to eat. Fortunately I was carrying some snacks in my bag. So after around 2 more hours, I landed in Manila but I had one final adventure to undergo before setting feet outside the airport.

I have had my amount of run-ins with the immigration officials, both in India and outside. The last major one was few years back in China in my previous company. As I had to travel to South China, the most convenient part was to travel via Hong-Kong and take a ferry to Mainland China. Somehow because of this fact or any other point, the lady at immigration was downright hostile. She makes big point of the fact that I don't have details about the taxi driver that will pick me at airport (I told her that my host company is arranging that and that driver will be ready will placard showing my name at departure). She almost threatened to deport me back before relenting.

That was sometime back and I could attribute it to various reasons. I don't really think much of this episode. After that I had travelled to Middle-east and Europe without any major issue. However the atmosphere at Manila airport was quite different. I was also hungry (the last connecting flight from Kualalumpur to Manila has no vegetarian option for me) and a bit cranky. 

There was a really long queue at immigration desk which did not helped my case at all. On top of it, the lady at immigration desk has a really strong accent and I was having difficult deciphering her statements. I had to ask her to repeat herself which did not improved her demeanor. She wanted to know where I will be staying in Manila. My office colleague (Who was coming from Spain to join me) has already booked room for both of us. So naturally I showed her the email exchange between my colleague and the hotel. But the lady was objecting that the mail only says room for two but did not mention my name. It was a precarious situation as my colleague was probably in the flight at that time and not available on call. Anyways somehow she relented and at-last I was out of airport and in Manila at last.

Continued in second post...

Some reflections

  This is not my standard time of the year for reflection. But off-late life is not really following the standard template either. Generally, I reserve these ramblings for my birthday (when you feel the pressure to make some meaning of your life) or in the starting of year (when you are fueled by adrenaline of new year resolutions and stuff). However, I realized that it’s almost two years since I have last written any blog post. Writing helps to clear the cobwebs in my mind and like any place which has not been cleaned in two years. My mind is also in total disarray and perhaps putting these thoughts on paper will give me some clarity. 

So here we go.

If I look into the past few years. I had these episodes of restlessness before. The most dominant feelings during those episodes have been of stagnation, of getting stuck and not really moving ahead with my plans. And this applies to both my personal as well as professional life. But this time it has been different in so many ways. The change has been drastic. Personally, I'm in the post Covid phase now. And for me, Covid has been a life altering (almost becomes life ending) event. I had my second daughter in October 2021. And my life will not be the same now as it was before these two events. Professionally, even though I'm in same job for a bit more than around 3 years now. Still our journey in India is reaching the tipping point. I have found success and growth in the company too. My last promotion involving a bigger role was at the starting of the year (it involves monetary benefits as well). I also added a professional certification to my name last December. 

As we are full of contradictions as part of basic human nature, it’s very difficult to pinpoint a a specific reason which caused me to reflect and introspect. Perhaps, it’s a sign that my mental state is a bit disturbed now. Just like an average common person only remembers God when he is in trouble. Else he is too busy in this life to bother about it. Similarly, perhaps my life was too smooth and rewarding last year. And now that I have hit a roadblock, I need to recalibrate my mental balance and writing is one of the tools available to me to achieve the same. 

Or Perhaps, It totally different case. I was too busy in this mindless rat race that I had no time to indulge in the luxury of introspection. I have experienced that too much work can have that effect on you. You work like mad at ungodly hours and often, you don't even feel the impact of this rush, this lack of time on your mental and physical well-being. 

Anyways, irrespective of the underlying cause, the fact remains that I find myself in the zone of self-reflection and introspection. My experience says that I tend to get really stuck up in this zone even at the cost of taking actions. So, after a nice break of a few years. I'm again going back to the metaphorical drawing board and chalking out my plans. Let’s. see how it goes as far as this try is concerned. As always, time is very limited and you feel overwhelmed just by the thought of things that you want to achieve, Practically I want the whole world when it comes to my personal and professional goals. A very natural consequence of this is that you try to do too much of everything at the same time and end up achieving nothing. No matter how cliché it may sound. The way forward is only through prioritizing and focused work.

Leaning Spanish: As cliché as it sounds, this was the goal I had chalked out for myself when I last tried my hands in setting goals for myself. My progress has been disappointing to say the least over the last 3 years. I was full of enthusiasm and curiosity when I joined what is my present company now three years back. As our head-quarter was in Spain. I was very keen on learning Spanish. However, the air released out of the metaphorical balloon pretty soon. I have tried and retried enough different methods to learn Spanish that I can write a blog post on this topic. Unfortunately, I still cannot write or speak even basic conversational level Spanish.

Fitness: Again, this has been my default goal for many years. As fitness is difficult to objectively measure. I can’t really quantify my progress or rather the lack of it. Going back 25 years back, I was a wafer thin, almost malnourished boy in school with no interest in outdoor sports of any kind. In my limited ways, I have tried to be more fit and increase my stamina. I had episodes of frequent illness; chronic lower back pain and I have flirted with border line sugar as well. I have a family history of diabetes and heart problems (which I have used as excuses on more than one occasion). But I have some of my high points as well. I used to cycle from home to school in advanced classes, which I continued even in my college as well. I had tried my hands in some adventure sports like rafting, rappelling, bungee, paragliding and some trekking. I participated in the half marathon (technically 10km run) twice and managed to finish it. And very recently, I had a severe bout of COVID and survived it. Still its an ongoing journey and I'm trying to build some consistency here. I'm not getting any younger and COVID has given me long lasting aftereffects. 

I'm going to draw a line here. As I have stated before. It’s easy to fall into this trap and make listing your goals a goal in itself and spend majority of your time in only planning and doing nothing. One of biggest achievements in my life is just doing it again and again without focusing much on the planning.

 

My Travel experience to Spain

 As a blogger I’m always in search of interesting topics. Combine that with my love for traveling; and travel related blogs or travelogue seems like a very natural choice to write upon. When I started blogging a good 10 years back, I tried my hand on travel blogs. However off late I have not written any post on this topic even though I’m still travelling a lot, courtesy my job. I even travelled right in the peak of pandemic.

Probably as most of my travelling is work related, it means a very hectic schedule with no time to observe the place, assimilate the unique culture around. I used to joke around that even though I claim to have visited 11 countries, It actually means 11 airports and 11 hotels. But this time is very different. Now I must spend almost a month in a new place away from my country. And I think I am well positioned to observe and pen (or type) my thoughts.

So here we go.

I landed in Spain on 9 of January 2022 and will be flying back on 6^th of February. That is almost one month (or four weeks to be more exact). This is my first visit to this country. Even though business visits generally are very tightly scheduled leaving very little time for recreation or fooling around; 4 weeks is a lot of time and more importantly, it also means 4 weekends. Plus, I get the opportunity to interact with my co-workers who are native of this country. Hence, I hope to get some reflections about Spanish society and overall, about Spanish culture from my visit.

I joined this company right in the first wave of Pandemic, Due to the travel restrictions and general fear associated with COVID, it was not possible for me to attend the induction training in Spain. We thought (like everyone else in the world) that the COVID and travel restrictions is just a matter of few months. But now it’s clear in the hindsight that this indeed is the new normal. Hence, we resumed our normal business travel and after a roller coaster ride of company restructuring (It need another post). I landed up in Spain for my introductory training full 1 year and 9 months after I had joined this company.

To put things in perspective, my company has two offices in Spain, One in Castellar de Valles (near Barcelona) and second near Burgos. I had no prior idea before, but this fact has lot of relevance as in Spain also there is some under-current of resentment between two regions.

I’m not a history major, so not sure if I’m the right person to write on history of even my native country India. Leave aside Spain. But whatever I could gather with my interactions and after a quick study on Internet. I understand that Catalonia or Cataluña as it’s called in the native language is an autonomous community inside Spain. Way back into Middle Ages, this region has its own distinct culture and institutional system including courts and constitutions. In 1960s, it revolted against a large and cumbersome Spanish army and was briefly proclaimed as a republic under French protection

For some periods, its unique culture and language was supressed, and Spanish was declared as its official language. During the Spanish transition to democracy (1975–1982), Catalonia regained self-government and is now one of the most economically dynamic communities of Spain. However, as I have experienced in India also, these kind of separatist movement does not die totally. Some small spark always remains deep buried in the psyche of people which is fanned by politician (Politicians, it seems like are cut from same cloth everywhere). I also understood the movement was again rekindled in 2017 when Catalonia parliament conducted a referendum and declared independence unilaterally. The Spanish senate in turn, termed this referendum illegal, they dissolved the incumbent government and conducted snap election The Spanish supreme court even imprisoned seven former ministers and convicted several ministers including then president of Catalonia region, who fled to other European countries.

As per initial planned itinerary, I was to stay to 2 weeks in Sabadell which is town near Castellar, then travel for a week to Burgos. After then come back to Sabadell before returning to India. Burgos lies in separate autonomous region of Castile and León. It has a very rich historical and religious significance. I will not dwell into this part much as then the post will be long. It was comparatively a smaller city and has more of small town / countryside kind of vibes.  It has more native Spanish European population compared to Barcelona which is more international and urban.

My experience in Burgos was very different than in Sabadell / Castellar del vales. One we were travelling with colleagues rather than on our own, secondly as it’s a smaller town and we were staying here for a much shorter time. Our hosts were more cordial to us. The town was very picturesque even though much colder. We used to roam around in the evening with the complete group most of the times. For a smaller town, Burgos has many places to see including famous Cathedral and Museum of evolution. I understand it has been a site of excavation too. We were travelling as a group of around 7-8 people out of which me and my colleague were only two Asian. We were a bit of exotic animals for others with all our idiosyncrasies like vegetarian foods (they were quite amused by difference between vegetarian and vegan).

In Sabadell we were more on our own. We were only two visiting guests there and barring two team dinners, we were eating out on our own for full three weeks. The local population has more proportion from other ethnicities compared to Burgos. In Barcelona which was 45 min drive from this place. We could find many Indians and our neighbours across the border (Pakistan)

This difference also shows in my interaction with colleagues in both the offices. The Colleagues in Burgos has probably never interacted with Asian person before and were more limited in communicating in English. However, the interesting thing is that they were more open to us compared to their colleagues from Barcelona.

My return was from Bilboa as the direct connectivity between Burgos and Barcelona was not very good. Bilbao is an important port city in northern Spain and is capital of Basque country. So, I had chance of visiting three different parts of Spain although Bilbao was just a stopover to be honest.

PS: My return was postponed by around a week because unfortunately my COVID test report has turned out to be positive. Apparently, I’m a COVID magnet, my hide and seek with this virus needs another post on its own, so for now it suffices to say that I’m going to experience bit more of Spain even though I will be mainly confined in my room only for this period.

I have personally experienced that how people are quick to stereotype or pigeonhole anything. So, I will refrain from generalizing my impression of Spain or Europe based on my limited interaction with people here. Also, most of the people that I interacted during my visit to Spain were my colleagues at work. So, the company relations between both the business units, the power dynamics and the relative hierarchies also plays a very important role. I have tried to observe everything around me with an open mind as far as possible without any conscious bias or prejudice on my side.

My first visit to Europe was way back in 2006 when I went to Austria. It’s a big gap of around 16 years and these are two different places so perhaps I’m comparing apples to oranges, but I noticed that I lot of things has changed. In my first visit we were like exotic animals in these places but now I could see many Indians and our neighbours across the borders, Moreso in big / tourist cities like Barcelona but even in interiors of Spain and in cities of religious significance where there is even less likelihood of seeing any Indian person. Heck, we even could find Indian restaurants in those places, so maybe India has done a good job of pushing their soft culture around (Yoga, cuisine, Bollywood etc). Another thing that I could notice is that now gap between India and Europe is decreasing in two of the most noticeable area at-least in my book, cleanliness, and road etiquette. When I last toured Europe, there was such a vast difference in general cleanliness that I felt like I have landed in another world altogether, everything was squeaky clean. However, this was not the case this time around. Even though generally it was clean, I could still find trash on places like public parks, on my hotel roof as well as downtown market area.  India is still more dirty but when you factor-in the abundant dust here due to topical weather and lack of greenery combined with our humongous population which is almost double than that of combined Europe, the difference does not feel so stark anymore. For sure, it’s much greener than the part of India I live in, but here I’m talking about general cleanliness.

Second part is about road etiquettes, When I last toured Europe. I was staying in a hotel at riverside with only a road separating the same. One fine morning, I was just standing outside my hotel gazing at the river. I realized after some time that good 3-4 cars had stopped on the road waiting patiently for me to pass. All the cliches regarding rarely using horn were indeed true in that region. However, this time, the situation was different. During my full stay of around a month; I could observe multiple instances of people jumping red lights, Not giving right of way to pedestrians. Off-course compared to the absolute nightmarish mess that we have here, it is still much better.

I don’t know how much I have left in this company, considering the uncertainties in our business. We are in post-pandemic times now. It may very well be my last visit to Spain. But it gave me good insights about people from another culture and I realized that we are so alike yet so different.

My experience with "Becoming a morning person"

 16 August 2021

Today is exactly one and half month since I started this new routine called “Become a morning person. I understand this name might be a trademark of Habit Strong who run this program and I took their subscription for one month only. But still, I relate to this new routine with this name only. Hence, I will use BMP program in this post for sake of relevance. 

I enrolled in this program in August (last month). I had the option of extending the subscription further at the end of the month, but I choose not to go for it. My rational behind the decision was that I don’t want to be dependant on the program for ever. I had a experience with some amazing programs that its very hard to shake your dependence on these program later. I had to test if I had the discipline and will-power to continue this new routine and to actually make it a habit. Midway in the month without this subscription. I found this to be an apt time for some reflection.

First about waking up on 4.45am which is one the criteria. When I joined this program, they have two morning modules starting at 5.00 and 6.00 am respectively. I went ahead with 5.00am option as I thought that I can wake up at 6.00am without much effort. My normal waking time hovers around that mark only. If I’m trying to inculcate a new more productive daily routine, then better to take some stretch and go for 5.00 am routine. Plus, during my Covid illness in May-June. I was waking up sometimes at 3.00am also more due to insomnia but that is a discussion for another time.

So, I selected 5.00am option. I faced problem right away in my first month only as I can’t set my evening routine to ensure that I sleep by 9.00pm as my family watches tv as late as 11.00 to 11.30 pm which is in our bedroom only. Only because of my new routine, it was not possible to shut-down the tv before 9.00 pm. So, I need to figure some other way out which frankly I am not able to do even now. Sleeping in other room is not a possibility for some reasons. A natural consequence of sleeping late is the tiredness that you feel immediately on waking up. The first activity on waking up as per new routine is mediation session. I could not get maximum results out of mediation as very seldom I was not feeling sleepy. I kept on pushing with the hope that my body will get adjusted to this routine. I have some partial success in the sense that now my biological clock is almost set to 4 to 4.45. But my quality of sleep is far from perfect. I still keep on tossing and turning in the bed and as a result I am not totally refreshed when I wake up.

There have been very rate instances when I feel really sleepy in the night before I hit the bed. But when it happened, I wake up more refreshed and had a much better mediation session. I am still not being able to decode the exact activity I did differently on those days. One major area to focus on is the last one hour before sleeping time. Fortunately, I had dinner well one hour before the sleeping time. I had tried both the approaches regarding how I should spend this hour. Approach one was to immerse myself into Lecture on Robotics (completing introductory course on Robotic is one the target that I have chosen to track daily), The course content was so over the top and immediately I felt sleepy, but unfortunately it happened only once and did not repeat when I tried second time. I also tried to utilize this hour in other important activities / tasks that I had earmarked for the day. But nothing seems to work. Secondly approach is trying to relax in this last hour, preparing yourself mentally for sleeping, this is actually what Habit strongly recommends too, I was not able to implement it as regularly as I want as there are so many things circulating in your mind at the end of a long days that I’m not able to relax, when on rare occasions when I could do it. I felt relaxed. You could say that my evening routine is still a work in process. The only progress that I had made is that now the fact that television is on when I’m trying to sleep does not bother me that much. Earlier I used to have the pang of guilt if I’m not in bed by 11 o’clock as ideally, I should be asleep by 10 itself. But this guilt only used to make this worse. Gradually but surely, now I am not really bothered by this fact as much. 

PS: When I started tracking tasks daily to form a habit. My emphasis was more on ensuring that I complete all the task / activities listed for that day. Ticking all the boxes on daily basis was giving me a sense of accomplishment. However later I realize that this tracking sheet cannot ensure if I’m spending quality time on any activity listed or just going through the motions as a formality. I can indicate one activity as complement even if I spend barely 5 minutes on the same. Second problem was that this program mainly focusses on mindfulness which for me is being in present and focussed on your current task in hand. In my case, I was so focussed on completing all the tasks listed for the day that I was doing one task and my mind was drifting on the other task that I also must achieve on the same day. Whole purpose of this exercise was getting lost. Hence, I decided to change my approach and focus more on the current task in hand. As a result, I’m slipping on some of the activities lately, But I’m consciously ignoring it and putting all my focus on the current activity. Its not easy as my mind is used to working on the multi-tasking mode, most of the time I’m distracted and overwhelmed by the mountain of urgent works which are pending. This was one of major reason why my daily meditation sessions are not as effective as they should be as apart for apparent tiredness and lack of sleep, most of the time I’m making the list of urgent activities pending since last day. I’m working on the concept of mindfulness and being in the present to improve my mediation session.

30-Aug-2021

As we are near to end of this second month after BMP program from Habit-Strong. I think one quick review of what happened in last two weeks is in order as I had some good learnings out of it. On 19th and 20th of this month I had to travel to Pune for some office related work, we had a sales review and objective setting session. Hence, I had to leave one day before and come back one day after. Immediately on my return I had to go to Delhi on Raksha Bandhan. In the nutshell I was away from home for almost one full week. And specially in Pune, the daily routine was like a typical sales conference which essentially means cocktail dinner till 12.00 or 1.00am in late night. Combined that with the food available in the particular resort. I had issues with digestion combined with lack of sleep. After coming back from Pune, I had to spend around four days in Delhi. As a result of this, there was a good break of more than a week from my daily routine. For these 7-8 days, there was no waking up early morning and mediation, workout sessions. And I was not eating right either. I felt weak. But since my whole momentum was gone. I had to again start from scratch. As I had mentioned earlier, I had enrolled into one month course called BMP from Habit-strong and decided to continue the momentum built into the course. But now I don’t have the option of guided BMP course to fall back into the routine. I always believed that physical and mental fitness goes hand in hand. The fact that my physical fitness has gone down a notch also played a role and I had difficulty in going back to my old regime for one and a half month. Last full week was spent in gradually coming back to track. And today on Monday I has again some resemblance of sanity after chaos filled two weeks.

So, what did I learned from this episode? Let us see.

First forming any new Habit is a long and slow process and you need patience and perseverance. Its like your new year resolutions. You start full of energy for a few days. The main test comes when there is a break for a few days (or a week as in my case). Once you loose momentum and had to start from scratch again. Its very easy to feel down without any motivation to continue. Its imperative to come out of this zone as soon as possible. Personally, what really works in my case if to focus on small – small actionable. To be in the moment and let go of lofty long-term goals for some time. Ultimately one of the major objectives of all these activities is to practice mindfulness. Keep your ultimate objective in back of mind. But focus and concentrate on your current activity, one task at a time. Else its very easy to be bogged down. I have managed to start the daily routine again and I’m hopeful to be back on track, gradually but surely.