The difference

Today, someone's Gmail status caught my eye that said - 'the biggest difference in the world is between what we are and what we could have been'. It set me thinking about several questions, all at once. Could I have been anything or anyone other than what I am? Would that difference have been a negative or positive one? Would have I been better, if not what I am? Could I ever know?

At first, my thoughts led me to jump to the conclusion that the message told me that I could have been much better than what I am. In the past 1 year, I have spent half a year at home, drinking tea with mom, watching TV, reading comics and googling random stuff, introspecting and retrospecting. The other half I spent interning in Germany, doing research. But an internship did not compare with a job in experience. Clearly I could have learnt more if I were working rather than interning or sitting at home. And yet, would that have really happened if I had taken up a job?

Looking back to an year ago, I was determined that I did not want the job that I had secured through campus placements. Nor did I manage to get another when I sent out some applications. Somehow I just managed to land on this internship opportunity which was supposed to change everything for good by giving me an international experience, a taste of what research could be like and give my resume a boost. At that point, I was sure that I wanted to pursue the field of my major - chemical engineering, and not something general like engineering level Finance or consulting. I was sure that MBA was too general for me, it did not teach me any specific skills.

I had my eyes set on doing an MS in the US of A, but getting funding seemed like a fat chance. Then I reached Germany, was fed by the prevalence of Ph.D.'s there and was convinced by a mentor-friend that Ph.D. was the thing for me if I wanted to become a leader. That's what I wanted to be. That's what I applied for and got admitted to.

My internship got over and I got some more time to kill at home - a good 4 months. I wanted to spend some of it travelling in India. And some other had to go in making preparations to go to US. The result was long free times between tit-bits of travelling.

What I regret the most in the past 1 year is my inability to use about 6 months, which I did not have free in a consolidated way. Could it have been better used? Maybe not. Only because I did all that I did, I reached at the point I am. Who knows, if I had taken a job at the initial Analytics firm, I wouldn't have liked it. Because I did not want it then.

Now when I have some free time to google about what life is going like for the next 4 years, I sometimes get scared thinking - is this what I want? Is it going to be worth the effort? Could I put that effort into something else and be more productive?

At this point, I recall that I have always had some qualms about what I was doing. I don't know about people who are always sure of what they are doing. But sometimes, I can see a future in my decision, and some times I just can't. The last time, when I had to take that job, I did not see myself into that kind of thing in the future. But now, I kinda do see a future for myself in my field. Maybe I don't see myself there clearly, because I haven't seen anyone there yet. I don't have enough examples. But has such a thing ever scared me? This time it does, a bit. Maybe all those people online saying Ph.D. is a waste of your 4 years are right. And if I even slightly believe that they are right, I will prove them right.

Here's the challenge - to do what I set out to do. Let me not give up. Let them not waver my resolve. If I believe I will make it, I will. Long ago, I never understood what it meant when they said - 'if you believe you will, you will'. May be because I never truly believed. And I don't want to lie to myself again. I truly believe. And I will make it.

Thinking back on that statement, I guess I can be what I want to be. Only that I want to be different things at different times. And the cycle lags. I want to become something today, and I reach there tomorrow. I need to cover up this time gap. Start living in today than living for tomorrow. The greatest difference is between what I am today and what I wanted to be today. I'm gonna cover that up.

Takeaways from Chanakya Neeti

I have been reading Chanakya Neeti since some time now. For those of you who do not know, Chanakya was the advisor of Chandragupta Maurya, the first ruler of a united India. In fact, it was Chanakya's strategical planning that enabled Chandragupta to become the ruler. Chanakya Neeti consists of 'Chanakya - sutras', shlokas that together explain the principles one must follow to live an ideal worldly life. He is one of those ancient Indian philosophers whose philosophy is extremely practical and never advocates blind faith in religion. The reading of Chanakya Neeti, as opposed to reading Bhagwad Gita(or many other Indian philosophical works), does not require full faith in either the author or God.

Although most of his sayings are said to be valid even today, I did not agree with his absurd ideas about women. The way the subject of women has been dealt with reflects how little was known about them. They have been portrayed as mysterious creatures, capable of excelling in both goodness and evil, both kindness and cruelty.

I can't exactly blame him for for embracing the idea of casteism, but I did expect better from a great philosopher like him. Except for these 2 objections, I did find most of the Sutras relevant and they sounded like good advice.

I picked up a Sanskrit version, with translations of each sutra in Hindi. Altohugh I do not have much respect for this translator (Ashwin Parashar), the translations come to my aid when I don't know the meaning of a particular word in the shloka.

Warning : If you decide to use the same translation (I bought this from Flipkart), note that not all of the above author's translations are correct.

So I decided to write here some of the sutras I really liked and found relevant. Expect more of these to come, but here's the first.

Chapter 3, Sutra 20

धर्मार्थकाममोक्षेशु यास्यकोsपि न विद्यते |

जन्म जन्मानि मर्त्येषु मरणं तस्य केवलम् ||

One who pursues neither of Dharm(religious duty), Arth(money), Kaam(worldly pleasures) and Moksha(salvation) during his life, is as good as dead, whether or not he lives.

This sutra deals with the important question of 'the purpose of life'. Although it does not answer this question, it says that pursuing something is necessary for living a life.

The 2 Devils: Boredom and Dilemma

The 2 devils - boredom and dilemma keep hitting me time and again. These are the two enemies I have always found difficult to tackle. Each time I fight them, they return in a new Avtar. But the devils are a part of me, they are in me, and they keep resurfacing every now and then. They need to be tackled by me too, no one can help me fight. This in fact is the third post(or 4 in all) on this blog that concerns dilemma!

Although at the moment, I have no important decisions to make, I am still hit by dilemma - of whether my decision was correct. The questions is deciding whether my decision was correct, because I still have the option of reverting my decision. But this exercise of looking back and weighing a decision that has already been made and is not so easy to revert, might be futile. This is because I have no idea whether my decision is the best or not, and what's more, I will never know. The only thing I know, and have known that its a good decision and if I stick to it, nothing in my control will stop it from being a good decision. Its the pursuit of the 'best' decision, not just a 'good enough' decision that's eating me up.


However, every now and then I keep even forgetting why I had decided the decision was 'good enough' in the first place. It would have been a good idea to write down all my real reasons at one place, so that I could be more confident later. All I recall now is that somehow, I arrived at the answer that it's good enough, but not how.


One thing is for sure - as long as I dwell on the past, and keep mulling over whether I am going right, my mind will not concentrate on the way forward and plan for it. I must trust past me to have made a good decision for future me and, with full faith, like that of me in my best friends, I must look only at the path ahead. In fact, as long as my decision has some merits, the only thing that can decide whether the decision was good is how well I actually executed it. Making the decision was just the beginning of this great venture. At this point, its not so much about taking the right decision, rather its about making this decision right. And at this point, I must recall my second post on this blog - these lines by Harivanshraiji Bachchan that always keep coming to me:

अलग अलग पथ बतलाते सब,

पर मैं यह बतलाता हूँ -

राह पकड़ तू एक चला चल 

पा जाएगा मधुशाला

I have to look forward and plan. I must look back too, but not with contempt for what past me has already done, but with appreciation and cleverness. Appreciation for what I did right, so as to remember to keep doing it. And shrewdness to learn from the mistakes of past me.

To do

Task: To get brain back on track

This list is the result of 1 skype-tea-time-discussion with my parents :).

1. Read up more on my proclaimed subject of interest - chemical engineering.
2. Work hard and produce results, so that when I leave this place, people remember me as a pocket sized powerhouse.
3. Make my time more useful. Be efficient.
4. Stop killing time in useless non-pursuits such as facebook.
5. Finish 1 job at a time rather than keeping everything for later. Do not waste my life thinking over things rather than doing.

The road not taken...

अलग अलग पथ बतलाते सब,
पर मैं यह बतलाता हूँ -
राह पकड़ तू एक चला चल
पा जाएगा मधुशाला
                                         - हरिवंश राय बच्चन

Each time I am in a dilemma, these lines come to my mind. Can't say though, that I make my decision by them. Wish I could. That would be so much simpler.

The utilitarian's dilemmna

Being a rational being, I have unknowingly as a kid and knowingly, as an adult, been a utilitarianist. I have believed that I should do that which would maximise happiness. And intuitively indeed, general happiness.

So whenever I face a situation where I must choose between doing something for somebody, I consider - is doing this thing for this person more important for him/her than the alternative thing I would have done instead, is for me? And if yes, is the effort involved worth the happiness I will get by helping this person? If the answer is yes, I must do that something for him/her. This works fine sometimes, and sometimes, it just makes me feel like I am..ugh.. a utilitarian bitch. Well, obviously there are exceptions to this rule, when whims, timidity or qualms come into play.

A utilitarian is always faced with a dilemma, for the problem that he is trying to solve cannot be formulated mathematically. He is trying to optimize the happiness, given the constraints. But formulating the objective is a bit of an issue here. For, how can one know, in advance, which option is going to fetch how much happiness? To make things worse, the definition of happiness is not stable. There's a double practical difficulty in the utilitarian's optimization objective - neither the coefficient matrix, nor the parameters are fixed!

And so, the utilitarian goal cannot be achieved. Firstly, because he does not really know what he wants. And secondly, if his limited and demeaning definition of happiness( in case he thinks he can define happiness in a definite way) will change the moment he achieves it, when he realises that its not what he thought, after all!

The only hope of attaining life's goal then, seems to be in defining the goal correctly. And the utilitarian must give up his definition. As long as his goal remains to optimize an undefined quantity, he will never achieve it, never rest in peace. But then, what should the goal be? What is it that I desire? What is it that I am trying to achieve, if not the maximum happiness? And why am I doing it?