Nobody hits harder than LIFE, Will you get up and Fight Back?

For those who have been following my blog or know me a bit closer than usual, would know how big an inspiration the Rocky movies have been in my life. I have written about this before, but it is a topic which I wanted to write again on today.

I never watched the Rocky movies as merely boxing movies, I easily correlated them with life. The struggle of the man, from absolute pits to the great heights of fame and success. Family and peer support all the way. He wasn't perfect and not made for boxing other than the fact that he had a big heart, and was a fighter and had amazing level of willpower to never give up. Strengthen what he already had and use the skills to his advantage to cover his weaknesses. Adjusting as he went along to that next opponent. Rocky Balbao is an inspiration.

While I have loved the dialogues throughout, Rocky's fear stands out and then obviously the summary of pretty much the whole series captured in this lovely picture above also. "You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life", the natural question that follows is what you do after that? Will you stay down and let the count down from 10 to 1 to happen and hence be labeled knocked out, lost, defeated? Or would you find your knees, your feet and find a way to stand up to fight, that one more round? Its not about hitting hard in this life, it is more about getting hit hard and being able to find the strength and courage to stand up again after a hard blow and continuing on to fight.

Nobody can really beat life other than death but in the midst of it all, a life is well lived if you have fought all the way through, not giving up, not being defeated. Why just survive it, why not go on and live it? You can't beat it but that doesn't mean you can be defeated either?

So get up, don't throw in the towel yet. Go for one more round. Push yourself. Pull yourself up. Get your act together. You can be the best of your own self. Nobody else can be that, its your throne to take. Promise me, you will never give up, not on yourself, not on others. Promise me.

Left or Right? Which hand does the Watch go on?

When I was gifted my first watch, I was told I should wear it on the left hand, as that is where the watch is worn. It was a proud day at school. I have vague memories of that watch, a small square shaped watch, with a digital display showing just the time.

I saw my best friend getting a Casio watch which could show the date, had a red light to see it in the dark, and also looked so cool in digital display. He wore it on the right hand.

Another friend of mine got the next version which could power on or off the television. Woah! That was cool, he was such a prankster too. When we would watch educational television at school, he would sneak in power off causing stress for the teachers. He wore it on the right hand.

So when I got my improved version of the watch, which was a small dial watch, I decided I am going to wear it on the right hand as well. All through school, I wore my watch on the right hand. However, when I grew up, it almost seemed kiddish to wear it on the right as all the big kids and adults, I noticed wore their watches on the left.

So confused again, my improved watch, now more adult-like, Casio digital watch with dual time, 20 world time zones, a stop watch,a timer and 5 alarms went on the left hand. This continued until I started seeing some people, adults wearing them on the right hand.

I felt really confused, and decided to explore in a more scientific way the reasons of the choice of hand to put that watch on. I realized, in some cases it was to do with the handed-ness of the person. If somebody was left-handed, it was likely they wore it on the less used hand. If somebody was right-handed, they would likely wear it on the left. The idea being, the watch is something that is to be kept in the background and only called in to tell the time and then move back in the background, better placed on the secondary hand.

Obviously, there are people who consider checking the time more often than others and hence decide that they want it on their primary hand. So logic reversed, lefties wearing it on the left and righties wearing it on the right.

I noticed most ladies with fancy watches wear it on the left, its more of a jewelry item. However, ladies who are into sports and fitness, have been seen wearing it on the right also in my observation. I haven't seen a direct correlation of handed-ness to watches when it comes to women.

In the professional environment, fancy watches are something that need to be shown. Hence, I have seen people with expensive branded watches wearing it on the right hand as that is the hand used for the handshake which causes the sleeve to slightly go up as the arm extends, bringing out that shiny watch that you paid good money for. Believe it or not, that is a reason why you will see expensive watches being worn on the right hand more often than not when it comes to men.

While the trend is changing, but size of the dial is also something that matters. Women prefer smaller dials and men larger ones, some as big as clocks. The bigger the dial, the more likely it is worn on the secondary hand unless of course the expensive watch rule applies when it will be found on the right hand more often.

With the advent and popularity of smart phones, many people have ditched the watch altogether. The phone pretty much serves the purpose and the phone is checked in every little while anyway. On the other hand, the wearable device concept has given rise to the smart-watch which has now moved into the space of health and fitness tracking, star trek like voice commands, small micro cameras, etc.

After moving through the trends in watches, never buying a really expensive one to date, I am finally going to put out that big buck to get a slightly expensive watch by my standards but then it has to be a smart watch. After lots of thought, I am going for the the Motorola Moto 360 which I should be getting within this month. The best part I like about it is that it is a watch first and then a smart device so it looks nice. Secondly, I can change dials to get whichever I want which it gives it a long life, I wont get bored of it. Thirdly, this is the best way to explore Android Wear as it continues to evolve. I will be part of that revolution.

However, when it comes to the watch-hand, I have found the best possible logic and decided that it is going to be my right hand. The logic is driven by prayers where the right hand goes on top of the left hand. Wearing the watch on the left, causes this situation to be a little inappropriate hence keeping it on the right is the way forward for me.

So there you have it. My observational research on the choice of watch-hand. Which hand do you have your watch on, if you wear one?

Consumerism - More Choice, More Consumers

Last weekend, we went grocery shopping. Yes that is an event which may be mundane for most, its not so for us. Its "calendarized", which means its put in a calendar like any event or meeting if you can't find the word in the dictionary, they call it calendared, I think but anyway.

There are 2 methods we go grocery. We either follow a list, #MyWay or we follow the aisles, #Highway. The latter is basically, you go in and be led by how the store was designed. You follow the signboards, smells, paths, corridors on how the psychological experts in the respective grocery store chain designers set the aisles after having studied human behavior and applied all the operations research theories potentially applicable.

Deep-rooted somewhere in there is the aspect of consumerism as based on how where do consumers spend the most time, how are they likely to buy more is what is shown to the big companies who then pay for those premium shelves and locations. All this is obviously confirmed by their own experts.

The problem I have with consumerism is the choices they now give us in the name of product diversification. I wanted to buy some shampoo. If I was going to do this around 15 years or so back, I would go and pick up the brand I like and be done with it. Now, there are choices within the choice. Why there are many brands to choose from was already an issue, now we have types of shampoo to choose from under the brand you selected? What next? From the type of shampoo, you select, you choose whether you want it or not after all? Time will tell where the next level of consumerism goes.

For now, I see the shelf and there is for silky hair, for scalp moisturizing, for itchy scalp, for classic clean, for refreshing for etc etc. I forgot, the next new thing is "for men". Just so we men, don't feel like we are using feminine products. Using a shampoo was not a fad for anybody not many years back. Soap was sufficient. Then it became a fad for women as they had long hair. Then men started keeping long hair and shampoos were used by them, secretively of course. Then women started cutting their hair short, some even going bald for fashion sake. How this all evolves and how they keep selling stuff to us.

My dad still uses just soap for his hair, no shampoo and he does just fine. He has better hair than many people who use shampoo. Just stupid consumerism as I see it.

Then I had to buy toothpaste. When I found the brand I wanted, I see, the gel version or the not-so-gel version. I never used a powder but that is an option too. Then there is a mouth rinse. The whitening version, the regular version, the tartar cleaning version, the fresh breath version and of course the one for sensitive teeth, the one for sensitive gums, oh come on.

I guess, more choice means more consumers. Selling shampoo to men, selling razors to women. Selling moisturizing creme to both. Selling water, flavoured water. Selling popcorn, butter flavoured, cheese flavoured, nacho flavoured, popcorn flavoured?

Even Panadol has version of their product. One for headache, one for flu like symptoms, one for ALL, one for something that is easy on the stomach, one for muscle pain. Oh God!!

It used to be so simple. Here is a quote from me for that,

"Once we start complicating the simpler things in life, we wouldn't have enough time for dealing with the complicated things around us."

What has the world come to, what is going to get to if we continue this way? This bubble has to burst. We are just kept so busy in these worldly choices that we are too tired to make decisions where they should really count. Who cares about the real problems this world is facing? Maybe we care but we don't do anything about it, we are wasting too much energy on helping this world run, which we hate in the first place. Instead, we should fight this and release our energies for the better good.

Facebook killed my blog, NOT!

I started blogging in 2006. Facebook / Twitter hadn't become the fad yet. Having a natural craving for the spotlight, this was a good way to get my thoughts out and see what others felt about it. I made new friends in the blogosphere as I read their blogs and they returned the favour by tracking back, visiting. It was all good.

If I were a regular blogger as much as I would have liked since then, I wouldn't have needed my day job. At least that's how I see it now. Unfortunately, I am not. It is a graph of ups and downs, long hibernation periods with life taking over at times and now recently as I look at it, its the advent of social media and so called micro-blogging via Twitter and Facebook that has killed my blog.

I went to reflect on this a little bit and realized the true reason I blogged was an idea that crept into my mind and then I wanted to think it through. I think better when I write about it and that's that. Yes, there was a social spotlight craving in there somewhere, but the generation of content was very much exactly that. When you get into blogging, there is a set limit of words that builds up in your mind to make a decent blog post. This is not the case with micro-blogging. You fit the idea in 140 words or in any case, it would be small update to either of Social Media tycoon websites. So the idea of sitting down and jotting thoughts and producing a blog post is simply said, too time-consuming.

That's why I say, Facebook killed my blog. Having said that, I am not giving up here. I enjoy writing. I am not as good as the greatest bloggers or journalists around. I have not been trained to do this. English is not my mother tongue. But I like writing. Hence, I will continue. In short bursts at times, more regular at other times. The size of my posts will shorten at times, it will be longer at times. I don't care. I am just going to write until I feel satisfied.

Its my blog page after all. I can ramble all I want. Facebook, you can go and have a billion users, you can let me have my FB pages but, you will not kill my blog. I will survive.