Ignatius Raphael - cosmic traveller

Day #9: 100 Days Gratitude Challenge 2017 I wracked my mind this morning on what I should write about and I came up blank. It is just Day 9 and I’m wondering what to speak about. What happened yesterday that was noteworthy enough to talk to you about. What can I give gratitude to today? However, I decided to take the baby steps and start today’s post. So here I am without the foggiest idea on what to write and the article is unfolding itself as I type. Doesn’t our life happen that way many a time? There are days when we don’t know what we are going to do when we wake up in the morning. We don’t know what we’re going to do when we reach office. We decided to go with the flow and before we know it other people are holding our string and making us dance to their tune. Have you had this experience before? Going with the flow is fine for a stream that is going to find its lowest level. For someone who has got their sights to the stars and is hoping to at least reach the moon, it is ...

Day #8: Guts One of the most important qualities that one needs to develop in life is Guts. That is what rescues you from tight situations.  Guts help you to push yourself out of your comfort zone and take a risk. That is what propels you into a relationship where you don’t know how it is going to pan out and you do not have all the answers. That is what guides you into entering entrepreneurship, take a new job in a new country or adopt a baby. Guts is what it takes for you to experience something new and go where no man has gone before. I’m grateful that God has blessed me with a ton load of that. Many decisions in my life have been possible because of that. Where I was lacking in guts I worked on myself till I developed more of it. One such recent instance is when I sold my car without any plans of buying a new one. I am constantly told that for a businessman a car is a business necessity. The more successful the businessman, the longer and more expensive the car must b...

100 Days Gratitude Challenge 2017 Day #9: Friends Friend! This word evokes extremely mixed reactions depending on our mood and who we are thinking of when this word pops up. If we are thinking of someone who was close to us but later betrayed us, it evokes disgust, anger, and revulsion. If we are thinking of someone who is dear to us and is being good to us, then we are all smiles and bask in the warmth of this beautiful friendship. But whatever our current emotions to the friend, each friend has been good to us and have made us better people. We think we chose our friends for a reason. But most times we are not aware of the reason or over a period of time, we discover more and more new reasons. We share our inner thoughts and secrets. We open our heart and home to them. They add zest, fun, and happiness in our life. Yesterday was one such day with a bunch of friends. It was the birthday of a good friend and we had organised a party for him. It was a pleasure to see him grin ...

100 Days Gratitude Challenge 2017 Day #8: Listening Good morning! Today’s gratitude is in honour of those who listen. The biggest fights between people can be solved if each just listened to the other’s point of view without jumping to conclusions or judgments. Don’t you agree? My wife gets most upset with me if I don’t hear fully what she has to say. When I give her a full hearing without interrupting or offering suggestions her pressure goes down, she feels relieved and everything becomes hunky-dory at home. If everything is hunky-dory at home, then life itself seems easier and we can go about our work without a shadow hovering over our head. At work, if the employer listens to their employee fully, the employee feels wanted, valued and cared for so they give a better output with minimal supervision. If the employee listens to their employer fully, then the work gets done quicker and to the requirement that is needed by the company. Listening is a valuable quality that...

Yesterday was a day of Celebrations. In the morning it was the celebration at BNI where the current leadership team celebrated the end of their tenure and handed over the reins to the new leadership team. The meeting was very festive with induction of new members, speeches, awards, gifts, compliments, tributes, smiles, chocolates, goodie bags, balloons, laughter, and photographs. There were wide smiles of relief on the faces of the outgoing team, they had completed their term with full honours and they were relieved that it was over. The new team was smiling tentatively trying to wrap their head around what was in store for them. Everyone around was happy that something new was happening, There was a sense of suspense and excitement that it could be good for them. Every ending and every beginning holds a seed of potential for something greater to be born. Endings are good because the next beginning could hold the potential for fantastic new things which we may not ha...

I love waking up early, before everyone else at home and before the thousands of others who reside with me in my residential township. Even the birds are not chirping yet and there is total stillness except for the drone of the AC compressors and the swish of the fan. My dog Alfie is not even stirring. He’s far away in doggie land dreaming up what only he is capable of dreaming up. He’s used to this intruder and has treated me as part of the background noise so he is not disturbed from his nocturnal adventures in Doggie Dreamland. I shuffle about and reach the sofa and plonk myself there to explore my own dreamland in an half-awakened state. There is a pregnant pause to the morning as though the Creator is pondering about what should be manifested today. There is a potential energy that could be released and take me in a tsunami of energy to my day’s goals. The hour or so I get before the others awaken are the best part of the day for me. I wouldn’t ever exchange it for a hurried w...

Yesterday was Sunday.  How was your Sunday? Did you get adequate rest? Did you get time to reflect on how your week went and how the next week should go? Did you get time to catch up with what is happening in the life of your family and loved ones? Did you find time to do what you love and feed your soul? Isn’t that how it should be ideally? Nowadays Sundays are as busy if not busier than weekdays. We tend to schedule all that we cannot fit into the week on Sundays and Saturdays. Sometimes meetings or social engagements scheduled by others are imposed on us and we do not get to spend Sunday the way it should be. If your life is on song, then Sundays must be the pause in the music. The pause should be complete for the song to be a chartbuster. Let us not complicate our life by complicating our Sunday I remember how Sundays used to be special when I was a kid. We would wake up in a relaxed manner, dress up in our Sunday best and troop off to Church. My dad used to pack all of...

Gratitude to all the people who provide me food and water When I was born, many decades ago, my body weight was just 3.8 kgs and I was a helpless bundle of tissue, bone, flesh, skin, and body mass who had to have everything done for me. Today my body weight hovers around the 76 kgs mark and I think I’m responsible for the lives of so many people who depend on me. How did I get from that to here? The obvious answer is all the food that I gorged upon, since the day I was born. The produce of the earth went into me and grew my muscles, tissues, bones, and body mass to grow into this 5’10” human being who weighs in at around 76 kgs. I am me because of the food and water that I dumped into my stomach, sorry, lovingly deposited into my innards. I would not exist in this plane and talk to you without the food and water that I ingested so far. So obviously, I owe many thanks to the food and water that I have had. But who brought this food to my table? I just did a cursory math of how...

2017 is drawing to a close. 100 more days to go. :) :) :) 100 days where I'm planning to celebrate gratitude every day. I have done 30 days of gratitude in December... several years ago and it was tough completing it towards the end. End of last year it was 50 days of gratitude and it was even tougher trying to find things that I was grateful for. This year I'm going for 100 days.... I don't know how I am going to complete it, but I'm starting the journey today. And with your help, it will propel me to complete it. I'm grateful for the books that I have read in my life. As a kid, I loved reading. Every moment that I could, I had a book at hand. Even when I was supposed to be studying, there would be a storybook between the textbook. Sometimes!!! Pssst... actually many times. From Enid Blyton to PG Wodehouse to Agatha Christie to ........ the list is endless. All these authors were my friends, my confidantes, my besties. They shaped my thinking and my life. ...

How do you feel when you receive these words "Thank you very much"? How do you feel when you say "Thank you"? When I say this to a close friend, more often than not, I'm told "don't distance me by thanking me". "Can't I do this also for you?" "Why are you treating me so formally?" etc. It's almost like I'm demeaning them by thanking them. But when I was young I was taught to thank anyone who does something good for me. Please, Thank you, and Sorry are meant to be used often and generously. I even say this to my mother, siblings, wife and kids. So why can't I say this to my friends? Many people are uncomfortable with these three phrases. They do not want to hear it. Nor do they want to say it, except under extreme duress. I wonder why. I am very happy to have someone thank me or say please or say sorry. It oils our daily interactions and makes it easy to deal with each other. In fact, when someone thanks me ...

Yesterday I received a call at work saying that my son has slipped on the staircase in the college and suffered an injury and that we need to pick him up from college. My wife was the first to reach him since she was staying close to the college and I was more than an hour away from them. I reached the clinic to see him coming out hobbling on a walker with a pink cast on his right ankle. I don't know why, but I burst out into a big smile when I saw him come out with obvious trepidation and some pain. On hindsight, I wondered why the smile came out rather than concern, anguish, pain, empathy, sadness or the other obvious reactions to the sight of my son in this predicament. I realised the reason just this morning. Three years ago, I took part in a running race relay in my housing complex and I suffered a fall where I broke my wrist and had to undergo an operation, metal implant and a cast for several weeks. The first thought after the fall and return of consciousness was is t...

Nice guys finish last. Why do they say that? In spite of having heard that statement often, all my life I have been trying to be a nice guy. I wouldn't like to hurt anyone. If someone hurts me, I smile and don't bite back. Most times at least. I allow others to get ahead of me because I'm polite. I'm not assertive enough to demand that my time, space and oxygen is being respected and no one is allowed to pollute or waste it. This morning I woke up as usual and as I was writing my morning pages (http://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/) a bolt of lightning went through me and I realised that nice guys do finish last and I have no one else to blame for it but myself. I allow people to take away from me my time, my ideas, my hard work, my niceness, my ideals, and my values because I don't want to disturb the status quo or my idea of being a nice guy who doesn't harm anyone. Does that mean I should lie down, close my eyes and never say never whil...

Sunday this week was exceptional. Can you guess why?  C'mon take a guess. Even a wild one. Doubt you will get it right. No, I did not do something out of the world and adventurous. No, I didn't do something stupid or dangerous. No, I didn't do whatever you are thinking. I went for a workshop titled "Exceptionalism". Strange name right? Conducted by my friend Ramya. She's a young trainer who quit her IT job a year ago to follow her passion. Yes, she's one of the bold ones to take that decision and is making it work in a very short time. It was a just a three-hour workshop, but she opened our eyes to what we could do to focus, energise and create our exceptional goal in life and what is required to achieve it. Many of us are just seduced by the routine of our life that we seldom take time out to introspect on what we would REALLY want out of this life. We just settle for what we are currently doing and go with the flow without choosing to take the...

Yesterday we had a very unique outing. A group of 50 friends and family members from my BNI chapter.went on a food walk in the Sowcarpet area. This was organised by a group of Marwari members of our club. The idea: eat only the best food item at selected shops and restaurants of that area. They made the itinerary and treated us to the best of the local foods in one fun-filled evening. We met near the Pookadai (Flower Bazaar) Police Station.... a crowded part of Chennai that we normally would avoid.like the plague. But since this was a food adventure organised by our friends, we took the risk of entering this notorious area. These are the early birds waiting for their worms... ooops ..... food. By 5:30 around 20 of us trooped into the first restaurant - Agarwal Bhavan. The bengali sweets there were mouth watering - rosogollos and another dish with yellow small mouth watering balls of delicousness. This was a great start to the evening... we crowded the small rest...

Good morning! Have you worked out at the gym this morning? Or yesterday or sometime in the past? If you have a personal trainer, or if you are personally driven, you would have gone through a routine that would have stretched you, punished you, pained you and finally released you. Why did you take that pain? Some people get a high out of this pain. Why? Yes. This is why? The results are amazing. You can admire yourself. You like yourself more. You have more energy. More stamina. More of everything. Can we go to the gym, sit on the benches, avoid the pain and get these results? But in life, many of us expect that don't we? We crib about how people treat us. We crib about how badly life treats us. We crib about people, things, nature, God and just about everything that ever happens that doesn't fit into our comfort zone. Imagine doing the same in the gym. Would we get the above results? Life is a giant gym. It takes us through the wringer so we can shine like a d...

I've been promoted to become the 'Man who sold his Honda city" This was an emotional decision because I was not planning to buy another car for now. Friends and family are perplexed that without deciding on the next car I'm selling this one. "What are you going to do?". : "No car? How will you manage?" I tell them I'm not buying any car for now and they are perplexed and not sure what to say next. Some may wonder is he hiding something. Probably he doesn't want to share the real reason.Some may be wondering is this guy broke? Should I ask him? But most of them are unable to digest the fact that one can live quiet comfortably without owning a car. Today we have so many options. Uber. Ola, Taxi. Auto. Zoomcars, Carpool, Bus, metro, my legs, etc etc And I'm going to be spending less than half the amount (TCO-total cost of ownership of car) with chauffered comfort too. I'm already enjoying the new found freedom because I've ...

Have you noticed that when we face challenges there are just one of two responses that we usually take - Fight or Flee? When we fight something, we either become stronger or weaker depending on how we think the fight went. But whatever the outcome, we are better prepared when the next challenge shows up. However, when we flee from something, we most often become weaker and have a diminished ability to face the next challenge. So facing a challenge and responding in the right manner is the only way for us to become stronger and better prepared for larger challenges in life. I notice that when I avoid a confrontation and try to hide from it, it eats me up and eventually makes me feel lesser and spills into all the other aspects of my life. But if I grit my teeth and push myself to face it head on, then I get over the mental block of facing it and feel a sense of freedom and elation. Why am I discussing this with you today? Because I had one such challenge today and realized that I...

Good morning! Yesterday we spoke of purpose and how it affects our lives. And all of yesterday and today while I was following Hurricane Irma pounding Florida in the worst ever storm seen in recent times, I was reminded of how purpose affects the outcome. Do you remember the cyclone that battered Chennai 2 years ago? The administrators of our city took decisions based on their purpose. Cover their backside. Blame someone else if something went wrong. Just go ahead with immediate personal concerns rather than bother about the city's needs. However as I observed how the administration in the US prepared for the storm in Florida, I couldn't help but notice that their primary purpose was to avoid loss of life, and the secondary purpose was to protect whatever can be protected. So they took massive action to evacuate the inhabitants to safer areas or safe structures within the storm affected area. This has paid off handsomely with almost nil loss of life and minimal dislocation...