One day , I planned to go for a movie in last show with some of my friends. There was not heavy traffic on the road and I was driving as normal.  And one of the friend asked me a question. ..How much you rate your driving skill on a scale of 1 to 10 ?

Well, this question was not very surprising for me. These were friends staying in same building where I was staying. I was learning car that time and  I used to go office with these friend .  I was not a bad driver, but the way other people drive on the road is always scary for me.  Anyhow, so these guys were knowing ,  when I started learning the driving.  After some time , these guys moved out to an apartment in different building . we used to meet in office, but no more driving together . So when they see my driving after  more than a year, this question was quite normal, probably to check my confidence on driving .

I was not very aggressive driver. No rash driving and racing on road.  Never tried my skills on worst road conditions, but knew how to drive in city . I had good enough control on steering to drive through tight traffic in city. So I rated myself between 7  and 7.5.  My friend didn’t react on this answer.

After the show, when we were returning back , it was late night and very less traffic on the road. I was driving little fast , negotiating curves comfortably.

Now same friend told me that  he is agree to my 7/7.5 ratting of driving skill. And then he reveled, why he asked me the question and why earlier he was not impressed with my own rating.

I was driving  with discipline. I was continuously tracking the traffic behind me using rare view mirror and side view mirrors. I was avoiding overtaking from wrong side  and waiting for front vehicle to give me side.  I was avoiding to get in way of other vehicles  and changing lane when sufficient space is available for other driver to watch. When ever changing lane, I was using proper indicators, no matter if anybody close behind me or not.

My friend thought, I’m driving with so much of care because I still don’t have good control on car.  But in the night when he seen me driving fast with good negotiation on curves and other vehicles, he understood that I have control on my car. Even though I was driving with same discipline .

Now , this was surprising for me.  I was driving with discipline , because it is not only safe for me but also good for other drivers on the road.  Then why it was considered as my weak driving skill ?

I thought about it and realized that this logic is being used  everywhere. If we are honest and disciplined, very less people will appreciate it. Most of the people thinks that the person is having some weakness, that’s the reason he/she is following rules. If we break rules, we will be considered as cool and or we will be considered as powerful person. It is being assumed that person with good skills don’t follow rules.

Having this assumption, no one like to follow rules. Everyone what to project himself/herself as more powerful and more skilled than others.  And in this race , Honesty and Discipline have lost all their values.  In fact, being honest has become a kind of punishment these days. I have many examples in my life where I paid too much for being honest.  But that is topic for some time later.

Rules are being made for comfort of society, not for individual’s benefit.  But most of the people think about themselves and break rules for their own benefits.  Breaking rule creates domino effect.  Also , when some people gets benefited by breaking rules, others get motivated to break the rules. Until there is benefit of going with rules, very few people follows rules. And most of them are people those who understand meaning and importance of discipline.

Discipline is very very important for society and but now it is becoming a rare behavior.  Schools don’t impress upon discipline  anymore. Organizations want growth at any cost and so  don’t care about rules. Families want to show their power and so breaking rules. Then from where discipline will come in society  ?

I don’t have answer to this question. But I’m sure,  till the time people will think that being disciplined is a weakness ,  we will see very less people following rules. And we will continue damaging our society.

Other says :

• “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin
• “Knowledge Speaks but Wisdom Listens” – Jimi Hendrix
•  “We learn something every day, and lots of times it’s that what we learned the day before was wrong” – Bill Vaughan
• “It’s so much easier to suggest solutions when you don’t know too much about the problem.” – Malcolm Forbes
• “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” – Vince Lombardi
• “The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity.” -Doug Horton
• “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates
• “There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• “Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.” – Theodore Roosevelt
• “Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment. “
• “Winning is not everything, but wanting to win is.” – Vince Lombardi
• “Patience is the art of hoping.” – Luc de Clapier
• “Success is a journey, not a destination.” – Ben Sweetland
• “It is not to be expected that human nature will change in a day.” – Frank B. Kellogg
• “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” – Thomas H. Huxley
• “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates
• “The superior man understands what is right, the inferior man understands what will sell.” – Confucius
• “Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.” – Thomas A. Edison
• “Apologizing Doesn’t Mean We are Wrong & Others Are Right.it Means We Value The Relationship More Than Our EGO”
• “When u r surrounded by idiots, just remember, murder is illegal and sarcasm is way more satisfying!” – Ritu Patil
• “Stupid conversation makes sense when you are talking to someone special”
• “There is always Truth behind JUST Kidding, and a lot of Words behind Silence.”
• “Just because something doesn’t do what you ASSUMED it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.”
• “You can close your eyes to the things you don’t want to see, but you can’t close your heart to the things you don’t want to feel”
• “Dreams is not what you see in Sleep … is the thing which doesnt let you sleep” – A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
• “Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things”-Robert Brault
• “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”   – Mahatma Gandhi
• “Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.” – Mahatma Gandhi

My Quotes :

• Independence does not only mean “Freedom”, but to work with responsibility.
• Don’t be very honest with anyone, you will be deceived
• I have full respect for those who respect others.
• A little modified…. “Knowledge Speaks, Wisdom Listens but Half knowledge … Shouts”.
• Being Nice is not good enough. It is important to build trust for earning friends.
• When I write alphabets of my life, V and U comes before I .
• Human behaviour is nothing but Emotions. Hiding emotion is same as hiding human inside us.

At that time , I was about 8 year old and as other kids I used to try follow my father . One day , I found one mini lamp and  wire. I tried to connect open wire in Electric socked in the hope of lighting the lamp.  As soon as I connected the wire I had a shock which pushed me on ground.  I was lucky enough to survive from there.  This was a bad incident for me, but gave me a good learning.  Though I got a bad  shock, I didn’t stop using electric equipment. Rather I learnt to handle them with caution.

This is very common way of our life. When we meet bad incidents, we learn from them and apply this learning while dealing with similar situation in future. We change our style of working , but we don’t stop working. 

Later, when required to check power, I used to check with Phase tester. And don’t touch live wire or socket without protection.

After few years,  I was at my uncle’s home.  His light was not working and I offered help to fix this.  To check the I found a phase tester in home . I didn’t ask anyone, picked up the tester and inserted into the socket.  And …… got a electric shock .. The tester was faulty and leaking current on the other side.  Device which I was using for safety , didn’t protect me. Now what’s next. .. should I stop using all electric equipment’s and avoid touching any electric wire ? Nope .. I didn’t do that.  I learnt the lesson that protection also can go wrong. So better to double check. 

One of my friend has bad experience in business. He has very good technical knowledge and  he started his business with one partner, The partnership didn’t last for longer as partner cheated him badly. It was not a big loss of money . Later he made partnership with some more folks. And it didn’t work for him again. Now my friend is stopped believing anyone. He don’t want to make any partners. He being very sound technical person, several Good and honest people approached him for partnership. But he refused all of them , just because of past experience.  Some of our friends also tried to help him, but he is not ready to take any help. In a way , he locked himself in a castle. Where he is not allowing anyone to enter.

We might face multiple bad incidents in life. We can’t stop our life . We have to look for other positive things happened in life . we take all the good and bad learning , and collect them as our Experience.  This experience remains with us and help us in making good judgment.

I had few friends in my student life. Being friend, I was very open and honest with them as well.  But they just took advantage of my honesty and used me for their purpose.  I was deceived by them. This was a setback for me.  But I didn’t stop making friends.   In professional life as well, I made friends. Some of them back stabbed me , and grown up pushing me down. After these experience also, I don’t want to lock myself behind walls.  I have faith in life.  There might be something good coming for me … If I sit back behind walls, I might miss the opportunity. 

Experience is nothing but collection of good and bad learning. I don’t want bad experiences to rule my life. But I want to take risk for good experience. I just want to use my experience as my Best tool, to pick correct things for me.

Experience makes the person prefect.  I want to try good and bad experiences. Even if I don’t get perfect, I will be certainly better .

It’s about 5 years back, a rosy winter morning and we colleagues were out for a coffee break . Enjoying the sun and talking about future . Lot of money, Big house, Super luxury cars, bungalow , farm house, vacation at dream palace, working in the home town, enjoying with family …. and many more .. lots of things were there in the desires list.

And one colleague expressed his wish for money. He was working for money and wishing that If he gets 25 Lakh Rupees, he would leave the job and go back to his home town and open a small kirana shop for time pass.

Now , the same guy has much more than 25 Lakhs and he still want more. He wanted to go back to home town with Family, now  he is further away from home . He full filled his desire of Rs 25 Lakhs, but he developed desire for  more money.

Desires are endless. We fulfill one, we get five more . If we try to kill one, we get ten more.  Either fulfill or kill, it multiplies with every efforts.

So is it bad to have desires ?

No…it’s not bad to have desires ,but need to have control on it. Desires are like adamant kid. More you pay attention , more they demand. Its better to attend them occasionally, but do not ignore them.

Increasing desires creates restlessness, anxiety , depression . with fast running life, we want to achieve everything in one day. We have lot of desires to fulfill and no time to wait for them. Sometimes, we don’t even have time to enjoy whatever we achieve.

Today I was talking to one of my colleague . She is dull these days and feeling bored. Even she is little depressed. She has some desires, she want to fulfill all at one time, but that is not possible all the times.  So , what is point to keep desires burning , when there is no time to attend them ?  The best thing is to pick few most desired wishes, give quality time and enjoy them .  And when they are done, move to next.

Certain time, we are tied up with some restrictions, we can’t go out of a limit or we have some other duties to take care. Desires don’t consider these limits and keep on growing.  This develops more frustration and depression. This situation is more dangerous. We have limit to follow and desires are multiplying without limit .

Now since we can’t break boundaries, we should find ways to enjoy within them.  Do something different or do things differently. Control the desires and wait for opportunity. When we start enjoying , we find lot more ways to overcome boundaries and get lots of opportunity to attend our desires.

Sometimes, we get so busy with our wishes we starts getting into  silo and ignoring people around us.  And even we lose some opportunities of enjoying , running behind multiple wishes.

Best approach to win desires is control  them  and enjoy them …

Well … there are many desires ahead of me , and I’m also running behind them…  but yeah, I am able to prioritize them and now following some very high important things in my life and ready to compromise and sacrifices at other places. I hope , I will succeed and have more fun in life.