Five Success Rules Reinvented - 5. Be real not virtual

BE REAL NOT VIRTUAL: I strongly feel that in spite of our scientific advances, the human interface is supreme and way beyond any glitzy new technology. True friendships and loving relationships flourish in real life even if they began in the virtual world. And this is my personal experience.

Why is it better to be real than virtual? Because nothing can replace the human element of communication, and nothing can convey our real feelings and emotions better than ourselves! Recently, the CEO of a well known organization was fired through a sms by the board of directors!

How often have you caught yourself calling someone on the phone, when it could have been easier and nicer to just walk up to them and speak! The noise of humanity, and rapidly increasing distractions of all the technology and gadgets around us make it very easy to be virtual than real. In fact, technology has bred its own share of disadvantages - one of the biggest of them being - getting disconnected from the real life that we are meant to live.

Here are five tips that I hope will help you be more real than virtual:

1. Make an effort to meet your friends once in a while. It is so easy to let years go by without meeting our best friends at times. 

2. Request a face-to-face meeting with colleagues whenever possible, instead of opting by default for conference calls or email discussions. 

3. Meet people especially, when you want to convey a bad news, a negative feedback, or an improvement suggestion. Being there to convey our real intention and observe the other person’s reaction is so important in ‘not-so-great’ situations. 

4. Keep Sundays – a no technology day – switch off the distractions of life, and observe the sea change you will feel in your peace of mind, your relationships, and your attention span. 

5. Have a cut off time for browsing the net, and hold yourself accountable to stick to it. Often, we browse the net simply because we don’t have anything else to entertain or interest us. Remember, the more we get entangled in the world wide web, the more we lose touch with our real hobbies, aspirations, and goals. 

My recent effort to be more real than virtual: Before I wrote and posted this blog, I wanted to make 'being real' a priority for myself. Over this weekend, I shut down my computer, and from morning till late evening, busied myself with reality and real people I could meet and talk to face-to-face. It was enormously exciting, and I met so many new people. Not to mention, my brain needed rest from my work on my laptop. I find myself more motivated and productive this Monday morning.

PS: This brings me to the end of the five part series on 'Five Success Rules Reinvented'. I hope it helped you to think and act in ways that can help you live your best life and lead yourself every single day!

You got mail....

I remember a time in our home when we didn’t own a phone line. Neither did we have television in our country. Not to mention, mobiles and internet were like that funny stuff that only happened in Isaac Asimov’s brilliant books. Those were nice days, frankly.

Then television came to India. This was the early 80s. We didn’t realize that we were sitting ducks for an invasion more unbelievable than anything we had read even in Star Trek books.

Yet there was an innocence and child-like feel to early television. No one spoke things they ought not to be saying on national TV, or through any other mode of communication, for that matter, women were more like what God meant us to be, regressive TV soaps hadn’t assaulted our senses, and young people didn't mouth profanities and do scandalous stuff in out-of-control-shudder-inducing reality shows.

But before that could happen, we welcomed with open arms more infernal gadgets with much greater insidious powers than television could ever muster. The internet and mobile revolution were already seeping into undiscovered territories of our uncluttered minds.

Today, I can’t lift my finger without clicking something. The fun part is I’ve caught myself clicking buttons when I didn’t need to be clicking them. It’s a habit. Sad and mad.

So, here’s my resolve for the next three weeks – I will reduce my interface with technology and try and get back to manual modes of doing things as much as possible. I am not swinging to the other extreme and packing my bags for the cave ages, just reducing the unnecessary static.

Honestly, there is still a lot we can do without clicking buttons. I want to try out this experiment. I shall report back if there are any significant withdrawal symptoms. I am not ruling out uncontrollable twitching fingers and deep depression, coupled with the feeling of falling into an abyss of desperate disconnectedness. Or maybe...not.

Till the recent past, we walked over and met people when we missed them. Now we SMS them. And yet I have decided to be brave and do some hard work. Like my parents used to. Is that why they still have well-wishers from forty-five years ago who don’t mind crossing continents just to meet each other – face-to-face. They are also the ones who still write letters and send cards.

With such bolstering thoughts, let me venture nervously into the real world again. Please do respond if you get a rescue call from me to get me my virtual fix. Maybe, I got mail! 

PS: Just in case you get curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov