A few weeks ago, I ran a half marathon. To be honest, the actual run seemed a letdown compared to the training leading up to it. So, this was my first time doing any kind of a run officially- I was a little surprised by how it unfolded. To begin with, there is a line for the loo....
This blog is another variation of one of the previous blogs(https://www.anumorris.com/2024/07/body-and-mind-two-sides-of-the-same-coin/)—I cannot get enough of this concept. It is really simple—the only place where change can happen is NOW. By NOW, I do not mean this day, this ...
A few weeks ago, in this blog(https://www.anumorris.com/2023/12/how-to-move-to-the-next-level-in-life/), I spoke about moving to the next level in life. Now, it has been a while since I moved levels, so I have forgotten what I did when I levelled up—in fact, I am not even sure ...
A couple of weeks ago, we were on our way back from Montreal and got stranded in Philadelphia. Three hundred flights were cancelled, and there were no hotel rooms. After being on a tiny flight with three seats per row, circling the airport for hours takes a toll on your tolerance...
There are times in life when it just hums along smoothly, with no significant humps. You wake up, go through your day and go back to bed. And then there are times when it feels like a storm is shaking your life ship. We have all experienced those, right?
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My parents just arrived from India. The flights from India are super long-spanning more than a day with multiple stops. My parent's flight schedule was from Chennai -> Abu Dhabi -> Chicago -> Columbus. I diligently tracked it on the FlightAware app, which gives a real-time visual...
The lesson about mould (fungal growth) is one that we have all had first-hand experience with - right. I remember as a kid we had gone on a trip, and when we returned, we found the entire bread loaf covered in grey/blue/black things. Cheese is another such example. I am sure we h...
I am sure most of us are following the Russia-Ukraine situation. And that probably brings up a range of emotions from fear to outrage, disbelief to despair. For me, I cannot get over the fact that we have humans (like you and me) in this day and age who believe that marching tank...
We are all busy. People have so much going on in their lives that they have no time to stop and stare. You meet people on Monday, and the most common comment is that the weekend went by so quick. It can be personal stuff like kids, groceries, household chores, work stuff, or glob...
As some of you know, I have a daily meditation practice - and I follow the Vipassana(https://www.dhamma.org/en-US/index) technique for meditation. When I tell people about meditation, one of the most commonly asked questions is, so can you stop thinking? Do thoughts go away whe...
I need a taste of my own medicine. The old saying that the advice we give others is often the advice we need ourselves is true. All this great wisdom that I spout in my blog is evident proof of that. So, today I decided to make that the purpose of this blog.
The advice that I ne...
I recently went to India for a four-week-long vacation. Some people might argue it is too long to take time off and not the norm. People's reaction to my holiday was more of a surprise - Oh! Wow, is that even possible. When we lived in London, it wasn't that big of a deal because...
I watched a Netflix Movie - Minnal Murali(https://www.netflix.com/title/81497215), recently. It has got excellent reviews and is a regional Indian film like non-Bollywood. This film is from Kerela - a state known for churning out good quality lifelike movies. However, this movi...
So, Fake News has been in the news for the last few years. What is fake news? The Wikipedia definition of fake news is - _Fake news is_ _false or misleading information presented as news__. It often aims to damage the reputation of a person or entity or make money through adv...
The last blog of the year is about nostalgia. It stems from my growing old blog, my trip to India and honestly, it is a culmination of the underlying theme in the COVID years.
The India I grew up in is no longer there. And I cannot alter the reality as it is how much I want it....
So, I recently came back from spending a month in India. It was my annual trip back home - spend some time with my parents, visit relatives, live in a place where people look like me, speak like me, advertisements are in a language I know, listen to the radio in my native languag...
I did my last Townhall meeting of the year with my department. And I decided a long time ago that I will not organise boring meetings, so I make sure that I enjoy the ones I set up. And in a moment of creative stillness, an idea came to me about doing a Quiz which one of my assoc...
I will continue from my last blog about the inspiring deaf-blind graduate from Harvard Law - Haben Girma(https://www.anumorris.com/2021/10/deaf-and-blind-but-harvard-law-graduate/). Another inspiring female at the conference was Timnit Gebru(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timn...
At work, I was selected to attend a conference called Grace Hopper(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper). It is named after a woman computer professional who went to write the initial code for COBOL.
The main theme that I took away from the conference was 'Diversity and...
I like doing icebreakers at work in all my core meetings. How it works is each meeting, one person gets to ask everybody else a question. And the idea behind it slowly but steadily you get to know the other team members. Also, I have found that the question that people ask says a...
'I am here to serve'. I remember saying that when I went for my first meditation course as a server in London, Hereford. I had been doing Vipassana for the last three years before the desire to serve arose in me. Since then, I have been doing a sit and serve every other year.
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My ancestral home is a tiny village in the south of India, Sevvur. Unless you are from there or know somebody from the village, there is no way you would have heard about it. It is a sleepy 2.5 street village with a population of less than 1000, and at a given time, there may be ...
Would you ever consume a year-old fruit? Or, a bread that somebody sold to you decades ago? No, right. And I am sure some of you are wondering why would anyone even ask these questions.
The reason is that - we are all consuming rotten stuff - not food but thoughts, behaviour pat...
I spent the weekend over in Maine - in the midst of nature. The more time I spend in nature, the more I begin to appreciate the wisdom nature has to impart. For example, every morning, we would go for a kayak ride in the lake. It is so beautiful in the morning, sounds of water la...
Let's look at a few examples from the past.
BP's historic oil spill in the Gulf Coast in 2010—the largest oil spill in U.S. history—could have been prevented, employees warned. An employee who worked on the well warned BP officials that their plan to expand the well increase...
When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.
Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on ea...
Temperatures in North America have smashed all previous records this year. Death Valley in California, described as the hottest place on earth, was touting 55 degrees Celsius (132 F). \I quote temperatures in C as I still cannot get F\. It was so hot that you could 'supposedly'...
I had just joined British Telecom after my London Business School MBA. MBA was a lesson in humility for me, but there are levels in that too - so, when the time came to lead my first ever workshop to identify root cause issues of incidents, I was super elated. It was a three-day ...
The last year taught us all that change is natural and inevitable. Who would have thought that the entire world would be working from home? I remember I was not very happy about working from home all the time - but some weeks in, I loved it and then earlier this year, I was ready...
Imagine a bucolic scene and lush green farms surrounding a tiny cluster of villages. This scene is set in a time when horse carriages were the primary mode of transport. And in the villages where most dwellings are made of mud and thatch, there is a concrete building. And the bui...
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I love Winnie The Pooh - there is something about this bear that appeals to the genuine and innocent self in me. I don't remember how I came about this quote from Pooh, but I have had it on my office cubicle wall forever. And like all profound things ...
My parents and I were reminiscing on the old days. We had just moved to Delhi when I was about four years old. And none of us except my dad knew the language Hindi. And my mom mentioned that she had done a correspondence course to learn Hindi. I expressed my shock that I had no i...
I am fascinated by my royal, regal, adorable, handsome five-year-old Shiba Inu pup - Aki(https://www.instagram.com/iamluckyaki/?hl=en). The long list of adjectives with the name of his royal highness only goes to prove how much we love him. There is no doubt that he is of a roy...
Continuing from my last blog(https://www.anumorris.com/2021/05/those-were-the-days/) - a student in the university describes how his lab partner and others got into the university. In India, if you have to get into one of the prestigious engineering schools, you have to 'crack'...
I just watched the Netflix Series - 'Alma Mater - Inside the IIT dream'. It was a trip down memory lane - nostalgic, and I did not want it to end in some ways. So much packed in those days, just like peeling the layers of the onion.
I did my engineering and then did my MBA. Both...
I am my Father's daughter. I have so many of his mannerisms that I can predict with almost 99% accuracy what he is thinking or saying. Growing up, I looked up to my dad, and he was/is my best friend. I would tell him everything and still, to this day, do so. And he never judged m...
Eckhart Tolle tells the story of his dad, who in his older years remarked that the quality of mirrors has deteriorated since his younger days. I am sure most of us have looked at the mirror and wondered what happened? Or, go for reunions and somebody remarks on how young we were?...
Have you ever been in a situation where you did something without remembering you just did that? Take a shower without realizing it or driving home from the office or travelling on a tube and may be missed your stop. Your mind was so engrossed in something that you forget what yo...
A few weeks ago, we saw Mr and Mrs Duck looking for suitable accommodation for producing ducklings. They looked far and wide, from our sidewalk to the pond few blocks away. And our dog Aki was always excited to play with the ducks.
And then we did not see them, so we assumed the...
March 18th, 1990 - St Patrick's day in Boston, 13 priceless art pieces go missing (Robbed) from the Isabella Stewart Gardner's Museum. Fast forward almost thirty-one years later - paintings are still missing. The empty frames are still hung in the museum expecting the art pieces ...
As some of you may know, I took a new role \Read a bit about it in this blog(https://www.anumorris.com/2021/01/trickster-mind/)\. I changed my profession. And being the kind of person I am, I read a book called 'The First 90 Days' as I transitioned into my job. One of the exe...
How many times in your life have your plans gone awry? You wanted something to happen, and it does not happen. You did not want something to happen, and it happens. This is the basic definition of Suffering. So, as per this definition, we all suffer and - we have all suffered a l...
Imagine an intricate tapestry made of a rich fabric of vibrant colours. It is so huge that it covers the entire wall. You have never seen the wall behind the Tapestry. For you, the wall does not exist. You spend all your time admiring the Tapestry - so beautiful, so breathtaking....
'I was born into the Hebrew persuasion, but when I got older, I converted to narcissism' is a famous quote by Woody Allen.
He is more aware of the core belief than most of us, who harbour the belief that we are not in love with ourselves. The truth is we only love ourselves - t...
We might all think we run our lives - and we are all wrong. Time runs this entire world. The little watches we have on our wrists, calendars on the walls, or our electronic devices rule the world. From the time we wake up to the alarm to the time we go to bed - all we do is run a...
A young woman lost touch with her dad as a child when her parents divorced. As she grows up, she desires to meet him - she finds out that he is dead. She wishes she had made an effort to reach out to him sooner.
A woman's in-laws shun her because she could not produce a male hei...
For the last eighteen months or so, I had been on the path to get a new role at work in a different profession. I had gotten a couple of interviews but never made it into the second round. Subconsciously, I lived in a world where I want the role but was never going to get it. Thi...
When you read a book, do you wonder about the blank spaces around the words? Do you wonder about the blank pages on which the letters appear?
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When you enter a room, do you think about the space in the room? When you use the furniture, do you think ...
Imagine you are in a theatre watching a string of movies. The movies and the actors cater to all the emotions you can think of - fear, sex, violence, love, family, patriotism, terrorism, heist - the whole gamut of life as we know it.
Let's say that the movies are so fascinating ...
I had a dream that I was in a marketing office with my friend. My friend was having issues with her peer, and we were walking down the corridor to the boss's office. All of a sudden fire alarm start - annoying kind, Kiiiiii-Kiiiii Kiiiii. We look at each other and assume it is so...
Saying YES to the moment is a buzzword these days. Surrender to what is will ring true if you are on a spiritual or self-growth path. And like anything profound and straightforward - we have managed to complicate it because we think with our minds. Our mind is flawed when it come...