Opinion

Growing up in an average Indian family in the  70's and 80's there was very little room for personal opinion. You believed what your parents believed in or you were a rebel without a cause. You ate what everyone else ate or you were a nuisance and if you had an opinion you kept it to yourself. It certainly made it quieter and easier but it bred all sorts of passive aggression and for many like me, a life long struggle with being assertive. It wasn't all bleak and bad- it had its own merits. You didn't have to exercise your brain too much if you didn't want to. But it wasn't until yesterday that I realized what a loss actually it was for our parents! The opinion of a child can be a beautiful thing. It can be fresh, enlightening, and above all a window into your child's character and personality.

Kabir has a friend who makes beautiful Origami pieces and is generous enough to give several to him. We have had them all displayed on our mantle for quite a while now. They just lie there- quite a motley crew. In my fetish for de- cluttering I  desperately want to "put them away".  But he won't have it. He values his friend's work and has the bravado to tell me to leave them alone. I feel proud that he has an opinion and a heart that values friendship. I am glad I asked if I could remove them and even happier that he didn't yes even though he wanted to say no!

Realisations

Often times life gets so busy that what is there in front of us today is all that matters- we just want to get through a task list, check things off and get ready for the next day. No more, no less. But what that also means is we may take life decisions that are ill-informed or at the very least half-informed and whose long term implications we are not aware of. I have always known  that we live in a small town- where everyone knows everyone, there is one big company that everyone works for and that there is limited opportunity here for anything else. But for  a long time these were just phrases. Didn't seem to impact my life in any way but positively. But of late as I evaluate my career options the full implications of this have come to dawn on me. Having limited opportunities means having to accept what you have today, whether you like it or no. It means having very little room to negotiate, and in order to expand your options you have to look at a significant impact on your daily life- whether it may mean commuting for work, moving to a new town altogether or changing your line of work.  It also means that any change you may be considering has to be done cautiously! This is not to say that I have all of a sudden started disliking my small town life. I grew up in a town which was even smaller than this so it is nothing new to me. I also love the familiar faces, the convenience and the simplicity that all come with living in a close community. But with careers taking new turns, this aspect of small town life is no longer so desirable. When we moved here, it wasn't something I thought of in any strategic way- maybe I should have.

Eclipse

For a few minutes today a large population of this country was united and stood in awe to watch the total solar eclipse as the tiny moon covered the mighty sun. People drove hundreds of miles, schools announced optional days and some even stayed home from work to be able to watch this rare phenomenon. Perhaps for a few minutes there, no one was a Democrat, a Republican, a Jew, a White or any other race or color- but just a human being, someone who has a unique place in this solar system. A solar system which is so vast, so unexplored and yet has an intricate balance and moves in a flawless dance. Tomorrow all of this will be forgotten, the eclipse glasses will be tossed is a drawer somewhere, never to be seen again. What's more,  God alone knows what our civilization will look like the next time this happens here. But maybe at some level we will keep that vision of the eclipse glasses- blind to everything but only what is natural, what is supreme, and that which shines equally on all, whatever their race or color.

Hierarchy

Hierarchy or  rather the lack of it is a beautiful thing. I observed it today in Kabir's Martial Arts class. Teenagers teaching adults, and the adults accepting this reversal of roles effortlessly. Merit and capability was the only thing that mattered.

Thinking of it further I realized that this made sense at so many levels. To start with it gives the younger kids a role model that they can relate to- when they look at these young teachers, the black belt is no longer an unbelievable goal, set aside for adults only. They are bound to think that if another kid can do it so can I. And for the center itself it makes complete business sense- it now has a flexible "work force" that is both motivated and "free". These young teachers are so passionate that looking at them the parents of other children can't help but become even more inspirational- which just means that they are more likely to keep their child in the institute.

True meritocracy is hard to create but is worth exploring- it creates a positive cycle of  reinforcement and ensures that there is a continuous pipe line of future leaders .

Time

The irony of today's age is that we have so much more usable time due to technologies such as electricity, faster transport, intelligent devices and yet we have the least amount of time now than perhaps any generation before us. All of the time that we grabbed from our days which would otherwise have been spent commuting, waiting for the sun to come up or do manual work, has somehow not come back to us. It has gone to our jobs, our consumption of media or simply into us wanting to do more. Today if someone found a better way to perform a task that they were responsible for -they would be rewarded a productivity award and an extra two hours of work on something else would be found for them. In many ways then the only way to really make time for yourself is to be inefficient- or seem to be so. Because if you are a productive person you can be sure that more work is on its way to you in the hope that in sometime you would have mastered that as well and will be ready for another challenge.

Routine

School is back in session and for millions of us its the resumption of the daily grind. Wake up at 6, pack the lunch boxes, reading lists, book reports, quizzes....the list is endless. Of course we love it when our children are busy and when they have "stuff" to do - keeps them out of trouble. But there is a different kind of pleasure in seeing them just enjoy the freedom and unstructured joy of childhood that summer vacations can bring.

Routine is both our friend and our foe. We need it to give us structure and the comfort of knowing what lies ahead, but it can also be limiting. The trick is in finding opportunities within the every day routine to break that monotony - switching pizza night from Friday to Wednesday just because you can, once in six months taking a day off for the whole family to have a off cycle long weekend (don't tell that to your child's principal) or even packing something unusual in your child's lunch box.

Let yourself have some fun!