The cost of being ugly

Amidst all the fanfare of the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony, one story particularly struck me. An article about how the Olympics committee members replaced the singer for the opening ceremony with a cuter kid who ended up doing a voice over of the song(link). I thought about it for sometime and then its relevance (to the world and to me) got lost in the "race for 8" news features about Micheal Phelps.

Last weekend, I attended a birthday party with my son. As in all birthday parties for kids, there was a person dressed up as a clown to entertain the kids. Halfway through her mediocre routine (the kids would disagree with me on that one) , she messed up a magic trick. The fumble was apparent to all the grown ups, but the kids hardly noticed. She made a good comeback and fell back on track to continue her act. It was then that one of the parents standing next to me shook his head in disdain - and when he noticed that I was watching, hushed the words - "and she is not even good looking".

This was when the Olympics article sprung back to my mind. Do people have to work harder to make up for their ugliness? Have homosapiens evolved into shallow beings who don't see through a pretty face? Grownups may understand the concept of beauty and "image to the world", but what about kids? I am curious to know how they went about explaining to the little kid that they would be using her song, but not her face.

In this thought process, I went back and searched in my memory dump - How many times have I witnessed or heard of similar events? Have I ever been a victim of this? (Well, I never had a talent for anything, so I may not be included in this discussion :-)). My friends? Colleagues?. Slowly but steadily, I could recollect incidents that happened to people I knew. Decisions had been made with emphasis on good looks rather than merits. What do you think? Have you ever been through such judgment? Looking back, do you think your good appearance or lack of it have shaped some of the outcomes in your life? I agree that there are certain jobs that carries good looks as a necessity, but it is unfair to say that it should be applied to all categories in the spectrum.

Ugliness certainly is expensive in our times - think of all the money spent on creams, laser treatments, Botox and plastic surgery. And beauty most certainly is not skin deep. It is sad that all these treatments do not treat the underlying problem - lack of confidence and low self esteem. After all, who is not impressed by a confident person?

So stay confident my friends - if your mirror is not friendly to you, throw your confidence at it and grab it by its neck, I am sure it will definitely come around.

Fear is Big Business

If all you want is security, you may become more afraid of life than death.

- James F. Byrnes, American statesman. 

Last week, I took my car in for service to the dealer. I was prepared for the usual - oil change, tire rotation and maybe some usual maintenance checklist items. Upon completion of my check-in, I was given a pamphlet that had information about an "Automatic Transmission fluid flushing service". Usually, I would just toss it out into the trash can, but this one had a lot of photos and detail about the service. It had photos about how the fluid looked at various stages of the car's life. I eagerly looked up the one closest to the miles my car had (around 55,000) and it looked bad - I mean really bad. Though the photo was a little magnified, I instantly felt scared about carrying around that much filth in my car, so I raced back to the service personnel and requested him to add the service to the list of repairs.

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

 - Marie Curie, Renowned physicist and chemist.

I was feeling a big sense of clean and sparkle (reminded me of the "after flush" photo in the pamphlet) while driving back and also a sense of accomplishment. Once I was home, I started to read the literature about the transmission flush in more detail and it was then that I read the fine print - "Pictures assume that you have never had an ATF flush".  Suddenly, I was dwarfed all by the world around me. The ATF flush had been done previously for my car - in fact for all the major services. Oh no, I had been duped - by my fear of bad mojo happening to my car. After a while, I redeemed myself from that shame and started thinking - how many decisions do we make as a result of fear? How many times have we been influenced by our fears to act differently than we would otherwise?

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you. 

 - Eric Hoffer, American social writer.

Have our career decisions been made out of the fear of trying something we really wanted? How about the purchase of our assets? How about decisions that involved starting a family and having a home? These may be questions that require deep thought in order to find answers. We could get a clue of our thought process by treading into less murkier waters. Let us think about the train of thought that goes into decisions that we take daily. What do we think about when we decide on buying a battery? Will this commercial (link) influence us to buy the batterythat is  advertised? Will this ad (link) affect our way of thinking about the car we want? Or will this ad (link) make us worry more about how secure our home is? We have seen political ads that spark fear to influence the way we vote. It has also been used to shape policy changes (link) - since research proves that fear trumps over all the other urges to weigh pros and cons of public policy.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

 - Edmund Burke, British political writer.

We may be influenced by fear more than we think. Think of all the additional insurance purchases we have made, those "peace mind" warranties and "extended travel assurance" policies we have signed up for. What about those "high risk" career changes and the fear of repercussions from your boss that is preventing you to say what is on your mind? 

Failure seldom stops you. What stops you is the fear of failure.

 - Jack Lemmon, American actor.

It can be argued that many of these can be attributed to be "playing safe" rather than being scared. Everyone has a self proven way of making their decisions. In my opinion, it would be in our best interests to think before making a decision ( big or small) , to face our fears, weigh its rationality and then  - act on it. Who knows, analyzing our fear may morph into courage and do wonders for us.

Do the thing we fear, and the death of fear is certain.

 - Ralph Waldo Emerson, American  poet, essayist and lecturer.

Stay fearless, my friends  - and be on the lookout for people with fear shots heading your way.

Goof off - You earned it!

The other day, I was slowly cutting through the chores of the day and knocking down the "ToDo"s one by one, when I was interrupted by an instant message from my friend's sister - "U there?". Delighted by the interruption and unusual discourse from my daily grind, I replied "yep very much here; what's up?"

She went on to say that she just wanted to talk since she was feeling sleepy and wanted to strike a conversation so she could focus back on work again. I was more than happy to oblige.

"Why are you not learning anything?"
"What?", I responded, and then added, "I am in the technology domain, I learn new things on a daily basis and I make an effort to pick up new stuff to prevent my slow slide to obscurity at work"
"No not that - like higher studies, an MBA or something similar"
"Well, I already have a masters, so I don't think I need an MBA.."
"But..but..you could do something to advance your career; look at all the time you are wasting while trying to learn guitar, play volleyball, badminton and watching TV - you could be learning something useful!"
And the conversation went on.

****

That got me thinking - All the time we spent on activities for selfish enjoyment, are we hampering our chances to advance in the corporate ladder? In other words, is life all about making it better? I think no - what is the fun in the journey when you don't have time to stop for a bit and reflect upon how far you have traveled? Shouldn't you be taking a breather exploiting the fruits of all your hard work? Sure - the million dollar mansion, that luxury car and branded clothes you wear while working hard could enhance your sense of achievement, but if you don't have time to unwind and enjoy it, is it worth having?

Countless times, we have been witness to stories where a person loses everything dear to them in the pursuit of their definition of success and achievement. "But I was working hard for all of you so you could enjoy all these worldly pleasures" goes the main character. The supporting cast promptly replies - "That maybe true, but you weren't here when we needed you".

So I say - if you can goof off without worrying about what life throws at you next and you are sure you have provided just enough for people who depend on you, you have it good. I will even say that you have earned it - payback for all the toil you put in earlier in your life. Learn an instrument you know you will be bad at, play games you have never even considered playing, keep changing channels mindlessly on your TV, scratch your genitals and get screamed at by your wife for it (this is for men, don't know what equates for women), sleep in on weekends, take your kids for trick or treating dressed up as a monster while there is a burning customer issue and spend countless hours perfecting your conspiracy theories. I guarantee you, these have lasting effects on your longevity than the alternatives. Sure enough, you will be labeled as complacent, lazy and just as a 'moderate success', but then, isn't fun always accompanied by some flak?

Or you could pursue life advancement, use up all your weekends and evenings for it, simultaneously advancing your age for enjoying the fruits of your labor. You may have a target for when you think your life is "stable enough" but mind you, it will be a moving target and will always look different when viewed through different age lenses.

As for me, I choose to make frequent stops in my fun journey, take in the view and let the breeze hit my face before moving on to what lies ahead.

****

Back to my Instant messaging exchange - we were just finishing up and she typed
"thanks a lot - you sparked something I can fuel my thoughts on"
"You are welcome"
"..and I don't feel sleepy now, good that I decided to chat with you"
"You are welcome for that too..bye"

I could bask in the glory of that praise - or I could look up online courses on how to improve communication skills, sign up for one, take up a secondary career on it, get paid more for perfecting more career advancing skills, ..., ...

No prizes for correctly guessing the path I chose.