In Mid April, I went through twin grind of shifting both my residence and office location from a spacious one to less roomy (exactly 1/3rd) one. Iam writing this to share my thoughts and learnings out of thisaccidentally coincidental moves.

I always thought it is my Mom (or dad when he was alive) or in general the elder generation that has the tendency not to discard, instead tend to keep stuff even if it is in the attic. It was a revelation to us (I and Sowmya) when we figuredout that we had the same genes in us too when we indulged in this move exercise. How else could we explain the vast pile of clothes, toys, books and gadgets that we had kept buying without bothering to do any kind of sanity check!

Many justify their need to keep stuff as it serves as memorabilia. In fact, I was quite amazed when my wife and Amma recollected on what occasion we bought the item in question, memories associated around that in an accurate fashion - this going back to 10/20/30/40/50 years in the past! I could never imagine doing the same without help (like a useful comment or tag in a photo)! Sure the weaker sex has loads of memory power.

My learnings out of this are:

• Tis' worthwhile to shift once every 4/5 years, though very energy sapping and tiring. Helps take an inventory of things and do some retrospective thinking on what we really need.
• Buy / keep only what you need and discard the rest. Till the body aches from shifting remain, you will have heightened need to throw "stuff". But your faithful "hoarding"gene will come back right on! So beware. Always remember to keep it lean and fit (be it your body or stuff you keep)!
• Keep a chronological digital library in a family web site for memorabilia needs.
• Develop a passion and practice disassociated association with material things! Don't grow too fond on anything lest it will grow on you in a cancerous fashion - too much than what you desire or can afford!
• Remember that keeping or using more than you need is equivalent to robbery or cheating! Of course, this is conservative or Gandhian thinkingand contra to neo-"contribute to economy with your buying power display"!

Ramesh

Excellence in Interpersonal Communication

Though there is a lot of gyan around this: accept others as what they are, don't have any expectations, never get angry, always do good to others as you would expect them to do to you, move on - forgive and forget, no vengeance, hold no regrets, what's happened has happened for good, dont speak words that will come back to haunt you later, control your temper, be in good health and shape, spread the goodness and happiness all around you, smile makes life beautiful, take all the feedback in the positive spirit, do meditation, cleanse yourself, reprogram your mind body and soul to divine bliss! - entire philosophy makes a lot of sense and moves one to a dream world. Just to be brought back by a human disturbing your divine thought process and remind you that you are just simply human! Be human as to err is human and to forgive is divine. Don't know what's divine all about, but that's something unhuman definitely. Allow me to err and end this blog post by saying that one should expect me to blow cold, blow hot and act human! Till a next random thought hits my mind and I feel a certain need to blog about that thing, let me remain in peace.

Ramesh