The world’s acceptance of English as a global link language should be cause for celebration — “Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language.” ( H. Jackson Brown, Jr, American author) I am a non-native English writer living in India. I wrote this story more out of anguish than because I felt any deep resentment towards anybody. This is…

Our gut feelings may be more rational than we think — “In addition to their indispensable role in helping us digest large parts of our diet, it is becoming clear that gut microbes have an extensive and wholly unexpected influence on the appetite-control systems and emotional operating systems in our brain, in our behaviour, and even on our minds. These invisible…

Read the ‘CV of Failures’ written by successful people and dig deeper into their stories — Success is visible, and people flaunt their successes with gusto. Nobody wants to talk about their failures. It’s not because they lack humility; people are not just interested in listening to uninspiring tales of setbacks. Success is the most popular and bestselling self-help genre. We have thousands of titles beginning…

Automation should complement the human agency and not replace it — As negative side effects of automation become more evident, the world is realising that for many kinds of work we don’t want to replace human beings, even if the work is a little dull, dirty or dangerous. In fact, that replacement can become counter-productive. (Gill Pratt, CEO of Toyota Research…

Read it to know and avoid negativity and to embrace positivity — “Remember that no talent, no self-denial, no brains, no character, are required to set up in the fault-finding business.”(Og Mandino) A chronic fault finder is the universal archetype of disgruntlement, envy, perverse and malicious criticism, and negativity. Og Mandino was only partially right. The business of fault finding needs some…

“But it’s infinitely more rewarding to understand than to be right — even if that means changing your mind about a topic, an ideology, or, above all, yourself.”(Maria Popova) Should we have an opinion about everything under the sun? There’s nothing wrong with having opinions; we try to understand the…

“Being successful is not about your ability to plan, but your ability to act.”(Anne-Laure Le Cunff) We like to prepare well before we take up a new task. There’s no such thing as being ‘fully prepared.’ It’s easier to get stuck in the process of getting ready if we are…

Quotes are invisible teachers — “People don’t remember books, blogs, or articles. They remember sentences. ” (Morgan Housel) People love quotes, especially powerful single lines that resonate strongly with them. There’re thousands of quotes attributed to different people. To cite a few: Francis Bacon, the father of modern prose, said, “Some books are to be…

A loved one’s terminal illness rewrites the script of normal life. The terminally ill may want to quit because they don’t want others to suffer. The family members may want to see them live as long as possible. Mutual love, with different aims, often contradictory. complicate the script. A woman…