Category: Self Improvement

Learning 2.

In a WhatsApp group discussing the current developments in Afghanistan and the political situation in India now, I came across two new terms one of which is based on the following image.
This image leads to what is called a rabbit-duck illusion. The link will take you to its explanation but, this was used by one commentator to discuss how people are seeing current reality and coming to conclusions.

The other term that I learnt today is The Overton Window. Here again the Wikipedia explanation suffices but, for me, it was a learning experience.

Using both the discussions ranged from optimism to pessimism and realism and for me it was a fascinating experiencing learning so many nuances.

No, I shall not explain my own political leanings or my opinions on what is happening in Afghanistan but, I do intend using these two terms to effect in my approach to studies as well as discussions in the future.

A Very Useful Book.

During the lockdown that has now entered its 18th month for us, I have had the honour of mentoring four different young men, all with marital difficulties.

In all the cases, the main culprit is, the breakdown of communications during the lockdown which meant loss of income, or working from home. In both cases, the claustrophobic existence within homes and the very unusual constant physical proximity to each other would appear to have been responsible for the discomforts.

A further reluctance to go for counselling or consultation with professionals led these young men to approach me for advice and finding that essentially, the problem was break down of communications I had recommended the reading of one book which has turned out to be a kind of panacea of sorts.

I had come across the book in the early seventies in my own journey of discovery of communication skills through attending seminars which was part of my training and development in the organisation where I was working. There is no doubt in my mind that the book taught me very valuable lessons which enabled me to be a fairly successful manager of people and other resources.

I am sure that many of readers would have read it at some point of time in the past and hope that they will agree with me that it is a remarkable tool to improve our communication skills. And the book is:
If you are interested in finding out more about the contents of the book you can do so here.

Learning.

In my post The Importance Of Education I had mentioned that the purpose of education was learning to learn.

Nothing else recently has happened to me to give body to that definition than my latest adventures with my new phone which I was gifted just a couple of weeks ago.

This model is very different in many ways than the one that I had used for many years before acquiring this one. It has been a continuous learning process since I acquired it and almost on a daily basis I have had to unlearn earlier ways to learn new ways with this.

The latest adventure was when I had to add a new contact to my bank of contacts when it simply refused to accept the full name of the contact and stopped at half way through the surname. I battled with it for over an hour before asking for help from my DIL who readily, if somewhat amusedly sorted it out for me and also taught me how to do it by myself the next time I had to add a new contact.

I never had any doubts that I was educated and this adventure simply proves that I am as,  I am still, at the age of 78, capable of learning.

RAIN.

A dear friend sent this link to me which I found to be interesting and topical enough to share with my readers. Dr. Sandeep Kelkar is a practicing paediatrician in Thane. a town very near Mumbai. He has had considerable experience handling parents and this approach obviously is something that he has developed to destress his patients’ parents. This is as applicable to us as to parents of children.

Addiction To Smart Phones.

I did not know that my son Ranjan was  annoyed with the way his life got tied up to his cellphone.  He received a parcel from Amazon and on opening it as I was nearby, he showed me what he had bought.

He has just got himself a Feature Phone which reminds me of my very first mobile phone.  Mine was not a flip phone as this one is but, it had the same kind of keyboard and functions as this one has.  Many features that my current Smart Phone has is absent in it.

And, just before I organised my thoughts on how to go about writing a blog post on this development, I received a link to a very interesting article on the same subject from a dear friend.  Synchronicity at it again!

I am not as tied to my smart phone as Harford was but, I too am seriously considering going off social media for some time to see what changes it brings about in my life.

Would you?