Life-Jugaad: Limit the consumption of News (Day 2)

I used to watch news on TV like most people do. However lately, I have started avoiding watching the news on TV or on the Internet. There are a variety of factors behind this.

• Makes Me More Negative: Thia is the most important reason for me to avoid watching news videos. 
  Most of the time, after I have finished watching the news on TV, I find myself more scared, untrustful to other people, and frustrated to see the ways things are going around me. Most of the time, the news would keep highlighting accidents, criminal activities, shootings, police chases (more common in LA and USA I guess), natural calamities, and similar things. 
• The World has good and bad all the time. It is not new:
  There are good fellows and bad fellows in the world, there are good things and bad things. This is there from Day 1 of human existence. We humans have always tried to eliminate the bad and create a good world but we have never been able to achieve that. (I think the creation and the destruction, Lord Brahma and Lord Shiva, the good and the bad, is necessary for the world to run on autopilot- a topic for the next time I guess). Now by highlighting, and hammering, the bad more than the good out there, we are making society a bit more worse in my opinion. At the end of consuming some news, if I am angry or frustrated, it is most likely going to get reflected on the people I interact with. A person shares and spreads what he has. If I am happy, I am going to make the people I meet a bit happier. If the news had made me angry, it is likely to be reflected in my behavior.
• Corrupt Media/ Vested Interests: There are times when there is some vested interest that is trying to 'profit' from us in some news. Profit can be in money, or it could be in terms of influencing our thinking and hence behavior. In short, their times when someone's selfish interests want to 'manipulate' us in a certain way for their gains- monetary, political, or religious. 
  I am generally surprised by some uniform opinions in the US about some leaders in other countries who may actually be liked by their citizens. For most Americans, Kim Jong-un is a joker, Fidel Castro is a danger. Every American was led to believe that Saddam had chemical weapons and weapons for mass destruction though none were ever found, Putin is a villain and PM Narendra Modi has always carried the impression of a Hindu fundamentalist. Most news in the USA about Modi will somehow refer to the world Hindu somewhere. Having grown up in Ahmedabad, I have been through communal riots a few times a year but they are no more. It was only during Modi's regime they stopped. and if I am not wrong, more Muslims voted for him in Gujarat elections than those voted against him when he was a CM of Gujarat.
• No need for me to take a side, or pass a judgment: 
  Here is a classic case. President Trump. I know he won in the 2016 elections so naturally there are people who like him. He lost in 2020 but still, 45% of voters liked him! Being in California, most of the news would highlight how stupid, or a danger he has been to the world. I always wondered that there must be something about him that some people see in him, which I fail to notice.
  Anyway, at one point, I decided not to take any side. My job was to vote and I did. I don't necessarily have to hate or love him. I can accept him like any individual, who has something good and something bad or weird. I don't need to analyze him to pass some judgment. Even if I do my perfect analysis and give a verdict, all that is worth is one vote in reality ;) I can take him as what he is. The same is true about most people or personalities out there. I don't have to put everyone in a love bucket or a hate bucket. I carry an enormously large third bucket which I fondly call as an "IDC" "I Don't Care" bucket.
  I guess I am more like, St Kabir here:
  कबीरा खड़ा बाज़ार में, मांगे सबकी खैर!
  ना काहू से दोस्‍ती, न काहू से बैर!!
  By starting to avoid analyzing and investigating most of the leaders, I save myself many hours of time and some mental overhead. Also, most of the news we are fed has some bias of the media, newsreader/ writer, or channel in it. So the evidence is most of the time corrupt, unreliable for me to do any fair investigation, and pass my 2 cents worth judgment ;)
• Focus on the right world: There is the world out there as we all know it, and there is my world. That world has 195 countries and around 7.8 billion people, Something is always going on in some part of that world. My world is the world that I live in, you live in, has people whose actions touch me, has matters that matter to me, and that is the world that I can contribute or influence with my limited time, skills, and resources. I simply don't have the luxury of time, or the interest or willingness, in following things that are happening in some particular country or a place. or with a person. 

So this is my jugaad with reference to the news: I don't waste time and energy in knowing things that really don't matter in my world.

Life-Jugaad: I want to unLearn (Day 1)

I just stumbled upon this video on TED. The speaker talks about doing something new for the next 30 days. This stuck to my head. I challenged myself to do something new over the next 30 days. 

The question was what to do? I love taking photos and I do take photos almost every day. I walk and hike almost every day- thanks to COVID. As I work from home, I get some time every morning to go on my favorite local hike which can be done in an hour and gives around 600 feet elevation gain. So what new to do? I decided to write something every day, and the result is this blog. I am going to call it Man ki Baat. This is a term popularised by Indian PM Narendra Modi. Of course, my talks are not as significant as his but I want to express myself, my thoughts here on this blog. I am going to focus more on making life simple, and more enjoyable. Being in tune with nature and how it intended life on the earth to be like (IMO).

Here is Day 1: What I want to unLearn.

I spent a few decades learning- learning everything that I could and that came across me. Then I started realizing that the majority of this learning has not helped me much; instead, it changed me into a somewhat different person. This has created a mask on me. I have lost my originality. Now I want to focus more on unlearning what is really not needed (in my humble opinion).

• I was hammered about the benefits of multi-tasking in life. Why stick to one thing, when you can do multiple! Nobody told me that multi-tasking is a CPU job- it is a brain's job. As I get older, I want to live by heart, not my mind or brain. I want to focus on and enjoy one thing at a time. I want peace, not rush. I want to stay human not become a machine. 
• I am taught that I should always go for winning; now I think it is not always necessary to win. If only wins bring happiness and when everyone tries to win, the world is supposed to end up as a more miserable place. For every winner, there are tens or hundreds of losers. If happiness is in winning, every win is supposed to create 10 or 100 times more unhappiness. 
  Also, success is a lousy teacher. Failure teaches you more.
• I was told that knowledge is power; now I think wisdom is power. Knowledge is definitely good- no doubt about it. However, as everything else in life, it also has a dark side. We don't talk about the dark side of knowledge. The feeling of possession of knowledge makes one arrogant. It can sometimes take you out of reality. It can make a person stiff, and with stiffness, you miss the opportunity to be humble, the ability to bow and respect the other person. It makes you argumentative. It makes you believe that you are right, and sometimes, with arrogance, and other times with the 'noble' urge to correct/educated guess the other person, you indulge in arguments. Arguments are for winning, and I don't want to win because I don't want to make the other person lose, feel sad. 
• I learned to be independent; now I think it is okay to take favors and give favors. Nature wanted the world to be interdependent. Just look around. Everything is dependent on some other thing. If someone needs some help, offer help. If someone offers some help to you, accept it with grace- don't be stubborn. It is not a sign of weakness.
• Be perfectionist. No, I don't want to be perfect. I am okay with what I am. I am okay if I am not perfect.
• Don't talk with strangers: No, I want to talk with everyone that crosses my path. Every human being has a story, and every story is interesting enough for me. 
• The more we have, the happier we are. No, I don't think so now. 
• Take all that you can. No, leave some for the next person. If you have a fruit tree in the backyard and you find some birds or insects coming to eat them, don't pick all the fruits; leave some fruits on the tree for them. No need to be selfish.

Oh, here is the link to the video that I referred in the opening paragraph of this post.

https://www.ted.com/talks/matt_cutts_try_something_new_for_30_days?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare