Abhijit's blog

If you smoke three packs a day for 40 years and die of lung cancer, your family blames the tobacco company.

If the children are mannerless, disobedient brats, the parents blame television.

If the cook cuts his finger off while slicing vegetables at work, he blames the restaurant.

If you get poor grades at college, you blame the professors.

If your neighbor crashes into a tree while driving home drunk, he blames the bartender.

If your kid can’t read or spell, you blame the Internet.

If someone is shot by a lunatic, his friends blame the gun manufacturer.

…

It seems we’re always owed, we owe nothing and are accountable for nothing. Tough to come to grips with such a world.

Earlier this year, Jeff Bezos of Amazon gave the commencement speech at Princeton University¹. During his speech, he narrated an anecdote that earned him a profound lesson from his grandfather: it is harder to be kind than clever. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. How kind you are speaks significantly louder about you as a person than how clever you are.

I admit, with some regret, that I’m just another of a vast majority of people who are more clever than kind. More aptly, who spend more time being clever than they do being kind. Our life is steered by inertia rather than conscious choice, of that I’m convinced because this tendency doesn’t seem natural. There’s a strong cognitive dissonance that lurks beneath every word and action that isn’t well directed, but it is far too easy to get carried away.

But the choice is ours to make. I’ve made mine – this can not be who I am. My life goal is to make a valuable difference, be it big or small but indelible, in the lives of others. If that means I must transform my way of word or deed, then that’s what I’ll do.

I’m sure many have a similar goal in life. If you’re reading this, here’s a little takeaway – don’t just be yourself. Be someone a little nicer.

Lesson #1: More isn’t always better.

“When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men’s minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully.
Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.”
Cicero

I’ve been working hard on practicing this, particularly in professional communication.

And I’ve started blogging again. As simple as that.

This is the sixth incarnation of my blog. I’ve always wanted to blog regularly, so I could improve my writing. Yet, I’ve always approached it like a kid building a sand castle, piling it up until it held my interest and then kicking away my labor of love in a fit of disillusionment. The longest I’ve maintained an active blog was for 13 months which, admittedly, is not enough to make anyone good at writing. I’ve focused more on the wrong things, such as the looks over matter. But this time, I start wiser. A simple layout, emphasis on content, and a revised quest — not perfection, but continuous improvement. Emerson, Hemingway forced themselves to write simple while being prolific, and I’ll try to do the same.

I will most probably not reach their lofty heights, but hopefully create and nurture something to be proud of.