Today evening was made special with friends and I had a nice evening with friends. Thanks to Ishaan Puri and Nikita Garg for hosting a great dinner.
28 April 2023, Gurgaon
Today, I got to know about the accident of my cousin's car around Gajraula. Thank god, he was safe and unharmed after the accident. This is the third accident in my extended family around the same area within Uttar Pradesh. In all the three incidents, the airbags were deployed and the car was noticeably damaged.
Typically, a front airbag will deploy for unbelted occupants when the crash is the equivalent of an impact into a rigid wall at 10-12 mph. Most airbags will deploy at a higher threshold — about 16 mph (~25 kmh) — for belted occupants because the belts alone are likely to provide adequate protection up to these moderate speeds.
Road safety has been poor in India since I have been driving. Blatant disregard of traffic rules and poor driving etiquettes are common in cities. The new expressways are a lot better to drive upon with clearly marked speed limits, modular flow of traffic, appropriate exits and better lighting. All said, in India, it is your responsibility to anticipate the other person's fault while driving.
Road Accident - Pradeep Parashar - April 2023
Today, I met Parth and Divya - a lovely warm couple. Parth is my friend from school and a terrific salesperson. We regularly catchup in Gurgaon over chai and today we met over dinner at his newly setup home - an apartment on the 10th floor, overlooking a water fountain. Creating a home that reflects your personality, lifestyle, and values. Like themselves, they have also setup the home tastefully and kudos to Divya & Parth for the work over the last few months.
A house is made of bricks and beams. A home is made of hopes and dreams.
We enjoyed pizzas for dinner, listened to a variety of music genres - Punjabi pop, Punjabi deep house, electronic music from UK. We discussed the recommendation algorithms of Youtube vs Spotify. We ended the evening with a drive nearby and saada pan. A perfect end to a lazy Sunday.
Idika Parashar, nicknamed Oshee, is my niece and is exactly 1.5 years old today. We stepped out for a family dinner to Fort Jaipur.
The anticipation and excitement of planning a birthday party, selecting a theme, and choosing gifts for the little one is palpable for the family. While she is too young right now to eat most foods at an Indian restaurant, we enjoyed a lot of greasy food and cake while she enjoyed a bowl of jeera rice. Awaiting the upcoming years to visit her favorite restaurants in the coming years as she builds her taste buds. Happy 18 month birthday Oshee!
In this visit to Jaipur, I got connected to several friends and acquaintances due to the habit of posting swimming or exercise stories on Instagram and Whatsapp.
I have not been active on Social Media for year, possibly because of the need of perfection. Since February 2023, I consistently post about my swim in the morning. It is a part of my goal to swim 500 km in 2023 and posting has helped me connect with like-minded friends.
As with most things in life, consistency is key. And I have been consistent in posting the story updates for the last 60 days.
Today, I met two of my acquaintances due to the stories updates. The initial conversation was almost identical - you are already in Jaipur and you did not make a plan to catch up in advance. I saw your story, let's catchup.
Stories were introduced by Instagram in August 2016. They are powerful and consumed by a lot of people. Most people end up consuming content on Social Media, it is quite powerful when you share life updates via Stories. It is a great way to connect with like minded people.
Idika Parashar, nicknamed Oshee, is my niece and is around 1.5 years old now. She lives in Dubai and is a happy kid. It is always a delight when she comes and kids in general are brilliant. Spending even as little as 10 minutes with a kid improves your mood, happiness and reduces stress.
It is much nicer to have conversations while walking. The consistent change of scenery brings freshness and adds to the pace of the conversation. I met friend, Parth Joshi today over a cup of chai and ended up walking and talking for over an hour.
I ended up adding a few new books to my reading list:
I am not active on social media. I do browse around and consume content but I have never been active in posting on social media. It is not an active choice but as a private person, I tend not to post or interact with what others are posting. As an experiment, I did the following:
After performing the activity for around 15 days, I observed the following:
I observed the following about my social network friends:
Dopamine is a really powerful ingredient in the success of social media. I do not find being active on Instagram / Whatsapp to be of much use for me personally. A powerful fact which I looped back to, from the book Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention
Screen time: For the average American, it’s three hours and fifteen minutes. We touch our phones 2,617 times every twenty-four hours.
He adds further about the nature of use of social media. If you are consuming hours of content on social media - thinking that you are being in touch - you are wrong, you are distracting yourself with what others are updating you about!
It’s when you set aside your distractions, he said, that you begin to see what you were distracting yourself from.
Relationships, either personal or business, create situations where people find themselves in the position of nuisance. Typically, in such a case, they are unable to create value for the organization, for themselves or for those near them. But they are capable of causing inconvenience or annoyance. Most rational individuals avoid conflicts, look at the bigger picture but under such circumstances, they are tempted to milk the nuisance.
In businesses, both velocity and acceleration in decision are important for generating meaningful outcomes. In India, a lot of compliances are needed by the Govt of India including signing of documents by Directors. Ofcourse, they are rightfully placed to ensure the checks and balances in Private Organizations.
Many a times, businesses are stalled, demotivated, threatened by the Directors for appeasing their own ego. Negative outcomes are part and parcel of business, nuisance is both negative and demotivating for most businesses.