The Airline Industry and Lessons of Life....

I had moved from a job that got me to travel nationally to one that got me around the world.  In those years, my domestic travel was very little and the biggest casualty was my flying status with the domestic airline.  From a Gold Member, I was quickly downgraded to a Silver and then to the lowest membership level.  From all the check-in and lounge priveleges, it was suddenly, nothing.  An amazing transformation in the way the check-in counter staff of the airline looked at you when you checked in.  I watched a movie in which people went to any extent to keep their flying miles up to date - ironically, on a flight - and realised why.

I have been travelling by air for years now and the only thing I have seen happen with absolute regularity is that the size of seats has been decreasing i.e. becoming narrower.  I am sure some industrial engineer would have told them that they could stuff more seats in to a plane and hence make more profits.  I saw the worst of it on a flight to the US last month.  There was this slightly plump lady who was struggling to get in to her seat and as the flight was going full in the economy section, there was no place where two contiguous seats were empty.  Finally, the airline had to upgrade her to business class.  She struggled quite a bit before fitting in to that seat as well.

This made me think...why do I think so poorly of this industry when it is really keeping us honest!!!  We realise that our positions mean nothing when we retire.  We mistakenly identify ourselves with our positions only to realise that our own staff look straight through us when we retire or move on...by downgrading our status if we dont fly regularly, the airline industry is doing the same.  If we experience this few times, we will never get hit with retirement blues. 

Further, with all this belt-tightening (not the seat belts ofcourse!!!) and seats getting narrower, the airline industry is really forcing us to slim down.  Obesity is one of the biggest challenges that we face as a society today as it moves to become an epidemic.  Obesity, like many other problems, does not come alone..it comes with other ailments such as diabetes, back problems, etc.  This unwritten policy of "slim down or dont fly" from the airline industry has done us a huge favour. Call it Airline Social Responsibility!!!

Life has its ups and downs.  Only when we go through the troughs do we appreciate the peaks.  Troughs help us get level headed and keep our feet to the ground.  The airline industry is like these troughs.  We are well and truly grounded!!!

Attitudes and moods...

I was talking to this 9 year old girl, "Tell your friend to go away...she is really irritating me."  She replied, "My friend is not irritating you...you are getting irritated!!!"  The thunderbolt from this 9 year old hit me very hard.  For many years I have been trying not to react negatively to situations and I have succeeded in getting the better of situations many a time when I have stepped back and thought what to do next.

Most of the time our moods depend on our attitude and how we decide to react to a given situation.  Yet we blame our work conditions, our colleagues, our friends or the not so friendly ones, our families and everyone else on this earth for all stress that we have to put up with.

I read the story of a New York Cabbie who would just smile each time someone cut him off on the road.  When someone asked him as to how he could do that, he replied, "Someone is trying to dump junk on me.  It is now left to me to decide whether I am going to accept it or not.  Since I control whether to accept it or not, I have decided not to accept it."  We have heard of so many stories of violence because of road rage.  If only we could adopt the attitude of this New York Cabbie.

Another story that I have heard and think is worth sharing is about this donkey that fell in to a very deep pit.  He could not get out and started screaming.  The villagers could not tolerate the noise and when they saw this donkey in a very deep pit, they decided that the best course of action was to pour mud in to the pit and bury the donkey. So they started bringing in mud from close by and started filling the pit.  As the first few buckets of mud fell on the donkey's back, he started screaming at the villagers and how ungrateful they were for all the good work that he had done for them.  The mud started filling up and he realised that if he could jump on top of each bucket of mud poured down, he was moving up as the pit got filled.  Soon, the pit was filled up and the donkey was on top and he trotted away happily....deciding never to complain when he is stuck in a lousy situation but to figure out what to do next to get out of it.  They say that "attitude decides your altitude"...in this case, for the donkey, his attitude literally decided his altitude - from the bottom of a deep pit to the top of it!!!

Many a time when something goes wrong for us we think, "Why me?".  Instead, if we decide what to do next, life takes a different turn and, definitely, for the positive.  We can decide whether we want our lives to move positively or not.  Let us take time and decide to live a life with a positive attitude.

When mother earth hits back...

"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction", said Issac Newton and this is his 3rd law of motion.  In the 1800s we went down to 69 feet to get some oil.  Now, we dig thousands of feet in to our earth and below our ocean beds and we do this across the world.  By drilling for minerals and oil, by blasting the earth for metals, by cutting down mountains and trees in the name of development, we have set in motion a series of actions.  She has been receiving all this over the years and patiently putting up with our deeds that destroys her slowly and steadily.  Once in a way, she gets upset and decides to teach these stupid kids a lesson.

She was tired of all the drilling that had been happening all over Asia and in the Indian Ocean.  She lazily stretched her arms (I guess) and the shift in the tectonic plates (measured 9.1 on the Richter Scale) ripped through 30 kms of water from beneath the oceans and triggered of a tsunami that created waves of up to 30 metres, earthquakes that could be felt in Alaska and destroyed coastlines in 14 different countries.  The 2004 Tsunami killed over 240,000 people.  All done and over in few minutes!!!  Millions of dollars worth of property destroyed.  The death toll was 80 times the size of the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on 11 September (please don't mistake me to being insensitive to loss of human lives in New York but was just explaining the scale).

We are the only species credited with the power to think...and, yet, our thoughts seem to be so self-centred.  We kill millions of undersea creatures by conducting nuclear tests, we do deep sea trawling and deep freeze fish that gets eaten after few days/weeks/months, we are probably the only species that kills for entertainment, we do not respect lives of other creatures that live on this earth but expect every other creature to respect our lives.  So, why is a human life more valuable than that of the poor fish that swims happily in the oceans? Have you heard of an animal that kills and stores its food for months before eating?  Have you heard of animals that kill for the sake of pleasure? 

We have now slowly started realising that if we live in harmony with this earth, she will give you much more than what you want.  We call this "sustainability".

Our insatiable need for energy is our biggest reason for digging up our world.  If we decide to invest these dollars towards harnessing the power of the Sun, the Wind, the Oceans, our energy sources will not only be enormous but also completely clean and green.  Instead, we spend millions digging up the earth for coal/oil, create coal based power stations to generate electricity.  We believe that we generate power cheaper with coal than these other natural sources like the sun.  However, if we count the cost of displacement of people as we do indiscriminate mining, the cost of air pollution that causes us to spend millions on treating ourselves for asthma and other lung/body disorders and the real cost of waste disposal, we will hopefully understand that this is really not sustainable and far too expensive.  If she gets angry and decides to stretch her arms once again, the cost we will have to pay will be just far too high.

Governments are battling with companies that mine away in the name of creating wealth but are actually causing maximum damage to our mother earth.  Governments want to charge a special tax on their profits and use that money to fund their schemes for re-settling people, restoring other parts of earth, etc. 

We are marauding mother earth in the name of wealth creation and I believe that the cost we will pay for this will be huge in terms of lives.  Years and years of our efforts will be paid back in minutes!!!

Mathematics and God

I was talking to children who take extra tuition classes and their teachers on why tuition classes were needed and which subjects children really wanted these extra classes.  Most children take tuition in mathematics.  When I was talking to the teachers and children as to why they took maths tuition, it was becoming increasingly clear that some children were frightened of maths. They scored low marks and they just did not want to go through exams without extra tuitions.  I was wondering why this was so with mathematics.  Someone told me that it was because mathematics was abstract and, therefore, difficult to understand. She also told me that Maria Montessori (the founder of the Montessori Method of education) had made it more tangible by making use of materials to make children understand mathematics.  The use of materials to explain maths made it fun for children and it removed the abstract nature of the subject and actually made it tangible - something children learnt by touching and feeling.

This got me thinking of the questions that gets asked by many - Why do you have idol worship in India? or Why do Indians give some kind of a form to God and use photographs or paintings to pray?

Our ancestors seem to have thought through this well.  They quickly realised that the concept of God was difficult to explain because we could not see or feel God.  We had different types of people - some who said that God exists (the theists); some who said that God does not exist (the atheists); and some (the realists) who said, "we do not say God does not exist but it would be great if he/she can help out once in a way".  People were struggling to relate to God and were also struggling to explain to their children on what/who God was.  I believe that is why a form would have been created by our ancestors.  Once form/s were created, then, there had to be stories around how such Gods came about.  That is why we find so many stories on each of the Gods in India.  Most importantly, every element of nature became a God and people could relate to them easily.  This way they also started respecting every aspect of nature and preserved nature - the birth of what I call as The Green God!!!

What this all means is that when something/someone is abstract like mathematics, we need more help in understanding.  God is as abstract.  And, Gurus are these tuition masters.  They help us get closer to the understanding of this abstract God.  The term "GuRu" means "One who removes darkness or ignorance".  Gu stands for darkness or ignorance and Ru means the person who removes this.

I read an interesting interpretation of the term guru by the great Yogi Jaggi Vasudev.  He said that a guru is one who shatters the disciples’ assumptions and beliefs and shows them the truth.  So, what is truth?  As abstract, if not more, than mathematics and God. Truth, like God, is abstract and there is more than one interpretation to it in any given circumstance.

Our teachers built some models and taught us mathematics and when we solved few problems and built models, we started figuring out what maths was.  So, how do we then understand what God is?  Much more complex and that is where the concept of faith comes in.  When the concept of God gets ingrained in to us from when we are young, we start trusting what we have been told since we were young.  This trust turns to faith when things that we pray for happen.  As Paulo Coelho says in his book, The Alchemist, "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."

If we understand that God is nothing but one part of us and if we could use this God in each of us to remove the thoughts in us that is likely to cause harm to others, we will understand that God resides in each of us.  To better understand this and to remove the ignorance in us, we need these teachers - the Gurus.

The concept of faith and God is in each of our minds.  Faith in God creates meaning for us in our lives.  If it is all in our minds and helps us make out the meaning of our lives, I am not sure why we fight wars and kill/hurt each other in the name of God.  I have never seen anyone fight wars and kill/hurt people in the name of mathematics!!!

Your Health...a social responsibility

Maintaining a good work-life balance is essential and all of us have heard this.  But, what does this work-life balance mean?  Is it coming home on time and then plonking oneself on to a sofa and watching TV?  Is it good compartmentalisation of office and home so that we don't carry the problems of home to office and vice-versa?  I used to think that it is easy to leave your thoughts at the doorstep of your office (when coming from home) or of your home (when returning from office). I have tried this many times and failed.  I have now stopped trying and carry my moods through.  I have found that what works for me is to be in the moment wherever you are and with whoever you are.

To me, work-life balance is where you are able to mentally focus completely and honestly at whatever you are doing at office and home...meaning, you should be capable of focussing well at work and you have a passion that consumes your attention at home.  This truly brings out the best in most of us because if we are too focussed on only one aspect - either home or office - we get stale and neglect the other aspect.

Imbalance in work and life causes stress and that in turn impacts health.  Does it worry you if your health is impacted?  Of course, it does. Does it worry others?  Of course, it does.  Your family, friends, colleagues and well wishers are all worried.  The cascading impact is huge.  So, to think that your health is a private issue and that it impacts only you is totally out of whack.  Your health is a social responsibility for you and you owe it not only to yourself to stay healthy but to others as well.  These others value your relationship with them and so, you need to respect that.

I heard a story about a press conference that the Ambani brothers and their late father did in the US.  This was when they were raising funds for one of their projects in the 1990s.  Those were apparently the days when Anil Ambani was fat.  Someone from the audience asked him as to how he could take care of the health of the company and its shareholders if he did not take care of his own health.  Anil came back to India, hired a personal trainer, worked out daily and started getting fit.  After a year, he was in much better shape. He took a photograph of himself and sent it to the person who asked him the question and thanked him for asking that question.  Even to date, he stays very fit. This clearly shows how Anil took the suggestion seriously. Obviously, he had understood that his health was a social responsibility. Millions of shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, his family and many others need him to stay healthy.

The other thing about health is that it is wealth.  It really hits your pocket when you lose it.  I was calculating what it costs to handle a major health problem.  It is equivalent of paying for your gym for at least 15 years.  So, if we had hit the gym daily for the last 15 years, we may have prevented a major health problem.  Further, once we get hit with a major health problem, it creates a deep psychological impact in us.  This reduces the quality of our life.  That is why we hear the saying, "Health is wealth"...though, it is also true that it hits our pockets!!!

Needs, wants and rainy days...

It is election season in the US and the campaigns are at their peaks.  As I watched the news, I saw a constituency where the home loan foreclosures were touching a whopping 79% and all that the candidates were talking off was who is to blame.  No one was offering solutions to the voters.  This is the first time that I am coming across a situation where home foreclosures in a location is as high as 79%.  The pressure must be really high for these families.

These are rainy days for these families.  So, what happened to our old habit of tucking away something for the rainy day?  The Household Savings Rate in India is 24% and in China is 25%.  Germany is at 11%, Japan is 7%, UK is 5.5% and the US is touching 5-6%.  It was hovering at less than 2% in the US till 2007.  With the onset of the Global Financial Crisis, we see an increase in the Savings Rate in the US. The rainy day principle does not seem to be working in some of the developed nations.  I am still wondering why the savings rate in the US is so low.  Maybe the policies of the 1980s famously known as the Reaganomics is a contributor.  These policies resulted in what is now called "Supply creates its own demand"...with more money in the hands of corporations and individuals, consumption shot up.  In the US, consumption is 71% of GDP.  This, combined with easily available loans and increasing asset prices, saw savings rate in the US came down from 10% in the 1980s to 1.4% when the global financial crisis hit all of us.  Over the last 3 years we have seen the savings rate go up but there is a lot of room for improvement.

What does this low savings rate mean for the common man?  This means that if you earn US $100 (disposable income), the whole household saved only $1.4.  Now, picture a scenario of where interest rate goes up and you have to pay more for your mortgages.  Even a very small change in the economic circumstance such as a layoff or a temporary loss of job or an increase in interest rates, would cause tremendous stress in the family because they have to change their consumption habits completely in order to pay off their mortgage commitment.  Those who have saved will be able to manage the crisis.  However, those where the savings is just $1.4 out of $100 will struggle.  The result is default and this is what we are seeing in the US.

Closer home in India, we see inflation going past 10% and food price inflation at close to 18%.  This is because food production has not been able to keep up with increasing population and also the number of people moving above the poverty line.  Though the economy grew by 7%, agriculture grows by only 1.4%.  This has caused a supply side problem and, hence, food price inflation.  What is now needed is inclusive growth where the agriculture industry grows at a faster pace.  This needs investment and more area to be brought under cultivation.  Families have been under stress as they divert money towards food spend.  This has caused stress in families as they have lesser disposable income to manage other expenses.  However, banks have not seen as many housing loan defaults.  This is primarily because of the habit of higher savings.

My dad once told me that he managed his family expenses when his salary was Rs.100 per month in the 1950s and did the same when he earned much more in the 1980s.  He told me that happiness is not in how much more you have to spend but managing within your means.  He told me that if I can limit my needs and wants to be within my means, there would always be better long term consequences.  He must be correct because he managed to maintain his standard of living till he passed away.

When I look at all this, I am reminded of what Buddha taught us in his middle path - to remove greed. He said that most of our problems start because we struggle to contain our needs and wants and after sometime greed takes over.  If we can reduce our needs and wants, I am sure, we will learn to live within our means. This will help us stash away something for that rainy day.

Vacuum at the top

Each time a medical breakthrough is announced, we cheer loudly.  We are willing to pay any amount to save a life. We are willing to spend millions on research to find cures for all the diseases that this Universe can throw at us.  This has increased the average life expectancy significantly - from around 50 in 1900 to close to 76 now.  It is more in some countries - 78 to 80.  So, when I saw the news clipping this morning on how France has come to a standstill because of nationwide strikes to protest against the proposed increase of retirement age from 60 to 62, I was not surprised.  The people were upset that the Government is reducing retirement benefits by increasing the age of retirement.  Most countries are struggling to meet their pension commitments as populations age across the world.

Italian granite and marble was something that would adorn the houses of the really rich in the late 1980s.  The actual marble and granite came from across the world and were cut and polished in Italy.  The finished product (tiles and slabs) were sold all over the world by Italian companies at over 6 to 10 times the price of the raw granite/marble.  There were no complaints then.  So, why is there such a noise today when Fiat wants to shut down its plant in Italy?  I have always maintained economics is a great leveller!!!

Closer home, in India, the Common Wealth Games are over and a probe has been ordered in to the alleged corruption in the procurement of goods and services for the games by Government Officials.   China has stated last week that Norway has sent the wrong signals by awarding Liu Xiaobo the Nobel Peace Prize.

Wherever you turn, you will find something not going too well or disagreements leading to rhetoric and, many a time, violence.  Violence on a scale that causes destruction to life and property.

To me, all this shows that there is a lack of leadership and an absolute lack of tolerance in us.  Leadership, that is both inspiring and engaged, is essential to manage these kind of issues in every country.  Such a leadership will also bring about the much needed tolerance in our society.  Most country leaders are not leading from the front anymore.  Leading the country has become more a job than a passion.  Leadership seems to be coming through coups, by father passing on the mantle to the son or daughter (whether he/she deserves the position), through violence, through machinations...and the list goes on.  As a society, we seem to be passive to these poor leaders that we select.  When the CEO of a company misses the mark for few quarters in a row, the Stock Market and the Board of Directors/Shareholders, move quickly to replace him/her.  Should there be such a system for our political leaders too where their quarterly or half yearly results are published and debated?  Where they are replaced if they fail to manage the country well?

Just like the CEO needs to position a company well in the market so that it survives, it is the job of the Political Leader (call him/her the President or Prime Minister or King or Queen) to position the country well so that it survives in this world.  If a company does not give its CEO more than 6 months to prove himself/herself, why should we give 4 or 5 years to these Political Leaders?  Is it because countries are larger than companies and so, they will need more time...fine, let us give them a year and then after that judge them every quarter or half year.  These unrests are happening because our leaders are not thinking ahead. 

These Political leaders need to position their respective countries appropriately for their strengths and take accountability for their actions.  The topic of outsourcing has caused so much noise and rhetoric.  Beyond all this rhetoric, I am sure we all heard the American President say that the US must position itself firmly in Research & Development and use its strengths in this.  Bingo Mr.President!!!  Hope more countries look towards creating a workforce in their respective countries that is relevant to the new social order.

I am reminded of a story.  A Chinese emperor was growing old and was worried that his son was no where near having the qualities of becoming the King.  So, he called for his son (the Prince) and told him to go to the forests and seek out an old monk who would train him to be the King.  The Prince went off in to the jungles and located the old monk.  He walked up to the monk with a swagger and introduced himself and told him that the Emperor had sent him (the Prince) to be trained by the monk.  The old monk asked him to go in to the forest, listen to the sounds that he heard, and come back and report to him.  The Prince sniggered, rode off in to the forest and came back in the evening. He told the old monk of the sounds of the rivers, the rustling trees, the breaking twigs, the singing birds, etc.  The old monk shook his head in disapproval and sent off the Prince again. Months had gone by and the Prince still did not hear the sounds that the old monk expected.  The once over confident Prince was completely out of depth.  As he was lying on the grass one day thinking of the really long months he had spent in the forest, he suddenly heard the sound.  In joy, he rode back to the old monk, walked up to him (without the pomp that he had shown months ago), bowed and told the old monk of how he had heard the sound of the flower blooming...the Old Monk smiled and stopped him and said, "You are now ready to be the Emperor.  The person who sees the unseen, hears the unheard and speaks the unspoken, is the Leader that this world needs."