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  • My Tale of Productivity

    HOW I FOUND OUT “MY PRODUCTIVITY” ?

    One morning, I woke up to my iphone notification. A screen popped open and I saw a report of my week long productivity. It displayed my screen time and categorized my usage neatly. On an average , each day, it declared, I was fruitful for barely a few minutes. And shamefully, that number was lower than the previous week.

    I was surprised and anxious with this new discovery. I wondered what it meant and if I needed to improve my “productivity”? I turned to google to solve my worry. The search returned a gazillion results and I was amazed that the topic garnered such popularity.

    AND THEN I DISCOVERED THE CHASE OF PRODUCTIVITY

    Over the next few days, I received Linkedin feeds with tips to increase daily productivity. Good reads recommended self help books and Youtube suggested “Efficiency tips for all activities”. I felt chased by this whole new industry that was thriving out there and feeding on my worry. The need to be productive was packaged and marketed with several success stories. It was hard to question this need when everyone offered a solution already.

    SO, I SEARCHED THE ROOT OF PRODUCTIVITY

    I looked up further and discovered the history. The origin of productivity went back to 18th century. When agriculture couldn’t produce enough surplus, we devised the term -“land productivity”. It measured the yield of crops per hectare land and served an indicator of agricutural output. The idea was simple and implied improving material efficiency.

    Then came the industrial evolution and productivity became an indicator of profitability. It measured the units of output produced per input cost. Labour was a cost. And in our bid to increase productivity (& thereby profitability), we started focusing on labour efficiency.

    AND HOW IT EVOLVED TO HUMAN PRODUCTIVITY

    The need for labour efficiency gave birth to the concept of human productivity. We became result centric and measured all activities in terms of productivity.

    Our desperation to be fruitful, narrowed our choices. We pursued all actions that guaranteed an outcome and spent little time in self discovery.

    Productivity equals success equals self worth became the idea and we tuned our minds to this assembly line thinking.

    AND THEN I STOPPED WORRYING ABOUT PRODUCTIVITY

    I decided, I no longer needed to be reminded of my productivity. I couldn’t let an industry thrive on my vulnerability.

    I snoozed my iphone reports so my mind wandered free. I felt unburdened and suddenly relieved.

    That’s when I started writing my two cents on productivity.

    © Copyright 2020. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.

  • How I spent four years in The Netherlands

    YEAR 1 : The Honeymoon Period

    Europe has always amused me as a child so I was really excited when my boyfriend (now spouse) asked me to join him in Netherlands. I was young, in my 20’s (head over heels in love), and quickly agreed to move to Netherlands.

    My first year in Netherlands is what I call -” The Honeymoon Period”. I was in awe of the picturesque landscape of this country. On my way from airport to home, I saw windmills, cows and pastures. The cows were so white that it seemed they were painted and I remember clicking photos while the bypassers stared.

    We were headed to live in the most popular city of the Netherlands – Amsterdam.

    In my first month, I stumbled over countless bicycles that always came with lightning speed. It occurred to me later, that I wasn’t supposed to walk on some roads – the cycle paths. The centre of the city was densely populated and we strolled neck to neck on shopping streets. We spent weekends discovering cafes, bars and clubs.To my surprise, I saw weed and Marijuana sold on street outlets – named “Coffee shops!” . Beer was sold in supermarkets and people relaxed on boats in canals, while sipping Heineken and soaking the sun.

    It was unlike any other country I’ve been to and I imagined if this was what they meant by paradise!

    YEAR 2 : Take me back, please!

    The honeymoon period was over soon and I started taking notice of my surroundings more. In the months that followed, I became grumpy old woman who constantly cribbed and announced to go back home. I hated the weather which was so unpredictable and kept questioning which season it was? I walked to work, drenched in rain and fought the wind to get back home. Most weekends, there was no sun and I laid on my sofa watching television.

    Months went by and the boredom peaked. So, I decided to undertake a mission to socialize. Beginning with the closest proximity, I approached our neighbour. – Ms. Linde. I stopped by her door while she muttered in Dutch. I waved my head while I tried to listen. She smiled at me and I just felt dumb. It seemed, I needed a hearing aid coz all I could hear was “Ghhs” and Hello.

    I tried my luck with the next the two floors, ringing their bells with quite some hope. Neither responded so I came back home and switched on the T.V ,once more. Tired and resentful, I announced again – “I will go back. Would you also come?”.

    YEAR 3 : A Ray of hope


    Soon, new year arrived and I made new resolutions. I remember, this year was “A Ray of Hope”. I decided to master Dutch, so I joined a language course. Learning from basics – the alphabets, numbers and months, I felt being back to the primary school. The good thing though, was I met more expats who shared my plight and reckoned my struggle. We formed a cult and I booked our agendas so my weekends were no longer dull.

    At home, I displayed my brand new skills and babbled dutch words every day. I became hopeful and my happy self, relieving my spouse from new complaints.

    YEAR 4 : Orientation Completed

    My training, last year, infused Dutch culture and I found myself in between crossroads. I celebrated King’s day and also Diwali. I couldn’t miss Easter or Sinterklaas either.

    At home, things changed too and we changed food menu. We bought a book to cook dutch food . My spouse split bills and I split chores. We bought new cycles and rolled through the city. I crashed some tourists , who walked wrong roads.

    Orientation ends. Year 5 begins..!

    © Copyright 2020. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.

  • ‘C’ for Coronavirus

    I was shopping in the market,
    when they all flee,
    Saying, “death by corona
    will come to thee”
    I stopped by my friend,
    who would not see me
    Saying, “We are quarantined,
    My wife and me”
    So, I sat down in a restaurant,
    But they did not feed me
    Saying, “ We are closed
    Until further decree”
    Alas, I reached home
    & switched on T.V.
    Watching lock down news
    while the dead counts spree    .

    (The Coronatime has made me either creative or crazy!)

    On the evening of 24th March, India announced a nationwide lock down starting midnight. Back then, I was on a vacation in India so the news brought some stress and worry. Domestic flights were shut. International flights cancelled. Theaters, restaurants, shopping malls, public transport and e-commerce were put to a grinding halt. My return to Amsterdam was suddenly unpredictable. All I could do was wait and watch, in hope that the normalcy would return soon.

    That was the time when India had registered close to 300 corona cases and seven deaths. It was hardly comparable to the plight of Italy and Spain. So, I wondered if the lock down was due pandemic or panic.

    As it turns out now, it does not matter which one it was, for either reason could have not have changed the outcome – The soaring number of deaths in this country.

    There exists no right way to lock down a nation that has the second largest population in barely 2 percent of the world surface. In India, close to 64 million people (almost the size of Italy) live in slums. Mumbai hosts the largest slum of Asia which is so congested that no man can live in more than 2 sq mt space. It is the saturation like this that makes social distancing unrealistic. Hence, many people get infected and some die in spite of a lock down.

    While some may die of Corona itself, many more die of its Collateral damage.It is estimated that more than 300 million workers (including landless laborers, self-employed and daily wage earners) are on the verge of losing their livelihood in India. This is owning to the lock down and the subsequent job losses. Most of these people, live hand to mouth and are unable to sustain on their meager savings. Government surpluses can help them buy rations but the surge in black markets keeps supplies out of reach. Cash subsidies can help them survive but since most don’t own a bank account, their fates remain unchanged.

    Apart from above two, there also exists a third category of dead in this crisis – People who die in the name of God’. Religion is bigger than science in India. It is for this reason, amidst lock down, thousands gathered in mosques and temples and god knows how many other holy places. The paranoia following these incidents not only spread the pandemic and raised death counts but also queues riots after corona.

    Over a month has passed now, watching this existential crisis in India. The country has now more than 70000 cases and close to 2000 deaths. (and numerous unaccounted Corona Causalities). All of this, in the period of lock down. It is not certain how and when the crisis will finally end. Neither can we rely on any predictions. It is also not certain how the country will look in the aftermath of crisis and how normal our lives would be. For all we can do now is – wait and watch, while this alters the course of our history.

    © Copyright 2020. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.

  • God save humanity!

    Close to 75000 species become extinct every year. This is nearly 1000 times the natural rate. (Thanks to the human intervention). We have 8.7 million species today. At this rate, all of them will be extinct in 116 years. A Stanford study estimates that our civilization might collapse by 2100.

    Doomsday theories are so prevalent that our minds are on auto pilots to tune them out. There are more than 300 movies about apocalypse and we still haven’t run out of ideas how humanity will cease to exist. As ridiculous as they may sound, the underlying message that someday our species will disappear is not untrue. This certainity is not my belief but an obvious conclusion based on our historical performance. To digest the idea one needs to understand the key to our performance – Human behaviour. So, lets look at it in a very simplistic way.

    Humans are lazy by nature. We invent to live in comfort. Think of agriculture for example. Humans were wanderers before this invention. We were on a constant move in search of food. When we found out how to grow wheat, we settled around a farm to live a comfortable life. With more time at hands, we found pleasure in procreating, producing more hungry mouths than we could feed. To feed them, we found technology, fertilizers and pesticides. We cut down forests to farm new lands. We learned to domesticate animals and made their lives miserable.

    When crops did not suffice, we switched to meat. Animals were bred, fed on farms until they were ready to be shipped for factory slaughter. More forests were cut for animal grazing. More animals cut to produce more meat. Water, trees, birds and animals perished, creating a deadly imbalance in nature.

    It is this imbalance that started the mutilation. So, the ozone is now damaged, the Arctic is melting, the temperatures are soaring, the mountain glaciers disappearing. Hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes and pandemics are appearing out of the blue. More than 50 million people die every year in these natural disasters. All of this started with agriculture, that we discovered to settle down and save ourselves from the labour of hunting.

    Being lazy might have turned out bad but being intelligent, even worse. Humans use their intellect to solve problems at hand. While, we solve one, we create many unforeseen that are worse than the original problem. Back in stone age, we were glad to build stone arrows for hunting animals. In the years following, we improvised to swords and axes. Pistols and machine guns were invented to kill in an instant. An atom bomb was built to wipe out a town. A nuclear bomb could take down a country and biologically engineered virus can perhaps, take down the whole of humanity. Today, more than 1.6 million people die of violence caused by the weapons. (The ones we invented originally to hunt deers).

    Inspite of all this, we live in constant fantasy to explore. You shouldn’t be surprised when someone ate a chimpanzee, only to discover AIDS or when a scientist inventing blood transfusion died in a transfusion or when radiation killed the one who found it . Living in this world of unknown, we cannot fight the desire to explore, to be smarter and find more comfort. It is often our bid to do better that backfires and keeps us constantly bandaging the wounds. With our persistent efforts and a megalomaniac vision, we sure will take our breed to grave one day.

    © Copyright 2020. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.

  • Why things go wrong at work?

    Do you wonder why things are not looking good at work? Why does your hard work not pay off proportionally? Why is it that Tom, Dick & Harry got promoted while you are stuck here (reading this post)? Maybe it’s your first time experiencing this disappointment? Or may be you have had this frustration before? When things don’t seem good constantly, there may a reason underlying it.

    In 1969, a psychologist named Dr. Laurence Peter came up with a principle – The Peter Principle that explains how an organisational hierarchy functions. It drills down the cause of why things really go wrong at workplace. While It may seem quite old, I found his wisdom relevant, even today. In fact, they even teach this in several management curriculum.

    Why are some employees so Incompetent?

    Do you ever wonder why you are surrounded by incompetent morons? (well, you may have at least one around?). Think about it this way – The skills required to get a job often have nothing to do with the job itself. This, is relevant in every job and every industry.

    Consider Presidency for example, the skills required to run and win a political campaign are quite different from what it takes to do the actual job. Trump lives this example. Similarly, there is nothing about being a great surgeon that prepares a doctor to run a hospital. So by this means, a lot of people who shine bright in interviews might lack the skills to perform their job. No wonder, why you are stuck with them! 😕

    And why are they getting promoted?

    Speaking about promotions, there is a simple theory to this much coveted phenomenon. Everyone in an organization keeps on getting promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. At that point they stop being promoted. So given enough time and enough promotion levels, every position in a firm will be occupied by someone who can’t do the job.”

    How do we let this happen?

    The truth is, employees in a hierarchy do not really object to incompetence. They merely gossip about it. Question is, how can an employee move up the ladder when blocked by someone who has reached his level of incompetence? The answer – he can’t. Neither by his efforts nor by the help of a patron. This is because demotion is a rare phenomenon. The only way to rise up the ladder is to move into a promotion channel that is not blocked. In reality, this is often visible when people change departments or leave companies.

    What happens when you are super competent?

    If you are a supremely competent employee surrounded by idiots, you probably should be worried about your fate. 🙄 In most hierarchies, super-competence is more objectionable than incompetence. Ordinary incompetence, as seen, is no cause for dismissal: it is simply a bar to promotion. Super-competence often leads to dismissal, because it disrupts the hierarchy, and thereby violates the first commandment of hierarchical life: the hierarchy must be preserved.

    Then, how do we get the work done?

    If everyone eventually gets promoted to reach his or her level of incompetency, do you not wonder who really is turning the wheels at work? 😳 Well, we rarely find such a system where every employee has reached his level of incompetence. Work is accomplished by those, who have not yet reached their level of incompetence. In most instances, something is being done to delay their progress, so the hierarchy can still exist.

    What does this mean for you?

    Now you know why things don’t go well at work. You may be the one causing it 😉 OR perhaps you are just a victim of Peter principle. Question is, can you change your situation? Maybe. this is easier said than done.

    Most organizations, these days, employ techniques to avoid the pit falls of Peter Principle. They attempt to flatten their organisational hierarchy. Be it by being agile or be it by sharing 360 degree feedback or be it any other mechanism. The truth is, while this might work for some, in most cases it just brings a false sense of accomplishment. (we aren’t all competent to steer this change)

    So, going by the record, the Peter principle is here to stay, We can’t really get completely rid of it. Perhaps, it just helps to know that it exists and that’s why things go wrong at work!

    © Copyright 2020. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.

  • What was it like to visit Auschwitz?

    If you haven’t heard of Auschwitz, Imagine a slaughter house (not for animals, but for humans). Imagine a place where millions of Jews were confined for years, tortured to death by hard labour, thirst, extreme hunger and suffocation. The reason for death being- neither Crime nor War but the belief in a superior race. Imagine how humans could be responsible for more than a million deaths in a place this small. (in the name of saving humanity from other humans – Jews). Auschwitz is not old history but very much a part of recent century. Nazi Germany master minded this extermination camp (and many others) during world war ii with the sole aim of systematically eradicating the race of Jews.

    So last year, when I planned my visit to Auschwitz, it was not unusual for people to ask why I would choose to go there? Wouldn’t it be depressing? In my defense, not visiting this place, merely excuses us from reality, hoping we forget it someday. There is No history book that can convey the happenings of this place to a degree that it instils your memory.

    Somewhere inside Auschwitz, I found this quote that sums up the reason why people need to see this place.

    I cannot deny the fact that this place is downright melancholy. You would be standing in the site of holocaust witnessing Exhibits of the dead (millions) piled on top of one another. It has a room full of belongings that were stripped off from the inmates before they entered the camp. A room full of gas canisters that were used to suffocate them to death. A room full of human hair that were shaved off from their dead bodies before being burned by the Nazis.

    A guide will take you around the camp and tell you how a typical day looked like for these prisoners. You will see the laboratory that was used to experiment on prisoners, inducing them with deadly diseases. You will see the kitchen that has some paintings that the prisoners drew to keep themselves hopeful. You will also see the punishment cells, gas chambers, the shooting wall and a room fitted with body sized ovens. If this does not melt your heart, a thousand photo frames mounted in a large corridor showing the victims, their age and survival span in the camp, definitely would.

    By the end of this visit, you are loaded emotionally. Some cry, some hold back tears. Some ponder how humans could be capable of this act. How could some still hope to live in this situation. How strong were the people who survived the camp? Does the trauma impact their free lives later on?

    This wasn’t over for me yet. I was feeling restless. A visit to Auschwitz raised some very fundamental questions about human nature, survival and our relative mental strengths. I slept on these questions for days following. Later, I learned about an Auschwitz survivor, a psychologist – Viktor Frankl. Viktor was one of the fortunate ones to have survived this place. He says, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any how “. For Viktor, the why was a hope to finish his book about logotherapy. He wrote this book after he was released from the camp. What was supposed to be psychology theory, turned out to be a truly personal account of his survival in Auschwitz detailing how the camp impacted the inmates psychologically, why some survived while others didn’t.

    His book “Man’s search for meaning” was published in 1946 and became an instant bestseller. I read it a month after my visit and regard this as a closure to my quest for Auschwitz.

    P.S – The photo at the top, shows the gate of Auschwitz in scripted as ARBEIT MACHT FREI” meaning work makes you free.

    Paradoxically, It was death that made these inmates free.

    © Copyright 2020. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.

  • Why I stopped watching the News?

    Sunday night news, everyone in my family was watching it except for me. I watched news occassionally earlier but only recently have I started despising it. In times of pandemic when everyone is stuck in their homes, news is all we have on television. The soap operas (thankfully) are not being produced anymore. Reality shows are put to a grinding halt. There is no Movie production or release planned for the entire quarter. We have more than 10 news channels to pick from. Each one following coronovirus day and night and counting deaths every minute. There is so much information out there and so many theories that one can write a book out of it (that actually sells).

    But to be honest, I find the news channels polarising. They not just deliver facts but create a sentiment, voice strong opinons and publicise it. Almost all news channels are now backed by a political party and the funding ensures the interests of party are addressed. This is not to say that all news channels are biased but they frame facts such that it influences public sentiments in a certain direction (conveniently ignoring facts which might keep our opinion balanced)

    To give you an instance, few days back, a news channel announced how an Indian Prime Minister is leading the world leaders in formulating the corona strategy. This was monumental for the nation. I was amused. The news was delivered by a foreign lady and that made it seem like this was some world news channel. Upon some research, I discovered the channel was owned by the then government in power. That explained the news. Imagine, the fake pride and respect it induced within the citizens of India who would line up to vote the current ruling party next elections.

    I also saw news showing theories of labs in china that aided spreading the virus. Some call it china virus. Some say this is a biological weapon for world war III. Whether or not the theories stand right, the photos of bats, labs, testubes and sound effects coupled with it are enough to induce anti chinese sentiment.

    And what about Anti Muslim agenda that is already on rise? Surely, after the corona episode, people won’t mind voilence within Muslim communities. The news channels have been buzzing about Jamats and how they are responsible for spreading the virus. It sure can be a story but imagine when you listen to this, all week on over ten news channels, would you remember which category of Muslim population is responsible or would you remember that Muslims in general are responsible? Constant reinforcement of information creates this radical opinion.

    It is bizzare to see how news channel can gather so much content around the pandemic that the only thing to talk about all day is The Pandemic. What happened to the war in Iraq? Why isn’t trump impeached yet? Is climate change still on the agenda? I am curious about all these topics except that I don’t get to choose what I should think about when I am bombarded with corona information all the time.

    20 years ago, we had one channel on the television. It was the channel for everything (not just dedicated to news). News was delivered by a middle aged women in a monotonous tone in half an hour segment. It consisted of concise facts leaving it upto the audience to form their own opinion. No sound effects, no graphical remakes. People were not brainwashed but open to ideas, discussions and other people in general.

    Unfortunately, times have changed now and so had the news. I thought, the only way out of this constantly stirring intolerance is to stop watching the news channels altogether. I thought it better to not have an opinion than have a radical one.

    Now, I scroll through headlines on print media for limited time each day. The silence gives me space to think, choose my interests and form an opinion that is original and somehow my own.

    Its Sunday night again. Today is the Prime Minsiter’s address to the nation. Everyone is watching the news at home except for me. The me will instead read the highlights later tomorrow.

     

    © Copyright 2020. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.

     

  • My first read in 2019 glued me to books again!

    Back in 2019, that feeling of emptiness kicked in. I had a well paying job, good work life balance, a loving family, good health but I kept wondering if this is it? Will I keep repeating this for the next 50 years of my life? (Thats assuming my life expectancy of 80 yrs or so).

    I was 31 then and wondered if this was what they call mid life crisis. It seemed a bit too early for that. I watched umpteen series on Netflix, changed jobs twice in two years, travelled to a new country almost once a month. I was trying to find some meaning to my life, I think.

    Sometime then, we went to a live comedy show by Kevin Hart. I watched his shows on television (always funny) and he was one of the very few comedians I knew by name. We bought tickets to his show and were not disappointed. I still remember some of his jokes. His strength, what I think is powerful story telling. He makes you imagine every scene to the precise perfection like he envisions. He laughs with you so hard that you feel like he and you are in the same scene.

    It was after this show, that I also heard about his book – I can’t make this up – life lessons kevin hart. I just bought it thinking it would be a funny bedtime read. I didn’t expect any more from it then.

    It didn’t occur to me then that comedians can also write about themselves, about their life and that it has power to inspire someone. Now to be clear, I had no dream of becoming a comedian myself (not that I could. I don’t find humour easy!) but I still found his book inspiring. What I liked most about it is the tone. Its like kevin is sitting next to you and talking to you. Now he is not giving you some bullshit piece of advice but merely telling you what his childhood was like. What did he do before he became a comedian? How he became one? His marriage, kids, life and so on. And that picture he paints with his story is so real and impactful that you feel like you were right there – when he was growing up, when he had no money, when he was rejected for shows (the ones that chase him now) and when he finally made to the grand stage.

    My favourite character from the book is his mother who left no stone unturned to discipline Kevin. He describes her like a military officer in disguise of a Mom. Kevin was downright scared of her. He kept lying to her all his childhood to escape her strict regime. But in the end, it is indeed his mom who grinded those habits in him that could make him committed to his career.

    Whats also interesting to know from kevin is how difficult comedy really is. How every line in a comedy show is scripted, practised several times with multiple audiences before it is staged live. The punches are improvised for timing, the story is personalised to connect. After rigourous rehearsal and re- rehearsal, the comedian puts his show to the final audience (which might/might not laugh as expected). The audience has power to make or break comedian’s career, his hard earned time on stage.

    I finished this book in about a week’s time. I could not help but notice how energetic and optimistic Kevin seems irrespective of his field of work which is so repetitive and exhaustive. He made plenty of bad choices in his life but that does not stop him from making new ones. Infact, he is till exploring.

    After reading this book, I planned to brush up my lost passions. Reading was one of them and so is writing. I did not do either since four years. I have resumed them now. Not to gain anything but strangely, when you practice something you like, that feeling of emptiness suddenly disappears.

    In 2019, I read 24 books. I also bought a journal app for my phone to start writing again. I write most days.

    Thanks! To Kevin! To my first book in 2019!

    Buy your next read here

     

    © Copyright 2020. Megha Gupta. All rights reserved.