Toastmaster CC4 - Four Words

As we start, would request you all to close your eyes, please.

Now imagine a very frustrating moment you witnessed lately. I mean really those moments that made you literally crush your teeth and left you wanting to scream. Oh how the hell you maintained your sanity after that, only you will know! Had there been a Noble Prize for such cases, you definitely would have got a nomination, if not the prize.

Please now open your eyes. You would have noticed that most such frustrating teeth- crunching moments happen where someone we care or love is involved. Aah, I see a soft nod from most married ones!

My dear Toastmasters, such moments came into my life with Sandy. I first met her as my roommate at boarding school. In the beginning it was just her study table and bed being overloaded with her books, clothes, bag, empty food wrappers and what not. Soon the overload spread to her almirah, my table-bed-almirah and thereafter everywhere in the room. There would be times I had to literally fight the urge to just pick my bed sheet and dump all her stuff on the ground.

I tried to help out but thereafter it was more like giving inputs about how this lack of tidiness and responsibility would eventually lead to her own loss. She missed preparing for her Maths exam as was unable to locate her notebook in the dump. And I told her I told you so! Our room was voted the worst room in the whole dorm for year 1. And I told her I told you so! Our room remained voted as the worst room 4 years in the row and I said “I told you so!” Once she missed locating her cash to be paid to the cash shop and she was unable to give her birthday party treat. “Sandy, I told you so!” Despite it all, we remained good friends.

Odd as it may seem, we again ended up as flat mates when working in Geneva together and still she hadn’t changed much. Unfinished food plates, empty wrappers were always left in the common room. The weekly cleaner used to charge extra for this and while Sandy would be seen shelling it out, I would just stand to say “I told you so!”  Once we even faced a power blackout on Friday evening because Sandy missed paying the bill on time and we could not any power back before Monday. “I told you so!”

My salary was quite low then and I was barely scratching the surface. My parents used to be quite worried as to why I was struggling so much – working so late and making so little. Once when my parents came visiting, the first thing I did was to push Sandy out to make room for them to stay with me. The house was spic and span! I took my parents out to one of the finest places I could afford to make it all feel nice and good. But parents then are parents – they know it all. At the airport I stood hearing my share of “I told you so”.

Soon after I reached home feeling low and there she was. Sandy. One look at me, and it was as if she knew the problem. She came and hugged me saying “Everything gonna be okay”. This made me feels quite bad about me, imagining the million times I said “I told you so” and here she was making me feel better.

These four words became the most important lesson of my life. So anytime I get a bad beating in life – be it something going off track, a bad review from the boss, kid getting hurt – I just think and repeat “Everything gonna be ok”. And frankly it has always been okay eventually, some later than most but then it has been always okay eventually.

So my dear toastmasters, the next time on you feel low, you feel that it is difficult not getting up from here, or something having gone down that frustrating path, just say “Everything gonna be okay”!

Thank you

Toastmaster CC3 - Is my life cool enough?

A friend today felt forced to book a Hong Kong holiday as his family was eager for a foreign holiday after seeing holiday posts from their FB friends. Another friend last week decided to use Botox to ensure she gets the perfect #justwokeup pictures for her Instagram.

While first one came as a reaction to some actual trip posts, the second one seems to be a desired state of “far from reality” existence leading to frustration and mayhem in lives around. Hashtags like #IWokeUpLikeThis, #Effortless, #Amazing holiday, etcetera many a times send a story out where the receiver may not be sure if the selfies or travel photos are edited or not, taken a zillion times before posting one or not. As per a study done by Carnegie University, India has seen maximum selfie led accidental deaths till Sep 16 in the world; its 76 out of total 126.

Isn’t it the state of insta lies that makes many of us feel at loss of our peace of mind to start with? Do we need these tools of social media to tell us how cool our life really is? My dear Toastmasters, in my third CC, I would like to discuss how the cool quotient has increasingly become dependent on perceptions initiated from the social media.

In today’s time our “cool quotient” isn’t really about how “cool” one really is but rather how it is perceived on social media. It has rather become a parading ground for people boasting about their promotions at work, cute babies, new homes, marathon times, culinary miracles, engagements, weddings and idyllic holidays. People are determined to out-do their nearest and dearest, and brag on sites like Facebook, Instagram or status updates on Whats App under the guise of sharing their news.

Sometimes I feel that clearly there is a market for startups that Photoshop your image into pictures of groups of people doing cool things, and regularly uploads these to Facebook or Instagram, along with automatically-generated fake descriptions of these fake cool things you are allegedly doing.  Your friends will be impressed!

As for WhatsApp, the business of creating those “ready-to-be-forwarded” messages has grown well and with Reliance Jio, it’s sure to get double digit growth especially in India.

If we look at the size of how social networks have grown, it is huge. Too big to ignore today, Facebook has a membership of 1.94 billion active accounts. This would mean that 26% of global population actually is on Facebook, or to explain better, one in four humans on planet Earth is active on FB. Other sites like Whats App aren’t far behind really, having almost 18% of global population using it.

The impact overall is huge. Oxford Dictionary has added “Facebook”, “Instagram” and “insta lie” as verbs. And it is the positives that can be drawn from it all.

Imagine home bakers like Parvati who are not big enough to have her own bakery and paraphernalia. From her FB page, she caters to many like me supplying amazing cakes and bakery products. Consider those Whats App groups which allow us to share information easily, like the parents’ group at my kid’s school! My father has been quite happy lately as he not only has managed to connect with his school friends on FB but also is keen on connecting with old colleagues on a Whats App group. Social media effectively has allowed ease in exchange of information.

It’s of course, your own choice to accept things. So if you experience any pressure by looking at my FB posts, it’s practically your own creation - a case of a mouse falling in his own trap? It becomes easy to blame others for this so-called pressure. But then who are we fooling? Isn’t it a self-created self-craved interpretation we desire? We feel it is imminent that we are perceived in the social media as well-groomed, well-traveled, cultured, having a great family life and being loved at office. We don’t make time to call and meet people around; rather we like to post and receive likes for our exciting social life. Whose fault it then actually is?

After hearing my speech, the audience will be able to understand that social media should not actually be taken as a mirror of our society but rather a petri dish that we wish our respective microscopic evaluations of our respective lives. Clicking selfies, posting dinner pics on FB, etc is fine but then more important is to enjoy and experience the moment itself, and of course, yourself. It is better to live life than to look for it on the screens, my friends.

Thank you