Monday, December 31, 2018

2018 A Personal Review

It feels like writing a review for the year 2017 yesterday! (the exact lines I used to start the previous years' review!)

This year has been equally fantastic as well if not better.

Starting with the coach.me statistics habit wise

Meditation: Every month is a tower! A streak of perfect 365 days! If counted from the previous year this is a 552-day streak! No misses whatsoever in the meditation practice of 2 hours every day. When I was flying, feeling tired, feeling happy, feeling excited, different places, different countries, I always meditated. It has become a habit and I think one more year if I maintain this sort of discipline I should remove this tracking from my list because it's as effortless as brushing my teeth. I have a target for this year however is to have more sittings in Adhitaana posture - the posture of strong determination. I did a lot in 2018 with few 2-hour Adhitaana sittings and many 2-hour marathon sittings as well. I would want to pump this to 3-4 hours/day to have more returns. I am optimistic and I think this should be achievable in the new year! Last year this was at 278 days.


Reading: Compared to 275 days last year, this year it was 333!, which is a clear improvement. Although the velocity was not as much as it was in the year 2016, I still was able to complete a humble 14 books. Some of them were mammoth books like 4-hour workweek, Unscripted. I also re-read Swami Vivekananda's Karma Yoga. Planning to continue the same discipline this year as well!

Yoga/Stretching: This has taken a hit in the year 2018 compared to the year 2017. Only 29 check-ins in the entire year compared to 91, 109 in the previous two years! Yes, I am a bit embarrassed. I will have to see how to bump this to at least 100 this year.

Sports Activity: Compared to the previous year of 44 and 51, this year saw a total of 30. Ideal for this is to be around 52. At least I know how I did last year, will definitely need some improvement in this new year.


Waking up on time: 238 Check-ins in the year 2018. Compared to previous years 250. I will definitely have to push this to upwards of 300 or change the wake-up time definition from 9AM to perhaps 8 AM this year. Let's see.


Compared to the previous year, this year was demanding in terms of workload. From the statistics above, I could see I definitely need some more effort to be put on the sporting and exercise activities as I see them wane from the once healthy state. The meta habit to fix that is to wake up between 5-6 AM and go to bed earlier. That way I can consistently allocate hours to finish the Meditation and Exercise. Also keeping a routine on the sporting activity.

2019 is going to be extremely challenging since I could be staying outside India with tons of workload. It is extremely important to keep an eye on the health because without the vessel of the body and a healthy mind, achieving things are going to be difficult. I thank God and my family for me being in a healthy state and again this year, I never had to visit a hospital or fall sick, not even once. 2018 clearly was another healthy year, would definitely want to make 2019 a better one.

Wish you all a happy new year 2019!

Cheers
Braga

Sunday, December 31, 2017

2017 - A personal review



It feels like writing a review for the year 2016 yesterday which catapulted me towards an ever positive trend towards life, but 2017 was an entirely different beast!

As usual, let me start with some numbers on the +ve habits taken from coach.me I followed every day for the year 2017.

Meditation: First thing I followed sincerely this year was Meditation. Yep, I broke my own record of doing it 111 days in 2016 to 278 times this year with an undefeated streak of 187! This is a phenomenal feat because the last 187 streak is not meditating 5 minutes or 20 minutes a day. It is full 2 hours every day, thanks to Vipasanna. I had to thank two people for introducing that to me - Healer Baskar and my Brother Senthil babu. This is an entirely different level of meditation technique. Glad I learnt it the right way by taking 10-12 days completely cut off from the world and dedicating close to 10 hours every day starting at 4 AM from the morning until 9.30 PM at night. It was so vigorous that a lot of positive things and vibrations were bound to come and they did come! I would talk more about this perhaps in a separate post, but for 2017, this was one of the significant achievements personally.



Reading: Although I had started aggressively in 2017 (with an extreme momentum from 2016), it kind of slowed down after mid-year. But still, the number of entries I got were 275 compared to 165 from 2017. This year I completed 27 books which included some mammoth books like Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture, Awaken the Gaint within by Anthony Robbins, Mastery by Robert Greene. Although the pace was lesser compared to last year, I still kept this habit for 3/4th of the year. From the trend graph, I could see that it has started to decline from September, but hey, I have the power of perseverance so, I can summon this at my will to return to it! I have 3 hours dedicated every day to mental and physical practice, I need to squeeze some more hours to return to this wonderful habit which has taken me to where I am today.


Yoga/Stretching: This was kind of ON an OFF over the year with only 91 entries compared to 109 from last year, however, towards the end of the year, the steam has really picked up thanks to Hatha Yoga classes - a set of 21 asanas that gives you that extra power and flexibility. One important thing is that I never visited a medical shop or doctor and this could be termed as my healthiest year ever both physically and mentally! Ending this year at a 27-day streak! Yay!



Sports: Whatever happens, this is something I am trying to keep it up at least once a week throughout the year. No wonder the number stands at 51 compared to 44 last year. This is also the year I won the Pramati badminton tournament along with my partner Antony.


The habit of waking up on time: This I feel was the meta habit that is the source of other habits is to wake up before 9 AM. I know "before 9 AM" may seem easy for the most, but for someone like me, who has been waking around/after noon for close to 15 years, this was a real challenge. So I kept the goal a bit liberal in 2017, perhaps this I could harden by half hour to 1 hour earlier in 2018. Seeing numbers go up here was truly amazing. The total check-ins were a thumping 250! Some of those mornings were as early as 4 AM.



Because of these positive habits, I was able to
  1. Improve my productivity leaps and bounds.
  2. Bring down my sleep quota.
  3. Stay at the peak of my health.
  4. Discover myself better
  5. And finally to Start a company!
2017 clearly was one of the best years so far thanks to the lots of seeding I sow in 2016. Hope I could improve upon some of the habits. Maintaining these is more preferred than creating new ones. I would not say it was easy to commit 3-4 hours every day to these habits, but I have to thank my family, especially my wife for helping me achieve all these either directly or indriectly. So, a big thanks to my family for being a rock solid support! 

2018, here I come!

May all beings be happy!
-Braga

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

The Art of War - Book Review

Wow!

Only 13 chapters each roughly between 2-4 pages, but the density of wisdom packed in each line is phenomenal. Sun Tzu would have been the undisputable grandmaster in Chess for ages, because of his extreme farsightedness, only what he dealt was not pieces on the board but real men and women in flesh and blood. No wonder these strategies were used by some of the great personalities and successful leaders like Napoleon Bonaparte to the founders of Oracle and Salesforce. The knowledge here is that War should not be seen as a means to victory or annexure, but something that is to be taken as the very last resort.

The following are my three favorite quotes from the book.

"Solving large, difficult problems may earn you a reputation for skillful negotiation, but Sun Tzu asserts that this supposed achievement is actually a form of failure, and having true wisdom means preventing difficult problems from arising in the first place."

"Sun Tzu also believed that bravery and greatness involve shunning what other people think of you, both praise and criticism and doing what you believe is the right thing."

"Those angry will be happy again, and those wrathful will be cheerful again, but a destroyed nation cannot exist again, the dead cannot be brought back to life."

Thursday, May 18, 2017

The 50th law - Book Review

A Satisfying read

Being a great fan of fictional stories involving meticulous strategy and action, going through historical masterpieces makes them even better to read. Curtis Jackson's early life (50 Cent) was one such story. His life resembled more of HBO's famous series "The Wire" - hustling in the streets, real and violent gangsta lifestyle. Having lost his parents so early due to violence and being completely isolated, he had defied all the odds and obstacles that were thrown at him.



Greene's obsession with analyzing and dissecting 50's story with historical references is what makes this a fascinating read. This is the third such book I'm reading from the same author and I will definitely finish off his other two as well. As for this one, I don't think everyone may like it because of the brutal facts presented and harsh realities, but I for one definitely loved it!

Cheers!
Braga

Sunday, May 14, 2017

Swami Vivekananda on Himself - Book Review

An inspirational life!

Well, I have read the books on Yoga written by Vivekananda, the books he has written on meditation techniques, his lectures on the Bhagavad Gita, even the hardships about his master which was kind of depressing to see the pains he had to go through.



But this book reveals the real pain and torture Vivekananda went through. India was a wealthy country but the way Vivekananda carried himself was disheartening to read. Begging in the streets with glimpses of food being offered once in three days. He had fainted in the streets so unconscious in a dense rain that he could not realize what happened later. And these things he did not endure in days or weeks but for lots and lots of months. He had immense patience. Anyone who is attached to materialistic lifestyle would have easily jumped on the other side which was always available to him - see he was a learned scholar, he had the entire set of material life in front of him, but then he deeply realized and practiced them being just Maya. All those times he was having the idea and teachings he learned from him Master to stay away from the materialistic pleasures.
"Without himself being free, how can he make others free?" - was his argument. From the outset and with the inclination going towards a lot of material and there are books written in abundance and the community as the whole trying to adopt the occidental at the max would lead us to happiness that comes with the cost of equivalent or more sorrow. I could only understand certain things he says perhaps only in a logical plane (which his Jnana work is all about). However, I could not commit to completely give up everything; what I was before reading this text is different than after I've read it.

This book again is the perspective of Vivekananda about himself. There are not many insights one could get about the works he has done, for instance, the four major books on Yoga he has written - Raja, Jnana, Karma, and Bhakti. He might have just hinted as if he was done with them, but each of these is deep work when viewed in isolation. The time he spent in the west and all the hundreds of letters written in a chronological order shows how focused he was in his works and the innumerous resistance he had to face from religious leaders of those times.

The more I reached towards the end of the book, the heavier it felt as this was a man who chose when to exit. Although he could well have attained Mukthi (if you agree with the Advaita Principle), he chose and clearly mentioned that he wanted to be born again. Not just that, he and his master would come again and continue there as forecasted by Shri Ramakrishna. For him, death was simply dropping the body and taking a new one. The best thing I loved about this book was the authenticity and an unadulterated POV as it does not involve a third person penning down his life, but it was all written by himself. If you are a fan of his work, you will find this book very interesting. If you are just going to start with this book, I would recommend reading his 4 books on Yoga.

Cheers!
Braga

Friday, May 12, 2017

How to Become a Straight-A Student - Book Review

Straight A, guaranteed


It may be a bit strange to think why I would pick a book like this and read it after so many years of academia. The following were some of the reasons I could come up with,
  • Although I was not a straight-A student at college (a decade earlier), I did score a lot of As (more than 80%). Getting to them was not an easy task, I had to follow a series of shortcuts and techniques. I wanted to check whether some of the techniques appeared in the book or not. The answer was both Yes and No.
  • I am a fan of Cal Newport's work especially his books "Deep Work" and "So good they can't ignore you". So I wanted to finish off his other books. This one apparently he had written around the time I had graduated.
  • I am already in the process of mentoring a lot of young blood towards altering the way they approach education as I personally feel the education system is royally broke. Newport should definitely have thrown light on that. And I could use some of the points in my mentoring sessions for primary and college students. They are enhanced multi folds after I've read this.
  • Education should not be stressful. Instead, it should be fun and adventurous. The starting few pages of the book hooked me up in this direction.
  • I wanted to use some of these techniques in my own work environment as my field (or any field for that matter) requires a good amount of constant learning. Newport's cheat sheets at the end of each chapter are a phenomenal source to fuel one's efficiency!

The core concept of this book is the strategy of "divide and rule". No matter the size of the problem you are trying to solve, the assignment you are trying to submit, the book you are trying to complete - this strategy works out perfectly. Especially in the arena of Academics and in Professional projects as well, the strategies laid out in this book could be applied to rip open any problem. Every student aspiring to get to Straight-A with least effort and maximum efficiency should read this.

Cheers!
Braga

Thursday, May 11, 2017

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid - Book Review

A truly METAllic experience!

What a wonderful book! This is the biggest one I’ve read and I think it will remain so for many years to come. This book is pure genius, it was like watching one of those Christopher Nolan’s movie. No wonder Nolan himself was inspired from some of the Art inspired from Escher. It has taken 5 months for me to complete this book, wondering how long it would have taken Hofstadter to complete this beast. It is not just some random scribbling, it has a detailed structure and the blending on Music, Mathematics, and Art which also happens to be my most favorite subjects.



Written in the 70s the concepts presented in this book are timeless. There are lots of things I would want to highlight that has stuck with me after reading this.
Formal systems: The concept of formalizing anything into boundaries. This is the heart of any scientific advancement we have seen as a human civilization since our species started to calculate. The beauty of trying to formalize anything is that you cannot formalize anything. The strange paradox keeps looping in again and again in all sorts of subjects and Hofstadter has asked a lot of interesting questions around this area that directly correlates Science and Philosophy.
Artificial Intelligence: Hofstadter lays all the building blocks needed to clone the human intelligence and what it really takes to completely replicate how a human thinks. Obviously, he himself did not find a solution or gathered one. However, the challenges that face straight on for moving the field of AI forward are clearly laid out. Not just laid out, his attempts to “formalize” them and the difficulties that are faced only suggest that Human species and our “life” is one of the rarest things that ever could have happened and makes us think how many of our limited days we are wasting in hatred, guilt, jealousy, greed. That is why this book gets super interesting when you dive deep into ‘formalising’ anything.

Since the book could get dry at few places, he tells some of the wonderful stories with some fantasical characters that have no least relationships with each other: Achilles, Tortoise, Crab being the main recurring characters. You also get to meet Sloth, Anteater, Author Himself, Charles Babbage, and Alan Turing. A story or a narration takes place between these characters which are highly intriguing in themselves and then is followed by theoretical/mathematical approach towards the subject that was just discussed.

This review is just an attempt and it is impossible to capture all the meta-nuances that this book covers. One thing guaranteed is that you are bound to enjoy the concepts in this book given you have basics of Music and a decent understanding of Mathematics. Since I am in the Engineering field, this book was an amazing journey. Digest it slowly, you will definitely cherish it!

Cheers!
Braga