A box without hinges, key, or lid
Yet Golden Treasure inside is hid
— J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien really had something when he said that! All my life I have been hearing this phrase : “Start Thinking outside the box”.

Admittedly it had me puzzled. what box are they all speaking about? Is it that all of us are living in a narrow rut, like Pavlovian rats racing along a pre-determined track?

Be born, get an education, do homework, toe the line, find a job, please the bosses, do as you are told, get married, have kids, provide for them, put up with a boring job and irritating colleagues in order to earn a living so that we can provide for our families?

Buy a home in a nice subabrban neighbourhood because everyone else is doing it?  Get a mortgage, pay it off, downsize to a smaller home as we get older, get away to a warmer climate during the winter and then finally, catch up with our well deserved  final rest. In a  box?

It just did not make any sense to me! Read More→

The unity of freedom has never relied on a uniformity of opinion. -John Fitzgerald Kennedy

It is a source of never ending wonder to me that people, and in particular women, each with a uniform arrangement of two eyes above a nose, lips below it, adorned with tresses can each belong to the same species, and yet exhibit so much unique personal beauty.  

And yet, modern women seem to yearn to look like each other instead of themselves! They want lips like Angelina Jolie, a bottom like Jennifer Lopez among countless other attributes; each disregarding the happy arrangement of features that make them inimitably beautiful, just as they are.

I wonder why our society is so obsessed with uniformity, when clearly diversity of appearance, thoughts, opinions and actions is what makes our world a richer place to dwell in.  I mean seriously, could we live with cloned counterparts of each other?

It is time to break out of Uniformity! Read More→

Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common. Celebrate it every day

The face of the earth is changing, and along with it the citizens of its countries. With the world becoming increasingly smaller, this has made international travel not only possible but very highly probable, and in fact there are greater numbers of migrants today than there ever were in the past.

With the advent of technology that connects opposite ends of the globe in seconds, the traditional barriers of language and distance have disappeared with teleportation and hand held translators. The world is finally discovering the wonders of diversity and embracing it. Read More→

Knowing others is Intelligence, Knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true Power! – Lao-Tzu

This is what I truly believe. We all have the ability to be successful. The problem is we waste a lot of time and effort copying others in a vain attempt to emulate their success.

What made them successful is that they focused on ideas that revolved around their own natural skills and talents. In short, knowing yourself is the First Step to your success.

We are born programmed  with our own individual code for success, and then we enter a cookie cut world where we are expected to be like our siblings, our playmates, our peers – striving for uniformity, we lose that glorious individuality that makes us so interesting. Are you a person worth knowing? Read More→

In the right hands, comics are an excellent medium for revealing character with a few concise words and lines.   Michael Berry

Much is said against the educational properties of the colourful comic book that children and many adults like to read. Although I am a voracious book worm, I think it is time to speak in defence of that much  maligned, much loved medium of entertainment and instruction, and the ways in which it has inspired, educated and influenced my thinking, formed my character and moulded my life. Read More→