Skeptically Speaking!

The 10 Top Indications that require you to be skeptical in life
10. You take things as others perceive them to be.
9. Keep doing things, even though they don’t fulfill you.
8. You are constantly told that due to your worry with personal security you are developing a reactionary attitude.
7. When others move up the scale at your cost.
6. You get bored even with novel ways and ideas.
5. Whenever you sit down to relax or meditate, you see a series of thoughts and emotions flashing past your mind’s screen that seems virtually uncontrollable.
4. You are doing the same old tasks day in and out for months together. There is absolutely nothing new in your routine.
3. When your family members keep telling you to get off the autopilot mode.
2. When revamps that you undertake are taking you nowhere, repeatedly.
1. You think life is just a bed of thorns.

The Mindset of Indian Women

Visionary Views, Indian Roots

Financial independence, opportunities for growth and education have triggered a radical change in the mindset of Indian women, both in the positive as well negative sense.

Gradual change in social values is another major contributor affecting the mindset of the Indian women. Indian women of current times have learned to ‘Walk the Talk.’ They have come a long way from the days of dread to the days of a self-sustaining culture. Indian women have excelled in each and every field from politics to space missions. There is no field, which has remained unconquered by Indian women.

All the above changes come at a big price. The mindset of women in modern India is a sort of a paradox. On one hand, some women have truly understood the meaning of a modern mindset in terms of education, professional talent, learning to strike work-home balance and positive self transformation. They have lived up to the efforts of great social reformers. Whereas on the other hand, some others have misused the freedom and social liberty to suit their own needs, going to any lengths, deprecating morals in order to achieve their goals, and all this in the name of women liberation. In the process, they have lost out on the respect that they would have rightfully earned, if they had understood the underlying true essence of women liberation.

Urban women have come a long way, but still their rural counterparts are mutely suffering the violence and ill-treatment inflicted on them by society. Modern Indian women have learned to take bold steps to gnaw at dogma-centric notions of society - child marriage, female child abortions, etc. The mindset of Indian women has come out of the cocooned space of four walls, slogging on for hours together doing household chores. Now, they are independent thinkers and vigilant decision makers equipped with all the traits to take on the world.

To maintain a positive progressive mindset, the Indian woman herself needs to strike a balance between the two extremes - the first image is that of the uncontrolled, unabashed woman and the other prototype is that of the down trodden Sati. Modernism and freedom are equal birth rights for both men and women. The innate need of expression of freedom and independence is always a good thing, but not at the cost of doing away with well grounded traditions like family, marriage and relationships. Just as men are held responsible for maintaining the social and ethical fabric of the society, so are women. I would rather say more, as a woman is the creator of life. She is the archangel of values and morality.

Given the fact, in certain parts of society, women are humiliated even today, yet the mindset of the Indian women has grown stronger and stronger by the day. This transformation in mindset is a change to which she herself has largely contributed to. In days to come, if this personal osmosis and its dimensions transform into a progressive social mindset, then we are sure to see more and more women joining the bandwagon of positive progress and a stable society.

Bleeding Edge - Take Control of it!!

It's easy to get wrapped up in the excitement of bleeding edge technology. But it's our job, as IT professionals, to understand our users' needs and then determine what technology to use. After all, technology still requires a good amount of old-fashion human judgment.

Technology and Business Process are cohesive elements of any IT project. The key is to find technology that suits your business processes.Even organizations with large budgets set aside for R&D focus on meeting the strategic vision of the business needs, rather than blindly adopting the bleeding edge factor.

It's time to stop worshiping the Silicon God and getting rid of technophobia. Remember that the Key point here is-we understand a business unit's processes or flows before we apply technology.If you are careful to keep that order straight everything else should fall in place

Dreams of breakthrough success drive innovation and experimentation, but as long as Business Vision and Client expectations drive the Technology Mix, then Leading or Bleeding Edge is going to be the perfect Fix.

©®Chitra Lele

Nurturing and Nourishing your Creative Muse

Survival Kit

To grow and flourish in life,one needs to align the physical,mental and spiritual planes in order to achieve synergy within the inner compass-COSMOS!!

Indulge in activities that bolster and boost up your confidence levels, release stress and place you in a state of euphoria, it could be anything that you like right from dancing to fencing. Also use stress/anger bursting techniques to free your mind and soul from negativity and toxins.Use natural techniques like yoga,meditation etc to rev up your cosmic energy.

All this will help you to relax and then you will be ready to new options,possibilities.

Set appointments, for change with yourself and splash around with fun-filled/creative activities and you will see the difference.You will come out rejuvenated,refreshed and ready to face the challenges of life, fully equipped.

Relish each moment rather than thinking about what's next.Also ensure you do things which are aligned with your inner-self. Always listen to your Soul's Pearls of Wisdom-INSTINCTS.

Do a lot of meditation,retrospection to understand the powers of your mind. Acknowledge your thought process and act accordingly, remember this will help to maintain the 'alignment'. Accept both success and failure with grace only then will you emerge as a winner in the final race.

Self-criticism is important but at the same time never ever forget to Self-motivate whenever you achieve a goal, this mechanism will pay you huge dividends, see here again i am talking about balancing the inner-compass.

So start living Success from within,from the inside out.
All set to conquer new horizons!!!

©®Chitra Lele

Web Standards - No Margin for Error

The economic benefits of standardization are tangible. Once we can quantify them, companies will begin to realize the true potential of the Web-Standards.

Do Web standards give organizations a return on investment?Do Web standards make financial sense? The answer to these million-dollar questions is YES.

Web standards force you to error check. Simply declaring which version of XML you’re using will let you validate your pages against the specified Schema. Validation turns HTML into something like a scripting language.

Web standards simplify maintenance, since design is separate from content, but logically linked through a CSS file. This clear-cut separation makes it much easier for you to develop and maintain your pages in tandem.

Shorter development cycles not only result in cost-savings, but free up resources sooner, thereby increasing opportunity.

Web Standards improve user experience by adopting clean, standardized code which gives users a shortcut to accomplishing their goals on the website and in turn this also results in increased turnover due to more people using your site.

Some closing words
If you adopt the web standards way, you go through a learning process where you should grant yourself the liberty and time to experiment, make mistakes, "Learn,Unlearn and Re-learn. And don't forget to enjoy this transition, from my own experience I can tell it is worth the effort and leaves no margin for error.

©®Chitra Lele

The Inner Soldier

This New Year Do You Have The Fortitude To Be Someone New?

I will tell you HOW!

Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them.
- Orison Swett Marden

Do you believe that fortitude is a quality reserved for soldiers? If you said yes then you need to re-read the famous quote given above. What is the similarity and difference between you and a soldier on the border? You both have many of the same fears. The only differentiating factor is that of fortitude.

Yes each one of us has a soldier within us. All we need to do is to get into action like a fervent soldier. A soldier fears nothing as he does not waste time in procrastinating rather he gets down to work – ‘Action all the way’ is his motto. If we follow the same principle in our lives then we can overcome all types of fears within us. We perceive the source of fear external and unknown to us, in reality it is all in the mind, within us. The only way to face these fears and map them into new enriching experiences is not to fall into the avoidance trap.

The methods you use to develop fortitude aren’t important. What's important is that you consciously do it. Just as a soldier on the front does. The ultimate measure of people is not where they stand in moments of stability, but where they stand in times of challenges.

Trust me the above points are not mere points if they are accompanied with appreciative enquiry and regular introspection. They will certainly given you a new vision and a new direction to lead life from within, inside out. You will control your fears; you will take charge of all your life battles. You will be your own Commander! Building up fortitude is not a one time activity rather is an ongoing one. Once you appreciate and accept this fact, you are definitely going to be on the right road where you will find far less resistance to change than before.

Friends, let me share a little ‘everyone knows’ secret with you. Don’t be afraid of your fears rather consider them as friends in disguise. Once you learn to keep your fears aside (not within) then they finally let you know who truly you are. Never forget your fears but ensure that they forget you. Once you let the others around you know who you really are, no one can thwart your efforts of rediscovering yourself altogether.

©®Chitra Lele

Fertilizer of Challenges

The truth is - life is indeed full of challenges. So why not face them instead of running away from them? The more we run away from them the more they get back to us.

Isn’t it better to find ways to get above them, under them or even better through them? The answer to this question depends on which category one belongs to – Achievers (As) or the Not-so-patient hard workers (Ns).

There are very few people who know how to work their way through the maze of challenges to attract all the good things in life, while the remaining just don’t make it. Its not that the remaining are not hard working but what they lack is perseverance and patience. They expect instant gratification. They expect that the moment they give out positive energy the very next moment they will receive a huge surge of positive energy in return.

Another difference between the achievers and the not-so-patient handworkers is that for achievers the results as well as the process matters where as the not-so-patient hard workers want to see tangible results. Due to this attitude they fail to realize and enjoy the intangible benefits of personal pride and a sense of achievement that are accrued during the process of overcoming the challenge, which are far more valuable than monetary returns.

The biggest difference between As and Ns is that of attitude. As invest their energy by accepting challenges as a means to learn and grow whereas Ns are wasting energy in either circumventing them or approaching challenges in a wrong manner.

One major aspect that can transform a not-so-patient hard worker to an achiever is ‘self-trust.’ Achievers truly believe that the seeds of opportunities lie within and they can be germinated with the fertilizer of challenges.

©®Chitra Lele