Career Change Decision

Making a career change is a tough decision. It is a decision you would not want to rush and consider all possible factors before taking the plunge. I was reading a book by Robert Heller recently and found a template to make an assessment. I have copied this and you can view this using the link at end of this post.

It is not only during career change but during various decisions at work or in personal life, it is important to consider all possible factors and rate them accordingly and take a right decision. Decision making should not be done under emotional circumstances. If you do it, you should not regret such decisions. At work it is also important to document decision making factors so that others can appreciate the factors considered.

Hope you will find this template useful

Pain Vs Suffering

I am reading another book by Neale Donald Walsch: "Communion with God". Following is a brief extract I wanted to share.

"Pain is an experience. Suffering is a judgment which is made about that experience. The judgment of many is that the pain they are experiencing is not okay, and should not be occurring. Yet the degree to which pain is accepted as perfect is the degree to which suffering in life may be eliminated. It is through this understanding that Masters overcome all suffering, although they may not escape all pain.

Even people who have not achieved mastery have experienced the different between pain and suffering. An example of this might be having a badly aching tooth pulled. It hurts to have the tooth pulled, but it is very welcome pain.

Their feeling of separation from Me prevents humans from using Me, calling upon Me, having a friendship with Me, harnessing the full potential of My creative and healing power, either to end suffering, or for any other purpose. "

I experienced this recently when my daugther was vomiting. She accepted the pain as necessary to relive of her severe cold she has and she didn't suffer. She didn't cry that she is suffering but stayed unattached and believed that the pain is temporary and will go away.

Pain is common to everyone but suffering is a choice. And suffering is a feeling that comes out of ignorance and thinking that pain you are experiencing is not appropriate. It comes from ignorance of associating ourselves with body and taking a choice to accept the suffering. If you choose not to accept it, pain cannot become a suffering.

Friendship with God

I have recently completed reading book Friendship with God. This book continues from Conversations with God (3 books). This book contains a little more personal life of the author and at same time continues to explore how we can are closer to God than we think.

You can read an excerpt from this book at this link

Mirchi Bajji

Do you love eating spicy food? I do eat spicy food and Mirchi Bajji is one snack that is very popular. This is typically made of stuffed green chilli fried with rice flour and served hot. Couple of weeks back I was eating one and ended up getting a really spicy one. This does not happen always. Most of the time they are somewhat spicy and some are not spicy at all. This particular instance I started getting water from my eyes and despite drinking good amount of water, eating sweet it took a few minutes before I felt normal again.

Something similar happened years ago when I went to Rajahmundry to meet my friends. We ordered Mirchi bajji and they were very spicy. We ran to nearest backery to get a cool drink and again it took quite sometime before we felt normal.

Recipe of Mirchi Bajji

Are you at peace?

Most of the time we are in pursuit of happiness. It is a little difficult to define happiness. We can sometimes say lack of suffering is happiness. We wish for a time when we are free from worries, suffering, fear. We yearn for eternal happiness. Even when we are relatively free from physical sufering, we suffer mentally.

I think we experience happy moments when we are at peace. When we are able to temporarily forget worry, fear, suffering then we experience a sense of peace that can be equated to happiness. Each person experiences peace by doing different things: Meditation, Prayer, Gardening, Taking a walk, Taking a swim, Watching a sunset, Watching a baby, Listening to music and so on.

Understand what calms down your mind and engage in that activity once a day. This will help in your pursuit of happiness. As you understand how this works, you will automatically gravitate to things that give peace to you.

Playing Golf

For quite some time I wanted to experience what it is like to play Golf. Everytime I passed a golf course, I was reminded of this. At last, I had a chance to learn and play golf for a day. We took a quick course in basics of golf in morning. This included learning terms, rules and etiquette. Later in the day we got to play a round of golf. It was not easy as it seemed. Take long shots to hit the ball hundreds of feet away took focus and energy.

Anyway, I enjoyed the day at golf and it was a good experience to remember.

Flavors Movie

Flavors is a nice movie that I liked watching a lot. I really recommend watching the movie, if you have not watched it before. Instead of writing my own review, I am providing link to the detailed movie review

"I really enjoyed Flavors. Whether it was because I related to the characters, or I feel an affinity for Indian-American films, or because it was just a well written and well acted film, there was something about the movie that I admired. Make no mistake, this is a low budget film, and it has the look of a low budget film. But once you get past that, you're left with a solid film, with a good story and fun and interesting characters. Let's start with the story lines."

You can read the full review: http://www.wolfpackproductions.com/archive/flavors.html

You can also browse the movie site here: http://www.flavorsthemovie.com/