I’ve been thinking about what to write in this entry for several hours now. Essentially last night, a friend of mine who was in town was too hammered to go home and so he crashed in my living room. We landed up talking for a long time. and when I say talking, we weren’t just bulshitting, we were in serious deep discussion about everything from life, work, personal lives, psychology, philosophy and all that kind of stuff which you may not expect too many inebriated individuals to be discussing.

The topics ran the gamut and our tangents often became whole discussions in themselves making it increasingly taxing on our minds to unravel the stack to figure out how we got somewhere in the first place. Now, the details of what we talked about are “out-of-bounds” for this entry or any entry on a public blog for that matter. (the vagueness creeps back…), but I will write a little about some of the realizations.

Perception is reality. What you percieve is real for you. You cannot know any other reality than what you percieve (have I said the same thing over enough times yet? … did it hit home?). But what I’ve realized and what I hope others can realize is that things may not always be what they seem. In one of the many books I read recently (I did a great job of remembering the things I liked from the readings, but a pathetic job of keeping a bibliography or any references, sorry… in future, I’ll be more careful and probably post a list of my readings… well at least the non-sensitive ones!) it talked about how the exact same circumstance/environment creates a completely different experience for each person. It is your own personal experience, which need not be the same as what anybody else felt under the same circumstances.

So the point I’m trying to make and not doing a good job of being succint about it, is that the same circumstances may be a completely different effect on different people. And Assumption is the mother of all f…ups… so to assume that your experience is universally applicable is probably not going to work to your advantage in the long run. Of couse, all the experiences are subjective, but it would behoove one to at least attempt to try and validate the assumptions before jumping to any conclusions. Give the benefit of the doubt. You may see things differently.

Another quote which keeps coming back a lot is the one about expectation is the first step to disappointment. This is a hard one. In fact, all of this stuff is because there are very few absolutes… that coming from a person who is most comfortable in dealing with zeros and ones, means a lot. It is easier to talk about this than to practice it. And I myself am probably guilty of not being able to practice what I preach 100% of the time.

Expectations surround us. Whether they are from friends, family, parents, work, school and most of all from ourselves…. or better said, as our perceptions of what is expected of us by others. Again, that is a perceived result which very often hasn’t been validated at all and so we land up subjecting ourselves to a mental torture of trying to live up to perceived expectations. Both internal and external. This reminded me of a quote I had in the old quotes file (available in quote archives)…

…and no taskmaster is harsher than one’s own self-expectations.

…Tom Clancy in the Red Storm Rising

Now, I do not mean to sounds solipsistic or selfish, but isn’t that just a recipe for making yourself miserable? Living based on what you perceive others to expect of you!? Wouldn’t it be more pragmatic to at some point realize that you are the only person who can do anything about how you feel and the only person you need to be accountable to is yourself. (that implicitly covers doing things for other people since if you didn’t you wouldn’t be happy with yourself right!?)

But what can someone who is caught in the expectation rut do? What happens when it runs so deep that it starts becoming a borderline phobia undermining your own self-esteem? That’s a dangerous state to be in.

New thread. I also believe that I have been very fortunate in being raised the way I was. Hats of to my grandmother, my mother and my father for doing the job they did with me, because I’m quite pleased with it. (I hope they are too!) I nearly always got whatever I asked for, but I always tried not to ask for too much. I still do. I prefer it that way. I like being self-sufficient and independent. I don’t need much. And since I’ve never had the guts to thank them for it in person, I’ll do it here.

New thread. The previous blog on regret ties in here as well. I’m slowly and steadily developing a policy of no regrets – again easier said than done. But the way I rationalize it; at every step, we have to make a decision on the basis of the best information available to us. And that’s what we do… we make the best decision we can based on the whatever information is available to us. We consider the outcomes (Tangent — contrary to what is the common interpretation of the Gita, a friend who responded privately via email to a previous blog entry, helped me figure out a new interpretation which I like better… the Gita doesn’t say not to consider the outcomes. What it says is don’t let the fear of the outcomes prevent action or result in inaction. I agree with that interpretation. It makes more sense), we evaluate our options and then we make a decision. And once that decision is made, there is no looking back. Because unless you believe in time-travel, there is no way you can change that decision. Yes, you may take steps which will eventually get you to the same “state”, but you cannot reverse a decision that has been made. What is done is done. So accept it under all circumstances and keep plugging along. (This is one of the many lessons I learnt while negotiating the deal for my first company and I have to thank one of my board members and personal advisors for helping din this into me and helping me internalize it. He knows who he is and so his name does not need to be mentioned here.)

So if we make our most educated and rational decision, then we’ve done our best. And if you’ve done your best, then there is nothing to regret is there? You just keep plugging along because there are some variables that you cannot control. For the ones you could… you gave it your best shot. But you have to give it a shot. Again, one from the old quotes file… You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

New thread. When I was in school and college, booksmarts meant a lot to me. I always had, do have and will always have a high regard for people who are intelligent in the traditional sense of the word. And I’ve definitely been exposed to a fair share of them at Carnegie Mellon. But I now believe that I was naive. I didn’t realize then that booksmarts isn’t all that matters. It also matters as to what type of person you are and what your values are. And I have a new respect for people who were not academic overachievers, but excelled at other things.

Don’t take me wrong though coz. I still respect those who are traditionally inelligent and a MIT, CMU, Stanford or Berkely grad (at least for CS/EE… replace with the top 3-4 schools in your own field) would definitely make it faster to the top of my list – but not only for their level of intellgence, but for the work ethic that most of the graduates from the top schools exemplify.

But realizing that that isn’t all that matters is important. What matters to me is that you pick what you want to be good at and you go after it. The drive matters. The perseverance matters. The will and the desire to be successful at whatever you choose matters. Rationality matters.

I’ll end with a note on rationality (because I think blogger is already going to barf at me when it sees the lenght of this post. This may land up being a two part post as well! 🙁 ) Pragmatism is my friend. I like it. It helps make things more objective. It takes all the things from the grey-area of subjectivity which laces the diatribe above and lends to them something that my zeros and ones oriented head can wrap itself around. If there is anything I fear losing the most, it is the power to analyze and think rationally…