On Cherishing Life

 Entrepreneur and creative director Andrew Anabi on how to cherish life:

"When life changes, you will probably miss the way it was. You may miss those long morning drives or walks to the office, or those hectic family gatherings. You may miss them because those moments are finite — you will only travel those streets and see those people a certain amount of times.

Every time you do something that is one less time you do it. One day you will do something the final time and you will rarely know when that day comes.

For all you know, today might be the last time you walk in a particular neighborhood. Or it might be the last time you smile at a particular someone. To think otherwise, would be foolish. Nothing is guaranteed, except this moment. Your only real choice is to cherish every exchange like it is your last — because it very well might be.

Therefore, the best way to cherish life is to remind yourself of life's impermanence. It is to remember that every time you see someone that is one less time you see them. It is to remember that every time you go somewhere that is one less time you visit. By doing this, you naturally slow down. Almost like a reflex, you start to truly live."

Red-use, Re-use, Recycle

Yesterday (April 22nd) was Earth Day. If I were not in US probably I wouldn't have known about it. Lot of people here are concerned about their carbon footprint. It's a different matter that US does most of the climate damage.
There's a lot of talk about Recycling. That's nice but the other problem is that the US economy is primarily driven by consumption. For a variety of reasons (cost, convenience), there is excessive consumption. This is really bad for the environment. It's economically cheaper to buy a new good instead of getting it repaired because of the labor cost. Just dump it and buy a new one. And yeah we can recycle it. There is extra cost for recycling it. It would have helped the environment a lot if the good was reused and extra goods were not manufactured at all.
One fact I realized is that there is a lot of food that gets flown via flights to different parts of the world. This contributes to significant amount of global warming because of the fuel required for transport. Often the cost to environment is not considered in the economics.
Individual can do considerable help in reducing global warming. Some of the things are:-
- Switching off lights when not in use
- Carpooling/Biking/Taking buses etc whenever possible
- Avoiding using throwaway plastic cutlery and styrofoam plates
- Reusing stuff as much as possible

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle as much as possible.

The Hindu

My favourite newspaper is "The Hindu". One of things I was thinking of when coming
over to US was that I would be missing reading it every morning. But recently I
realized that I can read it in the same print format online. The subscription is
free for first the first 3 months.

It's raining marriages

This season (from Jan - Aug 2006) the number of marriages that I have attended reached
14...a big number.

Software Engineers or Labourers?