A better world Archives - Sajith Mathew

Is the Earning Power Proportional to Value Creation?

Every new innovation that we see is built upon a huge infrastructure that we fail to notice.

Let me show you an example from the Indian scenario.

The Pizza you order via Swiggy/Zomato at the tap of a button has this huge infrastructure system behind it too.

There is a huge supply chain behind what we have for each meal every day.

The grains, fruits, beans, and veggies that reach you deliciously from the cloud kitchen, where did that come from?
From distant lands utilizing a huge infrastructure.
We don’t realize it because we don’t experience it.

The components of the food items we have for our every meal has their origins in some remote farmlands.

Now, if you look at the value that each stage of this entire process creates, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

On one hand, farmers cultivate these raw items utilizing their land, massive amounts of time, and risk.

On the other side, apps like Swiggy/Zomato delivers the prepared food to the end customer through an app.

Which one is creating larger value in this entire ecosystem?

I’d say the farmers who grow stuff. Because there’s nothing to deliver if the produce is not there.

An Indian farmer.
I feel for the Indian farmers. Their ignorance of how much value they add to the food chain is simply the reason they find it difficult to make the ends meet.

Which side risks more?

Again, I’d say the farmers do. They invest their capital, land, and more than that time into growing stuff.
In the end side, the risk is far lesser.

Which side put more effort?

Again the farmer side. Now, value creation is not proportional to effort or hard work. I completely agree with that point.

Now, you tell me which side is rewarded more?
Of course the end side.

The patience required in agriculture is extraordinary.

Also, the farmer side is creating things from nothing – the first stage of food from the land, seeds, time, and capital.

On the end side, Swiggy/Zomato is giving us convenience.
We don’t want to go to the restaurant, hence we order.

If we just stop the chain at the restaurants, the entire scenario is just the same.

Now you tell me, who’s creating more value in this entire workflow?
Who’s getting rewarded more?

It’s not a fair world, but these discrepancies are largely due to the lack of knowledge.

Growth in the Indian agricultural sector is a sure shot way for economic growth

I believe that each party should be rewarded for the value they create in the chain.
Farmers should be rewarded 10X of what they get today.

This shift should happen in any industry if we really want to build the economy.

Ultimately, economic growth depends on value creation.
And rewarding the parties providing max value in the chain is the perfect way to incentivize that part of the process.
And incentives attract more people to take part in that value creation.

If we want our agricultural sector to grow, we should do this. This attracts young people into this sector. And young people bring tech into this sector. And the output will be far far higher than we generate today.

Massive adoption of tech in a huge sector like agriculture is going to propel and impact millions of lives. And that’s the way to go.

Look at what’s happening now.
The govt is pushing tech in agriculture. But it’s not getting much momentum.

Instead, incentivize the farmer and their process heavily as they get rewarded as the max value creators in the food chain.

It attracts young people. Young people bring in tech because that’s what they do. Tech revolutionizes agricultural processes and methods. This leads to max output.

Hence more Agri exports, and less dependency on Agri imports.
Resulting in the huge growth of our economy.

We’re already trying to achieve a tech revolution in agriculture. The government is actively pushing it but gaining not much momentum.
But if we just reverse the strategy and incentivize the value creation process heavily, it attracts the young folks who automatically bring in the tech. This revolutionizes the entire ecosystem.

I believe Agriculture is one huge industry that young tech folks are shying away from.

If the government can align incentives in this sector, it’ll evolve for the better. Not just in terms of economic growth, but the number of people it impacts.
Agriculture, with its allied sectors, is the largest source of livelihood in India.

I’d love to see a transformation in this sector.

I’d also love to hear your thoughts on this mechanism.

Ask The Right Questions to Thrive Today

A better world

Know how to ask the right questions?
You have an advantage in today’s Google economy.

A simple Google search can give us any answers on any topic that we can think of.

Google can give us millions of results on any question you ask.

So, if you know how to ask the right questions, you’ll get your perfect answer from any corner of the world – from the collective human encyclopedia.

Now, just for a moment.
Think about this.

What have we learned in our education system?

The exact opposite.

We have a ton of benefits with our current education system – and making kids think the right way can be made far better.

You got questions, and you got rewards for answering the perfect one answer correctly.

For a simple question – what’s 6*9?

If we write 54 we were given perfect marks.
The answer is perfectly right.

But it’s not about the answer, but the way we have been trained to look at things.

Quite opposite, what if the question was –

What are the ways you can get 54?

Countless answers open up – 6*9, 9*6, 27*2, 50+4, 60-6,… I can go on and on.

Credit for the above analogy – Dr. Pavan Soni

Just think about it.

One question just closed your thinking loop.

The second one – it just made you creative to come up with multiple solutions – it opened up your thinking loop.

Asking the right questions opens up possibilities

Every phase of life and every phase of generation needs different skill sets to thrive.

In older times, we had to remember all the stuff in our heads. It was essential.

Not anymore – a simple search gives us the most direct results in milliseconds.

It is great if you understand the core purpose of information or any tech – those are enablers.

The right questions pivot us again and again until we get the right answers that take us to our purpose.

Now we can focus on things to do with that information.

If you look at our education system, it has to evolve for the times.

I’ll be writing my way of looking at it sometime.

But all I want you to remember is to understand the purpose of information or any tech.

This is true for any rules, laws, or ideologies out there.

Those are all enablers to help us make better decisions and live better.

All systems around us are designed for us to live better. If you don’t think a system/ideology is not achieving its purpose, ask the right questions until changes happen.

There is no essence in the literal meaning of those words and structure unless it enables us to achieve its purpose.

Asking the right questions was always a super skill.

And this privilege has become accessible to anyone at the tap of a finger now – information is democratized now.

No one will ever complain anymore about the lack of information. Now our task is to find the right info or that perfect answer by sifting through the vast quantities of info out there. Asking the right questions is the way to do it.

Today’s system much more values the right questions than the perfect answer.

Doesn’t mean the old way is bad, it sure is one of the solutions. But we have better now.

Especially today when we drown in information on literally anything that we can think of.

So, ask the right questions to achieve the right purpose.

What Should We Follow – The Old Knowledge or The Current Ones?

A better world

This is a sensitive topic if you take a wide look at the world around us.

We don’t feel it that way as younger generations.

But just ask a question to yourself – have you ever questioned something openly about the ideologies, rituals, and traditions you follow or the people around you follow.

If not, you think it is quite sensitive.

We have an abundance of knowledge today passed on to us through the past generations

Before moving further into my analysis, I’d really appreciate it if you take a moment to think about the question in the title.

Remember that the old knowledge and old principles are different.

Principles are the golden nuggets in the vast pool of knowledge that got transferred

Principles are the real stuff.

Even within knowledge, there are 2 types.

One is the way we’re implementing them, and the other way is the method through which it is recorded to transfer to the next generations.

If you have thought about your answer, please read what I think about this.

Statistically, we are smarter today than ever before the times when knowledge started getting collected.

We’re the smartest generation that ever has beeen on this planet due to the acquired knowledge from the past generations and evolution.

Also, we have more resources today than ever before.

A major reason that we became at the top of the food chain is because of our ability to evolve and adapt.

We’re not the fastest, strongest species ever lived on earth.

But we’re better at working together and adapting to the world around us.

We definitely have become better than 100s or 1000s of years back.

And we have more data and resources to do the analysis on what is the better way forward.

So how we think today would be much better than our past generations.

This is not on an individual basis but on a collective level.

On a collective level as a human species, we’re the best thinkers now with tons of data to draw insights from.

As a species, we are much smarter today than ever before.

A prominent reason for this is that we’re building on the knowledge that the past generations have collected and recorded.

So if a majority of us can agree upon what’s good for all of us, then we have the right to discard any other old knowledge on these topics recorded.

And I really emphasize here that knowledge is entirely different from principles.

Principles are the core reason why that knowledge was recorded.

Those principles can get diluted as they got transferred through generations.

Back then, we were not as great at working together, thinking on collective terms, and planning for the long term as we’re today.

Now we have learned better and think along these lines.

I just want you to take a moment and think.

What would you do if you want to run a society in harmony and in an organized manner?

Harmonious societies are better for human progress always – back then and even now.

What do I think would be this?

Some of the thoughtful souls in those societies would come together and discuss what is the best way to do it.

They then create rules and guidelines for the rest of the society to follow so that the societies progress and the people live better.

People don’t really have to know or think for themselves about why they need to follow the rules and the guidelines.

All they need to do is to follow those set instructions and it results in a happy and longer life.

When we have instructions, we need not think. All we have to do is just follow the set pointers. There can be good instructions and there can be instructions that had applications thousands of years back but not at all relevant today.

Now, if you think about it, this is the root of all the ideologies, rituals, and traditions we have today.

I can give you countless examples of this, but I’d really appreciate it if you just think for yourselves in terms of the ideologies/rituals that you believe in or follow.

Remember, we as a human species now have better resources to find better ideas and make better decisions.

Thanks to the principles that we got from the past generations and the evolution process.

The tech and scientific inventions that we have today are built on all previous inventions.

Any progress that we see today are built on all the past innovations of the previous generations.

Take a car for example – each of the parts and operating technologies that it runs on were major breakthroughs of past generations. Steel, tyre, leather, crude oil, fuel injection, braking systems, navigation, cruise control, electric cars,…

Every part and operating tech that a normal car has that we see today were breakthrough tech of past generations.

Looking from a different perspective.

The data we collected from experiences of the human species until now give us far more valuable insights than any rituals, traditions, and ideologies.

We’re far better today in terms of thinking and deciding what’s right and what’s wrong.

We as a human species today is the result of millions of years of evolution.

Evolution always sustains the best of the qualities of nature.

So our current state to think collectively is the best.

This takes us to the conclusion – the values we should follow for a collective good should be what we think is the best solution now.

Not 100s of years back’s text, rituals, traditions, values.

Yes, there are a lot of principles(the good stuff) that got mixed up in the recorded knowledge.

And we have to definitely follow those principles that are relevant today.

Now you can decide whether you have to do it through rituals, traditions, and a standard set of written rules or do it in your own way also making sure the relevant principles are followed.

Make your own choice when you’re in a dilemma. Yes, it takes energy and effort to do that and a mental model you create will help you in a lot of cases without reinventing the wheel each time.

But it should never be forced upon individuals in any case.

Let’s take another look at why the transferred knowledge is not the ultimate source of truth.

Sometimes, the principles can be misinterpreted through generations.

Even if we take science, it keeps discarding untrue conclusions on the way forward as we gain more data and insights.

Science is the best example of discarding untrue theories and predictions as we gain more data.

This should be the path for any transferred knowledge so that all the false concepts and ideas get filtered out as we evolve.

All we have in the end is the best set of principles in its pure state based on our current knowledge.

At times, the error in the transferred knowledge can be honest mistakes.

For example, Do A, then do B, then C might have become do B, then do C, then do A.

But no worries, we know how to make it right today.

And other times, the people in charge might have tampered with them because self-interest is one of the prominent human qualities.

We have to follow those principles in today’s terms(which will be the best potential existing solution until today).

We have to apply all those principles in ways that we think are the best today.

Now it becomes a terrible mistake if we tell the next generation to follow what we have written today.

Every generation has to follow the principles that are collectively believed to be good. And the rules and guidelines to follow the principles has to be changed with the changing times. The older generation can guide the younger ones in this process.

Things have to be changed and ideologies have to be modified with the changing times.

Now, what can you do to make sure that you follow the right principles according to the right times for the collective good?

Whenever you feel confused about following something, think it through, and do it the way you think is best. (after a good analysis).

If a lot of us keep doing this, it won’t be far from where we live in the best societies possible.

We are collectively far better off than people who lived 500 years ago to do the analysis. All we have to make sure is that principles are followed, not the knowledge.

Always remember that the instructions (ideologies, rituals, traditions,…) were designed to elevate us. If the results have changed, it is time to rethink and recalibrate.

All the divisions we have created together in terms of ideologies, propaganda, rituals, and traditions will simply fall off gradually. Only keep the ones that elevate us in some way.

And these harmonious societies in turn create the best environment for human progress.

Wish you the best.

How Can We Make Changes That Benefit Us All?

A better world

Is that possible? If it is, why are we not doing it?

Yes, it is possible. But I’m not so sure why are we not doing it.

We can all agree that being healthy is an aspect that we all can benefit from – regardless of our age, gender, career, or demography.

Becoming healthy is an aspect any human being can benefit from

I’m taking this example to illustrate what I’m talking about.

Let me show you how certain people are already doing it as it’s part of their lives.

I’m talking about celebrities. For them, eating right, doing exercise, and being healthy are part of the process. They just need to do it to stay in the game.

That’s how that particular industry is incentivized.

Athletes, movie actors and actresses, and sports players have to be healthy to be in the game. It becomes a necessity for them.

Now, It seems to be a distant dream for most of us to think about integrating habits like these into our lives.

Probably because our professions don’t demand it in the first place.

If we are doing it, it’s because we are internally motivated and prioritizing it.

I get it when most of us cannot do this.

When we have a work deadline and a family to run, being healthy in all aspects takes a backseat.

It’s part of normal human psychology.

When it comes to corporate employees or any other 9-5 profession, multiple priorities come on top of ‘being healthy’, and hence this aspect takes a backseat.

But how can we design better systems that progress along with taking care of individuals that are part of the system?

The keystone here is that it should be a win-win situation.

I’m taking a single scenario where 90% of the cross-section of people are part of – a 9-5 profession

If we can integrate good habits into this system, then that can change people’s lives.

Take for example, if having a healthy lifestyle – eating right, exercising, good mental health – is prioritized and integrated into professions, then that alone can change things around.

I’m not stating that such habits are not promoted, but it is not really prioritized.

A majority of us would do anything to get that promotion or more clients or better sales because that’s where the incentives are – we need this kind of thinking on this new system as well.

If a healthy lifestyle is incentivized in some way, most people tend to do it.

Now, how does this benefit the system?

Research says that healthy people are more productive. You do much more work and faster when you’re healthy.

If you think about it, corporations are moved in directions where a few key people make decisions for the benefit of the organization.

Taking a scenario – Infosys has roughly 2,70,000 employees.

I’m going with a calculation that puts a maximum room for any error.

If 2 lakh of these employees started inculcating better habits for a healthy lifestyle – because the profession demands it. And each one of them saves 30 mins a day becoming more productive due to which they can do 30 mins of extra work, just think about the total productivity increase for Infosys as a company.

2,00,000 employees * 0.5 hours = 1,00,000 hours per day (number of extra productive hours for the company)

Think about a week, a month, a quarter, and a financial year.

Now, the system is benefited hugely as you saw just now.

Now, how do the employees get benefited – they’re living a better and healthy life.

When incentives are placed in such a way that the employees trying to live a healthy lifestyle are benefited, things start to move in the right direction.

Implementing systems like these are hugely beneficial for our society.

Whenever we think about making changes, all we have to do is to understand where the incentives are.

Things will move only according to the incentives on a larger scale – wherever it is.

If all the tax rebates that governments provide for the corporates go into stuff like these, there’s no reason why they don’t do it.

Changes can happen bottom-up – where an individual starts the change and it slowly builds up into a bigger one – when others see the positive impacts and start taking up the baton.

The change here works better with a top-down approach.

If the governments decide and come up with a policy enabling tax rebates on these terms, corporates will be glad to implement them because that’s where the incentives are, and the individuals will be benefited in the larger picture.

The intention of all these is to make individuals happy. If people are happy, then we can assume that society is progressing in the right direction.

This is just a scenario of how the systems and individuals can grow and progress together.

I believe this is possible in a wide variety of scenarios than we can imagine.

All we have to do is to move the incentives in a direction that benefits the system and the individuals at the same time.

And time will tell you the positive impacts it is going to bring around us.

if you have any ideas on other scenarios where we can do this, I’d love to hear them.

Wishing you the best.

Where Do You Stand in Terms of Adoption – Be it a Product or a Social Idea for Change?

A better world

Are you ready to introspect?

Let’s start with a new product/service.

Look at the adopter categorization based on innovativeness.

There are 5 adopter categories:

Innovators
Early adopters
Early majority
Late majority
Laggards

Innovators

Innovators are eager to try out new ideas.

You know it now whether you come across this category.

Do you fall into this category – an innovator?

Have you tried getting your hands on when a new iPhone is released?

Doesn’t matter, whether you got it or not?

Are you actively looking for products/services that make your life simpler even if no one has heard about it in your circle?

If you really needed to try that first experience, then you probably come into this category.

Or you were the one who actively encouraged your peers, family, and friends to try out that new online service that you feel is super convenient.

There’s an additional point to be noted as well.

Generally, people who keep getting their hands on the latest gadgets might have a lot of financial resources.

Along the same lines, if you’re curious about trying out new ideas – a product or a service – then you’re an innovator.

This crowd can be more cosmopolitan and tend to have more technical knowledge.

And they introduce new services and products to their peer groups.

Let’s see who comes next.

Early adopters

These are the people who actually bring real traction to the product/service. They are mostly localites compared to cosmopolitan innovators.

Also, these can be the people who are opinion leaders in the social systems.

People look up to them for their opinions on new stuff as they tend to be wise decision-makers.

So, change agents seek out these opinion leaders to make their product/service spread faster among the communities.

And they tend to choose better products/services because we have some feedback coming in from the innovators.

Early majority

The name pretty much gives away who they are.

They adopt the ideas much faster than the average member of the social system.

You’ll fall into this category if you’re quick to adopt new ideas if you hear out some good comments on them.

They willingly try things out if the idea is gaining traction among the first two categories of people.

So how does the idea really spreads?

The early majority accelerates the diffusion process.

Late Majority

I know you got it from the name. They’re a little skeptical of the innovative ideas and only adopt them once that has been diffused in the social system pretty far and wide.

Do you find yourself forced to adopt new products/services?

It often happens when someone asks them – ‘Hey do you have Phonepe so that I can transfer the money?’

‘Can you join the Slack group for the updates?’

We can simply state their adoption as an economic necessity and peer pressure.

They don’t drive the change, they are forced to change.

Laggards

You know it. Anyone who doesn’t fall into any of the previous categories comes here.

They’re traditionalists and maybe even advocate against the innovative ideas and the people behind them.

By the time, they adopt the ideas, the initial innovative ideas we talked about might have given way to more innovative ones.

And during this time, the innovators might be experimenting with brand new ideas.

Now, you just think about which category you fall into.

These are the categorization for the new product/service ideas.

Part 2: Social Changes

And I believe we can just map out a similar categorization to ideas that causes social changes.

There will be few original thinkers that cause the root of an idea and come up with their unique thinking on why that makes sense.

On a higher note, why those ideas will make real good changes in society.

This is a great thing as you might think. But, they face a huge risk when they do this.

They can be called crazy by the majority section of society.

The most prominent reason is that others cannot see the vision that they see.

Look out for people whom you know who fall into this category?

3 major factors play out here.

The first one – they should be smart and experienced to come up with original ideas.

The second one is – They should really care about society, and not just themselves.

Why?

Because the reward is kinda unpredictable. They can be outcasted from society or they can be hailed.

The hailing part is pretty rare, at least in the initial stages.

The third one is – They have to be brave.

Even if you have original ideas that potentially will create a positive impact in society and the person behind them really care about the people around them(society), it doesn’t make any difference if they don’t come out bold and take chances to propagate their ideas.

And this is for sure a swim against the currents.

Original thinkers take up a huge risk for an unknown potential reward, which can potentially never happen.

Eventually, most of these folks who do all of these above tend to stop because there comes a time when you have to choose your life or the greater good.

And that’s a pretty straightforward proposition for most of us.

So what is the smallest effort that we all can do if we wish our lives to be better, in a whole sense?

Support and appreciate the ones behind those crazy ideas, when you see a new spark of a good idea that you think is good.

Because they have come a long way to reach that point.

Just try flaming it with your little wind rather than blowing it off.

Give it the right amount of wind(support and appreciation) – neither too less nor too heavy – both of which will make the spark die off.

That’s one of the reasons why I have huge respect for people who take chances and try implementing ideas – from a startup perspective and from a social perspective.

More support for the social ideas for sure.

The reason – there’s little to gain from them monetarily and the risk is potential outcasting from their community.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead

I hope you have gotten an idea of the innovation theory in the first part.

And how we can use our little effort to flame the social changes branching out from the previous analogy.

Thanks for your time, really appreciate it.

Choosing the Best Way to Do Things

A better world

We’re all doing stuff all the time, day in and day out, every moment, literally without any break.
I can say that most of the time we do multiple things together. And we have become masters of multitasking.

We have become the masters of multi-tasking these days.

But the question is – Are we mindful about the ways of doing it?

We might have a habit of doing the routine stuff in a certain way. It doesn’t always mean that it is the best way of doing it.

There are multiple ways of doing a thing – whatever it is.
Only if we really thought of the possibilities, we come to understand what might be the best option for us to do it.

This is my internal thought below while writing this 🙂

‘Am I going unnecessarily wild with this thought thread?
Will my readers be able to get what I’m putting across?’

The simple way to go about it is to take a pause before you do any task.
I’m aware that it is not quite possible always – especially on trivial matters.

But I can assure you that if you start using this approach when you do stuff that matters to you, it can literally bring in changes that you never expect.

Small changes seem irrelevant in the short run, but it adds up.

Small changes deliberately done can result in big jumps over time.

All you have to do is to take a pause, maybe for 3 secs, before you do something that matters to you in some way. You have to decide where to apply it.

Ultimately, in most cases, your reaction to a situation is what matters more than the situation itself. Just think about this.

And taking a pause helps us in coming up with better reactions to situations.

I know people who have just said ‘No’ without considering the possibility of what might happen if you just give it a chance.

I’ve been there too and still find myself there a lot of times.

‘No’ put a full stop on the possibilities – ‘what might have happened’ stops right there – career opportunities, relationships,…

Life is all about making choices, and whatever choice you make makes you.

I just believe in the philosophy of minimizing regrets.

After all, that’s one thing we can’t change in the long run. We need not wonder what might have happened if you give it a chance.

99% of the time, our reaction to the situation determines the after-effects.

Pause, reflect and give a second thought before you do anything on things that matter to you.

Wish you the best.

Everything Starts With You

A better world

Now, this is not philosophical mumbo-jumbo, everything starts with you if you think about it.

If this is true, then you can change things by changing the way you look at them.

Change the lens you use to view the world, and your life will change.

It all starts with you. it is a good and a bad thing at the same time. You’re in control more than you can imagine.

Does this make any sense in our lives?

Yes, it kind of does. Let me try explaining it logically.

Let me start with a question first.

When you crave something, have you noticed it more around in your life?

If you thought of getting in a relationship, all you see around are happy couples.

When you think of getting into a relationship, all you see around are happy couples.

You hang around with your friends, go shopping, watch a movie – and all you see are happy relationships all around.

You thought of having a baby and all you see around are cute babies, hanging to their mama and papa.

You thought of buying a specific model of car, you tend to see it more often once you have set the intention.

Now, this cannot be a sudden creation of your choices all around – if you think it logically.

When you plan to have a baby, cute babies are all you see around. not because suddenly babies popped out of nowhere, but we tend to notice them more.

It is just that you notice the specific thing/instance more when you had that thought in your mind.

You might have been encountering cute babies in your everyday lives, but since you haven’t thought about it much, you missed noticing them.

This is kinda true to any thought you have.

In essence, you’re noticing stuff based on what you thought about.

Everything you need is already out there – all kinds of permutations and combinations of possibilities.

It is only when you start thinking about them, you start noticing them.

If you think this is simple logic, wait there’s more to this.

It comes along with an equivalent challenge. If you think about unhealthy beliefs, you tend to see those things more around you.

And the beliefs get stronger each time you do this and it becomes a rut.

We call it confirmation bias, in a polished way.

Confirmation bias seems to be a fancy name, but we’re all victims of this more or less

We tend to look for and find beliefs that match our conclusion on a topic, thus solidifying the belief.

It is a double-edged sword for sure.

Now, how can you take advantage of this concept?

Nurture good-quality thoughts, for it will help you keep your lens clean and help you see good things in life all around you.

Attitude is the closest word I can use here to put across this point – how you look at things matters and it comes from the thoughts within.

Nurturing good quality thoughts is the easiest way to live a great life. Although, It’s a simple but challenging task.

Also, keep checking with you at times whether you’re a victim of confirmation bias.

Never hesitate to change your beliefs however strongly they’re rooted in you.

I have written before on why changing your mind is cool. Please read it here.

Why?

As you gain more information and perspectives on the topic, your take on the same topic can change.

Changing your mind on a topic as you gain more information and perspectives is an absolutely cool thing to do. It just shows that you’re ready to challenge your beliefs.

Just think about it, if we all keep doing this, what kind of change we can bring about around us and in this world?

What happens when we all align to rational optimism.

The impact will be huge!

When we hear about the concept of doing good, it mostly falls flat in a few days.

The major reason is the absence of a strong logic that backs it up. If the logic can convince us on why it is a better idea to do good, we all tend to align ourselves to that more.

All I’m trying to do is just that.

Everything starts with you and I just want to remind you that.

Designing a Better World

A better world

I just love this concept – ‘Incentivise to make things better’.
This is a thought I have been talking about a while back.

Please read it here

James Clear talks about this same concept in the book ‘Atomic Habits’ with a different spin – How can we design a world where it’s easy to do what’s right?

In fact, we can design a world where good actions trump over bad, which when compounds result in a massive positive impact.

This is a simple concept that makes a difference in the world we live in.

Why?

It’s difficult to define laws and rules for every scenario out there.
It’s just impossible.

Consider the permutations and combinations of activities, ideologies, thoughts a single person can have.

Now, think about billions of people like this.

It’s really difficult to fathom the set of rules and laws that could bring out the best in every situation.

But what can we do then?
We can design a world where it’s easy to do what’s right.

We, as humans tend to choose the path with the least resistance. So, if doing the right stuff is the easy step, most of us go along that route.

And when we do this, a majority of the people out there tend to do the best things that are beneficial to the overall society.

We need not have specific rules and laws for every situation.

Just look around.

We already have incentives in place for promoting good activities in society so that the collective gains ultimately.

For instance, when you donate to a cause/charity, you get exempted from taxes.

This makes sure that anyone who has a slight thought of helping someone with a cause, can do it and gets incentivized for their good actions.

Donations and charities are tax exempted, which is a way of incentivizing the good act.

Talking from a highly relevant topic in today’s age – climate change.
Imagine, if you could get discounts on your electric bills for every tree you plant in a year.

I’m sure that a good number of people would do this. The reason – the good act is incentivized.

This is the reason behind having tax exemptions for electric vehicles.

I believe that incentivizing the good acts that protect our environment gets far more traction than just lectures

Now, in the bigger picture, this all makes sense in many cases.

But why should you care about this in your life?

You can design your life by keeping this simple logic in mind.
If you want to start/stop a good habit that you have been planning forever, just incentivize it.

It doesn’t have to be a monetary reward, it can literally be anything that makes you feel good – taking a vacation after working hard on a project, watching a series after a workout,…

Many a time, we tend to fall short of the habits that can really transform our lives. Try incentivizing the good ones and it can make a difference.

I just believe that ideologies and concepts don’t make sense unless it impacts an individual in some way.

This is a simple concept but it can positively impact your life if you use it well.

Wish you the best.

The Current State of Ukraine and What Really Happened

A better world

This is a pretty contrary opinion to what we see in 99% of the media and posts.

So please read it with an open mind.

We really can’t put the blame fully on Russia and Putin. Now, this is something I have to explain and hear me out.

The inflection point of the war was when Ukraine was getting proactive in getting NATO membership.

Protests on Ukraine. I feel for the Ukrainian people. Wars always affect common people the most and make their lives harder in every way possible.

And Russia has called in for talks and suggested discussions on this multiple times. The west and Ukraine just ignored it.

Now, if you look at why NATO was formed, this is the reason – ‘The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union.

Now since we don’t have the Soviet Union, there’s no relevance for NATO.

But what do NATO operations look like recently?

NATO is expanding and trying to woo countries that are bordering Russia.

Russia has put conditions against this, which of course NATO didn’t consider well.

We have to also look at what Putin’s ideology is along with this NATO expansion.

His ideology is to bring in the old glory of the Soviet Union.

On the opposite end, NATO is over-extending its reach to the old Soviet countries.

Currently, seven of the old soviet countries are part of NATO.

But why does Russia go into an aggressive mode for Ukraine intending to join NATO?

When you become part of NATO, you’re in a way providing access to NATO to establish their military bases and units in your country in the name of combating global military threats.

So, if Ukraine becomes part of NATO, the US or a majority of the EU countries or Australia can set up their military bases in Ukraine.

Remember, Ukraine shares a 2000 km border with Russia.

Ukraine joining NATO is a direct threat to Russia.

And that’s the reason why Russia is so adamant about this stand.

It is a dire situation for Russia if Ukraine too becomes a part of NATO. And since the current scenario is moving this way, Russia acted for its self-interest.

Now, you might possibly think about this – Ukraine is an independent country.

It has the right to take its own decision. Maybe, but not at the cost of such a threat to Russia.

We know how the US and the allies have been imposing sanctions on Russia when it takes an unpopular stand.

I just want you to think about this.

Does the US approve of Russia coming into an agreement with Canada and setting up military bases and units there? I don’t think so.

I stand with the Ukrainian people. Sometimes, the leaders of the country have completely different interests than its citizens.

Now, I’m in no way supporting Russia and its atrocities.

I feel for the Ukrainian people.

And war is in no way a solution to any kind of problems we ever have.

A war could have been easily avoided, if we could have approached the situation carefully, freeing people of their misery.

All I’m trying to do is look at the situation in a logical manner.

In a way, Russia and Putin, even though Russians don’t have much say in this, are forced to go on this war. And a major reason is NATO.

These are from the protests in Russia. Russians have been coming out in large numbers against the war.

I’m not really sure about what was going on in the Ukrainian leadership’s mind back then while taking such a stand.

Probably, they thought that NATO would back them up, but that never happened.

The reason being, it becomes a full-fledged war in that case.

I could only think of Ukraine becoming a pawn in this game.

From their standpoint, it is better for them to be part of the EU and NATO from a trade perspective.

But from a cultural perspective, Russia and Ukraine have more commonalities than we could ever imagine.

A lot of families have their roots common in each of these countries.

Ukraine is slowly realizing this fact and is reconsidering its stand on joining NATO.

You can see this take in the mainstream media, but of course with a different spin altogether.

As our brothers and sisters, we all want peace in Ukraine, and the war to end asap.

Now, you may ask who is winning this game(not the war – there are no winners in a war, only losers).

Russia is winning the war if you look at the goals they’re trying to achieve.

Also, NATO is winning too. They’ve now got a new purpose to stand for.

You don’t believe me, look at how things are changing now for NATO.

A majority of voters in Sweden and Finland, who earlier polled against joining NATO, are warming up to the idea of joining NATO – all because of this war.

Mainstream news has stooped to the bottom and has become the modern propaganda machine.

Also, remotely related to this topic, I’m pissed at the mainstream media which doesn’t bring out the real facts and logic.

Look at what all of them have become – propaganda machines.

And, I’m clearly staying off the lines on how some of the major companies are behaving in this crisis.

Most of them feel pressured to take up certain policies, completely unaware of the geopolitical situation in this crisis.

Standalone instances are rare, there’ll most probably be underlying reasons.

That’s true in this case as well.

As a disclaimer, I’m not ensuring here that I’m fully right.

But I’m at least trying to look at things from a logical standpoint.

And that’s exactly what I urge all of you to do.

Appreciate you taking the time to understand my perspective on this topic.

PS – There are a ton of other factors that are playing in this scenario, but wanted to put out my thoughts on a major one.