Be happy by being useful to others ..

Happiness is one of our first and final wishes on planet earth, probably it explains the reason for our existence in planet earth. 

Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher (384-322 BC) wrote 

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Lyceum, the Peripatetic school of philosophy, and the Aristotelian tradition. Wikipedia

Aristotle was one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived and the first genuine scientist in history. He made pioneering contributions to all fields of philosophy and science, he invented the field of formal logic, and he identified the various scientific disciplines and explored their relationships to each other. - www.britannica.com

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), the American philosopher wrote thus

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable,to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”

In his lifetime, Ralph Waldo Emerson became the most widely known man of letters in America, establishing himself as a prolific poet, essayist, popular lecturer, and an advocate of social reforms who was nevertheless suspicious of reform and reformers. www.utm.edu

Ralph Waldo Emerson was also a staunch opponent of slavery.

This is a thought which always disturbs us, what makes us happy. Is making money, without any morals the final purpose of life ? Does driving the best cars bring one happiness ? Can our profession bring us happiness ? Most of my colleagues and friends had the freedom to choose the profession of working in the great industries, visiting important and interesting tourist places, meeting up with important people, enjoying the best entertainment, having a happy and contented marriage, making lot of money, living in the best houses, traveling in the best cars, eating the best food, what not ? 

Finally, would all of that make us happy ?

Try being grateful for all things we have, our partners, children, parents, friends and relatives, wealth, education, job and luxuries of life. 

Most of us have passions in the younger days. Following our passions is one way of being happy. My grandfather was a teacher and teaching ran through our family blood. I have seen grandfather feeling proud of his students doing well in life. I knew that teaching is indeed a great profession too. In the formative years my parents gave me the freedom to choose what I wanted to do with my life.

After Post Graduation, when life asked me the question what I wished to do with my life, I finally chose the profession of teaching as I found it could influence many lives. Even to this day I can sense the way my reading, writing and teaching, along with my passion for the nature and environment is influencing hundreds of students I meet and interact with on a daily basis. For me teaching was both a calling and passion, not a profession. The lucky part is when you get paid to do what is passionate to you, it is all the more exciting. 

Avoiding negativity in our lives and our actions and thoughts and practicing forgiveness is another way to be happy. 

If you are still confused what to do with your life and not happy yet, I have one simple advice - Do more to help others. Be it philanthropy, service, writing, working or whatever that can help others.

Toyota Motors, one of the greatest car manufacturer from Japan has been doing it since 1939 for 83 years, how to offer better and better cars to the public, how to give them more value?  How to bring more and more innovative features to the owner so that he is satisfied extremely with the car. The whole industrial world believes in making better and high quality products and services offering great value to customers. It definitely does make everyone happy. 

If someone is interested in carrying out research or writing world class case studies, do more of it, world class. Recognition may or may not come, but the satisfaction of doing more of it is worth all the satisfaction and joy in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi is a great social reformer and father of nation of India. No one has influenced humanity as much as Mahatma Gandhi. Losing oneself in the service of others is according to him finding a meaning for our existence on planet earth and thus finding happiness. Gandhi once said, "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."  

Why do rich men donate or commit to donate more than half of their earnings to philanthropy ? It s because it is the only way they can get happiness, making others happy by being useful to others .. The richest of them all, John D Rockefeller donated more than 90% of his wealth to society through the Rockefeller Foundation so that the money becomes useful to society. Of late Mackenzie Scot, ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos gave away almost $10 billion of her wealth anonymously to charities across the world so that others could be happy and contented.

Happened to go thru a post by Neeti Kaushik on the Internet. She was talking of the 4 habits that generally people who are happy follow. I found it to be very practical and important. They are

1.  Happy people generally ignore nonsense and do not follow up with it for personal gains or reputation

2. Happy people generally are found to talk very less, appreciating others, finding positive things in others.

3. Happy people find satisfaction in learning new skills, gaining knowledge every now and then  

4. Happy people are generally found to help other people who are less fortunate by their words, actions or wealth. 

Here  is an interesting Forbes article (click here) that tells us how one can be happy in life. Keeping oneself physically fit by doing enough physical exercises and mentally fit by practicing meditation is also a key element to being happy.

Happiness is thus not about what makes you rich and famous, but it is what makes you contented, when you have done your small bit to make others happy, satisfied, to ease the pain and suffering around you and finally DOING MORE OF IT ..  

Let us remain useful to others, now, tomorrow and at all times..

George ..

Humility and life..

 Very often in life we hear people saying that if you remain humble others will sit on your head. I am not sure whether t is fully correct but can say that being humble does give you many avenues to let off your steam and complete work fast. 

From my personal experience being humble helps one person in many ways.

1. helps one think better and evaluate decisions faster

2. it helps one get along well with people, which will help in some other sphere of life. 

3. helps one to think more clearly regarding the goals and mission in life, helping to realign ourselves in the right direction

4. it helps us to be more useful to society and helpful to other friends

5. it helps us to set right our value system

6. helps to experience proper work life balance

Click here for a document from psyblog which is interesting .. click here for another interesting one..

In the cut throat competition in today's corporate world, we may think it is the smartest and show-off people who get to success. But actually in the long run it is the humble person who succeeds. In our daily life, unless you are able to  fall back on peaceful systems to rely in times of need, the journey can be tough.

Overal humility will help one to move well with people, the family the ecosystem and everything in the world. It removes jealousy from our minds and gives an open heart to help others.

George

Churches in Madrid and Barcelona

Sagrada Familia Cathedral, Barcelona

In our trip to Spain last month, we visited two important cities of Barcelona and Madrid. The cities are developing fast. My son who has been n Barcelona for the past two years at IESE has been telling of the work ethic in Spain. Government files move very slow here, and decisions take a lot of time. The people take it easy. 

While we were staying in the two cities, we came to see how the roadside pubs used to get full with customers from 9 am itself till midnight. We do not see real drunkards on the road like in India.

Toledo Cathedral

Spain was once upon a time a heavy Catholic country with great impact from the Vatican in Rome. There are more Catholics in the country in this country of 48 million people. Madrid city has a population of 3.2 million, double that of Barcelona.

Barcelona has been building a great church Sagrada Familia for the past 150 years, the construction is still continuing. I got the opportunity to enter inside the Cathedral. Really massive structure though the spiritual content was missing. The Catholic church should be aware of this aspect, the physical structure is important but the spiritual impact it creates on the human body is more important. 

The main aisle of Toledo Cathedral

After Barcelona we went to Madrid and spent a couple of days there. We went on a day long visit to Toledo which was the capital of Spain till 1560 AD. The Toledo cathedral was a marvel. I have not seen the Vatican St. Peters Basilica nor the other churches in Vatican, but I was told after the Vatican Toledo has the world's greatest churches. 

The churches are too big, but do they match with matching spiritual thoughts of the people ? 

The christian Catholic culture and traditions in Spain are too rich to be ignored. It is part and parcel of the Spanish culture. The riches Spain enjoys is partly due to their stealing the riches from North and South America from the fifteenth century.

The Spaniards were quite cruel in how they acquired land and riches from the Americas.

In America, events took their own course. The Spanish conquistadors, who went to Hispaniola and then to other Caribbean islands and finally to the mainland, were rough and violent. They took what they wanted, and when the Indians resisted--or even when they did not--the conquistadors attacked and slaughtered them. www.crf-usa.org

Spaniard history has been filled with lot of unfortunate events but we find Spain to be growing centre in Europe for automobile accessories, medical and electronics industry. Being a member of NATO, Spain has been dictating its presence to the world.

George..

Bullfighting in Spain, the savagery continues ...

Plaza de Toros Las Ventas is the famous bullring in Madrid and it was the same place we went on the 21 May 2022 Saturday evening 7 PM bullfight in Madrid. Bullfights in Madrid and deadly, ie. the bull is killed while in Barcelona it is let free .. There were approximately eight to ten thousand people in the stadium, on a rough estimate.

"Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honor." - Ernest Hemingway

The fighting starts with the procession on a horse, followed by the matadors and the picadors (who pierce he bull in the back bone of the bull with spear) march into the stadium and then the fight starts. A pair of picadors enter the ring on horses with long spears from diametrically opposite corners. 

The Las Ventas Toros stadium in Madrid

The bull charges one of these picadors atop the horses and at that time the picador pierces the back of the bull with the spear, not deep enough to debilitate it, but deep enough to enrage it. It is then distracted by the matador, brought centre stage, after some tiring down in less than twenty minutes the matador with the help of a knife hidden behind his back strikes at the charging bull's aorta in the heart, piercing and withdrawing it soon. The piercing is over in a fraction of a second. 

The bull is bewildered, still looking around in fear, within fifteen seconds it collapses on the ground.  The dead bull is then pulled across the ground and taken out. The crowds wave with white handkerchiefs if they find it was a perfect kill. Else they disapprove with jeer.

Before half time three bulls are killed and after half time, three more.  We could not stand the killings and walked out after 4 bulls were killed. But one thing we need to understand is it is just the difference in culture and taste of the population. I found the people inside the stadium were jeering and shouting after each killing. Families come with kids, young people with their boyfriends or girlfriends and so on.

The Las Ventas, as per my information is the largest bullring in Madrid. It is in four levels. We were seated at the top level, balconey, cheaper, giving a bird's eye-view of the whole bullring, about 30 euros per person.

Though we feel upset with the fact that the bulls like us were killed, a primitive sport, we were happy we expressed our displeasure at the killing of these innocent animals and walked off. We were the only people to walk out of the stadium. When we came out there was pain in our hearts and relief on all our faces.

The visit made it possible for us to understand Spanish culture and psyche in a small manner.

“To protest about bullfighting in Spain, the eating of dogs in South Korea, or the slaughter of baby seals in Canada while continuing to eat eggs from hens who have spent their lives crammed into cages, or veal from calves who have been deprived of their mothers, their proper diet, and the freedom to lie down with their legs extended, is like denouncing apartheid in South Africa while asking your neighbors not to sell their houses to blacks.” ― Peter Singer, Animal Liberation

In a way we are all hypocrites, talk one way, while practice just the opposite.

George.

Dining at Hotel Sobrino de Botin, the oldest in the world ..

After reaching Madrid on 21 May '22, we decided to explore the city. We had heard of Sobrino de Botim, the oldest hotel in the world opened in 1725. There was Guiness book of world records certificate to prove this point without any doubt. We decided to visit this hotel situated in the suburbs of Madrid.

Entrance to Sobrino de Botin

The food is about three times as expensive as ordinary eateries around here, but tasty and very comfortable.  Food is served in high class expensive cutlery.

 

Ernest Hemingway mentions the hotel and its most favourite dish in two of his novels, but the fact that he did write part of a novel here is contested. Roast suckling pig is the most favourite dish here.  

Click here for the Statesman link ..

The Roast suckling pig dish

 

This hotel is situated a little away from the main city, in the old suburbs of Madrid in Cuichelleros area. Though we did not have roast suckling pig, we had some of the tastiest wine. We booked and slot was available only at 10.30 PM. We reached the hotel by 9.30 PM and asked for an empty table and we were taken to a corner table. 

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

All throughout we could internalise the solemnity of the occasion. We were siting in the same building where Spaniards in all their armoury would have waled around and where Nobel laurete Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) also sat and wrote some part of his books.

Quoting from www.botin.es -

The love this charismatic North American felt for Spain is well known to all. Few foreigners have felt and reflected our country’s beauty like he did. He needs just a few lines to evoke a landscape filled with all its scents, shifts of light and harmonies.

A fierce and passionate champion of bullfighting, in 1932 he published “Death in the Afternoon”, a veritable treatise on tauromachy in which he mentions Botín:

“…but in the meantime I preferred to dine on suckling pig at Botín than sit and think about the accidents which my friends could suffer.”

All of us at Hotel Botin

Botín also features in “The sun also rises”. For many years we have been gratified to observe the pilgrimage of American tourists who arrive in search of the dining room in which Hemingway sets the novel’s final scene:

“We lunched upstairs at Botin’s. It is one of the best restaurants in the world. We had roast young suckling pig and drank rioja alta. Brett did not eat much. She never ate much. I ate a very big meal and drank three bottles of rioja alta.” 

unquote ...

Enjoying wine ..

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1954 was awarded to Ernest Miller Hemingway "for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style."  www.nobelprize.org

 citation from Guinness group

 

By the time we left the Hotel, it was past 11 PM and had to rush back to the hotel lest we miss the sleep and the bus for the next day trip to Toledo, the capital of Spain till 1560. 

 

Though  I wanted to extend some pleasantries with the main chef of the Hotel and thank him for the excellent dish, due to paucity of time, we had to move out. Click here for a small video ..

 

The Botin visit was indeed very memorable. It helped me hold hands with the people who walked in the hotel about 300 years back while it was being started by French cook Jeanne Botin in 1725. The photo of the Guinness World Records citation is the authentic proof of the age of the restaurant.

George ..