Habits and Learnings

 Habits are formed unconsciously, many a time. We learn, of course, from multiple sources, starting with our parents in formative years. Moving on to friends, classmates, teachers and anyone else we may get inspired by. 

We tend to pick up habits or learnings from all these. If you tend to spend a lot of time with a few people in your immediate circle that you like, they may influence you a lot. Or role models whom you look up to.

But my theory about this goes a bit further. You may end up learning from people you dislike too. For instance, a corrupt bureaucrat may inspire you to be the opposite. Or, if you find an incapable administrator, or leader, you may start thinking about performing that kind of a role, just to prove that you can do it better.

Any examples come to mind, of either kind? I have a few, and have written about them elsewhere.

Ambition

I was impressed by the play Julius Caesar which I studied in school-mainly, I was impressed by his ambition.

So I decided to be ambitious, like Big Bro Julius.

And got into studying like crazy, and maxed all my subjects in school. Almost topped my class in the board exams too.

After going into college, this translated into trying to watch all the (Hindi) films in town..and almost did that in the five years I was there. In my MBA days, looking at all the other smart and ambitious people that surrounded me, I decided to go slow, and concentrated on reading non-text books- Like PG Wodehouse and others.

During my stint in the U.S., my ambition changed to travelling to all the States that united to form the USA...well, I travelled to around 40 of the fifty states. Threw in a few European countries too, on a Eurail Pass.

Coming back to India, I concentrated on writing, mostly, and managed to write a couple of-horror of horrors- text books! That some people actually read them is a tribute to their patience. Blogging followed, naturally, thanks to being egged on by my BIL. That some people actually read them never ceases to amaze me.

Looking at every Tom, Dick and Harry writing his autobiography, I grew ambitious, and wrote My Experiments with Half-truths. Somewhere in between all this, I played Golf (starting at Harihar, continuing at Nagpur), and also created a small Golf course at IMT Nagpur.

Now, my ambition is scaled down, to meeting nice people, looking at Nice DPs (and awarding the good ones), and some good food and drink (like Vietnamese coffee), books, occasional travel, films, music (retro), watching my students do well in life..

Also visited the famous Saraafa in Indore, among other things..had been a long-time ambition.