Random Thoughts

Vandana reads all my posts. In my previous post Giving up Tennis , the last line went "Has Vandana stopped playing Tennis. I don't even think of it. If you start wondering and thinking about it, you have started playing Tennis again. I want to give up and that is what I am focusing on." She said it sounded holier than thou. So let me explain what I meant. I have a strange quirk. I don't like my socks washed in a washing machine, I like them washed by hand. When Vandana and I were playing Tennis, she told me that if I wanted them washed by hand I would have to wash them myself. I used to do that for a long time. My work involves long hours and travel and sometime I would end up not washing socks for a while. After we started playing the Madison instead of Tennis, Vandana saw me struggling and helped me wash the socks by hand. It took a load of my hands and I felt very happy and grateful for this help. Over time as I started playing the Madison instead of Tennis, Vand...

In my previous post I was discussed how most people treat their marriage as a Tennis game. In Relationship Tennis you are trying to dominate your spouse and get them to behave as per your concept of the perfect spouse. If you are uncomfortable or unhappy in your relationship with your spouse, the first and most important step is to stop playing Relationship Tennis. Not easy. This post is about how you can stop playing Relationship Tennis. As I discussed in depth in my post Accepting your Wife in Marriage I decided that I want to improve my relationship with Vandana. When I talked to her about it, she thought it was one more strategy I was using in my Relationship Tennis. When I asked her what would convince her that I was serious, she threw me a challenge. The challenge was very simple, she said, "You never make the bed, for the next one year make the bed everyday and I might be willing to believe you." So the first step on the journey was that for one year I made the ...

There is this strange Olympic event called a Madison . It is a grueling cycling event of 200 laps (50 kms). The rules are complicated. It is a relay race with two people and either one of them has to be in the race at all times. They hand over to each other by touching or slingshotting the other person. You gain points by winning sprints that occur at various fixed laps in the race. Compare that to a tennis match. You are trying to put the ball back in your opponents court. For most couples, marriage is a tennis match. You try to dominate the other person and make them conform to your idea of the perfect spouse. I want my marriage to be a Madison Marriage where Vandana and I are helping each other reach our goals. When and where did I get this ambition? One day it struck me that I wanted to enjoy coming home, not come back to snide remarks and cutting silences, regardless of whose fault it was. Most of us take our work so seriously and spend a lot of time and energy at becomi...

In my previous post I talked about how we suffocate our spouses by making every request and rejection, an emotional moment. You give space with "Ask lightly, Answer lightly, Accept lightly." Let us understand this a little better. Unless you are extra-ordinary and have a photographic memory, you don't remember anything that happened more than 5 minutes back - perfectly. Your memory is not like a video tape that you rewind and replay. Kim's Game is a very simple game. Ask somebody to place twenty random objects on a tray and cover it with a cloth. Make them uncover the items in front of you for 15 seconds. See how many objects you can recollect. Few people are able to remember more than 5 or 6 items. So what exactly do we remember. Our brain tends to remember moments when we are feeling strong emotions. Moments when we were afraid, angry, guilty happy. (Our brain tends to remember "negative" emotions more easily). It remembers the emotions not what wa...

One of my favourite stories is the Nambudiri Funda. What does that title mean?!!? Funda is short for "Fundamental", that means it is a fundamental truth. Nambudiri are Brahmin priests from Kerala in South India. A Nambudiri was walking along the riverbank when he saw a Mahout giving his elephant a bath. He went up to the Mahout and said "I have always wanted an elephant, can you give me yours." The Mahout said "Nambudiri, the elephant is my only source of income and I use the income to feed my wife and many children, I am sorry but I cannot give you this elephant". The Nambudiri patiently listened to the Mahout and calmly proceeded along the river. A man was walking behind the Nambudiri and observed the whole incident, he came up to the Nambudiri and asked him "Nambudiri, How can you just ask for an elephant, did you really expect the Mahout to agree." The Nambudiri smiled and said "I did not own an elephant and the Mahout said ...

In the last two posts I discussed  how The Fundamental Attribution Error and Confirmation Bias form a dangerous pair, creating a negative image of your spouse in your mind. This pair affects all 'ongoing' relationships, including your relationship with your colleagues. I chanced upon a wonderful book called Miller's Bolt by Thomas Stirr . It is about a process for improving relationships with colleagues. But it is very general and can be used in all circumstances. Some key insights from the book. First In Patiala in India some years back the police tattooed 'jeb katri' or 'pickpocket' on the foreheads of a few women. Imagine you are chatting with somebody who has pickpocket tattooed on their forehead. Will it affect your behavior? In most cases - yes. We put a negative label on our spouses, affecting our behavior with them, and they do the same. It is a vicious cycle. The ONLY way to break out of this vicious cycle is you take a decision to chang...

Sometime back I wrote an post called Accepting Your Wife in Marriage . There was a critical step mentioned in that post - You " accept" a person warts and all. This is difficult. I already wrote about how The Fundamental Attribution Error makes you create a negative image about other people. That is just the beginning. Carry out an experiment. Ask somebody to count the number of black cars they see during a trip, maybe on their drive to office. After they are done telling you how many black cars they saw, ask them how many red cars they saw. Most people will not be able to answer. There is a famous video of people passing a basketball , if you have already seen that, try this one . I tried the second video on Vandana, she definitely has an eagle eye :-) Your brain only notices things that it has been sensitized to notice. What does this means in relationships? Once you believe your spouse behaves in a particular way, your brain will only notice behavior that confir...

Sometime back I wrote an post called Accepting Your Wife in Marriage . There was a critical step mentioned in that post - You " accept" a person warts and all. This is difficult. In the next few posts I will discuss why this is so hard. Our brain has many quirks. The more I read about these quirks, the more fascinated I became about these quirks. Many of them make it difficult to "accept" anybody. So let us discuss something fundamental -  Behavior is driven by 1. Genes 2. The Hormonal balances in the womb. (The Indian practice of protecting women who are expecting a baby from stresses, negative experiences are scientifically valid ). This portion of behavior I call innate . 3. Your experiences during critical phases of your brain development. You "learn" what right behavior is. (This is something I discussed at length in  Accepting Your Wife in Marriage .)  This portion of your behavior I call ingrained . 4. Social expectati...