from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

In my own case, I turn to eccentric and often extreme measures to try to keep my sanity and ensure that I have time to do nothing at all . I’ve yet to use a cellphone and I’ve never Tweeted or entered Facebook. I try not to go online till my day’s writing is finished

None of this is a matter of principle or asceticism; it’s just pure selfishness. Nothing makes me feel better — calmer, clearer and happier — than being in one place, absorbed in a book, a conversation, a piece of music. It’s actually something deeper than mere happiness: it’s joy, which the monk David Steindl-Rast describes as “that kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.”

Be Someone Warren Buffett Would Invest In



More countries, more soft drinks. That’s it. It has worked for over a century.


The #2 spot in Warren’s portfolio is  Wells Fargo, a financial services company that stayed on the straight and narrow while other banks gave out risky loans. They stayed accountable and stuck to the strategies that already worked despite tremendous industry pressure. They stayed accountable to their shareholders as well, bypassing the short term gains that appeal to some investors.


19.5% of Warren’s holdings are in Wells Fargo. For a reason.

Warren’s Leadership Lesson #2: Be Accountable to your strategy and stick to your standards, avoiding flashy and risky short term gains.

#3 is American Express. Warren bought it at a discount in 1964 when a fraud scandal brought the shares to an all-time low. Amex had made millions in loans based on the assessed, verified value of oil used in salad dressings . One tiny snag–the oil was actually huge tanks of water with oil on top, part of a sophisticated scam. Amex had a choice: pay out the loans they’d been scammed out of or punt and tank their reputation. American Express delivered on its promises by footing a bill for millions. A massive loss was the result, but the scandal demonstrated leadership through a crisis. The following year the shares doubled.

Warren’s Leadership Lesson #3: Be Direct. If a crisis occurs, handle it swiftly and completely.

So what does Warren really want? The following leadership qualities plus one more that makes ALL the difference…


Be Accountable. Make and keep commitments to yourself and others. Developing leaders give their accountability away to either other people or circumstances. The quality and speed of results are directly proportional to how much accountability one takes on about having those results.

Be Direct. Be clear and explicit in your words, actions, visions, intentions and strategies. Otherwise misunderstandings, miscommunications and wasted resources will result. Clarity strengthens a team’s commitment and trust with one other and their projects.

Influence occurs through our language, decision making, requests and promises, actions, intentions and ways of being. Influence is all about empowering others in tangible, measurable, specific ways.

Labor and childbirth

Some notes I have made from various books to help me during labor : (natural hospital birth)

1) Avoid interventions. This is important since these interventions themselves lead down the path toward a cesearan section

2) Pitocin can cause abnormally painful contractions. Because it is administered intravenously, it requires a woman to lie in bed. Fetal monitoring is also required.

3) If pitocin does not speed things up, caregivers often recommend breaking the bag of waters. This too causes labor to feel more painful. It also puts a woman on a clock.

4) The combination of extra-painful contractions and lost mobility can quickly lead a woman to request an epidural. An epidural plus loss of mobility can slow labor. Epidurals often cause fever, and the woman ends up unnecessarily with a c-section.

5) also all these has the psychological effect on the woman that other people are in charge of her labor. If you remain active and mobile, you may have a long, exhausting labor, but you will remain in charge and not end upo with a c-section from an epidural induced fever.

6) CPD : Get 2nd, 3rd, 4th opinion. This is very rare that a baby's head is too big for pelvis. Mostly wrong diagnosis. Baby being too large is a common fallacy in twenty first century obstetrics. Never too large

7) Squatting provides 10% more space for baby's head than semi-reclining.

8) Dont use pitocin!!!!!! Natural induction is better - walking, herbs, spicy food

9) Onset of early labor - mild menstrual cramps.
   Early labor : 0-3 cm. strong menstrual cramps. Pain may last as little as ten seconds or as long as a minute. The amount of time between cramps is 5-15 minutes. You are still able to walk, maywant to rock or sway. Still capable of rational thought. Stay in the moment. Ask your support team to help you stay in the present. Just deal with the contraction you are in, not the next one or the one after,
  Give your mind something to focus on besides the pain. Watch a movie or cook or something. A contraction will bring your your focus back to body, then resume your activity.
Active labor : At some point, you will no longer be able to focus on anything besides labor.

From http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Stop-Regretting-Decisions-Martha-Becks-Plan-to-Let-Go/print/1

Learn to Lean Loveward

When I saw  A Chorus Line, I wondered if it's literally true that "I can't regret what I did for love." So I did a little thought experiment. I recalled all my significant regrets, and sure enough, I found that none of them followed a choice based purely on love. All were the consequence of fear-based decisions. In the cases where my motivations were a mix of love and fear, it was always the fear-based component that left me fretful and regretful.

For example, I'll be up most of tonight, having spent the daylight hours eating pudding in reaction to writer's block, which is a species of fear. I predict that tomorrow I'll regret this—I've spent many, many sleepless nights fearing this or that, and no good ever came of it. But I've also lost a lot of sleep for love. I've stayed up communing with friends, rocking sick babies, avoiding celibacy. And I really can't regret any choice that brought me one moment of love.

So the ultimate lesson of regret, the one that will help guide you into a rich and satisfying future, is this: Every time life brings you to a crossroads, from the tiniest to the most immense, go toward love, not away from fear. Think of every choice in terms of "What would thrill and delight me?" rather than "What will keep my fear—or the events, people, and things I fear—at bay?"

Sometimes the choice will be utterly clear. Love steers you forward, and no fear arises. But on many occasions, things will seem trickier. The path toward what you love may be fraught with uneasiness, anxiety, outright terror. The pound dog will tug at your heart, but worry about upkeep will push away the first sparks of love and leave you without a four-footed friend.

If you've grieved your losses, reclaimed your dreams, and articulated your anger, regret will have made you the right kind of tough-and-tender: dauntless of spirit, soft of heart, convinced by experience that nothing based on fear—but everything based on love—is worth doing. Living this way doesn't guarantee an easy life; in fact, it will probably take you on a wondrously wild ride. But I promise, you won't regret it. 

buffettfaq

How would you define your character? And what portion of your character do you believe contributed the most to your success?

The important qualities you need are intelligence, patience, and interest, but the biggest thing is to be rational. In ‘97-8, people weren’t rational. People got caught up with what other people were doing. Don’t get caught up with what other people are doing. Being a contrarian isn’t the key, but being a crowd follower isn’t either. You need to detach yourself emotionally. You need to think about what is going on around you. Being in Omaha helps me in that regard. When I was in NYC, I had 50 people whispering in my ear before noon. It’s hard sometimes, like when the Internet craze hit. Nobody likes to see their neighbor doing stupid things and getting rich. It was like Cinderella’s ball, I think I’ll just have one more dance, it’s not midnight yet. Sounds simple – but it is hard to leave the party. The problem with stocks is they don’t have clocks. You don’t know when it will be midnight so you can leave the party. My partner Charlie Munger and Tony Nicely at Geico are always rational. 160 IQs can say stupid things that sound good. People do silly things, whether they have 120 IQ or 160. You can always improve your rational thought. Rationality is the only thing that helps you. One thing that could help would be to write down the reason you are buying a stock before your purchase. Write down “I am buying Microsoft @ $300B because…” Force yourself to write this down. It clarifies your mind and discipline. This exercise makes you more rational.

AMR bankrupt this week. Not thinking about it. Looking forward. Probably have to go back to some programming job after baby.

Seth Klarman with Charlie Rose on http://myinvestingnotebook.blogspot.com/2011/11/charlie-rose-interviews-seth-klarman.html

highlights:
*3-5 years investment horizon
*selling's harder than buying - hard to know when to get out
* You never know how big a bargain you will get offered tomorrow.  Maybe someone comes and sells you a dollar for 50 cents, you never know if they will sell you the dollar for 40 cents a day later, so you need to buy it and maybe leave room to buy more more later. and maybe you spend the last dollar on buying it later and it goes down further after you buy it. So you always are checking and rechecking your work. The thing that would make you lose your confidence when you;'re doing that, is if you realize the dollar isnt actually worth a dollar, maybe it was a dollar but Greece failed or the Euro fell or collapsed and all of a suden, your dollar is worth only 30 cents.
* Its not so much figuring out what its worth today, its making sure it'll still be worth around the same tomorrow
* Stocks are cheap for a reason. good management is important.

Mine:

Debt/Capital is the main thing to check first for any company. Debt should include all LT and ST debt.
A measurement of a company's financial leverage, calculated as the company's debt divided by its total capital. Debt includes all short-term and long-term obligations. Total capital includes the company's debt and shareholders' equity, which includes common stock, preferred stock, minority interest and net debt.

Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/debt-to-capitalratio.asp#ixzz1fcmioMiF

A company should own twice as much as it owes.. Rule of thumb from "Little Book of Value investing : Browne, pg 79"
x/x+2x = 1/3 = 33%  (max debt to capital ratio)

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead. - jobs on gates

I had an epiphany on my hour long walk at sunrise today. By focusing on negative comments others make, I actually diminish my own potential. I need to just focus on improving myself and my skills in the direction of my interests. Even if others don't approve, that shouldn't distract me beyond considering if their comments appeal to my rationality and frame of mind at the moment. If their comments don't appeal, I should discard them like water off a duck and push forward on my own agenda. A good method to avoid thinking too much about someones judgemental or negative comments is to also repeat one's favorite mantra silently, a form of meditation. When I do this, life suddenly seems to alive and full of promise. Extraneous thoughts and worries fall away. The meditation blanks my mind and I know what is the best action for me to take next.
Even if others comments are indeed justified, I think it is important to arrive at their conclusions independently,  I should make my own mistakes and live me own life even if its not optimal.

I should just be focusing on thoughts and actions that somehow move me forward, towards my goals and to achieving what I can truly achieve. Iam think joining toastmasters would be good too.

To truly discover love, one has to stop judging our parents and spouse. Also others. - A quote by Sri Bhagwan (not sure who he is but came across this quote by him). By judging or thinking too much about any comments any of them may have made, I lose focus from my goals. That should be the ultimate aim, to distract oneself as little as possible from achieving.

Wow, great compilation of WB and CM Q&As :

http://buffettfaq.com/

If you were to teach an investment course, besides works by Ben Graham and Phil Fisher and your book on the instalment basis, what would be on the syllabus?

[Q - how would you teach the next generation of investors?]

Buffett: I had 49 university groups, in clumps of six, [visit me] last year. [An education in] investing requires only two courses: How to Value a Business, and How to Think About Markets. You don’t have to know how to value all businesses. Start with a small circle of competence, things you can understand. [Look for] things that are selling for less than they’re worth. Forget about things you can’t understand. You need to understand accounting, which has enormous limitations. [You need to] understand when a competitive advantage is durable or fleeting. Learn that the market is there to serve you, not instruct you. In the investing business, if you have an IQ of 150, sell 30 points to someone else. You do not need to be a genius. You need to have emotional stability, inner peace and be able to think for yourself, [since] you’re subjected to all sorts of stimuli. It’s not a complicated game; you don’t need to understand math. It’s simple, but not easy.

CM: I never took a business class, except accounting

WB: Not thinking of depreciation as an expense is crazy. I can think of a few businesses where one could ignore depreciation charges, but not many. Even with our gas pipelines, depreciation is real -- you have to maintain them and eventually they become worthless (though this may be 100 years).

It [depreciation] is reverse float -- you lay out money before you get cash. Any management that doesn't regards depreciation as an expense is living in a dream world, but they're encouraged to do so by bankers. Many times, this comes close to a flim flam game.

People want to send me books with EBITDA and I say fine, as long as you pay cap ex. There are very few businesses that can spend a lot less than depreciation and maintain the health of the business.

This is nonsense. It couldn't be worse. But a whole generation of investors have been taught this. It's not a non-cash expense -- it's a cash expense but you spend it first. It's a delayed recording of a cash expense.

We at Berkshire are going to spend more this year on cap ex than we depreciate.

[CM: I think that, every time you saw the word EBITDA [earnings], you should substitute the word "bullshit" earnings.]

Recommendation of a book on accounting?

I haven't read an accounting book in years. I think I read Finney[?] in college. I'd suggest reading Berkshire reports and things like magazine articles about accounting scandals. You need to know how figures are put together, but also have to bring something else. Read a lot of business articles and annual reports. If I don't understand it [an annual report], it's probably because the management doesn't want me to understand it. And if that's the case, usually there's something wrong.

[CM: You start with basic rules of bookkeeping, and then you have to spend a lot of time [to really become knowledgeable]].

Would you comment on companies you say use questionable accounting practices to make their operations look good?

We follow a policy of ““criticize by practice, and praise by name.”” You could say we hate the sin, but love the sinner. So I can’’t really name names of companies that I think are doing this kind of thing; I’’ve found that if you go around criticizing others, pretty soon the criticism comes back on you.

Do you think an MBA is an important degree for students to have today?

If you are interested in business, or likely to be in business, an MBA is very useful. But, what is really important is what you bring to a class in terms of being interested in the subject. If you view a course like accounting as a drudge and a requirement, you are missing the whole game. Any course can be exciting. Mastering accounting is like mastering a new language, it can be so much fun. The attitude should be one of discovery, that you are coming there and discovering. Accounting is the Rosetta Stone of business. Economics is fascinating, the first page of economics describes how mankind deals with insatiable wants and creates the systems to fulfill these wants. It’s great stuff. Really how the world works. Business is a subsection, a fairly understandable subsection, not like black holes, which are fairly hard to visualize, but business is everyday stuff and you are learning how the world works.

What do you remember about your education at the University of Nebraska?

I had a great experience at Nebraska. Probably the best teacher I had was Ray Dein in accounting. I think everybody in business school should really know accounting; it is the language of business. If you are not comfortable with the lan- guage, you can’ t be comfortable in the country. You just have to get it into your spinal cord. It is so valuable in business.

WB: I made a mistake when I bought US Air Preferred some years ago. I had a lot of money around. I make mistakes when I get cash. Charlie tells me to go to a bar instead. Don’t hang around the office. But I hang around the office and I have money in my pocket, I do something dumb. It happens every time. So I bought this thing. Nobody made me buy it. 

We bought it because it was an attractive security. But it was not in an attractive industry. I did the same thing in Salomon. I bought an attractive security in a business I wouldn’t have bought the equity in. So you could say that is one form of mistake. Buying something because you like the terms, but you don’t like the business that well. I have done that in the past and will probably do that again.

From http://www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Wildly-Improbable-Goals/2

In any case, learning to invite and accept your own WIG (wildly improbable goal) can awaken you to a kind of ubiquitous, benevolent magic, a river of enchantment that perpetually flows toward your destiny.

You can't force a WIG to happen, but you can create conditions that will either prevent it or invite it. One precondition is absolutely necessary: You must befriend, protect, and nurture your own spirit. This means paying attention to your real needs, treating yourself not just fairly but kindly, and standing up for yourself even if that displeases people around you. Just as a run-down body may be unable to conceive a healthy new life, a run-down soul can't support the healthy development of the life you were meant to have.

 Take a pencil in your dominant hand (right for right- handers, left for lefties) and write down a few pointed questions, such as "What are you feeling?" "What do you need?" and "What do you want?" As soon as you've finished writing a question, switch the pencil to your other hand and write whatever words bubble up. You may be surprised. When your problem-solving mind is fully engaged, trying to master the task of writing with the "wrong" hand, hidden aspects of the self often surface. I've seen people encounter full-fledged WIGs in the shaky words written by their own nondominant hand.


Once you've written your WIG, the real work begins. I've had many clients who, impressed by the strange electricity of their WIGs, assume that this intense feeling alone will magically create the desired reward. Yeah, right. I think the reason WIGs have so much mojo is that we need a huge reservoir of desire to keep us slogging through the hard work needed to realize them. Almost invariably, the effort necessary to achieve a WIG is not less than we expect but more.
Clients reap the fruit of their labors only if they are willing to go out and "shake the trees," but weirdly, the fruit that falls almost never comes from the tree the person is shaking.

That pattern—the recognition of a WIG, followed by enormous amounts of work, followed by a miracle—has happened to me so many times that it's almost stopped surprising me. I see it strike my clients as well, when they prepare a safe space for their true selves, ask a few questions, and accept the answers. You already know your own WIGs, though you may not yet realize it. The part of you that is unhampered by illusion—the illusion of time, the illusion of powerlessness, the illusion of impossibility—is waiting for you to slow down and open up so that it can speak to your consciousness. 

Irene Nemirovsky

Had a good walk in Stanford trhis morning. I think I may not have been meant for higher education or research.
That I got this far is fortunate and lucky enough.

A great article on needing time for true thought. Read the whole article at : 
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2006_10_13/opportunities_stealing_time

"I am very occupied with the courses, so that my real free time is less than in Bern."
--A. Einstein, in a letter to M. Besso, 1909

In his latest book, Einstein 1905: The Standard of Greatness, scientist and historian John Rigden analyzes Albert Einstein's landmark year, in which he published 5 seminal papers that changed physics forever. As you probably know, Einstein wasn't in a university or laboratory at this time: He was a junior patent clerk in the Swiss patent office in Bern. When he wrote that letter to Besso, he was a professor at the University of Zurich. It seems odd to most of us now, but the isolation and free time that Einstein enjoyed while goldbricking in the patent office may have contributed to his extraordinary intellectual productivity. Einstein's "alternative career" may have contributed to some of the most important breakthroughs in the history of science.

As you know, science and engineering are creative activities. We rely on inspiration and serendipity to generate the insights and make the connections that are the kernel of new inventions and discoveries. Creativity requires many things: a prepared mind, obstacles to overcome, and time. What Einstein had in 1905--and what he had less of by 1909 when he wrote to Besso--was time: time to think, time to tinker, time to explore.

It is not uncommon for faculty to long for the relatively simple days of grad school and postdoc: Back then, they had TIME! Sometimes you can find yourself with so many interruptions and emergencies in succession that the e-mail you began to compose at 8 a.m. is still unfinished by the time you head to lunch! 

This isn't just frustrating and stressful; it can be corrosive to your creativity, smothering the spark at the core of your intellectual engine. Can you imagine what it would be like if painters, playwrights, and composers had to produce their product in 5- to 10-minute bites between committee meetings and proposal reviews?

Stealing time

Creating time to think, explore, and tinker is critical to your effectiveness as a creative individual--as a scientist. Without time to explore, your chances of making a breakthrough are vastly diminished. And no matter where you end up professionally, your effectiveness--and your happiness--will depend on how well you manage your time.

Killing the time vampires

Time vampires are those small, seemingly helpful or innocuous things that nibble away at your day without really adding value to it. 

1. Keep e-mail in its place. Open Outlook only twice a day. 
2. Manage your interactions with the people around you. It's easy to get caught up in enjoyable, unplanned conversations with friends and colleagues. This may require a certain amount of tact and patience: You don't want to alienate others in your thirst for privacy.
3. Create meeting-free Fridays. When I started work at a large national laboratory, lots of meetings were inserted into my workweek. Given the time I spent preparing, attending, assimilating, and following up those meetings, it was little wonder that I struggled to spend 20% of my time on productive research!  I worked half days on Sundays, in peace and quiet, to get caught up on my real work.

Creating mind oases

1. Spend at least one 3-hour chunk of time each week outside your office. any place where you can isolate yourself and read, review, and cogitate. Walking stimulates thoughts and connections differently than sitting idle does. So get out and take a walk.
2. Think about big problems. In research, it's easy to get down to tiny details very quickly and spend the bulk of your time there. Making a habit of mentally stretching yourself from time to time can be intellectually stimulating and a lot of fun. This can be even more fruitful when done in conversation with the right people.
3. The trick to maintaining your professional (and personal) sanity is knowing what tasks you can afford NOT to do--not trying to pack ever more tasks into the same day. 

Even Einstein worried about his  career and whether he was on track apparently :
Einstein the Nobody

Character, the secret to a meaningful life ?

I came across this great (month old) article on NYtimes today. I thought it a tremendously useful and courageous contribution by these schools to teach the importance of character and to attempt to instill it. It may be even more important than academic grades. It may make all the difference especially in families where there aren't resources or a long background of education. The Gates foundation would do well to serve such efforts.

What if the Secret to Success Is Failure? 

From one of the comments :


Einstein himself said that had he been a junior professor rather than a clerk in the Swiss patent office, he might not have developed his thinking as he did. Being a junior professor would have obligated him to publish, as a clerk he earned a living and physics was his hobby. A faculty position, he said, would have made it hard to avoid "superficial analysis" - i.e. produce results to ensure promotion.

How can you create a learning environment that allows curiosity to predominate? Can it be done? John Holt addressed these issues in his classic "How Children Fail". It seems his ideas were never heeded and now we have Seligman with his Positive Psychology industry focusing on individual character traits while ignoring the social context in which the schools exist.

http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/04/the-100-rules-for-being-an-entrepreneur/

 Try not to hire people. You’ll have to hire people to expand your business. But it’s a good discipline to really question if you need each and every hire.


Exercise. Same as above. If you are unhealthy, your product will be unhealthy.


Fire employees immediately. If an employee gets “the disease” he needs to be fired. If they ask for more money all the time. If they bad mouth you to other employees. If you even think they are talking behind your back, fire them. The disease has no cure. And it’s very contagious. Show no mercy. Show the employee the door. There are no second chances because the disease is incurable.


Don’t go to a lot of parties or “meetups” with other entrepreneurs. Work instead while they are partying.


 Ideas are worthless. If you have an idea worth pursuing, then just make it. You can build any website for cheap. Hire a programmer and make a demo. Get at least one person to sign up and use your service. If you want to make Facebook pages for plumbers, find one plumber who will give you $10 to make his Facebook page. Just do it.

No friction. The harder it is for a consumer to sign up, the less consumers you will have. No confirmation emails, sign up forms, etc. The easier the better.

TTA) No fiction, part 2. If you are making a website, have as much content as you can on the front page. You don’t want people to have to click to a second or third page if you can avoid it. Stuff that first page with content. You aren’t Google. (And, 10 Unusual Things You Didn’t Know About Google)

UU)     No friction, part 3. Say “yes” to any opportunity that gets you in a room with a big decision maker. Doesn’t matter if it costs you money.

By Steve Jobs :

When you're a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you're not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You'll know it's there, so you're going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through."
– Playboy magazine 1985

On motivation

"That's been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains."
– Business Week 1998

On money

"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful … that's what matters to me."
– Wall Street Journal 1993

"The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it to a nationwide communications network. We're just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people – as remarkable as the telephone."
– Playboy 1985

On work

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."
– Stanford commencement speech 2005

• “If Apple becomes a place where computers are a commodity item, where the romance is gone, and where people forget that computers are the most incredible invention that man has ever invented, I’ll feel I have lost Apple. But if I’m a million miles away, and all those people still feel those things … then I will feel that my genes are still there.”
• 
  
• “Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”
• “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
• 
  
• “Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.”
• “Innovation … comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.”
• 
  
• “ ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

I had been wishing recently that I was a bit more gracious and generous spirited,especially to those at a disadvantage or who are somehow in inferior circumstances. I have begun to suspect that it is more due to my current lack of activity and my mind not being really engaged that is causing me to be unhappy and less than gracious. Again, I and I alone am responsible for my own downfall. I need to start doing more,procrastinating less, using my brain to learn skills in this off period so that Iam a happier and nicer person.

 I also found an interesting blog entry on being gracious at Alternative Mom. Excerpt from it :

Over the last few weekends, I have had many situations that challenge my personal graciousness.

4) My inlaws and family came for a visit and I had to severely compromise my time, routine and discipline with my baby. I was gracious to a certain point where I felt that I needed to sort out my thoughts. I had to get out of the situation (hid in the room and cried my heart out) and then stepped in with grace to handle the Angel. It wasn’t anyone’s fault in general but I learn that graciousness can only come when it is within a person’s limits to handle. When I’m only given the Angel at times of need, I felt my role as a mother severely compromised and challenged. I did not have enough graciousness to understand that it would be only a passing period but then again, I am having a hard time thereafter in picking up the pieces of a disarrayed child after everyone is gone.

A quick google brings up gracious as characterised by kindness, warm courtesy, tact and propriety; being pleasantly indulgent, especially towards an inferior, and only one definition includes generosity of spirit.

In my opinion, being gracious involves being flexible, listening, empathising and understanding. 

I remember once reading in a forum about a needy mother asking for baby products. The request for help turned into an accusation by donors and lengthy explanation from the mother. Again, where is the generosity of that spirit to give? Why so many judgements?

A speech by an ex-PM of Singapore : Mr Goh Chok Tong titled “Towards a Gracious Society”

The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder’s lack of rational conviction.  - Bertrand Russell

How to Open Yourself to Your Life's Purpose   from Oprah.com | October 02, 2009

1. Listen to your inner voice. It takes practice to hear your true desires. Your passion will often come as a whisper or serendipitous event that reminds you of what's important and what makes you happy.

To begin, life coach Cheryl Richardson advises you to take better care of yourself. Cheryl suggests nurturing your body and mind with exercise, meditation and eating well. If you read a story in the newspaper that inspires you, take note of it! That story might lead you to your passion.

Cheryl recommends answering a series of questions:
What interest, passion or desire are you most afraid of admitting to yourself and others?
What do you love about yourself?
Who do you know that's doing something you'd like to do? Describe yourself doing it.
How could you make the world a better place for yourself and others?
What's stopping you from moving forward with exploring your passion?

Living with integrity is a good start.  Dauntless of spirit, soft of heart, convinced by experience that nothing based on fear—but everything based on love—is worth doing," she says. "Living this way doesn't guarantee an easy life; in fact, it will probably take you on a wondrously wild ride. But I promise, you won't regret it."

"If you gave me the choice of being CEO of General Electric or IBM or General Motors, you name it, or delivering papers, I would deliver papers. I would. I enjoyed doing that. I can think about what I want to think. I don't have to do anything I don't want to do." Warren Buffett