The Abilene Paradox
On my birthday a couple of years back, I wanted to take my family out for dinner. I asked my wife where we can go. Knowing that I like Seafood, she immediately said: “Let’s go to Swagath” Both my sons nodded in agreement. In return, my elder son said: “I wish Papa had taken us […]
Shake it off and take a step up
One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his […]
Perceptions
A dog lived at a railway station and he didn’t like the trains pulling over because it blocked his views. As soon as the train would come to halt, he would start barking, and lo and behold the train would start moving. He presented his data in a dog conference and all the attendees endorsed […]
Get Better, Not Bitter
A teacher asked her students to bring some tomatoes in a plastic bag to school. Each tomato was to be given the name of a person whom that child hates. So, the number of tomatoes would be equal to the number of persons they hate. On a pre-determined day, the children brought their tomatoes well […]
Social Loafing
Maximilian Ringelmann, a French engineer, studied the performance of horses in 1913. He concluded that the power of two animals pulling a coach did not equal twice the power of a single horse. Surprised by this result, he extended his research to humans. He had several men pull a rope and measured the force applied […]
Enjoy Your Free Time
Recently read this wonderful piece by Morgan Housel, the author of ‘Psychology of Money’ on building slack and free time in your life. “So many people strive for efficient lives, where no hour is wasted. But an overlooked skill that doesn’t get enough attention is the idea that Wasting time can be a great thing. […]
Try it this weekend
A farmer had a dog who used to sit by the roadside waiting for vehicles to come. As soon as one came he would run, barking and trying to overtake it. One day a neighbor asked, “Do you think your dog is ever going to catch a car?” The farmer replied, “That is not what […]
THE GIFT
A few years ago, the terrorist organization Hamas, sent a gift to the President of Israel in an elaborate box with a note. After having the box checked for safety reasons, the President of Israel, Shimon Peres, opened the box and saw that the content was feces (shit). He opened the note which said, “For […]
Comparisons
Person ‘A’ covered a distance of 10 km in one hour. Person ‘B’ covered the same distance in one and a half hours. Which of the two is faster and healthier?? Of course, our answer will be A. What if we say that A covered this distance on a prepared track while B did it […]
The Importance Of Failure
I recently came across the J.K. Rowling speech at Harvard in 2008, speaking about the benefits of failure, and how she dealt with them in her own journey from living the life of a young divorced mother near poverty to becoming the creator of a series of books that have sold more than 400 million […]