Month: January 2016

With every new year, comes renewed hope & ambition.
If you’re ready for an awesome 2016, here are some ideas to help you get there.
If you follow these ideas for the coming year, you can create remarkable changes in your life:
Make habits, not resolutions. Resolutions are like wishful thinking, that fade away as the year’s newness wears off. Goals are great, but it’s hard to manage 5-10 new goals when you have a lot of other things always going on. Instead, focus on one new habit at a time, and give it your full attention, until it becomes automatic.
Commit 100%. Most people fail at their resolutions because they write them down, start taking action, and then let themselves quit when things get hard. What if you had to pay Rs 5,00 if you missed two straight days of your routine? Would you stick to the habit then? Of course you would — because you’d be fully committed. Find a way to be all in, and you’ll make your habits stick.
Focus on weekly adaptations. Most people try to focus on something that will take a year to achieve, but you lose motivation, and what if things change during that year? Instead, focus on one week at a time. That’s a doable chunk of time — you can do a week at a time, but you can’t really do a year at a time.
Find your gang. You can do great things on your own, but you’re much more likely to get them done if you have a group of friends who are holding you accountable, and who you’re holding accountable too. Hold each others’ feet to the fire. Root each other on. Hold regular meetings to make sure everyone is staying on track, and don’t let your crew fall off track.
Fill your year with curiosity and a learning attitude. Many people get discouraged if they fall off their goals or habits, but that’s because they have an all-or-nothing mindset. They see failure as evidence that they can’t do it. Far from it: failure is evidence that things need adjusting. It’s a way to learn, so that you can get better. See all your successes and failures as learning, not a sign that you are good or not good. With this flexible mindset, you’ll be able to weather out any kinds of disruptions, missteps, obstacles or changes.

On the best sunny day, the most powerful magnifying glass will not light paper if youkeep moving the glass. But if you focus and hold it, the paper will light up. That is thepower of concentration. A man was traveling and stopped at an intersection. He asked an elderly man, “Where does this road take me?” The elderly person asked, “Where do you want to go?” The man replied, “I don’t know.” The elderly person said, “Then take any road. What difference does it make?”
How true. When we don’t know where we are going, any road will take us there.Supposing you have the football eleven enthusiastically ready to play the game, all charged up, and then someone took the goal post away. What would happen to the game? There is nothing left. How do you keep score? How do you know you have arrived? Enthusiasm without direction is like wildfire and leads to frustration. Goals give asense of direction.Would you sit in a train or a plane without knowing where it was going? The obvious
answer is no. Then why do people go through life without having any goals?
Goals must be
SMART:
1. S–specific. For example, “I want to lose weight.”
This is wishful thinking. It becomes a goal when I pin myself down to “I will lose 10
pounds in 90 days.”
2. M–must be measurable. If we cannot measure it, we cannot accomplish it.
Measurement is a way of monitoring our progress.
3. A–must be achievable. Achievable means that it should be out of reach enough to be
challenging but it should not be out of sight, otherwise it becomes disheartening.
4. R–realistic. A person who wants to lose 50 pounds in~30 days is being unrealistic.
5. T–time-bound. There should be a starting date and a finishing date.
Goals Must Be Balanced
Our life is like a wheel with six spokes.
1. Family. Our loved ones are the reason to live and make a living.
2. Financial. Represents our career and the things that money can buy.
3. Physical. Our health, without which nothing makes sense.
3. Mental. Represents knowledge and wisdom.
4. Social. Every individual and organization has social responsibility without which
society
starts dying.
6. Spiritual. Our value system represents ethics and character.

Internet was envisaged around the idea of being accessible to all without any restrictions. It allows people to reach out to each other and exchange information freely, if the information or service is not illegal. Much of this is because of the idea of net neutrality. If you like the current state of the internet, you should know about net neutrality. Many web users are aware of it. But if you are not, don’t worry. We explain it here:

What is net neutrality?

Net neutrality is an idea inspired by how telephone lines have worked since the beginning of the 20th century. In case of a telephone line, you can dial any number and connect to it. It does not matter if you are calling from person A to person B.
When the internet started to take off in 1980s and 1990s, there were no specific rules that asked that internet service providers (ISPs) should follow the same principle. But, mostly because telecom operators were also ISPs, they adhered to the same principle. This principle is known as net neutrality. An ISP does not control the traffic that passes its servers. When a web user connects to a website or web service, he or she gets the same speed. Data rate for Youtube videos and Facebook photos is theoretically same. Users can access any legal website or web service without any interference from an ISP.
Some countries have rules that enforce net neutrality but most don’t. Instead, the principle is followed because that is how it has always been. It is more of a norm than a law.

What will happen if there is no net neutrality?

If there is no net neutrality, ISPs will have the power (and inclination) to shape internet traffic so that they can derive extra benefit from it.
Without net neutrality, the internet as we know it will not exist. Instead of free access, there could be “package plans” for consumers. For example, if you pay Rs 500, you will only be able to access websites based in India. To access international websites, you may have to pay. Or maybe there can be different connection speed for different type of content, depending on how much you are paying for the service and what “add-on package” you have bought.

Lack of net neutrality, will also discourage innovation on the web. It is possible that ISPs will charge web companies to enable faster access to their websites. Those who don’t pay may see that their websites will open slowly. This means bigger companies like Google will be able to pay more to make access to Youtube or Google+ faster for web users but a startup that wants to create a different and better video hosting site may not be able to do that.

Instead of an open and free internet, without net neutrality we are likely to get a web that has silos in it and to enter each silo, you will have to pay some “tax” to ISPs.