What empathy looks like

THE POSITIVE SIDE: Sometimes you kinda eventually develop a soft corner for your therapist (especially if they belong to the opposite gender) due to the following pivotal reasons: 1. They are perhaps the only person you have who "listens" to you and helps you de-tanglenhour thoughts 2. Their tone is pacifying and welcoming. 3. Sometimes when you are venting out, you logical side of the brain takes the back seat and your emotions take over. During such conditions, you end up trusting someone if they are listening to you with an active interest. BUT BUT BUT ! THE APPARENT DARK SIDE: 1. They do all the sweet talk for money. While it may seem like a hard pill to swollow, its just like any other medical profession like cardiologist or radiologist, who wouldnt even look at you if you dont have money. 2. They will obviously judge you and talk about you to their close colleagues or intimate friends. 3. They would want you to BE SAD so that they can get paid. Infact my therapist once clearly said that we only take 20% accountability for everything when I was thanking her (indirectly hinting that if something goes wrong its on me and if something goes right its also on me) Thanks to my therapist I dont even trust my shadow anymore.

Write about a time you made someone feel very nice. Hopefully it can be a collection of ideas that others can take forward. If somehow a few people do something nice as a result, that would be powerful. To start with an example: Bought a laptop for my grandfather because he wanted to continue working post 60. Helped him learn Excel, Gmail, Chrome browsing over many days. He really picked it up, and works as a consultant for new companies in the industry he worked all his life.

On a recent episode of Nikhil Kamath, he says “Bangalore is famous for nice and welcoming people”. This is so very true to a large extent. Every city however has some outliers who tarnish the image by going extreme. I have seen a lot of posts on GrapeVine complaining about Bangalore and their people. People should understand that every native resident of a city carries a profound sense of connection and endeavours to uphold the cultural heritage of their hometown. And what better way to preserve heritage than to safeguard language ? This is the reason I believe most non Hindi speaking cities try to impose their language on outsiders. All said and done, I feel language should never be imposed but at the same time it shouldn’t be ridiculed either. I’ve seen a lot of “Kannada” hate post and is disheartening to see it. And lastly I appologize to all those who have had negative experiences due to a few troublemakers. TL;DR : Bangalore is a lovely city with warm and welcoming people.

Saw a non-technical PM crib on Grapevine about this. The thing is I’m not the nicest guy in the Universe because I’m the smartest. And being nice is something stupid people do to hedge their bets. You know, smart people get a chance to climb on top and take reality for a ride, but it'll never stop trying to throw you, and eventually it will. There's no other way off. And you take the chance. No respect for people who play a game of thrones. Masking behind powerful men, and hide in their shadow to get their bidding done. When a company has people problems bigger than the problem the company is trying to solve, you know what to do then...

Here’s what I have been feeling nowadays, I suffer alone every night, smile during the day & tell friends only half and parents nothing so they don't worry about them. I finally end up becoming a big ball of bottled up emotions. I was trying to talk to my colleagues about this and no one seems to care. All they care about is their own life and that is fair. Is life all about suffering and pain?

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