Let's start the year with talking about mental health

Symptoms of Depression 

1. Hopeless outlook

Major depression is a mood disorder that affects the way you feel about life in general. Having a hopeless or helpless outlook on your life is the most common symptom of depression.

Other feelings may be worthlessness, self-hate, or inappropriate guilt. Common, recurring thoughts of depression may be vocalized as, “It’s all my fault,” or “What’s the point?”

2. Lost interest

Depression can take the pleasure or enjoyment out of the things you love. A loss of interest or withdrawal from activities that you once looked forward to — sports, hobbies, or going out with friends — is yet another telltale sign of major depression.

Another area where you may lose interest is sex. Symptoms of major depression include a decreased sex drive and even impotence.

3. Increased fatigue and sleep problems

Part of the reason you might stop doing things you enjoy is because you feel very tired. Depression often comes with a lack of energy and an overwhelming feeling of fatigue, which can be among the most debilitating symptoms of depression. This could lead to excessive sleeping.

Depression is also linked with insomnia, as one might lead to the other and vice versa. They can also make each other worse. The lack of quality, restful sleep can also lead to anxiety.

4. Anxiety

While depression hasn’t been shown to cause anxiety, the two conditions often occur together. Symptoms of anxiety can include:

• nervousness, restlessness, or feeling tense
• feelings of danger, panic, or dread
• rapid heart rate
• rapid breathing
• increased or heavy sweating
• trembling or muscle twitching
• trouble focusing or thinking clearly about anything other than the thing you’re worried about

-Jonathan S Perkins

See this

Hints that your relationship is sucking the life out of you

1. You feel the need to spend time alone

If you feel like being alone is a breath of fresh air, it could be because your partner causes you a lot of stress and anxiety. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if this is the case so if you feel like you might emotionally abused, plan a vacation or a trip away and see if your anxiety levels lessen a bit.

2. You don’t trust yourself

You think that you’re being too dramatic or that you’re acting crazy. If you don’t trust yourself and your own decisions, it could be because your partner has brainwashed you into thinking you can’t be independent.

3. You Cry a lot

You cry about your relationship a lot. Happy and healthy partners don’t make each other cry. In fact, a loving partner will gladly be the shoulder you cry on when something is bother you, they are not the cause of that pain.

4. You think it will get better

You know that your relationship is not good right now but you’re always holding onto hope that it will get better. The only way for an abusive relationship to get better is to seek outside help. Abusers have a lot of baggage and their emotional stability cannot be solved on their own. They must be in therapy or counselling and ideally both partners are in counselling together. If your partner refuses to get outside help, it’s going to be impossible for him/her to change on their own.

5. You blame their actions on a disorder or illness

Just because someone is bi-polar, has depression, anxiety, anger management problem etc. doesn’t give them a free pass to be abusive. If they have an anger problem, that doesn’t mean they need to spew out insults or destructive language. Also, if they are experiencing some kind of disorder or illness that causes them to be abusive, they absolutely must be in therapy or taking medication in order to help this problem.

-Jonathan S Perkins

This is why you are not successful

Your best course is to continue looking for jobs right up until your first day at a new company, or maybe even longer.

How do software engineers determine if a company is good or bad to interview with?

This is hard, as there are only good and bad bosses, worthwhile and worthless projects, and happy and toxic teams

My view has been to give it a try, and see how I get on.

You just can't reliably know how things will turn out at interview time

-Alan Mellor

Toxic Relationship

 1. Too Many Compromises

Often one-sided, if I may add.

Compromises are good, and if you want to build a healthy relationship, you must be ready to compromise. It might stink for a bit, but you made your partner happy and a few kisses later you’re totally fine with your choice.

However, while I’m saying that, I also want to add, that compromises shouldn’t conflict with your values, goals, dreams and overall wellbeing. They must be an exception.

That’s not the case with your partner, though. If you feel like you’ve been compromising for too long with too many things in your life, then that’s an indicator something’s not right.

In a toxic relationship, often the compromises are one-sided, and you feel like you’re going against yourself too much.

Is that your case?

2. Your Health Is Affected

Now, that’s something that not everyone will pay attention to.

However, if you are in a very toxic relationship, that’s literally what it happens – it poisons you and your mind. Sooner or later, your health gets worse. You feel depressed, low energised, lose or gain weight (depends on how your body reacts to stress). Your mental and physical health suffers from the toxicity in your life.

After the end of my last toxic relationship, I had lost so much weight that none of my clothes fitted me. I still keep a specific photo of me from that period, just to keep me aware that I should never again get myself into something like that.

3. You Feel You’ve Done Something Very Wrong

Have you got that weird feeling that you’ve done something horrible? That your choices aren’t leading you to the right place in life?

I had it.

I still remember how I sat down on the sofa in the living room and loudly asked myself: Is this how it’s going to be from now on? Is this how I will spend my life? Is this present also my future?

At this point, I panicked. I realised that if I have to spend the next 40 or 60 years of my life in this relationship, the way it was at that moment, I would be the most miserable and unhappier person I know. Right there and then, I decided that it’s time to break up with my partner.

Therefore, if you feel like something went very wrong with your life… you’re most likely in a toxic relationship.

Trust your guts.

-Jonathan S Perkins

Telltale Signs of Narcissim

 1. Deeply repressed shame

Narcissists don't feel much guilt because they think they are always right, and they don't believe their behaviors really affect anyone else. But they harbor a lot of shame. Shame is the belief that there is something deeply and permanently wrong or bad about who you are. Buried in a deeply repressed part of the narcissist are all the insecurities, fears, and rejected traits that he is constantly on guard to hide from everyone, including himself. The narcissist is acutely ashamed of all these rejected thoughts and feelings. Keeping their vulnerabilities hidden is essential to the narcissist's pretend self-esteem or false self. Ultimately, however, this makes it impossible for them to be completely real and transparent.

2. An inability to be truly vulnerable

Because of their inability to understand feelings, their lack of empathy, and constant need for self-protection, narcissists can't truly love or connect emotionally with other people. They cannot look at the world from anyone else's perspective. They're essentially emotionally blind and alone. This makes them emotionally needy. When one relationship is no longer satisfying, they often overlap relationships or start a new one as soon as possible. They desperately want someone to feel their pain, to sympathize with them, and to make everything just as they want it to be. It's a form of codependency, except they have little ability to respond to your pain or fear or even your day-to-day need for care and sympathy.

3. Lack of boundaries

Many people lack boundaries or cross other people's boundaries regularly, but among narcissists, this is status-quo behavior. Narcissists can't accurately see where they end and you begin. They are a lot like 2-year-old. They believe that everything belongs to them, everyone thinks and feels the same as they do, and everyone wants the same things they do. They are shocked and highly insulted to be told no. If a narcissist wants something from you, he'll go to great lengths to figure out how to get it through persistence, cajoling, demanding, rejecting, or pouting. These are all common narcissist behaviors.

4. Perfectionism

You can spot a narcissist through their extremely high need for everything to be perfect. They believe they should be perfect, you should be perfect, events should happen exactly as expected, and life should play out precisely as they envision it. This is an excruciatingly impossible demand, which results in the narcissist feeling dissatisfied and miserable much of the time. The demand for perfection leads the narcissist to complain and be constantly dissatisfied.

-Jonathan S Perkins

Wasted Your 20s ?

 I am way past that age, but I have some really good advice for you.

• You really do not have to worry too much about the time you have lost. Unfortunately that time would not come back, but you can do some significant improvements in your life and lifestyle for future.
• Fortunately, you can make up for all the things you could not do back in your twenties.

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• First of all, what you really need to do is to eliminate things that do not matter in your life. For example, cut connections with negative people, and then negative activities.
• You have to put an immediate stop to all those things. Without this you really will not change, and nothing will be better in future.
• This will sound hard, and feel bad in the beginning, but this is actually good for you. It will bring an immediate impact and then you can focus on great activities.

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Next, you should find three things in your life: Inspiration, motivation, and discipline.

• Inspiration: You have to find a set of people with whom you are willing to swap positions. Write down on a paper why you think those people are amazing. They must have done some great things in their lives. You have to identify those things. You have to read books and increase knowledge. You have to gain the experience they gained. You have to develop the habits they developed, and refine those habits for your purpose.
• Motivation: You have to look up to the great things you can do now, and how things in your life would look like when you have achieved them.
• Discipline: You have to build daily habits that help you get closer to your dream. You have to be very consistent with these habits, and keep tracking your progress on a weekly basis.

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Some greedy approaches:

• You can find out from others what are good skills to learn whether you like them or not. You have find out from others what daily habits they follow and reason with them why those habits are valuable.
• Last but not the least, you have to tell yourself, that any great success comes to you in 10 years, and a short version of it can be realized in five years.
• If you go by this plan, and systematically work on your life, you can achieve a lot, and your future can be significantly bright.

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Stay blessed and stay inspired!

-Rohit Malshe

IISC

If there is intellectual heaven on earth then it is here.

Time spent at IISc bangalore was exceptional and I can easily say that those were the best days of my life.

IISc makes you a complete person. Let me tell you why

1. If you come from a normal college then 1st semester in going to take a toll on you. But you will have great peers and professors to take help from and work with, this is the reason that everyone sails through this study pressure.
2. Once you have studied at IISc, you are capable of handling any kind of pressure in life.
3. The enjoyment you do inside the campus is also incomparable. It teaches you to work hard and party harder.
4. Your intellectual level increases to the level that whatever comes your way in future, be it job or anything, you will be able to handle it easily.
5. Working in an environment which is totally different than the life outside of campus, gives you a feeling that you are responsible for the future of the country. You are being given the privilege to study at the heaven on earth.
6. It teaches you to live life peacefully without any hustle bustle.
7. Studying there gives you access of great sports facilities.
8. Since it's mainly a PG college. Students are treated with respect, and they are given full freedom. For example there in no restriction of hostel timings. Girls entry is also allowed in hostels.
9. Like other colleges, students don't compete with each other, rather they compete with the world outside.
10. For girls, it's a heaven. In this patriarchal society of India, IISc is a place where girls can reach their utmost potential. The campus is totally safe, they can come back to their hostel from department anytime they want. There is no restriction of hostel timings, unlike other colleges.

Both fun life and study life are at the extreme level.

1. All night playing games in labs and all night solving assignments in labs.
2. All classmates used to attend everyone's birthday at a night canteen.
3. Highly talented people become your friends and learning is at the highest level.
4. Cycling culture is super awesome. 99% of people use bicycles inside the campus.
5. Lot of clubs are there. You can join as per your interest. Being part of these clubs and attending different festival and function celebrations is very interesting.

Being an IISian is a proud in itself, you start witnessing change in your personality. People start knowing you from your college. Your parents also feel proud.

Work hard and be a part of this community.

Peace !

-Nikhil Panwar

Why companies call their employees "Family"?

• I don’t put much stock in what companies (or people) say. I pay a lot of attention to what they do. If they treat me like an ideal family, support me, nurture me, and protect me, then I believe their words and repeat them. If they exploit workers and then cast them aside, I laugh at the pretentiousness of their words.
• You can fire your family by dissolving your marriage, walking away from your parents, or ceasing to communicate with your relatives. Family holds no special place in this regard, as much as we wish it would.

-Kurt

There was this experiment done in universities

It goes like this, a bunch of people play monopoly. One person starts with more money, gets double for crossing finishing line. The others don’t get any money for crossing the finish line, the rich player gets two dices while others only have one.

As the game goes on, the rich player, who is picked at random, always began to act more dominant, boastful, and even rude. When they eventually won the game, they never think they had any real advantage, they are simply so good at the game, have some tactic.

They never consider this is because of how the game was setup.

Why rich people tend to think they deserve their money

A psychology experiment using a rigged Monopoly game reveals how inequality replicates itself.

https://www.marketplace.org/story/2021/01/19/why-rich-people-tend-think-they-deserve-their-money

The experiment was done by Paul Piff at UC Berkeley, where participants are randomly assigned to be a "rich" or "poor" player in a rigged game of Monopoly.

The results consistently show that the "rich" players, despite knowing the game is unfair, become more arrogant and less empathetic, attribute their success to skill, and become less sensitive to their "poor" opponents' struggles. They also tend to act more dominantly and less considerately of resources.

The experiment has been replicated countless times.

My kids have achieved some pretty amazing things.........

My kids have achieved some pretty amazing things. For example, my younger daughter was the youngest girl to have ever got an A* in her IGCSE (16+) Maths, when she was 9, and she can speak 6 languages.

My 3 kids are hard-working and motivated. Here’s some tips:-

• Empathise with them and they’ll listen to you more. So I’ve told them I agree studying is boring. C’mon, it is!
• …and then tell them why they should do it. They need to buy the vision.
• Always listen. If they’re not working hard, or they’re being rebellious, talk to them and understand why. No need to get angry, whatever they feel, they feel they’re right.
• Like adults, kids need a goal to get them motivated. So, for my kids the goal is typically an exam. They know the exam date and the grade I want, and are reminded of it every few days. Your kids’ goals could be to get As in half the subjects in the report card.
• With every major goal achieved there should be a huge reward. My kids will be spending an extra 4 weeks in London if they all get the top grade in June 2018.
• Every major goal needs to be broken down into sub-goals. Sub-goals should be tracked, ideally in a spreadsheet.
• Every sub-goal achieved needs a celebration. Typically it’s a film with pizza at home, or we go out for an ice-cream.
• Take an interest. I ask my kids every day what they’ve done and get excited with them when they’ve done well. High fives and all.

• Get involved. You need to induce hard work. I take my kids to cafes as they can’t really do much apart from study there. And they love it as they eat what they want. Once bored of one cafe, we go to the next. BTW I don’t teach - I do my own work.
• Make sure your kids understand that their brains are like muscles, which get stronger by going to the gym. When they study and don’t understand things they’re getting smarter. Studies show that kids that believe intelligence is fixed do worse than those that believe it can change.

That’s all I can think of for now…

-Asim Qureshi

Concentrate & Focus but how?