Do you know what’s a small thing that’s really a big thing?

Energy.

Pay special attention to how you feel in someone’s company.

Awake, happy, inspired, thoughtful?

Exhausted, drained, perplexed, maybe even like you can’t trust yourself?

Hang out with people who make you feel like yah!

And, doesn’t it make sense to distance yourself from who depletes you?

-Dushka Zapata

If you Dont have Enough then you must Invest Here..........

Do you know Warren Buffett’s number one rule on investing?

"Rule No. 1: Never lose money.

Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No. 1."

I’ll never forget my father’s lesson, “Son, no matter how many material things you accumulate, you can lose them all.”

“What do you mean dad?”

“Your great grandfather owned a beautiful farm, it meant everything for him. One day, some crazy corrupt government officials came and took it from him. He lost it.”

“He couldn’t get it back?” I asked.

“No, in fact, let me tell you another story, your grandfather, lost one of his businesses due to some powerful union leaders that came one day with three busses, and took all his workers.”

“How? Where did they took them?” I asked intrigued.

“By the time they retuned, they were forced to follow the unreasonable demands of the union leaders. Your grandpa’s business was never the same again. He had to eventually close that booming business. He lost it.”

I couldn’t believe the stories, “Has this ever happened to you?” I asked.

“Yes. You were still a young boy. We owned a lot, one day some people decided to build a street in our property so they could get to their property — isn’t that crazy?”

“With no permits?”

“Yes, no permits! We lost that land plus a huge headache of legal fees. The lesson here son is that material possessions can be lost. But remember this; NOBODY can EVER take knowledge away from you. Investing in your knowledge is the safest investment you can ever make.”

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So, to answer your question, what is the best way to invest money when you don’t have a lot?

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest,” — Benjamin Franklin

          -Hector Quintanilla

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZdFn6A3WUU

Do we have more oppurtunities than the generation before us?

This is Julius Yego.

He was born on 4 January 1989. Shortly after being born, he hurled a stone at a Blue gum tree and it went much much farther than the other kids he was playing with could throw. They kept looking and the stone kept going. That is how he discovered that he was gifted.

But it was unclear to him how the gift of hurling stones stood to benefit him.

When he started schooling, he discovered javelin and for a few years, thrilled himself by throwing it further than his classmates each year. Schoolmates started talking about him, and they brought javelin champions from different schools to test him. But he threw better than them all. Like Samson of old, he beat anyone who was brought to him.

Until he got bored. It was becoming redundant.

Then one day, as he was surfing around the web, he found out that there were better throwers than him in the world. They met at plenty of events around the world. The best of them even competed in the Olympics. He wanted that. He wanted to test himself against the very best.

But to qualify, one had to be drafted as a representative of their country. So he went to Nairobi and tried getting a position. The athletics authorities wanted none of him.

They had nothing against him, really. It’s just that Kenya is the home of champions. Half of all commonwealth records are held by Kenyans. One time, during the Singapore Marathon, 17 Kenyans were sent to compete in that Marathon, and they did an unprecedented 

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17 clean sweep in the men’s race.

So, you see, the athletics committee wanted nothing new. They wanted medals. And Javelin was something new. It was unknown and they were sure no medals could come off it.

They had a point.

In 2006, when Yego , 17 years old, became the Kenyan javelin champion, he also broke the junior record with a throw of 67 meters. It was not good enough. Even later when he broke the senior record, he was still throwing 70 meters at best. But to qualify for Olympics, Javelin throwers had to reach a distance of 81.80m for the A standard, or 77.80m for the B standard.

There was no hope for him.

He had no coach, no sponsor, no academy, no government support.

But he had his resilience, and youth, and fans.

In a country of marathoners, fans were excited of this new sports and they badly wanted Yego to go to the Olympics.

What did he do?

The internet gave him an opportunity. He went to YouTube.

Jan Železný and Andreas Thorkildsen, both retired, both Javelin Olympic medalists, posted free tips for improving personal javelin skills. Yego watched them daily and practiced hard until he threw far enough to make it to the trials.

In 2011, still without a coach and YouTube as his only training manual, Yego retained his national championship title for the 4th year in a row, and went on to crash Paul Lagat's fourteen-year-old national record of 78.20 m. He swept several gold medals on his way to making history, leaving a trail of inspiration for millions of young and poor.

Now that attracted the attention of IAAF.

During the trials, he was so determined that he threw 80.8 meters, shooting his name straight to the finals of the 2012 London Olympics.

It would take him two more years to win his first major gold in 2014, but after that, there was no stopping him. He knocked down a few world leaders grabbing, a couple more golds and creating a spot for himself in the high table of gentlemen.

Until in 2015 when he set the new African record and became a legend. The Legend.

Only 4 other men have thrown javelin better than him in recent history (Javelin throw - Wikipedia).

Songs were sang about him and babies were named after him. The Western media gave him a new name “The YouTube Man.”

He became the face of the nation and waved the Kenyan flag in far-away places.

———

That is how the internet showed a naïve boy from a remote corner of the globe that there were bigger opportunities in the world.

It is how YouTube made it possible for someone to self-learn well enough not only to compete with the best of them, but to become one of them.

Thirty years ago, such opportunities were unheard of.

    -Frank Odindo

One night i was returning home from Gurgaon . I was drunk and was driving 100+ kph.When I reached Delhi cantt. area, i saw a dog crossing the road. I could not apply brakes on time and hit her. I could feel my car moving over her body.

I didnot feel anything at that time. I reached home and slept. When i woke up and the alcohol’s effect was gone, i realised that i had killed a dog last night. I picked up my bike and reached the spot.

There she was, dead. Her intestines were protruding out of her belly as she was runover by a few cars in the night. There was blood all over the road.

I felt ashamed of myself of what i had done under the influence of alcohol. I was about to leave when i saw a puppy on the roadside, just 2 meters from the body. He was sitting there continuously staring at the body.

I realised that maybe i had killed his mother last night. And maybe he wont be able to survive by himself without her mother. I took him home.

For almost 24 hours, he didnot eat anything. We gave him milk, he did not drink a drop. After 24 hours, he started eating and drinking. Next 10 days, he did not interact with anyone. He just sat at the same place. We tried our best to comfort him but nothing helped.

It took him 4 week to behave normally . He got comfortable with every person in the family. He statrted playing with us.

8 weeks passed and he started sleeping on our beds. And manipulating us to give him more and more food. Everyone in the family was happy that i brought home a puppy.

After about 3 months, we planned to go to a relative. The whole family was going so we thought that we should take him as well. I took him to the car and opened the door but he won’t step in. He started barking , tried to unhook the leash . I tried everything to get him inside but he didnot step in. I picked him up and kept him on the seat and he jumped off immediately. At first i thought that maybe because his mother was killed by a car, he is afraid of one. I had to stay at home with him because i didnot want him to stay alone at home.

Another week passed, and i again tried to get him in the car but failed .

A year passed and i knew that my Doggo dont like to travel in a car.

One day, a relative of mine came home. They had a dog. My doggo really loved their doggo. He couldnot stop himself playing with the other doggo and they played for about 4 hours without a break. In the night, they started leaving and when they were getting in the car, my doggo jumped into their car . He wont let the other doggo go. It was completely confusing for me because at once, he is afraid to get into my car and here , he refused to step out. I picked him up and brought him outside but he wont stop barking. I was also relieved that now my doggo’s fear of getting into a car is gone.

2 weeks passed and again , we planned to go out . When i tried to get the doggo in, he wont step in. I picked him up and made him sit on the backseat and closed the doors but he wont stop barking. He was behaving crazily scratching the seats with his paws and trying to bite the front seats. He was not comfortable in the car so we took him out.

One day, i booked a taxi for my mother as she was travelling alone to a relative’s place. As soon as she got into the taxi, my doggo jumped into the car. He also wanted to go with my mother. I was angry and confused at the same time. The taxi model was the same model that i drive. But still my doggo wont go inside my car but is happily jumping into other cars.

That day, i realised that maybe he knows who killed his mother that night.

I AM SORRY DOGGO!!

Being Middle Class is Boring....

I grew up relatively poor, by the standards of my region.

 I remember not being able to buy anything that wasnt on sale. This actually led me to believe that ‘on sale' meant ‘for sale' and I hated that stores kept so many items out that we couldnt buy. I only learned the difference when I was about 16.

Most of my clothes came from older girls at my church or aunties who would buy them for me. I had everything I needed, but the quality was usually very low.

As a young adult I had some issues also. My water was shut off once for non-payment. I worked 3 jobs while in college the first time. I once genuinely considered selling my blood/plasma.

But for the past 4–5 years I've been earning well. When I go to buy something, I dont look at the price (in most stores, some shops I know are outrageous so I will confirm before buying). I have six pairs of shoes, four of which are essentially the exact same shoe in different colors (office flats in blue, black, tan, and burgandy).

My puppy has more toys than I had as a child.

Being middle class is boring to someone born in middle class, but for me being middle class feels like a weight off my shoulders.

-Samantha Kannan

Probability of getting An amazing Job after Computer Science and Engineering?

Zero.

To get a good job, you also have to actually develop the skills that employers are looking for, and you have to apply for jobs, and you have to interview well. It doesn’t matter what you study; what matters is how you excel.

  -Jeff Erickson

# My Heart Shattered......

I did in fact. My first wife was murdered in 1978 leaving behind two very young girls. I struggled mightily for ten years to raise them well and retain my sanity.

I remarried after ten years to a woman who brought two more children into the world and I recovered some equilibrium in my life. She left me ten years later for a younger man. That brought me to my knees but I had retained custody of the children while trying to keep a business afloat. It was a desperate, painful time.

Two years later, I travelled to Israel on business and met the last, best love of my life. We planned that she would come to Canada and that we’d be together. I felt about as happy as I had ever been since Flo’s murder.

Then, about a month before Ghillia was due to fly to me, I received a phone call from Israel informing me that she too had been murdered. I remember too clearly sitting down in a heap and feeling my life drain away. I swear that I literally felt my heart break. It might seem utterly mad to some, but the heartbreak from 20 years of struggle, the monumental task of keeping my four children on a good path while hiding from them my pain, the financial pressures, all of it, seemed to come 

down on my head like a load of bricks. 

I left the office that day in a daze, tired beyond description, a beaten man. Yet I had to go home, pick up the kids from school, cook dinner, help them with their homework, chitchat about their day and tuck them in to bed with a story and a song.

That night was probably the loneliest of my life and I had known many. Abraham Lincoln once said, after Chancellorsville: “If there is a worse place than Hell, I am in it”. 

I know exactly how he felt.

-Richard Darroch

Poor and Rich and Hard Work

People are poor or rich not because of their hard work.

People are poor or rich because of the skill set they possesses.

Let me tell you a small story.

A giant ship engine failed. The ship’s owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure but how to fix the engine.

Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a young. He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.

Two of the ship’s owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do.

After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!

A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for $10,000.

“What?!” the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything!”

So they wrote the old man a note saying, “Please send us an itemized bill”.

The man sent a bill that read:

Tapping with a hammer………………….. $ 2.00

Knowing where to tap…………………….. $ 9,998.00 

While anyone can hammer, you need tremendous knowledge, skill and years of experience to know where to tap.

And knowledge and skill does not come free.

It is quite expensive to acquire knowledge in the modern education system, which the parents of poor can’t afford.

Hence, they also don’t get opportunity to occupy important position to sharpen their skills and gather experiences.

Hence, they are forced to do the jobs that needs bare minimum skills.

And they continue to get bare minimum salaries for their work.

Hence, they remain poor despite working hard throughout their life.

-Dr.Awdhesh Singh

You are your own ceo

Things NOT Worth at All

1. Instant Gratification - TV, Internet, Video Games, Fast Food, Mobile Phones, etc. All of these sources of instant gratification block out the few, important, long-term activities that really make a difference.

2. Lying to gain Status - No one ever thinks about it, but the status you gain through your lies is not worth the effort to keep it up. You have to constantly change yourself, no one will love you for who you are because no one will know who you are, and all that lying is going to create a very unstable source of self-worth that can crumble with even the slightest break in that web you’ve created. It’s not worth it.

3. Blame Game - “It’s his fault/her fault/my parents fault/ the fault of the world/it was the situation/I had no choice because of them/If only X wasn’t the way it was/I could have made it if person Y didn’t exist…” It’s easy to go around pointing fingers and saying they are responsible for your misfortune. Sadly none of it is going to change your situation or make things better. It’s merely going to prolong the time you stay in that situation as you keep avoiding taking responsibility yourself.

4. Dating just to Fill a Need - If you date to feel happy, less lonely and fulfilled then you will always be disappointed. Relationships require time, effort and energy and they will drag you down if you are not ready. Relationships always amplify what is there already. Do not expect them to fix anything.

5. Working too hard on the wrong things… - A lot of the things you do just do not matter in the end. There are a lot of things that you spend a lot of time on that end up holding very little value.

6. … And Working too little on the right things - Instead of spending your time aimlessly doing things that hold no value look at the few, uncomfortable things that do. Do those things first and work on them the longest.

7. Staying in Toxic Situations & Relationships - Trust me, it’s not fine! If you are in a burning room filled with acid, if the situation or relationship is poisoning your life, then get out however you can. Yes, it will suck for a while, but something better always takes it’s place.

8. Faking Who You Are - If you fake who you are you will always get feedback on that fake personality. No wonder so many people feel unloved, unsupported and low on self-confidence. They expect people to love their real self without ever showing it. Faking who you are holds no merit to you.

9. Settling For A Life They Do Not Enjoy - While you have to accept where you are you do not have to accept that life will always stay that way. Too many people settle for things they do not want out of fear they cannot get what they truly desire. But what if they get what they do not want? Will that truly make them happy when they settle with it?

10. Entitlement/Lack of Drive - The world owes you nothing. You are not special. There’s no destiny for you to achieve. You are here and everything you do has the potential to create something. But if you do not act, you will gain nothing. Get that through your head and stop waiting for miracles that will not happen.

- Lukas Schwekendiek

Looking down upon People Who are Terrible at (insert what you want).......

This is one of those things that I deeply, deeply despise.

It is a foul attitude, that I rarely tolerate without giving some fairly sharp words in return — and it’s made all the worse by the default assumption that I join in with this stupid, idiotic belief.

---

I work in an office full of theoretical physicists. I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to say that, amongst their number, are some of the most intellectually gifted people in the country.

Most of these people are lovely — perfectly normal — and can more than appreciate that, even though they’re very good at what they do, they’re also terrible at other things, and that this doesn’t make them inherently better or worse than anybody else.

Then…there are the others.

People who think that their ability at mathematics/physics makes them objectively superior to those who aren’t. These people make fun of people who don’t understand the things that they do.

To let you understand how much hatred I feel about this phenomena, let me tell you a story.

---

Our coffee machine broke, a couple of days ago, and a man came to fix it. For some reason, I ended up being the person who took the instructions on how to ensure the machine didn’t get broken again — and I was chatting to him afterwards.

He commented that he was always a bit intimidated by this building — as we have lots of open spaces with chalkboards covered in crazy symbols, and we all seemed super clever.

Somebody else overheard this conversation between me, and the guy who fixes coffee machines, and decided to take it upon himself* to try to explain what the closest symbols meant.

Now: I love telling people about physics. It is one of my genuine passions, I could talk about physics for weeks, if you let me.

But I think it is absolutely abhorrent to do so with the sole intention of making yourself look clever, to mock the other person when they don’t understand what you’re saying.

Of course the guy who fixes coffee machines doesn’t know what a “renormalisation group” is — and making fun of him to his face for not knowing that makes you look like an absolute twat.

For all this absolute cockwomble’s gesticulating about how simple all of this is, and that it just requires paying “a bit of attention to the world around you” — it’s worth remembering he didn’t know how to fix a fucking coffee machine.

In the grand scheme of things, “not being able to fix a coffee machine” is a more mockable quality than “hasn’t read up on quantum field theory”.

---

People are good at different things. Some people fix coffee machines, or cars — some people make beautiful dresses, or can carry our brain surgery, some people can run very fast, or can lead entire teams of people towards a single goal, some people can knit entire gardens to raise tens of thousands for charity:

Could I do that?

Hell no…I tried to help, and made squashed crochet heart that looked more like a turd than a love heart.

But you know who could make that? My mum. She made loads of the stuff in that image (including the watering can in the foreground), and helped project-manage the creation of the rest of it, for a wonderful charitable cause. Her knowledge of maths and physics is, as she would freely admit, woeful compared to mine — but give her some sticks and some wool, and she can make magic.

That’s a pretty incredible thing to be able to do — and arguably so much more useful than anything I can do with my maths and physics.

Other people have skills beyond maths and physics — and a failure to recognise any skills beyond what you can do as worthwhile makes you more of a turd than my squashed heart.

One of the wonderful things about humans is our variety of talents — judging any particular person as being “less worthwhile” because you’re better at them at a single activity makes you a disgustingly shallow human.

---

I think it’s fair to say that, no, I do not look down on people who are terrible at mathematics.

I do, however, know plenty of people who do — and many of them expect me to join in with this percieved superiority game.

I think it is also fair to say that I do look down on these people.

---

*I would make this gender neutral, but let’s face it….there aren’t exactly many women in our department. It was going to be a guy.

                                            -Jack Fraser