Out sick again?

I have been out with malaria supposedly couple of weeks back and now had a relapse (with higher temperature).
I was strictly adviced against working by a lot of people.
There were only 2 things i could do i.e reading and watching some movies.

Reading:
I read some really good books like

1. The Economic Naturalist: Follow this link

2. India in Slow Motion by Mark Tully : The author travels across the length and breadth of India and tells inspiring stories of people who are fighting corruption and bureacracy while adding bit of humor and history to it.

3.The Motorcycle Diaries by 'Che' Guevera: It is a memoir of the great revolutionary leader Ernesto Che Guevera, long before his became Che. He takes a journey across South America along with this friend, which opens his mind and moulds him into the charismatic leader

4. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch : A truly inspirational "last lecture" give by CMU Professor Randy Pausch who has 10 tumors in his liver and only 3 months to live

5. Fooled By Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (Still reading) by Nassim Nicholas Taleb :
Just started reading this one. It talks about ( as the topic states) how sometimes we just get "lucky" and how there is a lot of randomness in nature especially in the stock markets.

I also saw these movies:

1. The Godfather: Adapted from the classic novel by Mario Puzo (titled with the same name) . A must watch classic movie.

2. Schindler's List : A classic movie from Speilberg's stable. It tells the true story of Oskar Schindler who helps rescues thousands of Jews from the
holocaust.

3. The Machinist: A psychological thriller starring Christian Bale

4. WALL E : Another awesome animation movie from PIXAR

5. Street Kings: Keenu Reaves starrer about a corrupt cop who tries to correct things when his parter get killed. A regular cop movie one guy fighting against corruption. Watch L.A Confidential Instead.

I am ready to get back to work after a really long break.

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Stress...!

My dad was talking to me about the amount of stress we and the future generations were going to face. More Traffic (due to the Nano!), more pollution, more idiots talking on mobile phones while driving etc etc.

I thought for a few seconds and responded, "Stress is an emotion of the human psyche just like happiness, sad, frustration etc"
Humans have always experienced stress. Just that the reasons of stress vary.
Today the reasons are different from the ones yesterday. But you can't say that its more or less. People (especially from the older generation) tend to think that older times were better times, less stressful times. This retrospective utopian thinking is surely misplaced.

In the 60s and 70s, communication was really poor. One wasn't sure of the next time he would get to listen to his son or daughter's voice who were probably in the U.S . People graduating from college weren't sure getting jobs.

If we go even further back in time, prehistoric era where humans lived in caves and hunted for food; there was no certainity of when the next meal would come?
whether it would come at all? There were other things to worry about like wild animals, shelter, clothing etc

So circumstances change over time, and so do things that can add stress to your life and also things that reduce stress.

Let me reiterate the fact that stress is a human emotion just like sadness, anger and frustration. This is a good thing, as it can be brought under control.

So Learn to reduce stress in life by controlling rather than complain about it!

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