TAKE CARE OF UNSOLICITED VISITORS

Several unsolicited visitors come to our residences daily, as a normal routine, under the pretext of carrying out some survey, selling some product, creating awareness, giving free samples, seeking some works, seeking a room on rent, asking for some information or for making some observations. Under the garb of doing a survey, they want to ascertain details of all the costly items in the house. Some of them may even be passing on this information to wrong hands. Some years back one person came to our residence unannounced, giving the reference of some friend of my father. Having come for some work, he wanted temporary stay for 1 to 2 days in our house. This request was accepted. We provided all facilities like separate bed room & bathroom & food etc. But after a few days, on some pretext or the other, he did not leave and continued to stay in our house, enjoying all facilities. It came almost to a month, with no indications of his leaving. My mother was worried. First of all he was not a known person and secondly he had taken undue advantage already & overstayed too long. We did not know for sure, what he was doing here and what he was doing in his home town. Ultimately one fine day my father decided to ask him to vacate the room. He was reluctant and wanted some more time, which was refused. He was threatened that police will be called. Then with great reluctance he left, never to be seen again. When we wrote a letter to our father’s friend, he informed that he never sent any such person. On receipt of this reply, we were totally upset. We were wondering about the whereabouts and motives of that person. We were however happy that nothing untoward had happened in the house like injury to any person or loss of any item. Probably he was an unemployed person and wanted free boarding and lodging facility for some time. He might be doing like this with some other persons as well. Nowadays internet (especially Face Book) friendships are also increasing, but the big problem here is that many people do not disclose correctly (or hide) their age, sex, occupation, status and other personal details. In some cases, some such friends have suddenly appeared when least expected and even some untoward incidents are said to have occurred. Such events may even be repeated in future. Some may be having nefarious designs in their minds. Our personal life and finances are certainly more important than this so called friendship. Hence it is very necessary to reconsider all things from the point of view of safety and security and to take adequate care of all such visitors as stated above.

TAKING CARE OF GLASSES IS VERY IMPORTANT

If our eye sight is affected due to heredity or some other causes, we should put on glasses after proper checking by an eye-specialist. It is an important & crucial requirement. Besides aiding in viewing, spectacles also protect our eyes from dust, dirt, fumes and sometimes even from injury. But if something happens to our glasses we are in deep trouble. My experience is that it may happen due to our carelessness or in spite of taking proper care. Some years back I had to attend a very important meeting in New Delhi. I was getting ready and trying to clean the glasses when suddenly one of the glasses came out of the frame on its own, fell on the ground and broke into pieces. I was shocked. There was no time for fresh testing of eyesight and/or getting new glasses fixed. I attended the meeting in as is condition, with lower level participation. If I had to make a presentation, things would have been very difficult indeed. On another occasion, all of a sudden my frame broke from the bridge portion but the glasses were intact, so I could get a new frame quickly. My wife had misplaced her frame more than once in the past and each time it took us some time and running about, to locate it at some unexpected place. One day we had guests for dinner. She had removed her spectacles, kept it on the sofa set for a while and soon forgot about it. In the meantime one of the guests tried to sit on the sofa set and the frame got deformed due to his pressure. It could not be repaired and I had to provide a new set. But there was considerable problem in the intervening period. Equally important is to clean the glasses with water and wipe them dry with a clean cloth piece, daily and carefully. Also we must put spectacles on and also off, carefully using both hands and then keep on a level surface, where they may remain safe. In case of any discomfort with the frame, we should take advice of our optician quickly, besides consulting the eye specialist in case of any eye discomfort.   Especially when our eyesight is poor, it is very difficult to work without the glasses, even for a small period. Therefore we must always take proper care of our eye sight and spectacles.

PLANNING IS USEFUL FOR OUR NORMAL ACTIVITIES

My job was at places far away from my home town and several times when I visited my home town, I found that some or the other important item used to be forgotten. Then I thought of making a master-list of items to be always taken along. Thus I prepared a master-list of not only the items to be taken but also list of works to be completed before going on leave, list of works to be done at home town and list of items to be brought from the home town. I found these lists to be very useful, since the problems faced earlier reduced considerably. Similarly, I made lists for my visits to outstations on official duties. Of course, looking at the points and making cross checks helped a lot. Similarly “to-do” lists were made, one day before, for planning and completing works in the office.  I also made lists of purchases and works to be done during visits to the markets and other offices for personal works. This also included making of a sequence of doing the things, as per the travel plan. These proved to be very useful, in accomplishing the works, with minimum possible efforts and reduced time. I also advised my family members to follow these practices, who appreciated the utility of such lists. Extending this principle to other areas, I made lists of important points to be discussed, information to be given and information to be obtained before participating in official meetings and conferences and also before making important official and personal telephone calls.

SOME PREVENTIVE ASPECTS OF HEALTH

Prevention is known to be better than cure. Our health depends on many factors. Therefore we must have adequate knowledge of the items which affect us adversely or favourably. We must also know about opposite effects of the food items and take care of them. Then we must make use of all this information in our own interests, so as to prevent our health from getting affected adversely. Most of the effects on our body are due to the food intake. We should see that the vegetables are free from pesticides, the food is prepared and served in hygienic utensils and conditions and the food prepared is freshly taken.  Above all water should be clean and free from adverse contents. Non-veg items should be avoided.  Also excess of everything is bad and the things should be consumed in limits especially salt and sugar. We must have adequate sleep, rest, relaxation, entertainment, exercise, meditation, yoga, walking amidst greenery and prayer etc. Periodical fasting and medical testing are also essential.  When required essential medicines should be taken regularly, taking care to avoid overdoses. Above all we should avoid stresses in life and take life as it comes. Experience says that a stitch in time saves nine and improves quality of our life.

HUMAN MIND SEEMS TO HAVE UNLIMITED POWERS

By looking at the history, we will observe that in various fields, there have been major achievements. If one were to compile a list of such achievements it will go into many pages. This has been possible due to possible unlimited powers of the human mind, positive attitudes of the various persons and hard work put in by the teams of dedicated persons in single minded and fearless pursuit of objectives. But there is still a lot to be achieved. From the time Newton had said that his knowledge is like a sand particle near a sea beach, while there is ocean of knowledge, things have only slightly changed. We still require human endeavour for making progress fearlessly. We can try to achieve now, those things which we could not do, did not think about or did not imagine earlier, by individual and collective application of our minds to the works. We should start with a positive note that we will be able to do the works soon. We need not worry about failures, since a failure is the first step to success and there may be several steps to success. If we do not worry for failures and have positive attitudes, chances of successes are plenty. To get new achievements, we should look at the things from a different perspective.