Category: Global challenges

Mahatma Gandhi Revisited: Life Lessons For You And Me


Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. 

I just finished reading Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography, My experiments with truth. Not sure why I did not get to it sooner, but I am so glad I finally did. Reading it has been delightful and inspirational. Amidst a global shortage of leadership role models, revisiting Gandhi’s life offers rich lessons towards creating a more meaningful life.

He once famously remarked ‘My life is my message’. Indeed, his life, values and ideals raise the bar for every human being on what’s possible and what to strive for. Here are my five personal life lessons from the book. Notwithstanding his unmatched contribution to India’s independence, these lessons draw on Gandhi’s life journey– the man that he was.

1. Relentless search for truth

There is no God higher than truth.

First and foremost, Gandhi led a life driven by a strong sense of purpose. He was a lifelong seeker of the truth about life – the deepest principles that govern life and make it meaningful.

His strong personal beliefs around self-control, acceptance, equality, love and non-violence were not based on an intellectual understanding of the ideas. They were founded on personal trials, tribulations and experiences that he chose to put himself through – so that he could get closer to the truth. Through his life, he continued to experiment, learn and refine his beliefs and was unabashed in pursuing them irrespective of what people around him thought.

He voraciously read about all religions and philosophies. For him, morality and being truthful, in actions as well as thoughts, were critical foundations towards building a purposeful life. He had immense faith in the power of the universe (God) to support those living a principled life – he narrates several personal experiences as proof.

This brings home the relevance of living by strong values and principles in life. What core principles do you live by that are non-negotiable under any situation? How often have you let convenience get the better of truth?…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Community, Global challenges, Leadership, Personal mastery, Self-growth | 7 Comments

Nepal And Other Disasters: Making Sense Of Human Suffering

Photo by h.koppdelaney
Photo by h.koppdelaney

Over two million children have been impacted by the recent Nepal earthquake; over half a million people rendered homeless; and thousands dead.

Natural disasters routinely play havoc with our lives and their impact is staggering. Behind each of these statistics are untold heart-rending stories of individual human suffering – of orphaned children, destroyed marriages, parents who lost their child, and the innumerable others who face the prospect of a life full of agony and hardships.

These events shake us to the core – and our faith. For the religious amongst us, we wonder about the existence of God and his justice – why would he want millions of innocent people to suffer this way. For the spiritual, it’s baffling to come to terms with the extent of individual suffering and what caused it. I have been wrestling with these questions lately and here are my thoughts.

Three concepts worth reviewing

1. Nature and its laws

Natural disasters are not disasters in themselves. They are events that emanate from the natural working of the universe and follow its laws. However, as humans, we are conditioned by our bi-polar evaluation of every situation as good or bad based on how it affects us. Given the scale of physical, emotional and financial damage such events wreck on human life, we clearly take them personally and experience them as evil.

The universe is unfolding as it needs to. The sun rises and sets as it needs to, the clouds turn into rain as they need to, and the plants are born – some to become trees and some to die early – as they need to. Likewise, earthquakes, volcanoes and cyclones are a natural outcome of earth’s evolutionary process. 

2. Human will and individual karma

When impacted by these events, we do gravitate to wondering if it’s our personal fault or bad karma. Questions like, why is this happening to me, what have I done to deserve this, is this God or Universe’s way…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Global challenges, Personal mastery, Self-growth, Spiritual | Comments Off on Nepal And Other Disasters: Making Sense Of Human Suffering

Climate Change, Ways Forward and the Journey of Personal Change


Mark Twain might as well have been talking about climate change when he famously remarked, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it.”

Climate change is for real and its alarming impact has been evident all around us. The proportion of hurricanes reaching categories 4 or 5 worldwide has risen from 20% in the 1970s to 35% in the 1990s; the increased frequency of extreme local weather like the 2003 heat wave across Europe that killed over 30,000 people; the receding glaciers (according to the UN, Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035 possibly impacting over two billion people); the increasing deterioration of ecosystem and the ensuing diseases with newer mutants of viruses; and the disappearing bee colonies, impacting agricultural produce in many developed countries, are all examples of this change. It is even leading to social strife in parts of the world – the reduction in rainfall in Darfur has turned millions of hectares of already marginal land into desert, leading to one of the largest social conflicts. As we look into the future, the dangers of increased hurricane activity in Central America and Southern US, the risks of places like Maldives, Bangladesh and Cairo being exposed to higher sea levels, the challenges of large scale social migration, and spread of new and unknown diseases worldwide are ominous.

While there’s a significant debate (although often more political than scientific) about whether humans are causing this climate change or if it is merely the result of a broader planetary cycle of change, the scientific community unequivocally suggests that humans are contributing to it. As we know, one of the biggest causes of climate change is the rising level of carbon emissions, brought about by burning of fossil fuels, like oil and coal, by cars, planes, homes, factories, and power plants. On average in the US, a passenger car emits over 5 tons of CO2 every year and a home emits 4 tons of CO2 per person each year. The Ecological Footprint Network has estimated that humanity’s burden on…

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Change is Coming to Planet Earth…


“In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order” Carl Jung

There appears to be a tremendous increase in incidence of negative news in our lives over the recent past. Natural disasters, climate change, violence, financial crisis have run havoc in people’s lives – better monitoring and live media coverage notwithstanding. The 2004 Tsunami killing over 200,000 people, Cyclone Nargis leaving 100,000 dead, deadly Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake in China that rendered over 4.5 million homeless. Similarly, the impact of climate change has been alarming – worldwide, the proportion of hurricanes reaching categories 4 or 5 has risen from 20% in the 1970s to 35% in the 1990s; the increased frequency of extreme local weather like the 2003 heat wave across Europe that killed over 30,000 people; the receding glaciers (according to the UN, Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035 possibly impacting over two billion people); the increasing deterioration of ecosystem and the ensuing diseases with newer mutants of viruses; and the disappearing bee colonies, impacting agricultural produce in many developed countries. Then there’s the destruction caused by social strife – the reduction in rainfall in Darfur has turned millions of hectares of already marginal land into desert, leading to one of the largest social conflicts. Simultaneously, we still have about half of world’s population living below incomes of US$2 per day (World Bank, 2001). Violence emanating from wars, terrorism, religious fanaticism, and social-strife has been enormous – over 10,000 people died or got injured from terrorist attacks during 2008; the number of casualties from Iraq war alone is estimated to have topped a million; over 200,000 people killed and over two million displaced in Darfur. Finally, there’s the recent economic crisis, worst since the great depression – adding despair to millions. The global chaos and despondency is all around us.

“You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.” Friedrich Nietzsche

Based on numerous spiritual scriptures, it appears the time for a new world order to be born…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Global challenges, Personal mastery, Self-growth, Spiritual | Comments Off on Change is Coming to Planet Earth…

Personal Change and World Peace!


Three of the biggest long-term challenges facing our world today are wars/ terrorism, poverty, and climate change. Although at varying levels, and in some ways interrelated, each of these has already disrupted our lives and holds substantial potential to escalate and truly threaten the survival of the human race. In light of the recent events in Mumbai, here is an article I had written for the Sunday Times of India, focusing on one of the fundamental aspects related to creating long-term world peace.

Wars and violence have been an integral part of our civilizations. However, in recent times, spurred by terrorism, world peace is threatened at an unprecedented scale. A quick search shows over 10,000 people died or got injured from terrorist attacks during 2008 itself. Similarly, the number of casualties from Iraq war alone is estimated to have topped a million. As one wonders about the root cause of this extraordinary violence, some of the obvious reasons that come to mind include – religious differences, socio-economic inequality, technology and ease of communication, and globalization of arms trade and people mobility. However, underlying all these seems to be a more fundamental and longer-term issue – and that’s the deeper emotional issue of anger and hatred. It originates at an individual level and as it spreads and gains acceptance among a wider group, it has the potential to get substantially amplified. It doesn’t matter where the violence is directed, anger and hatred remain at the very core of it.

Anger is a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility. It is an emotional state that may range from minor irritation to intense rage. It can be caused by any number of triggers – someone cutting our lane on the freeway, someone saying hurtful things to us, someone doing things that appear unjust and so forth. Often, the underlying factor bringing up anger is a sense of lack of control – a perceived threat to getting what we want. This desire for control maybe inborn or may grow through our childhood and other…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Global challenges, Personal mastery | 3 Comments

Reinventing Ourselves in Times of Trouble


In the background of how the current economic and financial crisis is impacting individual lives and families, a leading Indian newspaper had recently asked me to write a short piece on some thoughts around reinventing ourselves in such challenging situations. The same is reproduced below.

Every time we are faced with a real personal crisis — loss of job, onset of a terminal illness, divorce or financial crisis — some of the questions that cross our mind are: Why did this happen to me? Will it ever get better? How will this impact my social position? It is only natural to start feeling down and feel anxious about the future. However, people who have weathered such storms, and whom I have had the opportunity to meet during my corporate career and my life coaching practice, usually say that the crisis was the best thing that happened to them. It made them to get off their treadmill of maddening activity and do some real soul searching towards creating a better and happier future.

Drawing from those experiences, it may be useful to look at ways of dealing with such crises in multiple dimensions.

First, it is critical to maintain a healthy sense of optimism about the future — not because we want to psyche ourselves into positive thinking but because things do get better from points of high pessimism. Surveys of people faced with a personal crisis demonstrate that the same people generally feel much better about themselves and life in general just a year after the initial event. It is equally important to have a strong sense of self-belief — the belief that not only will things get better, but that I will also have a meaningful role to play in it. As Graham Bell said, “When one door closes another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us.”

If the crisis involves some form of financial impact, it may be useful to also…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Global challenges, Self-growth | 3 Comments

Leadership: the Needed Shift for Wisdom


“Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”– T. S. Eliot

A number of contemporary thought leaders believe that some part of the 21st century would belong to the “wisdom” society as against the “knowledge” society that we are currently part of. I tend to agree and would welcome such a shift; in fact hope that it happens sooner rather than later.

While this shift is relevant for the entire society and its leaders in all spheres of life, in this post, let me focus on the need for such a shift in organizational leadership.

The business work place is under tremendous strain today. The pressure to succeed on a quarterly basis is high, with higher competition, fewer resources, and a more unpredictable environment. Leaders face huge challenges – with building a compelling and shared vision for the organization, motivating the team members towards that vision, and finally sustaining quality results in an ever changing and highly competitive market place. In one of the researches by Harris Interactive of over 20,000 employees, it was concluded that only 37% of the employees said they have a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve and why and only 1 in 5 employees was enthusiastic about their organization’s goals. Regarding employee motivation, a recent research in the UK found that 42% of all workers surveyed felt “used up” by the end of the day; and the salaries they aspired for suddenly don’t seem enough to them. Yet another disturbing research published in the Time magazine suggested that approximately 75-90% of all visits to the primary care doctors are for stress related problems, with job stress being by far the leading cause.

One of the key reasons for this entire scenario, to my mind, is the lack of clear purpose or a broader social context for which the organization exists. I reckon for the leaders to become architects of mission for their organizations, they need…

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Posted by Rajiv Vij | Global challenges, Leadership | 2 Comments

Personal Mastery and Living our Lives Inside Out…


In many of my recent posts, I have written about the principles behind personal mastery and its relevance to our lives and the world around us. In this post, I would like to highlight how this journey or outlook is so powerful in clarifying our own roles and their context in the world around us.

We all play multiple roles in our life – at work, with family, with friends, and in society and so on. How do we become clear of our purpose in life and its interconnectedness with our various roles? How do we prioritize among the numerous options of spending our time and energies – between personal goals, community work and building relationships…?

I am a life and executive coach and in my coaching practice, have the privilege of working with people often discovering answers to these very questions. These situations are not unique to coaching conversations but are common place occurrences in all our lives. Let me share some examples. A visionary leader of a voluntary organization I was working with, was deeply committed to making a substantial difference in the lives of the under-privileged. Driven by his ambition in his chosen field, he was often stressed and while in his early 40s, had become hypertensive. Now, given that we may often believe that people involved in the area of giving have greater meaning in life and are hence worry-free, the health situation of this leader may seem paradoxical. In another example, consider the case of a courageous single mother who was substantially stretched in her roles as a senior executive at work and as a mother. While she described her children as her clear top priority, she constantly felt torn between working late hours (supposedly to be able to earn more and thereof better take care of her children) and spending time with the children. She also expressed feeling a significant lack of fulfillment in her life. While I am simplifying these situations to bring out a point, I hope you can…

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Personal Mastery and World Consumption Levels


In one of my initial posts (Personal mastery and the journey within), I had introduced the concept of personal mastery. In this piece, I would like to highlight the relevance of this concept to dealing with potential challenges and mismatches of world consumption levels.

Research on global differences of consumption levels done by Professor Jared Diamond of UCLA highlights that on average a person in the developed world consumes 32 times more than his counterpart in the developing world. The developed world represented by the US, Western Europe, Japan and Australia accounts for about 1 billion people, the rest of the world’s population being 5.5 billion. As developing countries, led by China and India, aspire to match the consumption levels and lifestyle of the developed nations, the world is likely to face a major resource crunch – for food, oil, metals and so forth. Now, just China’s catching up with the developed world would roughly double the global consumption rates; India and China together catching up would triple the same rates. If the whole developing world were to catch up with the developed world one day, Professor Diamond argues, it would be equivalent of feeding a world population of 72 billion people – something our world is not known to be equipped to provide for (at least not at the current time).

What can we do to meet this future challenge? As I had mentioned in my post on personal mastery and communities, the real challenge with some of the global issues like poverty is not that the world does not have enough to feed the poor, it’s the inability of the human race to share and distribute the existing wealth to raise the overall standards of living across the planet. Will we continue to have the chase of higher consumption levels and eventually run out of resources; in consequence, creating high inflation and a new band of poor population – in this case spread across developing and developed…

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