Penny-Wise Pound-Wiser

Penny-Wise Pound-Wiser

Daily saving countless Water

Being an intelligent Miser

That's the Haiku poem I wrote at the sight of my dinner plate.
Actually each day I tried to be a miser and console myself that I'm an intelligent miser. 

I reason it out of being a so-called self-appointed "intelligent" miser. 

Why? Because I ask some "foolish" questions to every human activity that I see, rather, that "I probe" I should say. 

But I don't have control over some. 

So I be "funny" with myself, with what I've control over. 

My dinner plate for instance.
I 'want' a fresh one. That's my desire.
That's my healthy habit.
But can my 'need' be served by something else?

Can I choose a soiled one that's available from the kitchen after being used for its intended purpose in the cooking process? 

For instance, one in picture is the pot of balance quantity of rice and another one is that balance quantity of curd. 

One plate and one bowl stays fresh!

Also you can see an old newspaper used below the plate so that the table doesn't get soiled. 

Plate reused!

Water saved, waste eliminated!!
Economy for Ecology!!!

How many such activities and avenues possible in a day? 

How much time can be saved that can be used for more value-adding work? 

How much water can be saved each day?

Countless at times!!!

Penny-Wise Pound-Foolish it is to call the self so-called intelligent!

Read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Rise-n-Fall in the Rain-Fall 

Take Habits For A Ride 
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

How To Make A Difference

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Poverty-to-Power of Poetry

Wish To Be Planet-Friendly?: Save ! 

Soon-waste-to-eat, Sea-to-drink !

Don't Save Water on Holi-day

Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green

Not-Soon, Says Monsoon

Rise-n-Fall in the Rain-Fall   

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-1)

Functional-Aesthetics
Bust-wants, Boom-needs

Should one care for value? 

What You See Isn't What's Made

You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable

Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 

Less With More And More Gets Sore 

How To Make A Difference 

Some Moron ! Some Great !!! 

That's How Morons Work

Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass  

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy 

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 

Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice? 

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !! 

Don't Save Water on Holi-day

Talk in-order-to Listen!

I came across an old Argnetine proverb: 'He who speaks, sows; he who listens, reaps.'

A couple of days later, on whatsapp received a picture of Swami Vivekananda that says, "talk to yourself once a day... ."

Do these statements convey different meanings?

First one emphasises listening more than speaking: Listening to others! We are given two ears and one mouth as the rhetoric goes. I often tend to forget this though. Of course at times you need to speak on behalf of the speaker herself to validate that you have understood. This is active listening.

The second statement too emphasises listening but; Listening to self!

Once the art of 'listening to self' is mastered 'listening to others' gets easier.

How does one 'listen to self'?

At subtler level, an intelligent but difficult way is to meditate!

At gross level a simple way is to write a diary; daily if possible!

Some do write a diary but conventionally it tends to be a chronology of events and problems. 

To go any closer to what Swami Vivekananda says, the diary should be about drawing lessons from the events and from one's own behavior.

Then the diary turns out to be 'listening to self' in real sense.
Thoughts and your response to situations change thereafter.
The lessons learnt from mistakes, if any, help improve one's self.
Journey from reaction to pro-action (proactive action) begins.
A step taken towards excellence!

Someday a day dawns with an appointment of a beautiful, handsome, strong and excellent person: The Self: The one that Swami Vivekananda had in mind!

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

How To Make A Difference

Big-Be Or Bug-Be !

Nauseous Communication Gaps 

Will It Work Here? 

Some Moron ! Some Great !!!

That's How Morons Work

You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable

Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass 

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!

IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?

Eternally Happy!

In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !!

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

Do You Ask Right Questions? 

Overworked? Tension? CPU of the mind hung-up?

No Time? Micro-Meditate! 

No Time? Micro-Meditate!

Just read about Mindfulness and Micro-Meditation.

It reminds me of the tips in blogpost on self-energizing in a minute. It's about meditation in order to overcome overworking and tension.

If you are short of time to 'sit down and meditate' in a conventional sense, don't worry. Even a single spiritual breath cycle can do the magic if you do exercise your choice.

Just 'catch a minute' in order to micro-meditate and self-energize.

Even a Lift that takes a couple of minutes to reach it's destination offers an opportunity. Of course you must commit yourself to do so.

Like a 'standing-corpse', lean in a comfortable position against a support in a corner of the lift.

Close eyelids gently. Taking advantage of gravity, 'throw in your head'.

Relax all facial and body muscles including eyelids and eyeballs. 'Visit' them with 'mental eyes' to do so. Eyes dissipate maximum energy. So more and faster they are relaxed, more and faster you gain.

Take a deep breath... Gently! ... Without appearing to force it down your wind pipe!

While doing so let 'mental eyes' traverse the path of the breath.

As you inhale, feel cool breath entering your nostrils, touching it's walls, going deep down into your belly as much as possible and naturally.

As you exhale, feel it moving up into your lower chest region, then to your shoulder region and then out of the nostrils. While exiting feel warmth of the breath.

Now dwell a moment on your eyelids. Slowly and deeply breathe into the muscles of the eyelids. Feel the heat being thrown away from eyeballs to eyelids and finally into atmosphere. Feel that eyelids as well as your facial and body muscles are relaxed. Dwell into this feeling until the time on hand permits.

Gently open your eyelids. See naught while staring into space. Just an empty look into Zero. Walkout of the lift slowly as it reaches destination. Now you are more happy, with reduced level of anxiety and fear, 'ready to go' with more energy and confidence.

If you did it right then it's likely that you just had a micro glimpse into the most secret phenomenon: the phenomenon of buddhahood. If yes, then celebrate your new 'self', the new birth!

If you couldn't do it right, don't worry. At least 'you' tried to make a difference to yourself. Keep practising it until it becomes a habit.

Enjoy the day!

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder: Please do consider leaving a comment or sharing this post.

Overworked? Tension? CPU of the mind hung-up?
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
Eternally Happy!
In-a-problem? No-problem! Dwell-a-while!
I am afraid ! What do I do !! 
Fearful-Of-Death-of-Birth
Take Habits For A Ride
Happy-Birthday-to-Youooo
Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam! 
Are You Good If Others Are Bad? 
Want Need-Or-Want
How To Make A Difference
Love is Care.. Care is Love ! 
Deity is in the eyes of the beholder
Success-or-failure! What-do-you-like? 
Ball-Basin-Team Combine !  Maketh The Smile Divine !!

Who comes first: Current customer or New customer?

Sometimes companies tend to forget remedying 'lost sales' in the 'current-market-current-product-current-customer' quadrant in their enthusiastic quest to get 'additional sales numbers' by trying to acquire new customers with new offering in current or new market.

It is like pouring in a pot from top that has a hole in the bottom.

I had two cellphone SIM-cards: one from company-A, the other from company-B.

After exercising 'mobile-portability-right' to switch over from company-B, I received not less than 8 calls from them. 

Half the calls received were from their marketing officer with an 'attractive' offer to switch over company-A SIM to (his own) company-B. Perhaps he was ignorant that I had surrendered my other (company-B) card due to their unsatisfactory service. Their market-intelligence' seemed to be smart though to have list of the competitor's clients.

Balance half calls were from their customer-care officer to find out why I had 'switched' from company-B. Calls were backed by an apology letter.

So on one hand marketing was busy working on acquiring new customers while customer-care department was making a failed attempt to 'retain' current one. On the other hand operations department seemed to complacently (mis-)handle existing customers inadvertently forcing them to quit.

No doubt that balancing the act of working on current and new/diversified offering, (for) current and new customers, and (in) current and new markets is really a complex and an intelligent process. 

But retaining a 'current customer' and hence 'current sales' is relatively a far easier and economically more viable strategy that should be perfected by plugging loopholes/deficiencies in services before applying 'Penetration', 'Product/market development', and 'Diversification' strategies.

While the 'current customer' provides cues for loopholes, the later strategies to acquire 'new customer' need at least 10 times more investment (in time, efforts and money) than the former. As a student, I had often felt disgusted when photocopier shop near my college used to keep my 200-pages running-order on hold intermittently in order to service a single-copy customer (jumping the queue).

The former strategy is a play in current known-terrain. A satisfied current customer is more likely to be a brand ambassador providing leads to prospective customers in new terrain (environment).

Doesn't a bird-in-hand need to be cared for before the two in the bush as goes the old saying?