If life is a journey, its story gets told through periodic collection of thoughts that summarize the journey. In turn they become books published for use by others as well as a compendium of knowledge for posterity!
My life journey as a professional and in many respects as an individual, family member and part of the society at large have evolved in parallel tracks. Now, reflecting back on the three books published over the years, they seem to provide a continuum of this journey, even though they were not contemplated like that at the time of their publication.
In the year 2010, I wrote my first book focussed on the need for every professional to be a solution provider – system oriented – with simultaneous emphasis on Science, Engg. and Mgt. They are three pathways for creative thinking, not three isolated silos.
In the year 2013, little over a decade after the first book, I co-authored my second book, where we laid out that developing any solution is not enough. We outlined a BINARY ECONOMY defining opportunity for new solution providers and large number of low wage/reward earners through “Replicators of Known solutions” and a collapsing middle. This has been true for individuals, projects, companies and products since the early 2000s. We see this Binary Economy showing up its impact now, even in the higly glorified IT sector, the growth engine for U.S. economy in the 21st Century. You have to be entrepreneurial and committed to finding the right need and making it into a relevant solution and making it useful to many (i.e.) End to End Innovation, which requires certain Transformational Skills (TS) that are outlined in this book. The last of these TS is Emotional Intelligence (EI).
In 2023, the current book published is for a holistic life that strengthens our EI through Spirituality in Practice (SiP). As the third pillar of life, SiP strengthens our Physical wellbeing as well as our Emotional wellbeing. In the age of Social media that are isolating people into species of depression, SiP is needed to find our humanity as an integral part of who we are – part of nature and not independent and different from nature! SiP is exactly that. The notion of “ego” (i.e.) being subjective arises when we think “I” is different from nature. We become more spiritual when we see “I” merely as an outcome of our Knowledge, Bias and Ignorance and their relative proportions. This objective outlook is further enhanced when we come to terms with the reality that whether we are subjective or objective are all mere evidences of laws on nature at work in infinite ways known and unknown to us. Hence you, me or anyone or anything is merely an evidence and a witness to the Laws of Nature. We are Spiritual always. Even the person who thinks he/she is not spiritual is able to think, thanks to the Laws of Nature, the driver (i.e) the spirit!
Above are not abstract thoughts for the theoretical or intellectual minded! We explore the laws of nature in anything, we call that “Science”. When we apply that knowledge we call it “Enginering”. Being prudent with our time and resources and focus on relevant questions to use our scientific knowledge and engineering prowess for the larger common good is management. All these efforts become productive and rewarding when our efforts are channelled through certain Transformational Skills embedded in Spirituality in Practice as a way of life. Imagine a society that operates with the above guidelines. Perhaps that is what we need to alleviate our current emotional or mental health crisis as well as challenges we face in politics, AI revolution, and conflicts across nations, religions, race and gender bias.
Now, we need a few good messengers to carry the above messages for their own good as well as for the good of those around us. How far this will spread, through whom and when – all are good questions for each of us to ponder upon as individuals for our own self-interest and collectively across all of us for our collective wellbeing and progress.
STIMS Institute 