30 Likes for Serene Waves in FB!!

Today my page 'Serene Waves' in Facebook completed 30 Likes!! Woho!! I am so happy; I have been waiting for this since I created the page. Everyday I used to check what's the count. And yes, it happened and happened quicker than I had expected. Oh!! I Love You guys... for liking my page and appreciating my work.

I would like to thank these 30 people:

1.       Gayatri Gouda
       (of course myself - one must like his/her work first, then only others will like it)

2.       Noor Azlina Abdul Samad (my inspiration for quilling)

3.       Suchitra Gouda

4.       Shabarish Gupta

5.       Hemanthika Patnaik

6.       Navanitha Nitha

7.       Sudarsan Prasad Padhy

8.       Neha Paroha

9.       Sangita Pattanaik

10.   Sarbeswar Meher

11.   Prasant Rout

12.   Vakkla.Sai Naresh

13.   Biswaranjan Gouda

14.   Sunita Panda

15.   Neel Kamal

16.   Deepak Subudhi

17.   Chaitanya Sri Moparthy

18.   Shaukeen Nayak

19.   TRupti Pawar More

20.   Mugdhashree Rajaguru

21.   Pradeep Malik

22.   Noor Azwa

23.   Sangeetha Srinivasan

24.   Elena Stamenkovska

25.   Rashida Taher

26.   Tulasi Das

27.   Dinu Gauda

28.   Mansi Gupta Sharma

29.   Syafikah Ghazali

30.   Raminder Kaur

Thank you all for appreciating my work!! Thank you so much!!

♥ ~ Smile

My First Red Rose

Red Rose… a perfect way to allure a girl, a woman – the love of your life. I love flowers and yeah always dreamt of getting a Red rose from someone special. I have received Yellow Rose, Orange Rose, Pink Rose, and different colored Rose Bouquets. Yeah, I remember the beautiful bouquet I received on my Birthday from the organization I work in. It was beautiful. But a Red Rose is no way comparable to any other color Rose. It’s gorgeous, power-filled, enchanting. The color itself has so much energy in it.

And finally I received one from my beloved D. And I am so happy to receive that gift. I was looking at the Rose again and again and again. It was simply mesmerizing. Oh D! Thank you so much for that gift. I am pleased and I feel very satisfied. Thank you. I Love You.

♥ ~ Smile

Thank you "Dost"

Wow!! I can't believe this... Its one year now of D and myself knowing each other. 3/5/2009 - the day when we shared our pics for the first time as part of the proposal through e-mail. The first time we wrote an e-mail to each other. The first time we spoke to each other, of course through e-mail only; no chance of talking over phone.

I went through all those e-mail we shared from that day till the day we met each other personally for the first time. Every thing came alive in front of my eyes. I could feel the freshness of the moment. Ofcourse this time I felt little funny when I read those e-mails. How childish I was, how straight forward I was! And how cool, take it easy kind of you were! Well, I have learnt a lot in this one year and things are going so smooth and so pretty now, that I get scared sometime, if someone will have an evil eye on us. God has been wonderful and has given so many surprises. Thank you Lord for giving such an adorable husband. I know he is the Diamond. Its just that the diamond was never cut in proper shape to be used for the crown. I will do that for you, but ofcourse with your assistance and help. I love you D for you are so wonderful, so sweet, just like a sweet innocent child who is unaware of any complicated feelings. I thank God, for he let me come into your life and share an undetachable, strong bond. ♥

♥ ~ Smile

Attitude of Gratitude [CC # 3]

Year 2005. I was in Mumbai then. During weekend we visit the big malls there to celebrate friends' birthday or just have a group lunch or dinner. One weekend we visited Pizza Hut in the famous R-Mall to celebrate our friend Venkat's marriage.  We savored some of the fine Pizzas of different variety. After the food we paid our bills and came to the entrance.

To show we are pleased, we rang the bell hanging at the door. We heard a "Phank You"! Yes, we heard a phank you and  not a thank you. None of the boys looked at us, or the person at the counter. Everyone was busy with their job of taking orders, serving orders, printing bills. They didn't even look like they are willing to say thank you. And yes, all these turned their Thank you into a Phank you. I have never ringed a bell since then. I don't feel like. Because that is not the way a "Thank you!" is conveyed.

As the pace of our life speeds up, we tend to lose some of the simple gestures of life. The more is the pace the greater is the impact of these gestures in some of those most deserving of them. We have forgotten the proper usage of the two tools - Thank you and Sorry. These are to be felt and expressed at the right time. A birthday card sent a day late is like a month old newspaper!.

Many of us are too shy to say thank you or sorry. We want to put them across nicely, when we are in good mood. This is where we actually lose the right opportunity, the right context and the right moment to express our gratitude.

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but also is the father of all virtues. Do not forget that 'thank you' is a poor wage. And whenever, someone has done a job for you, you must pay and then give 'thank you' as a bonus. Your reputation will spread slowly and steadily.

When you convey your thanks:

                   What you express in words is 10%

                   What your eyes convey is 20%

                   What you say from your head is 30%

                   And what you say from your heart is 40%

The same goes for 'Sorry'. So, my dear friends, you can fool yourself but not others.

If you have not said "Thank you" or "Sorry" yesterday, where you should have said so, do the next best thing and say it today.

When Jesus Christ cured 12 lepers only one stayed behind to thank him. Today, one in a hundred is fine. Do you want to be the one or one among ninety nine?

Likewise, there is one more simple gesture that is almost lost and has profound consequences. It is the lost art of writing "Thank-you Notes".

Everyone loves getting e-mails. It's a fact of human nature. We all have a deep seated need to feel important. I truly love receiving letters/fwd. messages/feedback. I feel great when I receive a note on my speech delivery from my fellow TMs and Guests. A sincerely written thank-you note has the power to build and to cement relationships with those heartfelt letters of thanks. It shows you care; you are considerate and human.

By saying thank you and sorry promptly, you can reduce your stress a lot in your personal as well as professional life. Every morning when you get up, Thank everybody, for all that they have given to you. In this way, you start your day with gratitude and this attitude of gratitude will help you deal with the above simple gestures throughout your day.

When you go to places in a taxi, after you pay the driver, bless him with the bonus of 'thank you'. This way, you are actually depositing the blessings into your love account. These deposits will give you far more happiness than any amount of money in your bank account.

Go out and buy a package of "thank you cards" and start writing. You and other people that you deal with will be glad you did. My teacher, Ms. Swati, was glad for I wrote her a thank you letter. And I am glad for she acknowledged my act with an Archies thank you greeting card.

To explain it more, the tree that has the most fruits is the tree that bends to the ground. Practicing humility shows that you respect others and in return you too receive respect from others.

I leave you with this quote well stated by Emerson "Without the rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar".

♥ ~ Smile

[Some of the thougths and statistics are inspired / extracted from books written by Dr. Pramod Batra and Mr. Robin Sharma.]

Deaf Frog, My Dii, and Me

Here I share the story of a small frog. When I was a fresher, this story shaped my thoughts and my career. "How it did?” - I will not reveal that now!!

There was a bunch of tiny frogs who arranged a climbing competition. The goal was to reach the top of a very high telephone tower. Some of the frogs preferred to be spectators. No one in the crowd really believed that the tiny frogs would reach the top of the tower.

The competition started. The spectators started shouting, “Oh, way too difficult!! They will never make to the top.” “Not a chance that they will succeed. The tower is too high!” Some of the frogs began collapsing by hearing this.

The crowd started yelling, “It is too difficult!! No one will make it!” Some more collapsed.

Some of the frogs reached higher with their fresh tempo. After a while some of the frogs got tired and said, “I am too tired! I don’t think I would be able to do it any more. I withdraw”. And they retired back.

By seeing this some more too said, “They weren’t able to do; how can we do?” “Not possible! Let’s go back.” And they too withdrew.

Now, there are only three frogs left. Two were too tired and were discouraged by the act of others and they too started blaming themselves for why they participated in this. “It’s waste of time and effort. Let’s join others!” And they stopped moving up.

The other tiny frog, unaware of what’s happening, kept on moving ahead. The rest of the two frogs started yelling, “Hey, You! Come, let’s go back. You are wasting your time. What will you achieve by doing this? Come on!!” There was no reaction; the other frog still moved up. And finally he reached to the top and took a view of the entire area from there. It was nice to be in top of every one. He looked down and saw the other frogs clapping and waving.

He came down and when asked what kept him motivated to reach the top, there was no reaction. They asked the question again and again. But there was no reaction. Finally they found that the frog is a DEAF!!

Now, this story was told to me by my senior Anchal Agrawal, when I was chosen to work on Lotus Notes technology after my campus training was over. I was worried for how would my career shape in. I wanted to go for Java technology, I had done the SCJP certification as well. And they didn't let me go for Java project. I started feeling despair.

She made me realize that, “It doesn’t matter what kind of job you do. What matters is how well you do that job! You may be assigned a sculptor’s job, however, do it in such a way that even the Lord says, here’s this sculptor who created me out of the rock!”

Today when I see the market and the condition of people after being layed off from the company, I feel a sense of relaxation that I am in a safe job and I am doing hardwork and smartwork.

People would say that, “You won’t be able to do this work. This job is not your cup of tea!” But believe me, even the CEOs were ‘Freshers’ one day. So strive for your goal like that deaf frog. Love the job you do. For if you sit and think about you not having a job at all, then you would realize that you are confident today and are able to relish some pleasure in life because of this job.

No one is small or no one is doing a pathetic job. Because the electrician is able to fix the AC point, you are able to work with proficiency, without your surrounding environment affecting you, without freezing and are able to work with concentration. Respect everybody in your life starting from the guard in your office to the canteen boy who takes the cups you have left at your desk.

The world would start loving you then!!

Keep smiling... Keep loving... and Keep rocking...

Catch you in next blog...

With smile

♥ ~ Smile