What I’ve Learned

An extract from the book, Mind Blogs 1.0, co-authored by editor Zahid H Javali

Mind Blogs 1.0 is a book authored by Christina Daniels, Nirmala Govindarajan and Zahid. Here is an extract from one chapter authored by Zahid.

What I’ve Learned is one of the most popular columns in Esquire magazine. Once, they asked readers to send their two cents of wisdom gathered over the years. And this is what I sent to Esquire.

1. Honesty is indeed the best policy. And just when you think it’s not working, go ahead anyway. Backtracking can be more harmful.

2. It’s better to be sorry than safe. This translates into taking risks whenever, wherever and not feeling shy of saying sorry when you screw up.

3. Sometimes, it pays to listen to your ego. But most times, it’s the cause of things only going downhill. And there’s no such thing as a balancing act. Either you are in it or out of it.

4. Judging people by how they dress can turn out to be downright wrong. But it’s good to judge people this way, too. It takes all kinds of judgments to sum up an individual. You could start with his fashion quotient.

5. You could make a fashion statement by not following it; no one will call you a rebel except the fashion designer whose rules you blatantly violated. So go ahead, live your freedom to `be’.

6. Never go behind what women want. Eventually, everything will be to their heart’s content and nothing to your liking!

7. Phone etiquette is good to an extent. Thereafter, what matters is how much you pretend to be interested in the conversation. If your pretence is up to the mark, you don’t need any etiquette.

8. You need not believe in clichés even if being in the `right place at the right time’ worked for you.

9. Luck is no lady unless you manage to inherit millions from your grand-mom.

10. Maturity is to know when to be immature. It’s true and it works, even if it seems like a clever little cliché.

11. Never turn down anybody. Just stop responding to their calls, emails, SMS-es.

12. It’s better to believe that you can read peoples’ minds. This will not only boost your self-confidence but also egg you on to break the ice with people who were hard to crack.