We are young, we learn by screwing up in everything!

Our generation is becoming the biggest screw ups in human history. We set targets, we dream bigger than reality; in the process loose our brains and get sucked into ourselves. Oh wait, how much brain do we actually have? Yes we all probably have the same amount of brain and intellect the previous generation had, but we live such a fast life that we lose focus; we want to do and want to be good at everything. Can we be good at everything? It’s Mission impossible! Unless we are Tom cruise hanging on to a plane while it really takes off, but even these perfectly heroic characters are not a pro in everything. They definitely screw up in something, otherwise we won't have a movie to watch. Whereas we the non-fictional superheroes of our own lives, dream of accomplishing everything. We have heard so many times that we unconsciously influence our mind through what we see, read and hear.

The digital age is imposing on us tons of videos which show people doing amazing things, that’s great. We should appreciate what these seemingly normal humans do. But what we forget is, we influence our brains that we can also do the same things. Not just imbibing one but trying to do all of them. We humans do compare ourselves with others and this hasn’t been a recent phenomenon. During the absence of digital knowledge, the comparison was only with our neighbors and friends; but now with the whole world! People start professing things about happy life, happy working, happy mind and all those (of course I do as well) but we fail to realize that it’s about some sample subjects somewhere on the planet. We considering ourselves special counter-intuitively should avoid us from falling a prey to generalized ideals and opinions. But we don’t, we think that’s the norm and I should try those things. We try one guidebook/ guide blog at a time and figure out nothing works.

The process of rediscovering oneself can be guided but ideas from around us though books or any other form. But letting us rely completely on one set of principle is like looking at a fish in the ocean and thinking all the fishes do and look exactly the same. The smart world brings in a lot of smart and ‘making us less-smart’ things to the doorsteps of our minds. Be it ‘--- got talent’ shows, ‘Guinness world record’, ‘perfect couple’, ‘survival stunts’, etc; we just can’t do everything; less so being good at them.

There is an amazing list of talks on Ted called, “What is success?” . Especially the one by Alain de Botton  called "A kinder, gentler philosophy of success". We cannot achieve everything; if you want a good relationship may be we need to sacrifice some of our workout time. If we want to achieve something in work, we might have to give up on some time with family. There is always a sacrifice, which we choose to blind fold ourselves from when looking at people who achieved greatness and we just admire the perfection in them. Only when we start to admire successful people along with their imperfections, with their greater sacrifices; we will be able to be happy with our lives and strive for a better life rather than a perfect life. May be this idea will someday reduce the dissatisfaction in our generation and help in improving the quality of our lives. 

Probably sooner the better!

Sometimes it feels like, fighting a loosing battle!

• • Being an avid researcher, I always push myself to think counterintuitively. In this case, why is research integrity important? What if there was no integrity in research? A few thousands might die because of medicines which should have saved them, 1000s more may die due to building and bridge collapses, millions may starve due to failed harvest cultivating crops which claimed overproduction, maybe we might have more fireworks in the sky when satellites are launched or we might have all been dead and gone.
    
    

    Importance of standards:

    We always give excuses for not being up to the mark. But who sets these marks? Should we actually even compromise perfection? We as a race have understood from our experiences over the centuries that efficiency is as important as perfection. So we set standards, to bring about this balance. We allow error bars and we empathize with experimental and human errors and try to accommodate them, see the significance of the outcome rather than a black and white approach.
    
    

    Rat race and instant gratification:

    “I need to report to my boss by tonight. So, I don't care about the pH being 7.6 instead of 7.5. All he needs is data which we can add in that paper.” This is just the tip of the iceberg, we know too well that the system we are in today which is based on impact factors and publish or perish culture, is the root cause. We have run too far with it as a community to even turn back and introspect. We think it is the norm, we breathe it, we believe it and we live it. We want every single experiment to be a part of a research article which will be published in a high impact factor paper. So what happens, we go a step further.
    
    

    Breaching the boundaries:

    When a meeting is set for 8 am we sometimes tend to think 10 minutes past 8 am is also ok. Our day to day approaches like this, pushes us to overrule the standards assuming time intervals in readings are ok, removing outliers are not bad and may be just decreasing the control value a bit to reach the magical p < 0.05 is acceptable. By doing this, we ignore the gravity of the effect it is going to have on the world.

    
    

    There are more than a few reasons why integrity is important;

    
    

    •   Most of the research is done using the hard earned tax money of the general public.
    •   The researchers are most of the time paid for all the work they perform, unlike the days when
      scientist worked part time at odd hours to support the research they were doing.
    •   More importantly, the basis of any project is to strive for a better human existence, if the
      research we do is not going to accomplish this due to its falseness; ARE WE DOING JUSTICE TO EVEN OUR OWN CONSCIENCE? 

The failure of decades of misplaced priorities and the determined few; can they change this world?

History has taught the human race that failures are not just lessons for one person or a generation but for everyone across generations. We seldom learn, seldom choose to learn and fail to learn from our failures as a race. The wars of ancient Greece till the wars of this day all portray one appalling human quality, greed. However hard we try to flush it out of the human memory; it rejuvenates in a new form. The truth is; we always look for more returns, more money, more land, more food and more of whatever is known to us. Smart phones and tablets share the same features from hardware to software (with minor variations) but we want them both, when we already have sleek portable laptops. If you ask young ignited minds their thoughts about a better planet; we are always assertive. We aim and dream to leave behind a better planet, but only through the means which will make us prosperous rising above the populations. We have come too far forgetting what got us where we are! We cannot achieve our goal of leaving behind a better planet by revolutions in information technology or in politics or innovative business models or anything which is materialistic; but only through leaving behind a legacy which creates more ignited young minds, only through efficiently passing the knowledge we gained to our next generation . When all the brilliance of the young minds are lost to the commercialization of this planet, how can we claim to have successfully passed the baton to the future generations? When we complain about brain drain, shouldn't we think about ways to stop it draining out of the entire education system? We as a generation have forgotten about this big responsibility of becoming and grooming educators.

Shortsightedness of our long term plans of a confused generation!

7 years ago in March 20^th 2007 final day of our public exams the last day of high school. “Machi (the way of calling dude in Tamil Nadu), all the formalities done now where do you see yourself in 5 years?” asked one of my friends Krishna Prasad standing outside the school gates. We were all like ok that's not the best question when you had just finished one of the craziest exam series which will literally change our lives. (At least that's what we thought at that age.) We were all like this and that bla bla bla going around the group.  Reality strikes harder than a fabulous exam results and it struck our lives in 3 months and most of our futures changed.

2 years into college and we had the same question and the weird guy to ask the weird question this time was me. Talking about the future is always exciting even though we might be the dumbest person in the group. Everyone was like again bla bla bla bla again. It all looked so cool that day not realizing what exactly we were talking about.

Our life’s choices become drastically different influenced by the circumstances of the day, to state the least daunting pressure on the choices we make. Everyone’s perception of life changes as we grow we all wanted to be pilots one day, then astronomers, may be a social activist, then a crazy scientist, a teacher may be, the list goes on as we get influenced by the amazing people we experience in our day to day lives to the people who motivate us through the news we hear. But where did things go wrong? Why suddenly every one of us just started working in the IT/services industry (at least in Madras and in India) and whatever the local influence was. Yes, it is intelligent to adapt to the demands of today but are we missing the point?

Weren’t we fighters? Aren’t we explorers? We always talked about fighting to figure out our lives and not taking no for an answer. Will this generation be content with the choices we are making with our lives? This doesn’t end there and that's the worst part of the problem. Some of us follow our dreams, break away from the system and explore. When I went back to research after working in IBM for a year my parents asked me what you are going to do, I told them a PhD, a postdoc and then become a professor one day with so much confidence. It all began there…..

We all see successful people like Professors and Scientist being a Graduate Student and we walk like zombies just following the trail. Finish PhD, post doc, tenure.. Finish PhD, post doc, tenure.. Finish PhD, post doc, tenure.. Finish PhD, post doc, tenure.. This is the only thing which runs through our heads as a grad student. (If you are not a Grad student and if you thought we think about amazing experiments all the time no you got us completely wrong) Education was to help us explore the world, to apply our knowledge to try and make it a better place; just think about it. 

The first answer which comes of a student these days on the very first day of school about a question of life after graduation is, “I want to get a decent job with a decent salary.” Then the other answers starts to come like, “Want to find a nice life partner.”  Bla bla bla.. but most of the time we don't get to hear something like, “I am going to put the knowledge I gained to help solve the problems in my community.” The closed we get is like, “I am going to cure cancer or AIDS.”, if we are Bio students.

Looking for a well-paid job, a life partner, curing cancer, etc. are all ok but shouldn't this be an offshoot of a much more primary goal of figuring out what we what to do in life to put it more bluntly, FINDING OUT THE REASON FOR OUR EXISTENCE. Shouldn't we be following our heart rather than just going into a degrees with pre-set goals and just becoming a prey to our goals. We always complain that we don't have the freedom to choose what we want to do in life due to family pressure but are we still making the choice we really want even if we manage to break away from the system? Are we just too short sighted just flowing successful people rather than trying to be successful ourselves in our own ways. 

Success is always very subjective word. If we are satisfied by the choices we made all though our lives and die as a content person, we will be the most successful people ever to walk on the face of the earth. Will this generation be successful or regret the lives we lived?