No, I am not promoting Salman Khan's clothing brand Being Human. Instead, this post is about the most important essence of human being - being human. It is quite an effortful journey which evolves between a human being to being a human.

We, as humans, tend to think that we are far better species than the other species existing in the world by virtue of our ability to think, reason, to express emotions, and compassion. It is not completely true, though. Having the ability and expressing it are two different things, it is just like having a human body but acting as a brutal animal.

The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane. Mahatma Gandhi

Nobody is perfect but the continuous effort to strive perfection is what makes a human perfect. No fraudulent ways to succeed, no manipulation of principles, and no neglection of morality and fairness are the humane ways to achieve goals of life.

Climb the technological ladder but let's not forget the humanity. It is somehow true that technology and science have played a major role in human evolution but without humanity, we would not be able to embrace the technical changes in our lives. In the rat race of becoming victims of technology, let's not forget the main reason of introducing technology to humanity. It was never introduced to suppress the humanity in human beings.

Love and compassion are the ultimate source of human happiness, and the need for them lies at the very core of our being. - Dalai Lama

A human being can be termed as 'an evolved human being' only when he/she expresses compassion, kindness, tenderness and consideration to fellow human beings and other species. The killings of pigs, cows, chicken, goats, and lambs are never more justified than killing dogs and cats. Once we develop a genuine sympathy towards others and make efforts to remove their sufferings, we tend to gain inner strength (His Holiness, Dalai Lama). We, as human beings, are blessed with the power and resources to help others and we should use them to the maximum for the growth of humanity.

There is no measurement of how much evolved a human being is. You can count the level of your humanity simply by counting the number of people and animals you ever helped.

"Would you come downstairs for dinner?", mom asked her son via text.

The son replied, "I am busy mom, would you mind sending me the dinner upstairs."

The mother takes the dinner upstairs for her son. Since her hands were full, she couldn't knock at the door and just barged in. The son got angry when his mother didn't bother to knock at the door only to find him super busy...... but on facebook.

If it is happening around you when everyone in the family needs to make an appointment to meet at dinner, it is not weird at all. If you are meeting with your friends at lunch in a restaurant but everyone is busy checking their phones rather than having a conversation, it is not weird at all. If you have more facebook friends than real friends, it is not weird at all. The only thing weird will be - not having social media accounts in 2017.

Social media is not a media. The key is to listen, engage, and build relationships. - David Alston

It is like choosing your friends who do you want to share your emotions with, have conversations with and spend time with.  We are making a big mistake by prioritizing people who exist in our life digitally than physically. Face to face conversations have ended. The term "socializing" has been narrowed down meeting and hanging out with people online. Social media serves us what the real world lacks for us on a personal level. If a person gets served better on social media, he/she is likely to get addicted to it.

Thankfully, I belong to a generation whose childhood was spent playing outdoors than on computer games. We don't get jealous of people, relationships, and lifestyles which may never exist. Let's concentrate on how our relationships feel than how they look when being posted online. Life is short and beautiful, let's just not waste it by clicking the mouse button unnecessarily!

It is almost Christmas time and the shopping spree is on. When we are buying Christmas presents for everyone, we wish for our secret Santa as well. A person who is going to give us a special gift this Christmas. We all have a secret Santa in our lives who does not wait until the end of the year to reach us and make us happy with the shower of gifts. My sister is my secret Santa who never misses any opportunity to grant me my heartfelt wishes.

A sister, whom we share not only our DNA and genes but also our secrets, embarrassing moments and meaningful silences. My sister is older than me so she has seen me growing up. She has known me since the day I opened my eyes. Besides my parents, she always knows the best for me. Although siblings are known as the most competitive relationships at home yet my sister and I have always shared the strongest relationship.

An older sister knows when you have been good or bad. She has been through that phase of life a year or two before you and can guide you well. My sister has always been my mentor who I've looked upon for advice whenever needed.

She is the perfect embodiment of Santa for me as she represents the spirit of giving, sharing and believing in the best of each other.

No matter how long your professional career has been, you can never forget your first job in life. The very first job which lays the foundation of one's career instills the feeling of financial independence. The first job is always like the first love. It can be adventurous, magical, exciting yet sometimes frustrating and hateful. It tends to polish us in a tough manner as it always has something for us to learn for a long lasting career span.

In my 3rd year of university when I was still studying Multimedia (Digital Media and Animation), I started looking for work to support my daily transport expenses.  In India, parents generally pay for  university tuition fees. My parents were paying for mine as well but I had a lot of traveling expenses because my university was in a different city. I thought of selling my design and animation skills by putting up my resumé and portfolio on awn.com where they always have jobs posted on the website. I applied for a few and was approached by a person from Canada to revamp the digital designs for his website. We had a few meetings online (as we both were located in different countries) to discuss the process. I never let the time zone difference affect my studies and my work and worked diligently through it. Yes, I was that naive that as soon as I handed him all the designs, I never saw his face again. He never answered my emails or phone calls  when I asked him to reimburse me for my service.


Having worked on caricatures for a local newspaper and design pieces for relatives and friends, it leads me to an understanding that our society lives in a misconception that an artist should never be paid. "Freelance" work does not mean "Free"lance work. An artist has spent money on his/her tuition fee, time and effort to learn the skills  much like other professionals. An artist has to make his/her both ends meet and has bills to pay. When an artist is asked to produce an art for "free" with a promise of exposure to his/her art, why is this promise not applicable in any other career choice?  A society which is poor in mind and spirit never appreciates the creativity of its artists. Thus, underestimates the power of art in illuminating  tolerance and compassion in society.

One should not be too excited to aboard the employment ship without considering all the legal formalities involved. Is your employer going to take advantage of you because you are a beginner? Is your employer paying you as much as they promised? Is your employer making you work more than what is mentioned in the offer letter you signed while being hired? Is your employer making you stay later than other employees because he/she knows that you desperately need this job and would comply with his requests/orders?

My first job, somehow, taught me how to carry a project single-handedly even when the employer was based offshores. It will always play a big role in maturing me when I look back at how I started my journey of financial independence. I'd like to remember my first job as a learning lesson, yet it empowers me in a way that it helped me in putting my right foot forward towards discovering myself.


This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

It all started with a scribble on a paper and it is now 1 year old. Yes, it has been a year since I started writing my blog. Time has flown by and I have enjoyed sharing my personal opinions on this platform. As I have always believed, blogging is, so far, the best medium for me to voice my choice.

I had no previous experience of writing a blog except voicing my opinions on social media. I have been a regular visitor to other people's blogs and share my opinions on different posts they write. It led me to start my own blog where I can ask other people to share their views as well while writing my own on a certain topic. It has been an exciting ride to write a blog and I have been very proud of what I have achieved so far in one year.

If you are thinking to start your own blog, I would like to share some learning experiences which will come handy while starting a blog.

Purpose

Post regularly

Focus on content

Social Media

Guest Blogging

Conversate

Monetary Value

In the last couple of weeks, some drastic changes happened in the biggest democracies of the world. The United States of America has selected Donald Trump as its new President which was very shocking for the rest of the world. Another big change the largest democracy of the world, India, witnessed. It was the demonetization of its currency. ₹ 500 and ₹ 1000 notes will not be considered legal currency anymore. In turn, ₹ 2000 notes will come into effect. People of India have 50 days since the announcement (until the end of 2016) to deposit their ₹ 500 and ₹ 1000 notes to the banks and to adjust to the change.

On November 8, when Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Modi made the biggest announcement related to the Indian economy, it seemed that this would be the best ever move by any Government so far to combat corruption and tax cheating. The demonetization policy, that too, in such a short notice, would force tax cheaters and people who inherit "Black Money" in India as cash to come to banks to deposit their ₹ 500 and ₹ 1000 notes. Once they deposit such a large amount of cash, they will be scrutinized automatically if they won't be able to produce the proof for source of such a large amount of money.

Take a look at the chart below if you are unclear about the tax you'll be paying depending upon the amount you are going to deposit in the bank.




The Government of India is calling this policy of demonetization a complimentary campaign to their "Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan" (Clean India Campaign) where they want to sweep out corruption from India as well.

CONS

Inconvenience

55 - Total number of people who lost their lives amidst the chaos while exchanging money in the long queues of the banks. The shocking element of this exchanging money process is that no rich person is ever seen in those long tiring queues. There are numerous cases which come into light every day when someone's wedding is delayed, someone's treatment in the hospital is delayed and the worst I've heard is someone is delayed blood transfusion and basic access to food because of the unavailability of the cash as one is allowed to withdraw not more than ₹ 10,000 a day.

Since the whole demonetization process was a swift one in order to not give enough time to black money or unaccounted money holders to "whiten" their money, the banks were also not given heads up to prepare themselves for the upcoming chaos. It has been 2 weeks but people are still struggling to get their hard earned money deposited and withdrawn in banks because banks are still not equipped to accommodate such large deposits and withdrawals.

Loss of manhours

Many remote villages or small towns in India do not have access to any banks nearby. Most of the residents of all those places have never been to a bank and don't have an account in banks. With the demonetization policy in effect, all those people will be forced to have a bank account so that their money which they have saved all their lives to be considered legit money and call it their own money. Those people are traveling far and wide to stand in the bank queues early in the morning so that they don't lose their daily wages by not showing up to their work. This may destabilize the rural economy.

Vulnerability in financial crisis

Indian economy is mostly constituted of cash. People use cash for their daily transactions. The Government of India is forcing everyone to use banks and in turn, withdraw less money and use cheques (like MnRega). Is our system too strong to check the authenticity of cheques? Can small businesses rely on cheques for their daily transactions? Unfortunately, these habits of using cash cannot be changed overnight.

According to Reserve Bank of India (RBI), ₹ 16, 415 billion is in circulation (as of March 2016). 47.8% of this huge amount is constituted by ₹ 500 notes while ₹ 1000 notes make 38.6% of it. Thus, demonetization policy is going to freeze a whopping amount of money.

Ineffective in eradicating corruption

Corruption has little to do with this new policy because all the black money or illegal money is not necessarily in cash as the assets can be held in other forms. According to the estimates, only 20% of the black money is held in cash. The appearance of ₹ 2000 note in Indian economy will also resurface the corruption because corruption does not need the choice of notes, it needs the conscience to do something against the system.

The man is a social animal, as we all know. This social animal has his own state of mind which sometimes is encompassed by certain emotions. These emotions are not always pleasant. Some of them are categorized as "fearful emotions" or "phobias". Fear is one of the emotions which tells us that something is potentially dangerous for us which can cause threat or pain. These fearful emotions may get worse over the course of time but if we don't let them control our lives, we can ignore their presence. I have controlled 2 such fears in my life over the course of time - Monophobia and Anthropophobia.

MONOPHOBIA

Being emotionally attached to one's parents is very common in our culture. Monophobia is the name of such a fear when you are afraid of getting separated from someone to whom you are emotionally attached. I couldn't imagine myself separated from my parents when I went to university which was about 70 kilometers away from where we lived. Instead of living in a dormitory, I chose to travel every day for almost 2 hours so that I could see my family every day. It continued for 4 years till I finished my undergraduate studies.

I could have never overcome this fear of separation from the family if I stayed the way I was. I chose to come to Canada for my further studies all by myself, knowing that I'd never let my fear control my life goals. Making frequent trips to India, family visiting me in Canada, and connected via the internet, somehow, solved my homesickness and separation phobia to some extent. By owning my phobia, I believe that I have taken a bold step towards gaining control over my life goals as best I could.

ANTHROPOPHOBIA

Being a bookworm all my teenaged life, I had never been to any parties or social gatherings. I had always been afraid of meeting new people at any social places and would only feel comfortable if surrounded by people whom I knew. I was always afraid that people are judging me for everything including my style of dress and my choice of words. It is a form of social phobia. It could have worsened over the time.

I chose Anthropophobia to not overcome my beautiful and blessed life. In my last 9 years of life in Canada, I have been blessed to meet so many people in my life whom I never knew before. Being independent, I pushed myself through and started meeting people with confidence. With patience and fearlessness, I realized that social contact is one of the basic human needs. Consequently, I am the most the most social person in my family and is never afraid to strike a conversation with a stranger. It took some time and efforts from being an introvert to extrovert but the rewards are beyond beautiful.

Being afraid is a natural human behavior, but overcoming a fear makes us feel proud, empowered, and courageous.

After writing about heroes, it is time to write about Zero. An element from which all the heroes evolve. Zéro (French), Zefiro (Italian), Sifr (Arabic), Sunya (Sanskrit) - they all represent a term "empty" and in the modern world we know it as "Zero". Zero is a foundation and a fundamental start for all of us.

"Nothing" can be "Something"

Imagine the world without zero. Without zero, there will be no decimal system in place. The distance between planets, their orbits, their shapes and other heavenly bodies existing in the universe would not have been found out by humans. No algebra, financial accounting, calculus or arithmetic calculations are possible without zero, hence, no real mathematics. On a humorous note, we would have less to study and women wouldn't stress to get their figure size zero.

Every hero whom we idolize must have started from a zero. The concept of null, empty and nothingness emerged from zero. We all strived from a starting point which is always a zero and we calculate our success or failure based on this starting point which is defined by zero.

Power of Zero 

Zero is supposed to be nothing, but works wonders if on the right side.
Anonymous

When being asked who do you consider your hero or superhero, I have always answered "my father". For almost every girl, her father is her first superhero. I am no different. We see our fathers performing supernatural and next to impossible activities for us to keep us happy so we tend to compare them with superheroes. In my humble opinion, every individual who takes pride in serving his country and countrymen, is a hero.

My another reason to call my papa "superhero" is - he made my country proud. Yes, he served in Indian Army. Married to a daughter of another army soldier, my papa has been a pride for his country and his family. He had been a part of three wars during his service to the country - two with Pakistan (1965 & 1971) and one with China (1962).

On being selected in Indian Army and going through his months-long strenuous training, he was ready to accept all the challenges his life was about to throw at him. His life, while at service, had never been a bed of roses but he never complained about it. He could have worked in offices like some of his friends but he always says that the feeling to make your country proud will never match any other feeling even when you make the six-figure salary.

Having posted at the coldest place in India at Siachen to the hottest place in Rajasthan, we had never seen his mental and physical stamina being shaken. We didn't see him for months unless we all lived in army quarters together.

It has been 26 years since he retired from the Indian Defence Services but the soldier inside him is still in action. Like every other Indian, his blood boils too when he hears the blood being shed at the border. He is still ready to go and fight for the country if called by the services.

When being asked what is his biggest asset, his answer is always his "Uniform and medallions" which are precious to him. They are his pride and honour. We have grown up listening to his stories during his service life. Needless to say, when the head of the family is in Army, discipline is instilled in the family as well.

I am one of those lucky daughters of army personnel who loves her father to be at a phone call's distance away. Life never gives another chance to a soldier and there are no runners-up in war. Yes, my father is my "superhero".