Anyone game for change?

vistory flag
What to change?
Simply put I would like to start getting up early (be in the early riser group) and see if it affects me positively. Do you feel the same?

Is something wrong without it?
No, in fact I can go without it. Currently, I consider I have a schedule which allows me to put in the requisite amount of hours in my work and other activities that I want to indulge in. Overall I am happy with the pace of things and I have learnt to avoid the areas which produces the guilt feeling.

I will give you a small example here: Now the ideal time to go for a run/jog is early morning. I have tried my hand at it numerous times and finally settled at time around 9 pm. Now, I wouldn't say I failed in all the previous attempts because all the times I consoled myself rationally that it was not the right time *for me*. Sometimes saying to myself that 'I need more sleep as I have slept late', 'I am not the early riser kind of person', etc. Bottom-line: I decided that it shouldn't make a big difference if I jog/run at evening/night plus I get to avoid that guilt feel of not being able to meet my goals. This has worked wonders for me. I have been able to do all the things I want to in the time I have and surprisingly without the guilt feeling of not waking up early. For all these years I have enjoyed working late nights. I Feel it comes naturally to me. I love the calmness of the night, I love its silence. I feel hitting all-nighters (here, here and so many times) is a trait which I am proud of and has benefitted me over the years.

So, why now?
Right from childhood this has always been in the back of my mind. I have tried but I have not stuck with it for various reasons (they may seem rational while hitting the snooze button but not any more). I want to give it one more shot and for the simple reason that I know I can. But, from my past learnings I also know I can come up with some rationale to avoid it and so this post and a call for everyone who wants to cultivate this habit. So, let not make it an individual struggle but a collaborative experience.

What's the game all about?
Lets play this game as a team. Remember, together we can.

Format:

  • We shall draft the rules of the game together. πŸ™‚ All of them should be personally acceptable to each of us participating.
  • We play this game for a fixed time period (say 30 days)
  • We won't make it a closed struggle. We shall publish online our small victories (waking up on time on a particular day) and write about our big failures (not waking up on time on some day)
  • Seek active advice from people and allow anyone to comment of scold us if we don't act by the rules.
  • We shall not give up unless we are out of the game (you break the rules more than x times and you are ousted). Winners get accolades, looser feels the shame (but they can give it one more shot if they feel like and emerge as winners)

Hope you get the gist?

Vision
Is this only about getting up early? No, not at all. This is about change. This is a part of an un-named project that I am initiating (its yet to have a name and I am open to your suggestions, any?) Oh yeah, I can hear in the background cheers of... "yes we can, yes we can... ;)"

So are you game?
If you want to become an early riser than this is for you. Please leave a comment below or contact me on my email.

Updates

Barka and Anil have joined in πŸ™‚ Please give them a standing ovation (or better send them some words of appreciation in comments below. Pokes and vampire bites a strict no, lol)

For updates head straight to 42times project wiki project page:

If you would like to join in, you can leave me a message below or contact us through the contact page on 42times project.

Akshay Surve to skip Olympic torch relay

cowboy
Akshay Surve said on Wednesday that he will not be part of the Olympic torch relay in New Delhi this week as ... (I am sure you can imagine the rest of the story with references to Baichung, Aamir, Soha and now even Sachin.)

Media (specially, 24 hours news channels in India), please stop being elitist and flash the title of this post in your "Breaking News" section πŸ˜‰ You can also use my head shot with the news πŸ™‚

Please, I hold the sentiments of everyone who have accepted or even declined the offer to run in the Olympic torch relay in high respect. This rant of mine is only targeted towards the media.

I have cut down my RSS intake further :)

Yes, I have once again cut down my RSS intake. It's just a little above 150 now. Feels lighter πŸ™‚

Update: Looks like its a cleanup day. I read a series of left over posts today and finally few minutes back just pressed "All Items" and then "Mark all as read". Feels much better now. Why didn't I ever think of this before (?)

P.S. Leave me a link to your personal blog below. I would love to keep pace with it ;)

Look who’s talking about PHP :)

David, creator of Ruby on Rails recently made a post on his blog related to PHP. He did have some good things to say about PHP and as he rightly pointed out that it deserves some more respect from the community in general.

From his blog post:

I've been writing a little bit of PHP again today. That platform has really received an unfair reputation. For the small things I've been used it for lately, it's absolutely perfect.

I love the fact that it's all just self-contained. That the language includes so many helpful functions in the box. And that it managed to get distributed with just about every instance of Apache out there.

For the small chores, being quick and effective matters far more than long-term maintenance concerns. Or how pretty the code is. PHP scales down like no other package for the web and it deserves more credit for tackling that scope.

I have always respected and utilized them for tasks which leverage their inherent strengths πŸ™‚

SMS Fun :)

Bachao! Bachao!
I've heard whispers
- they are planning
to ravish me 2nite.
Bas tum mujhe
bacha sakte ho!
Tumhari aur sirf
tumhari, Kesari

What would you if you receive an SMS like this?