WE ARE ALL ON A ONE-WAY TICKET !

1. Death provides a perspective on life which far too many people seem to be missing these days, although one does not have to be a philosopher to accept the fact that death is the one inevitable truth in life once we are born.
2. The acceptance of this truth can help us to orient our priorities far better than all the latest techniques in time planning, instead of being mere cogs in the evanescent nature of our lives.
3. Each one of us is unique and unrepeatable, endowed with the power to make his own choices, make his own contribution and grow to be himself.
4. Each one of us has a unique potential for happiness, growth and achievement, instead of developing a feeling of despair and defeat and working ourselves to death!
5. We can even choose to transcend ourselves by seeking fulfilment in meaningful contributions to the lives of other people.

USE OTHERS AS A MIRROR FOR SELF-DISCOVERY

1. Isn't it easier to objectively observe how other people lose their cool than when you lose your own cool?
2. In real life, you will find people around you exhibiting all manner of eccentric behaviour, and if you examine such behaviour with detachment, you will notice that these people often mirror your own behaviour.
3. Remain alert to the way other people argue, quarrel, are obstinate and arrogant, snipe, bully, express anger and happiness, give and accept compliments, are unreasonable, are impatient, seek importance and authority, demean and run others down, and so on.
4. With time, you could make the shift to standing outside yourself and observing your own behaviour as if you were an interested bystander.
5. Remind yourself that what holds good for others, holds good for you too, and using other people's behaviour as a mirror to oneself can be a big investment in self-development.
6. It pays to watch others closely as their unconscious body signals could alert you to your own body language in similar circumstances.
7. As you observe others closely, you will become more deeply aware of their individuality, and will realize how little you know about others and about yourself.
8. When someone provokes you, be grateful for the opportunity to watch your own conditioning and your reactions, as it will allow you to take your first tentative steps towards accepting yourself as you are, with grace and compassion.
9. In the bargain, you will direct any guilt that you may feel, not against yourself but towards looking for opportunities and making your own healthy choices for the future.
10. This leads to greater empathy, synergy and less talking down to people, and awareness resulting from such a process can lead to more openness and less vindictiveness, thus promoting a positive atmosphere of change.

HOW ARE MY RELATIONSHIPS WITH MOST PEOPLE ?

1. Do I feel good about my relationships with most people?
- Am I warm and enthusiastic?
- Do I tend to be trusting?
- Can I identify the people who are helpful and positive towards me?
- Am I helpful to others?
2. Do people feel good being with me?
- What aspects of my personality cause people to gravitate towards me?
- Am I willing to make the long-term commitments in terms of time, patience, contribution, sacrifice which relationships seem to call for?
- How equitable are my relations with my friends?
- Do I grant them the right to say yes or no to my requests?
- Am I at peace with most people around me?
- Do my close friends feel free to give me feedback about my behaviour, body language, and so on?
3. What are my shortcomings in relating to others?
- Do I tend to be formal and reserved?
- Do I tend to be too sensitive?
- Am I worried about losing my close relationships?
- If so, why do I feel so?
- What keeps people away from me?
- Do I take my close friends for granted?
- If I don't get any feedback from them, what could be the reasons?
- Do I tend to be reserved and aloof with most people?

HOW IS MY COMMUNICATION ?

1. What area of communication am I really good at?
- Do I feel handicapped in some areas of communication, like public speaking, writing reports, writing articles, persuading others, etc.?
- Have I accepted this handicap unquestioningly so far?
- Am I satisfied with my present level of competency and performance?
- How do I sound while communicating?
- How do I look while communicating?
- How many languages can I handle with ease?
2. Do I find it necessary always to have the last word?
- Do I tend to speak more than I listen?
- Do I enjoy listening to my own voice?
- Do I try to listen actively and empathise with the viewpoint of others?
- Do I keep arguing mentally with the person I claim to be listening to?
- Do I second guess others and put words in their mouth while they are speaking?
- Do I find it necessary to win an argument always, and to be seen winning it?
- Do I feel an inner compulsion to keep talking when I am in company?
- Do I feel uncomfortable with spells of silence?
- Do I really try sometimes to keep quiet internally and externally?
3. Am I open to suggestions and ideas from others?
- Do I try to be open to the perceptions of other people?
- Do I try to accommodate other person's point of view?
- Do I ask for feedback about my performance and behaviour?
- Do I give the other person a fair hearing?
- Do I charge ahead with my own complaints, grouses and criticisms?
- Do I seek the viewpoint and version of those whome I criticize?
- Am I blunt and aggressive, or shy and withdrawn?
4. Is my criticism of others based on good reasons?
- Have I got into a habit of finding fault with others?
- What could such a habit mean?
- How do those at the receiving end of my criticism feel?
- Do I tend to be supportive of those I criticize?
- Do I offer them concrete suggestions for improvement?
- Do I criticize more than I encourage and appreciate?
- Do I pay attention to the small, positive achiements of other people?
5. How do I respond to criticism?
- How do I feel when someone criticizes me?
- Can I recall specific instances when I was criticized?
- Did I get defensive and tried to justify myself?
- How do I feel when I have to deal with someone who is always blaming others?
- How do I feel when someone is always condemning and running others down?
- Do I hit back?
- Do I sulk and attribute motives to the other person?
6. Is there a pattern to my responses?
- Is my behaviour strongly determined by praise and blame from others?
- Have I got into a set pattern of responses when I am praised or criticized?
- Do I blame more easily than praise?
- Do I have a difficulty in praising or appreciating others?
7. Do others see me as a warm and supportive person?
- Do I feel positive about myself?
- Am I always preoccupied with my own self?
- Do I find time to notice achievements of a colleague, subordinate, child or servant?
- Do I go ahead and acknowledge them?
- Do I appreciate the little gestures of concern others extend to me?

WHAT IS MY INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT ?

1. What are my intellectual needs?
- Am I good at abstract thinking?
- Am I inclined towards concrete thinking?
- Am I conservative in my thinking?
- Do I enjoy experimenting and creativity?
- Am I good at problem solving?
- How much of my mind's potential do I harness?
2. What are my beliefs about learning?
- Where do I learn from?
- What do I read?
- What do I seek in my reading?
- Did I stop serious reading after university?
 - Do I unconsciously believe that I know enough?
- Is my reading suffering because of this?
3. Do people find me precise and methodical in my thinking?
- Do I keep coming up with ideas all the time?
- Am I good at improvising and adapting ideas?
- Am I worried about running out of ideas?
- Are fear, laziness or some other factors blocking my creative potential?
- Do I believe in the mind's limitless capacity to produce ideas?
- Do people call me a dreamer?

WHAT IS MY ATTITUDE TO CHANGE?

1. What are my worst fears?
- What do they originate in?
- Have any of my fears become obssessive?
- Can I look at them dispassionately?
- When troubled by fears, do I end up feeling helpless and depressed?
- What is the worst that could happen if I tried something I fear to do?
- Would I rather take a risk than pay the price of imaginary fears?
2. How do I look at risks?
- Am I afraid of making mistakes?
- Am I afraid of failure?
- Am I afraid of change and its impending threat?
- Do I worry about loss of face?
- Do I fear failure and withdraw?
3. Are my failures and mistakes due to lack of effort?
- Do I see them as learning experiences?
- Do I see them as opportunities?
- Do I worry that people may regard me as a failure?
- Do I tend to use words like "can't, maybe, I'll try"?
- Do I tend to use words like "I can, I will, I'll do"?
- Does my self-talk support my self-esteem or does it keep pulling me down?
- Do I believe that individual initiative is vital for change?

WHAT IS MY OUTLOOK?

1. What are my core beliefs?
- What are the things I feel strongly about, as being right or wrong, good or evil?
- Why do I feel so strongly about these things?
- Where do I get these beliefs from?
- Do I feel a sense of ownership in these values, or do I feel compelled to enforce them?
- Do I get easily swayed by the popular or crowd mentality without much thought?
- Do I tend to stay outside the crowd and think for myself?
2. What are my strong dislikes and prejudices?
- Where did I pick them up?
- Do I myself have deep-seated negative attitudes which I apply to others?
- Do I have a tendency to straightaway categorize people on the basis of colour, creed, region, linguistic traits, etc.?
- Do I find their beliefs, habits, traditions, etc. ridiculous?
- Do I express my dislikes by labelling people as cunning, vile, greedy, proud, etc.?
- Do I react to the individual or to the category or epithet I am using?
- Do I get flustered very easily?
3. Do I generally give people the benefit of the doubt?
- Do I feel good about others or tend to run others down?
- Do I treat them as honest and trustworthy or dishonest and undependable?
- Do I keep my mind open to all their facets without rushing to conclusion and slot them?
- Do I really take the trouble to try and understand others?
- Are other people and the environment largely responsible for what happens to me?
- Do they constitute a large number?
- Do I blame others for my irritations and problems?
- Do I tend to think that people are against me and will just not let me succeed?
- Do I feel controlled by others and that I am caught in a bind?
- Do I feel irritated when other people come up with contrary choices and initiatives?
- Do I feel an inner compulsion to answer every question and win every argument to prove that I am right always?
- Do people feel good when I am around?
- What do old acquaintances tend to say about me now?
4. What have been the most stressful events in my life?
- Did I feel upset, tensed and stressed when unexpected events and intruders threw my planning out of gear?
- Did I find that life is too full of problems and felt overwhelmed by them?
- Did I feel that others created problems for me?
- Who were the people who annoyed or distrubed me?
- How did I come out of these events, in flying colours or badly?
5. What is my attitude to myself?
- Am I enthusiastic about my life?
- Am I emotionally stable, sober and balanced in my approach to life?
- Am I confident of myself or tend to be self-doubting?
- Am I generally relaxed and cope up well with stress and pressure?
- Am I basically lucky or unlucky in life?
- Do I own up responsibility for what happens to me?
- Do I tend to treat problems as opportunities and challenges?
- Where do I look for solutions to my problems, in religion or psychology, etc.?
- Do I feel that I have it in me to find the answers?
- Looking back, do I feel that my outlook and perspectives have changed totally?
- When was the last time I had this revelation that I wasn't the same person anymore?
- Can I try and give myself the choice to say my own thing?
- Can I decide what I want to do or not do things of my own volition, instead of being pushed around by my conditioning?