How big a home do we need? An all purpose one-room? A studio apartment? A 1000 sq ft flat, or a 3000 sq ft villa? A half-acre place for our full-team to stay in? A caravan, or a mobile house? Multiple small houses across?
Are climate models putting an excess of burden on the Global South? Are diversity, equity and inclusion compromised? With more than 50% of the land in farming, can we see climate work without farming becoming natural?
Most of us are migrants, pushed or pulled. Temporary, ad hoc, long-term, or permanent. For informal or formal work. Unemployment, and underemployment are very high, even if we migrate. The wages are not commensurate. Jobs are low quality. Dignity is being compromised. Do we have decent work, employment and decent wages as the agenda in the political discourse? Do we get access to low-cost, affordable, and dignified housing, free/no-cost healthcare, ration et al when we migrate? Isn’t ration a national right, an entitlement? Safe workplaces? Physically, emotionally, and socially. Enforceable work contracts/agreements? What do the increasing numbers of gig workers, platform workers, and paid volunteers have? Will the e-shram work? Will the right to work work?
Cumulative GDP may excite us to say we will be number 3 soon. But, per capita GDP is a better indicator. We have a long way to go. If we can achieve a 10% growth rate in the per capita GDP, we can double the incomes of the poor, vulnerable and the marginalized in 7 years. At 5%, it takes 14 years. The only way to do it faster is through equitable distribution of incomes and wealth. Are we ready as a country for this? Political will?
Do we have a strategic thinking mindset in us? Big picture, bird’s view; long-term vision, view; and wider connecting the dots. Do we have a deeper understanding, an intricate worm’s view? Do we invest in bird’s view and worm’s view simultaneously? Do we have the Excel play, word art, presentation decks, video clips appreciating these views, and designing the algorithms for making the next but long-term ends? Can we see how means stack up towards ends, in various pathways, complementary, supplementary, and alternative? Can we build our knowledge-tools-skills-resources for these means?
Do we lead from the front or the rear? Can we do either one, depending on the need and circumstances? Can we follow, withdrawing from leading, as required? Can we juggle amongst these, follow, front-lead, rear lead? If we lead from the front, can we ensure that the team is not disengaged, strategically, tactically, and operationally, as we move faster, far ahead? Can we identify the next leader(s) and handover the team, if we are not able to slow down? Then, can we go to the rear? Can we be in the background, become invisible, in due course? Are we not in the business of building the agency of the people at large, and our teams that work with them?
Can we transcend personal? Can we develop thick skin? Can we get freedom by realizing that no one thinks about us? Can we stop worrying about the feedback from non-doers? Can we listen to 90%, rather than the exceptional 10%? Can we invest in improving ourselves for lifelong un-learning-learning, and achieve mastery? 10000 hours now? Can we persist, persevere, unperturbed, and undisturbed despite innumerable ‘no’s from the world? We try 100, 1 gets clicked. Let us not lose the plot in the 99. One will take us forward. Therefore, can we transcend to thick skin? Can we keep trying?
Yes, we can. If we keep flowing despite flow challenges? In the flow of N. In garudapipeelikayoga for 7L.
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