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Common sense development guide By Ashish Joshi Reality Repair: Fixing a Lot by Knowing a Little, William Cottringer, Global Vision Press, Pp 248, Rs 395.00 TIME is a precious commodity because in today’s life with loads of duties to perform, it is important to figure out how to use time better to manage and be successful at doing it. Famous artist Michelangelo had said that if we make some headway with these two things, we have started right and what starts right has a better chance of finishing right. The author of this book says that the problems we face in life today require something that has been lost - a collective consciousness of common sense. He, with his varied experiences, tells us that common sense is bred out of the human gene pool. Having studied long-term success all his professional life, he says that success is built on a foundation of common sense. With it, success is just a fleeting dream of rambling images. The author who admits of committing funny mistakes while offering practical solutions to improve success says that the most important repairing has to be done in mending ‘broken’ relationships which can be done only by working hard on improving things at the beginning itself. To get more together, one has to be totally committed to working together than what one can do alone. It means not holding back this commitment by being ‘tentative’, which only erodes the needed foundation of basic acceptance and trust. Being reasonably compatible in important values, habits, interests, abilities and goals for the relationship to grow is essential or at least being compatible on how to deal with the incompatibilities and differences is. Communicating on the above points clearly, especially where there seem to be conflicts in the direction you are going and regarding your views and preferences, the starting point is to identify the controllable parts of reality that can be ‘repaired’. The author lists the following fundamental reality repair rules: Remember to follow the rules that you create for yourself through your psychological conscience. Reality gets continuously created and constantly unfolded before us. We have the choice to be passive, reacting observers, pro-active participants or anything in between. Reality repair requires us to be active participants to help shape it better. The difficulties we face today is to head towards unfamiliar territory without a map - a scary reality that requires us to share and collaborate in the pieces of the puzzle. Evidence proves that exceptionally successful people in their fields conclude that imagination is the most important skill and good stories have always ‘ruled’ and ‘moved’ the universe. Our emotions, if positive, tell us we are moving in the right direction while negative feelings warn us to slow down and rethink our approach. To be successful in reality repair, figure out the way to keep up the information-overload and speed of change. Gradually diminish the negative influence your pride and ego have with others and learn to communicate with greater clarity and impact. The more you learn from the mistakes you make, the better will be your future. But continue to learn, grow and improve for getting satisfaction in life. Conflicts help you to grow and improve. Change is required when you find yourself stuck in the gap between where you are and where you want to be and not succeeding in your reality repair efforts. Here it is necessary to get unstuck and this can be through the change. Clear. We are deceived into believing that our version of the situation is clear but later we find that we are unclear in making the understanding and perception of a situation that is correct and the reality then becomes clearer and our actions in dealing with it tend to be more effective and successful in getting the outcome we want. This is a self-help book. (Global Vision Press, 4855/24 Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002.)

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