Life Skills

Anoop Verma

It has been traditionally believed that 90 per cent of all activity is mental. Without mental preparation, you can’t develop focus and motivation that are the keys to success. When a big day is approaching, you must ask yourself, are you mentally prepared to do what it takes to score win? You may not be preparing to win at the Olympic games, but you maybe preparing for a job interview, an appraisal for promotion, or something else.

There is one thing that is of great importance and that is preparation. The more prepared you are, the more flexible you will be in planning your life. Here is a list of ways by which you can develop the mindset for achieving your goals:

Have a good motivation

Without the right motivation, you will not be able to devote yourself to achieving an important objective. You have to be motivated enough to pursue your life’s goals relentlessly, and also overcome the small and big challenges that life will throw in your direction.

Have a financial cushion

Only motivation cannot see you through in life. Motivation can be internal or external. One good way of having external motivation is by having a financial cushion. If the finances are in order, you will be in a better position to engage steps like taking a training, going on tour, or doing whatever needs to be done, for achieving your objectives. When the savings are adequate you are also better positioned to deal with the aftermath of unexpected challenges.

Keep cool

You can’t control life, but you can adjust to it. Unleashing anger at your relatives, colleagues or friends, when things are not going your way can only lead to lot of stress. It is better to keep cool in face of adversity, and try to make quick decisions. The less emotional baggage you carry into your important meetings, the better it will be for you.

Avoid distraction

A lack of mental preparation includes not figuring out in a very detailed way, the path that will lead you to the desired goals. Where do you see yourself in few years of time? Well, now is the time to start preparing for that goal. Nothing is too difficult if you are sufficiently prepared. Distractions come almost entirely from irrational, ungrounded worry. You have to avoid distractions, which lead to wastage of valuable time and energy.

Tech View

Turn your smartphone into a smarter remote

Anoop Verma

A smartphone is basically a portable computer and it can be programmed to do many different kinds of things. When you go for a new smartphone, you don’t need to throw the old one away. It can be used as a GPS, storage for your important files, an alarm clock or even as a universal remote to control your TV and DVD Player. For using your smartphone as a remote, all you need to do is download an app and then you can clean up the table in your drawing room by sending all those remotes in a hidden corner of the drawer.

Android and iOS users can download the Dijit Universal Remote app from Google Play store and from iTunes store respectively. Once downloaded and installed, the app will provide you access to a perfectly customisable remote control interface, where you decide exactly which buttons appear when you want them to. So you would no longer be dealing with a remote that is cluttered with tens of buttons, which you hardly use. Your smartphone remote will only have buttons that you need.

 It is really simple to use this app. All you need to do is switch on the devices in your house and start adding them with just a few taps on the interface. You also have the option of creating “activities” which allows you to automatically turn on many different devices like the TV, DVD player and the stereo at the same time. The app works perfectly well in case of iPhone and iPad, but it does not work in all Android devices. So if you are an Android user, you should check whether your device is compatible with Dijit before downloading the app.

Dijit is also capable of delivering a customised Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) for your personal TV channel line-up. You have to simply identify your cable or satellite provider, and Dijit will find your listings. From there you can quickly prune your guide to just show the channels and shows you like to watch, and hide all the rest. The app is free, so there is no harm in downloading it and trying it with the TV and other devices that you have in your home.

Language Skills

Today’s youth carrying out chutnification of languages — II

B Tejesh

Examination reveals that among the youngsters an average sentence spoken or written consistently contains instances of mixed language.

In the first part we had discussed the use of mixed languages in oral and written communication with reference to the youth and creative writings, basically advertisements.  Today, as promised in the earlier part, we will spot out the probable reasons behind the mixing of languages. There are many reasons, nevertheless, the glaring among them is the technology. The omni-present Internet has fostered a trend of mixing both languages, incorporating English words into Hindi sentences, or Hindi words into English sentences. One relevant motivation for such mixing is to have fun with the language, precisely, to create humour and parody. The youth is possessed  for innovation, newness, say something hatke or offbeat. This may compel them to use a bit of this and a bit of that language to unearth the newness while using email, sms or chat. 

Additionally, today’s youth has multilingual features, they have command over two or more languages, say with English they are as good as their mother tongue and national language. This enforces a remarkable switching among languages. This  enforces a remakable switching among languages. Still other reasons are the lexical gaps in denotation (literal, dictionary meaning) or connotation (symbolic, associated meaning) while speaking.  The lack of registral competence, say the use of particular terminology of some technical or professional issue also forces to use terms, words from various language. You will agree that the mixing is conspicuous among the youth as they speak. Today’s youth use mixed language, say similar expression from two languages to add more stress to their message or to reinforce it. Friends, these are just few reasons, there are still more we will discuss in the next issue. 

Such practice of mixing is often viewed negatively in the past, but now it is inevitable and thus making a plain sailing among youngsters. The GenNext views it as communicative strategy. However, there is a group views mixing as a result of incomplete mastery over the languages. Such group also considers mixing as incorrect and exemplification of poor language.

(The writer is a Assistant Prof.  in Late BRD Arts and Commerce Mahila Mahavidyalya, Nasik, Maharashtra.  Email: [email protected])