Foster offline activities through online.

 In digital and social media era, the online activity should foster offline and physical activities amongst individuals and communities. 

Reality now is it's easier to communicate with people residing afar than people within our household. 

 From Yuval Noah Harari.

Health services can be efficient.

 It's one thing to appreciate our health professionals for providing compassionate and tireless services and another thing to appreciate service users for their patience, and confusions and burden they undergo in availing services. 

We have come a long way and will go a long way. Meanwhile, all we need is patience and diligence in bringing an incremental improvements.

What can we do as an individual?

Decarbonization

 How can we make expensive to make dirty on one hand, and make cheap to be clean and green on the other?

- From one podcast on decarbonization.

གླུའི་དངོས་གྲུབ།

གླུ་ལ་བསྒོམ་པའི་ལྷ་མོ། འཕགས་མཆོག་དབྱངས་ཅན་ལྷ་མོ།

ཕྱག་མཆོད་ཕུལ་བའི་དངོས་གྲུབ། གསུངས་གདངས་དབྱངས་གསུམ་ཞུ་གེ།

གླུ་ལ་མཆོད་པ་ཕུལ་ས། མཚན་ལྡན་བླ་མའི་སྐུ་མདུན།

བླ་མ་ཕུལ་བའི་དངོས་གྲུབ། ཆོས་ཀྱི་བསྟན་པ་དར་ཤོག།

གླུ་ལ་བྲོ་གར་ཁྲབ་ས། མི་དབང་རྒྱལ་པོའི་སྐུ་མདུན།

རྒྱལ་པོ་ཕུལ་བའི་དངོས་གྲུབ། རྒྱལ་ཁབ་བདེ་སྐྱིད་ལྡན་ཤོག།

གླུ་ལ་དགའ་སྤྲོ་བསྒྱུར་ས། དྲིན་ཆེན་ཕ་མ་འཛོམས་ས། 

ཕ་མ་ཕུལ་བའི་དངོས་གྲུབ། བུ་གཞི་བསྟན་པ་དར་ཤོག།

གླུ་ལ་གཏམ་གསུམ་བཤད་ས། སྨན་ཆུང་བུ་མོ་འཛོམས་ས།

བུ་མོར་བཤད་པའི་དངོས་གྲུབ། དམ་ཚིག་བརྩེ་གདུང་རྒྱས་ཤོག།

Simplifying the Curse of Resources in a democracy.

As the four thromdes’ election is in full swing and 2023 is not so far, candidates and political parties will come up with lucrative and hypnotizing manifestoes and promises during the election campaign. I have expressed the curse of resources in 2018 and would like to simplify and repose this for discussion and food for thought for fellow voters.

In a democracy, the government should not be rich for a wealthy government will lead to a despotic and authoritarian regime. The logic is simple. When a person is too rich, he/she becomes powerful, influential, and egoistic at worst. He or she can mistreat others if they wish to, for their gains. On the flip side when one is poor and dependent on others, he/she has already submitted one’s right to others and they are passive and socially malleable. And become vulnerable? People with means make decisions for ones without. It is done even by circumventing the law and rules of the land.

This logic applies to governance as well. When the government is too wealthy, it can deliver all promises irrespective of rationality and legality to deliver and undertake any activities. Providing freebies and bestowal is implicit bribery of citizens to stop demonstrations and revolutions or at least from holding the government accountable. Perhaps that’s the reason why American institutions and people who vaunt democracy were not able to impeach Trump despite trying twice during his tenure. This is because besides voting for his presidency, the American people did not make him rich, if not had he made many Americans well-off economically?

Let me also simplify where our government (s) bring resources from? One legitimate source is the collection of taxes. So, are our taxes and other revenues enough to finance ourselves, or can political parties satiate voters by delivering material promises? No, we are not a resource-rich country but more of a resource-dependent country. For this reason, our government and future parties have to bank on borrowings, debts, and development assistance to deliver most promises and pledges. But there is no such thing called free lunch. Government and country have a cost for every opportunity and who bears the cost? Which generation of citizens will have implications? Are our citizens or voters willing to take the burden implicated by enormous resources squandered? I am not being pessimistic about the investment. We must invest where necessary but how, when, and in which areas are we investing especially in a democratic setting? We must ensure political parties and politicians keep national interest above short-term political gains.

To all these aforementioned queries, there is no silver bullet but if there is one it is disciplined and responsible democracy nurtured carefully by selfless politicians, and intelligent voters guided by institutions and systems. Therefore, while we have the right to vote but beyond our rights, we have a duty to vote wisely and make government and politicians accountable. The government’s successes and failures are our successes and failures.

An Uneventful and Inexperienced experience of a budding civil Servant;

During my primary school the blunt statement goes ‘I want to become Lyonpo in future’, ‘One day I will become a salaried Civil Servant’ and ‘I want to serve Tsawa Sum’. Had no stint of idea about what Lyonpos and civil servants do or what does Tsawa Sum mean.

After the democratic 2008, gone away the aim of being lyonpo but here entered the Civil Service cadre. Long way to serve Tsawa Sum but Tsawa Sum served and serving me every day. 

It’s been running 11 months joining civil service, and I would like to share some of my reflections and experience so far for fellow younger ones.

You are part of organization; organization isn’t part of you.

Don’t think you are too important or indispensable for organization but think organization is important and indispensable for you. You are important only if you consider yourself. Don’t expect anyone treating you important or valuing your inputs.

Trust is a biggest social capital:

Trusting your colleagues and seniors are way forward. Rely on anyone but don’t depend too much on anyone unless you really trust him/her. It’s okay to ask questions or seek help from people who are professionally subordinate to you. They are approachable and good source of learning. Be aware of people’s vibe though. Some would be so encouraging, caring and interested to groom you while others would look down your capacity and shun you down for what you do.

Soft skills are important than your contribution;

Soft skills are important than your academic marks and your opinion on the matter. As new entrants into the job ‘Micro skills are more important than your substance contribution’. Excel, Microsoft word, writing emails, being basic IT savvy, talking on the phone, how to speak with people, responding to call, ability to have patience, networking with people, being sociable for people to talk to you, the way you dress, walk and maintain yourself are important than our contribution. Of all being passionate and proactive is must for our seniors and colleagues to let you work and try things out. No one would be happy to give a task to an inactive, and disinterested person.  

Do not think about changing the system. There is rightly and justifiably less room for us to have our strategic roles in most cases. It's okay to involve in coordination work, printing documents, ordering tea and snacks for meetings, etc. As an entrant into the system every job is learning.

Listening is important than talking;

Meeting is a good source of learning. You just need to increase your absorption capacity and willingness to sit through the numerous meetings. Meetings are enlightening and illuminating for new entrant.  You might be the smartest, brightest but not sure if seniors are willing to teach or tell you mostly if you are active in sharing your own ideas. Open your mind, ears and eyes but not much of mouth. Be passionate and genuine to know your roles to contribute later down the line. Respectfully listen to others not that they are older and seniors to us but they have experienced realities more than us.

Thank you and good luck fellow younger ones. We are the future! 

Disclaimer: This is all my personal views and hope this helps fellow younger generations starting the career. I do not intend to be pessimistic but maybe I guess it probably might help you to come on the earth for reality check and manage your expectation. Wish you good luck. Not applicable to all organizations, job positions, or sectors. Mainly meant for younger ones.

Request: I beseech my classmates from RIM and other fellow younger ones to share your initial experience into the job. Other seniors and experienced oldies also could share but would love to hear more about your initial or starting moment of the career.

 

A book Review on A brief history of Fantasy of Himalayan by Dungsey Thrinley Norbu Rinpoche

As topic suggested, a brief, yet a condense and profound underscoring of Rinpoche's candid and frank experiences of life.  Apart from Rinpoche's travelogue and autobiographical mentions, Rinpoche had shared misconceptions and misunderstandings of peole accentuated by modernization and westernization on Buddhism and some ways of doing things in daily life. It is a reflection of Rinpoche's incisive wisdom and personal relization throughout his spiritual journey.  Rinpoche brings out countless pertinent anecdotes ranging from politics to wars, gender to feminism, psychology to material prosperity, culture to scientific, and religion to fundamentalism. Rinpoche's sacrilegiously scandalous tone for narration and his rare photoes have added the profundity and essence to the content of the book.

Good luck with reading, if you are considering.....