Happiness.

Humans generally have the tendency to operate from the paradigm:

Have -> Do -> Be.

Implying, If I “HAVE” this -> I will “DO” that -> and thus “BE” that (For the future)
&
If I “HAD” that -> I would have “DONE” that -> and thus “BECOME” that (For the past)

However, if we were to keep questioning ourselves on the purpose of our existence, my take is that we exist for the purpose of being Happy!

Now, if that is true, then we should reverse the paradigm and “BE” Happy and “DO” everything that gives us joy & Happiness and the whole world shall connive to make us “HAVE” everything & more than we need to help us “BE” Happy.

Here comes the interesting part.
Humans are one animal who is Happiest when “Giving” Happiness!
So, what should one “Give” ??

There was this absolutely wonderful lady who was Happiest when she was serving and helping the destitute women & children in the streets of Kolkatta. She knew how to “Love”. Her passion was to “Serve” with whatever she was good at, and she was good at “Loving” and taking “Care” of people. She decided and made it her life mission to take care & “Give” the abundance of “Love” that she possessed. She did, what she was BEST at, and she gave her whole life to fulfill the one purpose she had, and it was not in taking, it was in giving her everything to love and take care of the destitute women & children of the streets of Kolkatta. She was awarded the Noble Prize amongst so many other awards, she is known as a Saint. We all know what a wonderful, caring, loving & Happy human being that Mother Teresa was.

What I have learnt from the above is that, I must find my life purpose, I must find what am I good at, I must find what gives me joy & Happiness, I must find my passion, and having found it, I must share, I must show others the joy that I have and how everyone can possibly have the same joy & Happiness by sharing & giving & loving & just by being a good human being.

There is enough and more in this world for Mankind’s needs. It is Mankind’s Greed that is causing all the problems.

I have no clue if my rantings above make sense.. or even if they are the real truth, but lately I have come to believe in this, and find that I’m so much a Happier person.

The Multividual Man

The Multividual Man

Narayan Devanathan /  December 26, 2011 (The author is National Planning Head, Dentsu Marcom)

The Indian man of the future isn’t one. He’s many. Meet the Multividual Man. He’s the ways he is because of social forces around him. And because he can be. But first, those social forces.

Pre-Independence, the Indian Male was defined by a single-minded patriotism. “I wear my country on my Khadi sleeve. Test it at your own risk.”

Post-Independence, the Indian Male was about security. Ensuring it for himself and his family. At all costs to himself. It was only after roti, kapda and makaan were secured by the 1980s Indian Male to a certain extent that he started focusing on himself, as an individual.

As a Ladies Man. As the “Impossible is Nothing” man. As the man that others looked up to. Especially female others, gazing up at him while riding pillion on a fast and not-so-furious bike. Or so he saw his own image. Being seen by others as emulate-able was important for him.

And then along came Liberalisation. Of the wallet and the mind. And a new millennium that brought with it an inner-directedness. To an extent only though. It manifested itself as the man who oozed confidence as India on the global stage, enjoying its many moments in the limelight. He was no longer showing off to the galleries. He was merely showing his prowess at the helm.

All around him though, the world was changing furiously, doing more things simultaneously to itself than it had ever seen in multiple millennia. It was as if the world could only keep pace with itself by multi-tasking. Not surprisingly, it asked the same of its people. Do more. Be more.

That’s when he morphed into the Multividual Man. His identity was now to be split into many. How to manage this schizophrenia without becoming unbalanced was the challenge before him. How is this different from the different life roles that man has played in the past? Was he not Brother, Career Man, Lover, Husband, Father, Caregiver before too? It’s just that he’s made peace with paradoxes. Inside him and in the world outside. He doesn’t think having a good time has to be at the cost of the earth. Or cost the earth either. Responsibility doesn’t have to hamper his freedom. Nor do career considerations need to temper his adventurous spirit. Because I am We.

Some marketers have marked this multividuality as experimentation, restlessness or just the ephemeral nature of youth. Like FasTrak, urging him to move on. Multividual Man, though, doesn’t feel the need to move on so much as move around, within his multiple selves. Other marketers, like Titan, seem to recognise his multividuality, and equip him to Be More.

So what selves should a marketer engage with? As people, we are not uni-dimensional. Neither are brands. So recognise the single entity that Multividual Man is, but cater to the multiple selves within. While this is contrary to all the accepted wisdom about single-mindedness of messaging and positioning, the fact is that if a brand’s persona has to engage with real persons, then it must be as colourful, as diverse in its characteristics as the people it wants to engage with. E unum pluribus will be the new mantra. Out of one, many.