Continuous reinvention of Self

Hi,

Last week, I had a hectic time on the Internet. I spent quite some time at the old boys' forum of my Alma mater, mediating an issue.

One of the old boys had started a company to help people communicate better. He had advertised in the forum, looking out for clients. One of the fellow members strongly objected his co. seeking clients from the forum. The member who objected believed that members of the forum would not need such help; his belief was all us are good communicators (both biz-speak and biz-write; my sincere apologies to George Orwell and "his" Big Brother). This triggered a series of thoughts from a lot of members, both for and against such an ad in the forum.

My thought went backwards to my student days. My school stressed the need to speak and write English, and also helped me improve those skills. But, honestly, I have not revisited the way I speak / write ever since I left school.

But, how many of us question ourselves on the way we speak / write, and improve? I frankly have not.

An open mind can always learn things, at any given point in time. A colleague of mine embraced role models like Shashi Tharoor & N.Ram and emulated their way of speaking. In the process, he improved his communication skills dramatically. He was in his late 30s when he did that.

True reinvention could be a painful exercise, for it makes us depart from the comforts of what we were always familiar with.

But, isn't there true fun in pursuing things that are new to us? Personally speaking, reinvention is the mom of learning and its sub-set comprises wonder-traits such as "being curious" and "willingness to experiment".

Vijay