Let me start by stating that I’ve nothing against anyone who smokes and I am not in favor of judging anyone for the same.

By the way, when you went ahead and took the very first drag (smoke) of your life, if you already have, did you choose or decide, to do that? Of course, they are synonyms. But there has to be something that differentiates them, correct? Decide has a Latin suffix ‘cide’, which means to kill or cut. This is because we must kill or cut all given options but one to decide upon it. Whereas choice is based on free will, not on reasons.

On twitter, are we being someone we’re not.. or who we really are?

Are you the person we know online or are you really who you are in person? Confused? Good, you should be! – because this is a topic that I find fascinating as much as I find baffling! If you’re frequently on social networking sites, like Twitter or Facebook, then you are leading an online life in addition to an offline life. You’re in two worlds – the real and the virtual.

How much of your online life overlaps with your real life? Are you exactly the person you are online as you are offline? I’d argue that you’re not and that, to some extent, it’s almost like you’re leading dual lives.

Ever so often, we hear people trying to make decisions and revising them time and again. Decision making is generally preceded by confusion, anxiety and also, in some cases, utter chaos. Some decisions are made, especially in the Indian scenario, the one I am most familiar with, with the entire family at large. Be it something as small as which tutorial the kid is going to, which car to buy, what colour to paint the walls, or even what to cook tonight!

Then again, in this whole gamut of things the accountability of a decision lies with one person. This is more so when the decisions are not about the trivialities of life, like which clothes to wear or where to go for dinner. I am, here, referring to decisions relating to careers, education, business and other such matters—decisions that impact a lot of our lives and do so in the long term.