19 March, 2011

The Power Of Positive Thinking

In this fast paced world, where do we stand? Each of us have our own lives, our own journeys to make and in our journeys we might find ourselves struggling to crack a homework problem, making a weekend trip with friends, spending quality time with family or just having a quiet supper after a day’s toil. In this endless reel called life we create a thousand thoughts every day but when do we ever pause to think what we are thinking?
Surveys show that a person on an average creates around 30,000 thoughts in one day. Thoughts come to us so spontaneously in such an uncontrolled manner that we never realize when one fades and another arises. Hence, in the hustle bustle of our everyday life, we forget to pay attention to our thoughts and fail to realize what ‘kind’ of thoughts is created in our minds.
Thoughts, as defined by Raj Yoga Meditation, are of four different categories, namely positive, negative, necessary and waste. Positive thoughts include happiness, love, peace, hope, mercy. negative thoughts are mostly anger, stress, egoism, criticism. Necessary thoughts are related to work, family, career, routine and waste thoughts are the most prevalent and include those of past, future, brooding, worrying. If you pay little heed to your mind, you will know what type of thoughts are being created in your mind. This reminds me of a very nice quote,
‘Eliminate the negative, Accentuate the positive, Act immediately on the necessary and Clean up the waste.’

A very interesting research carried out by Dr. Carolina Leaf, a communication pathologist from Johannesburg, South Africa, says, ‘Every negative thought degenerates the cells of our body and every positive thought regenerates the cells of our body.’ The research showed that fear, all on its own, triggers more than 1,400 known physical and chemical responses and activates more than 30 different hormones. Consequently, toxic waste generated by toxic thoughts causes the following illnesses like diabetes, cancer, asthma, skin problems and allergies to name just a few. Now, you can imagine how much negative thinking a person must do to develop cancer! The study gives us a very subtle message that we can be the healers of our own body by creating the right type of thoughts.
A question that often arises in our minds is how to remain positive all the time. The answer is to take control of the thoughts. It seems to be very simple but is not especially because we are so used to our thoughts flowing that we do not really know when to add a full stop. How many of us believe that we are what we think? This simple but accurate statement indicates that what we say, what we do, and what we feel – all have their origin in the mind. Once we start realizing this, we start watching ourselves and hence try to modify our thoughts to make them positive. We will gradually develop a positive attitude and a positive outlook towards everything around us. However, one area where we tend to fail is with negative and critical thoughts such as anger, worry and pessimism. Such situations are our testing times. So, if we try to keep ourselves calm and cool on the face of the situation and try to look at it positively, we are actually helping the situation heal and also ourselves by not creating negative and waste thoughts.
As we know the ever so powerful SOS signal used as a distress signal, we can actually adopt it in our everyday lives when there are chances of conflict, distress, discomfort. The only difference being, we slightly modify it to expand as:
S- Stand back i.e. step back from the situation
O- Observe i.e. study the situation carefully
S- Steer i.e. take the right course of action

By doing so, we are not sending distress signals to another party but communicating with ourselves. Here in we first try to withdraw ourselves from the situation so that nothing influences our thinking, then observe and analyze the situation carefully and finally take the right decision. In this way, we come to a better understanding of ourselves as well as others without really giving away the power to control to anybody or anything else. So, is this not as effective as the Save Our Souls signal used to save people?

As we start thinking positive, we start becoming positive and begin to see more positive in the ordinary. We will then be able to make clearer and more definitive decisions. So, detach a little, become centered within yourself and then nothing and no one will be able to shake you.

-Beautiful Mind

Weblink: http://www.thebatt.com/opinion/the-power-of-positive-thinking-1.2011384

28 February, 2011

Green Energy May Be Closer Than We Thought

The sun shines, wind blows, tides hit the shore and now our eyes have opened to a new today and a better future. Innovations in renewable energy have began to rapidly advance. With the latest global events like the recession and the Copenhagen Summit, the focus on renewable energy in the world has increased exponentially. May it be global warming; choking air pollution, fossil fuel addiction, high utility bills or creating job opportunities, the world is now speaking about a single common solution to save the planet - GO GREEN! Novel ideas like solar roadways, solar islands, solar powered cell phone towers, fuel cell based waste water treatment plants, electric vehicles, HVDC wind power transmission are exploring newer areas where conventional fossil fuels could be replaced by clean energy.

According to a new study, coauthored by Stanford researcher Mark Z. Jacobson, the world can be powered by alternative energy using today's existing technology in 20-40 years. The research provides interesting and thought provoking results and gives us a new direction to start thinking. Today, the main factors prohibiting the use of unconventional energy in the conventional manner are its cost and variable nature. The research proposes ‘bundling up renewable energy sources’ in order to meet the ‘base load’ energy, the minimum amount of energy that must be available to customers at any given hour of the day. As we know, solar and wind are complementary as wind often peaks at night and sunlight peaks during the day. Using hydroelectric power to fill in the gaps allows demand to be precisely met by supply in most cases. Other renewable sources such as geothermal and tidal power can also be used to supplement wind and solar power.

The study found that to meet the world’s energy demand with wind, water and solar resources, the footprint needed is about 0.4 percent of the world's land (mostly solar footprint) and the spacing between installations is another 0.6 percent of the world's land (mostly wind-turbine spacing). Jacobson said, "The actual footprint required by wind turbines to power half the world's energy is less than the area of Manhattan."

Looking at Texas, it is a well known fact that Texas is number one in installed wind capacity touching 8,800 MW by the end of 2008. However, Texas lags far behind when it comes to solar energy. Interestingly, the State Energy Conservation Office (SECO) of Texas evaluates, ‘The energy from sunshine falling on a single acre of land in West Texas is capable of producing the energy equivalent of 800 barrels of oil each year.’ Why is Texas nowhere close to California when it comes to solar even though we have the highest solar resource in the US? Most wind farms in Texas are located in the south west and surprisingly, solar footprints are concentrated in the very same area. Why not integrate the two and use land more wisely?

With the winds of change and an aroused interest in pursuing Renewable Energy in the state of Texas, Texas A&M University is steering research into different renewable energy technologies. Whether it be integration of renewable energy to the grid or achieving cost parity of solar power, TAMU is working in every facet of renewable energy.

The ground is set, resources are at our disposal, now all that remains is our contribution. With an interest and new ideas to contribute we are surely not far from making a difference. New ideas when explored and realized can find better solutions to existing problems. Renewable energy is still in its adolescence compared to conventional energy. It is ideas, innovations and implementation that will take this technology from adolescence into maturity and finally make clean energy a dominating force.

- Beautiful Mind

Weblink: http://www.thebatt.com/opinion/green-energy-may-be-closer-than-we-thought-1.1978209

Back in life !

Heyy there !!

I have woken up to the world of blogging once again and I hope to be regular now. I am pursuing Masters in Power Electronics in Texas A&M University. Amidst classes and research and cooking, I am devoting time to write a column, 'Opinions' for the college newspaper'Battalion'.

I will be posting some of my published articles in my space and please do not forget to leave a comment.

Thank you
Beautiful Mind