MAKING YOUR SCHOOL DECISIONSomik Raha Stanford Splash Apr 2014

My Story

PhD in Decision Analysis at Stanford University

IDENTITIES

ATTITUDES

HOW BIG A DEAL IS YOUR COLLEGE DECISION?

“Life either begins or ends here”

“This is just a place to park myself safely while I grow up”

decisions vs Decisions

Resources !

Six Elements of Decision Quality

Personal Transformation

!Values (This class)

RH: “We talk about “little d” and “big D” decisions.” A little d decision is the kind of decision we make about our money and how we spend it and even our medical treatment. And we can think of that as

resource allocations. And all the stuff we teach is just great for that. But then there are what I call big D decisions which are decisions where you as someone experiencing the consequence will not be the same as

the one who’s making the decision. !

In other words, getting married, for example. If you’re thinking of getting married like a small d decision, you’re thinking of it like choosing a roommate. You know, will they keep the house tidy and all this kind of stuff. And if you’re thinking of getting married, at least in the classical sense, you’re making a contract with

promises that any lawyer will tell you, “You’re silly – for better or worse, for richer or poorer -- I mean, this is stupid. You need an option here, a way to get out.”

http://www.thewhitmaninstitute.org/interview_ron_howard.html#littled

WHAT DO WE VALUE?

Intrinsic: End-in-itself

Extrinsic: Means to an end (instrumental, practical)

Systemic: Construct/Ideology/Rule-fulfillment Twice a day

Well-being

Dental hygiene

HOW DO WE VALUE?

Intrinsic: Inseparable from who we are

Extrinsic: Separable, everyday interestedness

Systemic: Objective, least emotional affect

What truly counts cannot be counted

What can be counted does not truly count

Without actions, values are entertainment

Without action, values are intellectual entertainment

Systems drive action, action gets you to your values

For-profits vs non-profits

–Walt Disney

“We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.”

–Henry Ford

“Business must be run at a profit, else it will die. But when anyone tries to run a business solely for profit ...

then the business must die as well, for it no longer has a reason for existence.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHWUCX6osgM

The colour of my consciousness made the emerald green, And the ruby red.

!I gazed at the sky,

And the light dazzled in the east and the west. I turned to the rose and exclaimed –‘it’s beautiful!’

And beautiful it became. !

You say, ‘it’s philosophy, not a poetic composition.’ I say, ‘it’s truth, and that makes it poetry.’

This is my proud claim - Pride on behalf of the whole of humanity, That only on the canvas of the human ego

Is drawn the artistic masterpiece of the universe. !

The philosophers are negating existence in every breath – muttering ‘No, no, no’ –

Not emerald, not ruby, not light, not rose, Nor I, nor you.

The infinite, on the other hand, is yearning to explore the universe Within the limits of humanity.

That’s called ‘I’. !

“I” Rabindranath

Tagore

How are you going to limit your limitlessness?

The Purpose of Competition

Jet Li tea conversation in Fearless

ONLY SERVICE HEALSRachel Naomi Remen

If helping is an experience of strength, fixing is an experience of mastery and expertise. Service, on the other hand, is an experience of mystery, surrender and awe. A fixer has the illusion of being causal. A server knows that he or she is being used and has a willingness to be

used in the service of something greater, something essentially unknown. Fixing and helping are very personal; they are very particular, concrete and specific. We fix and help many different things in our lifetimes, but when we serve we are always serving the same thing.

Everyone who has ever served through the history of time serves the same thing. We are servers of the wholeness and mystery in life.

The bottom line, of course, is that we can fix without serving. And we can help without serving. And we can serve without fixing or helping. I think I would go so far as to say that fixing and helping may often be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul. They may look

similar if you're watching from the outside, but the inner experience is different. The outcome is often different, too.

Our service serves us as well as others. That which uses us strengthens us. Over time, fixing and helping are draining, depleting. Over time we burn out. Service is renewing. When we serve, our work itself will sustain us.

Service rests on the basic premise that the nature of life is sacred, that life is a holy mystery which has an unknown purpose. When we

serve, we know that we belong to life and to that purpose. Fundamentally, helping, fixing and service are ways of seeing life. When you help you see life as weak, when you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. From the perspective of service, we are all connected: All suffering is like my suffering and all joy is like my joy. The impulse to serve emerges naturally and inevitably from this way of

seeing.

Lastly, fixing and helping are the basis of curing, but not of healing. In 40 years of chronic illness I have been helped by many people and fixed by a great many others who did not recognize my wholeness. All that fixing and helping left me wounded in some important and

fundamental ways. Only service heals.

IN PRAISE OF IDLENESSLike most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying: 'Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do.' Being a highly

virtuous child, I believed all that I was told, and acquired a conscience which has kept me working hard down to the present moment. But although my conscience has controlled my actions, my opinions have undergone a revolution. I think that there

is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached. [..]

!It will be said that, while a little leisure is pleasant, men would not know how to fill their days if they had only four hours of work out of the twenty-four. In so far as this is true in the modern world, it is a condemnation of our civilization; it would not have been true at any earlier period. There was formerly a capacity for light-heartedness and play which has been to some extent inhibited by the cult of efficiency. The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of

something else, and never for its own sake. [..] !

[Instead, in a world where there is adequate leisure,] above all, there will be happiness and joy of life, instead of frayed nerves, weariness, and dyspepsia. The work exacted will be enough to make leisure delightful, but not enough to produce exhaustion. Since men will not be tired in their spare time, they will not demand only such amusements as are passive and vapid. At least one per cent will probably devote the time not spent in professional work to pursuits of some public importance, and, since they will not depend upon these pursuits for their livelihood, their originality will be unhampered, and there will be no need to conform to the standards set by elderly pundits. But it is not only in these exceptional cases that the advantages of leisure will appear. Ordinary men and women, having the opportunity of a happy life, will become more kindly and less persecuting

and less inclined to view others with suspicion. The taste for war will die out, partly for this reason, and partly because it will involve long and severe work for all. Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good

nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle.

Bertrand Russell

I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man

[woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you

contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain

anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it

lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving

millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away.

Gandhi’s Talisman

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive” - Robert Thurman

Abundance.

Interview each other on stories of your meaningful moments in your life, around your work

HEAD

HEART

HABITYOU