NARA'S NOTEPAD
VOLUME 20
JANUARY 2023
NUMBER 1
Sunday, January 1, 2023
MEMO FROM NARA
MEMO FROM NARA
The post-pandemic year 2022 has come to an end. NARA’S NOTEPAD completed its 19 years successfully. All the nations of the world are celebrating the arrival of the New Year 2023. We all wish one another ‘HAPPY NEW YEAR’. Amidst this celebration I try to recollect some personal event took place in 2022. My eyes were operated for cataract in June. It gave me a good vision that helped me to see things clearly and vividly. Now I can read small letters even from my ipad or computer. Also I can see the TV programmes clearly. I should thank my eye doctor, my wife, my sons and daughter who helped me. In fact, it took about 3 months. From September on wards I feel fine to see everything clearly.
Apart from this, there were many things happened all over the world. You know nowadays we can see the events occurring all over the world by sitting at home. Technology has improved to help us. Every aged person who cannot travel can sit at home and visit various countries and events happening every day anywhere in the world. It’s a boon for elders like me. I appreciate the scientific achievements that trickled down to persons like me.
In 2022, people were relieved from the fear of Covid – 19 and moving freely from one place to another. No mask and no sanitizer. Almost everyone forgot 2021 the year of pandemic. Normal life came back to all. But China is reporting the spread of Covid again. Many countries including India are putting restrictions for international travellers. Will the New Year be a Covid year? No one knows for sure.
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded its neighbor Ukraine. Missiles were fired, buildings were destroyed, and people were killed and driven out of their own country. It is 311 days exactly on 31 December 2022. Still the war is continuing in spite of peace talks mediated by the United Nations. Personal discussions with Russian President Putin and the Ukraine President by world leaders did not pave a way for peace. India’s Prime Minister Modi tried to make the two Presidents to sit and talk. He also mentioned that ‘this is not an era of war.’ Thousands of Indian medical students were airlifted from Ukraine by Government of India. Thousands of Ukrainian people of all age groups were killed by the Russian missiles at various Ukrainian cities. Not only that. How many Ukrainian and Russian army people were killed? It is a nasty war between neighbours. No one could stop it. The war continued even on the Christmas day and the New Year day. Will it be an endless war? No one knows.
Another, important news we heard was that the Queen Elizabeth II who ruled UK and the Commonwealth countries for 70 long years expired. Millions of mourners stood in queue for days and nights and paid their homage to the departed soul. I followed all these news in BBC TV channel every day and learnt many things about the Royal customs. The world leaders went and paid their respects too. Her elder son Charles III became the King subsequently. He will be coroneted in 2023. The UK politics was in peril because of the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned and one of the Tory MP Liz Truss, a charming lady became the Prime Minister and occupied No.10. She was the last PM appointed by the Queen a few days before her death. But within few weeks she also resigned because of her inability to handle the economic crisis. Finally Rishi Sunak, an Indian-origin rich conservative MP became the Prime Minister of UK. Rishi is the son-in-law of Dr Narayanamurthy who established Infosys IT Company at Bangalore. Indians were happy to see this event. Me too. Sunak tries to solve the problems UK faces at present. The rise in cost of living, energy cost increase, nurses strike, train strike, food of kids and many more problems give him sleepless nights.
Although I am not a sports man, I have an interest in watching games like tennis, cricket, football, badminton and the like by sitting in my recliner. I could see the Australian Open without Novak Djokovic, US Open, French Open, and Wimbledon matches. I used to see every year these matches with great interest. The T20 World Cup Cricket match continued for almost a month. Finally England took the cup defeating Pakistan. Interesting matches indeed! This was followed by the FIFA football world cup matches hosted by Qatar a tiny Middle East country by spending billions of dollars. There were 32 teams from 32 countries. They were divided into 8 teams. Many matches were very interesting. Finally on 19 Nov. 2022 Argentina faced France and won the World Cup defeating France. It was a thrilling match. The people of Argentina went mad and celebrated as if freedom has come to their country. Lionel Messi after Diego Maradona brought Argentina to win FIFA World Cup after 36 years. Pele was the leading football player who won three World Cups for Brazil. Argentina and Brazil are the two major football countries in South America. Pele expired in Dec. 2022.
Badminton matches are generally played by China, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Denmark, Thailand and India. But nowadays it has become a popular game in countries like Singapore, Spain, France, England, and Canada. It is an indoor game. P. V. Sindhu of India is a badminton champion who won the Silver medal in Rio Olympics and Bronze medal in Olympics held in Tokyo. It is a nice game to watch in TV whenever shown live.
Thus I spent the year 2022 gaining lots of information and also knowledge about politics, sports and many other fields. Looking forward many more things in 2023 to enjoy and share with you in 2024. - NARA
JOURNALING BENEFITS
- Increase Productivity
- Increase self-awareness
- More gratitude and appreciation for the little things.
- Clarity and focus.
- Better mental health.
- Increase mindfulness.
- More likely to set, chase and achieve goals.
- Strengthen will power.
- Boosts confidence.
- Improves your mood.
- Decreases the likes of stress and overwhelm.
- It can also lead to new ideas forming, creativity sparking, and inspiration in general.
DIVORCE
For hundreds of years in Europe, marriage and divorce were religious matters, not civil matters. This meant, as it does today in the Catholic church, that there was almost no way to get a divorce. Only 130 years ago, divorce became a civil matter to be handled by the courts of England and the U. S. Very few divorces were granted initially by the courts, a spouse had to be proven to be “at fault,” i.e. guilty of adultery or extreme cruelty. Gradually, more grounds for divorce were added, but someone still had to be at fault. In the 1920’s, there was one divorce granted for 7 marriages, recently (1998) there has been one divorce granted for every two marriages. More than a million people a year get divorce. Divorce is most common among couples who have been married only two or three years.
What are the reasons given for divorce by the spouses? In order of importance, women say (1) incompatibility and unhappiness, (2) husband’s alcohol, and verbal abuse,(3) husband’s infidelity, (4) disagreements about religion and children, (5) their own alcohol abuse, (6) their own infidelity, and (7) their needs for independence. Men say (1) drug abuse (wife’s or his) and mental illness, (2) may differences (religion, communication, in-laws), (3) his alcohol and physical abuse, (4) wife’s independence and infidelity, (5) incompatibility and unhappiness, (6) wife’s alcohol abuse, and (7) his infidelity. In general, “emotional problems” are the most common cause of divorce; man cite “sexual problems,” three times more often than women and women cite an “affair” twice as often as men. Quite often, people say they do not really know why their spouse filed for divorce. – Dr. Clayton E. Tucker Ladd (1998)
MARRIAGE
In our culture, we have very realistic ideas about marriage. We may falsely believe that marriage will bring us great joy (true) all the time (not true). After a few years, marriage gives big thrills only rarely. If your marriage is good one, it gives mostly comfort, closeness, satisfaction with our lives, fun with our kids, and deep gratitude in quite moments for the companionship and life together, we falsely assume that marriage is maintenance-free, which is absolute non-sense. Marriage takes attention effort, and knowledge. We are not given an instruction manual nor the tools for maintenance and repair of loving relationships. When “things go wrong,” we don’t know what is wrong or what to say or who to talk to or how to change our or our partner’s feelings or behavior. Given our impossible expectations of marriage and the fact that we were never encouraged to face our naiveté and ignorance about it, is it any wonder that we walk away when the marriage starts to breaks down and our anger flares. – Dr. Clayton E. Tucker Ladd 1996
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