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I read somewhere that your spending pattern varies according to the denomination of currency you have. If you are out shopping and have 500 rupees as a single note then the first buy is delayed as long as possible but the entire amount gets spent soon; if you have 500 rupees as five 100 rupee notes then the initial urge to spend is less but it takes longer to spend the entire 500. I thought this might not be true until I observed my snacking habit on weekends. I have the habit of snacking on biscuits in the evening while watching TV, most of the time I end up eating the entire pack. One weekend I ended up buying individually wrapped biscuits instead of the regular pack, to my surprise I did not consume even half of what I used to have regularly.

How the seemingly expendable wrapper can alter the behavior or consumption of someone? Our brain is wired or conditioned to be in a state of anxiety neutrality which in other words is a comfort zone. The inertia to stay in the comfort zone will be too great that there must be a strong justification of the increase in comfort or well being has to be justified in order to come out of the comfort zone. Niggles play an important part on how someone either breaks a bad habit or catches a good habit. Most of the bad habits are niggle free to catch on and will cause utter discomfort when quitting, a great example is smoking. In my case the individual wrapper is a niggle which prevented me from consuming more than what I require.

Every workplace has lots of niggles, I have seen people not using the intranet site just because it requires a password or times out frequently. A very good example so far I have observed is the reading habit and the library policy. Man power shortages have reduced libraries in many small/mid size companies to mere shelves with locked doors. Checking out the book through a system is mandatory even for reference to prevent loss of books. While this may sound to be a fool proof system to save books from getting lost, it defeats the purpose of books as there is an entry barrier.

Some niggles are not too obvious, my mom was finding it difficult to get used to cell phones and was next to impossible to keep her phone on. One weekend spent a good amount of time trying to get her into the comfort zone of using cell phones, but she said if all that you want me is to have a phone then get me a landline where I can lift the receiver to speak and put it down to switch it off. She was right, I was trying to force my way of using phones which is very new while she had used phones the old way for 40 years. Niggles prevent effective communication between developers and clients across different timezones over the phone, the same client who had relied on many senses is now forced to rely only on hearing. This niggle may cause the person to avoid calls and stick to more comfortable form of communication.

If the urge to catch on a good habit is strong or the potential benefit of overcoming the niggle is tangible and big enough then the niggles on the way wont matter much, but if we don’t understand what they are or what the benefit of overcoming it then we would perform less efficiently than what our resources, time and environment permits us to do.

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I was late for work – forgot to set the alarm, no time to warm up the water, breakfast not ready. After a freezing cold water bath and a glass of milk rushed to the railway station climbed up the floors only to find out that there was a power supply problem and the next train will take as much as 30 mins. I was at the height of frustration. So were others, loud sighs and angry faces everywhere. I noticed a toddler, could not be more than 2 yrs old. On comparing the face of the child and the rest of us in the railway station the kid was in a different world. How true, this child need not worry about the complicated things happening around.

My mind begun to travel back in time and reached a point where my family had been on a summer vacation during my primary school days. On our return we rushed to the railway station platform just to know that the train is delayed. I was a kid and my bro a toddler, both started playing in the platform and my mom had a tough time keeping us within her reach. My dad appeared too anxious and kept on glancing at his watch, then the platform, and also keenly listening to every announcement. In the middle of the play my bro and I asked for dairy milk chocolates from the platform stall, in the height of his frustration my dad gave a red eyed look. There were no words exchanged but the message was delivered, the next moment the disappointment vanished and we were playing again. When the train arrived, all the people rushed to their reserved berths, I didnt want to break the game and move on; But a cold response from my mom made me budge in to the train compartment. I heard my dad cribbing that he is going to end up late in office tomorrow and my mom was worried that she will have less time to pack us to school. I just remember lying on the berth, when I woke up I was at home. My dad’s was hurrying up for office literally stamping and kicking everything on the way before he finally left for office. My mom was so busy that she would have wished that she had 10 hands. “Apart from children and monks, can you point a person who is living their life?”, yuppie I was living my life. I took the same time to get ready to school; no rush, no thoughts running at the back of the mind. Business was as usual for me.

I did a comparison of myself in these two different time frames.

1. When the train was late, I didnt care; but now, lots of processing going on how to push the day.
2. When I didnt get something, I was dissapointed but carried on with what I was doing; but now, disappointments grow into frustration.
3. When it gets late for me, I didnt speed up; but now, I run at break neck speed.

When we all were children we wanted to grow up faster, begin to earn, spend at will and enjoy life. When we grow up we wish we were kids and lived under the shelter of someone. The grass always looks greener on the other side, but we cannot get back to the greener past.

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I like the train journeys more than any other form of transport. Lots of thoughts come to my mind only when I travel in the train. You are pretty relaxed observing the scenery outside incase you are travelling through the suburbs or country side. Watching sunrises and sunsets from the train is not an everyday treat. The feeling cannot be described when you watch the bright red globe appears to race between the trees, mountains and building. For a brief moment when you get a clear view, you will forget to blink………more pictursque is the view of the early morning sun just above horizon streaked by thin clouds. I used to wonder, cant the whole day be as beautiful as the sunrise?

Urban train journeys are not pleasurable, lots of people travel by train to work during rush hour jam packed into coaches. I happened to be at a train terminus during a rush hour. When an empty train came into the station people rushed into to grab the seats so that they spend the rest of the journey with comfort. There is nothing new I noticed in this behaviour but the one which I observed for the first time was the way in which the people occupied the seats. I expected the seats to be occupied sequentially from the first seat to the middle row of the seats which are equidistant from another set of doors. Say the coach had seats numbered 1 to 100 with three doors front at no 1, middle at 51 and back at 100. People entering front door should have occupied 1,2,3 so on, people entering the middle should have occupied 50,49,48 or 51,52,53 so on, but I noticed something different. The first seat was occupied, then the middle one, then the middle of the first and the middle and so on until all the seats are filled only by filling the middle seats in between occupied seats. The seat number 1 was occupied then the next person chose somewhere in 20, the person after that chose in the 10s and next one chose between 1 and 10. The coach was full in less than a minute and there were no seats left empty, yet why did people choose to occupy the farthest seat from the next person even though the train is going to be full. Is that few seconds of sittting alone is valuable?

I got an answer when reading for the exams, humans have a space bubble built around them. This is classified as public, social, personal and intimate space. As far as possible the personal space territory will be defended by all people. It gets breached only incase of other things getting higher priority. This is explained by the way seats were occupied, people tried to keep as much distance as possible from the strangers, but when the number of vacant seats became less they were more willing to sit next to a stranger. When the train was overcrowded they didnt mind standing brushing against each other. From that day onwards whenever I visit some places like cinemas and auditoriums, I keenly started noticing the way the seats are occupied. Quiet astonishingly it is occupied the same way almost every where.

I told to myself and conciously avoided to follow the midway theory, so when I got on to a train to my native late in the evening I occupied a seat next to a stranger in a sparsely crowded coach. For a while he pretended to look for someone and then eventually went out of the train just to come back and occupy a different seat. I know, the midway theory is working.

Which seat will you occupy when you board a train? I guess the answer is quite obvious, the middle seat.