On Time

I’ve been thinking about time lately. I find it an oddly fascinating subject not only because it’s one of the few things that really matter to all of us, but also because it serves as the basic denomination for how we value things and how we make decisions, yet it’s something we often take for granted. Without time, almost everything loses it’s value.

For instance, most people do not actually work for money, but they work to earn a better quality of life – big idea in building a startup culture! People fork out real cash to purchase Farmville cash, so they can spend less time playing on Farmville (they call it a time hook, but aren’t we a walking paradox?) Do couples choose not to conceive because baby bonuses are insufficient, or because they simply cannot afford the quality time – might Europe’s mandatory maternity and paternity leave set an example?

I’ve found that the most valuable thing that anybody can give you really, is their time. Time too, in it’s natural passing, is also a human construct. Perception of time is time itself, and can expand in times of boredom, and contract in times of flow. Our psychological perception of time affects our decisions. And our decisions affect our lives.

A Balanced Appreciation of Time

In The Time Paradox, Philip Zimbardo (better known for the Stanford Prison Experiment) and John Boyd suggests that each of us hold biased time perspectives with which we make decisions with, that ultimately become ingrained as a mental habit. Some of us are trapped in the past, some relish the present, and some simply live in the future. Past-orientation can be focused on good memories or trapped in miss-opportunities; present-orientation can be hedonistic or fatalistic; and future-orientation can entail excessive goal achievement and risk taking.

No prizes for guessing – I happen to be excessively future oriented.. which comes at a high price in terms of family, health, and present enjoyment. I soon figured that at the rate I was going I might delay simply living my entire life! That would be a pretty bad deal, and definitely not much fun. There is a point in time where delayed gratification has to be taken in moderation.

Life changes when you achieve a full appreciation of time. Keeping an optimal temporal balance in mind, I make extra effort to appreciate the past for providing the identity and accompanying backstory that no one can deny, to focus on always being present and live life with vigor, whilst still keeping my healthy dose of optimism and excitement for what the future holds.

Generation NOW

At times, I do find myself a slave to time. It manifests in the frustrating five seconds when a page takes a longer time to load than I am used to; those moments where a hundred thousand things pile up on my to-do lists. It’s those times when I feel a impulse to be on top of current affairs, or be led by my curiosity and know everything I can possibly know about a subject.

There is a new expectation of immediacy, and and an accompanying need for action. Call it the attention economy – brands are just paying to grab our mind-share. In this cacophony and bombardment, we are expected to respond, respond, and respond.

But with what basis can we respond if we do not have time for thoughtfulness?

Clarity of Thought

This isn’t surprising. We spent most of our early school years marching to the beat of timetables, optimized for input. We were all was trained to think in 40-minute blocks of time, each with it’s own function of what to do and how to think. There was a time for Math, and then a scurry to the time for History. A time for play, which often meant being late for the time for English. We developed an incredible ability to absorb information without rumination, and to switch between various mental modes required for each domain.

I recently volunteered at an elementary school and met one teacher who had an extraordinary respect for her student’s time. After recess, the little ones streamed back into their classroom and laid their heads down on their desks. The lights went out, and soothing music soon filled the classroom as she started to narrate scenes of meadows and butterflies. “And now we shall all learn with calm minds and fill our hearts with generosity…” I saw the boys recovering from their beads of perspiration, and noticed some others who had dozed off to sleep. It was just 5 minutes, but it felt like a spiritual experience.

How often do we reflect on our intentions and actions? To reason and contemplate meaning? And to explore the whole substance of an issue? How frequently do we think with a sense of priority? Do we even give ourselves enough time to change our minds?

Budget Time for Inaction

Because I’m pretty lost without my calendar, I have resorted to budgeting time for all the important things – having free but bounded times for thoughts that matter.

To all founders, teachers, and parents, inaction is not a waste of time. Between action is the reflection, analysis, the study of why, and the prioritization of what is to come. Give yourself time. Be patient with your thoughts, and remember the following -

“It is not the time it takes to take the take that takes the time. It is the time it takes between the takes that takes the time.” – Roy Scheider, American actor

Think about it.

Reflections on ChildFinance

Just in case one more person thinks I was kidnapped by some Amsterdam gremlins, I thought I’d better break the radio silence. It’s been a hectic time ever since I returned from the International ChildFinance Expert’s Meeting in Netherlands. Four days of good energy and learning, where the magic is truly in the people.

My respects for Jeroo and the folks at Aflatoun. What a feat of bringing together the accelerators with convening powers, the mavens of academics, the practitioners of financial education with immese ground experience and just about everyone who has done relevant work in this space. There’s a new exciting movement that is brewing to chart the way forward for financial education and access for children – at the age where habits start forming (from the researchers), and at the time when the marginal rate of investment is the greatest (from the policymakers).

Some quick lingering thoughts -

In some circles, the term financial literacy has become as taboo as entrepreneurship or web 2.0. The new focus is now on financial capability, with the ultimate goal of behavior change, as the result of having received a financial education. Yet, measuring behavior and action (what does it look like?) or involvement in existing financial systems (or a lack of involvement?) may not serve as good indicators of financial capability, especially in less-developed countries. The smartest of the poor deliberately exclude themselves from traditional financial institutions, rejecting savings instruments that offer 6% when inflation is standing at 16%. In fact, there were fascinating insights into what money management looks like in the poorest communities in the world. Recommended reading: Portfolios of the Poor.

Another exciting theme surrounds financial access, and the debate in creating child-friendly banking products with possible certification, ensuring appropriate safety and quality levels bounded by an ethical framework. Talks of easing in control gradually until kids turn 14, removing transaction fees and a minimum balance. No surprise that the bankers were demanding a business case, mirroring the rather tragic move when UK scrapped their Child Trust Funds just a few weeks ago, which I thought was a brilliant scheme when first introduced.

There was a clear dichotomy in the problems faced in the developing vs. developed worlds. At the lower levels of poverty, asset building is non-monetary as people invest in cattle, jewelry or relationships that may offer a better return. Was surprised to learn of the 90% savings rate in one case study, where survival literally depends on the ability to save up meager, irregular and unpredictable incomes – you don’t need to teach them how to save. I made a case that unlike the developed world, entrepreneurship in this instance is no longer a choice, and resonated immensely with the Teach a Man to Fish initiative in Paraguay – a rural education where students learn earned income strategies and graduate with a business. Ironically we have savings problems in developed countries, where you find complete financial inclusion but amateur knowledge on getting involved. It led me to scribble down this framework, revealing the importance of timing and matching financial education, capability and access. An important question raised in the academic track to ponder as well – Are we to claim that money is the equitable currency across the board?

On a side note, (this was not on the agenda but arose out of private discussions). I’ve always resonated with Mohd Yunus’ principles and the microfinance model, but have become a little apprehensive of how it’s evolved. Some MFIs are now a monolithic corporate structure, with funding from commercial banks and private equity firms, set in deregulated environments charging anywhere from 30%-85% interest, with a high repayment rate. This makes for a reliable super-profit machine with returns of over 50% and naturally attracts an overabundance of capital. Disbursement pressure skews responsible action and loan placements. Why does this already sound familiar? Even if we ignore the business case and revisit first principles, shouldn’t we advocate putting savings into business capital instead of just taking out a loan? It’s a myth that most of the poor cannot save.. transferring the control of money to the women sometimes works wonders.

And so I left with even more questions than before, but am ever so excited to get involved in these discussions going forward and hope to shape a product that could fundamentally solve the problem. At the heart, we all believe in the empowerment of children and to treat them as part of the solution. There’s always a fine balance between over-strategizing, and gaining momentum with madly passionate folks who have the gut-level indignation of the status quo. And I guess it’s only fitting to end off with Audrey‘s famous quote of the meeting – Let’s not forget to just let the kids have fun.

What Is Intelligence, Anyway?

(From the autobiography by Dr. Isaac Asimov)

When I was in the army, I received the kind of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me. (It didn’t mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with KP – kitchen police – as my highest duty.)

All my life I’ve been registering scores like that, so that I have the complacent feeling that I’m highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so too. Actually, though, don’t such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests – people with intellectual bents similar to mine?

For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was.

Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it, watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles – and he always fixed my car.

Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test. Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I’d prove myself a moron, and I’d be a moron, too.

In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly. My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.

Consider my auto-repair man, again. He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me.

One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say: “Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with the other hand.

“The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?”

Indulgently, I lifted by right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers. Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, “Why, you dumb jerk, He used his voice and asked for them.”

Then he said smugly, “I’ve been trying that on all my customers today.” “Did you catch many?” I asked. “Quite a few,” he said, “but I knew for sure I’d catch you.”

“Why is that?” I asked. “Because you’re so god-damned educated, doc, I knew you couldn’t be very smart.”

And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there.

Inside a school for suicide bombers

Getting into… Kindergarten

Caught this by accident on Discovery Channel and got hooked.

I previously read about the mad competition and hot-house preparation that kids (and parents) undergo in India to gun for top Kindergartens, but I never expected the same cut-throat reality in New York.. but it IS New York afterall, what was I thinking! If you feel like watching 4-year-olds being subjected to three IQ tests (to gain entry into the privates), interviews being masked as play dates, and parents stressing out over self-inflicted pressure, the whole documentary is available on youtube :)