How motivational crap can help .....

How motivational crap can help .....

January 26th, 2009 was a day when 72,000 jobs were cut in US and Europe(alone). Yes, on a single day... I personally think it has been the worst till date in the last 11 months I have been following the recession.

Everyone I know here is really frustrated and once in a while the plug they have to hold their frustration within gets ruptured. What follows is a series of medical conditions best termed "Trauma". The Jan 26th news ruptured mine.

Being completely clueless on how I should handle it, I came up with a decent line to repeat to myself over and again: "Tell yourself you are lucky....."
I started hunting for what could make me feel good.
30L INR loan ? No..
The great GPA ? No..
Then ?
And then it struck me.....

I am studyin something now called "Implied Volatility Smile" as a subject and it was developed by Dr. Emanuel Derman and Dr. Iraj Kani. (google on them sometime)..They actually developed a mathematical model for this observed phenomenon in Stock Options with their own hands :-) It is one of the most popular and almost indispensable models ever developed in modern finance and now everyone uses it or atleast a variant of it..

And guess what, I m learning this concept from the exact same people.. Dr Derman and Dr. Kani(for a different subject though..).
:-) I really think God has been unbelievably lavish in giving me this chance .. :-) Seriously...

Every lecture is like Newton telling : " So the apple fell on my head. I started thinking what could be the reason. I decided it must be because the earth was pulling the apple towards it. I decided there must be a law governing this and so I came up with the Law of Gravitation" ....

Notice the bolded text : "I" s and "Me" s... :-) .. Yes, first person account ! awesome right ?
They do not use these pronouns as much as I have used them above. Infact, they never do. May be that modesty is what made them so successful. But at times, casually such usage does spurt out and the feeling you get is way too complicated to explain. :-)

Wanna end with a quote from Matrix: "Hope.. The quintessential human delusion. Simultaneously the source of their greatest weakness and strength.."

Damn the 2007-08 crisis.