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Excel in life

There are three kind of crisis...

First ones are sudden that come unannounced, like the girlfriend in middle of a match. Unannounced and unwanted- a totally untamed situation...

Second ones linger for ages which keep you in constant feeling of uneasiness...like meeting your girlfriend's folks. You have to do it someday but behaved as if it is always going to be a 'forever-away' thing...

And the third one are like companions who have been defined, acknowledged and accepted...like working in a financial sector- you acknowledge and accept how close you stay to the pink slip, the feeling is your forever-companion...

Anyway, whichever crisis one has to tackle at any point of time, the solution is trivial still tricky. Just like it is in Excel! Yeah our better half MS Excel. Drag a couple of things here, put some formulae there, sort, filter, transpose and format and maybe add some validation. Done.

Error!

Circular Reference..

A circular reference is a series of references where the last object references the first, resulting in a closed loop...

I say this circular reference is root to all misery, all crisis. Everything is contingent on everything else. That is the origin. It’s not even funny that all that we want to do is contingent on all that we want to do and we fail to decipher about where to start.

We find ourselves in this what –if scenario. “What if” is when you can use several different sets of values in one or more formulas to explore all the various results.
Is that too geeky already? No we will try to manage. Formulas and excel, like movies is surely derived from real life situations. Of course it wasn’t in this context but I find it fits best.

This what if analysis where you can use lot of input variables to explore returns is precisely an instrument to mess up with all that you have. And as if this was not enough, we have a small twist, the circular- reference -in -what -if –analysis- of -life. All that we strive for is a permutation combination needed in what if analysis and the moment some variable seems to look like it fits, boom! Circular reference.

Excel is easy. You can do so much and there is always the help option. It doesn't translate too well in life though. No auto save, no multiple versions and definitely no recover mode. Hence circular loops run and are ignored, what ifs are never explored and no one rewrites what could not be saved.

This is where we should go back to the likes of our dear old friend and tell ourselves. Its really not that difficult, you just need to drag a couple of things here, put some formulae there, sort, filter, transpose and format and maybe add some validation. Done.

Yes Its messy and tricky. It takes its phases and course and still the crisis persist. Like you could never fix that macro... Its okay, its doable.


What? Which one do I like the most? I love the Goal Seek...
used to get a particular result when you're not too sure of the starting value...


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