I'm an old member of Greenpeace. I worried intensely, as I think most of my friends did, that the world was coming apart.

We worry about the seemingly ever-increasing number of natural catastrophes. Yet this is mainly a consequence of CNN - we see many more, but the number is roughly constant, and we manage to deal much better with them over time. Globally, the death rate from catastrophes has dropped about fifty-fold over the past century.

When thinking about the future, it is fashionable to be pessimistic. Yet the evidence unequivocally belies such pessimism. Over the past centuries, humanity's lot has improved dramatically - in the developed world, where it is rather obvious, but also in the developing world, where life expectancy has more than doubled in the past 100 years.

I think it's great that we have organisations like Greenpeace. In a pluralistic society, we want to have people who point out all the problems that the Earth could encounter. But we need to understand that they are not presenting a full and rounded view.

There are a lot of things we as individuals can't do much about. We can't solve global warming as individuals, or health care problems, but as individuals, most of us can get our kids reading. We can do that.

Athletes have the same rights everybody else does. If there is a strength in our democracy, it's that we are encouraged to exercise those rights and speak out and hold people in power in check.

If you ask me about my success story, the secret is I know when to pull myself back. I don't overexpose myself; I give proper gaps whenever I can. I do not over spend myself, I keep myself busy in lot of activities. I really work hard; I work harder than others, by focussing on my fitness level and studying music.

I've always had a kind of visual eye, and it was a pleasant exercise for that.