Living through Adversities

Very often we come across people who are so used to take shortcuts in life that they get frustrated if there is any delay in any of their works. Traffic jams, office deadlines, fights with friends/family, financial crunch, loosing job, broken vehicles, and arguments – just few examples I can think right now that people call as their rough time.

Problems are a nothing but few days of tough time and while time passes, they also do. Theoretically I know many people who have heard it, know it and advice it. However when it comes to checking yourself, how many of you would give yourself 100% marks in your crisis management techniques. Not 80, not 90 but 100 %.

Check yourself if you get discouraged/upset when you face any such situation that you had not anticipated. If you can’t find the answer, ask your friend/family to remind you instances where you lost your cool. But remember – take their answer as a constructive feedback, do not argue back to justify your actions, instead admit your mistake and take responsibility.

So start your day on a positive note. Think of adversities as nothing but a tide of strong winds. It will tear away everything from you except the qualities that cannot be torn, so that you can see yourselves as you really are.

Lessons of the weekend

As a child each one of us had curiosity to know more about the world. We were born as a genius but lost that gift as we adopted the lifestyle of limited beliefs. The experimentation that we should have done with life fades away to gave way to responsibilities.

I had a chance to meet the marketing head of a multinational life insurance company at dinner yesterday. He spoke of his dreams and how he is planning to go take a long break from his career and go in interiors to pursue his lifelong ambition of farming. He admitted having no knowledge about farming yet but practical experiences teach you more that what you intend to learn. I adore people like these: People who have guts to take risks to follow their dreams.

So, the thought for this weekend is:

Invest some time in learn something new each day. As you grow, you begin to see possibilities you didn't have the eyes to see before. Watch an inspiring movie, read a good book, listen to an audio program, visit a good blog, go to a powerful workshop or have a conversation with an elder. A single idea is all it takes to transform your life.

Knowing your worth

I read a quote on Amitabh Bachhan’s blog:

“You cannot insult me with inferiority unless I allow you to. Why must I feel inferior to anyone? Unless I succumb to the fact that I am inferior, you will not be able to insult me.”

Wonderful thought - makes you feel strong and evokes self esteem in a big way.

There is nothing wrong in taking pride in your work if you know that your skills can compete globally. Having respect for whatever we do for living is necessary as without it attitude cannot be developed. This quote provoked my innermost feelings and made me realise that we are indeed no less than any other unless we ourselves think that we are. It puts back your confidence on you by making you believe that we must work towards making ourselves so accomplished that no other can stand before us with superiority. If you are weak and less competent and admit that you are, then others will make you feel inferior, but if we are tough, capable and believe that we are, then we also believe that we are not inferior to anyone.

Giving our consent weakens us. So make yourselves resolute, determined and conscious of values that you follow in life. Start saying ‘I can’, instead of ‘I will try’. There should be absolutely no room for doubt and uncertainty.

Trust your Guts

People like to take others opinion when they start something new. Many often feel dejected on receiving criticism. The founders of Google tried to sell their patented technology for $1 million. Everyone they approached passed on their offer – companies didn't get the chance to connect with the opportunity. They failed to see The Bigger Picture of how search engines would shape up the technology of tomorrow. However the founders did not give up and result is in front of us – who doesn’t know Google today? It is worth a cool $141 billion today.

It is high time that you start to trust your guts. Practise listening to your heart and then follow it. Don’t get too much used to taking the easy way out, raise up to the kind of person you would like to be. There are people like Nelson Mandela and Gandhi who resisted the way things were and trusted their guts to take forward the light of hope. This world wasn't put together by people with small vision and minor thoughts. It was built by the eccentrics like Einstein and oddballs who had the courage to passionately follow their dreams.

So what are you waiting for? Each of us has desires to be a better human being and to be a part of a wonderful tomorrow. Let’s start today on the beautiful path in pursuit of doing something great.

What is your daily diet?

The title might provoke some to think about what they eat every day, perhaps.

My point here is ‘what diet do you give to your mind?’ When a player when goes in the field, he goes there to win, takes food that gives energy, gives his/her mind a mental boost to stay strong, and develops an attitude of a winner. ‘Champions are made in preparations’ - how true!

We know the power of thoughts and yet most of us wake up in the morning and start our days feeding our minds negative/troubling information. We go through newspapers to find out what is wrong in the world rather than exposing ourselves to all that's good. Do you think it is any different than any Olympian who drinks liquor and eats potato chips before going for a big race? How would be the performance? – Catastrophic, isn’t it?

More than ever, it is the need of economy to have people who can control their minds and think big, think positive and spread the vibrations of optimism around. There are four types of thoughts: Necessary, Negative, Wasteful and Positive. Negative and wasteful thoughts are those on which we waste our mind’s energy without gaining anything fruitful. These are majorly related to past experiences or future expectations. People who think more on these lines are pessimistic in nature and they always see problems that have no solutions.

On other side, there are people who are always energetic and cheerful. Their life’s philosophy can be defined in just three words: ‘come what may......’ . They are the ones who have wisdom to overlook crisis to see solutions.

So start your day like someone devoted to winning would. Give your mind and body an extraordinarily healthy diet. Surround yourself with only the finest and the best thoughts and then prepare to master every situation. That's my wish for you on this glorious day.

Know thyself

I have never been a religious person but I always had the desire of knowing: Who I am? Where am I from? Why am I here? What is death? These four questions troubled me in childhood and being young, I was never able to express my thoughts clearly and constantly felt sad. And now, when I know the answers to my queries and logic of our existence, I feel more than happy always. To me, life has become an open ocean of likeminded people and I feel that I am truly blessed in every way.

The basis of all this comes when you know your true identity through meditation. Meditation is not the route you take when you have some severe problem, as someone from Spain commented on this blog; it is the way to a peaceful, healthy and happy living. So what is this true identity? It is the ‘soul’ that resides in each of us. And what is soul, you might want to ask – Soul is nothing but a form of conscious energy. Any science student can immediately tell you one most important property of energy which is – Energy can neither be created nor destroyed – and in the same way, soul never dies or vanishes, it only travels from one living body to another. So when a person dies, it is the soul that leaves the body and takes birth at a different place.

Well, most of you might not agree with what I have written and may want to raise questions, and to be honest I also took time to understand and digest this knowledge. Given that scenario, I would be least surprised if you react to this in a totally non believer’s way.

My point is a simple one: Knowing yourself is such a beautiful thing, makes you feel strong, focused and happy and it is our birth right to feel like that. Take this as a challenge and see if there is anything that you can not achieve with this knowledge.

Join the club of meditation

Each day brings new challenges to every one of us and as the day passes we generally get tired, physically and mentally, while resolving the things around. Issues like – bill payments, differences with family, loneliness, dejection, office deadlines, delay in services for which we pay on time etc. are very common across different nations. Not everyone is born with a golden spoon and most of us have to work hard to find success in life. Often we get so upset by problems that we start losing our cool and become short-tempered, pessimistic and depressed....

Struggle is the way of life, the sooner we realise it, the better placed we will be on this stage of world. The idea I am trying to celebrate here is that take out some time for yourself. Learn to sit in peace and develop the habit of talking to yourself. Nurture positivity within, think that everyone in this world is going through the same problems then how am I different if I also whine? Expand your aura of optimism and have faith in your abilities. Devote some time from your routine to this kind of meditation and you will experience a change from within.

Meditation is a study of your inner self. It helps purifying the thinking process, energises and increases concentration which leads to skill development and better output. Experience this and if you find any change within, I’ll be glad to tell you more. The key is to practice what you are reading and injecting passion in your everyday life.