Wish I knew this earlier

“The past is a place of reference, not a place of residence; the past is a place of learning, not a place of living.”

–Roy T. Bennett

Although I haven’t ran the whole course of my life yet, there are some lessons I learnt pretty late. When we are young, we are filled with confidence and optimism about the future and believe that we can move past any challenges in life. However, we end up giving up the reins of our life to fate during the later stages in life. As we grow older, we realise that we could have channelised that high amount of confidence and optimism into something productive and fruitful that would help us be more in control of our life.

These are some lessons I’ve come accross either through internet or bitter experiences or analysing the life led by people around me. Although I wish I knew this earlier, I’m really glad that I’m aware of it now and have worked on it to improve the overall quality of my life.

• Join a sport or participate in that extra curricular event :- I was a big time nerd and truly believed studies are the only thing that I should be doing as a student. I was horribly wrong. I realised the importance of fitness and communication much later in life. Learning a sport helps not just in developing strength and stamina but also becoming more disciplined, learning from our failures and facing challenges headstrong. We live in a very sheltered environment as far as school and college is concerned and have people around to help with our requirements. Once we are thrown into the real world, every new situation seems life threatening and we fail to blend in with the crowd. Learn to make new friends, talk to more people, learn about their experiences, participate in events that force you out of your comfort zone. That’s how you realise that every single person on this planet is dealing with their fear and insecurties and you learn to feel less intimidated by people, especially strangers.
• Be financially independent : It’s very important to chase our dreams and passion and figure out the purpose of our existence. However, we also need to find a way to be financially independent along the process. Unless we have unlimited financial resources left to us by our ancestors, everyone needs to work for their survival in this world. Make sure you incorporate the golden habit of saving early on in your life, learn about financial planning, take advise from experts to grow your corpus, make financially sound decisons when it comes to material purchases, know your long and short term financial goals. Once you feel financially sound, you can take all the big decisions in life with more confidence.
• Make meditation a part of daily routine : We all know the wonderful benefits of meditation however it can take a painfully long time for us to visibly see the changes in our life. Till that time, we are required to meditate cosistently without expecting any instant gratification. And that my friend, is an extremely difficult task. It’s better to think of it as a part of daily routine that we need to follow without fail like brushing our teeth or taking a bath. Yes, meditation is undoubtedly the best tool available within our control which can help in maintaining a sound mental health. And making it a daily routine is the best way to reap it’s rich rewards later on in life.
• Everyday is equally important : Most of the days in my life are a waitlist for the special ones/the D days/an important day to look forward to. We feel happy on these special days and dread to get back to the “normal routine” to be followed on the other days. If we can learn to tweak this mindset, there will be a visible change in our happiness levels. The best way to do this is by maintaining a daily journal. It’s just a 5 minute daily practice that requires you to revisit your day and write down whatever made an impact on you that day. This small practice can help you be more grateful and pull your attention back to the present moment. Document your day, focus on making daily progress, make memories, click pictures, life certainly isn’t about those few special days, everday is equally special.

And that’s all I’ve learned and try to implement in my day to day life to feel at peace and more happy in general. Hope it helps you too!

Let go

“Things are as they are—we suffer because we imagined different.”

– Rachel Wolchin

Day 12/30

Certain things in life are just not meant to be. We try our best, fall down, get back up, try again, fall back again, get back up YET AGAIN and this cycle continues. We never lose hope but never get closer to our dreams either. We stumble and fall so many times that the dream seems too far fetched now. We still hope that things will miraculously change for the better and life will turnaround. But it doesn’t happen YET AGAIN. Things don’t change, we are still hurting yet we still try not to lose hope. That’s what is taught to us right? Try, try, try again. But what if we tried for the 1000th time and failed, yet again? Do we continue trying?

No, absolutely NOT. We let go, GRACIOUSLY. We did our best, prayed, wished, worked hard, begged at times, cried, but it still didn’t happen. Boy, we need to understand Universe’s signals by now. Some things in life is just not meant to be.

Let go, move on, focus on things that are under your control. Focus on yourself, focus on your happiness. Be at peace with yourself, with or without such things.

You’ve tried really hard, it’s time to let go. It’s time to forgive ourselves and forget about such things. It shouldn’t be this hard. It’s not meant to be.

Be in charge of your happiness. You can do better, you are better and bigger than this.

Consistency > Motivation

“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.”

-Dwayne Johnson

Day 7/30

As I was binge eating chocolate today, watching videos of amazing fitness influencers smashing their workouts, I thought to myself begrudgingly, “It’ll take me years to reach their level!”. It’s funny how I decided that I might be able to do it, without trying my hand at it. I have been working out for close to 2.5 years now, the intensity and passion in my effort has worn off sharply since the first 3 months of my fitness journey. The first 3 months were intense and I was extremely motivated to lose weight. That was my sole purpose in life during those 3 months. Ever since I lost weight, I have given myself the leeway to give up fairly easily, have no restrictions in my diet, skip my workouts, be indisciplined at times with the only excuse of, “I deserve it this time, I’ll get back on track tomorrow.” And that tomorrow never comes.

It’s easier to be consistent than wait for our motivation to support us in our goals. The journey towards achieving our goals is set on a long, winding and difficult path. If we wait for our motivation to help us scale this journey, we might have to take frequent breaks and delay the journey by a couple of years. However, being consistent and working on our goals everyday, in the best way possible, shows definite results over time. The wait is excruciatingly painful but can be borne by frequently rewarding ourselves on achieving our daily tasks.

Also the best way to be consistent is to make a habit out of it. Force yourself to stick to a schedule for at least a month or till the time it feels weird when you skip it. Once this is achieved, being consistent is comparatively easy. There are many ups and downs in every human’s life. As I was talking to someone close to me today (the most talented person I know), I understood how negative thoughts can absolutely DESTROY a human being. I know she is capable of GREAT things in life however her mind has total control over her actions. Her negative self talk flares up, especially during important events in her life and clouds her judgement. She ends up losing a lot of great opportunities to take her life to the next level and witnessing this physically hurts me. I realized from her experience that I do not wish to give the negative thought process in my mind any attention and DO WHAT’S BEST TO TAKE MY LIFE TO THE NEXT LEVEL, always! I want to be clear on what I want to do and be in life. Right now, I’m on the brink of losing everything to negativity. I wish to change it, FOREVER.

Is it possible,

• to never succumb to negativity?
• to have total control of our mind?
• to use our mind to our advantage, always?
• to make the best choices for success in life?
• to be in sync with the Universe?
• to ignite our motivation when we need it?

I don’t know the answers to these questions yet but I wish to learn them soon. I’ll start with self introspection and understanding my short and long term goals in life. Once I have these written down, I’ll devise a daily routine that helps me work on all of my goals, brick by brick, each day. The most important aspect is to be CONSISTENT at it, by hook or by crook.

Let’s do this!

Glow up

“Transform your world by transforming your internal state. Start by learning to let go of negative self judgment, and replace it with positive and loving thoughts about yourself. Be kind to yourself, and watch your external world change.”

–Anita Moorjani

Day 3/30

I was doing perfectly alright in my daily routine till I went on a vacation. I enjoyed so much on the vacation that I didn’t feel like coming back to the routine I had difficulty coping with. Ever since I’m back, I feel like a zombie. I am struggling to get back to my routine. I am reaching out to a lot of comfort (JUNK!) food to feel better. I feel better for a short while but it ends up making me feeling lethargic and bloated. Junk food does nothing for me and I really need to avoid it as much as I can.

I had a long weekend this week with plans of making full use of it. However, my mind and mood swings had other plans. I didn’t feel like doing anything except lying around and scrolling through Instagram and YouTube. Since I am a morning person, I feel positive and energized when the day begins. But I quickly lose all hope by the time evening sets in and my negative thought process takes over in the night. That’s exactly why I need to do something productive throughout the day to ward off those negative thoughts in the night.

I’ve been dealing with this thought process for a while. Working in a corporate office makes me feel trapped and restricted. I feel alive whenever I am not in office. That’s why even the thought of going back to office the next day squeezes out the last bit of energy from me. BUT, I’m tired of feeling like this. I know that I have complete control of my life and it’s my CHOICE to be in this position in life. No one is forcing me to do this. I work to be financially independent. I am not aware of an alternative option that would help me make the same kind of money that I make now (or more) and be passionate about it (never feel trapped in my life!). Till the time I discover this, I got to take charge of my life. I cannot be wasting precious years of my life, feeling BLAH all the time.

How do I do it? I have absolutely no idea so I have to discover my way of doing it. Starting tomorrow, I’ll make a list of 10 things that I want to change in my life and PUSH myself, every single time I slack, to work on it. That’s all I can do for now. Once I have a my goals in sight, I need to motivate myself to work on it. There will be times when I’ll feel like giving everything up and not do anything. That’s exactly what I have been doing ever since I have come back from my vacation. But that has been horrible for my mental health. My confidence and self esteem has taken a hit and I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I always feel much better when I take action, be productive and work on my goals. And that’s exactly what I’ll do, going ahead.

The glow up process begins, right now! I will share my experience (what worked, what didn’t) till I spend sufficient time doing at least (at least a month or two). Till then, huge shoutout to all the people who refuse to give up, no matter what life throws at them. You are the real superheroes in life!

Small wins

Do you have a bad habit which you’ve been trying to quit since a long time without any success? For me, it has been my addiction to sugar. I’ve been heavily dependent on sugar for my constant source of happiness ever since I was a kid. I didn’t understand the repercussions of having such a dangerous addiction back then. More than the health hazards, I wanted to quit sugar to gain more control over my decisions. I have a tendency to indulge in sugar and sugary foods whenever I am sad or low in life. The cravings I get during such phases are massive and I have absolutely no control over the amount of sugary food I dump inside my body. I ate (rather gobbled up) sweet food for the sake of it, sometimes to feel better, many a times to punish myself for not working hard enough.

I spent many months and years into controlling my sugar cravings. Initially I restricted myself which backfired as I ended consuming double the quantity later on. As restricting completely didn’t work I decided to allow myself a cheat day. This also was counter productive as I consumed large portions even during my cheat days. Then I started learning about the ill effects of sugar consumption. The facts connected to this topic blew my mind yet it wasn’t enough to gain control back from sugar which wholly controlled my cravings. What I didn’t know was that all my efforts were getting counted even if the visible progress seemed slow. I would call “meditation” a breakthrough in my struggle to quit my sugar addiction. I gained more clarity and have been feeling a slight decrease in my sugar cravings.

26 days of continued mediation streak later, I finally had my eureka moment today. I ordered a bunch of sugary foods as I was feeling a bit dejected due to my office work. I picked up one pastry with the intention of eating another one after it. Halfway through eating the cake I realized I found it too sweet for my liking and couldn’t finish. This has never happened before. I could never control my mind when it comes to sugary food but I did it today and it felt extremely empowering. I will test few more times to be completely sure of it. As of now I am celebrating as this incident made me extremely happy!

If you believe something, you can make it happen. That’s all you need.  

–Franklin A. Ohiozebau

Dealing with someone’s anger

#98/100

“Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.”

–Benjamin Franklin

Anger is a very necessary and strong emotion. It becomes out of hand when we let it control our actions. I am a passive aggressive person. I used to keep all my thoughts and feelings within me as long as I could till it got the better of me. I only vented out and stopped talking to the person for sometime only after someone’s actions hurt me beyond my limits of patience. Since I always feared speaking my mind when I felt bad about something, I kept my feelings to myself till it turned into regrets. Once it turs to regret, it takes a long time to get over our anger and for us to realize the ill effects of our actions.

I used to keep my frustrations pent up for a long time and burst out into arguments when I couldn’t take it anymore. After such arguments, I preferred not talking to the person for a long time till I dealt with my emotional reaction over the situation. I have had long periods of silence with most of my close friends for reasons that seem extremely petty to me now. None of the issues that have angered me in the past make sense to me anymore. Yet I don’t regret it as I dealt with low confidence, insecurity and low self esteem issues growing up.

Anger starts from a simple emotion of “expectation”. We expect something to happen in a certain manner and when things don’t unfold according to our wishes, all hell breaks loose. We cannot expect other people to behave exactly in the manner we expect them to. We are dealing with human beings with varied emotions and expressions that is unique from person to person. A little understanding and patience when things start to feel wrong could go a long way in avoiding unnecessary conflicts. A high sense of self worth helps us get over the inertia of handing out the olive branch and apologize first to make things right, especially when we know both sides are at fault. This is still a work in progress for me but I’m trying everyday to become more secure with my self and patient in life as I absolutely despise having conflicts of any kind. I tend to think about them every waking minute of my life and lose my sleep over it.

If the conflict remains unresolved even after apologizing, the only thing that one can do is to give the other person time and space to deal with their emotions. Although it’s my ardent desire to live a conflict free life, I know very well that this might be an absurd expectation. Avoiding any form of conflict could end up muting my real thoughts and convert me into a person who agrees to everything that other people say and live with grudges all my life. All I can do is work to find a middle ground where I can ensure that my voice is heard without hurting anyone’s feelings.

The damsel in charge

#36/100

I’m watching a lot of quality content these days. Entertainment is such a huge part of our lives. The entertainment industry is blooming because of the excessive demand for it from general public. People who star in certain amazing movies and shows are admired to the extent that they are worshiped at certain parts of the world. What is it about the entertainment industry and the imaginary world of movies and shows that draws our attention to it?

As a child I was a huge fan of fairy tales. I absolutely loved the story of “Cinderella”. And I waited for my Prince Charles every single day after that. After reading/watching many fairy tales, I was convinced that I’d end up meeting my knight in shining armor who’ll save me whenever I’m in trouble. For the longest time, I shrugged off taking responsibility of my life thinking that it will all get better once I meet my knight. I did my best at studies and work without envisioning any great goals for the future.

Most of the movies and shows that I’ve watched till date always showed a wonderful man saving the damsel in distress from any trouble and end up being her hero. Are girls that vulnerable to need a man to save them from every problematic situation? I have lived all my life subconsciously believing that I will end up meeting my knight in future who will change my life and make it better. Thus, I ended up not working on my life. I never believed that I had the ability to make it better myself.

It took a lot of hurtful experiences and unlearning to realize that change starts from within. The only person who has the ability to make my life better is my own self. If I don’t work on myself and develop the ability to find happiness in each and every situation in life, the greatest of knights wouldn’t be able to help me.

I’m thankful to have this realization early on in my life. I don’t live my life with an endless wait for someone to enter it and make it better. I am in control and work on making it a little better each day. It’s not that difficult really!

Down the memory lane

Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.

– Haruki Murakami

#10/100

I really don’t know if the human ability of keeping memories is a good thing. We’d most definitely love to recall the happy events but what about the sad ones? The pain of losing someone, that time when someone broke your heart, failing at that one thing which meant the most to you, betrayed by someone close to your heart or just being let down by your close ones, time and again. What do we do with such memories that just end up causing pain and sadness when we begrudgingly recollect them? Why doesn’t our brain have a functionality to selectively ignore the bad experiences and store only the good ones?

I know our life is a culmination of all types of experiences, the good, bad and ugly. But sometimes these bad remembrances have adverse effects on our present and cloud our vision for the future. A person’s likes, dislikes and entire personality is defined from the kind of encounters that they go through as a child. If a person had a bad childhood, they grow up having deep resentments and regrets in life. It is very difficult to let go of these bad emotions and carry on with their lives. They keep relapsing back to those horrific childhood memories and fear their present as well as future. Therapists and counselors tend to apply Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) while dealing with people with mental health issues. They try and understand the person’s childhood and all the events they have gone through to help them understand their emotions better.

Life would have been simpler with the existence of a reset button in our brain. We would be able to discard all the harmful memories and keep the ones that help us be happy and at peace with ourselves. A baby is born with a clean slate and an optimistic future. Before a human being develops the sense and ability to take their own decisions, their subconscious mind stores all the memories deep inside the brain from the word go. The good ones make you positive, gives you confidence, strength and happiness. The bad ones instills fear, anxiety, sadness, disappointment over events that your conscious mind has no control over.

In hindsight, the human ability of preserving memories is marvelous. They just have to work very hard on reacting to the emotions that are a consequence of these memories in a conducive manner.