Stupidest of Questions

We aren’t taught or we aren’t applauded for asking questions. Rather, do what you’re told, follow the narrative that has been rolled, execute the actions blindfolded.

But, the people who seem smart to you, the people who are knowledgeable, the people who are experts in their fields, that is because they ask the stupidest of questions.

They don’t shy away from it, they don’t care what anyone else thinks. They are curious, they will ask. They want another perspective, they will ask.

Those who think their questions aren’t smart enough keep forming the right question to never ask it, keep being curious in their minds to never know more than they already do, keep thinking everyone else is smarter than them.

Don’t shy away from asking the stupidest of questions because that’s how you grow and evolve.

Balancing your Life

Instead of constantly rushing towards work and focusing all your energy into it, why not balance it out and experience other areas and phases of your life as well?

Instead of wondering where did all that time go, why not create slots for everything you want to do in a particular day and live a balanced and experienced life?

Why not experience cooking? Why not experience organizing? Why not experience journaling? Why not experience meditation? Why not experience those things that you wanted to do outside of work?

Ultimately, life is an experience which we don’t want to miss out on.

Stories play themselves out…

Every story has a way of playing themselves out…

When you’re satisfied with your story, then it sounds like a successful one.

When you’re not, or rather until you’re not, and until you do become satisfied, it then becomes a struggling story.

Be as it may, there’s always some takeaway from it, from any story of any individual, not just yours.

Those takeaways to someone who’s building their life becomes just what they need, when carefully observed and learnt from.

And every story impacts someone else, but only if that story is told, or else it just stays hidden.

Sometimes you don’t get to decide how the story will play out, and sometimes you do, but either or, you can very well be at it to ensure that you like your story, if anyone may or may not.

Play, Pause, or Fast Forward

You have three options in life, either to play, or pause, or to fast-forward.

What do these options mean?

The play option means to live your life. The pause is to take a break, rest for a while, pause your life with your daily activities and then resume again after a while. To fast-forward is to not enjoy your present moments and to just drift through, but with this option you later wonder where did all that time go?

There are two more options, one of which you cannot control, and one you don’t have the option of choosing.

The one you cannot choose is the stop button (your actions may influence the timeline of this option though). The other option you don’t have the option of choosing is the rewind button (you cannot go back in time and redo something, what’s done is done).

Once we understand the options that we can choose from, the perspective of looking at life changes as well.

Know it or Understand it?

Sometimes you know something. Sometimes you understand it too. Sometimes both. Sometimes neither.

But, a clear line needs to be drawn. A line of clarity.

The knowledge of this line helps you to become better at something. This line is what makes someone an expert.

Transaction Mindset

With whatever you want in your life, there are certain expectations attached, a scenario where you give to take and not to just give.

That scenario is when everything becomes a transaction mindset for you.

You give someone something and you expect something in return, an expectation of your wish to be fulfilled by someone, even though they aren’t liable to anything in the first place.

Here, when that is not reciprocated, is when you get disappointed. It is at such times when you blame others, when you feel anger and also, create a dislike for the other person.

When you get rid of such expectations in the first place and when you truly give is when you start living your life. Now, when you receive something, you receive it out of worth or out of love, not because of anything else.

Forgetting to be Grateful

In our life, we are always running after what’s next or running after our wants, or rather complaining about the things we don’t have.

In all of this, we forget to be grateful for the things that we already have in our life.

Gratitude is such a powerful factor in our life, where if we are grateful for each and every thing that we have and grateful for each and every thing that we get to do, our approach and perspective towards life changes and we start looking at things differently.

Internet Motivation

For anyone who has browsed through the internet enough, or the social media platforms to be specific, would know how over-saturated the motivational content has become.

Every individual will come up with some type of motivational content, irrespective of how their individual life is doing, or if not original, then would remix someone else’s content, but so much of it is just revolved around Motivation.

It almost gives a perspective to people that motivation is all they need to do anything in life, personally and professionally. When they’re motivated, everything will be done right and everything they want.

When they aren’t motivated, then they’ll seek more of it on these platforms.

But, to be honest, is it all you need?
Is it okay for one to perceive that motivation is all they need? This mental high they get after reading something motivational is all they need?

The problem is not with motivation, but with those pushing it and those consuming it. Sure, motivation is needed, but it makes more sense when its done by yourself, and especially when included with the other ingredients.

Motivation is just the cherry on the cake, but you still need the ingredients to make the cake first.

Right from your physical and mental wellness, to your mindset, to your thoughts, to your habits, your faith and your beliefs, the goals you have, the people around you, all of it comprise of those ingredients you need to make a good cake.

Then you can put the motivation as the topping, that’s what motivation is. But those who post motivational fail to realize that, probably because themselves are doing it just for the content or they have created a motivational bubble around themselves.

Irrespective of the reasons, as the consumer of such content, especially for one who wants to improve their life, who wants to write the script of their lives themselves, can ponder upon this and ultimately, take charge and start working on every aspect of their life and improving it, rather than depending on Internet Motivation.

Appreciate your Consistency

While doing the same thing over and over again, day after day, may seem static and it may introduce a stagnant mood around you.

Such are the moments when occurred when you should remember why you are doing it in the first place.

That remembrance of the why leads to you appreciating your consistency and knowing how it’s going to compound in the near future and it is you who will then enjoy the fruits of your labor as well.

Stretched by a New Idea

Each one of us lives a life with their current set of habits and beliefs and knowledge, and everything that they do is based around that.

But, in this information economy, where one is constantly consuming something, and probably learning something from that consumption, we are not limited to those frameworks anymore.

“The mind once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimension.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes

Once you have learnt or executed something new in your life, your mind has expanded from its previous form to a new one.

It’s not the same anymore, and its then a matter of time before you go in depth of it and that idea introduces a new or changes a previous part of you.

Anything and everything that you consume is now a part of you, and you cannot get rid of it. Somehow, somewhere, the dots are going to get connected, and that new learning plays a part in that.

When you do it with your wishes

Most of the things we do are based on following other people’s wishes or to please other people.

Because it’s for someone else and not you, now what you need is someone to push you to do it, you need hacks, you need motivation.

Because you want to stay focused on that path, you do all of those things.

But, when you do something, anything, with your own wishes, when you have your full support to it, now you know why you’re doing it.

Now you don’t need any hacks, or any kind of motivation. You don’t have a timeline either. Because its for yourself.

That’s the beauty when you do anything with your wishes, and not with anyone else’s.

Effects of your Decisions

Every decision we take impacts our life in one way or the other.

That impact may be immediate or it may happen on its own timeline, but with every decision comes its effects.

The effects we cannot control but have to live with. The decision-making is the only thing that we control, the effects of which we need to ponder before making that decision.

Such effects cannot be reversed. Only at some point, can you make another decision and change its course but the effects still remain.

Right from the childhood to until we continue to make decisions.

Mind Manipulation

How easy is it to manipulate someone’s mind, do you know? Common interests, common target points then make way for mob mentality, making it more easier to manipulate people at a mass level.

On the grounds of capitalism, wanting to be rich, on the grounds of diets, wanting to be slim, on the grounds of motivation, wanting to be inspired, on the grounds of followers and likes, wanting to be famous…

It is so easy to manipulate anyone’s mind, and those that understand this, then take advantage of it. If one is not aware of their true needs and wants, their true meaning of life, love and happiness, then they keep falling for these traps again and again.

It then becomes a cyclical chain.

For example, you eat something which tastes good for the moment, but unhealthy for the body. You then have to go on a fad diet/ taking shortcuts to become healthy. You spend a ton of time and money on consultations, courses, classes, etc. to get your workout in place, your diet in place, but you don’t feel motivated to carry on. Sooner or later, you now opt for someone to motivate you, either through a seminar or a personal consultation, or any other form. That cyclical chain then affects other areas of your life until you have fallen for every trap possible.

Instead, you could have opted to not eat that unhealthy thing.

A simple example can then be applied to every phase of your life, and it is then for you to realize how many traps have you fallen into by now.

The Judgement Day!

The reality of life is that every day is a judgement day for all humans!

Simply put, people will always judge you, no matter what.

No matter how good you morally are, or bad, or high in the social status, or low, or on any other scale, the judgement is never over.

There is never getting rid of it.

The only thing to do is to avoid that judgement and focus on yourself. That takes a lot, a lot of practice, calling out yourself when it starts to affect you and then get back on track again.

But, said that, the outcome is that much beautiful, because it also helps when you feel more calmer, and more freer with your choices and decisions, that now you can truly take for yourself.

Dealing with Every Day

Prepared or unprepared,

Growth mindset or fixed mindset,

Process or the outcome,

Happiness or the chase,

Whichever category you belong to,

There is still every day to deal with.

Each day brings with it, its own ups and downs.

Its own set of successes and its own set of setbacks.

A high and low of emotions.

Various things to deal with.

And apart from that purpose, apart from that higher goal, there is still always that every day to deal with.

The ‘every day’ that we need to be ready for.

For what it will bring.

For what will happen.

Sometimes it deviates us, sometimes it brings us back to the path,

Sometimes it brings you all the things you want, and sometimes it takes it all away,

Those are the dealings of the every day

That we need to live and experience and be prepared for.

Salt according to taste

If you are ever following a recipe while cooking, ond of the things that’s common in all recipes is, add the salt according to your taste.

No one says how much, even though they have the exact measurements for everything else.

But that exact analogy applies to life as well! No matter how much you learn and no matter how much experience you have and whether you have all the ingredients for your financial success or your professional success or your personal growth, ultimately the energy that you’re investing and/or the time that you’re alloting to everything will decide its outcome, based differently for each individual.

There’s no fixed allotted time for anything to be successful or to have a good outcome, on the contrary, its based on each one’s “taste” – what they think is right according to them.

And that will eventually decide the fate of your work, just how that amount of salt you put in decides the taste of your dish.

Are you ready or are you waiting?

What’s the simple difference between being ready for something versus waiting for something to happen?

When you wait for something to happen, you keep waiting for it to happen.

When you are ready for something to happen, you are ready for it to happen.

Read that once more and let it sink in.

Made fun of

I have been made fun of for
– eating healthy
– eating vegetarian food
– sleeping early
– building my habits and lifestyle
– creating content
– my looks
Mostly everything about my life.

And such similar comments are passed on for every individual, from their friends or family or whoever.

What should such people do?

Let those who find joy in such things enjoy themselves, that’s the only source of joy for them. But for you, these things shouldn’t trouble you or deviate you from the path you’re on, you do you and what’s best for you.

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The other side of luck

All of us have our journeys, our goals, our path on which we are currently walking! There’s something on our minds that we want to achieve – either an accomplishment of a task or checking off a goal.

Although, when things don’t work out, we are disappointed, we are in deep thoughts of the reasons why it didn’t work out, we ponder over our decisions and if we could do it all over again!

However, what if life had other plans for us? What if that path wasn’t the right one for you? What if things not working out was a stroke of luck?

That is what Dalai Lama has said, “Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.”

Of course, you can’t sit around and think of the ‘What Ifs’, but you can have a positive perspective over life that maybe things didn’t work out for the right reasons and maybe you need to walk another path to reach where you want to be.

To clarify, you might know your true calling but the path you thought was right may not have been the right one, which is why things didn’t work out the way you expected them to; and now it’s time to revisit that and think how you could do it differently…

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Not Trying

When you look back at your journey, you realize the number of things you didn’t try in your life, probably because you thought you’d fail at it.

The concept of failure took over your mind in such a way, that you couldn’t think of anything else, but that. Failure meant a negative thing, something that shouldn’t happen. So if the odds aren’t in your favour, then why do it?

But, on the contrary, it’s more of a mindset thing. When you stop thinking of failure and its consequences that are set by the Society, you can start trying.

“I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” – Michael Jordan

When you put in the efforts, that means you tried, you experimented, you enjoyed, without thinking of the outcome. That is not in your control, but trying out something is.

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You are not always you

No matter how you feel or think about yourself in the moment, no matter what has happened in your past, do know that everything about you can be changed.

You don’t have to be the same you. Especially if you don’t like that version of you. Or even when you have a hunger to improve yourself and rise yourself to a higher version.

However, that change has to be brought onto yourself by you alone, you’re in charge.

But more importantly, everything from your mindset, to your perspective and lifestyle, to your habits, each and everything about you can be changed. Nothing is constant, nothing is permanent. You are not always you.

—x—

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What if my calculations go wrong?

We sometimes calculate something to the point. We plan for something in such a detailed and in such a minute manner, that we feel that since we have planned out everything, it’s going to be a success and it’s going to turn out exactly as we have imagined it.

And yet sometimes these plans don’t work out. Sometimes these calculations turn out to be wrong and sometimes it happens because we did something wrong and sometimes it happens because of circumstances which were unaccounted for.

Talking about wrong calculations, of course being wrong is a major issue. But that is something that we can control, that is something that is within us that, we can think about, we can ponder upon, that we can work on, but it’s the unaccounted circumstances that derail the entire process, that make those calculations wrong that ultimately proves us wrong.

When our calculations go wrong or basically, when our plans go wrong, or haywire, we have a choice when we think that why is this happening to me? How could I not see it beforehand? How could I not predict this? How could I not account for this?

You could dwell about what has happened and what could have happened differently, or the second option is to not think about the unaccounted circumstances, whatever it is. Let it happen. Let the plan go haywire, but You should be ready as an individual that no matter what comes your way, no matter what happens, whether everything is going according to your plan or not, you will adapt to the situation.

Irrespective of whether you could predict it beforehand, or the fact that you didn’t factor it in before, you will adapt to it and work around whatever is then happening. That is the mindset that you should have.

Most of our calculations are going to go wrong in our lifetime. Most of our plans are going to go haywire. But what are you going to do about it? Think about it, think of the mindset you currently have versus what you should have.

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How do you face the difficult moments in life?

All of us face difficult moments in our life every now and then. Some are able to cruise through these moments, some are able to face it head-on, and for some they don’t know what to do in such moments and for them it becomes a setback.

How do you face the difficult moments in your life? It rather is a difficult question to answer, and moreover its quite a contextual one. Also, the difficulty varies in each and every moment.

When you study the successful people for any of the fields, you notice that when they face such difficult moments in their lives, it is their response towards these moments that determine the results of those moments. If there is one thing that can be established, it is that everyone faces these moments of difficulty. But, it is our response towards them that determines how difficult those moments really are.

If you are ready to face them head-on, if you have already prepared yourself, then it could be perceived as a level 1 or level 2 difficulty and you can easily cruise through it.

But if you are not aware of these difficulties, if you don’t know what to do, if you haven’t prepared yourself, if you aren’t ready for it, and if such a moment arises, then it can become a level 5, level 6 difficulty where you don’t know what to do and it really becomes difficult for you to power through these moments.

So technically, it is how you respond which makes this moment difficult or not and to become ready for such situations is when you have to keep evolving yourself, keep improving yourself, overall in your personal life as well as in the sector that you are professionally working in.

In each of those individual fields, you have to keep preparing yourself and improving yourself, learning new things, studying the people from those fields, studying the people who have become successful in those fields, who have done really well in their personal life as well understand the problems that they have faced, how did they face them, what were the solutions that they came up with?

And when you study all of these things, when you learn new things, when you are constantly on the path of growing yourself, you are able to evolve yourself into someone who is able to face these moments. No matter on what level of difficulty they are on. And once you get the hang of it, then not every moment is as difficult as the previous one.

Now you are making yourself more and more ready to face these moments and it then becomes easier for you to just carry on and move on to the other things in your life and to move forward and that now depends up to you.

How do you want to face these moments? How do you want to perceive these moments of your life and whether you want to cruise through or not?

—x—

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A pat on the back

Whatever we do in life, whatever we aspire to do, there is always some need within us for a pat on the back and we usually seek it from a family member or a close friend or a mentor.

We look for this pat on the back every time we do something, everytime we achieve something and these are the kind of external appreciations or external validations we look for.

And in recent times this has even shifted to social media where people are constantly looking for instant gratification.

In the constant lookout for this appreciation that we get after doing something and every time we achieve a minor victory, we are programming ourselves to get such constant pats on the back and to get that validation hit each and every time to tell ourselves we are on the right track.

When we don’t get it is when we rethink our current steps, when we rethink our choices, when we think whether we are doing the right thing or not.

How about shifting from that approach? How about appreciating yourself first for everything that you do? With the amount of work put in, the efforts put in, shouldn’t you appreciate yourself first for all of that?

Why not take out a minute of your day just rethink everything that you did today and give yourself a pat on the back? That will give you the biggest boost that you might need, the biggest confidence booster and the inspiration that you were looking for. And now you have got your own back, now you don’t need anyone else and anything that you do receive will now be a bonus for you and nothing else.

That is a better approach for you instead of constantly being on the lookout for others to do this for you. Just think about everything you are and everything you do and just appreciate yourself for what you have done.

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A/B Learning

When you pick a particular topic, does everyone speak the same thing at the end of the day? Can you then choose only one person to listen and avoid the rest of everyone who is in that sector?

When you carefully look at everything that is shared and spoken, you realize how all of it is different to each individual, maybe the crux of it could be relatable but every person has their own point of view, their perspective of looking at things, their own approach to the topic, moreover their added experience along with their mistakes and their learning. And these are just some of the factors to mention.

It’s only when you go in-depth, and when you carefully observe, and when you truly want to learn, is when you learn to understand the differences between A and B and what can you take away from both of them and use to your advantage.

So, the next time you reach a stage where you feel, have I learned enough and is there more to learn, look closely because there always is.

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Prioritizing your Tasks

All of us, on a day to day basis, have a ton of tasks to do. Those tasks could be at home tasks, or related to work, or growth, or learning, or anything else that you have to do.

And what usually ends up happening is, you get to tick off some of them at the end of the day, some were left off in the middle and some had to be postponed or delayed for the future.

Does that happen to you as well?

How can you then priortize your tasks and see to it that you do all of them?

Well the secret is, to priortize them based on the level of importance to you.

What do you feel is so important that it has to be done right now. And when you plan your tasks in that manner, then you can do everything that was urgent for you and those that you had to do right now.

Also, to add to that, the fewer tasks you plan everyday, the more you can check at the end of the day. You can only do so much in the time you’re awake, then why not just schedule a few tasks rather than planning a ton of them, only to delay them for the next day and the next day and to then get disappointed that you’re not able to check off the things you had to do.

Having fewer things to do and to do them in the order of how important they are to you is how you prioritize your day, your life and make sure each day you’re able to do as much as you can.

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The more you learn, the more you evolve

Any individual cannot evolve with the amount of knowledge or expertise that they already have, with the kind of perspective they already have.

With what they currently have, they are already performing how they should and would.

In order to evolve, in order to take yourself to the next level, one needs to learn.

The power lies in learning, where one would expand their perspective and look beyond what they already know and understand. In learning, comes knowledge and expertise too.

Then comes evolution of themselves, and humanity in general too.

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Putting a full stop at the end of a sentence

At the end of a sentence, there could be a full stop, or a comma and you could continue the sentence further more, or you could even put three dots and continue it further to the next line.

You could also break that sentence without ending it, by putting a semi colon.

That choice is with the one who’s writing it and with what intent are they writing.

The similar case is with our life as well.

Any dream we have, any plans we take action on, it is we, who choose to put that full stop at the end of that sentence.

When do you want to put a full stop, whether you’d like to put one or not, or add one of the alternatives.

No one can decide that for you, no person, no government, no place – that power is only within your mind to do so.

Once that power is realized, then you can take any and all action accordingly – having full control of your life and what you do with that life.

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Others & You

Others win in life. So do you.
Others make mistakes. So do you.
Others do something wrong. So do you.

In life, we are always ready to point fingers at someone else, blame someone else, compare with someone else, and we are just not ready to take a look at ourself.

What are you doing? What mistakes are you making? What good are you doing? For yourself and for others?

Instead of just talking and thinking of others, their success, their failure, their mistakes, their right and wrong, its time we step up and look at ourselves first.

Check whether we are doing right before correcting someone else. Check whether our behaviour is right, before correcting someone else’s.

Time and again, everytime it’s others this, others that. And it just never ends. Now its time for you and you alone.

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Is Failure the end of the World?

How many times has failure rocked your ship and made you lose momentum of you steering that ship?

Quite often, when we fail (at anything), we feel broken, we feel shattered, there’s an end of the world feeling attached to it.

When it hits, it hits rock bottom – thinking there’s no tomorrow.

What we need to rather change is
– our perspective and thought process towards it,
– understand what failure is saying that maybe you didn’t do it the right way, or
– maybe it doesn’t come that easily, you need to try harder, or
– you need to try it another way, or
– maybe you still have time to succeed.

That doesn’t mean you stop trying or you give up. With time and experience, you understand that failure is not the end, but the beginning, it’s a stepping stone filled with learning. You find more ways to do that certain something, to succeed, to move forward, to learn from what happened, to learn the takeaways and apply it to your life and everything that you do.

Failure is not the end of the world!

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When you’re doing it for yourself, then there’s no time limit

Deadlines haunt us in the past, present, and future. They create a panic within us, making us overthink, sometimes makes us take shortcuts and moreover, make us focus on the outcome than the process.

Where does this urgency come from? Quite often, it originates from pride or ego, when you have got to prove something or you find the need to be better than someone else. Another aspect of this urgency comes when you’re on someone else’s timeline.

However, when you truly do something for yourself, no strings attached, then there’s no pressure, there’s no timeline.

It originates from a place just because you want to do it. No external circumstances. No shortcuts. No ego. No pride. No urgency. More focus on the process and enjoying it.

When you’re doing it for yourself, then there is no need for a timeline, as long as you enjoy that investment you’re putting in. As long as you want to put in that investment.

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What to learn from Soorarai Pottru?

How can you describe this Tamil fim, Soorarai Pottru? Inspiring! Uplifting! A brilliant watch and one of my top films of 2020!

What is this film about? The official synopsis reads, ‘Maara, a young man from a remote village, dreams of launching his own airline service. However, he must overcome several obstacles and challenges in order to be successful in his quest.’

This film was such a beautiful watch and Suriya is just extraordinary in this one. That inspiring storyline is one which entrepreneurs and business owners would love, and also learn from.

A. A common man’s dream

What does it take for a common man to dream, a dream that seems impossible, a dream that’s beyond anyone’s capabilities?

What does such a journey entail? How much does it take from you? What do you need to sacrifice and how easy or difficult it is? Questions of entrepreneurship we never seem to ask or focus on, other than the idea is something we should learn.

B. Making People Believe

Having an idea, or executing on it, or even entrepreneurship in general isn’t just about the concept or the product or the service.

It’s about making people believe in you, believe in your why. That ‘why’ becomes the reason why people join you in your journey and become a part of your product or service.

That belief, ultimately, decides your entrepreneurial success or failure.

C. The People around You

As much as the idea is important, as much as the execution is important, what’s even more important are the people around you.

That circle of people around your personal and professional life who guide you on this journey, who are on the lookout for you, who push you to do more, and are there for you when you’re down. Those set of people are extremely important in a journey of this kind.

D. Watch Out at every Step

No matter how beautiful the journey seems, no matter how many goals you keep on achieving, one of the most important things is to watch out every step you take.

There are people around you who don’t want you to succeed, who will try to hinder your plans, try to betray you, try to sabotage your journey, and your lookout is watch out for such occurences at every step you take.

—x—

In short, what it means to have a dream, to achieve it, the hardships felt, overcoming it, is what this film portrays brilliantly. How important are the people around you, as well as those you have to watch out for at every step, there are quite a few lessons to learn from Soorarai Pottru.
—x—

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Your body is not Automatic

Most people live their life, in a way, as if there are no consequences.

Eat what they want, when they want, drink what they want, when they want, have an abnormal routine, have no respect for sleep, or no patience to relax.

The most usual understanding is that the body will take care of it.

Or rather, if I don’t feel anything unusual, then why should I do to change anything.

And the same people then wonder how and why do mild illnesses occur from time to time, why do they feel bloated, or why do they feel depressed? Why are certain diseases occurring later on in their lifetime?

Well, for one, it’s all connected. Everything that you do has an influence on your bodily functions.

Every wrong step you take, that doesn’t benefit the mind and body, they have to internally deal with it, without you feeling anything externally, in the present.

Your body is not a automatic machine that will keep the good and get rid of the bad, but becomes a result of your actions.

Everything that you do now, has a result on your body, either now or in the near future or in the long-term, but the result is assured. Whether good or not, depends on how you treat your body.

—x—

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25 Years and 25 Lessons of my Life

As I’m about to turn 26, here’s a better time than other to look back and reflect at the 25 years of my life that I’ve been able to live and enjoy and now it’s time to retrospect.

With such experiences, with such learning, there are a ton of lessons that have shaped my life and will continue to do as well.

Here’s a summary of all of the retrospection and reflection and ultimately, the 25 Lessons of my Life –

1. Everything happens according to its own timeline

The impatience within us, is so deep-rooted that it takes over not only for the bigger things in life, but also for the smallest of things. That impatience leads to wanting everything too soon, you do something now, and you want to see the results of it, right now itself and only with learning and mistakes, do you understand that life doesn’t work that way.

Everything happens when it has to happen, you just have to keep pushing through, without stopping, if its truly something you want to live/ pursue/ want.

2. Failure is not the end of the world

Quite often, when we fail (at anything), we feel broken, we feel shattered, there’s an end of the world feeling attached to it. Thinking like there’s no tomorrow.

But, with time and experience, you understand that failure is not the end, but the beginning, it’s a stepping stone filled with learning, now knowing what you don’t have to do or what you can do better.

3. Happiness is Within, not in anything, nor anywhere else

When you go beyond how our mind is conditioned, when you go beyond your needs and wants, and change your mindset and perspective, you start to understand how happiness is within you.

It’s one of the emotions that you feel, living a certain kind of life, doing certain things. It’s not a chase, nor an outcome, nor available in any one thing or any one place.

4. When you control your Health, you control everything else as well

It’s only when you lose control of your physical or your mental health, or both, you start seeing its effects on your life as well, whether internally or externally.

How you feel within and how you act and react, all is a consequence of your mental and physical health.

5. Present Pleasures can have Future Consequences

In the younger years of our lives, for whatever reasons, we feel lost in the world of escapism, with a feeling of pleasure towards those things – whether related to food, people, activities, actions.

At the moment, we feel like this is the only thing to do, without even realizing that if not at the moment, then in the future, there are consequences attached to it – which have an impact on your life, your destiny, your future.

6. Entitlement makes you lose your focus and capabilities

When you feel entitled towards something, either at home, or from outsiders, or from any other establishment, you feel like you automatically deserve something without doing anything for it.

An approach of that sort is nothing less than a shortcut, to get something you want without putting in the work for it. It makes you lose your focus towards your own life, what you are capable of getting on your own.

7. Only those who experience it, understand the importance of Spirituality

People often confuse spirituality with being religious, and mix the two and their takeaways from it. Spirituality helps you go deeper in your life, helps you still your mind and body, relaxes you, shows you your true self.

Unless you walk on that path, unless you don’t experience those things and more, you don’t really understand its importance on your life.

8. Your Early 20s are your best years to experiment

Your early 20s and even before are the years when you don’t understand your life nor the world, you think you do, but you don’t.

It’s at such a time, with the rawness, excitement, and the eagerness to experiment, when you can, instead of settling on the societal norms, do brilliant things in those years without even thinking about the future for a moment.

9. The concept of doing everything by a certain age are just societal concepts created to limit you

Speaking of societal norms, whosoever started this and then continued it over these years, on a mass scale, was successful in hindering the growth of the human kind.

Everything has to be done by a certain age, whether you want it or not, or else people will start asking questions, start judging you and now you have this pressure to do those x number of things. Well, you can reframe your mind and go beyond this, and live the life you want to live and enjoy.

10. As you age, you realize you need very few people around you whom you want to continue your journey with

With all the acquaintances that have and all the networking you do, as you age, and not just with age, but as you understand the life you want to live, you want to be around only a few people.

These few people of your inner circle whom you want to continue your journey with, whom you want to share everything with and grow together.

11. Questioning things is a way out of the matrix

To explain with that theory, if we are in a matrix, where all of us are programmed to live in a certain way, do the same things, want the same things, live the same life, to get out of it is to question everything.

When you question, you seek the answers, you learn new things, you evolve and develop yourself in the process and now you start asking deeper questions and keep evolving yourself to a better version of yourself.

12. Everything is interconnected within you

With what you do, what you eat, what you speak, how you think, how you live your day, what you consume, everything is interconnected.

Because you feel a certain way, you speak a certain way and you eat a certain something and you then feel another emotion and that cycle keeps spinning. Everything is interconnected within you and when you realize that is when you start to be in control of your life.

13. There doesn’t need to be just one passion

With all this hype of having a passion and doing what you’re passionate about, a revelation which few people come across, is that you can have multiple passions.

Your life can be lived with multiple passions, doing multiple things with different outcomes in mind.

14. Live your plans, instead of postponing them for the future

You don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, or whether you’d be able to do something tomorrow or not. We end up planning for things 5 years, 10 years, 50 years, in the future.

Instead of thinking about the future, or postponing something for a later date in life, if you can live it today, if you can do it today, then why not experience that moment in your current phase of your life.

15. No matter how cruel the world gets, there’s always some hope out there to make it better

The world can be a bitter place, where everything that happens can seem for the worse. Whatever happens may seem why is it happening, it doesn’t make sense and why cannot one day go by without anything bad or cruel happening.

But, when you look closely, you will always find stories that are positive, that have a positive impact on the society, humanity, on the planet. And that fills you with hope that things will be better.

16. Everything about you can be changed

No matter how you feel or think about yourself in the moment, no matter what has happened in your past, do know that everything about you can be changed.

That change has to be brought onto yourself by you alone, you’re in charge. But yes, everything from your mindset, to your perspective and lifestyle, to your habits, each and everything about you can be changed.

17. Empathy and Gratitude are the center point of our lives

The two things that are never taught to us, but are life-changing and become the center point of our lives, when we understand them and practice them – empathy and gratitude.

We think communication solves problems, but it’s not communication, it’s empathy that’s the key. Having empathy helps you understand a certain point from the other person’s point of view, their perspective – why are they saying what they are saying or feeling.

Being grateful for everything about you and everything that you get to do and have helps you to understand everything that you have, whereas you thought you didn’t have anything and were chasing something exterior to fill that hole.

18. Things happen for a reason and you only realize it in hindsight

When things happen, knowingly or unknowingly, we wonder why! Why me? Why did this have to happen with me? At the time we only feel sad or distraught or clueless or some other emotion.

It’s only in hindsight do we realize, whatever happened, happened for a reason. That one speedbreaker actually led you to a better road or even a highway, but only in hindsight do we understand that.

19. Most of the problems in life are connected with your mindset and your lifestyle

Life full of problems, piling one after the other – whether emotionally, or in your relationships, or with work, or mentally or physically, or all of them – usually when you go to the roots of your problem, you understand that it’s usually connected with either your mindset, or your lifestyle, or both.

Taking a step before you notice anything – with your perspective, with your mindset, and your lifestyle, you can have an upper hand at your life, which will eventually help you grow and help you live a successful life.

20. Don’t waste time impressing others and living a life you don’t want to live

Quite often, we do things that has less to do with us and more to do with others. Either in the form of jealousy or comparisons or pride, we often pursue something or want its outcome or want an external object, just to impress others.

A want for them to realize what you have done or what you have got, and that will make you feel validated. But, alas, it’s an empty feeling, which has no meaning. Instead, you can live a life you want to life, do things you truly want, and accordingly make your decisions.

21. Those who cause hurt are themselves hurting too

When people try to bring you down, when they troll you, or make fun of you or bully you, its often because they themselves are hurt and it’s just an escapist approach they take to make themselves feel better.

Once we understand that, we start to not let those things impact us and simultaneously try to help them, in whatever form we can.

22. Writing is the best form of clarity you can get

Whether for yourself, or in the form of books or blogs, or something else, writing in general is the best form of therapy for yourself, an outlet, which gives you the best clarity you can get.

In that world of words, you write your thoughts, which leads to you having deeper thoughts, and you start connecting things and asking questions and forming a different perspective than before – all of which comes when you write.

23. Everyone has their own set of problems in life

No matter how wonderful does one’s life look, or at least one aspect of it (that you can see), each and every individual has their own set of problems.

Before thinking that your life is crappy and why is someone else’s life so beautiful, and before you start judging yourself or comparing yourself with others, also know that everyone (including you) have their own set of problems, that they are dealing with.

24. Real growth happens when you help others

Irrespective of how much you want or how much you already have, real growth happens when all of that learning and experience and success that you have received is used to help someone else.

Help doesn’t always need to be financial, and when you help someone else, that feeling, that growth which occurs within, you truly feel you have made a real impact onto the world.

25. Life is a Gift of its own

Crossing the odds of 400 trillion to 1, here we are, a human being on this planet. Life truly is a gift that we get to live, it’s everything we need and should want, never knowing if we would ever have such an experience again.
We chase our needs and wants, we chase status and fame, we chase recognition, and yet the truest gift is life itself – the place where all questions and answers end.

The biggest and best lesson I have ever been able to learn.

—x—

As you read this, I’d have turned 26 and Life continues. So much to live, so much to figure out, so much to learn and experience.

Hope this was something worthwhile.

—x—

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Self Improvement is never Over

On the path to self-improvement, you have chosen to consciously improve yourself and become a better version of yourself.

The more you reflect and become aware of yourself, the more you realize how much and where can you improve at.

After becoming aware of something, then understanding it and implementing it and making a part of your lifestyle, you also realize the deeper you go, how many more layers are there to peel.

Layer after layer, version after version, there’s always something to improve, to become better at, and that is the journey of self improvement.

Such a journey may sound tedious, or long, but rather, is an enjoyable one, one that keeps you on your toes, one that constantly helps you better yourself and indeed make your life better.

This journey of self-improvement is never over.

—x—

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Productive Guilt

As productive as we want to be, as disciplined as we want to be, as focused as we want to be, in our day to day lives, sometimes we want to relax as well.

Sometimes we want to take a break.

But in some instances, even when everything is planned and scheduled and prepared for, sometimes we are not able to execute.

At such instances, we feel guilty. Guilty of not being productive. Guilty of wasting our time. Guilty of not doing anything.

That is what I call the productive guilt.

It is something that is negative for us, makes us feel bad about ourselves, creating negative emotions within, criticizing ourselves.

But, why feel the guilt at all?

Why not create a balance?

Why not take a break in between hours, days, and weeks and months?

Why force yourself to be productive at the moment when you’re not feeling it? Because when you’re feeling it, when you’re all in, then there’s no stopping you.

Instead of feeling the guilt, it’s more about understanding your emotions, more about scheduling your day and your life in general, knowing what you want and when you want it, and then acting accordingly.

Something like this removes the guilt, lets us be in the moment, and enjoy life too.

—x—

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Be Your Own Audience

This is not about content creation. This is not about marketing, nor Branding. This is about that and everything else about you, your life.

The words that you speak, how you communicate to others, your deeds, your actions, your behavior, online and in person – this is about everything.

Be your own audience.

Whether you like it or not.

Whether this is how you’d want someone to be with you or not.

Whether this is how you’d want someone to behave with you, or speak with you in this manner, or to act in such a way with you, or not.

What do you think? Are you your own audience? Isn’t this a better perspective to have, to understand things? To understand how you react, how you behave, what should you change, what is good about you, all of these questions now get answered when you have a perspective like this.

Before changing someone else or criticizing someone else, we should first check how we are with them and whether that needs change or criticism or not.

—x—

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Everything looks difficult

Everything looks difficult when you haven’t started.

You don’t know what it takes, what’s the process, what it entails, nothing.

But, it’s only when you take that first step, mixed with patience and constant practice, do you then realize how that difficulty was in your mind, but not in reality.

We created this image in our mind of how difficult it would be, or even something that we may have heard of.

But when we started it, we realized that we were made for it, we can do it, and its all good.

Most of the battles are won and lost in our minds, and this is just that.

—x—

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The first step is awareness

Whether you want to accept change or not, whether you to stay the same or not, whether you want to be in control or not, the first step is always awareness.

The first step towards anything about life.

That is awareness.

Only when you’re aware, can you then try to understand it, and then implement it.

Until you aren’t aware of it wholly, you can never get to the second step and put your all into it.

And awareness doesn’t mean having half information about it. No. It means diving into the process and wanting to know everything that you can.

So, now after understanding the schematics, you can control your next few steps and ultimately bring that change you were looking forward to.

Whether to your personal life, or your professional life, or the impact onto others, anything and everything first starts with awareness.

—x—

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Judge, Jury and Executioner

In life, no matter where you are, on the financial scale or the social scale, or any other scale for that matter, whether any other individual knows you 1%, 5%, or 50%, you’re going to get judged at every point of your life.

There’s going to be a jury, people around you, keeping a lookout at everything you do and probably compare that with someone else.

And in the form of executioner, you have got your laws, government, and media, the external things that have an impact on your life.

But, you can change it all around, if you wish to, and without letting anything affect you, be in control of your life, be the judge, jury and executioner of your own life.

It all starts with you. Your job is to focus on yourself, your path and not on anything else and not let anything else hinder your life decisions.

—x—

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Walking the path alone

Understanding who we are, what we truly want, or rather how do we want to live our lives, reflecting upon our choices and decisions and mistakes, learning from them, upgrading your life to a better version than before – all of it happens when you walk the path alone.

No one can save us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We must walk the path alone. – Buddha

Walking the path doesn’t mean to get rid of people around you, but it means that now you won’t rely on anyone for anything, won’t blame anyone for anything, take complete responsibility, know what’s in your control and accordingly focus on your life path and your journey ahead.

Then, it is us, ourselves, without any pressure, or society outlook, or without any comparisons or judgments or opinions, focusing on our life alone and focusing on making it better.

That happens when you walk the path alone.

—x—

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What you Eat

Right from what we eat to when we eat and how much we eat is something that’s either followed by tradition or media manipulation.

Tradition involves ancient, timeless wisdom, foods that come from mother earth, which benefit the mind, body, and soul.

Media manipulation involves stories that melt your heart, advertising that creates cravings and scientific experiments that make the food pop in your mouth.

But, that’s not all. An understanding of food is something that everyone needs to have, in order to have a good today and a good tomorrow.

What we eat affects your

– gut

– inflammation in the body

– immune system

– cells in the body

– energy levels

– emotions

– body alkalinity

When we understand how a certain food item affects your body, you automatically feel the need to remove it from your system, irrespective of how it tastes and how long you’ve been eating it for.

Also, note how I haven’t referred to body weight in the points above, as that is an outcome of irregularities in the above points.

You eat the right way to maintain your gut health, to keep your body alkaline and keep your body inflammation in check, to keep your immune system strong.

Losing weight is a by-product of a good lifestyle, which also allows to eat all the good things, without compromising on anything.

—x—

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Every Experience

Some experiences are good for you, and for some, the outcome isn’t. But, every experience has something to teach. In most cases, it’s only in hindsight that we realize that, and we understand and learn from it. But, even if we don’t, what we must know that every experience plays a part in moulding in, in improving us, in evolving us.

What we are today, is because of every experience we have had in our lives. These experiences play a part in your behavior, your habits, your thoughts, that voice in your head, your work, basically everything.

When we understand that, don’t you think it’d be better to look back at every experience with a different perspective, try to derive some learning from it, if it wasn’t a good one, what can you still take away from it. Everything helps you at a later point in time, and we aren’t even aware of it right now.

Even listening to this podcast episode is an experience for you, which might change something for you, somewhere down the line, either consciously or sub-consciously. Every experience matters. Every experience has some learning. Every experience affects our life.

—x—

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Avoiding Questions

Do you remember the school days when the teacher used to ask, if you have any questions and even if you did have one, you wouldn’t ask because of what others would think of you.

Well, those same people are carrying the torch on social media as well, who don’t open up thinking what would others think.

If you have something to say or share, go right ahead. Give yourself the permission and open up, ask if you want to ask, share if you want to share, you have the entire world in your hand (smartphone).

—x—

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Attention Scarcity

In a time where all the information and entertainment and escapism and social connection is available on your smartphone, constantly in our hands and available within the second, what it is costing us is our attention.

That attention is scare and not unlimited.

Choose whom you give your attention to because that attention is linked with your time and your time is your number one asset.

So, choose where your goes attention goes and whether it is adding anything to your life or not.

You may not want to completely get rid of it, but you can sure limit that certain something.

—x—

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Is it natural to you?

We have so many choices to make in life.

So many decisions.

We have goals to accomplish.

Then comes, whether you’re living your Passion or not?

Whether you’re satisfied with your personal life and your professional life?

There are a lot of things to look at, in the micro as well as in the macro.

How can you choose?

How do you know if it is right for you?

The answer to all of this comes down to, what comes natural to you?

What do you feel is natural?

Something that just flows out of you.

Something that you feel you can do again and again, all day, every day.

It’s questions like these that solve your problems, that show you the path ahead, that tell you what you should do.

Ask yourself, when ever you have to make a decision, is it natural to you?

If yes, then you know what to do.

If your answer is no, then you probably know the answer now. You can now make the changes, do things differently or even proceed, if you wish to.

One simple question changes so many things for you.

—x—

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Mind, Body and Soul

What we think

What we feel

What we eat

What we drink

What exercise we do

It not only has an effect on our exterior actions, that is the words we speak, the work we do, the things we experience,

But, it has an effect on our inner body too.

Did you know that?

Every emotion we feel releases an energy of that sort in the body too.

Every thing we eat and drink is how our body processes it, and whether it is good for the body or not, then has an outcome accordingly.

Whether we exercise or not, not just has an effect on how “slim” we become, but it has an effect on our body processes too.

Everything we do has an effect, not just on the outward, but inward too.

We usually don’t think about how it affects our body, our mind and our soul.

If we become a tiny bit more mindful than usual, then we can start taking care of our mind, body and soul, at least from now on, if not before.

—x—

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8 Yoda Learnings

Whether its the Star Wars universe, or the Marvel universe, or even films in general, only when you look closely do you realize the lessons that can be learnt beyond the fiction and the story.

And when it comes to Star Wars, and Master Yoda in particular, you already know that there’s wisdom in what he says.

Thinking about that, here are eight Yoda quotes that we can learn from and actually apply to our lives as well.

1. “If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you, it will.”

– the dark path is easy to understand, easy to rely on because everyone else is at fault there and not you. When you condition yourself to thinking that, every thought of yours goes only in one direction – the dark side.

2. “Pass on what you have learned.”

– the best impact is created when you pass on your learning and your knowledge onto others, when you share your experience with others. They’re able to learn from your journey and implement it in their lives.

3. “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to Anger. Anger leads to Hate. Hate leads to Suffering.”

– what we fear is what we don’t control, we don’t know the outcome of. That fear leads to anger, thus leading to the negative side of life, filling your life with hate and suffering.

4. “Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”

– that what you’re attached to is where your thoughts and feelings, and moreover your weaknesses lie. When you let go of it, you are now not dependent on anything else.

5. “You must unlearn what you have learned.”

– in order to grow, in order to learn, in order to move forward, you cannot learn anything new unless you unlearn the old. Understanding what affects you poorly and getting rid of it gives way to the new.

6. “Truly wonderful the mind of a child is.”

– every child at their age is carefree, thinking beyond what they’re told to do, reading between the lines, seeing the gray in black and white, until their mind becomes conditioned to what the rest of the society is. When we become that again, we are able to be ourselves, and be present in the moment too.

7. “Heeded my word not, did you? Pass on what you have learned – strength, mastery. But, weakness, folly, failure, also. Yes, failure most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is.”

– while the quote is similar to the previous one, that talks of teaching and this of failure, both spoken in two different scenarios, both having different meanings.

Whilst you should pass on your learnings ahead, you must not only share your successes and triumphs, but also your failures, because there lies the biggest lesssons that made you who you are. Those successes have come from failures, which we must not hide from.

8. “Do, or do not. There is no try”

– either you have set your mindset that you will do something or you have decided that you won’t do something. Anything else creates a doubt in your mind, which creates this hesitation of your decision. Be stern with what you decide and then stick with it.

—x—

There are tons of lessons to learn from Yoda and from the Star Wars universe too, but these were worthy of a highlight according to me, which we can focus on, for now.

—x—

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Subtractions

The more things we add, the bigger our plate looks. Whether we’ll be able to finish that plate is something no one asks. Just that the plate should look full.

Instead, if we keep just two things on it, or four, or all, or none, depends on person to person, but one would find more joy and less stress. More satisfaction and less headache.

I wish I was talking about food here, but it’s about life, and doing too many things at once, creating this pressure to do more, without being able to enjoy even one wholly.

It’s in moments like these when you take a step back and realize this and ultimately take the decision to subtract things from your life, in order to be freer, have more time and less stress. Subtraction creates those opportunities for us, which addition does not.
—x—

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Ask yourself what is wrong

A lot of times, when something is going wrong in our lives, we start wondering what is even going wrong.

And to add to that, our perspective doesn’t seem to align to someone else’s point of view to understand what is wrong.

What can you do then, in such a scenario?

Can you continue to be wrong?

Or do you want to correct yourself?

How we live clouds our judgement of thinking making us think that all we do is right and nothing can be wrong.

You’re not able to entertain another person’s point of view to change this perspective.

At such times, you need to ask yourself what is wrong, what can be wrong, what can I do differently?

You need to look at yourself in a third person’s shoes, look at your situation from a third perspective – understand how it looks from that scenario, what someone else would’ve done vs what you’ve done.

Often, looking at situations from a third perspective helps to right our wrongs. And only because we aren’t able to change our thinking, our approach or even knowing that we could be wrong too.

Asking yourself what can be wrong changes those things.

—x—

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Your off time

How you schedule your time, not just on a daily basis, but on a basis of how much you do vs when you take a break is very important in your life.

Your time is basically divided into your off time and your go time.

Go time is basically when you’re doing something/ working on or towards something.

Your off time is your break, your relaxation time, which is a part and parcel of your life, that goes along with your go time.

It’s important because if you squeeze your off time into something which drains you, then you won’t be ready during your go time, which thus affects everything else as well.

Maintaining that balance helps you to prosper in both the regions of your life, running in your go time, and staying still in your off time.

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In others’ shoes

When we see ourselves from our perspective, everything seems right.

Every step we take, every decision we make, it’s all the right ones.

However, when our worldview is limited, is when we don’t understand how what we do may affect someone else.

How would they perceive it, how would they feel.

Putting yourself in another person’s shoes is the best thing anyone can do, to improve everything about themselves, especially their relationships.

Look at that particular scenario from your lens, from their lens, from a third eye basically and then understand how it is perceived. When this is done, can you then expand your perspective as well as everything about you.

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My top 10 blogs of 2020

Having done a blog every day, around the topics of mindset, self-improvement, life, marketing, movies and so much more, a daily blog allows me to touch upon a number of topics, discover new learnings, go in-depth with what I already know and share that in a language that is understandable.

But, 365 blogs in 365 days is something I’m not sure anyone can read. Some topics interest some people, some to none at all and then there are some who read more than usual.

Nonetheless, as the year comes to an end, I thought why not pick a few of the blogs that I, personally felt, provided the most value out of all.

So, here are my top 10 blogs of 2020 –

A. Do you wear Shoes?

Read here – https://rth24.com/2020/01/15/do-you-wear-shoes/

B. Want vs Should

Read more – https://rth24.com/2020/06/25/want-vs-should/

C. 5 Positives and 1 Negative

Read about it here – https://rth24.com/2020/03/09/5-positives-and-1-negative/

D. How to find your Passion?

Check it out here – https://rth24.com/2020/01/20/how-to-find-your-passion/

E. What happens when you write daily?

Curious to find out? Read here – https://rth24.com/2020/06/30/what-happens-when-you-write-daily/

F. Limited by Boundaries

Read here – https://rth24.com/2020/07/29/limited-by-boundaries/

G. What constitutes the inner voice?

Read more here – https://rth24.com/2020/11/02/what-constitutes-the-inner-voice/

H. What do you want from social media?

Read more here – https://rth24.com/2020/12/02/what-do-you-want-from-social-media/

I. 5 Lessons to learn from ‘Scam 1992 : The Harshad Mehta Story’

Check it out here – https://rth24.com/2020/11/20/5-lessons-to-learn-from-scam-1992-the-harshad-mehta-story/

J. 2020 Learnings that will last for a lifetime

Read here – https://rth24.com/2020/11/24/2020-learnings-that-will-last-for-a-lifetime/

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I wish I could mention more, but those top ten is what I think, according to me, are my top 10 blog posts of the year, 2020 that provided the most value than the other 355 blogs I wrote this year.

I would love for you to check out the other posts as well, and drop a comment if you relate to or find value in any.

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The funny thing about Responsibility

The funny thing about responsibility is that no one takes it. People will bring legality, morality, ethics into the picture, but won’t step up and take responsibility.

Not taking responsibility is how you thrive in a capitalistic economy. There’s one goal and nothing else. Then there are stories created, emotions formed, in order to sell. Irrespective of whether it’s needed or not, or whether it’s good for humanity or for the environment or not.

Only when someone becomes responsible can they then understand their impact on others. Then you don’t have to scam anyone, you will do it with a certain responsibility on your shoulder, you will do it for humanity, and for the planet.

Until that doesn’t come by yourself, no morals, no ethics, and no law is going to save anyone.

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Taking a Step Back

Sometimes the solutions to the most difficult problems are really simple.

But, being in the driving seat, we don’t realize this. With a rush to solve our problems, we go on a path, head-on introducing more problems than before.

And more problems start piling up. In this turmoil, we don’t know what to do and we blame everything else around us, but ourselves.

Instead, a better option is to take a step back, observe and analyze everything. Perceive everything from a third eye and then execute your next move.

Now you’re prepared. Now you know what to do.

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Learning beyond Academics

Most think that, once the academic education is done, their learning is complete and they have everything they need.

Is that the case though?
In order to upgrade your skills, in order to be updated with your field, you need to constantly keep learning and evolving.

This, obviously applies as a whole to your personal life, there’s no doubt about it. However, it applies to your professional life as well, your field of work.

You don’t have to drop everything to do it. With the advancement of technology, you have more access to experts than ever. Whether in terms of courses, or webinars, you are now able to constantly learn and improve and evolve.

Do you want to, is a choice that you have.

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Acknowledge before Appreciate

Will you go out of your way to acknowledge the help you might have received from someone, unknowingly?

Appreciate it too, but first, acknowledge.

Knowingly or unknowingly, someone may have helped you on your path of life, that help might have changed something for you. Whether you acknowledge it and reach out to that individual and convey it, describes how secure you’re about yourself.

Some feel the other might get an upper hand over them, so why develop such a scenario? Why not just play dumbstruck and take advantage?

When you feel insecure about yourself, is when you cannot make another person feel better. And in the opposite scenario, when you feel secure, and when you receive help and it brought change, is when you feel grateful, you reach out and acknowledge and appreciate that help.

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Your Previous Work

Whenever anyone creates anything, with time and with experience, or rather exposure, most of those creators don’t appreciate their creation now as much as they did at the time of creation.

With every new creation, the previous work gets older.

The older it gets, the more mistakes the creator notices, or rather the improvements that can be done.

What this shows is, the creator’s growth. How, with time, they have evolved, with a wider worldview than before and with a bigger perspective than before. Add in some exposure as well, including the feedback and self-analysis.

But, that doesn’t stop one from creating. Rather, you keep on improving henceforth, making your next work better than before. Not necessarily in outcome, but surely in efforts.

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Why do New Year Resolutions fail?

Why do New Year Resolutions fail? With 2021 approaching, you may have set your new year resolutions and may have certain expectations for the year. However, here’s the catch!

In the hype of starting fresh or doing something new on the first day of the new year, we plan a lot of things for this one day, the 1st of January.

And now you’ve created this pressure for yourself, to do all of this or your year won’t have the start you were looking for. And when you were able to do only half of it, or for some people, none of it is when you get disappointed and frustrated and you carry those emotions for the next few days or weeks as well.

What can you do differently to succeed at your new year resolutions is what this video is about.

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Headlines, Social Media and YouTube Thumbnails

What’s common between news headlines, social media and YouTube thumbnails?

The common factor is ‘clickbait’.

Catchy headlines that grab your attention and make you click on it.

With time, it has gotten so much worse that the headline is hyped to a level where the content within isn’t matching even one-tenth of it.

That is not just upon the one posting it, but also the one consuming it.

The audience never understood, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ and ended up doing the opposite of it.

Someone with knowledge and skills to share, but couldn’t catch your attention. And someone who knew how to write headlines ended up taking away your time but didn’t provide you with any value.

If you notice, the headlines have gotten so much worse, whether it’s the news, or the social media – publishers and creators, including the YouTube videos.

Now the only intent is to grab your attention and increase the time spent on the content, value isn’t cared for anymore.

It’s not all bad, there are some players fighting the good fight, but they are often left unseen in a world of headlines.

How to change that and bring value back, is something that the people, the audience can play a role in. Instead of going for content that doesn’t serve them or instead of going for content with literally, no value, start asking for more. And not more quantity, but more quality.

It shouldn’t be about the headlines, but about the content, the value within.

Your time is being spent, your attention is being used, why not use it wisely?

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Personal before Professional

We have been taught to always focus on our careers, on our professional side of life, the side that earns money and is able to buy things.

We are always chasing growth in that sector of life, trying to accomplishing our work goals.

Sometimes, we even make those work goals, our life goals, because we don’t know the difference.

That is how the system works, how the society works, no one questioned it, everyone just did the same thing, but in different ways.

Chasing professional goals is not wrong at all, it gives you motivation to do something but when it comes at the cost of personal growth, then it creates a problem.

When you are not in control of yourself, is when problems appear elsewhere in your life.

When you don’t know how to emotionally react, is when you hinder your exterior relationships as well as your relationship with yourself.

When you don’t know how your own voice in the head has come from, how will you separate yourself from what the society and their judgements say.

Personal comes before Professional.

Personal growth, first, focus on yourself first or simultaneously, and then let that impact every other area of your life.

Professional growth will create exterior success, but won’t affect personal growth. On the contrary, personal growth will create professional growth + inner success + inner peace + satisfaction.

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How can you have a good 2021?

We approach every year with a certain set of expectations, hoping for the year to live up to that level.

We had the same approach for 2020 as well and it took all of us by surprise and literally changed our lives.

However, here’s where it gets tricky though.

In terms of the magnitude of change, this year (2020) sure was a roller-coaster of a ride, but to think of it, not in the same magnitude level, but every year brings with it, its own set of ups and downs.

Enough ups and downs to break your expectations, with you ending up moulding yourself to those and making changes accordingly.

And, that is life.

The expectations we set are always uprooted by something or the other, and what sets us apart is how we then respond to those changes and mould ourself to them.

With such a perspective, when you understand this, then you also get to a point that 2021 could be better than 2020, but it would still have its own set of ups and downs.

And thus, we should not have any special expectations from the year, only to end up feeling disappointed or frustrated that things didn’t turn out like we expected.

Instead, approaching the year with an open mindset, with a plan in place, but also ready when things go haywire. That way, you’re ready for everything 2021 has to offer and you’re prepared for it (mentally).

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Unlimited Options

What do you want in life or what can you do to get it, is a question on the minds of many.

What path should you be walking on, which turns to take and when to stop and take a breather?

Now, more than ever, the options are unlimited to decide what you can do and what do you want to do.

Now, you don’t need to do just one thing or even walk on the traditional paths.

With so much exposure to everything, and the potential, the list of options is endless to choose from.

You can experiment, you can try out different things, you can choose and then do multiple things at the same time.

The options are unlimited.

Take your time to figure it out than rushing it out.

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Hope.

Hope keeps you alive.

Hope doesn’t let you down.

Hope lets you try.

Hope lets you fail and succeed.

Hope keeps humanity alive.

You can only hope.

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Blaming Others vs Taking Accountability

What do the differences between the two look like – blaming others v taking accountability?

Blaming Others
– is easy
– allows you to shift every problem of yours onto others
– you’ve an excuse for every hardship you face, for everything that happens in your life
– you can now blame those around you, the technology, the government, the weather, you’ve a ton of options at your disposal.

vs

Taking Accountability
– is difficult
– now the onus is on you
– you’ve no one to blame, but be accountable for everything that you do and everything that happens to you
– irrespective of whether the outcome is in your favor or not
– allows more freedom and independence

Which side do you then choose?
The easier or the difficult one?

Some choices seem easy in life, until you realize its consequences on yourself and how it affects you short-term and long-term.

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The beauty of learning

The beauty of a certain topic is there is so much to learn about it.

The beauty of learning is that it is never enough.

No matter how much you know about a certain something, there is always so much depth in everything that one can never know enough.

It is only when you truly want to learn, and start looking at things from different perspectives, is when you understand this depth as well.

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The January 1st pressure

As far as traditions go, or what we as the society start following and then calling them traditions, the worst one of them is the January 1st plans.

All new year resolutions, rather than starting them early and having an upper hand on your plans, or rather than having the perspective that you have the entire year to do these resolutions, most of us, plan everything for January 1st.

That is what I call the January 1st pressure.

In the hype of starting fresh or doing something new on the first day of the new year, we plan a lot of things for this one day.

And now you’ve created this pressure for yourself, to do all of this or your year won’t have the start you were looking for. And when you were able to do only half of it, or for some people, none of it, is when you get disappointed and frustrated and you carry that emotions for the next few days or weeks as well.

Instead, understand that a new year means you have 365 days to start what you want, to change what you want, and even now, you can have a upper hand to those 365 days and start with your plans right now itself.

It’s all about perspective to not focus everything on just one day and to rather enjoy that fresh, new day, looking at the entire year for your growth and learning and new habits and developments that you were looking for.

Let’s welcome 2021 with that perspective.

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Worked or not, Gratitude is constant

A learning which developed over time, with practice, mistakes and experience.

A learning that has been one of the biggest for me.

I’m grateful for everything good that happened to me, but also grateful for the other things that didn’t work out for me.

Everything that didn’t work out for me lead to better things in my life or even if not, made me realize the flaws in the path I was initially set to take.

Once you begin to understand that, you understand why you need to be grateful for everything that happens to you, the importance of that gratitude and what that perspective does to you.

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5 Years of Zazz

5 years ago, 1st of December 2015, the journey of Zazz started for me, with the then introduction of Zazz Media, my digital agency set with an intent to build brands online.

With that being the goal for Zazz Media, the ulterior motive was to introduce the Zazz in people’s lives, at the time through marketing.

With time and changes, lessons have been learned, approach has been changed, experimentations have happened and some failed as well.

But, what remains constant is the influence and impact of Zazz that needs to be introduced.

Now, along with marketing, another macro layer that has been added, that I’m super passionate about is to Zazz people’s lives, introduce awareness and a different outlook to life than what is currently lived.

That journey is super long, but the seeds are planted day by day, the impact of which clearly cannot happen in a day or month, but that is what the journey is about.

Even after 5 years of Zazz, it feels like a fresh start, a new beginning, a new sense of drive and motivation to surely make it a 50 years of Zazz.

Action Repercussions

There is no action that goes unnoticed and there is no repercussion that happens on its own.

They are both connected to each other, where one impacts the other and the other is dependent on the former.

That is the case of action repercussions.

Every thing that you do has a repercussion, positive or negative, sometime now, or in the near future, or even long-term.

Whether it’s how you deal with your mind or your body, the repercussion will happen sometime or the other.

How do you deal with your life, yourself, the people around you, the repercussions of each indicates how you acted in the first place.

When you live with that thought, is when you choose your actions carefully. Because you know the repercussions are upon you.

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Without making Mistakes

Is there a perfect life where you know everything you have to do, each and every step planned out, having known the outcome too, and you reach the destination as well?

Only someone with a time machine could’ve done this.

The life we live, cannot be lived, without making mistakes. It is an integral part of our lives, making us who we are.

Our growth, our changes, our success is all dependent on us making mistakes. Without it, how else would we get there?

That’s the magic of making mistakes that we don’t understand. Avoiding them brings a stagnation where we are then stuck at one point and not able to move forward, if we stop making mistakes.

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Own Ways

There’s no one way to any path, no fixed formula or method.

There is nothing that is proven to be the exact same for two individuals.

Everyone writes their own way, with their own set of successes and difficulties.

Each to their own experience.

Understanding that is a powerful way forward, to know that I can get inspired, but I cannot emulate, I have to find my own way.

That is the key to unlocking life for you, finding your own way.

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In a world full of mirrors

In a world full of mirrors, where everyone creates a different image in front of others.

In a world full of mirrors, where people have forgotten who they are.

In a world full of mirrors, where people are in a race to better than each other.

Show your true self to yourself and everyone around you.

You’ll become more confident, you’ll have nothing to hide, and you’ll be able to live your truth.

It leads to you living a freer, stress-free life, making decisions for yourself and doing everything for yourself.

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My 2020 Learnings that will last for a lifetime

2020 has been a one-of-a-kind year for all, a year no one expected, a year no one was prepared for.

It was a year which brought a lot of ups and downs for people all over the world. Along with it also came it’s learnings.

Where everyone had one top priority, to survive and to live, to be safe, there were some other things that were learnt along the way while this year cruised through.

These are some of mine that will definitely last for a lifetime and hopefully helps you as well.

– Life is Short
Instead of postponing things for the future, plan them out for the present. You never know what tomorrow is going to look like.

– Helping Others
There’s a world outside your needs and wants as well, and there’s nothing better than helping someone out, in whatever way you can.

– Adapting to the Situation
Life throws situations at you which you’re often unprepared for. What sets you apart is how quickly you adapt to it and change your pace/path

– Physical and Mental Fitness is Important
Your core focus should always be to take care of your mind and body first. Giving it importance means putting your own life at top priority and that impacts everything else as well.

– Your actions impact others
The choices you make may impact others around you, and sometimes not in a positive manner and you should definitely be on the lookout for that.

– Productive Guilt
Sometimes you plan and prepare and sometimes you’re not able to execute on that. At such times, you cannot feel guilty and take the blame for everything.

– A common level of humanity
No matter who you are and at what social hierarchy level you’re at when we walk together, we grow together and we can tackle our problems together!

– Irrelevance of location
The world has evolved so immensely, that you can connect with anyone and anywhere, you can be present everywhere, the location has become insignificant now.

– Beauty in Nature
In nature, there is beauty and silence. When you can sense it, is when you can reflect and feel it within you as well. It’s these times which you enjoy and relish, which also help you to grow.

– Dependency on External Factors
Our dependency on external factors makes us forget that it is our thoughts + emotions that give those things that weightage. We end up craving for them without realizing that the magic is within us.

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While there’s something to learn from 2020 for everyone out there, these were some of the few lessons that I experienced, I learned and definitely brought a change or at least a different perspective to life. 2020 hasn’t been the best for many, but at least we can take its learnings and use it for the rest of our lives.

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A deadline to yourself

Deadlines solve things.

They create this time pressure, which allows you to not delay something and to make it a priority.

From time to time, if you’re comfortable in that scenario, you should create deadlines for yourself.

Deadlines which won’t define your life, but will help you to solve your problems, create your habits, help you accomplish your to-do lists.

If not for these deadlines, for some the motivation of doing something may be enough, but if it runs out, then these self-created deadlines help you to push yourself more.

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Seasons and Governments

The thing about change is that it is constant. Everything, everyone has to change, sometime or the other.

Whether one accepts this change knowingly or forcefully, but you cannot stop change from happening.

You may be hesitant at first, even scared, but sooner or later, that change will become a part of life.

Even something as constant as seasons and governments are not protected from change, even those things change from time to time, in a shorter period of time, or longer.

If those things can change, then how can you not? What excuse does one have to be the same? Now this is a decision that can be taken knowingly.

Unknowingly, or forcefully, you change with every experience, every situation you face and encounter. Whether you want to be at the forefront of this and drive this change forward or be the spectator and let it happen to you (for good or not) is a decision you make.

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5 lessons to learn from ‘Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta story’

Series after series, you realize, how with the depth and time and freedom the OTT platforms allow, the kind of amazing content that is then created in India.

Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story is no exception to that, what a beautifully written and created show. This is pure storytelling class. The depth and emotional side of each character allowed the audience to go in the trenches of the story, and not just be a spectator to the story. With every scene, with every dialogue, you end up thinking what’s about to happen, you end up rooting for someone or the other.

Hansal Mehta is a genius. And not just from the storytelling and directing point of view, but brownie points to the cast as well, who have characterized each person so realistically. Whether it is Pratik Gandhi, or Shreya Dhanwanthary, or Hemant Kher, Rajat Kapoor, Satish Kaushik, Anjali Barot, and just everyone else on the team.

This series is simply exceptional. And that intro music is wow.

Said that, with every high and every downfall, there are a lot of lessons to be learned from the show.

Some lessons are learned from those failures, those mistakes, some lessons are also learned while watching the character’s journey to the top.

Thinking of this, here are 5 lessons to learn from ‘Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story , that can help an individual in life, in business, or generally, in their professional life too.

1. ‘Success kya hai, Failure ke baad ka new chapter’

In life, everyone wants to be successful, in some areas of their life, or all, which isn’t wrong. But in that journey, what people are scared of, is failure. People don’t want to fail but succeed in the first attempt.

And this show depicts that lesson very clearly, when they show, there will be a lot of failures that you’ve to cross, in order to rise and move forward in life and succeed.

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2. The biggest risk is to not take any risk at all

Is there are a path to which you already know the outcome? You know exactly what to do, at every step, and get to that outcome. In reality, that is not possible.

To achieve your goals, your dreams, in order to move forward, you have to take risks, you have to move forward with that uncertainty, in order to taste the outcome after taking that risk. The biggest risk is to not take any risk at all because then you will stay exactly where you are, or probably even move backward.

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3. Trust is the most expensive thing in the world and cheap people cannot afford it.

In this world of competition and wants and success, one thing that lacks is trust. People don’t trust each other, people feel someone’s after their money, someone’s after their job, and in that thought process, the one thing you need is what you don’t get.

Trust. That is why its the most expensive thing in the world. Only when someone feels secure with what they have, can they start the process of giving trust and receiving trust as well.

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4. ‘Time hi time ko badal sakta hai, bas time ko thoda time do’

What controls us, and what manages us in life, is time. We live our life according to it, and everything that happens to us is because of it. If time is good for us, then good things happen and vice versa.

Only time has the power to change things for us, but we need to be patient and wait for it to change. Everything changes and so shall time.

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5. ‘Chinta chita saman hoti hai’

Tension, stress, overthinking does no good to anybody. All of those things make everything over complicated. At such times, we are not in control, but our imaginary thoughts are, those doubts and stress cloud our judgment and decision-making.

It’s in these moments when we make choices that aren’t good for us. The key is to control the moment, be in control of your thoughts and your emotions, not let the tension and stress overpower you and turn you into something you’re not.

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No matter the outcome of the journey, if you lookout for something to learn, you’ll notice there are lessons to learn everywhere you look.

And Harshad Mehta’s story or rather the depiction of that story in this show is an example of that.

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What you look for, is what you find

What are you’re looking for, or rather seeking?

That is an important question that should be on your mind.

Consciously or subconsciously, you get what you look for.

Whether it’s positivity, or pessimism, or finding the good, your approach sets the tone for your outcome as well.

If you’re determined to get it, then ways will appear on your path that will help you to get to that point.

However, if you aren’t satisfied with your current approach and if you think you won’t be able to get what you want, you can change that.

Your current approach doesn’t determine how your future approach will be – you can unlearn what you know, you can reframe your mind and change your outcome – everything is a possibility.

Right approach, with the right mindset and you’ll get the outcome you seek.

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If you take it personally…

Things happen to you time and again that you may have not asked for.

Whether it is failure, or frustration of not putting your all,

Whether it is constructive feedback, or just opinions of various people,

If you take it personally, then you may never get the chance to grow, to evolve and to improve.

In order for all of those things to happen, you have to accept everything that comes your way, without taking any of it personally and just filter through and use everything you can to your advantage.

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All the answers are out there

Surrounded with problems and questions and the unknown is how we live life.

We think we don’t know anything and we have to struggle, we have to find out everything on our own.

No one’s here to help us and our path will be paved by us, alone.

However, on the contrary to these thoughts that we have, all the answers are out there.

The answers to everything, whatever we are looking for, whatever we need to know.

Everything is out there.

You just need to know where to look, whom to ask, and how much help do you need.

Then you’re set.

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Living a life with purpose

On a macro level, few people live their purpose and get to live that life on a daily basis.

It’s not the same as being motivated or not the same as earning to cover your expenses. That life is different.

What does that life include then?

Living a life with purpose means

• you know where your FOCUS lies,

• your PROCESS is now streamlined,

• knowing how to balance your TIME and ENERGY,

• where to DOUBLE DOWN upon, and

• also, able to avoid the DISTRACTIONS in life.

Of course, there are a lot more advantages to living a purposeful life, but these were top five reasons, according to me, that sets one apart once they have found their purpose.

Have you found yours yet?

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Why you should start creating Content?

Forget your brand for a while, forget your marketing strategy for a while, because everyone says that.

Not that it’s not important, and that’s obviously the main focus for most people for creating content.

However, not thinking about your brand or marketing, not thinking about the followers and likes, not thinking about wanting to become an influencer, everyone should be creating content.

Here’s why –

– you are able to experience your creative side and delve deeper into it

– creating content gives you the confidence to create more things in your life

– being in the public forum gives you the leeway to constantly receive feedback/ criticism about your process/idea

– when you express yourself, you’re able to strengthen areas of your life that will help you in the outside world (when it comes to writing/ designing/speaking etc)

– testing out your ideas and in the process, learn and evolve yourself

– more importantly, helps in finding your voice.

Every reason has its own uniqueness to an individual, and that uniqueness also has its importance attached to it.

Find that uniqueness for you and simply, start creating content.

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Life isn’t an either or game

What we have been taught of life has always concluded with an either or option.

You either win or lose at life.

You’re either happy or you’re not.

You either accomplish something in life or you don’t.

It’s always an either or option that you end up measuring yourself against.

I feel, life isn’t an either or game.

Neither should it be made into one.

What this thinking avoids is the process behind reaching these either or scenarios.

The experiences, the learning, the fun – all is lost when it’s ultimately summed into an either or.

In the quest to make life into something, we forget the now, we forget the journey, we forget these moments, all for that conclusion.

Life is in the middle, in the unknown, sometimes in the light, sometimes in the dark, finding the light, not knowing the next step, failing at something and then trying again, life is all about that.

It cannot be summed into an either or game.

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5 Lessons to learn from ‘Mirzapur 2’

Done watching Mirzapur 2, just like most with access to the OTT platforms have, what can I say that already hasn’t been said.

Every episode felt like a film on its own, with a unique experience, this season brought so much depth and nuance to all the characters and the storyline, their arcs were just amazing to watch.

Glad with a lot of things that occurred, and simultaneously sad with some of them as well. And that just speaks how the show grips you emotionally and ties you into its universe.

Having seen English tv series for over a decade, amongst other great shows, I’m just glad to have Mirzapur on our Indian roster.

This show is just wow.

Having said all of this, I also sensed a lot of takeaways from this season, that can also be taken as life lessons, that will help sometime or the other, in life.

A. You always have a Choice
Whatever you do in life, no matter the circumstance at hand, you always have a choice.

A choice of how you’d like to proceed, a choice of how you want to approach, or change, a choice of decisions.

What you choose then changes your path and your life as well.

B. Once you have set a goal, you’ll achieve it at any cost
The thing about having a goal in life is that, once you’ve set one and truly accepted it as something you want, you’ll keep at it until you achieve it.

You’ll be persistent, you’ll not hear a no, you’ll keep making mistakes, learn from them, but keep moving forward until you achieve that goal.

C. Sometimes all you need is Love
Sometimes you do things, you create this pressure on yourself, you try to prove to others, you try achieving things, all because in return for everything, you were only looking for love.

You wanted this love and acceptance, for which you were ready to do anything, even though you may have no interest in any of it. That’s the significance of love.

D. The ones closest to you cannot be trusted at times
You need to be on the constant lookout for who’s around you, what their intentions are, and how much do they really support you.

Because, even people with sweet and loving words may have ill intentions behind your back and you’d never know. Have those around you, whom you can trust and who trust you as well.

E. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction
There’s nothing you do that goes unnoticed. Every action of yours has a repercussion, in what form, you don’t know.

This statement is almost similar to the concept of karma, where the kind of deed you do, is what you get back as well. How does it come back to you, is not in your control, but what you do in the first place is what’s in your control.

—x—

The best part about storytelling and stories in general is that there’s always some takeaway from it, if you wish to see that perspective. There’s always something to learn and always something to improve at, and this time, those lessons were taken from Mirzapur 2.

P. S. Awaiting Season 3. 🙂

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What makes you unique?

Every individual has something or the other, that is different from someone else.

That is unique to them.

Could be their personality aspect, their perspective, their creative aspect, their communication style, but there’s always something that makes you particularly unique from others.

Ask yourself that question, whether you’re able to answer it. If not, then that’s something to ponder upon.

That uniqueness could be your strength that you don’t know about yet.

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A blank page

Imagine you’re writing a book, and you feel that you’re stuck somewhere and you don’t know what to write anymore, you don’t know how to proceed.

Will you stop writing that book?

Or will you try another approach to it?

You have a blank page, you have the choice to rewrite something, to change your approach towards writing, to change the entire book itself.

That is the power of a blank page.

It allows you the freedom to do anything and everything you want with that fresh page.

You can ignore everything you wrote, or rewrite the parts you didn’t like.

That’s how life works as well.

Every day is a fresh start, a blank page that allows you to rewrite your life.

That allows you to introduce the changes to make it better.

You can be stuck at a certain place, or change your approach altogether amd start with a blank page.

That choice to continue is something you have to take.

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Expression of Love

When was the last time you expressed your love to someone, you expressed that you care for someone?

Someone can be anyone in your life, anyone who’s close to you.

Often we think such an expression is only a part of romantic relationships and it seems very clichéd when it comes to the other relationships of your life.

Why?

Who made it clichéd?

Wouldn’t your mom, or your sister, or your brother or a close friend of yours want to hear that you love them, you care about them.

And it’s not about this already being stated, so why be vocal about it.

People want to hear that they are loved, that they are cared for – whether it’s your friends, your family.

Go and tell them how much you love them and how much you care for them.

When you express yourself openly, the other individual will feel much better, and moreover, you’ll feel better than what you’re currently feeling right now (with all the emotions settled within yourself).

That is the expression of love, when you express it, it makes everything better, your thoughts, your feelings within, and also your relationship with that other person.

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What constitutes the inner voice?

The next time your inner voice tells you that you’re not capable of something or something negative comes to your mind, think where does it originate from?

Your inner voice is a collective of
– your experiences
– your learning
– the people around you
– the information you consume
– your opinions of yourself
– the expectations of the society

Once you know this, ask yourself, can you trust your inner voice?

Moreover, it’s not about ignoring your voice.

The thought should be, if you don’t like your voice, what can you do about it?

With practice and self-awareness, you can change this voice if you don’t like it, make a more positive environment in your head, everything is possible if you want something to change.

All of this takes a lot of time, a lot of patience, and there will be a lot of setbacks as well. Every time you fall, you will feel like why are you even doing this?

But the more you stand still, the more you get back again, you will be able to push one step further, you will be able to look back and be glad you practiced with patience, because you will be satisfied with the outcome.

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Consistency trumps Everything

Whether it be anything about life, one always wants to become better at that certain something, wants to improve at it, excel at it, succeed at it.

With everything that is required for such a process, one of the most important things is consistency.

Whether it is working out, whether it is changing your lifestyle altogether, whether it’s changing a habit of yours, whether it’s pursuing a certain goal, whether its a work thing, whether its a relationship thing – consistency trumps everything.

Consistency gives you the experience, gives you the exposure, and most of all it gives you the confidence for that certain something of your life.

That something is for you to decide. You may not like it at the beginning – but being consistent at it improves you, evolves you, and makes you better at it.

Speaking from personal experience, whether it is being in the marketing field for 5+ years, whether it is blogging for almost 600 days straight, whether it is being on the path of self-improvement for more than a year and a half (and also in other areas of my life) – being consistent at a particular goal has helped me become better at it, has made me constantly improve at it and the ‘want’ to go even further than where I am right now.

Consistency trumps everything.

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Flawed

We believe some humans are perfect in who they are and what they do.

What problems would they have or do they even lack in anything?

Here’s what we need to get right.

We are flawed human beings.

Some of us are good at hiding those flaws.

Some are good at overpowering their strengths.

But, all of us, every individual have their own set of flaws.

As an individual, becoming self aware is key to winning in life and that starts with knowing that everyone has flaws and you’ve them too.

There’s nothing wrong in that.

Own your flaws because they make you who you are!

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The real test

You can be kind.

You can be grateful.

You can have empathy.

Especially when you’re in your zone.

Or when you’re in control of the situation.

What happens when you’re not?

What happens when the situation is against you?

What happens when you lose the control of your emotions?

That is the real test.

The test of your true character.

That is the time when how kind you are, how grateful you are, how much empathy you have – everything is tested.

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Cry your Heart out!

Who says that you shouldn’t cry and that crying makes you less of a person?

Crying is okay.

Crying is not a weakness, but a strength.

It’s not pertained to a certain gender, it’s okay for men to cry too.

Crying can be tears of sadness as well as tears of joy.

They are your feelings, they are your emotions, after all.

Instead of suppressing your emotions, instead of hiding your feelings, let go, and for once feel how you want to feel.

Cry your heart out.

For all the men out there, instead of trying to be a “man”, accept your emotions and reveal your true nature to yourself.

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When you Ask yourself for Space

You keep pushing yourself to the limits, you squeeze in every bit of energy and focus towards your goal, towards the path you’re walking on and you enjoy it as well.

However, there are times in this process when you feel burnout, when you feel too much, when you feel you don’t want to do it anymore, but for the moment.

At such times, you’ve to listen to your mind, your body – what message are they sending you? Are you trying you to spread yourself too thin?

It is at these moments when you drop everything, kick back and just relax – don’t overthink it, don’t overdo it – just give yourself some space and then get back to it when you feel like you’re ready to go all out again.

Listen to your mind and body, and not just when it comes to working and goals, but also in terms of your lifestyle, your sleeping habits, your eating habits, your thoughts – your mind and body know more than you know yourself – listen to them.

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Karma

We have all heard of the word, Karma in our lives, haven’t we?

We can believe in it or not, but we have definitely heard of it.

Now, belief is a different topic altogether and I’m not telling you to start believing in it after reading this today.

But, how about you look at the topic from a different perspective today.

First, let’s understand what Karma is and I’ll be sharing what I got from the internet, for better understanding.

Karma (/ˈkɑːrmə/; Sanskrit: कर्म, romanized: karma, IPA: [ˈkɐɽmɐ] ( listen); Pali: kamma) means action, work or deed; it also refers to the spiritual principle of cause and effect where intent and actions of an individual (cause) influence the future of that individual (effect).

In simple terms, the impact of your future is based on the kind of work you do today.

In another analogy, what you do is what you get.

Karma is then divided into three categories, and for better understanding, I’ll write it in simple English, without going into the details.

Your past actions have resulted into today’s karma – the life you live today.

Your work today affects the karma of tomorrow – the future.

And the future’s karma is based on your present and past actions.

How does it originate?

Karma originates from everything that you think, you do and speak. How you are to others, is what you face in your present and future.

To simplify it even further, how about thinking on it from a logical point of view.

It’s a simple case of cause and effect.

You will get affected by the very same of what you cause in the first place.

Now, when you think of it from that perspective, it isn’t that difficult to fathom, right?

What do you think?

Put good in the world and you shall receive good as well.

Be kind to others and you shall receive kindness as well.

Do good deeds for others and good deeds shall happen to you as well.

Not that we are having any expectations from the deeds in the first place, when it comes from a good heart, but to understand karma, we can think of the above statements to understand it better.

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Why it doesn’t work out?

Whenever we try something new, we often wonder why it doesn’t work out.

Where was the problem?

What did we do wrong?

Usually, it applies to the changes we make in our life, the habits we try to instil, the choices we make for our life.

So, why doesn’t it work out then?

It boils down to two reasons, either or, you decide which one is right for you.

A. Trying too many things at once

We either try too many things altogether, at once, and end up thinking why one particular thing or all of them didn’t work out, without thinking that we never put our focus onto just one thing and concentrated on it and improved at it.

It was juggling too much, all at once, that’s why it didn’t work out.

But what if you did only one thing and it still didn’t work out.

Where there could be various reasons attached to this, a major one is,

B. Wanting quick results

In a quest to reach the end of the line, the destination, to know the outcome, you took steps and the process was such that you wanted quick results. In such a quest, you could never process the journey, understand it and improve at it.

Apply each of the situations to your problem and think why it didn’t work out.

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Emotional Vocabulary

We, individually, all of us have a lot of issues, in life, even on a day-to-day basis. However, those issues get aggravated because of a lack of our vocabulary.

Our mind is powering through the words we think, the words we speak and how we describe our emotions, our feelings, the mind will start thinking in that way.

Because of a lack of vocabulary skills, for example, when we have to describe how our day went, we typically address our emotions as ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘okay’, or ‘meh’.

Not being able to address our emotions properly, we ourselves have no clarity of how we feel and we end up with a different emotion altogether, thinking that’s how we feel at the moment.

I first understood this from Jay Shetty and then ended up digging up more into this. Harvard has done a ton of research on this topic, you can check out one of them here.

Said that, have a look at this chart below. The number of emotion variants that exist in each category, and how we can feel a bunch of emotions throughout the day and we never even end up realizing them.

Here’s another one, just to give you more clarity, you can understand them, learn them, learn to acknowledge your feelings in a better way through these charts.

You can dig a little deeper yourself, just for Emotional Vocabulary on Google and study the research done on this.

You’ll thus get more clarity and a better understanding of how you feel, and what you can do to change or address that emotion of that moment.

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I stopped eating this… (Oct 2020 edition)

Changing your life starts with changing your lifestyle first and changing your lifestyle means changing your mindset, your habits, your rituals, everything.

That process is a long one, one with patience and that decision when you take it is game changing.

It also includes what you eat, what you don’t eat, and today I wanted to share that part with you, just to share a glimpse of what such a lifestyle change entails.

Before I proceed with that, I also wanted to highlight a few of my previous blog posts that are focused on this lifestyle change and they shed a light on that topic.

A. A year ago, my life changed!
https://rth24.com/2019/09/28/a-year-ago-my-life-changed/

B. Two Lifestyles and a Choice
https://rth24.com/2020/09/08/two-lifestyles-and-a-choice/

C. The decision of changing my Lifestyle
https://rth24.com/2020/08/28/the-decision-of-changing-my-lifestyle/

Understanding the impact of each and every food item was necessary for me – how they impact my mind, body and soul. How a particular food item leads to more stress and anxiety, which one leads to more tiredness or drowsiness.

What we eat affects our energy levels, our thoughts, our emotions, our immune system, our gut health, our cells in the body – everything!

Said that, time after time, with one step at a time, I have limited and mostly stopped eating the following items that don’t benefit my mind, body and soul in any way.

– No aerated drinks / No alcohol

– No refined sugar

– Limited to None Processed Food
(no biscuits / no chips / no ketchup / breads once in a while)

– Desserts – rarely and homemade

– No Junk Food (pizza, burgers, fries, those kind of items)

Everything you eat is a choice!

That choice affects your life in more ways than you can imagine!

When you live a life with purpose and the right mindset, it also includes you to eat right as well!

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Is it your brand or is it You?

People will support causes

They become part of trends, or rather participate in them

But are they really that person,

Or are they simply boosting their brand persona?

It may sound horrible, it may sound simple, but we cannot deny that, can we?

It’s the harsh truth that needs to be questioned.

This statement doesn’t just apply to any of the popular / influential people, but for everyone who will wait for something to happen and will then talk about it, share about it on social media and then be invisible for the next 364 days.

The question that then arises is, are you really that person in real life too, who supports these causes or cares about them, from the bottom of your heart?

Or is it just for your brand?

This is not to pass judgment of any sort, but for you to question yourself on this topic – you know your answer.

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How do you express yourself?

How do you express yourself, your voice, is exactly the question that you should ask yourself and should probably know the answer as well.

Whether its your thoughts, or your feelings or your opinions, when you express yourself through an outlet, you then get more clarity, you’re able to streamline your path, you’re able to understand your thoughts and feelings better than before.

That outlet could be in the form of anything.

If you want to keep everything to yourself, which is totally fine, you can journalize everything, write in a diary, record your thoughts, or even film it for yourself.

If you feel like talking to someone, you can talk to your friends and family, whoever you feel comfortable with, share your inner self with them.

If you’re comfortable with putting yourself, out there in the public eye, you can then do a blog and write and share everything, if you find your comfort in writing. If you feel secure with your voice, then a podcast is a possibility or you can take a step further, and then do a video as well.

In any form, you’re able to get out of your comfort zone, and even look at everything that’s going on inside you from a different perspective, from a third eye.

When you express yourself, when you let out everything, then you’re able to know everything that’s going on within you.

Just express yourself.

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The Origin of Boredom

People often get bored with what they do.

In their professional lives.

In their personal lives too.

Sometimes with regards to a particular task or with regards to a particular day or a period of time.

Why?

Why are you getting bored?

Boredom arises, not because you’re tired or fatigued.

But because you aren’t interested in what you’re doing.

When it comes to a particular task, you might not be interested in doing it at all.

When it comes to a particular day, you might just be bored of the routine and might be seeking a change.

When you feel the same over a period of time, that is definitely when you should start changing things.

However, the bigger question is, whenever you feel bored, be aware of what is it that is making you feel in such a way and what exactly do you do to distract yourself from that boredom?

Questions like these bring the change which then changes your life as well.

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