The cost of right is simply giving up the need of validation from others.
The cost of wrong: your conscience.
Tag: Success
It’s okay to have someone have different skill set.
It’s totally okay to have someone think differently.
However to have someone around you with different values is a stab on your own values.
Not going to help anyone, maybe going to rob you of your creativity, productivity and ultimately happiness.
I love imli chutney. Whenever I go home, I just being a can filled with it, prepared by my Mom.
Since we are in the middle of a lockdown and I am unable to go home, today I asked Maa to teach me how to make chutney.
What she described as a process took me 90 minutes just to crush the tamarind! Pre and post processes notwithstanding.
Process. Journey. Of going through the crushing process. Of just going through it.
Going through it.
1. Everyone is simply doing their best. Even if it is hard to admit, it is the truth.
2. Your role is to love. Starting with you.
3. Your role is to improve yourself. Everything else will eventually rise.
4. People making it to the world records – don’t have to make you feel worried – if that’s not where you want to be.
5. It will all be sorted out in the end. What you need to take control of, is today.
If any question had a straight answer, life would not be the way it is today.
And the way it is today, is how it is supposed to be.
The meaning of life is to fall in love with the process. The meaning of life is to take action, only then you will enjoy the pauses.
If you feel lost, if you don’t know where do you want to go, if you don’t know what’s next, here’s the reality: you can find it.
You have found out a lot of answers in the past.
If you are willing to take action, you will figure out the answer.
If you are not taking action because you are lost, then you have already lost.
No action = Assured Failure
Action = Experience or Success. Both are valuable.
No one ranked better because they shouted more. Okay, in the short term, they did.
No one became great because they took away credit for someone else’s creativity.
Absolutely no one ever won because they were great at making others feel like losers.
The way to getting better, is to get better.
The way to rising higher, is to make others rise as well.
The way to eternal goodness, is the eternal goodness for all.
Maybe someone in your locality is using 50% of his income to support the daily wage earners.
Maybe a friend of yours is doing great stuff freelancing however they are not posting Instagram stories about it.
Perhaps the boss who is having huge understanding, is someone who invests 30 minutes daily in reading great books.
We happen to see a ton of greatness on social media, news and from people who want to be seen as great.
Yet a far majority of great people are the ones who are too busy.
Their busyness does not allow them to post it.
Also, their inner fulfilment does not mean to show it off either.
That’s true greatness. Greatness with the purpose of knowing they did the right thing. Not with the purpose of letting others know about your greatness.
The goal is to get up from that “mood off” as quickly as possible.
Not by suppressing it.
Rather, by:
– explaining yourself
– talking with yourself
– telling yourself that you can’t trade your happiness for someone else’s actions.
Inside is the way out.
What are you thinking of lately?
What is it that is making you weak?
What is it that is making you strong?
How can you think your way out to becoming strong versus weak?
Numbers
Followers
Salary
Likes and comments.
Four circles or three arrows in your car brand.
Centralised AC.
Chimney that doesn’t make any noise.
Success – we have measured it by metrics that world has taught us to.
Maybe it isn’t success. Maybe success is the way you really want.
There’s nothing wrong with material things, if you really want them.
If that’s not what really makes you happy, then we really need to live and grow by our own version of happiness.
The best way to be liked by others is to love yourself first.
The best way to bring that change is to be the change, as Gandhi said.
The best way to change the world is to change yourself first.
We probably know all the answers. What we perhaps need to do, is to tell yourself you are the answer.
You are the sum total of your “Recently Used” emojis.
Today I stumbled upon the failure resume of Ankur Warikoo. Was a wonderful peep into why this man is so humble despite having achieved so much in life.
Basis that I decided to prepare a failure resume of my life so far. Not about career as he did, rather what has made me strong so far.
I am often told by a lot of people:
“You’re too strong!”
“You understand things quite deeply.”
Also on the last day of my first job, my then boss (who had never said it), said me: “My indirect guru!”
While all these things may seem elating, this 28 year of life span has taught neither to be super-happy on appreciation, nor to be super-sad while being criticized.
Yet I was not born with this strength.
Here’s how I happened to develop it:
2002: Class VI – My then best friend found a new best friend all of a sudden. Not only I was friendless, I also sat in a corner while all others played basketball in games period.
Lesson learnt: I started becoming friends with everyone – na kaahu se dosti na kahu se vair. And bam! Started enjoying school life unlike ever before.
2003: Our whole family has decided to go to a park on a Sunday evening. Maa and sisters have prepared dahi bhallas and aloo tikki to be eaten up there. I am ready with my badminton and best hair band. My masi and my cousin have also come home – we will all enjoy together.
Just half an hour before we are about to leave, Papa says we won’t go. He blabbered some reason which I could intuitively feel were not right. He just said no means no.
Lesson learnt: I always make it a point to take my nephew / nieces to park – no matter how much I want to rest. They just know one thing: “If masi has committed, she will take us to the park and play with us.” (Without phone.)
2010: IIM – A, where the world goes to fulfill their dreams, I signed up for a nightmare. Went there for a day-long conference, and met the first person I fell in relationship with.
He liked nothing about me – absolutely nothing other than my skin colour. He became friends with my cousin, used to talk with her while I had already been thrown out of his life, and above everything – threw me out of his place on our last meeting.
Lesson learnt: Not yet bro, I had one bigger jolt to learn the lesson.
2011: The sister just older than me, who is also the closest one – gets engaged and married. After her marriage she faces some problems in her own life, because of which she couldn’t devote time to our relationship.
Lesson learnt: Learn to channel your loneliness into solitude. That’s when I fell in love with books for eternity.
2014: Nana died. I was one of his favourite kids. I go through all his last rites peacefully, strong as a rock. It came out naturally, didn’t have to do it.
Two weeks later, my Mom asked me: “Where do you bring so much power from? You didn’t even cry! I helped myself a lot just by looking at the way you conducted yourself and knowing what Nana meant to you!”
Lesson learnt (this time a powerful one): Keep filling yourself with power, over a period of time it will become automatic.
2016: Okay, this is the second jolt. Was exactly the photocopy of the first guy, with additional splice of anger, blame game and a ton of blackmailing.
I considered myself lucky to finally be able to get out of that.
Lesson learnt: Your life has a pattern. If it is following a pattern you aren’t proud of, reflect over it and change. (Disclaimer: Neither of these 2 persons were bad – they were just not right.) Also, learnt to say no gracefully and without any guilt.
2017: This is when I have started journaling a lot. Have started listening to God’s words. Have made a relationship with him. He is right there for me, every single time.
2018: Me and my best friend were supposed to go to Goa in January. We booked our tickets in July itself. Excitement was at its best. We were just reverse counting the days.
Somewhere around November, another friend of hers also books her tickets with us. I feel resentful in the beginning – it was a trip for both of us. Yet, I thought it was immature to react so much, and of course, my excitement belongs to me. I continued being excited.
In December 2017 I texted my friend: “Yayyy!!! Next month finally Goa!” She replied with a cold message, and asked if her friend would hamper our enjoyment. I said yes she would, however let’s focus on what’s working.
She said it’s better not to go then.
Cool. I cancel my tickets. She also tries to, yet since the refund is negligible, she decides not to cancel it.
Later around Christmas, she pushes me to book my tickets again. I choose not to, price is 4X now.
On the day of her take off, I am in a meeting onsite. Couldn’t take her call. Saw her message later that she just wanted to talk. I went back to my hotel room, call my sister, and cry a lot. A lottt.
Lesson learnt: To love your friends without any condition. We are still very good friends. Yet conditioned my mind to accept her where she is, instead of laying a bunch of expectations on her.
Also, I make God my bff now. We are just the best since then.
That’s it people, some small takes in this big picture called Life.
Gary Vaynerchuk, who posts a lot about optimism and hope, said once: I wish people could share their real struggles with everybody – the world would be so much lighter and happier if it happened.
That was the very reason I shared these struggles with you. Not to brag about what I went through. People have been through worse. Yet, when we know the process we honour the result and respect the journey.
Nothing is natural other than nature. We have become who we are.
From tomorrow, we’ll go back to possibility and power! Hasta-la-vista baby!!
New friends.
When you find new friends of course you feel great, you feel like you have arrived home.
Yet at the same time it’s it would be great to remember that those friends help you make you a bigger version of you, a better version of you.
Would be wise to not be like them rather being just the best version of you. Balance of love. Best of both worlds.
Yesterday I received a call from someone who usually does not talk with me. Also, I avoid talking with them because they consistently criticise me for my life choices. (Fun fact: This was not an ex :D)
However, instead of being more mindful, I happened to answer their call. And they followed suit – to give me opinions and tell why my life choices are not right.
This usually does not bother me, however the person on the other side was someone whom I respected in the past. A lot.
I finally hung down the phone and got myself back to normal through self-talk.
Today morning when I called up home, Papa asked: “Why are you appearing so out of place?”
While I ignored that question and drifted our conversation to other things, I finally told him everything.
Here’s how he responded to me:
1. You do not have to ignore their calls, just decide what you will pay attention to or what you will not pay attention to.
2. It may so happen that out of 10 bad things they say about you, one of those things really happen to turn out in your favour.
3. Learn to listen to critics, they are more valuable than friends, because they make you realise the importance of self-love.
Learning from wisdom and experience of elders truly collapses the learning curve.
PS: Love yourself, no one else is going to change their opinions to love you.
The goal is to be so internally fulfilled that even though you may have time, you don’t want to scroll Instagram.
The goal is to respect your introversion and work in a team simultaneously.
The goal is to look at what’s working in others versus where they lack, as this is what a loved one does (with some occasional nudges here and there).
The goal is to have an understanding. The understanding that fortunately comes from within and through reflection, not external factors including OTT or social media.
Going through this.
Saw it on James Clear’s newsletter, replicating it for you:
Bill Watterson, the cartoonist and creator of Calvin and Hobbes, on the difference between ambition and happiness:
“…having an enviable career is one thing, and being a happy person is another.
Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement.
In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success.
Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake.
A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential-as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.
You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing.
There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them. To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed, and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble.”
God would listen to you, if you would listen to Him.
Happiness would come to you, if you decided to be happy.
Peace would be natural, if we never made space for anger.
We know what we want. We just need to decide.
It is not the lack of time that makes us do lesser work.
It is the lack of ability to not to waste time.
When we on what needs to change, change happens beautifully.
Years passed by, while you were waiting for the right time to do your dreams.
Why is this lockdown of three weeks now affecting you?