Stand & Stare

There are many ways to live life but two very good ones to live life to the fullest are-

1- From the perspective of time it should be lived in moments not in years.

2-From the perspective of things it should be lived observing the minute details of things of beauty around you.

Many people don't even realize that they pass their lifetime without even knowing what they are doing. They are always complaining about paucity of time. Actually, they are right to some extent because time really moves fast if the life is lived in days & years. On the other hand when life is lived in moments, the time stands still & waits for the person until he has enjoyed that moment to the fullest. The moment only cares for the person who cares for it. The fact is that for most of the people moment is the least important unit of time & that is why moments fly past them & so do days, years & a lifetime. The important thing to remember is that life can only be lived in moments; in years it can only be passed. And by the time we realize that, it is  already too late. The common regret of people at the end of their life is that they could not enjoy life the way they were supposed to. If asked to replay the best part of their life, they would surely replay some wonderful moments; not years. We don't remember years; we remember only moments- isn't it a big enough proof to justify this point?

Another way of living the life is by observing the fine details of the creations of God. The blade of grass holds the whole universe on its tip, only if we stand & stare. The magic is in the obvious not in the hidden. But we pass our whole life collecting the toys & ignoring the art of the Supreme Painter. One reason why we miss the obvious is that we think there is something which is beyond our purview. We forget that we are the best creation of God & are entitled to admire all His creations. 

 The life has no meaning if we don't have moments to stand & stare this abundant supply of beauty spread all around us. Observe the minutest of details of things of beauty & enjoy the vastness of universe, or else, regret  not doing so at the end of your life.

   

Thoughts Make A Man

It has been said time and again that thoughts make a man. I'll go a step further & state they do more than merely making a man; they make him & the whole world around him. 

Thoughts are much bigger in size than they originally appear. The important question to be asked is, if we have a large number of thoughts travelling through our mind every day, why only a few seem to make an impact? Why all thoughts don't affect us & shape our destiny?

A thought alone is not powerful but when it is combined with emotions, it gains strength. It is like if you see someone on the road & think about him it won't affect you but if he does something that makes you happy, it will leave an impact. So, it is not thought about a person that influenced your perception about that person; it was his behavior & your emotions towards that behavior that did it. And once that happens, it has a ripple effect. Remember, your thoughts & emotions don't add, they multiply. So, it can be 'good thoughts plus good emotions' or 'bad thoughts plus bad emotions' that decides your opinion about someone. The important thing to learn is that since thoughts are huge in number, you can't do much about all your thoughts. Comparatively, emotions are lesser & can be easily controlled.

So, how do thoughts make a man? It is because dwelling upon a thought also makes it stronger & drives traffic of emotions towards it. If you are thinking about someone negatively & if you keep thinking about him in the same light, it will only attract negative emotions. On the contrary, if there is a person who has harmed you but you forgive him & move on with other activities, it won't affect you anymore. Since you cannot control all your thoughts, it will be important to choose thoughts that affect you positively & reject thoughts that leave a negative influence. Even if we control five or six negative or positive thoughts, rest won't matter much. If you consciously practice it for some time, it will become your second nature & you won't need to make any effort to control your thoughts.   

Future Perfect, Present Tense

Strange thing about human beings is that we spend our lifetime to have a perfect future. And we are never sure about it: not whether we will have a perfect future or not, but whether we,at all, will have a future or not. In doing so, we spoil what is in our hand-our present. Present is called so because it is like a gift to us by God & we behave strangely by not opening this gift so that we have it safe for our future. Our present is what we thought in our past & our future will be what we are thinking today. Our future will be  rolled out in front of us depending upon how we respond to our present. If we are living a tense life today, chances are that we will have a difficult future. Life cannot be lived in past or in future; it can either be lived now or never.  
When people say that they don't have any control over their future they are only partially correct. They don't have any control as far as circumstances are concerned but they have complete control over how they would react to those circumstances & that will be decided today not tomorrow. Our responses to different circumstances may be different but the style of our response is more or less same. And that style comes from out thinking pattern of today. So, in a way you have complete control over your future as well. People who want to be successful after some time will surely not have the same circumstances what they have today but despite the difference in situations they will become successful if they learn to respond to their present because one day their future will become their present. 
So, instead of brooding over tomorrow, better you live in now. That is all we have: rest is a mirage. The only way we can have a perfect future is to live in present. Another beautiful thing about our future is that it comes only one day at a time & that day is today.
Remember, you can never make your future perfect by making your present tense !  

Leaders Are Made

There has always been a debate on whether leaders are born or made. How do we settle the issue? It can only be done if we closely look at the way two different kinds of leaders behave. 

Those who are born leaders consider ruling over people their birth right. Serving others doesn't come naturally to them. They can't tolerate failures because they have not seen many.

On the other hand leaders who are made by hard efforts know the value of the reward. They know the value because they have paid the price- the price of hard efforts, many failures & a lot of criticism. Any leader  who has gone through tough time respects opinion of others & wants others to express their views. He believes in distributing power instead of using it to muzzle the opinions of others. 

This is true for all kinds of leaders- political leader, social leader or a business leader. A true leader must pay the price of hard effort before he succeeds. Unless he achieves success the hard way, he will not attach price to it & will lose it sooner than later. 
The other point of discussion especially in business circles has been about the capabilities of a 'leader by effort' vis-a-vis 'a natural leader'. No doubt, a natural leader understands the nature of job quite quickly & uses his natural talents to adapt to the requirements of the job. On the other hand, ' leader by effort' has to make hard efforts to meet the requirements of his job. But once he does so, he gives it his hundred percent while a natural leader tends to relax after reaching his primary goal. The reason of this behavior is again the cost that 'leader by effort' paid to get to his goal. 
So, if you are toiling hard to reach a goal or you think that you don't have natural talents to be something, worry not; you deserve that goal no less than somebody who thinks he is born leader. The world will take a bow once you achieve your goal. For now, just keep walking towards the direction of your dreams !

Don't Wait For The Ship

There are three kinds of people in this world. 
First kind of people are those who don't react when opportunity knocks their door. In fact, many a time they are not able to even recognize the opportunity. Most often than not, opportunity comes wrapped in problems & an ordinary man looks at problem only as a problem & starts looking for the solution. When any adversity strikes you, the first question you should ask is- "What is in it for me?" Yes, every opportunity, big or small, carries fruits of equal proportion to be had. Your job is to identify & welcome the opportunity. So, these people don't respond because they don't identify opportunity. Opportunity knocks their door but most of the time they are not home. They don't see the ship even when it is at shore waiting for them to board it. 
Second kind of people are the ones who identify these opportunities & respond to these. They know that opportunity will come in different forms & shapes & they are always waiting for it. They grab it with both the hands once they identify it. Not only that, they also keep themselves well prepared to make best use of all the opportunities. So, they are waiting for the ship to arrive & once it does, their  job is to board it & start their journey to success. 
But, third kind of people are those who don't wait for opportunity; they make opportunity even when it is not there. They are the real winners as they never complain about lack of opportunity. They have it in plenty & they also have the ways & means to overcome any challenge & convert it into a huge opportunity. They invite challenges if they are short of the same. Not that they become successful in all their efforts but even when they fail, they make best use of these failures. They become stronger with every failure & every failure becomes the stepping stone to their success. These kinds of people never wait for the ship to arrive;they swim out to meet it !

Give & Give

Most of the successful people are successful because of their unmatched intelligence. They are different because they think differently. Their actions defy all logic and they are ridiculed and revered because of the their out-of-the-box ideas. They have one more quality that helps them reach the pinnacle of success & it is that they all have a big heart. Their prime goal is not to be successful but to make others happy by elevating their life. They relentlessly work for the betterment of human race till their end.
Being genius is a gift of God but being generous is your return gift to God. We all are gifted in certain ways so that we shower gifts given to us by God on people who are not so gifted in that field. But instead of cooperating, we start competing. We start thinking that if we share our traits with others he might become more successful than us. This limited thinking stops us from sharing our genius with our fellow human beings & we die with that unused talent. You might have used that talent but if a vast population remains devoid of something that they would have got with little generosity, I would call it unused genius.
In fact, we are only an agent between God & other people as far as passing these gifts are concerned. Our job is not to think what will happen to our gifts but to do what we have been assigned to do. Another important point to remember is that it is an unending supply. The more you give, the more gifts will be supplied to you. If you stop the supply, further supply of gifts to you will also be stopped. 'Give & Receive' is an old principle. The new principle is 'Give & Give'. 

     

Defying Limits

When God created man, He did not put limits on his design. He wanted man to be the epitome of perfection & that's what he made him- a perfect combination of brain, beauty & brawn. He wanted us to be an example for other creatures to inspire them but we failed to perceive His intentions. Instead of focusing on what we got, we started harping upon what we didn't & that became the undoing of human race. Day in & day out, we talk about the lack of external resources forgetting the world inside us. Man is born to be a success-animal, so why does he accept failures so easily? The answer lies in his accepting some of the limits as final. The fact is that these limits are only a tool to judge a man's will to succeed. As long as you keep defying these limits, you keep improving & the day comes when you start believing that limits are not impediments to your growth but are strong reasons of your success. On the contrary, if you accept these limits to be final, they become an integral part of your existence & you move from one failure to another.
The secret of path-breaking success in any enterprise is our consistent refusal to accept limits as final. Oscar Pistorieus, popularly known as blade runner, refused to accept his double below-knee amputations as a limitation & went on to compete in London Olympics despite a lot of hindrances. He became the first double-leg amputee to participate in the Olympics. He participated in many able-bodied races & posted his personal best timing of 45.07 sec in 400 meter to be ranked 15th fastest in the world before Olympic qualification. Of course, he used artificial limbs to compete & was in the center of a dispute over use of prosthetics while competing in able-bodied races, but that does not & cannot take anything away from his feat."I don't see myself as disabled. There is nothing i can't do that able-bodied athletes can do", said Pistorius.
This is only one of the examples of defying the limits that men have shown when they were struck with adversity. Surprisingly, we come out with our best when confronted with a challenge but fail to exhibit these traits in normal conditions. So, the best way to improve ourselves on daily basis is to refuse to live in an ordinary way & challenge our limit on daily basis. Trust me, one day you will surprise yourself with your achievements.

Love All

Being loved by someone is a blessing. It tells you how much you are wanted despite your faults. It increases your worth in your own eyes & in the eyes of others. Many times we underestimate our own worth & try to short sell ourselves but once you are loved deeply by someone, you start realizing that you have the traits to impress others & you start exhibiting those traits. The important thing to remember is not to make any effort to be noticed but to remain happy all the time, in all circumstances. People will take notice if you are at your natural best. It gives you the strength to move forward, to think the unthinkable & achieve the unachievable. 

But loving someone is a greater blessing. It makes you tolerant towards the faults of others & when you do so, you are loved in return. It needs courage to love someone with visible faults. When you love someone, you accept him or her in toto, not in parts. Many of us tend to accept only positive traits of a person, rejecting the gray areas. It is not love; it is compromise. When the husband tells his wife," I love you", he doesn't mean, "Your eyes are all right but i don't like your hair." So, why do we complain when we see some blemish in our partner? In fact, a time comes when we start focusing only on the blemish & completely ignore the traits because of which we fell in love. What if we do just the opposite- ignore all the vices & focus on the virtues. Virtues will first add & then multiply & vices will vanish into thin air. When you love someone you condone even the blunders & on the contrary, when you dislike someone, you look even at small mistakes as blunders. At times people play tennis with each other & score points by catching others doing something wrong. But, you don't score points when you are in love & therefore the result is always Love All !

Why Not?

The most important faculty of a man is his imaginative faculty. As a child it is at its best but decays as he grows up. During his formative years the child tends to question the absence of anything that he can imagine but does not find around him. But, when he grows up, two vital changes take place- one, his power of imagination takes a back seat & secondly, he becomes skeptic even about things that he sees around himself. He questions every new idea that is mooted to solve any old problem and downplays anything that seems out of the box.

The root cause of all the trouble is not the man but men- men around him. Man is not a skeptic by birth. But every time he floats a new idea it is taken as a breach of the pattern & thus not accepted by people. But he keeps imagining his way into the unknown. And the world keeps throwing its tantrums, rejecting the idea on one pretext or another. By and by, he starts thinking that the world is all fine; he is an aberration. And this is the beginning of the end of his imaginative prowess.

The all important question is how some gifted souls manage to counter the onslaught of skeptics and refuse to get adjusted to the easy way of thinking ‘simple & straight.’ The answer is that they consider themselves to be gifted & not an ordinary soul & they remain so till the end.

The early sign of a man getting into the trap of ‘easy & plain’ thinking is that he moves from ‘why not’ mode to ‘why’ mode. Initially, he finds it difficult to adjust to the newly-found world of skeptics but once he gets there he finds it very comforting & snuggles up to it for whole life to lead a limited existence. So, the secret to a blessed & meaningful life is to question what is not around & enjoy what is present. Then only, we will truly be living in the present & preparing for the future. 

Men & Women Are From Earth

In his bestselling book, 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus', John Gray attributed the relationship issues between men & women to the fundamental differences in the thinking pattern of two genders. While I appreciate the monumental work that Gray did to present his views on the topic, I don't fully agree with the idea that the emotional differences between the two individuals are because of the difference of their gender. This proposition indicates towards a particular fixed mindset of either of the genders & therefore indirectly suggests that we should respond to the gender rather than to the individual.

Regardless of the gender, each individual has a certain thinking pattern which keeps changing as per the environment around him. Responding to the environment is certainly not the ideal condition. If you do so, you are designed by the conditions around you instead of designing the environment around you. You are at your best when you don't allow the conditions influence your thinking. On the contrary, you bring a paradigm shift in the general thought pattern around you by your persistent efforts. No doubt, it is a herculean task but it is worth the efforts. You can either be influenced by the people around you or you can influence them through your efforts.

I am not suggesting to be rigid in approach. What I am suggesting is that all individuals, irrespective of their gender, have particular way of thinking, reacting or responding. Study them closely as an individual; know their traits & blemishes & accept them as they are. The problem with fixed mindset is that rejection comes first & acceptance comes last. Dealing with an individual on the basis of gender is akin to considering him as an object rather than a live-wire of varied emotions. Both, men & women are from earth & we should deal with them on earth rather than going for a trip to the outer space  to solve our problems.

Actions Control Emotions

Most of our emotions precede certain reactions by our body. For example, when we are angry, we scowl at people; when sad; we tend to go into depression. Similarly, when we are happy, we laugh or smile a lot. But, the opposite of same is also true; many of our actions lead to varied emotions. Don't believe it? Do the following exercise for first hand experience- if you are in a good mood & having a good time, just drop your shoulders & put your hands on your forehead as if something bad is about to take place. Think of something that gave you a lot of pain & observe what happens. Your body will read the action & will command your mind to change the emotion. All of a sudden, you start going into depression and a mood of melancholy descends on you in no time. This further reminds you of more  such incidents of past & a vicious cycle sets in.

Thoughts play an important role in setting the tone for the day. But, the problem with thoughts is that they are difficult to control as a large number of thoughts pass through our mind daily. So, what is the alternative? Control your emotions by controlling your actions. Observe the posture of your body when you are angry. Is it a relaxed posture or a tight one? Of course, your body is in an upright posture; your heart beat is more than normal & if you are speaking, your pitch is high. Now, do the opposite- sit down, take a deep breath & try to divert your attention away from the matter that is making you angry. If possible, listen to some soothing song or play with your pet & try to smile. You will definitely feel some change in a positive direction. While you cannot change the situation that is making you angry, you can surely bring a change in your actions & thus, in your emotions.

Don’t smile only when you are happy; try to smile to make yourself happy even in a depressing environment. It can be the source of your permanent joy. This curve will certainly set a lot of things straight ! 

Dream Big To Stay Young

No one wants to get old and ironically no one wants to die young as well. Age of a person has nothing to do with the number of years he has lived. It has a lot to do with how his thought patterns are taking shape. As long as you are capable of dreaming, you are young. But then, some people never learn to dream. The fact is they never live. They just pass through this planet for a very short duration; so short that they are not even noticed. Even if such people live for hundred years, they would not matter. And on the other hand, we  have people like Anne Frank, Keats, Shelley who died young but left some indelible prints on the surface of time. So, age is irrelevant and an unnecessary topic of discussion. 

What we do when we live is of utmost importance. And our actions have a lot to do with our dreams. A child is a born dreamer & he wants to get whatever he dreams. Initially, he gets everything he dreams & demands but, by & by, we convince him that in life you don't get whatever you dream & this is the moment when a child is killed & an adult is born. This new-born adult starts aging fast as many of his dreams soon convert into regrets. He grows old when all his dreams are no more than a bundle of regrets. So, we may have an old man of 26 or a young lad of 70 depending upon his state of mind.

Even if we consider that all our dreams are not going to turn into reality, we shouldn't stop dreaming. In fact, this should be a good reason to dream more & dream big. To most of the successful people dreaming was as natural as breathing. They could achieve anything because they could dream anything. One way to know the age of a person is to know the size of his dreams.So, if you want to keep fit & want to die young at the age of 90 or 100, dream big & dream more. 

Enlightenment Vs Wisdom

We spend large part of our life in quest of knowledge. From our early childhood, we are taught to gather knowledge to be successful in life. We learn that two & two make four & all other facts about different subjects. While we are taught all this, we are never told why we are learning these facts or what is the use of these facts. And because we don't have much wisdom, we also fail to ask these questions from our mentors. When we get enough knowledge, some of us learn to ask questions from others & from self. And in the process we also learn the use of knowledge that we gathered over the years. Not necessarily, we find all the facts useful now. So, while knowledge is about gathering answers, wisdom is about asking questions.

But the most important step is to reach enlightenment. When we ask questions from others we know the answers & we start knowing others as well and in the process we gather wisdom. When we ask questions from the self, we get enlightenment. It is in this process that we know the self & know the world around us in a better way.

If we observe the pattern of reaching enlightenment( if one succeeds in reaching to that level), it is knowledge first, wisdom next & enlightenment last. And here, lies the crux of the problem. By the time one reaches the stage of enlightenment, one has spent large part of one's life pursuing something which now seems meaningless. A child is essentially an enlightened soul simply because he doesn't know the facts; hence he doesn't believe in boundaries. It is when he makes borders of knowledge around himself that he gets into a trap & is caught in the rut. 

If we let the child make the choice he will choose questions over answers- means he will either choose wisdom or enlightenment first. Knowledge will be the last in his priority list. By reversing the process he will have major part of his life spent for the right purpose & will live his life in the right earnest. If he knows self first, he will be well placed to know others. So, our emphasis as adults should be to encourage & guide him to know the self rather than encouraging him to gather knowledge. But the most important question is- Are we enlightened to let him follow this process ?  

Dance Of LIfe

Imagine a football ground sized auditorium packed to its capacity; spectators are waiting for a much talked about dance performance with bated breath. There is nothing happening on the stage for quite some time. And when the curtains are lifted, they notice a figure limping its way to the center-stage. The child they see is nicely dressed but hardly noticeable & low in confidence. He stands there for a while with tears in his eyes and then murmur something which is barely audible to the audience. They feel pity on the child and start leaving the auditorium one by one. The child also leaves the stage after the hall has emptied. 

This is not the scene from a play or a movie. This is what happens in the lives of a large number of people. When we come to this world, our arrival is welcomed. Each one of us is expected to be a hero & we too are brimming with joy & enthusiasm. But when we see people around us who are struggling to succeed, hardly making both ends meet, whimpering & doing their daily chores grudgingly, we start thinking that the life is not to be celebrated but to be mourned. We start making all kinds of compromises; start complaining about everything & expressing our anger on this drama called life. And one day we become exactly like the child narrated above. Who is to blame for this sorry state of our life ? 

I know you know the answer ! But, why do we allow our life to drift in this direction when we know that we come to this world to dance, to celebrate, not to struggle or to get enslaved to a routine? In fact, each day is a huge opportunity to kick off your shoes and rock the stage. Don't bother if you don't know the steps. As Wayne Dyer succinctly explains, "When you dance your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It's to enjoy each step on the way." Understand the purpose of your life- It's to dance, to enjoy; not to get into a particular pattern. And as you live your life, the patterns will be set as per your choice. 

Now imagine the same boy on the stage giving the best performance of his life because he is happy & enjoying each step; and on the way enthralling the audience & spreading joy all around. He is having the dance of his life! 

Silence Speaks

People give undue importance to speech while the fact is that silence can also be a very effective form of communication. Surprisingly, argument is considered a war of words; not a war of views. The fact is that the person with lesser understanding of the topic needs support of words. A person who is clear about what he is talking doesn't require too many words to put his point across. If your intentions are right, you don't need to explain it to others. Your actions will explain it much better than your words. Emerson put it quite succinctly when he stated,"Your actions speak so loudly that I cannot hear what you say." You don't need to worry about whether the other person will understand you or not because if he does not understand your silence, he will not understand your words as well.

Be Kind, Be Happy

Kindness is a virtue which every human being deserves. But being kind to someone who deserves it the least needs some effort. We are generally kind to people who are in our circle or who have done a good turn to us. When we become kind to people who are not connected to us or who can not benefit us in any way, we get true measure of happiness. When you love someone who has pained us in past or who has never loved you, you have understood true meaning of kindness. One person who deserves kindness on any given day is you. Be kind to yourself. Don't torture yourself for any sin that you might have committed in past. Forgive yourself & move on.    

Fall Is Good

When all is hunky-dory in your life, when whatever you do, goes your way, when you don't seem to put a foot wrong, life is fun. But then, this is not what life is all about. Life is not only about tasting success, but also about learning what it offers you as its teachings. When you are running, you miss to observe the land below your feet. It is during the fall that you notice what was wrong with the ground or with your steps. Fall is good if you take it not as a setback but as a learning place where you go to have your rehearsals and start anew. You can also use it as your base camp to gather energy to start afresh.  Important thing is not falling but rising every time you fall.

Liberty Means Responsibility

Slavery has many shades. A man may appear free though he is enslaved by his thoughts. Most men remain in chains of negative thoughts for so long that they think it to be natural to be in chains. As Rousseau put it, "Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them." Another reason that people live in chains for whole life is that freedom demands a price- price of discipline, responsibility and continuous struggle. For most of them it is too high a price to pay for the freedom of thought or expression. But what they dread most is that freedom entails a lot of responsibility. Responsibility of fulfilling the promises made to self and others, responsibility of practicing what they preached to others & responsibility of proving that  freedom is a better choice on any given day. You need to ask two questions to begin your quest for freedom; first, do you want freedom?;secondly, are you ready to pay the price? If the answer to both the questions is yes, you are already a free man !   

Light A Lamp

Light travels fast but thoughts travel faster than light. The purpose of life is not only to light the lamp of inspired thoughts but also to show others the right path. There are two ways to do that; first, by lighting billion lamps yourself; and secondly, by lighting your lamp & inspiring others to light their's to illuminate the world. One reason that we see darkness all around us is that we live in constant fear of the same & curse it without realizing that we can remove it simply by lighting a lamp. Do it now. Light a lamp of positive thoughts and observe the change !

Listen To Self

If there are people, there will be opinions around you. There are more opinions especially if you go out to try something no one has ever done. And generally opinions are not in favor of a new idea. Listen to these opinions but follow your own voice. You may be weak technically in a particular area but spiritually, you are very strong. So trust your heart. It doesn't know to add two & two but it surely knows whether it is the right idea to add two & two at this moment. Problem is not that we don't have a voice. The problem is that we let it drown out in the noise of others' opinions. Your voice should be much louder than the noise of others. Your voice is pure harmony while the voice of others is no more than cacophony. 

God Within

One trait that separates human beings from animals is enthusiasm. The word enthusiasm comes from the Greek root which literally translates into 'God within'. Oxford mentions the literal meaning in word origin as 'possessed by a god, inspired.' So, an enthusiastic person has God within him. It is like a volcano, always simmering, waiting to burst & it is entirely for this reason that an enthusiastic person is never indecisive. He is always dying to take new decisions, new risks in life. The problem begins when we encounter occasional failure. Energy level dips & indecision takes place. The only way we can remove the curse of indecision is to have the blessing of enthusiasm. Like a volcano never allows the grass to grow on its peak, enthusiasm doesn't allow a person to be indecisive. 

Rat Race

The biggest fallout of getting caught in a rat race is that we don't know why we are running; and where. Some rats are running for the cheese, some more are running for more cheese & some are running for better quality cheese. Getting cheese becomes the be-all and end-all of our existence. When cheese moves, we also move. Our whole existence becomes cheese dependent. When we take part in a race our only motto is to compete with others. And when we do so our focus shifts to others. We start thinking in terms of others & self is lost among other rats. It is important to slow down & let others win(lose). When you slow down, you realize your purpose & every step of your life thereafter connects you to your calling. You not only enjoy the race, but also the scenery around you which is an essential part of your existence. And most importantly, you start living !

Walking In The Rain

Walking in the rain is akin to living the life; getting wet is akin to just passing life & running for a shelter during rain is akin to running away from life. A child likes to walk & play in the rain simply because he feels & knows that the rain is not to be afraid of but to enjoy. As he grows up he starts fearing the rain.He feels that the rain may sully his clothes or he may get sick. He waits for the rain to pass to live again. The fact is that was the time to live. The rest is routine. We pass our whole life in this dilemma & by the time we understand true meaning of living, we make ourselves too weak to venture out in rain. The secret of living is to feel the rain & not worry about getting wet. 

Flying High

When you are surrounded with problems, when nothing is going your way, when whatever you try turns out to be a big failure, when people reject your ideas, when you have no one to look up to, when people have declared you a spent-force; celebrate for your best time has just begun. It is in these trying conditions that people stop expecting from you & you start looking inwards. It is these adverse situations that bring out the best in you. Good times will make you haughty while the bad times will make you humble. When everything is going your way, you miss the opportunities that can make you a bigger success. It is during bad days that you get time to think about more creative ways to be a success again. Remember, bottom is not a bad place to be at because there is only one way to go; UP. 

Fail To Succeed

The joy is not in running; it is in falling, picking yourself up & then running again. Same way, it is in failing & then succeeding; not in succeeding again & again. The great souls didn't become great because they succeeded or ruled over others; they became great because they ruled over themselves. They knew that trying despite failures is the secret of success. There is hardly any sportsperson or businessman who didn't taste big failures before becoming hugely successful. In fact, the bigger the failure, the bigger the chances of success. The important contributor of success is keeping the same enthusiasm that you had before you met failure & continuing until you meet success. 

Listen To The Heart

The best person to advise you on any issue is 'you'. Your inner voice should take most of your decisions. Many a times, it seems that our heart is quiet which is not the case. We muffle the voice of our heart by screaming loudly about other people's opinion. And when we do something wrong we blame it on those screaming voices. Sometimes we also question our heart for not guiding us when required. And it only smiles back on our ignorance. Our inner voice or intuition is nothing but God talking to us. You will hear it only when you are at peace with yourself. And once you hear it, you need not hear any other voice around you. 

Bread & Butter

Some people love to live a life full of grudges. Their day begins with a statement like, " It is going to be  a lousy day', and end with, " I had a terrible day". And true to their predictions, the day ends up being a lousy one ! And if it is not so, they make sure it is converted into one. We must understand that even the days which seem not so happy, are important. It is on an unsuccessful day that we learnt most of our lessons. Currently, if you are eating the side which is not buttered, you should realize that you consume the buttered side as well. The problem occurs when we concentrate too much on the side that is not buttered. At times, we take our eyes off the bliss of life and focus only on some of the wants of our life. Remember, irrespective of the thickness of the butter or the side , you have to consume the whole bread. So enjoy the bread rather than cursing the side. 

Magic Of Belief

We fail to see certain things in our life because we don't believe these exist. The moment we close our mind to these, we become blind to these. On the contrary, when we visualize impossible looking things, they miraculously start happening. So, the trick of making things happen in your life is to make it happen in your mind. Everything is created twice in our world; first in our mind & then in our physical world. It may not happen immediately &, in a way, it is good otherwise we won't be able to handle the enormity of the things taking shape. Actually, time taken to get something materialize has nothing to do with its size. Time required to turn anything into reality is directly proportional to the intensity of our thoughts. To see this magic happen in your life, you need to start believing right away. 

Develop Your Wings

We are born with wings. But sometimes we feel that either we don't have wings or these have been clipped & we pass rest of our life in self-imposed constraints. We express our helplessness if asked to fly, but we never try to develop wings. We assume that wings are God-gifted & cannot be acquired again. If this be the case, why did you let go of these so easily? Anyway, the good news is that wings can be developed again if you give them proper care, nourishment & support. But above all, they need your belief that they can be developed. Take a big project & give it everything you have, and a little extra that you think you don't have. You will surprise yourself to notice some skills develop as you go along. These are the wings that spring-up when they see a challenge.

Begin Now

There is no better time to start anything than now. If you don't begin now, you will loose the opportunity to do something new. As the Chinese saying goes, "You cant bathe in the same river twice"; same is true with passing of 'now'. You can start anything in future as well, but 'now' will be lost & will only give you a painful reminder of not making best use of it. 'Yesterday' gives you regrets; 'tomorrow' gives you reasons; but it is 'now' that gives you results. We have whole life to decide whether the decision to begin was good or bad, but if we don't begin now we will have whole life to repent. Remember, you will never have the perfect conditions to begin anything but you will always have the time to correct anything if it is not started perfectly, provided you begin it now !

Bumble Bee Can Fly

There are no limitations in the outer world. The only limitations are the ones that we employ in our minds. The moment we declare something to be impossible, it grows bigger in size; not in physical realm but in our mind. On the contrary many impossible feats have been achieved by people who thought those tasks to be possible. A child learns everything so easily as if he were trained for these acts before his birth. He is able to perform all these tasks because he only knows about possibility thinking. It is when he grows up that he learns about  impossibility, limitations or cant-be-done kinds of concepts. And then he starts preparing himself to be a limited achiever or this-is-done-this-way-only kind of an individual.  What if a child is told that whatever he can imagine, he can achieve. He, too,will become a bumble bee !