Category: You

Many of us go through life trying to control everything and everyone around us. Trying to bend the universe to our will.

It never works and it is exhausting at the same time sucking up all of our energies.

So what is the alternative?

Not doing anything and letting people push you around? Of course not.

The answer is to enhance the only thing you can truly control: You!

Work on your body, mind and soul. Intentionally and not by chance.

Read, play, converse with people smarter than you, exercise, write, travel, reflect, explore, support others without expecting anything back, etc.

This is how you invest in yourself.

Surrendering control and letting the flow of life guide you is an art that has to be practiced.

The first time this happens when the universe is guiding you one way and you want to go the other way, it will not feel comfortable. You will want to push back. You will want to control. This is when practicing surrender and being open to opportunities comes into play.

Really listen and get in tune with what the universe has planned for you. Don’t resist.

Surrendering and letting go is the way to winning and peace.

People who produce content whether it be the written word or multimedia worry needlessly that they might be repeating themselves. That they might have created the similar type of content before and their audience is going to call them out on it.

So what if you have created similar content with some of the same words or images? Repetition is not all that bad is it?

Let’s take musicians for example. When they go from location to location to conduct their performances, do the fans want to hear new songs or do they want to hear what they potentially have heard hundreds of times already – their top hits?

When you talk to a life coach about your current happenings and challenges, how many times do they tell you Earth shattering things compared to the times where they remind you or reframe things that you already know?

How many books have you read which consisted of completely new ideas and did not borrow from books that came before them?

I’m not even going to answer the above questions because I think you are smart enough to know the answers.

The point is: it’s okay to repeat yourself. The important stuff is worth repeating.

So go out and create your masterpieces. Don’t be afraid of the naysayers or critics. You create content for your audience and your audience will appreciate it. That’s all that matters anyway.

There was an experiment that was conducted in Las Vegas where they put up ropes like you see in a line. No sign, no instruction, no promise of a reward or anything. Just the set of velvet ropes where in between a line can potentially form.

Well guess what… a line did form.

First, one person got in line. Then another and then another. Before you knew it, there was a long row of people just standing in line.

The people who were conducting this experiment went over to the folks in line and asked him: what are you in the line for? Some people were honest and said they didn’t know, but there must be something so that’s why they were in line to see what they get. Other people just started making stuff up – talking up the imaginary things they are waiting for. They were imagining rewards and free things that did not exist. They didn’t want to seem foolish so it was okay in their mind to make stuff up. And guess what, others around them started believing it also when they heard it and now many of them had varying imaginary rewards in their minds that they were waiting for even though there was no sign or promise of that reward anywhere to be found.

What are you going to do?

Are you also going to stand in line?

Even if you’re not sure if you will ever get rewarded for the wait?

Standing in a line like that is much like following the wisdom of the crowd. There’s a potential for a reward. But there’s also an equal potential for disappointment at the end of the line. If you don’t know what you are waiting in line for, I would suggest stepping out of the line and forging your own path.

When I was in college, I often used to wonder if I was going to ever use the things I was learning at an actual job. Things like the Fortran programming language or differential equations or organic chemistry.

I had a strong feeling that I would probably never see any of these things ever again after I graduated. My suspicions were correct. I never did see those things in the real world.

So was college a waste of time for me and others who never use more than 90% of the actual content taught in classes?

The answer is a resounding No. College is Not a waste of time.

Let me explain.

Following are the reasons in my mind of why I think everyone who can afford to do so should go to college.

 

Learning to interact with others

College is a social affair. You are often learning and interacting within teams. That type of interaction, hopefully in person but even virtual is better than nothing, is a necessity to be able to learn how to interact with others in the real world. I’m not saying that learning by yourself is not necessary, it definitely is, but collaborative learning and interaction in a social setting is equally important to understand and be able to relate with others.

 

Networking with people

Building on the last point, when you are learning alongside others, you’re making connections with them at a deeper level. You are automatically understanding what makes people tick and what ticks them off 😊.

You will most probably see the same types of personalities that you see in college and the real world as well. No doubt you will run into a Susan in your career that will remind you of Liz back in college or a John at a work social event who will sound eerily similar to a Michael who was in your chemistry class. These things are a given. On top of that, if you are lucky enough to go to a prestigious school with really ambitious people then chances are that the connection with these people will by itself give you an upper hand within your career by helping you get the right introductions or that lucrative contract which requires a level of trust in the individual and not just a competence of the company they represent.

 

Learning how to learn

Learning by itself is an art. There is automatic learning by consuming things from our surroundings. And then there is intentional learning. The intentional type of learning is a skill that we learn in school. Just to be clear, I’m not talking about memorization. I don’t really call that learning. That’s much more like ingesting stuff that you are supposed to be able to regurgitate when the need arises. I’m not fond of that type of “learning”.

The learning that I’m referring to here is how to teach your mind to break down information and to consume it in a manner that brings clarity and focus. That’s the type of learning that is crucial in the real world, in our careers as well as our relationships.

 

Building capacity to learn

When you want to tone or enlarge your bodily muscles, you work out.

Now while your brain is not a muscle (it’s an organ), I do believe that we need to work out our brain on a consistent basis for it to not become dormant and also for it to stretch its boundaries. If we believe that different different parts of our brain controls different things like appreciation for the arts, mathematical calculations, empathy for others, understanding of our surroundings and the cosmos, all of which has been proven that brain different parts of our brain do these things, then we owe it to ourselves to stretch boundaries of each of these areas and to grow in each direction.

When we are exposed to different subjects in college or in any schooling for that matter, that’s exactly what is happening. It is stretching our mind in all different directions. Music, physical education, math, english, science, critical reasoning, etc.

All that stuff stretches your mind and gets you ready to accept new information in those areas.

All throughout our lives, we have new information that we are exposed to whether we like it or not. If we don’t have the capacity in our brain to understand what information is helpful and what is not, what we should be paying attention to and what we should be ignoring, what we need to be diving deep inside, we will flail through life getting pushed by others who make decisions for us. And that’s not a good way to live our lives. We deserve better.

 

So persevere through college. Don’t believe that it’s a waste of time. It’s helping you get ready for the rest of your life.

And hey, enjoy your summers off because once you get into the real world, there ain’t no such thing as a summer vacation 😃.

Do you remember your great great great grandfather or grandmother?

No?

Do you have a living relative who remembers them?

If not, do you have your pictures or any writing from them or anything else that would tell you, remind you of who they were?

Still no?

Then did they actually exist?

Of course! If they didn’t, you would not be here right?

So how come nobody has any information about them?

That’s what I call the second death. When the last living person that remembered them passes away or The last artifact evidencing their existence vanishes.

I’m sorry to break it to you, but chances are that You will be forgotten as well.

What if you want to be remembered?

What if you want your life to matter?

Is there anything that’s in your hand that you can do?

Absolutely!

Make a lasting impact. Make your mark on this world or someone in this world. The more effort you put into helping others, helping the world and making your impact, the greater the chances that you will be remembered and that your life will matter to the generations to come.

Give yourself permission to be selfish.

I believe that compassion does not start at home as the famous saying goes. Compassion starts with ‘the self’.

Only when you put your own oxygen mask on first that you can help others around you. Otherwise you will eventually run out of oxygen helping others and be useful to no one. You owe it to yourself, your family and friends and the world to be self-compassionate.

Take care of your inner and outer self and you’ll find the energy, willingness and drive to help others.

 

 

The title might sound selfish but it’s true. You are the center of your universe. Emphasis on “Your” ☺️.

The question now is: are you going to be passive and let forces and people around you influence and impact you or are you going to be proactive and impact them instead?

Most people do the former because it’s easier to go with the flow. If they are surrounded with positive energies and people then the benefit from that or vice versa, if this round themselves with negativity and people who are always down, then that’s what they absorb.

The alternative to absorption is creation obviously. But as we all know, that is always more difficult to pull off because it requires initial momentum which is hard to conjure up for most of us.

So what are you going to do? Are you going to be creating content, information, and spreading goodness in the world from your core or are you going to let people and circumstance and things that encircle you act upon you and make an impression on you The way they want?

You can be the receiver or the producer.

The choice is yours.

I know it’s a hard thing to accept but every single one of us that is alive today will be forgotten eventually.

It might take a few generations, but unless you make a mark on the world like Rockefeller, Einstein, Hitler, etc (yes, good and bad…) there will come a day when no one in the world will remember your name. How they remember you is up to your actions.

The first death is when your breath leaves your body. The second death is when you have been forgotten from the thoughts of the people living.

Of course, then come the questions: why should I care about doing anything if I’m going to be forgotten anyway? What’s the point of living?

Since we come into this world with nothing and leave with nothing. What’s the point of it all?

The point is to not focus on the duration of life but the donation of yourself.

What’s in your hand? What can you do to benefit others no matter how small?

That’s where you and I both should focus on. The impact we can make on others and on the world. That’s what the meaning of life is all about. Leaving this world and the people in it better than how you found it when you arrived.

There’s a reason that flight attendants tell us to put on our own oxygen mask in case of emergency before helping others – even our young children.

Our instinct is to do whatever we can to help those whom we love. Especially our children that are like pieces of our hearts running around outside of our body. In case of emergency, we instinctively reach out to help them before helping ourselves.

The problem with helping your loved ones at the expense of your own well-being is that eventually you will run out of energy and capability yourself to be able to help them. Then they’ll be on their own anyway and that might be when they really really need you.

I have not always felt that way but I now strongly believe that it is our responsibility towards our loved ones to first take care of ourselves – both inner and outer selves. That means keeping our mind body and soul in shape to take on any challenges that come our way.

We owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to put our own oxygen mask on first. In fact, we need to do that not only at the time of an emergency but to do it regularly and proactively so we have readily available capability when our loved ones truly need us.