Category Archives: Mindfulness

Mindfulness

Embrace the Chaos

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You strategize, you plan, you strategize and plan about how to strategize and plan, until you are Astounded by the Anomalies, Bluffed by the Bewilderment, Conquered by the Chaos and Deceived by the Divergences. That’s when you realize that the ABCD of life is more complicated than what you think it is.

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Man has, since the beginning of time, tried to tame the wilderness, leash the irregularity and control the variables. Some allow themselves to believe that they have been successful. But an unforecasted storm, an unexpected turn of events, is all it takes to thwart their parades. Life is like the hybrid dinosaur from the Jurassic world, yes it will eat you alive if you let it, but more importantly you cant control it even if you put all your 86,000,000,000 neurons to efficient use.

Stubborn that we are, we never stop trying. The modern machinehead man lives by theorems, formulas and systems in his attempt to calculate and control the chaos. But all the sense in the world appears to seize when the universe decides to fool you by its randomness. One might be able to control things partially, but it is impossible to completely domesticate the vividness of our cosmos.

Accommodating the Randomodifcations

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Most of you live life on the leash, but your attempts to tame every situation and control every variable back fires when your plans come across the minutest of randomodifications. You find yourself dazed and confused by the subtlest alteration to the obvious. This situation cannot be avoided but its impact can be minimized if you embrace the chaos and account for variable change in the future.

Life is zig zag, you might want it to be straight, but it doesn’t bend as per your rules, you have to learn to bend as per its. Its like not learning how to turn a car and expecting the journey to be a straight path. Well even if you get somewhere without having to turn, you wouldn’t manage to get too far.

Learn to be in alignment with the superior forces around you. Learn to accept the role of randomness and chance as it shapes your destiny. Learn to live in sync with the the universe and not to make too much sense out of the absurdities. Learn to embrace the chaos as sooner or later you would come across it, and its better to be acquainted than be bemused.

Counter Chaos with “Jugaads”

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Living in India, where order is much more limited as compared to the west, we are more initiated into the art of dealing with chaos. The lack of proper social discipline, an almost comical attitude towards authority and the sheer number of people contributes to the chaos. But looking at it through the eye of a patriotic optimist, the chaos has helped us instead of harmed us. Every Indian is adept at the art of finding his way through the chaos. At being spontaneous when a situation comes out of the blue. At finding the appropriate “Jugaad”, the easiest solution to a complex problem.

While the world is too accustomed to the artificial coating of order overlying the chaos of the cosmos, wont agree. But the universe, in its natural sense, endorses the case for chaos. Indians are pioneers in both creating and handling chaos. So this keeps them in good stead when universal chaos strikes.

Theoretic approximations as compared to practical realities

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Embracing chaos doesn’t imply that we overlook the basic rules of life, these are essential but one shouldn’t only live by what they learn at schools and colleges. Most people have to unlearn what they learn in their early years because practical life is way too different. By embracing chaos one rids himself of theoretic approximations and understands practical realities.

So don’t be demoralized when the chaotic storm rocks your boat. The storm would strike you on the calmest of days when you are fast asleep, instead of crying over your misfortune, embrace the storm and focus on how to get out of it. Chaos has a funny way of bedazzling you when you least anticipate it, you will be too shocked to respond. Yet, if you embrace chaos you will always be ready for the unexpected and live to sail another day.

6 ways to everything, Fitness, Mindfulness, Wellness

6 ways to make the most of bad days

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bad day

The immenseness of your success doesn’t depend on what you do on a normal day but on what you do when the chips are down. How you react to that one foul day, when nothing seems to be going your way, defines how successful you eventually become. This day usually signifies the beginning of a slump but you have the power to transform it into the day when you expanded your will power to overcome obstacles and set forth on the relentless pursuit of your vision with renewed vigor.

Your progress as an individual depends on how you respond to pressure and how much stress you cope with. Thus the days when nothing works out act as tests of your grit and character. If you succumb once you give yourself a free pass to succumb every time, on the other hand if you bare with them without being too disheartened, you make it a habit of overcoming unavoidable circumstances without making much fuss. This transforms your mentality from the usual to a successful one. Once the mentality is in place, success is just a matter of time.

Here are 6 ways on how you can make the most of these bad days:

1. Understanding chaos, don’t push against the cosmos– Randomness is the only constant. There are so many sub plots to each of your plans for life, that you cant ever have total control over it. The laws governing your cosmos are far more random than any plans you might have. As a result you will come across variables, situations and people, you haven’t accounted for while making your strategies.

Once something unforeseen comes to being, you will always try to fight it, when you come across an immovable object, you always try to push it, knowing that you fight a superior force, knowing that the object wont move, you waste precious time. Recognize that the energies of your cosmos are grander than yours. Don’t waste time in fighting the bad day, it is part of an experience which will make you grittier. Only after absolute chaos do you actually find clarity.

2. Minor progress is progress too– Your efficiency might take a dip on the bad day, but this is no excuse for quitting. Even minor progress counts as progress. Working, even in an inefficient way, will move you forward. Wasting your time thinking about all the miseries surrounding you wont. At the end of the day the people who don’t lie in wait for the storm to end, are the ones who cross the ocean the fastest.

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3. Limiting damage, live to fight another day- You get so consumed in fighting off the ills on that one day, that you damage yourself permanently. The problem pile up might make you believe that you have reached the day of the apocalypse, but if you just manage to survive with minimal damage to your motivation, you will wake up to a better and brighter dawn the next day.

Don’t get too caught up in temporary troubles as these can ruin the bigger dream that you have. Try to limit the damage by acting calm and composed when you face the universal fury, so that your bigger plans are on track.

4. It wont kill you, it will make you stronger– If you go through a troublesome day and manage to survive, you get the gift of adaptability. You are in a better situation of facing similar days in the future with minimum fuss. Your irritability index increases, you are less consumed by the universal meltdown and go about doing your job in a routine way. So bad days actually make you stronger.

5. Merely acting initiates magic– Yesterday I was having a severe head ache, lack of breathe because of a minor congestion, partial motivationlessness because of a lack of sleep. These conditions aren’t congenial for going to the fitness center. Yet somehow I managed to find my way to it. Where I started at a turtles pace, till the power of action caught up with me and I managed to complete my workout, with the usual zest and enthusiasm.

What I realized was, as I started acting my mind went off the negativity of the problems I had and gradually started focusing on the task at hand. Although it took me half an hour to get into peak efficiency, yet it wouldn’t have been possible had I not acted at all.

6. The process of becoming– In your process of becoming who you want to be, bad days act as your assessment tests. How you behave on these bad days defines how close to being successful you really are. A successful person is stronger, grittier, immune to circumstantial variance, composed and adaptable. The day you turn you start treating your bad day like any other ordinary day you will not qualify the assessment test to success. Hence utilize these bad days to access how far you have come towards realizing your dreams and what changes you need to make in yourself to get even closer.

Your response determines your progress

When you don’t care about empowering your own conscious, expanding the horizons of your thought and educating yourself with new skills, life will most certainly send you some curbs you wont be able to anticipate. How you respond to these curbs determines how far you go on your road to success.

Make a conscious effort of empowering , expanding and educating yourselves so that you can make the most of the bad days until the bad days become no different than the normal ones.

Have a Good Day.

 

 

 

 

Have a good day.

 

6 ways to everything, Mindfulness, Wellness

6 ways to curb conflicts

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Conflict

Conflicts destabilize you, they remodel your perception,sabotage your harmony and make you fall out of alignment with the cosmos. Conflicts fracture this ultimate connection you have with your surroundings and turn your own thoughts against you. At times you might not even need an external enemy to have a conflict, at times the enemy might be within. These conflicts, if not dealt with at once, form a never ending chain, passing from one person to the other, magnifying its damaging effect as it goes on.

Why Mortals Kombat?

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Conflicts have been common social functions since the beginning of time. Conflicts arise from nothingness and end in nothingness.The most common source of most conflicts is a deviation from eternal to material pleasures.  Man fights with himself trying to discover his purpose then fights with someone else because of his own purposelessness. Conflicts within oneself normally lead to conflicts with others. The ones who are at peace never initiate a conflict irrespective of how big the calling is.

The chaos withing you transcends the physical barrier and becomes a part of the surrounding universe, this causes a lot of unrest and becomes a source of further conflicts with someone else. This initiates a cycle of conflicts, which is passed from one person the the other, magnifying on its way through. This cycle is the main cause of most of the world unrest.

Thread by thread, conflicts unwind the fabric which binds our race. You are aware of this truth but tend to ignore it. You think it doesn’t affect you at the moment so you shouldn’t worry about it. Yet sooner rather than later you become victimized by this cycle and rather than understanding the situation pass on your unrest to someone else.

 

The never ending conflict cycle

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This often appalling and at times amusing cycle of conflict is the connection between a kindergarten teacher at a distant school and your neighbors burnt milk. The kindergarten teacher who herself miht have got a hard time at home might vent out a little frustration on the children in her class, one of whom might be your boss’s child, who in turn would give grief to his mother, who will carry the misery to your boss, who in turn might turn his fury to wards you, you would carry your frustrations home to your wife, who would punish the children, who would irritate your pet, who would bite your neighbor, who would carry the pain and scold his wife, who would forget to turn off the gas and puff goes the milk.

This endless cycle might appear amusing but it is the bitter reality which keeps going on and on in an endless loop. This just shows how important it is for you to bring all the conflicts to a stand still. Here are some ways to find peace from this cycle of conflicts:

1. Inhabiting the moment- Conflicts arise from misplaced hate. Dwelling on past misery or future glory usually leads people to indulge in conflicts. If you can manage to inhabit the present moment in its entirety, you would see the wastefulness of crying on the past or  over planning for the future. Consequently you will be in harmony with the moment and convey the same to the environment around you.

2. Be hopeful- Hopelessness leads you to a dark place. Inner conflicts are triggered as a result of hopelessness, these percolate to your surroundings in the form of hateful words or actions, initiating a cycle of conflict. If only you could be more hopeful, you would not only be able to avoid inner conflicts but respond favorably to outer ones. No one can spoil your mood if you don’t let them.

3. Dispose conflicts carefully– If you throw the garbage of your mind in a dustbin and not on someone else, you will make this world a cleaner and more peaceful place. You will also help in terminating the cycle of conflicts, leading the way to a pleasant and more fruitful environment around you.

4. Propagate positivity– Yes the only way to turn the cycle of conflicts on its head is through propagating positivity. Its not too hard to smile at a stranger or showing the brighter side of life to someone in conflict. This way you will initiate a cycle of care, which, like the cycle of conflict, grow from one person to another, and make the world harmonious.

5. Giving back– The basic function of life is to help our race progress, this is the least you can do to repay the gift of life. Care and empathize for the people around you till it becomes a habit. It is a hard level of mental conditioning to achieve, yet the joy of giving back to the cosmos and all its particles is best there ever is. Be an agent of change, go against the norm, don’t be a carrier of the cycle of conflict on the contrary attempt to turn it around. You might not like the person who damages your ego, but don’t do it for him, do it just for the joy of being alive and being able to be of some positive use to this universe.

6. Seize control– The ones who can watch their emotions dwindle from celebration to despair and yet be in control of them are the ones who don’t give in to conflicts. While emotions are necessary, it is far more important not to get too carried away with them, lest you lose control. The ones in control not only know when and how to respond but also how much to respond. This empowers them to be in control of situations rather than the other way round.

Be the change

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It might be very difficult to be the exception when the world is going crazy. Yet the few who can sacrifice their egos and let go of hate will ultimately lead others to do so. Together you can not only end the cycle of conflicts but initiate the cycle of care. You might not get any rewards for being selfless, you will be misunderstood, you might even be secluded and left alone, yet if you manage to fight off these subliminal battles and be the change for a long enough time, the world will notice and appreciate you. So lets keep encouraging each other and making the sun shine brighter than yesterday.

Have a good day.

 

 

 

 

6 ways to everything, Mindfulness, Uncategorized

6 common contradictions in our daily lives

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Some good in the bad or some bad in the good?

Perspectives fluctuate as you evaluate what is good and bad. You are so consumed with your conceptions that you fail to analyze these contradictions. What makes people decide between two things? Why do people think differently about the same thing? Why do our choices vary?

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Some are so focused on the bigger picture that they forget living the smaller one, Some are over indulgent in the moment, trying to juice too much out of it. Some see the fear while other the fun. For some climbing peaks is easier others cant even imagine climbing a stool. The diversity in perception leads to so many contradictions.

Contradictions exist in virtually everything you do. But at the end of the day you have to chose what efforts are worth the pain? As there is some good in everything bad and some bad in everything good.

Here are 6 common contradictions:

1. Work– If you are working in an organisation you are helping them realize their dreams while sacrificing your own. You get a negligible portion of the profit that you make for the company. As you are made to a number of small jobs other than what you are hired for, you look forward to weekends and lose interest in time. The allurement of a stable life prevents you from changing your often apathetic situation.

But when you work in an organisation, you get to mingle with a number of people, who help you in a number of tangible and intangible ways. You have a fixed source of money, irrespective of whether you are performing at level 10 or level 1. You don’t have to worry about anything other than the job that you are assigned, unlike the entrepreneur, who has to worry about everything from toilet seats to top level management.

Some good in the bad or some bad in the good. You choose?

2. Friends– Good friends are like anchors in your life, they remind you of the person that you were and how far you have developed. Giving you a reality check when you cant automate one. Friends are the lemon grass in your tea, the spice in your soda, the strawberry in your smoothie. Life would be bland without friends.

At times the same friends lead you to dark alleys, you would never have gone to alone. These friends hold all your secrets ready to be spilled at the first fight, friends are who you indulge in the sad habit of gossiping with and you are so engrossed with friends that you often miss out on relatives. The power of influence that friends possess is capable of distracting and deterring you from your goals.

Some good in this bad or some bad in this good. You choose?

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3. Fitness– The right addiction, preventive health management, stress reliever number one. Yes fitness is the new facebook. The benefits of being fit are unimaginable. You cant live forever but staying close will get you as close as you would get to it. Other than saving a large amount of hospital bills and time which would otherwise be wasted on unhealthy activities, fitness keeps you focused and channelized.

But fitness has its flaws too. People tend to get over possessed by the fitness bug. Indulging in health supplements and steroids which are not always beneficial. Nutrition companies market magic pills and supplements which have more side effects than benefits. At the gym you are only one injury away from permanent damage. The risk, even if its minuscule always exists no matter how good or experienced you are.

Some good in the bad or some bad in the good. You choose?

4. Food– Are you eating to live or living to eat? Food is a natural therapy.Food improves moods. Taste is one of the most important senses and good nutrition a universal necessity. What you eat defines how you appear and how you feel. With countless flavors and fragrances on offer, the scope of taste becomes infinite. We have too many dishes to savor for one lifetime. If you eat well and eat what you adore you tend to be happier. The ones eating good nutrition tend to remain healthier. That’s how good food can be.

Overeating leads to obesity. People eating just for flavour tend to be a little rounder than the others. Something tasty is not always healthy. People tend to develop a habit of over eating which lasts them a lifetime.

While the ones chasing nutrition have to sacrifice on taste to some extent. A process which is again beyond the purview of perpetual sustainability. The day the taste buds start craving you end up reversing the whole process of healthy eating and tend to eat unhealthier.

Some good in the bad or some bad in the good. You choose?

5. Solitude– All you got to do to find inner peace is to take yourself away from the noise. Solitude helps you learn more about the most important person in your life. And you can help someone else if you can help yourself at first. Solitude makes you more comfortable in your own company, this gives you clarity of thought and superlative focus.

Solitude also eats off valuable time that you could have spent improving someones life. An overdoes of solitude can lead to partial or complete depression. A lack of interaction with the world can alter your thought process. At times you fail to recognize the importance of co existence and become more selfish.

Some good in the bad or some bad in the good. You choose?

6. Alcohol and recreational drugs– To some these elixirs might appear bad for their potency to alter behavior, to turn men into maniacs. It creates an infinite loop of going beyond the obvious high, chasing which one doesn’t realize when he gets addicted. Addictions in a few cases have led to people completely renouncing responsibilities. These are the evils, without even mentioning the acidic effect of both to the body.

But when we observe things a little differently, these act as a social lubricant  in an otherwise shy society, where people feel to communicate and emote freely. It activates your senses beyond the tipping point of awesome a, providing a momentary relief from this sometime stressful and often mundane life. Some believe that these magical potions render a new perspective, assisting in finding solutions and relieve stress, empowering the mind to think beyond the obvious to make sense of situations beyond the obvious.

Some good in this bad or some bad in this good. You choose?

Contradicting_signs_in_Songpa-dong,_Seoul_2004-07-06 (1)

All roads lead to the same heaven, you chose which ones to tread on. So the destination is the same, your choices make the journey unique.  Enjoy the absurdities, celebrate the chaos, we only have but one life.

Have a good day.

 

6 ways to everything, Mindfulness, Uncategorized

6 ways to cope with a bad day

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Bad day

There would be no dull, if there was no bright, there would be no wrong if there was no right. There would be no happy if there was no sad, and how can you expect good if there is no bad. The principles governing our cosmos make it impossible for us to avoid the dull, wrong, sad and bad part of it. As much as you might try to avoid these, they somehow creep into your lives, and when they do, you don’t know how to handle them.

No matter how strong you build your walls, nature has its ways of getting through. We cant avoid it, can only adapt.

You are so busy trying to avoid discomforts that you forget that you can actually learn how to live with them. So when you think you are completely secure, the perfect storm awaits to get you out of your comforts.Discomforts are unavoidable(they will find a way into your well guarded lives), rather than planning on how to avoid them, you are better off learning how to live through them with minimal damage.

All you have to do is to keep your head above the water

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It is impossible to live a life without a single bad day. If you don’t know how to swim you will fall into the water one day or the other. I know you all strive for that perfect problemless life, but you should be well aware now that perfection is beyond the realms of possibility. You can have a period of magical days, weeks, months, but then creeps in that one dark day. The day that you so wish to avoid. The day which not only spoils the present but is also capable of denting the future. Although you might feel bullet proof, but when misery hits you, it would be more like a bombardment than a bullet.

Here are a few ways which might help you keep your head above the water and come unscathed from this type of a day:

1. Don’t run for the Woods, be a Tiger– When calamity strikes, the easiest option is to run. But no matter how fast and furious you are at running, calamity will overtake you soon. Its effect will be magnified because of the time you wasted running. Don’t try to ignore the bad day, accept it and face the pain the same way you enjoy the pleasures.

2. Curb the emotional splurge urge– Venting out your emotions not only adds to your miseries but conducts the negativity to others. This adds to the overall gloom. Try not to sensationalize your misery, it will only get you sympathy and an excuse to stay miserable.

3. The magic of altering your perspective- Stuck in a single plain of thought prevents your from seeing through the temporary obstacle in front of you. If you are willing to be a little flexible, you will be able to realign your perspective, and the problem would no longer remain the problem. We see bad because we prevent ourselves, even temporarily, from seeing the good. On a bad day, this gains special importance. When the cosmos seems to conspire against you, it is magical to see the world without keeping yourself at the center of it.

4. Ice bucket challenge– When you seem to be having a bad day, a sudden shock becomes the need of the hour. This will both divert attention from your issues and lead you to see the world in a better way. Sudden shocks include consciously doing anything outside your comfort zone, these can range from an ice bucket challenge to anything adventurous.

5. If you surround yourself with pokeyoupines, you will be poked sooner than later– You have to chose who you share your circle of influence with. These people are the ones who are the first to know about your day, without you telling. Their response to your situation adds to your misery or clears it altogether. We are better off surrounding ourselves with a few clowns who turn your frowns upside down than many friends who just notice and at max empathize.

6. It may be possible to beat down the body, but its impossible to beat down a free spirit– Yes we all have bad days, but how we respond to these define our lives. Its not worth surrendering years of hard work to one bad day.We can either choose to succumb to the worldly randomness working against us, or we can take our blows gracefully and wait for a better day. If you are ready to wait for your turn, it is a fact that good days outnumber the bad ones heavily. It is for you to decide if you want to let go of all the good days just because of that one bad one.

Sometimes all you need to do is cling on

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Don’t bash yourself too much over the sudden turn of fate, just clinging on till the storm ends.

Even superman has days when his suit doesn’t come out from laundry. He doesn’t wait for it to dry, he improvises. Rather than losing yourself to the negativity of a bad day, you can improvise.  Fooling your own mind to look beyond the obvious problems.

It is inevitable to avoid bad days. I found that out when months of hard work at the gym was flushed out due to one bad Ayurvedic supplement. My folly was that I wanted to replace the chemical with the natural. Not everything goes according to plan, but we either waste time whining or survive to fight another day. I hope you choose the latter because I did. Hope you have a good day, and even if you aren’t, its ok, adapt to the bad one.