Polish writer Stanislaw J. Lee notes that no one drop ever thinks that it caused the flood. When throwing
away a chocolate wrapper we don’t think that we lay the foundation for the garbage mountain. When gossiping
about a colleague behind their back we don’t think we caused their mental breakdown. When sharing fake news
that might kill people or polarise one community against the other we don’t think we started the wildfire.
Remember that you are part of the ripple that builds the wave.
Perfectionism
There’s no perfect person. Even the greats like Gandhi, Steve Jobs, and Einstein were a bunch of walking flaws
and yes, it is true when people say never meet your heroes. Yes, there is no perfect family, friend, partner
or book, movie, or song.
There’s no perfect time to start writing, do business, be on diet, propose to your girlfriend, or apply to
your dream MNC. You will never have enough to start the game or take a bold step.
There’s no perfect result. The painting you drew still needs a color upgrade, and the blog needs more coherence
and structure, your performance in the job/exam can be better, the dish needs more salt, and so on.
These are the facts. Deal with it.
Negotiation
The two most powerful techniques in negotiation are: making them feel they got a better deal and
not saying yes quickly. Give away psychological satisfaction to others and you just focus
on output. And sell yourself not in a state of desperation but to fill their anticipation.
Stupidity-Tolerance Quotient
Scratching my beard over a Shakespearean quote—“ The fool doth think he is wise but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” has given me an interesting observation to fire up my sleeping neurons.
Why does a fool doesn’t admit that he’s a fool? The obvious answer is he’s stupid or has no prudence. But is it so?
I think society should be put to blame for this and not any individual per se.
As a society, we never encourage stupidity. A simple math mistake is enough to brand a kid as “dumb” and ridicule him. The whole class and sadly even the tutor joins in this upsetting parade. Obviously, the grading system makes things even worse.
This puts the kid in a kind of “fear coma” and haunts him in his otherwise playful dreams. Further, it kills his intuition and a curiosity to learn things and become wise, if there’s anything as such.
This starts a dangerous and sick loop from which the fragile mind never comes out. No help is given to the “Dull” mind and no chance to correct the follies. Not knowing what to do, the kid takes the shortcut.
He starts rote memorization of stuff and lives in this ignorant-fear bubble without salvation unless a miracle happens so. By this logic,
the fool doesn’t think he’s wise but portrays himself as wise out of sheer helplessness at least to a point in his life. I know this isn’t an excuse for a fool to remain ignorant thorough out his life but this system puts such habits in the mind and pushes him into the path of stupidity.
The solution can be raising the stupidity-tolerance quotient I.e. the ability of the collective society to tolerate foolishness and idiocy. And give permission to stay foolish as often as one can.
As an old African proverb reminds us— it takes a village to raise a child. Here it takes a society to make one wise. The rest as Shakespeare in his Hamlet says is silence.
Attend more funerals
Funerals teach you hard truths about life than any classic book or world-class mentor. First, it takes away
at least to an extent the fear of death. Second, the indifference of people to your life and how brief the time
is between life and death. Third, you will understand the equality of fates and no one remembers the love, fights, and the whole pointless dramas of your life. Fourth, the tears are directly proportional to the inheritance you
leave behind. Fifth and final, the dead are more easily forgiven than the living ones.
Procrastination
The best way to beat it is task simplification and clarification. Achieving something like a super body is abstract
and vague. But building a six-pack body in 6 months and an action plan of doing 50-100 pushups and pull-ups
every day at 5 A.M. and keeping the required gear for that in your home is clear, simple, and specific. Vague
dreams never come to fruition but direct ones will.
Aim Low
In the initial stages of starting a task, do not aim high. The dream should not be something like becoming a highly successful author but writing 250 words every day. When the skill set, discipline set, heart, and mindset are not ready yet we should not aim at the sky as it only leads to disappointment and dejection.
Seneca
My brother gave me “On the shortness of life” book to read a while ago. This book though a short one changed the course of my river. Seneca’s brilliant words pierced like a thunderbolt though I’m not a stoic as such.
I never knew that there was such a thing called as the “Art of living” until I met this great thinker. It inspired me, it brought an existential crisis to me, and in a way crucified and resurrected me.
And it also brought a sense of urgency to my hibernated-slumber life. And every page of the book washed my soul and put me in deep meditation and contemplation. Here are a few of them for you to burn the flame—
- 1)Life is not short.
This sounds contradictory to the title of the book but this is the first truth that Seneca hammers on your head. He says—
“It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. … The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill-provided but use what we have wastefully.”
We waste so much time on things that don’t matter or on things that don’t matter now. We feed on Insta posts, drink YouTube scrolls, and sleep on Netflix-ing. If that’s not enough, we binge-envy on others and reflect for far too long on why life sucks though we exactly know why it does.
In fact, we tik tok our lives and finally think on the deathbed—How has life gone by?
That’s why Lucius Annaeus Seneca pushes you to grab hold of your time and act like a mortal who is a simple slave to the silly fates.
- 2)What is the proof for a long life?
“Often a very old man has no other proof of his long life than his age.”—Seneca.
This is a saintly saying if you think about it. Long life doesn’t mean we add more numbers to our life but add more meaning to them. Consider Indian freedom fighter Bhagat Singh who was hanged at 23 or Bruce Lee who died due to Cerebral edema(That’s what Wikipedia says) at 32, they didn’t become oxygenarians or nonagenarians but their life was well spent.
Both changed the world in ways we cannot. And that matters a lot. The mere existence and sleepwalking to our tombs won’t do any good either to us or anybody.
Every living minute of our life should have some wonder and awe like a shining star.
- 3)Choose your parents
I’m talking about intellectual parents, not birth parents. Seneca says that we can choose to be educated by brilliant minds and great thinkers of history.
History is full of philosopher kings and queens, realists, and stellar rebels who can teach us a lot. In other words, you can choose your mentor and be a mentee by sitting in libraries or swimming in the pools of wisdom.
Pick the classics and have talks with Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Hannah Arendt,and Simone de Beauvoir and forge yourself under their guidance and light.
“You should rather suppose that those are involved in worthwhile duties who wish to have daily as their closest friends Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus and all the other high priests of liberal studies, and Aristotle and Theophrastus. None of these will be too busy to see you, none of these will not send his visitor away happier and more devoted to himself, none of these will allow anyone to depart empty-handed. They are at home to all mortals by night and by day.”—Seneca.
This is the true “Walking with the dead,” we all should do.
Rationality
No one can be 100% rational at all times. Always sticking to system 2 thinking (Daniel Kahneman) which is
deliberate, analytical, slow, and conscious requires a hell lot of focus, time, and effort. On average
it is said that we make 35,000 decisions per day from deciding whether to have coffee or tea or
to invest in which stock, the complexity comes in all shapes and sizes. Paying attention to all
is next to impossible and hence we prioritize the decision making which often goes wrong.
Your wrongly prioritized decision with regards to taking a cab over the metro might which you
assumed was a low important one cost you an extra hour to reach the office. It might spark a heated
conversation between you and the boss and probably affect your salary hike call that’s happening next week.
Whatever, the point is to assume that you are irrational for almost 70-80% of your day.
3 Ideas from Brendon Burchard To consider Now.
Brendon Burchard is regarded as the world’s leading high-performance coach and an excellent writer who topped the New York Times list of best-selling books 3 times. He is often quoted, googled, watched, and googled on the internet by productive bees who want the best in their life.
His online courses and videos crossed millions and Oprah Winfrey consider him as one of the most influential personal growth gurus of all time. Most people know him through the Brendon show, a wonderful podcast if you want to listen.
There’s a ton to learn from him and here are a few of my favorites—
- 1)Owning Ambitions 100%
Brendon says that most people never own their ambitions 100%. This is a powerful idea and a truth. We usually own it a 50-60-70%. For instance, you want to write a book, run a blog, make YouTube videos and inspire millions of people online and you invest your resources and time in it but we do it half-heartedly. We don’t accept it but deep down you know it in your bones. I failed many times to do hard things like building a rock-solid body, and write a novel. Sure, there are many reasons why I failed but after a lot of reflection, I think Brendon is right.
With just 60% ownership and liking, dreams are hard to come by. So never do this mistake. Chase your dreams only if can own them 100%. Here’s a nugget for you—
“personal power is directly tied to personal responsibility, which most people avoid.”(Brendon Burchard)
- 2)Guilt is good
Brendon comments that guilt is a sign of learning and the first indication that you have a growth mindset. Trust me if you don’t feel guilty after binge-watching that Tv series all night, there’s something seriously wrong with you. If you failed to make that blog post deadline possible, you should think and feel about it. That’s how you realize what your next baby steps are.
I always feel bad when I procrastinate on my Wednesday essay day. But guilt makes sure that I write the next day itself. Own guilt and achieve your dreams by course correction.
- 3)Teach to generate positivity
“You have a clean slate every day you wake up. You have a chance every single morning to make that change and be the person you want to be. You just have to decide to do it. Decide today’s the day. Say it: this is going to be my day.”—Brendon Burchard.
Every morning is a choice to bring positivity to your life. No one can come inside your head and clean it. And positive thoughts won’t come unintentionally. You have to do it deliberately. That’s because the human brain is hardwired to create fear and anxiety. So the machine’s job is to constantly chase you down with 0% probability issues.
This man is worthy to be followed and taken note of him. Go ahead. Great ideas can move you, only if you let them.
Thy Vox 