Category: Life

Credits: Google Images

Hi All,

I am back. Thanks for pushing me to complete this post. Without your blessings and support, I wouldn’t have been able to complete it. Thus, my ineffable thanks go to you all.

So what this post is all about? Thanks. No. Not this time. It’s about problems and challenges in life.

They are inevitable and unavoidable. If I say, they are a must in life; it would not be a false statement. They come to us no matter where we are and what we do. We just cannot escape them. They can be financial, personal, professional or spiritual, health related or related with family matters. They appear either one at a time or may appear in combination of two or more than two.

They love chasing us and we love running from them. They make us play peek-a-boo with them. Though, with a playful attitude, we can win the game faster, but you know, to bring that attitude in oneself is the toughest task. Ask me, I have been learning it very hard.

Interestingly, when life through these challenges and problems takes us on a roller coaster ride, believe me, we do not enjoy the ride at all, we are fearful all the way, as I did, on and off every day. The ride looks too tough, too long and too exhausting. I too have been on such a ride and thus the post got delayed.

So here are some of the things that we could do to remain positive in tough situations in life. I have been trying to follow some of these, some work for me and some doesn’t. So, know what works for you. Take note of them today. Who knows tomorrow we may be sailing in the same boat solving the life’s riddle together.

1. Try to take hold of the situation. I know it is one of the toughest things to do. We react more and respond less. Instead of understanding the root cause of the problem, we all start blaming and over reacting in such situations. However, we must ensure that instead of making mountain out of a mole hill and getting carried away by the effects of the situation, we must try to find out the root cause of the problems.

It may take a little time in fixing up the challenge and therefore having ‘patience’ and ‘mind like water’ will come as the greatest of keys to unlock the case and rescue us from such situations. Being reactive and impulsive will not sort out the issue, instead it may aggravate the case. Unfortunately our training in being patient is little too less. Hence, we should train ourselves to be proactive problem solver. And see how we can solve the challenges in the best possible way, making it a win-win for all.

2. Sharing problems lesson half the burden. One of the first things that we could do is to share our problems and challenges with our friends, parents or spouses depending on the case and situation. We need to share it with the person(s) who could give us the best advise and if the situation is more serious and grim then professionals must be consulted without any further delay. A good listening will make us feel more comfortable and confident about the entire situation and we will be in a better position to handle the challenge.

When we share our problems and challenges with the concerned people, most of the times, they too have their own stories and experiences to share which give us strength and wisdom to deal with the challenge in better and positive way.

In fact sharing problems and spending time with friends and going out with them can make us feel better and stay positive amidst difficult situations.

3. Asking right set of questions. This is important. Life takes its own turns. No matter how prepared we are and how much planning we do, when life takes us on bumpy roads, we just have to move on it. Slowing down the pace will allow us to ask better and important questions such as: what can we learn from this situation? How could we find solutions to the problem? What are our strengths and weaknesses? How could we resolve the issue? Whom can we approach for help and guidance? What meaning does this situation has for us?

These questions will help us to find their answers rather than worrying and fretting and fuming and going into stressful situation.

4. Setting positive attitude. When we are in a negative situation, we are all set to be intimidated by negative feelings, emotions, fears and false belief. We keep on thinking about the worst case scenario and find ourselves stuck in the mire of negativity. The more we try to come out, the deeper dug into negativity we feel. So, it is important that we set out positive attitude meter and try to find out the positive in the every dire situation. We can always choose our attitude. After all, Attitude is Everything. 

5. Writing down the negative thoughts and express gratitude. Since the negative thoughts blanket us quite quickly, we need to uncover ourselves either by sharing them with the right people or writing down all the things and problems that cause us to worry. This will give us some peace of mind and we will be able to trace all the negative emotions into quick succession and see how we link up the things and find the root cause of the problems. 

Also, once we unbottle our negative emotions and feelings, we can start writing and counting our blessings. No matter how tough and hard the situation may be, we always have something or someone to be grateful for. We must start thanking them and expressing our gratitude to all of them.

6. Try to get a perspective of the situation. Many a times we look at the problem with magnifying glass which makes the problem look too big for us. We just worry and unnecessarily exaggerate the issue and as a result miss the tasks which need our more attention and action. So, it is better to have a perspective on the problem. Just like when we see the things from far off, the problems look too small and too insignificant. It is just that we make them look to big by repeatedly talking and discussing about them. If possible, after finding out the root-cause, we should focus our attention and concentration on asking if the problem will matter after five years from now onwards? If no, then why to discuss it for such a longer duration. 

7. Engage in meaningful work. When we are in a negative situation, we all talk and think and dream the same things again and again. It is important at such times to engage meaningfully in the work which gives us fulfilment and makes us feel happy. It could be cooking, gardening, reading, writing, painting, dancing, teaching or any other meaningful task. Taking out time to dress impressively can uplift the mood in a significant way. So try to find ways to creatively express yourself.

8. Try to do good things for others. It may sound hard in the tough times but we can always do little good things for others. Help someone else, or your own family members, neighbours, kids, friends or relatives and least you could do is ask about their well being. You will get their blessings at least. 

9. Mediate and try being mindful. Meditation and exercising have positive impact on our mind and body. We must take out time to connect with our inner selves and do it on regular basis. Practised even for a minute, it can have positive impact on your entire well being. Amidst tough times, it can work as real battery charger.

Moreover, being mindful allows us to focus on the present moment rather than thinking about the past and future. This we must practice. Being present in the moment and enjoying it to its fullest extent is just like being in eternity.

10. Practice happiness. Yes, it may sound strange but interestingly we too can practice happiness like any other skill.

11. Read a good book or biography. Reading books of such people who have surmounted many obstacles gives us inspiration and motivation to keep going despite hardships and challenges. And when we look at their challenges, our problem looks nothing in their front.

13. Go for a walk. Spending some time in the nearby park, looking at blooming flowers and green tress, butter flies and honey bees can have magical impact upon our mind, body and soul. Along with this, we could try playing with kids. Giggling and laughing with them. This will help us to change our focus to their wonderful outer world. 

14. Listen to favorite music. Listening to our favorite music or tapping our feet to the dance both have power to uplift our mood and rejuvenate our soul . Important is to divert our attention from negative to something engaging and meaningful. Music has that power to create such magic.

15. Let go and try to be non-judgemental. It is difficult to follow and practice, but one of the best skills to master. Forget and forgive and feel the magic. Most of the times we put label on people and judge them, but at times it is perfectly alright to be non-judgemental and do not judge people and situations and accept them the way they are and the way they come. Words of Mother Teresa can guide us here “If we judge people, we will have no time to love them.”

16. Keep faith in God. It would not be incorrect to say that the real test of our faith is at the time when we are in deep waters and life looks hard. Moving a days looks difficult and finding a way out looks impossible. But it during these times our faith is tested. Remember what Rabindranath Tagore said, “Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.” So keep moving with faith and miracle will take place.

These were some of the ways which I tried out and still trying out, I am sure you too must have been in such a situation and have overcome it through some ways. What were they? Share. It always feels great to hear from you!

Credits:Google Images

My friend admonished me to watch this movie called Wit. Not because it was too good a movie for me to watch, but because the movie showed death of an English Professor due to metastatic ovarian cancer and my father too was suffering from stage IV Esophageal Cancer at that time. In medical terms, he had Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

As expected, despite her feedback, I did watch that movie because inquisitiveness and curiosity of my own situation had taken over its toll. Alone I watched that movie and cried to see the suffering of the protagonist of the story. The first thing I did after watching that movie was prayer. I prayed that my father must not suffer as highlighted in the movie. My prayers were answered.

Papa passed away peacefully on November 2nd, 2013.  And this movie gave me these anchoring lines to remember by the famous Metaphysical English Poet, John Donne:

One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, death, thou shalt die.

Definitely my father taught me the most important lessons of life, but his death even taught me more. When I look at the life of my father, I feel that he always lived his life with a deep purpose. And sometimes I even wonder, did he have some written mission statement and some guiding principles which guided him throughout his life? Because according to me he lived a very wealthy and successful life despite the multitude of hardships and challenges that he faced and surmounted in his life.

While his death forced me to think of fugitiveness of human existence, his life forced me to think of immortality of human soul. It dawned on me that we all have limited time and existence. How much time do we all have? That we do not know, what we know is that it differs from one person to another.

But in this limited time period between birth and death, called life, I am sure that you too like me, and many others, would want to live a wealthy, happy and content life, a life with a purpose, and a purpose that will make a significant difference to your life and life of your near and dear ones. A purpose which may even give you a new birth, even after your physical absence from the world.

So, if you fret and fume and complain that you face time crunch on everyday basis then know that you are not the only one. If you use a lots of ifs and buts and say that life is too short for you to fulfil your dreams then know, it is not that we have less time in life, but the truth is we waste a lot of time, as says Seneca in his essay “On the Shortness of Life”  which I recommend you read by following the link on the essay.

So, whether you are famous or not, whether you are rich or not, whether you believe it or not, you can always have a wealthy, fulfilling and meaningful life, if you live with a purpose in your life. And to live such a purposeful life, you need to have a master plan.

If you already have such master plan, then it sounds great but if you do not have one such, then I am going to share with you two important resources in today’s post.

First is an audio tape by Tony Robbins, my favorite author, whose voice will inject a new energy and enthusiasm inside you. Listen to it and extract juice out of it.

Got Purpose 

Second is an e-book by Michael Hyatt which will provide you a step by step method to work on your life’s master plan.

Creating Your Personal Life Plan

Now what you have to do is this.

Take out some time from your busy schedule for your own self. Use any one of the three resources that I have linked in today’s post. After using one resource, move on to the next one. After exploring and analyzing all of them, take out time to design and create your own master plan for your life in days to come.

Remember that things will go wrong and many challenges will come in your life every now and then, but if you have your purpose in life clear, you will be able to navigate successfully through the toughest of times with your master plan written well in advance.

And yes.

If you have time in coming weekend, you could also enjoy watching this movie, Wit, by following the link given below:

Wit 

Have happy learning hours!

Credits: Unsplash.com

Hi,

Welcome to day 7 of the Self Challenge Week and I am with you. I am thrilled and excited to share with you the lessons learnt in the last seven days.

With the bridge of knowledge constructed from the last 6 blog posts, I could say, I crossed the sea of the self challenge week, with all your support. Thanks for visiting, reading, suggesting and commenting on my blog. I express my deep gratitude to you all.

It is needless to say that it is all because of your encouragement and support that I could set my writing sail and could reach to my destination point well on time. I sincerely hope and wish that I would continue to share the best of the works produced by the great writers that I come across and would continue to share the lessons from experiences of my life which make me what I am today with you all.

Baltasar Gracian, a philosopher says that “Self-reflection is the school of wisdom” and I am happy to say that after leaving my full time job as Assistant Professor, I joined this school of wisdom. Little did I know about its powerful lessons at that time since I could hardly get time to reflect, to contemplate, to think and to meditate on the day to day activities, people, incidents and happenings which were occurring in my busy life. But my self reflection classes of this school began when I would retire after my domestic work and would think and reflect on my past days, years and everyday incidents after leaving the full time job. It was during those moments of reflection I got to know about my own self and about lessons that life had taught me so far. In those moments of silence I listened to the internal voices becoming louder and clearer inside me. I also understood people around me without judging them for what they were and what they did. I felt happy and better after attending each class.

I would not hesitate to share with you that it was during those moments of reflection, self inspection and interrogation, I got to know about the riches of my life, of what I had gained in the past 10 years and what I could build on, in the days and times to come. I could not be more thankful to this process of self reflection, because it introduced me to my natural gifts and talents and passions on which I would continue to work upon.

Since this is the last day of the Self Challenge Week and these 7 days have again given me a lot of powerful insights about my own self, about my habits, about my belief system and my working pattern, I am happy that I took the courage to announce this Self Challenge Week and then completed this challenge in the stipulated time frame.

This journey, though small, has proved to be meaningful and purposeful and has prepared me to take on bigger challenges in life, so that I could confidently move on further. By consistently working on each post, I could say that I have created a new vision for this blog and I know where I would want to take you all along with me. I feel a great sense of belongingness and connectivity with you all and I am sure that in days to come our mutual understanding and appreciation for each others work would increase multifold.

Therefore, it would be unfair, If I do not share with you the analysis of the work done in these 7 days, in which, I wrote six posts each day with varied word count and given below is the detailing of the same.

• Day 1: Out of Chaos Comes Order (word count: 1301)
• Day 2: What Makes Your Story Good (word count: 616 )
• Day 3: Discover the Superpower Within Like Hanuman (word count: 757)
• Day 4: A Gift that Will Make Your Life Magical Forever ( word count : 616)
• Day 5: Today is the Only Day To Achieve Any Great and Worthy Purpose (word count: 734)
• Day 6: Be the Source, Be the Fountainhead (word count : 969)
• Day 7: Reflections on the Last Six Days Passed (word count: 1558)

In total I wrote 6,551  words in these 7 posts.

Moreover, the time taken in writing these posts varied from 3 hours to 4 hours and thus I spent approximately 21 to 28 hours in writing these posts. In editing, revisions and answering, I could add additional 15 hours of my week.

For me, the entire writing process was divided into the following steps:

1. Brainstorming. This part of the writing process was random and I was dependent on my mind. Since I took this challenge, a part of my brain was always thinking about the posts and topics on which I had to write. The subconscious mind was at work, I felt.

I could say that the best ideas came to my mind when I worked in the kitchen or I was dusting the rooms. During these days I was highly alert of the ideas coming to my mind and wherever they came, I greeted them well without thinking whether they looked good or bad.

2. Writing . Earlier I used to write on word and then would copy the entire post and would paste it on the WordPress site. But this time I started writing straight away on the WordPress drafts section.

I also have this tendency of checking how the post would read and look so I often check the post by previewing the post which gives me a lot of confidence and makes me feel better about my writing. I used this technique for writing faster this time.

I always have a theme, a message, a story or a purpose in my mind which I want to share through my posts. When I start the actual writing process, in between, I start connecting the unconnected thoughts. Interestingly, in the process of writing, some posts take the shape and feel of their own and I feel no control over my writing. The thoughts lead to other thoughts and words lead to other words fast. What all I do is obey the orders and keep my writing momentum.  In the actual writing process there are many thoughts that come and join dancing the former set of thoughts. There is some rhythm and continuity that I feel in writing process which looks effortless often, but many a times the process looks too strenuous and I think why did I start writing after all?

Writing involves some research part as well which is related to finding of the appropriate quotes and images for each blog post. The hours of research varied this time from one post to another, depending upon my own knowledge of the subject, and end message that I wanted to convey through each post.

3. Editing. Editing is one of the most time consuming and frustrating tasks. While I am working on the writing skills, I know that my editing skills would also increase with the passage of time.

To cut my own crafted sentences and to delete the noisy words and adjectives are challenging tasks indeed, but I am learning to be my own critic gradually. In some of the posts I had to do 30 to 40 revisions because of multiple typographical errors, which I found, even after publication.

4. Revision. After pressing the publish button, my revision process starts and I keep revising until I publish the next post. Number of revisions done, I cannot say.

By taking this challenge, I made a major shifts in my writing time and gave a self deadline to myself which worked best for me. Most of the posts were published between 11 AM to 2 PM and after doing revisions of the posts I updated them on facebook between 5 PM to 7 PM everyday for reading and dissemination for larger audience.

There are few patterns and techniques that I have observed about my writing, but there are many writing secrets which will be revealed to me over a period of time, as I continue to travel in this realm of writing.

Challenge two.

There are 78 pages left in completing The Picture of the Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. I will complete reading these pages before 12:00 PM today.

Now what kept me on track all these 7 days?

This quote by Napoleon Hill that “Whatever the mind of a man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

And the words which guided me through all these days were: PATIENCE, FOCUS, COMMITMENT, BELIEF, PURPOSE, GOAL AND GRATITUDE. 

I wouldn’t have completed this challenging assignment without relentless support of my husband, son and my mother who provided me enough time to work on my one week’s mission.

I hope that the bridge of knowledge that I have build over a period of one week would help you to cross the sea of your Own Self Challenge Week.

I feel encouraged to take up many such exercises in times to come along with you and I hope that you would enjoy reading this little longer post of 1558 words with little patience and perseverance, with a cup of coffee or tea in your room.

And don’t forget to share the lessons which you learnt during these 7 day because I will wait for your response.

Stay connected and keep reading until we meet next, after time of 15 days.

Credits: Google Images

Hi,

Welcome to day 5 of the self challenge week and I am with you.

After coming from summer vacations, we went to one of my friends places to pick up our car which was parked at her home. When we arrived at her place, she warmly welcomed us by serving a welcome drink.

The moment I took my first sip, I asked her, “what is this?” and “how did you make this?” Because the drink was not only refreshing in its taste but was also refreshing in its looks. I found her summer drink simply superb.

I coaxed my friend to share its recipe with me and soon I was amazed to find out that the drink was too simple to make and I too could prepare it at my home within few minutes. What all she did was this: she mixed the sugary watermelon ice cubes in serving glasses of lemonade.

Wasn’t that too simple? Of course it was.

In fact, I would highly recommend you to try this drink before the summer bids us adieu.

Now when I reflect on that drink, the flavour of which I still relish, I would say that we too, could make each day of our life refreshing and beautiful like that summer drink if we just use a little bit of creativity and imagination and mix them well with little bit of efforts on our day to day basis. Because as Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt advises, “make use of your imagination to make your day ideal and fantastic. You have to really use your imagination to refresh your daily life.”

So let us be ready and proactive to use our imagination and creativity to make our days ideal and fantastic.

What we all can do is this. Sit down today and ask these questions and then write their answers down so that we know what makes our day an ideal day.

• What makes our day look ideal to us?
• How would we love to start our ideal day?
• How would we want our ideal day to end?
• What are all the things that we would want to finish in a day?
• How much time would we like to devote with our own self?
• How much time would we like to take rest and sleep?
• How much time would we like to spent on recreational activities?
• How much time would we work on the things of great importance?
• How much time would we like to spend with our members of family?
• What are all the things that we would like to delegate to others so that we could create more free space for ourselves and  for our members of family?
• How much time would we like to spend on learning a new skills?
• What would be all the biggest distractions in our day?
• What would stop us from achieving all our goals in a day? Would they be external or internal? How would we deal with those barriers and noise elements?

After thinking about an ideal day, we could imagine about the ideal week and ideal month and an ideal year and then strive to do and accomplish the things that we want to do on a day to day basis.

We must make sure that we write down our answers because writing brings more clarity. It brings more focus to the tasks that we want to achieve.

So before we become champions of our lives we must master our days. The above questions are same but their answers would differ for all of us. We must understand that because we all are similarly different, we all are differently similar as well.

And since, “The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life,” as says William Morris, therefore, we must start changing the things at micro level (each day) so that we become peak performers at macro level in our life. By planning and starting our day in this way we will have maximum time for doing the thing that are most important to us and are not simply urgent.

Remember the words of Swami Chinmayananda that “Today is the only day to attempt any great and worthy purpose.” So we must ask every day , “are we all ready to make our each day full of great and worthy purposes?” Because we all know that “tomorrow never comes.”

Credits: Google Images

Hi,

Welcome to day 3 of the Self Challenge Week and I am with you.

My son loves watching Roll No 24, Kris, Krishna, and My Friend Ganesha and Bal Hanuman are one of his favourite movies. So, today, I am going to share with you one of the instances form our mythological epic Ramayana, which came to my mind when I was enjoying a conversation with my mother.

This instance occurs in Kishkindha Kand where Lord Hanuman had to go to Lanka and get the news of Mata Sita. Since the task was urgent and Hanuman had to cross the vast sea, he had no clue how to meet with this difficult challenge. He didn’t understand how he could solve this problem and cross the vast ocean in such a short span of time.

And while he was still brooding over the problem along with other Vanars, just at that moment, Jamavanta, the king of bears, came, and extolled the virtues of Hanuman and reminded him of his supernatural powers.

कहइ रीछपति सुनु हनुमाना। का चुप साधि रहेहु बलवाना।।
पवन तनय बल पवन समाना। बुधि बिबेक बिग्यान निधाना।।

Praising Hanuman, Jamavanta reminded him that there was hardly any task that he couldn’t do. This was not time to think, but to act. Since they already had a bigger purpose and mission to fulfil, therefore Hanuman must make use of his supreme powers and complete the assigned task without thinking about the obstacles and challenges in his way.

कवन सो काज कठिन जग माहीं। जो नहिं होइ तात तुम्ह पाहीं।।
राम काज लगि तब अवतारा। सुनतहिं भयउ पर्वताकारा।।

Immediately listening to words of Jamavanta, Lord Hanuman grew bigger in his size and took a leap to cross the vast ocean with his superpowers.

Now this instance has the following lessons for us:

Challenges reveal our hidden powers. Like this story, we too come across situations and challenges in our lives that make us feel fearful and intimidating, but it is also true, that it is during these times of hardships, we realise the latent powers, talents, strength, courage and intelligence inside us.

Hanuman is our superhero and superman, bestowed with supernatural attributes and qualities, in the same manner when we look at the people who have achieved great results in their lives, we feel, that they too have been bestowed with some superpower and super intelligence, however, it has all been the result of their courage to solve the issue and find the solution.

Having faith in Lord and believe in cause is important to meet the challenge. Whatever path we may chose, there are and will be challenges and tests to meet, but we must have immense faith in the Lord and belief in the cause and purpose for which we strive. It is then, we would be able to find out the way like Hanuman.

Hanuman had a purpose to find out mata Sita and he had immense faith in his lord Rama and had a bigger purpose for which he went on to the Golden city of Lanka and created havoc there. But it is his faith and belief in his lord and noble cause forced him to unleash his latent powers within himself.

Challenge is another name for adventure. While the two words have different meaning, however, if we consider, challenge as an adventure, we could really enjoy the entire episode.

The adventure has elements of suspense, excitement and uniqueness about it and therefore meeting a challenging experience, person or situation, could bring an unusual experience in our life and therefore we must be ready for such unknown experiences and lessons which may be bold and risky too, and which would be revealed in the due course.

Like in his way to Lanka, Hanuman also outwitted two daemons, Sursa and Sinhika and showed his brilliance and courage once again.

So should we be also prepared and thrilled to discover something new in our adventurous way about our own selves. And when the challenges and problems in life come, we should be ready to ask and think:

• How could we find Hanuman inside us?
• How could we instil unflinching faith in lord inside us?
• How could we find the bigger purpose and mission in our life so that we could push ourselves for that cause?
• And how could we find greatness inside us even when we have to do the smallest of tasks?

Now, don’t you think that challenges are destined and planned to find and reveal something bigger in life for us?

Credits: Google Images

Question.

Do you love stories?

I know your answer would be Yes.

Why?

Your answers would vary, because of one reason or the other.

So, I can say, while all of us love stories, the stories of love, romance, sacrifice, pain, adventure, hope and many other themes, the intensity of reading, writing, listening and sharing them with others, would differ from one person to another.

Question.

What makes a story good?

The five essential elements, which are: the characters, the settings, the plot, the conflict, and the resolution.

Now what happens in a story is this, the characters are introduced, the writer builds up the setting and environment which makes us feel the story real ( imagine your favourite fiction here). The story moves on the plot and then something happens, the protagonist of the story and the rest of the characters confront a crisis, unknown to them and that brings the suspense. The writer just throws different characters with different perspectives and personalities and when the time of crisis comes, these characters respond and react to the crisis which reveal what these characters are made up of, what they think and how differently they all think, why they all do what they do and what their motives and intentions are and what instigates them to do that? And then one among them becomes our favourite character.

Now try to remove the element of conflict  and crisis from the plot of the story.

Questions.

Would the story be same? Would it still appeal to us? Would we like the characters? Would the story be able to create that level of suspense that we expected? Would we still be hooked to the story till the end?

The answers of all these question we know.

Questions.

Now share with me who is your favourite character or hero? And would you love that character had he/she not faced any crisis.

Answer will be NO.

The point that I want to highlight in today’s post is simple.

Conflict refers to challenge. And challenge, be it external or internal, gives momentum to the story and shapes the character. What happens to the character and how he/she deals in that moment of crisis is the crux of the story.

And as Seneca says, “As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”

So, what matters is, how good the story is, and that is determined by level of crisis and challenge dealt by the characters.

Likewise the story, we all are the lead characters in the stories of our lives. The stories of our lives have the beginning, the middle and the end. We all live at different places, have our families and live in environments, which constitute the setting of our story. The plot is created by the supreme power. But how we all face the crisis, conflicts and challenges in our life determines our future and reveals our own values and principles to us. It is in the moments of crisis and challenge that we decide what are the things which are of paramount importance to us, what all matters most to us and then we move towards the resolution. After resolving one issue, we get ready for the next crisis.

Questions.

Do you find the element of crisis in your life? Do you think that dealing with the crisis will make you a stronger and a better person? How would you like to deal with that crisis and how would like your story to end? And how would you like to be remembered as a character?

Find answers.

Now it’s your turn to ask.

Ask.

Question.

Credits: Google Images

This is interesting.

No matter how hard we try to make our life smooth, comfortable, meaningful, goal oriented, purposeful and devoid of distractions but there are certain things which come in our life and make it hard, difficult and full of challenges.

So, here is the question:

Can we imagine our life without challenges?

I know, we can’t.

In fact, we can say that challenges in life are the things, situations and experiences which make our life more beautiful, colourful, funfilled, exciting and full of surprises.

Although, we can say that we do not like the way challenges come in our life and show their appearance, simply because they make us feel uncomfortable, appear as life threatening problems and strain us to move out of our comfort zones, but what if we change our perspective towards them?  What if we consider them as the harbingers of life lessons? What if we consider them catalysts of our success equations? And what if we consider them opportunities for shinning our character?

Couldn’t be that truly great? Of course, it would be.

Now why I am saying all this, is because of the fact that most of us are afraid of facing challenges in life. These challenges in life may come from anywhere, in any form. Many a times, they may even come from the situations and persons from which we have least expected them.

They may come without any prior information and may not let us know when and how they would move. They just pop up and when they come, we get stressed, feel out of sync, feel messed up, lose control of the situation and get distracted form our bigger goals and true purposes in life.

So, what is the point?

The point is, if we all can try to develop a perspective towards challenges in life, we could truly learn a lot from them.

Therefore, keeping the benefits of challenges in mind, I have decided to come up with the 7 DAYS SELF CHALLENGE WEEK  from 1st July to 7th July on this blog.

Why?

Because together on this community, trying out new things, would be great fun. In that coming week, we would try out different things.

We would try to eat the ugly frog in the morning. We would try to be more productive in a day. We would try to beat procrastination. We would try to connect with our inner selves. We would try to listen to people around us. We would try to be accountable for the things that we do in our lives. We would try to come out of our comfort zone. And we would try to do the things that matter most to us.

And by the end of the week, we would be able to analyse ourselves, we would be able to see how far we could stretch ourselves and we would be able to know our strengths and weaknesses.

I know, alone this exercise could be little boring and frustrating, but believe me when we would do it as part of the community, it could become interesting and engaging.

So, I invite you all along with your friends and members of family to join this 7 DAYS SELF CHALLENGE WEEK, where we would learn, try out new things, may fail in certain pursuits but will celebrate together about all the things that matter most to all of us.

I am ready.

Are you ready to join in?

Credits: Google Images

Hi,

I am back after enjoying my summer vacations. My vacations were great, full of fun, where I met some personal challenges and also learnt life’s beautiful lessons. There were certain things that went well, as expected; and certain things, that didn’t. Overall, vacation time was rewarding and exhausting together. Since travelling is part of vacations, today I would want to highlight 9 lessons that travelling experiences can teach us.

If I say that our life will be meaningless if we do not travel, it would not be an exaggeration, you know it. Travelling is a great learning institution in itself. Many travellers have proved it time and again. And it goes without saying that it is during those travelling experiences, we start taking a journey to our inner self, and gradually understand that knowing ‘thyself’ is the most important pursuit on the road to achieve success, happiness and satisfaction in our life.

So let us see how travelling can help us understand our own selves better, since in words of Danny Kaye, “to travel is to take a journey into yourself” and after knowing this axiomatic truth, shouldn’t we start travelling now onwards? Of course, we must. And here are the 9 lessons that travelling will teach us.

1. Live each moment. This is the first and one of the most important lessons that travelling experiences will teach us. From getting our tickets booked, to boarding our flight, train or bus, we start experiencing and enjoying each part of our travelling journey. On Road, in metro, on shopping streets or boating in drizzling weather, we become one with our goal, our journey. It is the pursuit and the journey that brings enlightenment and happiness and we savour and live in the present and do not think about the past or future, our only concern seems to be capturing each moment of our journey and that’s what makes our journey more too special.
2. Learn to be adaptable. The food, the climate, the culture, the people and the place where we stay force us to come out of our comfort zone. We see how quickly we try to adapt ourselves to the new place and soon, instead of looking and sounding like an alien from a different planet, we try to acclimatize and adapt ourselves to the culture of new place and people. And that’s what a skill and a new learning calls for. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that our travelling experience can even change our entire programming and conditioning of mind to an extent where we find our newer self.
3. Love for adventure. Travelling and being a part of different adventures like bungee jumping, Para-gliding, scuba diving, glacier climbing, rock climbing, skiing, biking, and zorbing to name a few, require courage and our boldness quotient to be too high. And after experiencing these moments we understand what Helen Keller says that, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” We feel that our love for adventure and life had increased manifold and we experience our ever ready mode for all the unexpected and uncalled challenging experiences in our life to confront and be in control of.

   Credits: Google Images

4. Love for Nature. While marvelling at the Seven Wonders of the World, we appreciate and acknowledge the architectural human feat but suddenly when we stand in front of the Niyagra falls or Himalayan Range of mountains we observe the vastness of the nature and the world. The beauty of the species and the birds and the plants and the nature make us realize our own limitations and how we have been confined so far in these. Suddenly our own feelings of envy, jealous, selfishness, fears, anxieties and worries look small and meaningless. In that moment we appreciate the beauty of Wordsworth Daffodils and The World is Too Much with Us and understand the greatest lesson of compassion and love taught by the Mother Nature.
5. Experiential Learning. Cancelled flight or delayed train,  unpredictable avalanche, silent night walks, night desert safari, confrontation with wild life animals which we have witnessed only on the National Geographic so far, they all become part of our memory and experiential learning. These gruelling and awesome travelling experiences give us abiding life lessons, which are difficult to erase from our memory.
6. Learn Man and Manners. Travelling allows us to meet different people. We make friends with them and some of this friendship might turn into the most lasting relationships of our life. What we know may not help us and our entire learning may require a new theory and definition. It is not inside the class room that we learn the best and the most but it is our travelling experiences which act as the best workshop for learning the technical and the non technical stuff of life. We understand the human psychology and human needs and realize what it means to be on the road to self actualization.
7. Love for History, Art, Culture and Cuisine. While travelling, our history lessons may suddenly conjure up in front of us when we visit the cities of Italy, Paris and Rome. Moreover, in our visits we also find developing of our sense of appreciation for the art, craft, stone work, tattoo making and many indigenous art works of a place which may hook us for too long due to their exquisite beauty. The rich cultural heritage of a place will allow us to understand our own culture from a different perspective and the food and cuisine of a place may convert us into a foodie or a connoisseur. With all these experiences, don’t we feel rich and awesome at heart already?
8. Memories. We treasure memories. We make friends. We meet different people and get the opportunity to experience and learn from other culture making us feel richer, wiser and content. Time is more precious than money. When we calculate the amount of experience and wisdom and training gained in our travelling we decide that our travelling decision was the best. Soon we embark on another such quests.
9. How to be Smarter. Travelling makes us a newer one, a smarter one and a better one. We become more global and cosmopolitan and gain a newer perspective to analyse and judge things, man and matters. Once we finalize our destination, book our tickets and reach to that place, we know and understand what it means to plan and prepare, well in advance. The same preparation and principles also apply in life. If we know where we want to go, we will reach there for sure. Travelling experiences teach these life lesson in the best and the most beautiful way.

So, it is not how long the journey is but how beautiful and memorable it is. We get life once and we must experience the best. We must visit the best places. Taste the best food. Have those life transforming experiences. And such things happen when we travel.

Hence, instead of waiting for our old age to come and execute some of our travelling dreams or postponing our travelling plans for tomorrow which never comes, we should get ready, decide the place, get our tickets done and be ready to explore our inner self once again, even when our vacations end. After all, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page,” says Saint Augustine.