Why is it difficult to start something new?

Primitive man on knees for first time breeds bonfire using stick and friction force
Image credit : vecteezy.com

Just imagine, our very early ancestors, the primitive men, chose their comfort zones and continued with their way of life - hunting, eating, sleeping and above all, surviving. Would they have been able to survive? Even if they survived anyhow and that made me and you exist today, would I be able to write this and would you be able to read this? So what made us grow and help us reach this stage?

The only answer is, that men after men, women after women, started something new, always. Someone discovered fire, someone invented wheel, someone started agriculture, someone started to speak and write language, someone started something else, and so we evolved. What if they didn’t start anything new? We, I and you, probably could not be existing today, let alone growing. At least not me writing this and you reading this.

If starting something new is a basic instinct, why do we sometimes find it so difficult to start something new?

Have you observed that sometimes, the same people who turned out great in initiating big things, were not able to start the smallest of things? Rather than inability, it is the lack of willingness that plays a major role in this. This willingness is driven by many factors, like matters of survival, life & death situations, motivation, etc. These are the factors that lead the men to great initiatives, but these factors might be absent when the same men are starting or trying to start even the smallest and mundane initiatives; they keep on trying and trying and trying, but not starting.

How can you overcome this “challenge”?

You can overcome this challenge, by challenging yourself, in every situation, big or small. Challenge is the biggest motivation. Keep your challenges big for bigger problems. I am not dwelling much on this, because you don’t actually need to challenge yourself for solving bigger problems, the circumstances challenge you and you have no other choice.

But when it comes to smaller initiative and if you are facing starting block and you are procrastinating, don’t forget to challenge yourself in solving such smaller problems, of course with smaller challenges, or introduce smaller motivations for smaller initiatives. The example of smaller challenges is how fast and efficiently you can start something and try to beat yourself every time - you will finish of course because starting something was the challenge, not the finishing; or you can introduce competitions in your daily lives with someone in your family, with your partner, with your friend. You can also introduce smaller motivations for smaller initiatives - such as rewarding yourself once you start and finish something.

Life is boring without challenges.

पल

सिकुड़ता ठिठुरता, जलता जलाता पल,
गहरा सा एक ज़ख्म दे जाता पल,
शाम की अंगड़ाई में जब दिन ढल जाए
किसी अपने की गोद में सुकून का पल।

पहले भी यहीं था, अब भी यहीं है,
न जाने तुम क्यों भटकते ढूंढते रहे उसे,
धैर्य और श्रद्धा से अगर करते ख्वाहिश
तो अपने ही अंदर मिल जाता वही पल।

Meaning of friendship

कोई गर जो मुझ से पूछे

क्या हासिल किया ज़िन्दगी में,

मैं कहूँगा कि ए दोस्त

आखिर कोई पूछने वाला तो मिला

I wrote the above lines some years ago. The inherent feeling of these lines may be sad, but there is some hope in them. When you have lost everything, you are totally down and you do not know which direction you are headed to; then if someone asks you how you have been, it feels like a new hope: “there is at least one person who cares for you”. It is this hope, which is the real achievement of life. When I wrote this, I did not realize I have addressed that person as a ‘dost’, a friend. Now when I rethink, a friend seems to be an obvious choice. Who else will ask you such a sincere question without any expectations?

Like any other relationship, friendship is also not sans any expectations. It happens to you with a purpose to fulfill your need to find a companion. You do not want to keep everything inside you. At the same time, you cannot share yourself with everyone. Therefore, you need friends with whom you can share the inside of you. And this sharing is mostly mutual and natural.

Friendship can have different meanings. It can be a relationship with the feelings of trust and understanding or it can be just the way you spend your time with someone and be occupied. That also is the case for romantic relationships. What makes friendship so special then? It is the qualities of purity and unconditionality attached with friendship, which make it special. Friendship means freedom, friendship means being natural. Being natural is the most natural way of friendship. You ought to accept a friend the way he or she is. That is the essence of friendship.

Over the time, you start filtering your friends on the sieve of trust and unconditionality. That is the reason, the number of your friends start diminishing over the time. After the filtering, the very few friends that remain are the real treasure you will have. This number, if you are being honest, will not be big, may be two percent of the friends you have on social networks or may be just one or two. These are the friends with whom you can be natural forever. You will wish to spend time with them, may be virtually if not possible bodily, without any reason. You can be yourself and let him or her remain the way he or she is. This kind of freedom is not there even in the romantic or parental relationships, which are laden with expectations, unless you maintain those relationships with a touch of friendship.

Consider yourself blessed if you have at least one such friend!

Karma

While reading some random articles sometimes back, I came across an interesting thinking somewhere that the nature has failed to evolve in tandem with the evolving technology. I found that quite interesting. We have mobile phones, we have internet, TV, books, newspapers- many of these evolved radically in the last few years in terms of technology, availability and affordability. On the other hand, thousand years ago we had two hands, eight fingers, two thumbs and just one brain. That hasn’t changed with time! To overcome this gap, that one little brain has commanded its senses and its bodily servants to adapt to the new requirements, albeit to some extent. That brain has developed a skill to do things simultaneously, which is the skill of the new era, ‘multitasking’. It is amusing to observe the change in our lifestyles - at home or at work - over the years. We have different communication mediums at our disposal, which makes us available for more number of tasks simultaneously.

We are trained to think that life is easy with various scheduling programmes- from basic Outlook to more complex ones- which allow us to multitask. I will cite my experience to illustrate how flawed this thinking is. Earlier, I used to work on my tasks one-by-one. If something with higher priority came up during this, I would simply attempt the new more important one and then again resume the current task, mostly in chronological order. A task was never postponed in a sense that no new date or time was assigned for such low priority tasks. Now, for any task, I simply schedule it and assign a day to it on Outlook. I will also set a reminder for the task, which sounds cool because I need not bother remembering that task. So far so good. The trouble starts with postponing of the task if it is of lower priority, which I will do because I can still attempt it later when my gadget or software would remind me. Other new tasks will still keep coming up meanwhile. In the process, the task of lower priority will not be attempted whenever I can, but will be postponed to be attempted when I will be reminded for that. What I don’t realize is the stress it creates on my subconscious by remaining un-fulfilled during all this time.

There are countless such situations where we actually go on adding stress. In all these changes, we have stopped enjoying what we do. We have moved from the principle of ‘karma’ to more technical- ‘tasks’. The gadgets, which were meant to simplify our lives, are actually becoming our masters. We are so much engaged with our gadgets, be it mobile, web or TV, that we are losing touch with the real world. Solution? No one can offer that. Because the solution lies within us. Do not become a slave of time, of your tasks or your goals. Live in the moment and enjoy what you do. The tasks will be performed and the goals will be achieved in the process.

Dreams

Dreams... small or big, dreams during sleep or day dreams, single occurrence dreams or recurring dreams, sweet dreams or nightmares... everybody experiences them. Dreams can be insignificant or they can have profound impact on one’s life. For my five year old child, her dream is mostly repetition of the events during the day, at home, at school or the moments spent with her friends. On the other hand, for some people, dreams are equivalent of ambitions. They possess the skill to visualise future, to visualise what they want to achieve. In a nutshell, dreams have so many facets and, I believe, are still a mysterious phenomenon.

What is a dream? Webster’s dictionary defines dream as ‘the thoughts, or series of thoughts, or imaginary transactions, which occupy the mind during sleep; a sleeping vision’. A SLEEPING VISION – isn’t it an over simplistic definition for such a complex phenomenon? This definition is highly incomplete to explain visualisation of future while being awake or lucid dreaming, where one has control over his/her dream, its characters, its events and so on- even while sleeping, or day dreaming where one is semi-awake. In fact, science always deals with dreams in a very technical manner. It often associates dreams with a neurophysical theory of Rapid Eye Movement (REM). Infants and even foetuses are said to have dreams through REM. But what would constitute the dream of a foetus is beyond my imagination! (Please explain it to me in the comments section if you know the answer). The movie ‘Inception’ went many steps forward and introduced us to a world, where dreams could be switched on and off, anybody could enter into somebody else’s dream at will and there were multi layered dreams (a dream within a dream, which was in another dream, all dreamt by different persons)!!!

I believe, dreams are beyond science and not just a technical term. Dreams are reflections of one’s subconscious mind, one’s soul, one’s persona. They can be just repetition of events, as in the case of my five year old daughter and many others. They can be nightmares, if your subconscious is occupied with some fear. If your subconscious is obsessed with someone (or something), you will have fantasy dreams. Your dreams can recur if your conscious mind is unable to interpret what your subconscious mind has to say.

One of the most important factors differentiating visionaries from others is how they exploit their dreams as their guiding force for achievement of a purpose. Even more important is that they are able to instil the same habit in their followers. A dream does not have a copyright; it can be dreamt by anyone. But to succeed, you will have to imprint it in your minds, both conscious and subconscious. You will have to develop a habit of visualising your dream, till it is fulfilled. Mind you, you need not be asleep for that. If you are not able to develop that habit yourself, find some mentor who can help you with this. This habit will come naturally to you with practice and perseverance. Follow what Swami Vivekananda has said:

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.”

Have a good day. Sweet dreams.

Power of Passion

A light in the deep recesses, craving to be free;

Embracing the infinite world, was its only earnest wish.

Countless obstacles lay ahead, ominous at every step,

Evil darkness threatened, guzzling all its strength.

The darkness was conceited, overtly boastful and proud,

Unaware of the strength, of the light hidden in the cloud.

Laced with tingling passion, the light was destined to shine,

Washed out the darkness, with all its strength combined.

The darkness again returned, with fierce retribution,

The light wasn’t afraid; it possessed the power of passion.

Valenversary

Expectations, curiosity, nervousness, dreams .... a bouquet of feelings flooded my heart that day. It was 14 February 2005. Valentine’s Day, a day with a lot of significance for folks around the globe. A number of hearts were going to bloom that day and probably a higher number of hearts were going to break as well. For me, my heart and my life was destined to flourish that day onwards, forever.

The Valentine’s day of 2005 will always be a special day for me and also for my wife. After a courtship of four years, we were getting married that day. That is why those feelings... expectations, curiosity, nervousness, dreams and a lot more unknown ones... flooded my heart. Was my life going to change, forever, with a sense of security of a companion or will I lose my freedom? Will the love we had for each other will flourish or was it born only out of yearning for each other and fade out with time after we were united? Lot of questions arose in my mind and, I’m damn sure, in her mind too.

The Valentine’s Day in 2011 is our sixth marriage anniversary; I call it ‘Valenversary’. As we are completing six years of the journey of the life together, I have not yet found complete answers to those questions which arose in my mind on the day of my wedding. In fact, the complete answers cannot be found as it is a continuing process and our journey is not yet complete. Nevertheless, the answers I have found, to whatever extent, are gratifying enough for my heart.

Yes, there was love born out of yearning for that girl I was engaged with. Probably it was what is called infatuation. That is the feeling, many confuse with love. The bond of marriage provided anchor to that infatuation. In the meanwhile, we got the gift of our marriage, our daughter, who grounded this anchor even more firmly. The bond has actually grown stronger during the journey. The infatuation has converted into love and it has flourished ever after. When? I don’t even know that.

Yes, I have lost some freedom I enjoyed earlier. I have lost the freedom of doing the things which are harmful to me- to behave irrationally, to do whatever I like without considering consequences, to exert “It’s my life” when actually not being in control of it. But, on the other hand, I have got more freedom, the ‘freedom of expression’. I can share anything with wife. I can share the worst of my behaviour without being judged. I can share the worst of my fears with the sense of security that my companion will understand it. This freedom, believe me, it’s priceless.

Thank you my companion. Wish you have a very happy sixth Valenversary.

Fear of Change

The world is deprived of much of the potential talent, for which the fear of change plays a major role. Amitabh Bachchan started as a radio announcer (RJ was not in vogue at that time). His talent was hidden in acting and he went on to become one of the most celebrated actors India has produced. What he would be today had he not changed his career path at the right time? For that matter, just imagine Rajanikanth continuing as a bus conductor throughout his life or Sachin Tendulkar continuing with fast bowling. They became icons, but only after they changed their life paths in the right direction, unlike many talented individuals reluctant to change because of fear of uncertainty.

Change is the only constant in life, they say. It is probably one of the most clichéd statements. If people acknowledge this, why is change the most dreaded phenomenon at the same time? I have seen individuals dragging on with their lives because they fear change. Many suffer from frustration and depression because they fear change.

The justifying philosophy for reluctance to change, in most cases, is ‘why fix something which ain’t broken?’.  Even if we acknowledge ‘what is broken’, we ‘move on’ with life unless the change is a compulsion and thrust upon us. Only when we are on the verge of being broken ‘entirely’, we are ready to change. This level is the ‘threshold’ level.

We need to identify the threshold level for any situation in advance in order we can manage this fear of change. This process of identification is the first major roadblock in the process. Once we overcome this roadblock, we need to define different levels of alertness based on the threshold level. We need to define an alarming level. We also need to define a ‘decision making’ level. All these levels necessarily have to be lower than the threshold level.

The next roadblock comes at the time of decision making, which is the most difficult part in the management of fear. With any decision, uncertainty is associated. This uncertainty is in fact the root cause of the fear. Even with detailed planning, we cannot guess all the repercussions of a decision in advance. We should seek the solutions for all possible adverse repercussions. But in any case, the decision making should not be held back till the situation reaches the threshold level. Once we have identified a ‘decision making’ level, the decision must be made at that level.

Stay committed to your decision. The resultant situation, even if adverse, won’t be worse than being entirely broken.

Euphoria

Read whatever, login to whatever- be it a newspaper, facebook, twitter or SMS today, you will find euphoria of the New Year. Every other person is wishing an individual, selected individuals, a group of people, or all the people in the world. I have even received official wishes from my credit card company, my life insurance company and the list goes on. I have received mails of wishes from those colleagues from far-off locations, whom I do not know. What am I supposed to do, if my mail ID is included in a long list of IDs in a mail wishing happy New Year? Should I feel happy? Should I reply at all or delete that mail?


At times, this behaviour feels childish. But, what would become of life if we delete such behaviour from the log? Would you remember 1st January as a special date, if there were no wishing of a New Year? Without them, it would just become another date. It is this euphoria, with which you associate 1st of January or a New Year in any calendar. Life is not made of just dates, calendar is a suitable place for them. Life is made of memories and memories are built by moments. These moments never recur. You have to live them NOW. If you don’t do it NOW, it will be lost FOREVER.


Paulo Coelho has rightly said: "There are too many serious people trying to get everybody else to be too darned serious." Don’t fall into a trap by such people. Spread happiness. Live in the moments. Cherish them and build memories. On that note, wish all the people in the world very happy 2011.

Search result: “happiness”. NOT FOUND

“I am laying the cable, a new one.” A labourer replied fervently when an acquaintance passing from there on his bicycle asked him casually what he was doing.

The man was working on a task of laying optical fibre network in my residential campus. I was observing him from my window. The man had just committed a mistake of digging out at a wrong place. His supervisor pointed out the mistake almost scolding him and then marked the line where it should have been dug up. All his efforts for about 90 minutes got wasted. What was lost was hard labour. He had just started to work on the right place this time. Yet, he came up with such a fervent reply. The man was able to visualize the final result of his work. He knew what he was doing. He wasn’t just “digging up a pit”. He was “laying the cable, a new one”.

We look at a setback as the end. When we start to accept a setback as part of the process, a larger process, we will be happier.

The incident I narrated reminds me of a story. It has always been an inspirational one for me. Even if one is not fond of stories, this one deserves to be read again and again:

A few men were busy on a construction site. A curious visitor asked one of them: “What are you doing?” The man replied: “Can’t you see? I am digging out soil.” On further questioning, the man replied: “If you want to know further, ask our supervisor. I’m so busy”.

The visitor then asked another man. His reply was “I am busy preparing the foundation for a huge structure. I need to finish this by today or I will be screwed.” After the experience with the first man, the visitor didn’t think it wise to further question this man.

The visitor, however, wasn’t satisfied. He asked yet another man. The third man replied gaily: “Thanks for taking interest mister. WE are constructing a grand temple!”

We often aren’t satisfied with our work, our family and our life because we just don’t look at the broad picture. We look at the incidents in pieces. The piecemeal approach is necessary if we want to accomplish something in an orderly manner. But, if we don’t have that “something” to accomplish or if we do not know what that “something” is and what it means to us, we lose the meaning in performing those pieces. We need a broad picture. We need to inculcate the habit of looking at the broad picture in whatever task we perform. Only then, the life will be beautiful and happy.