Can you weigh the feelings?

When you feel happy you tend to feel very happy and that everything is right but on the other hand when things are going haywire, you tend to feel really sad. Can you weigh these feelings of happiness or sadness and cancel them out and say your life is at neutral position? At least in the Harry Potter series, they could take out their memories and put them into a bowl. Is it possible to drag out our feelings and place them in a bowl too, to measure their metrics? Well! I am not sure. But we still use phrases like, 'my heart is heavy with feelings'.

 

To just dig into the background processing of how these feelings are created, we find that feelings are internally generated but externally triggered. People and situations around us give rise to different sorts of feelings. Though it's not exactly possible to weigh the amount of these feelings directly, we can try an alternative route to do the same by measuring the quantity that gets replaced by such feelings. Whenever we are down and feeling bad the negative thoughts revolve in our minds which replace the thoughts of any kind of work. As a result, majority of the work gets stalled. The amount of work can easily be measured in terms of the growth it would have brought to us either in monetary terms or kind-wise. The amount of time our brain is devoid of work thoughts and filled with feelings that obstruct the working thought-process, is the exact amount of time lost which can be exactly measured and if you can charge yourself on an hourly basis, you can calculate the loss in terms of finances as well.

 

After a series of disturbing experiences all that I realized was that if there are CEOs who are unhappy with what's going on in their lives, even I can reach some good position like them even if I'm hurt and feeling bad or sad or unhappy at certain points of time. It's difficult to fight against the feelings and work, I agree, but there is no way out. Work has to happen and life has to move on. There is no point worrying and sitting down with hands tied. Allow the heart to be under turmoil while you're exercising your brain to carry forward the work because more the lack and loss of work, more the sadness.

Set a new zero

Life happens in different stages. Every stage is a step to reach the next stage. While you're climbing the steps you need to climb one after the other or two after two based on your agility. However every step you take requires the same amount of energy and efforts. Climbing the first step is as equivalent as climbing the 10th step from the 9th step. Likewise in life also, to climb from one stage to the other the amount of energy and efforts required are the same. We cannot bank upon our previous achievements and work and hence become complacent or ignorant towards the amount of hard work required. We have to set a new starting point for ourselves, a new ZERO standard.

Once you set a new standard of zero for yourself, you shall forget all that you've achieved till now in life. There is no pressure of performance and you are just like a free bird who can fly as high as your heart wishes to go. The freedom of mind is more than essential to make new stories happen. There is no limit to the achievements and accomplishments that one can amass in his kitty. It's all in the game of mind. You need to tell yourself when you're at the peaks that you shall break open the gates of complacency and restrictions set upon your mind just because of the self image that you have built. A new image is awaiting to share your persona. Any new idol is formed only when we have the absolutely-no-form clay lump. A deformed idol cannot form a new idol for us. Hence we need to bring back ourselves to ground zero to re-launch ourselves.

Many might have a doubt whether we will lose out on everything and start all of a sudden newly when we reset our life at zero once again. It's not going to be that way at all. When you set your standards to be zero, your experiences don't become null. They shall back you up for sure. Your expectations out of yourself reduce because nothing much is expected out of a novice. The fun in planning for optimum utilization of resources ceases to exist with overly available resources. The loveliest part of life is not the number of times we succeed alone but the number of times we fail and bounce back to success. This can happen only if we allow ourselves to fail. Except for the beginner's luck, someone who starts or restarts at zero is bound to fail to learn the next lesson of life only to enhance the productivity multifold. Let's set a new zero in our life every time we grow old and make ourselves young once again.

Cardinal rules of life

Life is a set of limited number of days blessed upon us by God without mentioning the upper limit. What we do out of this is completely left to us. As days pass on many of us look back at our past, some with grief, some with regret while a few with satisfaction. Some with grief because they couldn't do all that they wanted to, some with regret because they didn't do all that they wanted to and some with satisfaction because they could a bit of all that they decided to. All that you must do shall form the cardinal rules of life.

Time just escapes at its own pace and doesn't wait for us to take any action. It's left upon us to run along with it to make things fructify. The reason that many don't achieve all that they want is not that they didn't want to. Simple and the silliest reason is that people tend to forget what they wanted to do. People remember those work that is enforced by others and constantly reminded of or those work which can satisfy their immediate necessities. After about one or two decades they end up just regretting for having lost all the time to make any difference at all. So it's very important for us to divide the work towards our goals and dreams into daily activities. All such daily activities that shall take you towards what you want out of life shall be entitled with certain must-to-do rules and they shall be called as cardinal rules of life. "I must workout in the gym everyday for 90 minutes to have a healthy and fit body", "I must write a blog everyday to develop myself into an author". These are examples of some simple cardinal rules that I make for myself.

Make sure that your cardinal rules are a combination of both your work and target. The moment you read your cardinal rule, it must remind you about your goal as well as the work that you must do to attain the same. This is one of the practical ideas that I designed for myself for a better productive time usage. Do let me know if it helps you as well on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

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Expression is a must

In my dream last night, I met Dwayne Rocky Johnson alias The Rock, the superstar of WWE Universe. I was ecstatic to bring him to one of my friends' home. The Rock was 6 foot 4 inches tall, dressed in one of the best stylish suits with a french beard and with his awesome smile. I was filled with joy of having met him face to face and was smiling continuously throughout the episode. Even my friends were wondering as to how I had got the chance to bring the Rock home. Rock was very friendly without an air of being a celebrity and was sharing his experiences of life with us. After sometime the Rock had to leave to the airport and I escorted him back. I could see myself in complete happiness when I met the Rock and in some sort of a sad feeling when he was going back. I could see myself expressing these emotions in my dream.

Friends! not only the emotions or feelings everything that you think or feel about something or someone has to be expressed if your thought or feeling has to have some value. Until now humans haven't been able to develop a techonology that can read the impulses running in your mind and print out exactly what you are thinking about. Might be the blood pressure variation can determine whether you're in an excited state or in depression state. Apart from these no one can get to know what you think about them. You might be having a million thoughts in your mind on how to develop this world but unless they are expressed not even a single one of them will turn into action. Great Thinkers were called as Great Thinkers because they not only did the thinking work but also expressed their thoughts. In today's world of chaos people have lost the hope that there is no one to listen to their thoughts or feelings. This is one of biggest misconceptions that has to be broken right now. You are on this earth for a reason. God has provided you with the ability to think and dream in order to use it to better the place where you were born before you leave it. Make use of it and make sure of it that it serves the purpose. The form of expression need not be only talking. Some people express their thoughts through movies, some through blogs, some through dramas, some through poems, some through talks, some through music, some through journalism, some through actions, some through business, some through paintings, some through architecture and loads of other billion ways. Ultimately if your thoughts have to reach the world you must express.

Those who shy away from expressing their thoughts and feelings not only lose the benefits that would have reaped if they had expressed but also would deprive this universe those advantages of their thoughts. If the scientists hadn't explored and experimented their thoughts not only would they have lost out on so many Nobel prizes but also this world wouldn't have been so advanced as it is today. When you don't express your feelings to the other person, he/she doesn't know how much you feel for them and vice-versa. The other person can feel for you only when you can feel for him/her which you must express. When I couldn't control expressing my emotions in my dream would I stop myself from expressing myself in real life!

I hope you wouldn't curb yourself from expressing your opinions, thoughts or feelings about this blog on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

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Test yourself

Everyone of us are put through the system of learning right from our childhood. We spend lots of hours learning new things and practising the learnt things. I am not talking about just the conventional form of education of going to school and learning. Even those who do not have the facilities to go to school learn some sort of work which they have to use in order to earn their living. Not just the children or the youth, even the working professionals keep learning new developments in their work, new technologies. To convey in short everyone on this earth is in a continuous process of learning.

 

Atleast in schools and colleges, there are regular tests and exams in order to validate the learnings but once we come out of the education system not just by age even by syllabus, whatever we are involved in is the syllabus of life. Are we sure enough that we are performing to our best capabilities in the activities other than studies. Marks determine our performance during studies but when we are in other activities there is no one to rate us by marks. We will be only given feedback which cannot measure our performance levels. Hence it is necessary for us to test ourselves regularly. We have to set the measure for the results that we expect of actions done by us. Just sharpening the axe without using it to cut the log never tells us how sharp the axe is or how much more sharpened it should be. Whatever you are doing test that activity time and again. Set a benchmark that you must touch everytime you test yourself. Life is too short to wait for the circumstances and life's challenges to test our strengths. Develop various kinds of tests to test yourself. This will not only keep you guard about your skills but also will help in sharpening your abilities.

 

Just imagine if Sachin Tendulkar had stopped playing cricket in practice matches just because he played very well in the international matches. Then Sachin wouldn't have been the Sachin we are proud about now. He practices in the nets and in practice matches to test himself as much as possible because he needs to be perfect when he is playing for his country. Likewise to be the best and the perfect in whatever you are doing test uourself regularly. All the very best.

 

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Self-Cheat > Else-Cheat

Probably everyone one of us in this world is a cheater. At one point or the other in our life we have cheated. Please dont get me wrong. I am not blaming anyone here. Its the basic instinct of any living being on this earth to take the easier path. Seldom do we select the longer and harder path for any of our tasks. I am not against taking easier paths. Any sane mind would always choose the simpler and easier way of doing something than the harder one. But one thing we need to be cautious is that we are not breaking any rules of the game while going for the easier shortcut. Would we take the same shortcut if the monitor of the task is right in front of us? If the answer is YES, cheers! carry on but if the answer is NO, then you have started cheating.

In life we would have witnessed innumerable people who cheat others for different kinds of reasons. They always feel that they were just intelligent enough to fool the other person but they are absolutely wrong. They have forgotten that in the process of cheating someone else they had cheated their own conscience. Lets bring down the level of cheating now. Forget cheating others there are numerous instances when we cheat ourselves. If we can win over this self-cheater we can win over the evil devil of cheating others.

We would have decided that we will be on a diet for next one month but the sight of junk food makes us cheat ourselves to eat it. We would have decided to study for 4 continuous hours but the news of sports update cheats us into watching the game for one hour. We would have committed to work extra in office but the peopleless environment pushes us out of the seat to cheat our own commitment. You would have promised your mom to complete the housework but the thought of your friends partying makes you forget the promise. All the above instances may seem so natural and too silly to be discussed. If so, its how silly you take your own word. If you can cheat yourself, you can cheat anybody in this world.

The choice of cheating the self and taking the alternative path may bring momentary pleasure but never contentment. Try to challenge this inner cheating sense for once. There will be dilemma and negotiation in the mind between you and yourself for sometime but once this confusion subsides you will be able to see the clear path of fulfilling the commitment and the eternal happiness of having self-control rejuvinated. Instance by instance when you grow stronger through this experience of cheating-self versus yourself fight, you will achieve the highest level of self-control. From then on you will never have to yield to the excusitis syndrome and will be able to fulfill every commitment that you make to yourself or others.

After all , life is all about commiting to your dreams and fulfilling them which never gives an option to cheat yourself.

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