The lawnmower is coming

I observed in one of these huge gardens that the gardener was tightening the bolt of his lawnmower and getting it ready for work. He cleaned the blades and started to run the lawnmower over the grass. Those tiny heads of some of these grasses which were overshooting the heights of their neighbours were chipped off and they followed the Law of Equality (at least in terms of height). As the process continued I observed that the grass strands were bending in the direction in which the lawnmower was rolled. The moment the same lawnmower hit the grass in the opposite direction, all these strands bent in the opposite way. The lawnmower was the decision maker on which direction should the grass strands bend.

The billions of people running around in their daily lives are very much similar to these grass strands. The governments or perhaps, the people forming the governments are the lawnmowers, who can make the people follow the direction that they show. The law might switch through several amendments, wherein the second amendment might just be the undo of the first one. Nonetheless people got to follow it and work as per the existing law. Coming to the plane where many folks of our kind inhabit, we are in the wee generation which has the ability to get influenced by the many trends that keep coming and going. There is nothing called right or wrong; there is nothing called picture perfect. Movies influence us, the girls/boys next door or next class can change our lifestyle without even talking to us. There is no strict regime of culture that can hold all the people. We are like those grass strands which bend as per the influences that are cast on us by people (similar to lawnmowers) in our surroundings. Fortunately or unfortunately there is not just one lawnmower; there are many of these which are trying to run around and get all the grass following only them. The question is- Do you want to stay as a grass strand unbalancing around or do you want to be the lawnmower?

It's up to you to choose a life that moves as the life takes you or be the champ who moves the life the way you want to. As the old saying goes, "If you don't utilize your time, someone else will for sure", there is no option of being independent of the two choices. If you are one such sturdy weed, then you will be ripped off from your routes right then and there. You ought to choose. You got to choose whether to bend your head or make others' heads nod to your choices and decisions. Only then is there a scope to exist in this world. Living life doesn't mean to be just in existence, it means to live the life the way it deserves to be lived.

Somewhere someone is doing something for sure

The world offers a variety of diverse environments and different kinds of lives that coexist. The same earth is inhabited by people who are struggling for food on one side and people who are wasting food on the other side. Some are trying to earn their livelihood while some are worrying about how to spend their livelihood. Some are running around with bluetooth hanging on their ears and talking while driving, reading the news on their phones while eating, coding on their computers while drinking, and on the other hand are people who have loads of time in their hand and are doing all these activities patiently one after the other just to make sure that their time doesn't get bored being in their lives. Someone somewhere is doing something for sure.

We get so busy in our lives, and especially in our routine lives that we fail to see our own lives from the perspective of a third person. Just think about it once. What would a pigeon that sits on your terrace every day morning think about you when you keep rushing to your work or college? All that it has to do is eat the nuts and cereals available on your terrace and keep flying from one roof to another to digest the eaten food. Seeing you rush like a mad horse out of the house on your two-wheeler or four-wheeler only makes it wonder, 'Why are you acting so silly! All that you need to do is just have your food and relax.' The pigeon is seldom aware of the fact that you've to write your exams or convince your client. It just feels that you're that someone who is doing something just like how you feel that the pigeon is also doing something. I see so many students worrying about their tests, internals and exams. They are worried about marks, syllabus, question papers, evaluation and invigilation. Even I was one such student few years back. After coming out of the school and college world, I see that all those tensions were just too temporary to even worry about. None of those worries can take life further. No matter what are the results someone has to keep doing something somewhere to carry on the journey called life.

As humans, we build so many apprehensions on so many different things, people and situations that we keep testing our predictions and anticipations. We build our own challenges, expectations and work and try to prove it to ourselves what we are and we are capable of. We build a world that we imagine around us. We don't imagine the entities around us. We just imagine the perceptions of the real entities that exist around us and lead our lives to confirm that we have built the right set of perceptions in our imagination. Each individual lives a life of the same kind while s/he is doing the most necessary thing of his/her life while others are doing something. Ultimately each one knows that someone somewhere is doing something for sure.

Know Understand Realise Practise

Talking about different lessons of leadership or success, I have met a lot of people ranging from kindergarten kids to sales heads, marketing managers, CEOs of many companies and heads of big organizations. People from all these strata of age, work and status know about the same old proverbs that have been ruling ages together. Nowadays students also have such 'Thoughts for the Day' at their fingertips as they need to present them in their morning assembly. When such a lesson is repeated many people don't pay much heed to it because they feel that they already know it. They even underestimate the value of a person who shares a common lesson because they feel that even s/he is sharing the same thing that they already know. Friends! Knowing and practising are entirely two different aspects amongst humans.

All of us know that an atom bomb explodes but not all of us understand how it does so. Not all of are aware about the chemical reactions that take place. Not all of us know how to make one such atom bomb. Likewise knowing a lesson is just like merely knowing the name of a person, but you don't know the complete person's personality. It takes conversation or sufficient research to understand little bit about the person. Likewise in-depth understanding of any lesson also requires quite a good amount of reading. More than understanding how true the lesson is, it's very important to realise how it can bring about changes in your life at present. There is no point in learning it if you are not using it. Nevertheless after understanding and realising how well your life can change if the lesson is implemented, you have to take that initiative to inculcate the lesson as a part of your daily life in every aspect. Only then can the lesson also yield the expected results. You can go and ask any successful person about their message to people. Their answer shall consist of just one lesson that they have strictly followed all through their lives, which has bestowed them with the fruits for all their investment of time, energy and efforts.

One of the most profound examples that I heard some time back was that no matter how old you grow, you shall always drink water to quench your thirst. You might have cool drinks, milk, tea, coffee, carbonated drinks or fruit juices also, but ultimately, all of them have water as their raw material during preparation. We drink the same old colourless, odourless and tasteless water to quench our thirst. So, the same old lessons can solve every problem of ours and help us achieve what we aim at. Let's learn those few powerful principles of life, understand their meaning with the highest depth (depth of understanding shall deepen with more of experience resulting from more of action taken), realise their importance in our lives and practise them on a regular basis to convert all our visions into reality.

Old lessons die hard

Recently while speaking to one of the students I came across one of the most important lessons of life, and that was 'Hard work is the route to success'. The student came up saying that in today's world, hard work doesn't yield anything. If that was the case then donkey would have been the most rewarded animal. Hence smart work is the trend of the modern world. Only smart work leads to success. That is where I was trying to find out how come a lesson that stood firm and true for 20 centuries suddenly was failing in the 21^st century. The Laws of Science haven't failed till date and I was only wondering how Laws of Success could fail.

Today, people are searching for new reasons which are stopping them to reach their goals or others expectations from them. Hence they wish to disprove every existing theory that leads to success. A simple example of this is what I have presented above. One of the proverbs that always comes back to my mind is, 'Old is Gold'. One can go around and ask all the successful people around about their secrets of success. All of them shall share the same old lessons on hard work, passion, commitment etc. For example, Sachin Tendulkar is known for his patience, consistency, passion for Cricket, hardworking nature and other positive qualities. Shah Rukh Khan also expresses the same attributes that have led him to success in the cinema industry. Even the Ambanis from the business field exhibit the same positive qualities like commitment, love for people, perseverance etc which make them the undoubted Lords of different businesses. No matter which field you are in you can always achieve pinnacle in that field through the same old dedication, discipline and devotion which have been taught to us by our parents, elders and teachers from time immemorial. There is no point in searching for new ways to achieve your dreams. Follow the age old proven principles of success and excellence shall be your present.

Excuses and success don't go hand in hand. There is no point in debating about why a particular rule cannot apply to you which has applied to a lot many achievers. You don't even need to know all the Laws of Success to bring life to all your dreams and passions. You just need to know many, understand some, adopt few and implement one. One such lesson is more than powerful to help you connect to your dreams in reality. A single lesson realised and inculcated in life is much better than a million lessons learnt and forgotten to remember.

Restarting the Reign

After quite a pause post the reign of blogging 555+ blog posts during the period of 2012-2013, once again I am jumping back to the field of daily blogging. During this time of silence many of my readers were asking me the reason for not updating my blog on a daily basis. Well! The pause was for a reason. New developments have taken place and a small surprise shall be out soon which took shape during this time of blogging silence. I am eagerly looking forward to the day on which I can release the cat out of the bag. Just like how after every night there comes a day with light, after a long pause even I am back on daily blogging promising to share my experiences and lessons with my dear audience on a daily basis. I am overwhelmed that finally, I am back into the field that I rock!

In History, I used to study of kings and emperors who established their empires and kingdoms by conquering other states. Their reigns used to start in new places. After sometime due to different reasons they used to recede back to their original kingdoms. Once again they used to prepare much better, launch a war, re-conquer the kingdoms and restart their reigns. There have been many rulers in the past who took the king's position the second time after stepping down the first time. A king's duty is to lead the kingdom whenever the circumstances demand no matter how old he is or how tired he is of the king's job. Likewise blogging, especially daily blogging has been that field of mine which I ruled for quite some time for more than one and half years. It's time to restart my reign of daily blogging once again no matter how busy my schedule gets or what time I reach back home at night. I am all set and ready for the challenge. This thought of restarting had been running around in my mind for some time, but today I have hammered it down and the proof is that you're reading my first blog post for the day, for the month, as well as for the New Year 2014. All that I realised during this phase was that there is always an option to restart whatever you have stopped in the past no matter what all and how many were the reasons for pausing (not stopping).

Many people tend to end their passions and hobbies during the school days as they get busy with competitive exams and the college life. Many of the same set stop their exploring and enjoying nature as they get busy with their professional and adult life (post-marriage phase). As the years pass people turn back to see a decade that has run away putting all their dreams and passions below its wheels. Then they think of restarting their passions but neither have the touch of those nor the zeal to pursue them with the highest motivation. Hence they see no means of restarting and continue to drift with life as it takes them. The human generation has seen major catastrophes and erosion of civilizations. In spite of such massive disasters the human life has restarted inhabiting the same arenas. If life can restart from ashes then our passion can also restart in our lives. Press the restart button on all those dreams and passions of yours for which you had pushed the stop button for a temporary interval of time.

When you aim for the sky you reach the tree top at least

Life is all about aiming at the target and hitting the bull's eye. Now, how much time it takes and how many attempts it takes to hit the bull's eye is different for different people at different instants of time. No one is perfect on this planet to hit the bull's eye every time right from the first time. Everyone has a learning curve to go through and to grow through. No one can escape it. While doing so, we cannot miss taking aims and leaping forward. Let's take the target that's challenging enough so that we reach beyond the limitations of our abilities.

When you aim for the sky, you at least reach the tree top. This statement clearly signifies that when you aim to touch the sky which is a next to impossible task, you fall short of achieving it. But the reward for aiming so high is that you land on the tree top which is still much taller than what normal people aim at. As a result, you shall stand out of the crowd for hitting such massive height. The lapse in the accomplishment of the target between the sky and the tree top accommodates the different external random factors of nature that influence our work and, hence, affect the results that we are able to achieve. These factors of randomness shall exist in the same amounts, no matter what our targets are. If we aim just at the tree top, we shall end up somewhere near the stem because the unknown factors shall, for sure, play the spoilsport.

If it's clearly understood that we need to accept the limitations of how much a human mind can anticipate, plan and take action and adhere to the influence of nature in its own style in everything we do, we can aptly conclude that we need to aim much higher than what we need to achieve. Only then shall we give our best to bring out the best from us and reach the desired destination. Only unrealistic targets have the ability to bring out the unimaginable best out of us. Hence, let's aim more and achieve more.

Skepticism isn't a bad attribute

Just like how humans aren't spared from not making mistakes, the same way, skepticism is also an in-built attribute of humans. Not just humans even that of animals. Animals too are skeptical about things and people before they get used to them. Try to throw a biscuit at a dog which doesn't acquaint with you. It shall first sniff and only if it feels satisfied it shall take the biscuit. Humans too cannot accept things that come to them without any reason. There needs to be a logical reasoning before accepting anything. Until this is understood skepticism shall be an inert part of human behaviour. 

Most of the times when we express our doubt over certain thoughts people around us try to characterize us as those who belong to the set of people who don't believe in anything and don't want things to progress. No matter how hard you try, you can never fake your feelings. You ought to listen to your instinct and the instinct, most of the times, functions as per the logic programmed in the subconscious mind. The moment there is a thought-process that's obstructed in this process, a doubt arises and the decisions get delayed. All these happen within few moments of time and can't be explained in detail to those who negate our skepticism. Hence, instead of worrying about what others comment about us, it's better to go ahead and display the reasons for our skepticism. If the answers are satisfying enough then further action can be taken instead of trying to hide it.

The aberrations in feelings due to hidden skepticism shall only lead to more confusion and more doubts. Trying to solve them ourselves we end up building a building of assumptions without any logical base. As a result, we construct our own world of imagination of assumptions which is much far than the reality right in front of our eyes. Hence it's best to get the thirst of skepticism resolved at the earliest so that we stop wasting time on finding our own reasons and invest the same amount of time saved on further planning and action.