Category: Personal Growth (Page 4 of 8)

Why your new year resolution should start today

December 9, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

This might catch you off guard.

It might feel that I’m posting something three weeks too soon.
It is not time to talk about new year resolutions yet, you’d say.

Be patient and hear me out on this one.

I’ve been trying to form positive habits for the past few years. After constant experimentation and many failures, I learnt about the two key elements that determine whether a positive habit will stick or not.

They are –

A) Consistency

B) Momentum

Now, we are all aware of how most new year resolutions fizzle out by the second week of January.

An obvious reasons is because we move into the new year with no momentum at all.

You can’t start going to gym every single day in a new year if you’re picking up from a week of partying towards the end of the year.
You’re just expecting yourself to start running before learning to crawl.

In my opinion, one needs to start the new year with momentum.
A momentum that starts to build at least three weeks before the new year.

Why three weeks?

Well, it is a well researched fact that I can attest with my own experience that it takes at least 21 days of consistent effort to form a new habit.

Whatever your new year resolution might be, if you start working on it from tomorrow, you’ll have 21 days to be consistent and build momentum so that you are already well primed for the changes you want to bring into your life next year.

This might have caught you off guard and you might not have even thought of a resolution yet.
But it’s a Sunday, and a good day to relax, reflect, and resolve what you’d like to improve on.

Once you decide on your resolution, start tomorrow. I am positive that the habit will stick in the new year if you stay consistent and build momentum for these 21 days in December.

This is the cheat code.
A headstart.

Are you in the game?

On Inertia and choosing a better Lifestyle design

December 8, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

Kids have a special energy in them.
Once they learn to move about and pick things up, they trasmit bundles and bundles of energy in all that surrounds them.
They’re running all around the park, swaying in swings, throwing around toys, stones and tantrums alike without discrimination.

That special energy is in their ability to lend their power packed inertia to everything they interact with.
Even frail old Grandma gets energised to sing and dance once her grandson is around.

As we grow up, we lose that special power of transmitting our inertia of motion.
Instead, we acquire another trait,
Of succumbing to inertia of objects around us.

Think of that comfortable couch in your house or that workspace which has looked the same for as far back you can remember.
We succumb to the inertia of the couch and assume a similar inertial state of rest and slumber.

In a way kids are at peace because they find a way to equalise their inertial potential with their surroundings.
The inertia of motion.

While adults are also at peace once they’re in that couch because there’s a consonance, an equilibrium in their inertia and their surroundings.
The inertia of rest.

But the peace we find in a state of rest isn’t the best use of our energy.
It comes at the cost of our dynamism.

As responsible adults, we must design oursurroundings better.

Imagine this situation.

In nature, while trekking along a hilly range, where the wind blows fresh, and streams trickle from every cliff, isn’t it easy for most of us to keep walking?
Despite the difficulty of ascending up a hill, we find motivation to keep on moving.

I feel it is because the wind, just as the water around us is in constant flow, in perpetual motion. And we find it easy to embody the inertial motion of our surroundings.

But we don’t live in the hills do we?
A lucky few do, but most of us don’t !

So how do we design an ideal inertial design around us?

At times, when we have limited control over inertia of objects around us, say in an office desk, we can at least make sure that things are always moving.
That work doesn’t stay for too long on our desk and all objects in the vicinity are used constantly.

If you realise you’re not using something in your workspace, do away with it, before the spell of its inertia of rest catches hold of you.
Move things that you can, much like a child, and add a sense of dynamism in your vicinity.

Move things in your context.

And when you’re out of that workspace and ready to unwind, choose a context which calls for motion from your end.
Go walk, run, trek ,swim, sweat in a context that conjures up the latent energy inside you.

Make the context move you.

We embody the inertia of our surroundings just as much as the surroundings embody ours.

A good lifestyle design would constantly call for wise choices from our end.

In choosing our surroundings wisely and fostering inertia of motion in our lives,
The context for a productive life will surely materialize.

On imagination, discernment and the peace perspective can bring

December 7, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

Imagine a little girl with a big paintbrush in her hand. She’s got hold of water colours for the first time and she just cannot wait to paint something.
She chooses the living room wall as her maiden canvas.
Soon, the smooth white wall gets dyed in mild shades of every color in the palette.

Her mother arrives to find that her daughter has painted her dress just as much as the wall she’s been painting on.

The mother could take recourse in two ways.
She could either

a) See things as they are.

Consider it to be a wall in flux, which could be painted over again.
She could use her discernment in a sound direction.

b) See things as if they’re so much more.

Consider it to be disaster and reprimand a budding artist at the outset.
She could use her imagination, albiet in a misleading direction.

The two key phrasess here are

a) sound discernment

b) misled imagination.

Discernment and Imagination are powerful tools, but when used incorrectly either cause us only detriment.

Now imagine the same incident again.
The mother could use another train of thought.

She could either

a) See things as they are

Look at only the colored stains on the wall and not the blobs of a butterflies her child sees through her eyes.
She could use her discernment in an unsound and sterile manner.

b) See things as if they’re so much more

She could not only look at the blobs of the butterflies but use her imagination to see the whole animal kingdom waiting to appear on the living room wall.
She could look at it as the first page of her little daughter’s art portfolio.

She could use her imagination in the right direction. I call it right because it brings peace to both mother and daughter and the art still thrives.

Again, as I’d said earlier, discernment and imagination are powerful tools.
We must make use our wisdom to make the right choice,
The ideal mix of discernment and imagination.

True wisdom though, lay in the mind of an unconditioned child.
Like the little painter, who could see things the ideal way.

By discernment she knew it was a wall but her imagination suggested her to use it as a canvas.

By discernment she knew it to be a blank canvas, but her imagination suggested her that it could be so much more.

The little girl was easily weaving her thoughts using both discernment and imagination as it deemed fit.

Much of the distress we face in life is because of unwise choices between discernment and imagination.

We imagine fear of failure and discern obstacles to be dead ends.
While we could imagine ways to triumph and discern obstacles only to be hurdles that must be jumped over.

The choices we make shape our reality.

Any tool is only powerful if used with wisdom.

With sound discernment and well directed imagination,
Life would reveal itself in ways that serve you best.

Imagine !

What’s to learn from a Blank Page?

December 5, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

This is a blank piece of paper.
Well, it used to be.
Now that I’m writing on it, it isn’t blank anymore.

But wait a moment, and imagine
Is it just a blank page?
Or is it so much more than what we think it is?

A blank page is an ocean of possibilities.

It could be a page where a toddler squiggles his first lines ever with a tiny red pencil.

It could be a crumpled ball that the toddler’s kitten plays with for hours at end.

It could be the first paper plane the little boy makes.

It could be a frog he learns to make in origami class.

It could be a hand-fan he waves to soothe his kitten on a hot summer day.

It could be a cone that contains freshly roasted groundnuts, worth all the riches in the whole wide world.

It could be the first love letter he ever writes, brim with an innocent passion.

Or a mournful poem he pens when he falls in unrequited love.

It could contain a doodle that he sketches, one that has the ideal mix of amusement and hope.

Or it could have wayward scribbles all over, intelligible only to him who’s certain of his confusion.

It could be a painting his old grandmother paints, an artist who finally summons the courage to play with colours again.

It could contain notes of a beautiful symphony his sister composes, one that’s yet to be ever played.

It could contain an elegant equation, that explains deep mysteries of the universe with simple, irrefutable logic.

It could contain a sketch of a prototype he imagines as a young inventor,
An invention that changes the face of mankind.

It could be the declaration of independence, a freedom his nation fought for years to earn.

It could contain his will that he writes realising that the end is near.

Or maybe it can just be a blank piece of paper that ages gracefully.

If a blank sheet of paper could be so much more,
How about the miracle of existence that’s alive in the little boy?
In you?
In me?

Could we be so much more? Just like the blank sheet of paper?

We are not merely a blank page,
We are also the embodiment of energy that can transform it into something beautiful.

We are a billion beautiful possibilities.

Listen to the blank page singing softly,
That you,
as me ,
Just as us all,

Are art in the making.

On Performing best on the stage of life

December 3, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

‘All the world is a stage
And all men and women merely players’

Thus, said Shakespeare in one of his poems back in the day.

The beauty of truth is in its timelessness, as captured beautifully in the opening lines of the poem.

At each living moment, we assume the role of someone, the spirit of an ideal.
For instance, at this moment, I represent the spirit of a thinker and writer.
You represent the spirit of a reader.

At times we represent the spirit of a friend, a teacher, a brother, a mother, a listener, a speaker, a traveller, a seeker, a child, a father….

But are we able to perform best in all these roles that we assume on a day to day basis?

Most likely, no.

The reason for this is because we look at the world through the lens of our ego, a lens prone to aberrations and distortion.

Identification of the self with the ego comes at the cost of objectivity.

Let me explain.

Say you somehow find yourself at a social gathering that you’d ideally not attend.
And since you feel quite out of place, you stay aloof and wait for the moment when you can get out of there.
A certain someone comes to you and breaks into a conversation.
Now, at that moment, even if your ego wishes that you were out of this situation, there is no running away from the reality of that moment.

At that moment, you embody the spirit of an attendee, a listener.

Now if you choose to be a good attendee, and listen with utmost attention, you would do yourself and the gentleman you’re interacting with a good favour.

But if you identify yourself with your ego, the kind of person you think you are, and look at the situation from that lens, it’s likely that you’d converse half heartedly with much lesser attention.

Which choice is better in your opinion?
In the greater good, I’d choose the former.

I mentioned an inadvertent situation in the example because most of our interactions are of that nature.

Once we choose to play the best role we can at that moment, and think beyond our Ego, we will function much better as a person and refine our interpersonal relationships.

And, let me assure you that this approach does not come at the cost of individuality.
In fact, it only enhances our personality and refines our objectivity towards situations in life.

With such an outlook, all our half heartedness towards situations will vanish and we would only look to perform our role in the best manner possible at that moment.

And those moments will culminate into a best possible life.

Identify your role in each moment,
And perform best,
The show is always on,
Why not make it meaningful !

On realising the ideal state of being

December 2, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

‘I want to bicycle from India to Hongkong to see my son’ shared Nirupama, a 71 years young bicyclist I met in Pune.

As lofty as her dream sounded to either of us, I was sure she would be on this dream trip very soon.
She had shared stories about her bicycle trips to Laddakh, Kanniyakumari among other places in India.
Having started bicycling after retiring from work at the age of 60, she kept on challenging herself and went past barriers even young adults wouldn’t dare dream to.

I saw the apprehension in her eyes while she shared her dream, wondering if she could go bicycling across countries to see her son.

I wanted to make her believe that she could do it.
I took out my phone and showed her a route she could take to reach Hongkong starting from Bangkok.

Her eyes lit up like a chiselled diamond.

And I am sure, as I write this, she’s busy back home, thinking of ways to make this trip happen.

What an inspiration she is !

This encounter reminded me of two other elderly friends I had met in Thailand.
One of them by the name of Phulong, 72, who wants to bicycle all around Thailand on his own.
I’m sure he’s biking around in some part of Thailand as I write this.

The other friend, Eugene, 72, an Irishman I had met at a hostel, wished to sail to India on his Yacht.
In fact, that what was he was going to start doing the moment he was back home.
Maybe he’s fixing up his Yacth as you’re reading this.

Meeting such ambitious and proactive elderly folk left me humbled.
I wondered how they could exist in such a state of being.

The answer I found was on the lines of their perception and interaction with two factors :

a) Time

b) Mindspace.

The elderly have only a decade
or so of life left to make something of. Yet, they have the a lot of time to reflect, imagine and think of ways to achieve a distant dream. The awareness of the finitude of their life only helps them to attribute more value to the little time they have on earth.

Also, the mindspace of ‘It is Now or Never’ is most obvious at their age. They are not afraid of anything that used to hold them back when they were young adults. They are in a position to imagine without inhibition.

I couldn’t help but draw a parallel between the relationship kids have with time and mindspace vis-a-vis the elderly.

While it is finitude that helps the elderly imagine and act without inhibition, it is the apparent infinitude, a timelessness in which the imaginative spirit of a child thrives.

A child has no fear of dreaming or acting on its dreams. If a child wants to be a doctor, he would just put a dummy stethoscope around it’s neck, wear the elder siblings oversized shirt and he’s ready to treat anyone and everyone in sight.
A child imagines and acts in the best of its capacity.

As young adults, what can we learn from the elderly and kids about ambition, imagination and taking action?

We live in an age where we have neither the time nor the mindspace to imagine and act on our dreams.
Aren’t most of us busy with something or the other that commands all of our immediate attention?

And sadly, we have become comfortable with devoting time to things that we are asked to do, without really thinking if it truly matters to us in the long run.

Part of the reason is because we dwell in the dangerous domain in our understanding of time,
in between finitude and infinitude.

If we really feel a sense of timelessness as kids, we would truly be present in each moment and be able to imagine the way we must.
At the same time, if we truly understand the finitude, the fragility of life, as the elderly do, we would, at all times, act responsibly and do things that matter to us.

Would it not be the best way to exist,
To live with complete understanding of our relationship with time and mindspace?
To understand finitude and infinity and let the wagon of our lives soar on the twin rails of imagination and action ?

If we choose to live with this awareness,
Could life ever be little?

The Power of Everyday – December 2018

December 1, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

The Power of Everyday challenge is back!

I have always believed that consistent, deliberate practice is the most logical way to progress.
While we all aspire to become better versions of our self, often we lack the structure and clarity to pave our way to betterment.

The Power of Everyday is a simple task based project that will help anyone looking for improvement.

The rule is simple.

Pick out one task that you promise to do every single day of this month.

It could a very simple task.
Depending on the area which you want to improve in, pick a small achievable task that could be repeated every day in December.

Every Saturday, I shall put a blog post as a reminder so that we all stay on track.

I suggest making a little calendar like this and strike off every day on which you accomplish your daily task.

My Power of Everyday task for December 2018:

Write and Publish a blog post on every single day of the month.

Feel free to share your daily task in the comments below.

Let’s keep each other accountable and move into the new year with positive momentum.

We are in this together.
And off we go !

The meaning of life as revealed by a tree

October 13, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

In the woods I stood, facing a friend
A tree
Whose life was breathing poetry

I had a question
And it knew,
‘Ask’, it said
To the wind as it blew

‘Cur Hic Statis‘, my friend my dear,
Why is it, that you stand here?

Gently it smiled, content in its being,
Revealing an answer in what I was seeing.

‘Even when I was a seed’ said the tree
‘I believed in all that I could ever be
Buried in soil, I couldn’t hear, not see
But Give and Grow was mother nature’s decree.’

And when I was a sapling, I aimed for the sky
Not doubtful about how and why
The sun was the compass, the aim was high
I had to blossom, I had to grow,
Else life would be a lie.

I realised from the day I was sown,
The need for water was much bigger than my own
So, each leaf and petal, through pleasure and pain
Sang hymns to the wind and summoned rain.

Restful yet restless, with no time to bide
My nature, as nature’s is to provide
Through ups and downs, in the season’s tow
Sometimes fast, at times slow,
But never do I stop to grow.

Droughts and passing storms give an advice sound,
Be humble and have feet firmly on the ground
And even if I cannot move helter-skelter
For those who can, I give shade and shelter.

WORK, I know not, I only know BEING
How could living be of any other kind?
After all, it’s a matter of choosing and believing,
The world is a projection of your mind.

Cur hic statis
‘Why do you stand here’ you ask
As the end comes close by the hour

I REALIZE, I BE
I’m a hundred trees,
A million fruit,
A billion flower.

And,
A fruit lands in my lap, breaking my reverie,
I REALIZE,
I UNDERSTAND,
What I could be.

I eat the fruit and plant the seed
As I journey on,
To become a tree.

What a half marathon taught me about cultivating lasting friendships

October 8, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

It’s a matter of great privilege to have an enduring friendship. Even more so, when you can still do things together with the same friends who you grew up with.

I feel fortunate on that regard. I still have my childhood friends around who are proactive and find ways to do things together.

Recently, two of my friends and I decided to participate in a running event. One of them and myself were participating in a half marathon and the other hand chosen a 10 kilometer run.

I was apprehensive about my ability to run such a long distance, as were my friends, but since we were all in the challenge together, it made things easier on some level.

But there was one hang up we faced four days before the run. My friends had already registered for the event and I, because of my indecision and procrastination, hadn’t enrolled yet.
On checking the website, we came to know that the event was sold out and I couldn’t officially be part of the run.

It was a bit disappointing to us all.
We wanted to do this together.
But fate seemed to have other plans.

So did I.

The night before the run, I told my friends that I was going to run as well. I would run from home at the same time they start at the official start line, and run the half marathon distance as planned. So even if I would not be running on the same path as them, I would be running at the same time on the streets of the same city.
They happily agreed to the idea.

At 5:30 am the next morning, we all started to run together, on our own paths, in our own realities.
I ran about alone in the city with an app on my phone telling me about my progress with each kilometer.

Once I was past my 7 km mark, I took a turn on the road that coincided with the official race path!

I took a little detour and timed my run such that the distance I had covered coincided with that of other participants at the 11km mark on the racetrack.

And once I reached the 11km mark, I was on par with other runners on the official path to the finish line.

That felt magical, to be running on the official track out of pure chance!

Having other runners run alongside helped me with pushing myself in the later half of the race. I didn’t have a bib number attached on my chest as others but I was a runner just the same.

At the 17 kilometer mark, I saw a runner from behind who I could recognise anyday out of a huge crowd.

It was my friend !

He seemed to be having some trouble during the run. He looked tired and was walking for a brief stretch.

But I believed he could do much better. I breezed past him on the track and patted him on the back.
The surprise of finding me on the official racetrack filled him with great joy.
A sudden rush of energy took over him.

From that point on, he raced onward with all his might running past me within a kilometer.

I was happy to see him go full throttle as he blended in with other runners beyond my sight.

Eventually, we ended the race at the official finishing spot, relishing each other’s achievement and the togetherness that came along with it.

In that moment of celebration past the finish line, I also found a great lesson about friendship and the paths we take in our life.

In life, past a certain age, all our friends take different paths in our lives. Part of it is voluntary and a part out of pure chance.
And often, we feel distant and disillusioned by the notion of an enduring friendship.

But we need to realise that at some point in our lives, our path will diverge from the ones each of our friends take.

We still need to keep running on our own paths, forever trusting in our self and the connection we share with people who we believe in.

At some point, sooner or later, our paths will coincide, for all path lead to the same end, if followed with courage and complete honesty.

We all have to, at our own pace, persevere, and keep on running on our own path with faith that’s complete and unwavering.

And if we tread the path of our own choosing in our lives and go all the way,
We are bound to find the confluence we’ve always longed for,
With the people we have always loved.

So, is there a reason to feel sad when our paths diverge with that of the people we love?

No.

As long as they are true in their heart for their pursuit and you are in your own,
And you both persevere,
You will always find each other when your paths meet,
Forever happy with each other’s growth.

Tread with faith
And persevere.
The friendship will endure.

It’s only a matter of time.

What can we learn from a kid waving a train goodbye?

October 7, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

A window seat on a train ride.
Feels like such a luxury doesn’t it?
Why wouldn’t it,
For it offers a unique cinematic experience after all.
The landscape is neither static nor moving too fast like in a motion picture.
It breezes at a pace that’s easy on the eye, offering enough mind space to dwell on worlds within and without.

Recently, I had the fortune of having a window seat on a train ride from Kolkata to Pune. Much to my disappointment, it had air conditioning in all of its coaches.
An air conditioned coach doesn’t offer the same experience as a sleeper class open window. No gush of wind messing up your hair, no influence of outside weather on the inside, no hawkers, certainly not as much fun.
It is quite a sterile environment, an AC coach.
But I still had a window seat.
I couldn’t complain !

Sometime in the afternoon, I found myself looking at the landscape of central India through the tinted window.
The train chugged by a little agrarian hamlet.
Amid the vedant rice fields, I saw a mud house where a group of little girls were playing.
As they saw the train passing by, they all took a break from their play and started waving at the train in sheer jubilance.
The buoyancy in their being lifted my spirits. I couldn’t help but smile and wave back.

But then, I realised,

‘These are tinted windows ! I can see the girls but the girls can surely not see me wave back at them !’

But did it make a difference to their enthusiasm?

The girls would never know who they are waving goodbye to, or if they were waved back at.
They smiled and greeted strangers nevertheless.

And did I not smile? Sure I did,
As many other passengers must have, at the sight of their effervescent energy.
That’s a child’s karma.

A child’s mind has a primeval consciousness.
It willingly gives energy to people and places around it. At some level, it understands that the energy will come back in much bigger a bulk.
It is unsullied by the transactional, quid pro quo paradigm adults dwell in.

For an adult, it is easy to feel lost, isolated and self centered in his being.

‘Why should I even do something if I don’t see a benefit on the horizon, a profit of some sort?’ one wonders.
Growing up, we become used to doing something for something in return.

Our mindset about work is best reflected in our conversations. The most common questions we ask one another as adults are,

‘What do you do?’

and

‘How much do you make?’

The answer to the latter is much based on the judgement of the answer to the former question.
Usually, the reply is in terms of one’s occupation and income respectively.

But maybe we need to do the asking a bit differently.
Maybe should ask each other and our self,

‘What do you love to do?’

And

‘How much do you give?’

You would wonder,
‘How does this relate to the little girls waving a train goodbye?’

At that moment, when the girls are waving, they are doing what they love to do, in accordance to their natural instinct.

And what are they giving?

Many smiles to people who they would never know.
However little, however fleeting it may be,
They add value.

Now,
What can we learn from them?

Foremost,
To involve our self in the most natural extension of our being,
By doing things we love to do.

And,

To give unconditionally, with utmost joy,
Without expectations.

It they can, deep in their hearts, find such happiness in giving,
Can’t we?

It is not easy to shift our perspective as an adult and start to give our energy without knowing what result it would yield, or what benefit we will get as a result.

Well, we can all start simple.

How about starting with waving goodbye to a train we will never see again?

Yes, you will feel awkward,
And to lift that hand would need overcoming inertia we didn’t know to exist.

But after the train has passed,
If we find our self smiling,
We would have learnt a lesson.