A few days ago, one of my friends asked me a question that I had never confronted myself with.
‘How do you manage to write a blog post every day? What’s the most difficult part about it?’
I thought about it for a while. And I realised, writing a blog post is not the most difficult thing in the exercise. It is writing the first few lines of the blog post that’s most challenging. Once you’re past the first few lines, the blog post fashions itself.
All I have to do is get past the first few lines. Once I am past the inertia, it is a breeze.
The same is also true for physical activities. I remember the toughest phase of my bicycle trip to the mountains to be the first half an hour of the ride.
Once your body is warmed up, you don’t even realise you’re bicycling. The process just happens on its own.
Extrapolating further,
I wonder if the same is true for the more human qualities one wishes to embody.
We all wish to be better human beings.
We desire to be more loving, more accepting, more friendly and allow ourself to have an open heart.
But if we think of starting to embody these qualities all through our existence, the task, however desirable, seems to be far too daunting.
‘How do I have such an open heart full of love all through my life !’ one would wonder.
But there is a way of thinking that makes the task much easier and accessible.
Say you wish to be more compassionate and loving.
Don’t think about being compassionate and loving all through your existence.
Just start to be compassionate and loving in the present moment.
Once you are past the barricades you’ve built around your heart, the task becomes easier and but natural.
Of course, this has to be practiced every single day with solemn awareness.
Just how I choose to begin to write and get past the first few lines every single day.
Before you know you will have a continuum of existence, full of the qualities you always wished to embody.
Open your heart and ask,
What quality do I wish to imbibe.
And start.
Everyday.
You will realize your better self with every glorious sunrise.
How we define a friend changes with age doesn’t it?
I remember when I was little, anyone who would choose to share time and space with me was my friend. And what an eclectic mix of friends did I have !
The carpenter working at home was my friend, so was the lady selling Jamun berries on the street. The scientist uncle who introduced me to the wonderous night sky to the toddler rocking in the pram next door,
The immediate world around me was full of friends!
But over time, as it happens to all of us, the group of friends narrowed down to a chosen few. We had limited time on our hands and had only so much of our attention we could give to people around.
Friends became our world but that world also shrunk considerably as compared to childhood.
We share a mysterious friendship with a childhood friend. Even if we haven’t talked to them in years, the moment we hear their voice over a phone call, we feel a profound camaraderie.
Why is that?
A few reason I can think of that could explain it :
1) A childhood friend reminds us of our roots, of who we were,
Of where we’re coming from. (Past)
2) They not only serve as a repository of nostalgia but also a messenger that informs us how much we’ve grown from who we used to be. (Present)
3) And most importantly, they care about our growth, about where we are headed. (Future)
It is a precious bond indeed.
Over the course of my bicycle journey I experienced an emotion I had never experienced before.
I felt a deep sense of friendship towards people who I was meeting for the first time. It almost felt as if they were all similar to a childhood friend in some mysterious way.
I realised that most of the people I met on the road exhibited one of the three above mentioned qualities
For instance, a little Thai kid on Phuket beach who lit a bonfire for me reminded me of my playful and exuberant childhood. He reminded me of where I came from. (Past)
A sister teaching her brother how to ride a bicycle on the street reminded of how difficult it was for me to learn to do the same. It had taken me several months.
And today, I’m fearlessly Bicycling into the unknown.
They reminded me of how far I’ve come.(Present)
Or an old Thai grandma who on realising that I had a long uphill ride to finish before sundown, chose to push my bicycle while I was riding to help me get to the destination.
She helped in whatever way she could because my growth, my progress mattered to her at some level. (Future)
These experiences only opened up my mind to consider everyone I meet as a friend.
Every beginner reminds me of who I was, where I started, where I’m coming from.
Every expert, through his work, helps me yearn for betterment. Despite not knowing me personally, I still see a friend in them because I’m sure my growth would matter to them if they came to know how much they inspire me.
Every contemporary guides me about my growth over the course of time I’ve known them.
I am of the firm belief that we can only design a better world if we all grow together, collectively.
For the growth of the world, personal growth is indispensable.
How do I see the growth of the world in the light of friendship?
To me, a friend is someone whose growth matters to me.
If I wish to see positive growth in the world, I need to see the same in the individual, in each human being.
In the interest of engineering a better world, we ought to care about each other’s growth, even that of a stranger’s.
Having this worldview helps to cultivate compassion towards everyone around us.
Your growth matters to me,
And hence, You are a friend in my heart.
I hope, in your heart,
I too am a friend.
And I believe,
Our collective growth,
Our collective friendship and brotherhood
Will engineer the change in the world we all wish to see.
For the past few days I’ve been bicycling in areas where there is no mobile connectivity whatsoever.
No phone calls, no internet, no social media.
There have been frequent stretches that were challenging each an every bit of me. Since I am new to biking in the mountains in such high altitude and UV ray exposure, it only added to the challenge posed by the terrain.
At spots where I thought I had given it all and I needed to stop, a biker would pass by on a motorcycle from the other side and give me a thumbs up. And I would pedal on a bit further, energised by the validation of a fellow human.
Soon, I would meet more bikers and everyone should give a thumbs up encouragingly.
At times, only their heartfelt applause would take me ahead.
By the end of the day, I would get a thumbs by so many people that I would be energised and be able to complete my daily cycling goal.
I realised that even if I do not have access to social media, where I would get a virtual thumbs up, here I was, getting a thumbs up validation in the real world by people who were physically present with me in that moment. That always made me feel that I was on the right track and I carried on.
A thumbs up has great power.
In the virtual world though, we use it far too callously in my opinion.
On social media, each time we hit the like button (thumbs up) we validate the person and his actions.
In the present cultural scenario, social media feed is rife with selfies and pictures people pose for. Natural pictures captured in the moment are becoming rarer.
Especially with millennials, who grew up with the selfie culture and trading likes for validation, a picture can get hundreds of likes by friends. This in turn populates the social media feed with more passive/ posed for selfies.
I must stress that I have nothing against social media and believe it can be of immense value if used wisely.
But as responsible users of social media we have a duty. We ought to be more discerning about what we validate through our likes.
Yes, even in passive scrolling through social media feed, we have the power to validate what we want more of and what we could do away with.
Maybe, we should admire pictures that were captured in the moment, without any kind of posing per se. We should laud pictures clicked by others, while the subject was doing something that was close to his heart, too engrossed to be worried about capturing the moment.
Yes, we might not have friends around all the time to capture the moment, but the selfie camera at times makes friends redundant!
Scary to imagine isn’t it!
The selfie camera should be used as a tool, in moderation, while being mindful that it doesn’t serve as a tool for self indulgence.
Coming back to the like button (thumbs up), remind yourself that you are setting a culture.
You are validating a stream of information.
You have the power to shape the discourse of social culture.
I had been bicycling uphill constantly for an hour and a half. I wished to reach a village called Marhi, 40 kms uphill from Manali, India.
At one point, the elevation was too steep for me to keep the bicycle in motion. I decided to stop catch a much needed breath. My heart was racing like that of caged mice on steroids. I leaned my head down to rest it on the handlebar and slowly let my heart rate drop with each deep breath.
In this incapacitated state, I heard a voice from behind.
‘Hey, where are you coming from?’ asked a man wearing a friendly smile.
‘I have been bicycling from Delhi. Today, I wish to reach Marhi, about 30 kms up from here.’
He took a good look up and down my petite body frame.
With an equal measure of wonder and resolve, he said,
‘I own a gym back home. But I myself feel quite unfit. I used to take a car from home to the gym and then exercise hoping to lose weight.
But today, after seeing you, I promise that I will get myself a bicycle and bike to the gym everyday.
You gave me great energy !’
I wondered, how could I, being in such a beaten down, tired state, could still energise a random stranger on the road?
His gesture eased my heart. I thanked him and continued onward.
At a point where I was vulnerable, this person acknowledged my presence, my pursuit and my grit and replenished me with energy.
I realised how much a person desires to be acknowledged.
Moving on, I saw a board on the highway that grabbed my attention. It mentioned the name of the army engineer who first envisioned and surveyed the Manali-Leh highway. I felt good to know of the visionary man who dared to dream of a highway in such treacherous terrain.
Further down the road, I saw construction workers toiling away under the full sun, building a section of the highway. A few kilometers ahead, there were people laying down optical fiber cables.
And I wondered, the names of these people will never appear on any sign board saying that they helped build a highway, or they laid the cables for the high speed internet we would enjoy.
Then, at that moment, I remembered how much I’d liked being acknowledged by the gym owner in the highway.
It is such a human quality after all!
Right then, I made a decision to wave at or give a thumbs up to each person I find working on the road.
And thereafter, no construction worker was ever left without a smile.
Some of them were apprehensive to smile. That just made me realise how rarely were they even acknowledged as humans.
This experience only made me believe that we should acknowledge and celebrate these name less faceless humans who work hard in oblivion to ensure our lives run smoothly.
Next time you find someone whose work would mostly go unacknowledged, choose to just smile at them, give a thumbs up, or if you can afford the time, talk to them for a bit.
Your attention and affection are precious.
Choose to ration a little of it to people who go unnoticed.
All of sudden, the world around you will embody more love and brotherhood.
For the past four days I have been riding in the mountains near the lower Himalayas. Most of the other vehicles on the road run on fossil fuels. There are motorbikes, SUVs, buses and Army trucks for the most part.
I barely saw another cyclist on the road.
And while all other vehicles on the road have it much easier, my vehicle runs on pedal power. All throughout my journey I have seen people mumble the word ‘cycle’ across the windowpane of their car. If it were a bus or a motorbike, I could hear the word, ‘cycle, cycle’ in the conversation that followed after spotting me.
I could make a good guess that for another five minutes, the people would be talking about the bicycle, the challenge and the spirit of human endeavour.
After a point, I realised how natural it is for people to talk about other people!
Some people like to call it gossip.
The word gossip has a bit of a negative connotation. But can gossip not have a positive spin to it?
As I imagine it, there could be two ways how we can create a culture of positive conversation.
1) Do something remarkable, something positive so that people can notice and talk about it
2) Always be on the lookout for good things people do. Try to start a conversation based on that inherent goodness.
I believe that by bicyling uphill in such a challenging terrain, I inadvertently gave people a positive topic to talk about.
Our actions need to be engineered such that they are remarkable, sharable and worth talking about.
While we are doing something as natural as talking about other people, we should also be mindful of the culture we are creating in the process.
Next time, when you’re with friends, choose a positive aspect to talk about and when you’re busy with work, always strive to do something remarkable, so that others have good things to talk about.
We can’t help but gossip.
Let it at least be refined
Let it be inspiring.
My bike ride uphill was already in its 7th hour. I was ascending towards the mighty mountain pass named ‘ Khardung La’ arguably, the highest motorable all weather road in the world.
I had reached an elevation above 5200 meters. Oxygen was scarce and I had to push my bicycle at times just so that my heart rate stayed under control.
Patiently, with all my soul, I moved on.
Past a hair pin bend, I saw a milestone:
‘Khardungla – 1km’
Excited to know that I will be at the highest motorable road in the world soon, I got on my bicycle and pedalled onward.
After 15 minutes, I, with my racing heart, finally reached the summit.
I felt an inexplicable calm at that moment.
I had anticipated that I would jump and sing after achieving such a challenging goal and crossing out one of the tasks on my Impossible list.
But I felt tranquil and meditative.
At that moment, I wondered,’Have I changed as a person because of this achievement?’
‘Am I any different at the summit as compared to who I was at the last milestone?’
To my heart, there wasn’t any difference at all between the two states of being at the two different places.
Then I extrapolated this thought further.
‘How was I any different at the last milestone as compared to the second last milestone?’
‘Extrapolating further, how was I any different at the beginning of the ride uphill as compared who I was at the summit?’
I realised that I was much stronger in my mind at the beginning than at the end.
To dare to bicycle up Khardung La is no mean feat.
Especially when you don’t know the terrain, the temperature is low, the UV rays are burning your skin and you have limited oxygen to inhale.
At the beginning of the journey my mind was steadfast.
And I made my first decision.
Of choosing the right path.
The second decision was made out for me by the road itself.
There was a milestone after every kilometre of the road, giving me constant feedback about the progress.
Even if I was moving at a measly average pace of 4.5km per hour, each milestone informed me that I was on the right path.
I realised that along with my willpower, these two decisions of choosing the right path and having milestone markers made sure I reached the summit.
Without any of the above three,
a) willpower
b) the right path
c) milestones
I would have not been able to scale the mighty Khardung La.
Drawing a parallel to how we approach a challenge in life,
We ought to have these three factors in place to achieve something.
We need to develop the willpower to persevere, we need to choose the right path and finally we need to have little milestones that reassure us of the correct direction we’re headed in.
Say, if someone has the goal to be a better artist,
He needs to
a) Show up everyday to practice his art and stay away from distractions (willpower)
b) Choose a way of life that ensures maximum learning (the right path)
c) Have an archive to see how better he is as compared to a time in past, have a mentor who could give him honest critical feedback (milestones)
If one designs a way of life based on these three simple steps,
Progress will become a way of life.
Scaling summits will become a habit.
The path sculpts a man into who he could be if he chooses to get past milestoneafter milestone while demonstrating the willpowerto keep moving no matter what.
Coming back to the question I had posed myself earlier,
‘How was I any different at the beginning of the ride uphill as compared who I was at the summit?’
In the begining, while downhill, I had only the sight of a goal, a solitary summit I had to scale.
At the end, while at the summit, I have a vantage.
I have gained a wider panaroma, a broader worldview,
And from here,
I can choose the next summit of the many that I gained access to.
You climb up, not just to enjoy the view, but to gain a perspective,
to choose the next summit in sight,
Higher, mightier,
But never beyond
the undying spirit of human endeavour.
I wish you too choose a summit of your own to climb, and from there scale on further and gain wisdom and perspective in this elegantly revealing process.
May you realise more of who you truly are.
Crossing off an ambitious goal from my Impossible List,
I am ready to dream bigger,
Dream anew.
We are living in times where we dwell in two worlds at the same time. One is the real physical world, where all our interactions happen, and one is the virtual world, where we curate how we want our life to be seen as.
In the real world, a person experiences a whole range of emotions. On one hand he experiences pain, sorrow, rejection, depression, anxiety, diffidence…
On the other hand he also experiences pleasure, happiness, exuberance, emancipation and a sense of confidence.
The real world is a kaleidoscopic experience of all these myraid emotions.
But in the virtual world one dwells in, one always projects the happier state of being. All pictures shared by someone, be it of a momentous point in life to the banal selfie stream, it all has a positive connotation.
On social media, everyone is happy.
All seems to be well.
But is it?
If our life was seen only through our curated virtual identity, all of us are living an incredible life with no trace of pain or sorrow.
But deep inside, we all experience challenging emotions as much as we enjoy positive ones.
Our indulgence with social media has consumed our time and mind space which would earlier be engaged with real conversations with friends.
With friends, we would talk about what pains us and what makes us happy in the same breath.
But now we don’t have time to speak to a friend. For some reason the dopamine rush of social media validation eclipses the experience a real friendship promises.
This culture of curating a happy state of being comes at a cost. The challenging emotions like sorrow and diffidence that test our character are being avoided at all cost.
But how will one shape his character holistically if he is in such a state of avoidance ?
In life, one should always strive to have a space to speak about what pains him, what makes him sad and how lonely he feels at times.
For such a space to exist, trust is a must.
And that can only be found in the company of a trustworthy friend.
Speaking about challenging emotions brings forth clarity in one’s mind about who he is, while avoidance only enfeebles and diffuses his identity.
If you wish to have great emotional health, foster a trustworthy friendship. And share things with a friend as frequently as you share your curated happy state of being in the virtual world.
It will do wonders to your understanding of your own self.
To your wholistic growth,
To acceptance of happiness and sorrow as it comes.
We have a perception that going uphill is difficult. Trekking up a hill is always challenging isn’t it?
We have to expend a lot of energy to gain elevation.
And we think, going downhill is easy. Gravity works for us. We just have to lunge our way forward and find the ground waiting for us to land on it.
It is similar when it comes to bicyling. Going uphill is a challenge.
And going downhill is easy,
If,
If you have good brakes !
Today, I’d prepared myself mentally for an easy downhill ride. Things were going pretty smoothly and I didn’t even have to pedal to move onward.
But over time, the brakes seemed to be getting less and less efficient.
At one point, they were barely able to contain my speed downhill.
It was a matter of concern. I stopped and started again, trying to impede my pace by brushing my feet on the ground as required. At one point, the slope was too steep for me to contain my speed.
I chose to stop and started walking with my bicycle in tow.
I thought to myself,
‘Maybe I should check a video online about how to tighten brakes.’
I switched on my phone but there was no network in the hills.
Then I wondered,
‘Maybe, I should look for a bicycle shop on the way. Until then I can push my bicycle.’
But after walking for ten minutes I thought,
‘Why can I not try to fix it myself ? Even if I go wrong, I will learn in the process. It must not be that difficult to understand the mechanism.’
I stopped walking and rested my bicycle against a wall.
After tinkering with the disc brakes for five minutes, I was able to do something that made it work.
Now, I had to learn what I did that made it work !
So I did it all over again.
Once I understood the mechanism, I did the same for the other pair of brakes.
In ten minutes, I had a bicycle with perfectly functional brakes.
The two hour walk to the city was reduced to a half an hour breeze of a ride downhill !
On the way, I tried to understand my own thought process.
First, I tried to look online, to learn how to do something virtually. (Looking outwards)
Then, when that didn’t work, I looked for someone who could do it for me, and learn by watching. (Looking around)
When that too didn’t work,
I chose to apply my own mind to it. And I learnt how to do it by experience. (Looking Inside)
I wondered,
What an upside down way of approaching a problem !
Internet has become such a convenience that we completely bypass our own mental faculty from the circuit of learning.
If we can’t learn it online, we try to learn from someone who knows it already.
All the while, the power of our seminal mind enfeebles.
Applying our own mind to a problem is the surest way to learn for life.
We need to cultivate the mindset of a pioneer, who chooses to experiment and learn form his own mistakes.
Eventually he does come up with a solution.
I feel that the best approach to learning something or finding a solution to a problem is
1) Look inward first (self -learning)
2) Then Look around (peer-learning)
3) Eventualy, Look outwards (virtual-learning)
We need to rebuilt trust with our mind’s abilities and not spoon-feed it with information.
Next time, before you search for something on google or try to learn something new online, grant yourself some time and try to understand and reason on your own.
Your mind will not fail you. It will come up with answers.
Trust your own mind.
It is a powerhouse.
‘You have grown up quite too much now!’ remarked my mother over a phone call on my birthday.
‘Well yes, I have turned 28!’
‘Now it is time to be more responsible in life !’ she alluded.
‘We are not talking about marriage mom !’
Laughing at her fruitless attempt she said,
‘ But you are at the right age to take the next step in life.’
‘Will you listen to what I did today Mom before we continue further ?’
‘Yes , surely. Tell me.’
‘Yestersay, while trekking up a hill in the lower Himalayas, we noticed that there was a lot of garbage lying around everywhere on the route. It left me quite sleepless the whole night. The next morning, with our heavy backpacks and a garbage bag, we set forth to do our bit to make things better.
All throughout our 5 hour downhill journey, we knelt down and picked up as much trash as we could. In the end, my friend and I had collected a total of 5kgs of plastic from the trail.
Now, my dear mother, tell me,
Am I not taking responsibility ?’
‘ Yes, I am glad to know about how you decided to do your bit, when it was easy to just walk past and not do anything.’
‘Mom, I feel that one should not wait for an age to start taking responsibility.
I cannot promise to bring a bride home,
But I promise to be a responsible human being at every living moment.’
‘Do what makes you happy my son.’ she said encouragingly.
The conversation with my Mother on my birthday made me realise how we use an age as a benchmark to start being more responsible.
At a certain age, you should take responsibility of another person, start a family, earn a living, buy a house etc…
And most of us in the urban middle class succeed in doing all these things.
But accomplishing all these life imperatives does not necessarily mean we are being responsible.
Let me cite an example.
If one is not responsible enough to take care of his own health, exercise, eat well and sleep on time, is he in a position take care of another person?
If someone chooses to jeopardise his own health with vices and endanger his life,
Is he being responsible about the gift of life that has been bestowed upon him?
Once someone is responsible about his own health and well being, does he seek more responsibility to change things in the little world he dwells in?
Only when we start looking at the act of taking responsibility as a way of life, do we head in the direction of creating positive change both within and without.
Maybe while talking to kids, instead of saying ‘Be Careful’ we should say ‘Be Responsible’ more often.
I urge you to think about how responsible you are being about the immediate world that you interact with.
And try to be a little more participative, a little more responsible with each passing day. It should be a way of life !
Today, as I was approaching the end of the downhill trail, I saw two contrasting events.
Behind me was a group of young urban yuppies, choosing to throw wrappers on the trail.
In front of me was a group of village kids, sweeping the streets to keep the lanes litter free.
Now,
Who is older?
And who is being more responsible?
I leave you with that thought,
And the promise being responsible holds.
Repeated my 72 years young friend Pholung, as we trekked up a cliff on an island off the Andaman coast in Thailand.
We were ascending to reach a spot from where we could pssiblyp see a peculiar sea creature called ‘Dugong’, also known as the sea cow.
Phulong was spirited in each moment as he took tiny steps up the cliff. I would help him out with my hand at difficult spots but for his age, he was supremely fit.
At a point on the way when we stopped to catch a breath he turned to me and said,
‘You know, I have lived in Thailand all my life, yet I never came to this island to see this beautiful creature.
Now, I realise I have limited time on earth, and this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.’
‘And you are going to see a Dugong today for sure. Better late than never’, I said encouragingly.
‘Once In a lifetime.’ he kept on repeating with bountiful joy in his spirit. His eyes shone bright like an emerald in feeble daylight.
At that moment I thought to myself,
‘You know, it is quite likely this is also a once in a lifetime experience for me. Chances are slim that I will ever come to this remote island in the Andaman sea again.’
I wondered why, despite it being a once in a lifetime experience for both him and I, it held so much importance to him.
I guess, that at his age, he understands the importance of time and the finiteness of existence much better than I do.
But does one really need to get old to realise how most of the experiences we have in life are once in a life time experiences?
One does not necessarily grow older to be wiser !
Once we realise that most of the things we do as a chore might be the last time we do them, we might attribute much more value to the experience.
How many of us remember the last time we played in the school ground with our friends? Or the meal granny would cook for you whenever you visited her?
The last time you appeared for a written exam?
Or the last time you embraced a loved one you are not together with anymore?
Chances are that none of us remember the last time we did these things. Because these things became so mundane that we didn’t attribute them the value they deserved.
Had we cherished each of the above experiences with a solemn realisation that it could be the last time we experience it,
the event would have been much memorable. And you would have the same fascination and gratitude in your eyes as my friend Phulong did when we was ascending the cliff to see the Dugong.
Accept all everyday experiences with gratitude and you will make amazing memories filled with fascination and wonder.
The next time you embrace a loved one, or eat your favourite dish at home,
Gently remind yourself,
‘Once in a lifetime,
Once in a lifetime.’
To more fascination, gratitude
And light,
in your eyes.
