Not my day?

I play table tennis quite regularly at office. I usually play with couple of friends of Chinese origin. They are amazing players. Quite frankly, I used to get kicked in my butt quite often for one year! Then, the game got better, techniques got more sound, my defense improved and gradually, I started winning games more often. Now, on my day, I make them look like rookies, and those days happen quite frequently.

Yesterday, some interesting thought came up while I was playing. I was down three games to zero. The games were not going quite my way. There were several narrow misses and there were streaky points taken against me. It seemed that there was no luck. Thats when I thought – Maybe, it is an indication for me to just concentrate harder and adjust my game. I decided to bank on my strength to come out of the dip. I started attacking more, which was my game and backed myself to deliver. I stood a foot back from my normal position to increase the probability of landing my smashes on the table. I completely sleepwalked the game. It was a phenomenal turn around. The next game went really close (several deuce points) but I hung around and nailed that game as well.

The point I am trying to make is – when you feel you are in bad patch and things are not going your way, it is important to show more determination and trust your strengths to bring yourself out of whatever bad patch y0u feel you are in. In game, it shows faster; in life, it takes longer to see the result. But, it will show. The principle is still the same.

When to Resist?

When to -

Resist a habit – When it leaves a bad aftertaste!
Resist a thought – When it spins you in a whirlpool of miseries!
Resist a person – When they stop loving!
Resist a work – When it does not give you joy!
Resist an obligation – When it is an obligation!
Resist a feeling – When that feeling creates hate!
Resist a goal – When that goal is some way not yours!
Resist an activity – When it stops giving you joy!

Never resist a smile, time spent with children and loved ones, and change! Flow with life.

Story and smile

Have you ever told stories to a child? You don’t need to know a lot of stories, you can make it up as you go. Recently, my wife’s nephew was at our home. He is an amazing kid! I was telling stories to him making something up as they went. You should’ve seen his eyes. They were wide with excitement. He was imagining himself in that magical world I created for him. The beauty was that he was expressing his imagination and fine tuning it by asking questions like – was it like this or that…It was an amazing experience for me. I learnt a thing or two about my story telling abilities – Needs improvement!

Anyway, this incident brought forward so many things personally for me – the power of words, imagination, happiness in the simple pleasures of life, important moments that ought not to be missed, etc.

 

Who are they?

Who are “they” to tell us what we should feel about ourselves? Who are we to feel bad about ourselves because “they” told us so?

One of the gravest injustice we can inflict on ourselves is to doubt our intentions, integrity, qualities and character. I have seen several people go into a shell because somebody made them believe that they were not good the way they were! My question to those – “Excuse me! Do you even know yourself? How can you let somebody take your spirit and courage away?”

When you are pushed down, do you have the guts to stand up?
When you are low, do you remember the peaks you are going to scale?
Because, if you are, then your life is in safe hands. Nothing on this earth would take your success away from you!

Do I need to?

It has been over 3 months since my last post. I have not been lazy to write – As a matter of fact, I am hardly lazy when it comes to writing. I love writing. But, then, there was a thought – Why write what I write? I don’t write to preach; I am hardly qualified in that department. I write because I love. I don’t write when my mind is full. I write when my mind is empty.

These three months, I have been emptying my mind of the thought that it was getting full. I was letting go of my philosophical ego that was starting to take me over. I was emptying my mind of all the things that I thought I could do and I could not do. I was emptying my compulsive desires to conquer, communicate, establish, achieve, dream, …

It took me three months to understand the difference between compulsive and complimentary. Compulsive goals or desires are what we create because our world becomes blank without them – recognition, money, status and so forth. The problem with compulsive goals are that they neither do any justice to us nor lets us do any justice to them. When I chase a dream that was born out a compulsive desire for recognition, when it eludes me, I am unhappy and when I achieve it, it is unhappy and transforms into something else.

Then there are complimentary goals – the goals that compliment our existence. They are actually not goals that one sets. They evolve out of us ceremoniously dancing to beat of our own heart. There is never a need to prove one’s self. There is never a need to achieve. Achievements and results are byproducts of the spiritual union between what needs to be done and what one is born to do. There are no metrics to judge.

I am back to writing. When I write, my heart pumps and I go in a trance. This needs to be done and maybe this is what I was born to do.