It is said that thoughts become us. But then thoughts we generate are also completely in our hands. While the output of all our other organs is involuntary, our thoughts are quite in our voluntary control. Not easy, but then what is?!
The journey to training our monkey mind is tough. It requires patience and a great amount of training. Just like Rome wasnt built in a day. But then the first step is always the hardest, and a beginning made with complete intention and awareness is always purposeful.
To train a monkey mind to become a monk mind isn’t easy. You have to train yourself to see the world differently. You got to stop fighting the multiple versions arising within, so that peace can come to you. In tactical world, it means practising mindfulness, ekagrata towards one task. So that when you do, you do just that one task and avoid meandering your mind in lost alleys.
Near yet far
Once you are aware, remember you got to stop carrying the world on your shoulders. Releasing things from your locus will grant you more calm. By concentrating on your breathing alone, you can be more still and mindful. If every living breathe could be felt, lived and experienced, our mind would rarely wander stray!
Influencers are everywhere. Every social media platform has a unique terminology for them. Yet the packaging is the same, in short, users who have amassed a huge number of ‘followers’ thereby putting themselves on a higher pedestal of worship. Some of them have even gone on to form a cult of sorts. Some achieve fandom similar to mini-celebrities. But how many of the ones inspired or following these influencers actually get moving? Or does the influence end with the browsing?
Real influencing is when one brings some reflections from online to offline. IRL is the keyword here. It’s about actually doing things rather than just wishlisting them. Things which are beyond your comfort zone. Those that have been on the backburner since forever. They are part of the buried wishes and plans since aeons now.
And let’s not count aping the latest fashion trend or makeup hack as getting inspired. It has to be a longer commitment making a significant lifestyle change to your old ways. Something which is both sustainable and enhances your persona.
One way to approach action out of this bucket list of inflluencers is to rise above the scrolling and start making a list of your areas of improvement. Now prioritize this list and pick the top 2-3 at maximum. We all know anything which is a priority #4 or beyond hardly ever gets done, so let’s keep it real.
Now fix a source of inspiration for yourself. From those multitude that you currently ‘follow’, shortlist a handful and start by drawing actionable inspiration from one at a time. This way you get a coach for what you intend to pick up. Finding a guru should be based on facts and figures, not asthetics alone! So use your cerebral cortex to customize the journey you intend to embark on. There maybe a plethora of templates, playbooks and guides off the internet and many a summaries that AI tools can generate for you, but what matters is your grey matter personalizing it to suit your lifestyle and end goals.
Met the person of your dreams & fell in love – congratulations! Now how about staying in love, years after years, for better or for worse? Ever thought how easy or difficult of a navigation could this path of love be?
Staying in love is the real deal, this is where the hard work begins. It requires active participation, open communication and concious collaborative efforts from both ends. Often folks find the initial thrill and adrenaline rush of love starts to taper down with time. Drowing in daily routine, nothing new to discover about the other person and a sense of familiarity rubs off the shine of new love.
Sticking together
Finding a common ground works best. It could be anything cultural – language, food, music, dance. Sharing similar tastes in music, dance, art does help; as nurturing them together brings out different facets of your love interest. Similarly sharing a significant past whether childhood, workplace or adulthood also cements the bond further.
Finally what is more important is how often this commonality gets visited as life gets busy. This is where the going gets real to keep working at your relationship. Make it visual by adding physically or digital artifacts. These serve as reminders to things you both cherish. Add snippets of this shared past in your talks and make it the ikigai of your relationship, your reason of being together and cultivating joy more than stress.
Itching to explore a new place? Want to escape the daily grind? Wish life was one big vacation? Indeed, the world is your oyster and travel you must, with care!
Travelling is the new rich. Exotic destinations, luxurious properties, unique experiences, curated workshops, you name it and there is a segment available. Essentially the tourist is spoilt for choice. And travelling has been democratized by now, everyone is travelling to somewhere everytime you speak to them. This is good as more of us now move, observe, learn and get shaped by these travel choices. If there is one thing missing, it’s a uniform social etiquette for travellers.
Travelling for life
Eating local and seasonal is the best way to keep your digestive system in harmony. Not only do you savour a new cuisine, but also carry the sights, flavours and smells of the place long after your visit. Similarly sampling local handmade industries provide a glimpse of the cultural diversity and richness of the place. Interacting with native guides, hiring local drivers and other help staff gives an opportunity to mingle with the folks, listen to stories of the indigenous tribes and learn the ropes of the land. All this only makes your travel memories richer, humane and insightful – apart from the curated experiences and visits which are part of any standard itinerary.
Just like responsible tourism, need of the hour is to systemize travel processes to balance demand supply sides. Uttarakhand, India is know for pilgrimage and adventure sports. Steps are being taken to implement tokenised entry exit of tourists so as to not burden the existing infrastructure and preserve overall tourist experience. Similarly a portable water crisis is emerging in tropical islands of Andaman & Nicobar, India where an overwhelming demand has started straining the natural resources. Pricing techniques could be applied here so as to extract profitable revenues from those who can afford to pay for premiumness. This way both profitability and accessibility can be matched. Similar mechanisms can be put too use in popular tourist places like Goa, Pondicherry where seasonality doesn’t play much role so travel demand can be evenly spread out by using pricing as an accessibility factor.
So travel we must continue to do. Aiming to keep our ecological footprint smaller both as individuals as well as a society!
Am I not doing enough? Am I micro-managing? Should I treat my kids as friends? Do I retain the Asian tiger mom version?Motherhood is not without its fair share of transitions, read on.
As a mother and primary caregiver, I often wonder where time flies. From organizing a million things to being the chief operating officer of my kids life, most days are like running a marathon amid chaos. There are emotional outbursts, physical tiffs, social standoffs and massive communication campaigns running from dawn to dusk. It’s nothing short of a mini geo-political situation to be handled everyday. Sometimes I play the plaintiff, other times the accused and most times the prison supervisor dishing out punishments appropriate for the crime at hand.
When I sit back to see the forest (and not the trees), I do see a pattern emerging. Up until my baby was about 5-6 years old, he was dependent on me for allmost everything from physiological basics to intellectual bytes. And then the major weaning off started. Just like an infant unlatches from you, this mini-me now was autonomous in what he wanted to wear to what his meal should look like. Soon enough he also started dishing out vocabulary and knowledge unknown to my cognitive depths!
Now that I have a ‘I am not a kid anymore’ situation, I better change my stance from forehand to backhand. Staying a step behind, waiting for the ball to bounce high enough before I catch it. Letting the mini-citizens exercise their rights and making them aware of their duties as well. So they get to design their daily routine and yet have to complete the chore of loading the dishwasher!
Raising kids is a mean feat, a fine walk between mothering and smothering. A delicate balance between sharing tender moments and being the stern taskmaster. Embrace this sunshine while it lasts; kids they grow faster than you would believe!
When silence takes center stage. When there is comfort in avoidance. When it is best to fall out of touch than stay in touch. Both sides let time and tide wash it away. Quiet. Concious. Disconnected.
A term made fashionable by the Hollywood actor Gywneth Platrow – silent divorce describes the above situation accurately. There is quiet quitting, and act of growing apart, slowly albeit steadily. A noiseless separation that isn’t conjectured in a day but has been in the making since years, decades perhaps. Partners falll out of love, liking and eventually co-existence. No drama, no pressure just pack up and move on.
It’s rampant these days, not just amongst married couples but even other relationships. Friendships are more often than not ending this way. Falling in and out of love and companionship is the reason here too. You grow ‘bored’ of a bestie and latch onto another, more often than not only to move onto another. Often the courtesies are exchanged and being ‘in the radar’ is no more considered insulting even if you were 3am friends at one time. Even in families you see siblings no more emotionally connected to the umbilical cord or to each other. They live together or apart, function in harmony when required but act in complete autonomy and isolation of each other (or even the parents at times)!
It can be termed emotional conservation – where you want to save your feelings and not spend them unnecessarily by ‘sweating on the small stuff’. This also saves one from the societal pressure of living with one’s partner or family. Thus saved from the stigma, everyone can live and let live. Carrying on with the parallel lives, non aligned but cooperative where need be!
‘Forty till I die’ is the new mantra these days. Afterall we are past our learnings in career, relationship and child rearing by now, so seems this is the gorgeous ‘be yourself, be free’ decade to live life queen size. So here is the last in the series of what every woman should aim to get under her belt before turning 40!
Set soft guardrails : Don’t be a doormat. Set reasonable boundaries to secure your energies. Be soft yet intentional about spending your time wisely.
Find your comfort food : A family dish, a neighbourhood meal – whatever is your pick, keep it handy and accessible. Afterall a known pallete can lift moods just like that.
Balance it out : You don’t have to be prim and perfect all the time. Allow yourself to be human and have your days – both glamorous and homebody. Maturity is behaving the same externally irrespective of your internal mood chart.
Stay informed : Needless to say, it’s an era of information overload. So it’s hard to miss the buzz – social, political, economical unless you have been living under a rock. A fair awareness of the pulse helps you formulate opinions when required.
Forgive & forget : Be kind. Start with yourself first. Others come next. Afterall life is too short to keep scores and even them out.
Delegate and doze off : Learn to outsource, offload and organize your time better. Make peace with quality of work and don’t bother micro-managing the new task owner. Whether at work or home, reward yourself with bytes of free time this way.
Art of critique : It takes practise to give feedback without hurting. Yet your wise words should be action-worthy or they sound hollow. Perfect this interpersonal skill to manevour life more smoothly.
Explore a new genre : Come on, you arent too old to try a new form. Whether it’s dance, music, cinema or or art, step out of the comfort zone. Give a new genre an honest shot and you may end up being a fan yourself!
Embrace aging with grace : The greys, wrinkles, fine lines or whatever signs of aging you are showing up – it makes you you. Lap them up with grace and charm. Lady you are worth all the years you have lived so why hide behind young veils!
Plan special days : & don’t wait for anyone to do it for you. Cos by now you have perfected the art of planning for others so time to shower yourself with love too. Take the pressure off others and dwell in the memories made!
Not all athletes win an olympic gold. Not all scientists get the Nobel prize. Not all authors win a Booker prize. So why burden yourself with the pressure of outperforming?
Not saying to not chase your dreams. Neither proposing giving up your passion or profession. Just a wild Wednesday reflection of why not revel in being you. Why always chase titles, awards, prizes and accolades. Why not enjoy the journey itself. Why look for assurances in achievements. Why not stay self contained. Why seek validation externally. Why not discover peace within.
Cherish. Be grateful. Nourish. Ruminate. Preserve. Construct. Unlearn. Relearn. Think out of the box. Eureka moments don’t happen in chaos. They need a reflective state of mind to nurture.
Not all of us would go on to accomplish larger than life goals. So better most of us start cherishing the moments as they pass and savour the memories built around them.
May the ‘fourth’ be with you! Said the wise Yoda to his fellow Jedis. This one’s dedicated to a friend who is nerves as she nears turning forty. Is she overthinking – yes, no. It’s equally graceful to be anxious about future as it is to be a calm cucumber – to each her own. So continuing from before what every woman should aim to get under her belt before turning 40!
Start experimenting : Hair style, lip color, eye shades, everything makeup and fashion. Afterall YOLO so why stick to safe choices, rather try fun variants every now & then.
Date nights : Married, committed or single – dating should be mandatory for all. Dress up, leaving behind your routine worries and do something new together. It could be a movie, hobby class or plain vanilla dinner. Idea is to spend time with your partner to keep the romantic fire alive!
Pen it down : That book, blog, docu, vlog whatever has been pending since ages. Time to bring it out of the blueprint and put out in flesh. Make a loosely structured workplan and aim to wrap it up before your next birthday.
Weeds amongst the bush
Learn about your roots : Whenever you interact with your elders, dwell deeper about your culture. It could be collecting simple hacks about recipes, common ailments, family tree or festivities. Helps make your own rituals culturally rich and more meaningful.
Know your favs : Whether it’s outfits or food or hobbies or people. Bear your favourites in mind and guard your boundaries using them. Start choosing yourself and embrace the joy it brings.
Look inwards : Connect with your self energy. Whether by means of yoga, meditation, journaling or gardening. A hobby that helps you connect body mind and helps you become your own best friend.
Perfect your pitch : Yet keep it tailored for the audience. How you connect to your partner should be different from how you interact with younglings at work or home. Start interacting with each person uniquely to build deeper, meaningful connections.
Finnese a skill : That bucket list of ‘I want to learn xyz’ which has been at the backburner. Bring it to spotlight and commit too it. Start with babysteps and take expert help to fine tune your swimming/driving/cooking/sketching.
Stay sharp : Be mindful in your choice of words. Position and present yourself per the person on the other side. It’s not a crime to keep quiet but it’s a charm to know what to sell how and where.
Reconnect : That long lost friend, the colleague who got busy, the ex-lover who you lost touch with. Give everyone a chance to be part of your life – some may stay, some may wander – their loss!
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