Life Lessons

There are 26 posts filed in Life Lessons (this is page 1 of 3).

Dear Student

Dear *Student,

Congratulations on completing your 12th class exams, as well as a few competitive ones. I am proud about you making it this far with grit and determination. I know it has not been easy for you. 

Your journey till now was a straight line – year after year, syllabus after syllabus and exam after exam – much like walking a straight path that many others have walked on before.

But now starts a phase that is more like finding your way out of the jungle where no trails exists. You have to carve out your unique path with combination of skills that can help you make a positive difference in the world.

Waiting for results, applying to various colleges, figuring out your path can feel overwhelming, but this is your opportunity to create a different path for yourselves through choices, turns, experiments, and discoveries about the world around you and about your own selves. This path you now create can possibly inspire others too. 

Building a rewarding and fulfilling career is less like a destination and more like a journey. As you navigate your next best step, here are a few things you should keep in mind:

1) You cannot create a novel path for yourself if you simply follow what others have done. Be curious and follow what energizes you, not just what looks good on paper. 

2) Skills > Degrees. Degrees are door openers, but skills are what keeps them open. “What skills?”, you may ask. The skills that you build at the intersection of what you truly love AND what helps others meaningfully. You can be highly qualified, but without skills and real ability to solve problems, qualifications are simply a piece of paper. “What kind of skills?” you may ask again. It has to be a combination of technical skills, functional skills (understanding the domain) and soft skills. 

3) Escape the comparison trap. The world loves comparison, and ranking you on a scale. You are YOU – with your unique strengths, interests, and path. Comparison, they say, is the enemy of creativity. It is a way to keep you in the same track as others. Have courage to break free from the compliant path, and then you stand a chance to do something unique.

4) Learn what they don’t teach you in school but plays a HUGE role in your life, career and relationships. These would be things like communication, digital literacy (AI, tech tools, cyber security), public speaking, storytelling, collaborating with others, time management, investing, personal finance and curiosity. Most importantly, learn how to learn on your own through books, online forums and physical comunities. These are just a few that comes to mind.

You won’t know where exactly you are going, and that’s okay. You just have to take the next right step, and keep going. That’s what wayfinding is all about.

With love and belief in you,

Tanmay

P.S.: The *Student here refers to my daughter, my nephew and their friends, who may find this useful 🙂

Confession of Character

 

The way you speak about the world says more about you than the world itself. When you constantly see negativity, chaos, or betrayal – ask WHY. Because our perspectives are shaped by our inner state. A kind heart sees kindness and a hopeful soul sees opportunities. If you are constantly bitter, it reflects inner wounds.

Words you use to describe the world are a mirror. It pays to think about what your words are revealing about you.  

Inner Boundaries

I played cricket after a really long time through participation in my neighborhood’s premier league. The opponent teams had players far younger than me with prowess to throw high-speed deliveries. The first couple of matches were really hard. I could barely guard the wicket for a ball or two before getting bowled out.

Third match was a turn-around. Before the match, I affirmed myself with the following:

You get bowled out, not by an opponent’s speed of bowling, but by your internal anxiety to perform. Let it go, calm down, watch the ball carefully and play it according to it’s merit. Defend good deliveries (read tough times) and wait for the loose ones (read opportunities) to take your chances. Let go of your need to show your performance and score runs. Focus instead on each ball, it’s trajectory, pitching and length before doing justice to it. Score can just be an outcome of your ability to enjoy the game.

In that match, I hit five boundaries and everyone around was amazed. The big lesson for me is: It’s always about conquering ourselves first before we can conquer anything in the outer world.

Seneca rightly said,

“A rational soul is stronger than any kind of fortune – from its own share, it guides its affairs here or there, and is itself the cause of a happy or miserable life.”

Ability to stitch yourself together when situations tear you apart is a life skill that no one teaches. We have to do it ourselves. Strengthening the soul is the work of our life.

We are in semi-finals as I write this. Outcome will not matter knowing that I crossed a few inner boundaries!

StoicNotes: Be Your Own Witness

In our need to belong, we sometimes rely too much on what others think of us. When we seek too much validation in external stuff – titles, pay packages, status, other people etc. – we stray away from who we truly are. We step away from that which is uniquely ours.

Epictetus prompts us to have an inner scorecard that we abide to. Do what truly brings us alive, be who we truly are and constantly seek clarity on these aspects while conducting ourselves.

Achieve, then move on!

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A related thought from Michael Wade:

“An excessive ego can be a chain that slows our advance. It can also resemble a curtain that keeps out the light. It can become a wall that causes us to see only our turf and not the larger expanse that should be our concern. It can poison relationships, cloud memories, and subvert judgment. “. Some of us never recover.”

Make Things..

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Excuses are easily accessible. You can cook them up. It’s always easier to blame external situations for our failures or lack of attempt. You can play a victim and soon, the world with sympathize with you.

On the other hand, effort to make things is also easily accessible once we get past our victim mindset. The locus of control is internal. The call it “Growth Mindset”.

Make things, not excuses.

On Raising Children!

“Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.”

― William Martin

In the pic: My kids watching the expanse of Sukhna lake with Shivalik mountains at a distance.

 

What Death Teaches Us About Life..

Sometimes, witnessing death teaches you about life that life itself cannot.

This week, I encountered two deaths – one of a relative and one of a neighbor but it was the stark contrast of how they passed away that taught me something important.

Our relative passed away on the stage at the age of 70 years pursuing his passion for singing and music. He was performing at a religious gathering when he collapsed of a sudden cardiac arrest resulting from a rather long history of cardio-vascular disease. He was a parent of a special child and life wasn’t really easy for him. But he would always wear a smile as gentle as his nature and radiate joy whenever he met others. Music was his passion and to pursue it full time, he opted for a premature retirement from his banking profession.Music was also his defense against the trials of life – whenever he found himself tangled in vagaries of life, he would lose himself in songs that he wrote, composed and sung. He often mentioned that he would like to pass away gently while singing in devotion of the higher power. Universe granted his wish.

On the other hand, I heard the news of one of our neighbors who committed suicide at the age of 40 leaving behind wife and two boys aged 5 and 8! Though no one knows the reason why he chose to run away from life, everyone thought what he did was horrible. Escaping life to avoid being confronted with problems leaves those left behind with much bigger problems for rest of their lives!

Events like these makes you think hard about life and how to live it well. We often get too caught up with our problems whether it is financial, relational, physical or emotional. Problems are there for a reason. We evolve as we go through those experiences, face the challenges and solve our problems. We cannot let the dark clouds of despair take us over.

We all face problems and challenges in our unique contexts. A few things really help in dealing with them.

Having a strong support system in form of family and friends with whom you can share and communicate your feelings, emotions and concerns is important buffer we have. More important is to actually choose to communicate with our loved ones regularly. Having exposure to right kind of reading and thinking can help in dealing with problems wisely. Having at least one passion that you can lose yourself into completely can be a savior. Doing something to serve others can help in taking away focus from the self even if for short time. Having a spiritual hook in any form can help too. Living in the current moment and doing whatever you are doing with full focus can keep you away from anxiety of the future.

The life we have been bestowed with is precious. We got to use life energy as a tool to overcome challenges, to create meaning for ourselves, to serve others, to tread gently on this earth, lose ourselves in something bigger than ourselves and be open to learn along the way.

Voltaire said it right:

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living it well.