Category: choice

Continuing the takeaways from the book called the Laws of Human Nature by author Robert Greene.

1. The Law of Infection – Emotions are contagious. We are influenced by the moods and ideas of the people we spend time with. We need to be mindful of the company we keep and the ideologies we adopt.
   
2. The Law of the Endless Chain – Every action has consequences that extend far beyond the immediate moment. If we understand the chain of cause and effect, we can better predict and control the future.
   
3. The Law of Non-Engagement – Sometimes, the best way to win is not to fight. We can avoid getting emotionally entangled in other people’s problems and conflicts.
   
   Continued tomorrow…

The story of legendary mountaineer Anker Conrad is incredible. He set out on a daring expedition with his best friends, fully prepared for the challenges they might face, as they climbed Mount Shma. However, fate had a different plan. An unforeseen avalanche struck, forcing Anker to make a split-second decision that would change everything.

What did he do?

He simply decided to dive left as the avalanche hit. His two colleagues dove right. Anker suffered a broken collarbone. Bad for sure, but at least he recovered. His two friends? Their bodies were only retrieved after many years.

His decision to go left was a simple ‘dumb-luck’ call as he himself admits. While not all such decisions may be life or death, many times in our lives, we too make sudden choices, with no knowledge of the future. It is the same for everyone.

When we look at successful people today, we assume they always did everything perfectly. Not true, because everyone has these dumb-choice moments. Best not to read too much into predicting the future by exactly following others paths. No one knows what is coming next. We each simply do our best, that’s it.

In a recent satsang, there was a query on how one should deal with change. The 3-step answer given by the speaker was brilliant.

1. Accept that change will happen. We cannot slow ageing for instance. Or that many circumstances are beyond our control, and will naturally look different and evolve in different ways tomorrow. Not resisting change will solve half the problem.
2. Dealing with change positively requires a purpose in life. While a professional and personal purpose is good, a spiritual purpose is a game changer and life changer.
3. Eventually, we will realise, that the true purpose is not to run away from change, but to seek the truly changeless, that is there deep inside each one of us, who we may call God or Consciousness or Brahman etc.

So nice, isn’t it?

We all know what a fallow field is. It’s one where the farmer has let the field be as is for a year. No ploughing, no harvesting, nothing.

Why? Because after years and years of doing nothing but cultivation, the soil needs rest. And the one year of lying fallow provides exactly that, because all the nutrients in the soil get replenished.

This is no different from each one of us giving our bodies and minds some rest. Every second of every waking hour need not be maximized or productive. Too much of anything – either productivity or even leisure – isn’t great, as the Gita itself tells us.

Equanimity and moderation are key. Fallow is not shallow.

When things don’t go well, we want and expect it to get over asap.

But when everything is going great guns in life, we feel we are entitled to our success, and in denial of its temporary nature.

If something goes badly, we may say it’s not our fault.

But would we attribute our success also to something outside our control?

If the source of failure can be outsourced, then why not the same treatment for success?

Both success and failure are nothing but meaningless labels in the cyclicality that is life.

The only thing we control is our own reaction to these external eventualities. If we choose to give up control of that also, then only peace remains.

We’ve all heard the quote “Consistency bests talent”. This is absolutely true, but usually only when measured in the long run. If one has both talent and consistency, then they become unbeatable!

A simple example I love every morning is the New York Times’ Wordle. If you haven’t tried it yet, you should. It takes just a few minutes to do everyday.

There are different approaches to solving it. Some prefer to guess the words directly, so that they finish within as few tries as possible.

There’s also the more consistent approach, where you can try the same set of words daily, but over time increase the probability of your success. For example, starting with ADIEU, SPORT and LYNCH means you cover the most letters with none of them repeating. This improves your chances of success over time. But it may not be the best to win an individual game. The choice is ours. Consistency? Or short term success?

For any fan of the movie, the title of this blog post would immediately remind one of The Godfather movie – one of the most iconic ones ever to be made. But making the movie itself was no easy task. Low budgets, a string of prior failures, struggles with casting, involvement of the real-life mafia, you name a problem and it was present.

All of this is captured beautifully in a TV miniseries released recently aptly called The Offer. The producer of the film and the CEO of Paramount at the time had this dialogue exchange:

Charlie (CEO): A word to the wise, Ruddy. When you fail alone, there's no one else to blame.

Ruddy: That's the only way I want it.

Why I find this so beautiful and so profound, is because it represents the struggle each one of us goes through in life daily. Should we just take it easy, and go with the flow? Or should we go against the grain where needed, and really do something pathbreaking?

I suppose it depends on what we want in life. Do we want to make the most of the time we have here in this life? Or just come unknown and go unknown?

The new superhit movie from India made on a shoestring budget called Kantara is making waves all over the country.

It’s actually not a generic Indian movie but one from a specific part of Karnataka, a state in the country.

Not just any random love story, but one of demigods and people with superpowers. Not beams flying out of their eyes, but powers given to save the citizens of the district, while enabling them to live in harmony with nature.

While this may sound like superstition and mythology to some, there is certainly an element of truth to it. The spiritual energy is tangible to those who are receptive to it. Not just the movie, but more so of the same rituals practised in real life.

But folks have watched this movie, and said it’s nonsense. “These things can never happen. Random magic and superstition and silly ancient rituals”

And yet the same people will watch spandex-clad caped-crusaders shooting webs from their wrists and light from their eyes and gloat in amazement. Go figure.

If a doctor has been giving simple cough syrup to cure someone’s cough, but later realizes that this is a deeper lung issue, of course the doc will have to quit giving cough syrup and progress to more potent medication.

If the workplace is really toxic, then what’s the problem in quitting? If there’s a better opportunity available, shouldn’t one take it?

There’s a concept in economics called ‘opportunity cost’ that exactly defines this, and businesses use it all the time. With a limited set of resources, how can you make the optimum use of the opportunity at hand? No matter what happens, if there are multiple opportunities, one or more will have to be sacrificed, and that is the cost of missing out. But it’s fine, we cannot do everything at the same time, all the time.

Quitting isn’t bad. It’s why one quits that matters.

There’s a whole “quiet quitting” movement that is going on in the corporate world. Employees don’t actually quit but they are so disillusioned with work, that they quit mentally. So they would not put in the efforts required and do a half hearted job perhaps.

There’s something about quitting in our world that just evokes the deepest of passions.

“How can you quit? Quitting is for losers. Tough people never quit.” Haven’t we all grown up hearing these?

This even exists with the greatest most successful folks. Nobody says they quit. They want to be seen as evolving, not quitting, even if it’s a tennis star keeping down her racquet or a footballer hanging up his boots.

Why is quitting so bad? More tomorrow.

The 73 year old ultra successful billionaire investor and founder of the Carlyle Group, David Rubenstein, had the following to say when asked about what kind of projects he takes on or spends time on.

1. Work on starting things that others aren’t able to start.
2. Work on finishing things that others aren’t able to finish.
3. Wherever possible, attempt to make tangible progress, rather than something that might or might not happen in a distant future.
4. Give your time to your projects of choice, in addition to giving your money.

Isn’t this very instructive and insightful on how we each could look to prioritize our own times as well?

What is more important, work or family life?

That’s a trick question, because both are important, as we well know.

Balancing both is very difficult, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

I came across the story of a celebrated author who was writing his best ever book yet. He was so engrossed in the book, that he forgot everything around him, family included.

He unfortunately passed away while writing the last chapter. His wife said this after his death:

"I do miss Larry, but it's not like he was here even when he was alive"

Is that how we want to be known?

As one of my mentors always says, it’s never work-life balance, but always work-life choice.

We may know what the right thing to do is, and yet not do it when the time comes.

Elbert Hubbard, the American writer and philosopher who lived in the 1890s had this to say:

Self discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do and when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.

Truer yet harder-to-implement words were perhaps never spoken.

Elbert goes on to say:

There are 999 other success principles I have found in my reading and experience, but without self-discipline, none of them work. And with self-discipline, all of them work!

You know how we struggle sometimes to say “No”?

Especially when we know deep down, that “No” is indeed the right answer.

It might be to a friend or relative asking for your money, or a boss asking you to work every weekend, or a colleague expecting you to always fill in for their gaps.

We may think that by saying “Yes” to such requests, we are actually doing something good, doing something divinely karmic.

However, it is good to remember that every coin has a flip side. By saying “Yes” to everything, we are actually saying implicit “No”s to ourselves and to our loved ones. How?

Because every extra hour or dollar wasted on someone unnecessary, is an equivalent hour or dollar unavailable for us to spend with ourselves or our loved ones. Not that we should not help others, but thinking this way helps us discriminate between who really needs our help, and who is being parasitic.

There was a bit of a medical emergency recently. Not a big scare or anything. But some medicines were needed, and pronto.

There’s so many “10-minute delivery” apps nowadays, that any one of them should have done the trick.

Except that at 4 am, none of them deliver medicines even in 3 hours, let alone 10 minutes.

That is understandable of course. Can’t expect the world to be awake in the wee hours of the morning to make medical deliveries.

Until you open the food apps that is, and realize that you can order burgers and fries and high-sugar fizzy drinks at 4 am for immediate delivery, but not critical medicines.

We collectively as a society seem to have our priorities clear 😅

Phishing. We’ve all heard of this. The email scams that attempt to impersonate legitimate businesses and steal our credit card, bank account and other payment information. The cover emails look harmless, but they play on our emotions, and need us to act immediately. This link says that a staggering US$ 12bn has been stolen due to phishing scams in the US over the last five years alone. So the global amount is likely to be many many multiples of that!

Funnily enough, we also get phished in normal day to day life – nothing to do with bank accounts or the internet. Here are some typical conversations.

“Hey, did you see my new car? Brand new model, collector’s edition, turbo-charged, 0-100 in 3 seconds. A true beast!”
“Hey, here’s my new iPhone [X][Maxx][Retina][Pro], with [10] in-built cameras. This is tech from the future!”
“Hey, check out my new microwave oven. It’s got IoT connectivity, auto-menu and gourmet wave modes. State of the art!”

What’s the connection to phishing you ask? Instead of giving up our bank accounts, when we are on the receiving end of such conversations, we quickly and voluntarily give up our peace of mind instead.

Cybersecurity experts warn against becoming emotionally involved while reading phishing emails. This would be good advice in general too. Not everyone can own the latest car or purse or gadget. Most importantly, not everyone needs to either. It helps to ask, “Are we the owner, or the owned?”

Yesterday night, a big fat lizard (okay a little exaggeration here I admit) appeared suddenly from behind the wall clock. A few shrieks and screams from the householders later, we ran to open the window, and tried to shoo him out. The end game was clear. Armed with a broom, a stick, and a strict non-violence policy, we had to keep tapping on the walls and direct him to the opening. Every few seconds, when he was so close to getting out, he would turn last minute and scurry back into the room in another direction. After 10 minutes of stick tapping, furniture moving and light toggling, he finally scrambled out. Phew. Peace. We could now sleep at ease. No worry of a lizard falling down on our faces while asleep.

But this was just one lizard. Who knows if there are any others hidden in the darkness?

The episode couldn’t stop me from thinking about the similarities to life. When a problem hits us, we tend to focus all our energies on it. We run behind it like the rest of the world has stopped. We may forget that we have a room or even a house full of space, with wonderful people and things (and one tiny lizard). If we are unable to drive the problem away, then we keep worrying about it, often unable to sleep. Even when the problem is gone, we wonder if there might be other problems lurking nearby.

The gecko is quite common in India. Ask any villager how to tackle them, and they will tell you that they don’t even think twice about the reptile. The lizards help control the insect population, always just mind their own business, and often leave mysteriously (through some orifice) at sunlight, the same mysterious way they made their way in, in the first place.

The villagers’ behaviour is no different from that of a realized soul when it comes to tackling problems in life. They exist, they are acknowledged and then they are wilfully forgotten, because the focus has already shifted back to the good.