Compulsive Nature

I have a power of noticing what is happening around me. It has happened with me too, which is how I first noticed it. I then wanted to see was it just me, or if it was majority of the people I'm surrounded by.

You wake up in the morning. You check your phone in a hurry to update yourself on all that has happened in the world while you were asleep. You keep the phone down in disappointment and twist and turn in bed and fall asleep again. Now you are late for work, so you rush. You rush to brush your teeth, to make yourself a quick breakfast, to shower, get ready and frantically run out the door to get to work on time.

Now you're at work. You've made it in time, just a few minutes late after being antsy sitting in your car through the morning commuter traffic. You pour yourself a cup of coffee and begin your day. Your day is packed with multitasking which basically means that you're thinking of a lot of things at once, and none of them clearly.

Before you know it it's time to go home and you end up reaching home physically tired but your mind is still jogging. It is still thinking about all the stuff that happened today and all the work that is still to be done at home.

Exhausted, you pull yourself through and get it all done and get to bed but you can't sleep. You're looking at your phone for funny cat videos to lighten up your day and hopefully put you to sleep. You finally fall asleep until the alarm clock goes off and the whole thing starts again.

If someone told you, you had 36,500 days to live like this. What would you tell them?

Our lives are bound by compulsiveness. Take a moment to think about what you're doing before you do it. You'll start to make decisions which wouldn't have made sense when you were stuck in compulsiveness.

Permutation Expirement

Nature is performing an experiment like it has for years, which we call "Survival of the fittest". The same is going on today without the need for survival. We have formed societies where humans do not need to be worried about survival every day of their lives. Instead we have started focusing our lives on bigger and better things. For every being it is different, it is ingrained in their very nature to be different. We are all permutations of a human gene. Nature is performing an experiment as to which permutation works and which doesn't. But this leads us to the obvious question, how do we know what works? Would you define a fulfilling life the same way nature does? Maybe you think you led the best life, but does nature think the same? I feel the first step to answering that question is - think about what you were bounded by in your life. Were you bounded by human created 'procedures', or were you bounded by the limits imposed by nature.

Automatic thoughts

There are two parts of our mind, one is the habitual thinker and the other one is the factual thinker. Ever wondered why it takes so long to come to a conclusive decision? Its because they automatic thinker is driving your actions. The factual thinker has converged on a decision, but your habitual thoughts keep you from acting on them.

The reason why it is so hard to overpower the habitual thinking is because it has inertia. If I've been doing something a certain way for the past 5 years, I'm likely to continue doing it that way until a strong force hits me to change my course.

Our society is overpowered my habitual thinking and as time goes by the reason for why they do things a certain way fades away. There are two ways to get out of this spell. One is to forcefully alter your course and the other is to question why you do what you do.

.. To be continued.

Deserve it

Do you remember looking at your famous icon in awe, wondering how they got so far in life? Its true when they say that it didn't happen over night and what you see is only the icing on the cake.

The sacrifices they made every day, the pain they absorbed and used to propel further, the rules they bent along the way, the people they met who took advantage of them, the people they met who gave them advice when they most needed it, the loved ones who didn't make it to see them be successful - all of this is just a fragment in their memory.

So before you start to envy them, and feel like being like them, ask yourself are you ready to make those sacrifices?

Keeping focus

Let the past not turn you down

For it is not true, it is not worth a frown

Those things, those people were there now gone

And you will move forward as time moves along

When you fight it out and the battle is over

Don't let your guard down

Because before you know the enemy rises

And takes you down without disguises

Graduation

It is a big weight off my shoulders today as I have successfully completed my requirements for graduation. It has been a messed up journey, my masters program and till today I was not really sure if I was going to graduate or not. Interestingly enough, I was prepared for either of those outcomes.

I’ve met people who have driven me to my extremes both low and high and learned a lot from those experiences. The good part about going through these times is that you get to know who your true friends are and also learn that your family is there for you no matter what, if you let them.

I learned that grades are a false representation of the effort I put into something and how much I learned from it. The more I deviated from the guidelines, the more I learned, but the grades were lower. This is because grades have no way of evaluating failure and the learning that comes out of it.

I learned that I am good at finding my way through fog. I like having unclear outcomes and back of the envelope guidelines because it gives me more room to experiment and grow.

Lastly, I realized that summarizing two years of your life on a single sheet of paper is only 5% of the actual experience. I will remember that when I am watching a graduation speech by a famous iconic figure.

Thank you for the experiences. I wouldn’t say I would be jumping up in joy to do it again, but it was worthwhile nonetheless.

This feeling

I’ve been away from my parent’s love for too long and that has left an empty space in me. I cling to things that I feel can fill up this space. I’m passionate about my guitar and singing because it temporarily fills up this void. What you see on the surface is not what goes on inside. That is true with me, that is true with anyone and everyone. You look at really accomplished people and when you get past the shining outer sphere, you see their real stories.

It is a weird feeling. Part of me wants it and is used to it. This very feeling brings me down at times and the same feeling is what gives me energy to fight back to reach my highs. I have developed some level of immunity to this feeling now after going through many pitfalls. I still remember the first time it was triggered; I never want to feel like that again. I have now developed certain strengths to fight back. Some of these are external and some internal.

The biggest internal strength I’ve developed is learning how to let go and a higher power take control. The biggest external strength I’ve developed is being passionate about my work. I use my days of feeling high to develop defenses against the lows so that I can pull myself out quicker than before.