Bhagwad Gita Chapter 18 verse 59,

यदहङ्कारमाश्रित्य न योत्स्य इति मन्यसे |मिथ्यैष व्यवसायस्ते प्रकृतिस्त्वां नियोक्ष्यति || 59||

yad ahankāram āśhritya na yotsya iti manyasemithyaiṣha vyavasāyas te prakṛitis tvāṁ niyokṣhyati

If, motivated by pride, you think, “I shall not fight,” your decision will be in vain. Your own material (Kshatriya) nature will compel you to fight.

जो तू अहंकार का आश्रय लेकर यह मान रहा है कि ‘मैं युद्ध नहीं करूँगा’ तेरा यह निश्चय मिथ्या है ; क्योंकि तेरा स्वभाव तुझे जबर्दस्ती युद्ध में लगा देगा ।। ५९ ।।

Ego is the unhealthy belief in your own importance. Having too much ego, can stops from being the best individuals we can be and how it prevents from achieving our full potential. A moderate ego is important and ingredient to success in life. The small ego allows us to compete, strive to reach our life goals and it help us do our best to surpass our past achievements.

However, Ego is The Enemy, it stands in the way of our success. It’s the ego that want you to fake it. It’s the ego that wants to look good and successful and looks for the success instead of real mastery.

Highly ambitious and determined people on other hand, strive to excel in their field and be the best they can be, regardless of whether they become famous and receive distinction and congratulations.

Interestingly the Egoists instead chase after too much of fame, popularity and award, whether they are actually skilled at what they do or not.

Put following checks before illusion of success settled down in your head and then turn into ego.

• Become Eternal learner: remind yourself that there is always scope of something new to learn.
• There is always someone who knows more than you, so find someone more skilled than you are to learn from.
• Often pass on your skill and teach to beginners.
• Become trust worthy and trust others and learn to delegate.
• Share your success and share recognition with others in your team.
• Become grateful. Think, recognize and say thank you to all the people who supported you.

Pride and ego are connected but different.

Pride helps us justify our own ego, and tells us how good we are after a major success that we’ve had. However, pride blinds us to new opportunities and room for improvements.

Ego makes us blinds and inflates our sense of worth and blinds us to the actual reality of any situation. When both ego and pride get to us, we then lose track of what really matters to us and what we need to focus on.

When you allow your ego to control your thoughts, everything you believe becomes an illusion.

Never let your pride keep something broken, that your heart wants to fix. Actually pride makes us fake and humility makes us real.

The Lateral Thinking, in other words, think outside the box.

Everyone is born with an instinct of success and ability to make it but who thinks outside the box really succeed.

Big ideas come from forward-thinking who challenge the norm.

Hence when situation challenges you, think differently but positively and think outside the box, to invent the world you see inside; rather than submitting to the limitations of the current dilemma.

In a general sense to think outside the box means to think about creatively. It is a catchword or buzzword for creativity. But some people think it is not a right metaphor or analogy for creativity.

Thinking outside the box is more than just a new business management or forcing someone to do the same thing in a nontraditional fashion. It means approaching same problems in new but unprecedented ways; conceptualizing or visualize problems differently and try to understand your position in relation to any particular situation in a way you’d never have thought of before.

We are told to “think outside the box” all the time, but how exactly do we do that? How do we develop our ability to confront various problems in ways other than the ways we normally confront problems?

Teach yourself and challenge your brain to look at problems more expansively. Never again be dismissive of or underestimate a potential solution before you have thoroughly thought it through. Think outside the proverbial or typical or traditional box. Out-of-the-box thinking in the most situation doesn’t require people to rewire their entire brains or take courses in creativity. To think outside the box, you only need to ask “Is there any other way to think about this?”

The Critical thinking and lateral thinking will definitely take you to the right direction if it is done in the true spirit of positivity.

 

An opposition, a pulse of a democracy

We all like to live in a democractic country and wants our choice of political party to rule the democratic country again and again. The root causes of the bitterness, anger, and resentment between the ruling party and the opposition are quite natural and obvious. But in any democratic system, the role of the opposition is very crucial for the survival of democracy. If opposition party is not strong enough to point out and raise short comings of ruling government, the government can get a free ride to implement whatever and anything they want. In working democracy, the opposition party represents the pain point of the citizens. Those pain points should be raised in parliament and discuss the solution to eliminate or minimize the pain. In any democratic system failure of the opposition to bring up important points can be disastrous. 

The Opposition’s most important role is to question the policies, administration style and functioning of the government of the day and if needed hold them thoroughly accountable to the public. The opposition should challenge the policies of government to protect the basic rights, safety, protection of the people. The same opposition must also see that government is not misusing the power against the citizens. 

Any government is accountable for their way of functioning and should remain answerable all the times. The stronger and smarter opposition ensure that these are done rightly all the times. The good opposition should put a spotlight on daily issues of the public and make sure those are taken care and resolved on time.

Opposition party should also see that the current government is taking care of people from all part of the society irrespective of peoples’ religion, race, and caste. The real progress and welfare of the people are well taken care of. 

If Parliament is often disrupted by opposition party then it is a failure of opposition. The real functioning of opposition party should be constructive and must debate all the issues in the parliament but not on the street. 

Time to time you will see, the People in a democratic country will get uneasy and upset at their leaders and their governments; it’s bound to happen, no matter what form of government we have or who is ruling the country.  In other words, democracy has a unique strength and ability to take the criticism, protest, and dissatisfaction and turn those negative reaction and feelings towards positive behavior.

The health of any matured democracy doesn’t rest on the current state of the economy, or the approval ratings of the Government, or even on the amount of money being dumped into political canvassing. It rests on the true fairness of a system that gives everyone a real voice and gives equal weight to each and every citizens’ vote.

• Stronger opposition, 
• Healthy opposition,
• Positive attitude of opposition, 
• Strengthen the democracy.

The World suffers a lot, less from the violence of bad people but more from the silence of good people.

Political Jungle

When to talk or not talk about Politics!

Where to talk or not talk about Politics!

It does’t matter whether you have election in near future or not, interestingly nothing invites a debate quite like politics. Sometimes keeping your opinion to just yourself is difficult. People like to talk about politics in small gathering, party or during extended family dinner and among work place friends. Initially it seems like interesting but when people in the gathering are from two opposite parties, then your political discussion can turn into heated debate and that is when it turns ugly. If it continues to be an ugly then that debate can become heated argument, which can spoil the mood of the party and can spoil your friendship going forward. So why do all these ? I think we should not start or participate in such debate if we are not ready to respect each other’s political preferences and affiliation. So be cautious next time you start such chatter. We should also understand the surrounding before we start such debate because there are such time when it is not appropriate, for example if gathering is of sad purpose (Funeral), job interview and in the religious places.

Political discussions are always one hundred percent biased. Such discussions are not performed with open mind. Person in the discussion are not ready to yield to other person’s good reasoning if it does not belongs to his preference of political party. 

Bringing up political issue is like throwing a dead cat in the room. You don’t know who in that room has what political point of view. So if you’re bringing up politics – and the strong point of views that other people may not agree with – higher chances are, those in your company might not like it and going forward feel uneasy in the discussion which can further increases the distance among you.

We should sense the situation before we start such political discussion, if needed we should not go into or start such thing. We should also understand during such debate, the fine line between discussion and arguments. At the end of the discussion or debate both parties are ok but at the end of arguments no one is happy. So why argue?

Unless you already know you’re speaking with a close friend, or with someone who you know shares your beliefs, it’s often best to walk/talk carefully, and in many social settings, just avoid such topic.

It is better to avoid such kind of discussion and for the good reason just either use the diversion approach, to just change the subject or use the direct approach to gently request other person to just stop the uneasy discussion. 

Sometimes, even when you try to stop the conversation, there’s that person who just won’t drop/leave the subject then you can say that you have not yet decided or evaluated the candidate hence you are undecided, so you cannot contribute anything to this political discussion. 

On the very positive side of another approach is to change the subject matter to something the other person really cares about. Asking them about something they’re really passionate about besides the interest of politics will help you to end the debate without any verbal hurt/wounds. 

If needed do your homework or research your subject and keep yourself informed before you open your mouth. Daily reading of the news papers and staying up to date on current events, so you’re able to back it up what you’re saying with concrete facts. This will justify why your view align in a certain way. I believe, this kind of approach not only will help you put your justifications and facts on the table, but to some extent it will help the conversation turn to a more meaningful and productive one. This way it is going to encourage more of a factual and intellectual conversation, instead of just a war of opinions and counter-opinions.

But whatever it maybe, perhaps talking about politics can be sometimes uncomfortable and dicey, but it’s also important for staying informed and keeping the pulse of democratic process alive. In fact in this civilized society, frank conversation about politics is really vital component of any democracy, but it’s got to be healthy, meaningful, respectful, courteous and civil. Beyond all this, don’t just discuss or argue on politics, if you don’t vote in the general election rightly, otherwise you will have to do this kind of political discussions very often.

To keep the spirit of democracy alive, participation in voting by each civilized citizens are key to the success of any democracy. Walk your own talk by casting your vote to most deserving candidate who is important for your state and country. 

Believe it or not, most democracy fail because bad politicians are the one elected by good citizens who don’t vote in democracy.

The imperfectly perfect!

The Perfection in imperfection……! 

The perfectionists are generally the people who refuse to accept just any standard but nothing short of perfection in everything they do or imagine. Whether it’s in the arts, research in science, or doing the business, extraordinary achievers rarely rely on their own expertise alone. They also devote and dedicate themselves fully–and even excessively/obsessively–to the quality. This kind of perfection attitude people are having is due to their fear of making mistakes and hence driven by fear of failures in daily living. This kind of attitude help and motivate these people to exceed and achieve the things many can’t. 

Very often we must have observed that the intense desire to be perfect entrap and hinders many people and imprisons them with implacable pressure/strains often creating mayhem in their relationships. This is a very interesting and curious thing, given that many people often believe seeking perfection is a good thing. Like many day-to-day operating assumptions and beliefs in our usual culture, when we take a close look, they may make little sense.

As human beings, we often chase hypothetical, imagined static states of perfection.  We do so when we are searching for the perfect house, job, friend, or lover. The problem, of course, is that perfection doesn’t exist in a static state.  Because life is a continual journey, constantly evolving and ever changing. What is here today is not exactly going to be the same tomorrow. That perfect house, job, friend, or lover will eventually fade to a state of imperfection anytime due to any unforeseen reasons.   Thus, the closest we can get to the perfection is the experience itself – the snapshot of a single moment held forever in our minds – never evolving, never growing.

In it’s the real truth, the idea or conviction of perfect or imperfect are simply our own imaginary construction of mind and have no actual basis other than thought which has created them.So rather than chasing an imaginary perfection, let’s  start chasing life by flipping past the imperfections found on the cover of every entity we encounter and into the blank pages of possibility waiting beneath the cover that will eventually tell the story of our lives.

Individuals in reality, who often seek perfection are more sensitive to the judgments of their surrounding by others. In fact, these judgments are most often imaginary. 

With a little patience and an open mind, over time, I bet that imperfect house evolves into a comfortable home.  That imperfect job evolves into a rewarding career.  That imperfect friend evolves into a steady shoulder to lean on.  And that imperfect lover evolves into a reliable lifelong companion.

We don’t often hear about psychological or emotional maturity. It includes our own awareness, self-discipline, duty, correlations, honesty, and integrity. Psychological or emotional maturity requires our own ability to willingly shift our perspective and to have an adaptive healthy self-esteem. These qualities can only be cultivated through our inner quest for self-knowledge.

We should have a right knowledge of developing from inside rather than developing or fixing ourselves from outside. Envision spending even a little bit of more time, self-energy and spending money on learning new good skills, gaining insights, strengthening and improving our own inner landscape. Just Imagine and think about how we’d deepen and expand our experience of life! Imagine if we cultivated a profound and a deep sense of our understanding and acceptance of ourselves and others just the way we are. If our efforts were focused more upon our reengineering of inner connection, we might be able to celebrate all aspects of our life….the inner and the real and the higher life.

Perfect people aren’t real and the real people aren’t perfect.

We are born to be real hence strive for continuous progress but not the Perfection. Striving for excellence motivates you but striving for perfection demoralize you. 

The perfection is an illusion!

Where is “The Luck”?

Interestingly, everyone you meet will have one thing in common in their desire ever and that is, we all want to have better and improved luck than yesterday, isn’t it?  You will find many who are saying they are not lucky enough or no luck at all.

• Why one has more wealth than others?
• Why one sick and other is healthy?
• Why is one making more money than others?
• Why one doing great in the stock market but not others?
• Why one is doing better in business but others are not? Why one is having a bigger house and other is not?
• Why one is more successful and others are not?

The most common answer you will find is, they all have better luck! Also for some people, good luck comes naturally. For some people, good luck comes only after intense hard work along with smart work. For some people, they have everything to be successful but luck is not on their side. What to do? There is no simple formula or magical key to open the door of luck on your side.

But we can do certain things to prepare ourselves and be ready when an opportunity comes our way and we are prepared to get some luck on our side.

Be positive:

Staying positive and thinking positive creates a positive vibration which can be one of the ingredients of being lucky. Being reasonably optimistic can help you relieve your stress which can bring peace. A peaceful person has more clarity about life to make decisions to be more successful. Have a clear objective of your goals.  But on other hand people with a negative attitude can not think constructive and see the problem in everything they do, so how come luck can be on their side.

Positive imagination:

Surround yourself with positive minds of people and see the ripple effect of positivity in your imaginations. Positive imagination can help make big plans and give you the energy to create something to move forward. When you step forward, you can meet your luck.

Do good Karma:

Believe in good karma, what goes around comes around, in other words, do good to others, it will bring back goodness to you in some form. When something starts happening well and good then it is called luck.

Turn to the God and be spiritual:

When nothing works in your favor then turning only towards God is one reactive thing do but remembering God every day is impactful. As a ritual of praying before you do anything can also bring blessing from the God. Requesting God to give you the strength you need to do your job, skill to perform your task and guidance to make sound decisions are all that you can request the kind of help you want from the God. Once you start getting the mercy of the God, these are nothing but the signs of better luck.

Work Hard & work smart but quietly:

Many times situation demands just working hard but with smartness and leave rest of the things to the natural course. Let your success makes all the noise, not you.

Right knowledge:

Smartness comes from having right knowledge at right time and using the knowledge at suitable time & place. Make sure just to have knowledge but not the ego of the knowledge.

Above all are the required ingredients of success and can bring luck as long as you have the right attitude, ethics, kindness, health, empathy and with a right balance of emotional intelligence. Have clear purpose of life. No one is perfect so accept the imperfect things and keep on improving from your life lessons.

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

75 reasons of unhappiness!

1. Very high and unrealistic expectations.
2. Fear of failures.
3. Afraid of the result from past Karma.
4. Still continuing the bad Karma.
5. Unethical practice of life.
6. Holding grudges too long.
7. Allowing jealousy in a relationship.
8. Having too much greed.
9. Having less patience.
10. Not living a healthy life.
11. Not eating healthy.
12. Having less compassion.
13. Almost less faith or no faith in the God you believe.
14. Living over reactive lifestyle.
15. Worrying unnecessarily.
16. Comparing yourself frequently with others around you.
17. No good goals.
18. Not realizing your own strength.
19. No right focus in life.
20. Giving up too easily and too quickly.
21. Not optimistic enough.
22. No energy with laziness.
23. Doing same repeated mistakes. Not learning from your own mistakes.
24. Not learning from others mistakes.
25. seeking happiness outside in material life.
26. Not looking inward for the reality of life.
27. Living in the illusion of life.
28. Loneliness.
29. Not giving quality time to family.
30. Working too hard too long.
31. Working less smartly.
32. Staying in the company of wrong or unhappy people.
33. Living too much in past.
34. Not living present time.
35. Afraid of financial insecurity.
36. Spending too much.
37. No proper financial planning.
38. In financial debt.
39. Not valuing your family relation.
40. Time management problem.
41. Too busy doing nothing.
42. Not able to see the opportunity in time.
43. Hate your job.
44. Use too many excuses.
45. Cruel person.
46. Use of less gratitude.
47. No or less spiritual person.
48. Have less confidence.
49. Caring too much about what others will say about you.
50. Taking too many risks.
51. No calculated risk taking ability.
52. No time to relax.
53. No time to self-introspect.
54. No money saving habit.
55. Spending more than you earn.
56. No clarity in thinking.
57. No simplicity.
58. No priority checks.
59. Too many choices. Not able to make choice.
60. Too much money to manage and don’t know the right use of the money.
61. Earned too much easy money.
62. Overthinking and over analyzing the situations.
63. Sense gratification.
64. Self-defeating thinking.
65. Negative attitude.
66. Negative thoughts.
67. Negative assumptions.
68. Always feel dissatisfied even though all is well.
69. Struggle to bounce back during challenges of life.
70. Complain too much.
71. Earning money by doing wrong things.
72. Not able to enjoy the life in less.
73. Who don’t count the blessings!
74. Who don’t have a good sense of humor!
75. A person who just stays at one place and don’t take a good step forward.

 

 

Use of EXCUSES, a pretext of failures:

People who find Happiness most of the times are the ones, who don’t make often excuses. They have a different attitude if it’s broken they fix it……., if it is wrong they make it right. Frequent use of excuses change nothing but make that person just only feel better for that moment!

Don’t expect good results from the excuses.  Success & excuses don’t go together… in other words, if you want excuses, forget the real success but if you want success, do not give excuses!!! It is difficult to find anybody is ever impressed with how good your excuses are, isn’t it! I think the use of too many excuses in everyday life works as Nails which build the house of failures.

You open the door to real Success, the day, you become stronger than your excuses and your Dreams have become greater than your Excuses….you made the right change.

Surround Effect

With what is your child living or surrounded with?

The human brain is an incredibly dynamic organ of our system that responds to our surroundings, mental patterns and habits.

• If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn. 
• If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight. 
• If a child lives with fear, he learns to be apprehensive. 
• If a child lives with pity, he learns to feel sorry for himself. 
• If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy.
• If a child lives with jealousy, he learns what envy is. 
• If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilty. 
• If a child lives with encouragement, he learns to be confident. 
• If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient. 
• If a child lives with praise, he learns to be appreciative. 
• If a child lives with acceptance, he learns to love. 
• If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.
• If a child lives with recognition, he learns that it is good to have a goal. 
• If a child lives with sharing, he learns about generosity. 
• If a child lives with honesty and fairness, he learns what truth and justice are. 
• If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith in himself and in those about him. 
• If a child lives with friendliness, he learns that the world is a nice place in which to live. 
• If you live with serenity, your child will live with peace of mind.

Above all, most importantly, 

if you and your family practice religious principles,

then

You will learn all good things and stay away from bad things in life. 

Your association matters hence stay within a good circle of devotees and friends to have a profound effect on your quality of daily living.

The studies have found that people who expressed that spirituality or religion was important to them in their daily living had significantly thicker cerebral cortices—a part of the brain rich in highly active neural networks responsible for sensory perception, language and emotion processing—than those who did not.

What is not surprising is that these factors also apply to adults. Spouses, and other adults within teams and organizations. While you are looking out for your children you may also want to watch out and care for your partner and others with whom you have to interact.

The attitude of life:

Our attitude has an intense or profound effect on quality of our life. How we develop the attitude, accordingly we enjoy some immediate and longer term effect of it in the journey of life. Our attitude is a little and intangible thing but when it is in action, the same attitude makes big difference. It can either make or break any relation, family, company, career, health and wealth and many more good things. Just like physical health, mental health is important too.

Your own positive attitude gives you power over your own circumstances, instead of circumstances having power over you.

Your attitude is like a price tag, it shows how valuable you’re.

If you can’t change your fate, change your attitude. 

People may hear your words but most importantly they feel your attitude. Attitudes are contagious, be careful you may catch the wrong one!! 

Please watch this video, if you think you’re not happy.

The depth of Patience:

Without enough patience,

• You will learn less in life.
• You will see less.
• You will feel less.
• You will hear less.
• You will achieve less.
• You will progress less.

Patience defines your attitude.

Patience is the true Art of Hope. 

Have patience with all but first of all with yourself.