Heart-to-Heart Navigation Counsel for a New Journey

You will soon embark on your exploration journey of independent adult life. You will be advised, that this journey is about discovering new places; and new people, who will be potential partners, friends, and colleagues; about new opportunities; about how there will be highs and lows at times, and how to deal with them. And all of that advice will be right. Put your time into understanding those pieces of advice and take what connects you the best.??

Most of this advice is about how you connect and align with the world. How you influence the people around you. How you steer your way to success. How you save and make money. How you would climb the corporate ladder. And many such.

After years of experiencing different phases of life and being subjected to its teachings in a hard and gentle way, I can tell you this - people and places are mostly ‘labels’, we interact with, which turn into, opportunities or problems, happy memories or the not so happy ones, learning moments or the ones we want to forget. For the same person and place, two different people can read the labels completely differently, and they might also change for the same person based on different phases and contexts. This does not mean that we do not see the ‘person’ behind the label or the emotion behind it but understand that it is a label and it is subject to change. There is no absolute reality of any person or place. The external world is an ever-changing place (and hence, it is essentially the same!). And our cycle of interaction with it goes on and on with it lifelong with these changing labels. People and places will keep changing. That is its nature. The journey you undertake should be less about discovering the world; the world as you see it will be a function of your perception of the labels you are interacting with at that given time, which is also a function of your conditioning. Hence the journey you should be more focused on is about discovering yourself. You think you know yourself, but once you start the journey towards self, you will surprise yourself. Not discovering a new ‘you’, just discovering yourself, as you are.?

Most of our life we are busy, working very hard through huge amounts of stress in aligning with the external world so much so that we miss all the time in knowing ourselves. Who we are, what we like, what are our passions, what makes us happy, what connects to us the most - all that is missed - because we are running towards becoming someone else (our role model, perhaps). Because this is what we are taught. We have to be somebody! And this is how the world out there works - it is designed to make you be like everyone else so that it is comfortable. The ‘world’ gets very disturbed when someone does not fit in its pattern - and hence every time someone tries to express its individuality, it resists, and it resists like hell, sometimes in a subtle way and sometimes not so subtle. But once someone gets past the resistance threshold, suddenly, the same world carries this person on its head like some God and follows him/her unconditionally. Doesn’t mean you have to be the rebel, neither I say you don’t have to align with the world. It is like driving to a destination in your car - you know where you want to go - and while driving there is a portion of the road under construction, so you take a diversion, but when you take a diversion, you still find a way to come back to the road that is going towards your destination - you don’t continue on the diversion road aimlessly! This is?the?difference, once you know yourself, and are comfortable with that, you keep driving towards the destination despite the diversions. As long as you know your destination, you will eventually come back on the right road. And when “Life” looks at your persistence it will present you with long stretches of freeway where you can accelerate at top speed to your destination.

With that in mind here are a few words of advice, most of which, I confess, I did not follow in my youth, and I still falter in this age on many of my own principles - but if I could influence the younger generation in a few areas, I will think I am moving towards my destination.?

1. Be kind to your body

I think this is one of the most potent five-word sentences! ‘Being kind’, says a lot. We have been preached to be kind to people and animals around us. Seldom has someone told us to be kind to ourselves. And especially to our bodies. The only thing that lasts with you for a lifetime, is your body. The body that you get when you make an entry in this world, only that will stay with you till the end - everything else, everyone else may or may not last. Hence taking care of this body (kindly) must be the mission.?

Being kind to your body does not mean being lazy, does not mean to be selfish, in fact, it means exactly the opposite. Be aware of your body - get off the couch to start with. A bent back has never helped anyone! The way people take care of their external looks, don’t forget what your stomach does day in and day out, reflects on your face sooner or later. Taking care of internal organs is as important as external. Do some Yoga, and some Pranayama, and be consistent at fitness training. Give up junk food (you may cheat from time to time) - eating junk food, is surely not being kind to your body - it might be a momentary kindness to your senses, but not for your body. Not even once. Become a nutrition fanatic. Cultivate a taste for healthy food. Give your body - a good rhythm of exertion and rest. Listen to what your body says - if it says - don’t stuff more just because of the senses, stop. If it says it is exhausted, check on why, and build stamina. Stretch your body to build new undiscovered strengths. Building stamina, strength, and endurance might cause momentary pain, but it is being kind to your body in the long run.

And lastly on the body, thing - take care of the spine. The entire human evolution is because of a straight spine, so ensure it stays straight.?

2. Invest in yourself

Once you know what you like, what gives you happiness, and what are your areas of skills/expertise - invest in that. Invest in terms of time and money. Take up courses, join schools, learn something new, and explore something that you are curious about. Read what you like. Read history. Read opinions of what people talk about future. Read biographies. Buy books more than what you can read. Undertake adventures. Unleash yourself. Learn to enjoy your own company. Understand this, if you cannot enjoy yourself alone, you need to learn to be a better company to yourself! You are going to spend a lot of time with yourself anyway, better enjoy it.?

Treat yourself as a company – if you were to spend in yourself, would you take chances? If not, why not? What is your shortcoming? What do you need to learn?

And while you invest in areas that you like, those define you, be ruthlessly controlling on spending on what does not connect to you.

3. Face your fears and Apprehensions

I could have said “Be fearless”, and that would be a more positive statement than saying face your fears. But I still chose to say, “Face your fears”, because be assured, life will throw many different types of fears at you. Some of those might be real, some might exist only in our minds. Fear is also our survival instinct, an alert mechanism, but how you react to fear determines everything. Being fearless is an outcome of those responses that you take when you experience fear. That eventually builds a courageous mindset.

While there might not be one way of dealing with all the fears, there is one technique that can be used to manage fears. And that is analyzing or understanding it. The moment the mind thinks of fear in a way to ‘analyze’ it, the ‘bite’ of the fear is already gone. A piece of rope at night seems like a snake, only when you switch on the light and look at it, you realize your fears were in the mind than in real. This is with most fears if not all. Most of the fears are generated by our conditioning from our tender years – but it is time now that you switch on the light. Every time you have any fear in mind, remind yourself, that there is a light switch somewhere – you (or someone you know who can help) need to look for that switch and bring in the light. In the light you will understand – it is not a snake; it is just a rope. And in case you find out, it is a snake indeed, won’t it be easier to run in the light than in darkness? In an attempt to understand and analyze fear, you have already deflated the potency of the fear – what remains after is only the smart way to get over it.

Apprehension is the fear or anticipation that something bad will happen. The formula with apprehension is the same, analyze it – understand why you feel something bad would happen, and whether could it be avoided. What actions you can take to deal with it once it happens??

And lastly, one surest way to deal with fears and apprehensions, when nothing else works, when no rationality works, is to pass on your fears and apprehensions to someone who can deal with that – and that someone for most of us is ‘God’. Put your faith, and understand that there is a higher power who will take care of the outcomes, what you need to do is to take appropriate actions. Build your faith. Strong. Trust your God will put good tidings in your way – and the momentary difficulties are just to make you stronger.?

Every good leader you know had their own share of fears, but what made them fearless is they knew how to deal with those.?

?4. The world is an ever-changing place

Internalize this. We started with this. Learn to deal with this reality. It is a cliché ‘The change is the only constant’, yet most of us don’t really accept it. The more prepared you are that everything that you are dealing with, might and will change, the easier it is to handle the situation when the change happens. The acknowledgment that the parameters you operate in, the people, the relations, the ideas everything can change, will make your plans stronger. If you have followed the three pieces of advice above, being kind to your body, investing in yourself, and confronting your fears, your ability to deal with changes will certainly be better.?

?5. Laugh a lot

There is no better anti-aging serum than laughing and nothing sexier than good humor. Laugh a lot is all I can say.

6. Replace hatred with love and affection

This one is a difficult one. Developing a loving attitude to everyone and everything brings a fundamental personality change. Learned it late in my life and still trying to practice. Our mind is conditioned in a way that we are quick to judge people based on what we see. But being conscious every time you tell yourself you hate someone, brings a lot of change in how you deal with that feeling. Replace the hate thought about that person, by saying – “I don’t like what he does”, you don’t have to start loving him to start with, but you can move the feeling of hatred about a person, to not liking his actions. You don’t ‘have’ to love anyone, ‘love’ is an outcome of the sum of a lot of emotions we feel for someone, we can’t force love – however we can force ourselves not to hate someone – we can take a neutral stand. If that stand evolves into love, great – if not, nothing is lost. But harbouring hatred mushrooms a lot of negative feelings, anger, revenge, etc., and it has huge damage to the mind. Remember a person filled with love, and goodness – his face shows it. He attracts good people towards him naturally.

?7. Enjoy!

And most important of all, through the different phases of successes and failures, highs and lows, don’t forget you are here to enjoy! If you don’t enjoy your work, don’t fret – find out something that you enjoy – keep on finding time for those activities that give you joy.

And as a conclusion, I would say, read at least once, the full Bhagawat Gita. Not from a religious angle, but approach reading Gita as a seeker. One is never too young nor too old to read and contemplate it.

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