Putting the pieces together

It never made sense to me. All these days. What was being done professionally or learnt. Until I met with a Steve Jobs maxim "You can only connect the dots looking backwards". No matter how hard you try, the future is beyond your control. The present is already right on your face. So you have no choice but to kind of deal with it. More reactive and instinctive than proactiveness straightaway.

So what is in your hand? What can you actually control? The process(journey) or the end result(the destination)? The answer is not that simple. You can get a sense of what happened, decipher all the unknowns at the back of your mind as you are dealing with your day to day reality(inherent multitasking)-your chores, your 9 to 5, your hustle whatever you choose to call it. That is why history is always a useful precursor of what is about to happen. The use-cases,the catalysts, the anti-theses everything unfolds in a surprisingly predicatable cycle or pattern if you can call it that way.

The need to learn your habits, being mindful, building day by day, making the most of what is available today, allocating the necessary space,time and energy to turn your thoughts into reality is a continuous and ever-evolving process. Constant feedback and feedforward mechanisms are a prerequisite. As much as it is important to read a book, it is that important to record your thoughts in a journal too. Useful thoughts in a separate one,gratitude journal on the other hand for counting your blessings. When your mind is free of iterative and automatable processes, it can turn on its creative side and result in a whole lot of productive output. Notes taking can be the single most blissful gift that you can ever give yourself- you may be a student, a researcher, an entrepreneur for that reason.

Don't be a memory monster. You don't have to remember everything. But make sure you stick to the right set of daily habits. Make time for yourself. Learning a new skill, talking with an old friend, finishing a priority 1 daily goal, working out for 15-30 minutes a day, getting hydrated at regular intervals -all have to happen seamlessly with your regular grind. If you think you can skip one for the benefit of the other,then think again. There exists no art without the canvas. So not taking care of yourself can never satisfy you being successful at work.

Then comes the maxim of Res,Non Verba, which you don't have to take verbatim. Of course,you have to communicate your ideas to the outside world,particularly your intended audience. Without proper communication, no matter how beautiful or ingenius your output may be,people may never be able to understand or relate with it at a level that you intended it to be. But the idea or core of this maxim is mostly "Less talk,more work". Rather than merely claiming yourself to be a good writer,orator or an engineer,you have to walk the talk. You have to demonstrate your skillsets. A good product is a promotion by itself. Also never proclaim anything to the world viz. ideas that do not have even a remote connection with your true self. If it does not reflect your philosophy, try to understand it before promoting or criticising that idea.

When you bind yourself to an idea that is both feasible and sustainable in the longer run, you tend to be more successful in making it as a part of your life. If you read more about game theory, this statement reveals itself to you in more ways than it is currently capable of doing. Unsustainable ideas,processes and models tend to burn you out emotionally,physically and monetarily in the longer run. So you have to avoid those pitfalls. There are always blind spots which drain you emotionally. Negative thoughts, people, habits and situations have to be dealt with,if not completely avoidable.

Better engineering your emotions and calibrating your thoughts is the best paradigm for a quality life. Meditation/Yoga can go a long way in bring about that mindset. As you might have guessed through the flow of this article, it is the little things that matter the most. Radical and overnight changes,though possible will not sustain their course beyond a particular timeframe. Smaller,step by step incremental value additions are a more plausible way of bettering ourselves.

Talking to people can be a great way of understanding our needs and emotions. But make sure that they are ones who can listen, empathise and not judge you. Choose the right set of friends. Better few than bad. If you can thus create a momentum from each single day, in the larger scheme of things, you are bound to harvest the benefits of its ripple effect. Like complicated processes have algortihms, like gadgets have manuals, we do not have a fixed/rigid technique to follow. Our lives take their own courses. But by having a set of small, value adding and meaningful philosophies, we can guide ourselves to where we rightfully want to be.

Ciao,

Sakthi.