Instant Gratification

This was a thought triggered while writing the post on the type writer.

More specifically when I wrote about how it took three days to a week for a letter to be sent out, this even after we shifted from typewriters to computers..... that was just the accepted norm.

In fact I remember the culture shock I had when I joined Google.

Google has this concept called TAT (turn around time), and it was one of the critical performance parameters, applied at all levels. TAT measured how quickly one went from one step to another, be it putting up a proposal, creating a presentation, or responding to an email. I had to adapt to a TAT which went from 'x number of days' into 'x number of hours'. It was a deep shift.

And that was ten years ago.

Today that shift has spread into all facets of life.

Diksha and I are driving someplace, there's a song playing, and before I can finish wondering whose voice........Diksha's shazam will have the answer.

My mom's reminiscing about old time water cans and how it was so much more fun to water plants, and I place that order on Amazon........ within minutes, specific colour, specific size, all delivered at home in a day.

If there's a middle of the night craving for a cream stone willy wonka, all one does is open swiggy....

Friends sitting around, and there's a quote one is trying to recall....well...no points for guessing.

Amazon, Netflix, GPS, Big basket, Dunzo, Ola, Myntra.....and the likes have all enabled a high level of instant gratification.

We all have several such instances in our lives......yet, yet we will grudge this generation their tuning into instant gratification. Process and effort have their space.......but then so does immediacy and access. We will try and teach them the value of patience, of waiting, without pausing to contextualize......and what's worse....be judgmental in the bargain.

Who really are the ones not tuned in here????

Musings - Weirdness Quotient

IQ ( Intelligence quotient) and EQ (Emotional quotient), we're all pretty familiar with, but a scale for 'weirdness' brought on the smile.

An article on a few CEOs favourite hiring questions - and Tony Hseih, CEO of Zappos ( a company that's been exemplary on customer satisfaction, one we considered role model while designing strategy at Google) has for favorite  question "On a scale of one to 10, how weird are you?"

Why this triggered thought and why it brought a smile.....

I use the word 'weird' quite a bit..... and going by NLP, I had this little lurking worry that would perk up each time I used it :)

Reading this, took me on a sort of introspective tour of my own 'weirdness quotient'........... and surprise surprise........I realized that the 'weird' element in life (mine for sure) rightly deserves credit for a lot of the absolute 'highs' in life.

It's what enables the 'beyond usual' ........ the stepping out of comfort zone, the high risk moves, the hatke little stuff, the big and bold decisions, the random deep connects, the leaps of faith, the courage to stand up to self........all that enables the difference between 'existing' and 'living'.

And on second thought.....it reveals itself as kind of apparent too. 'Weird' is by definition, what's not normal, not accepted, not proven, not approved.....anything outside the known system.

 And that's when I understood why 'weird' could be seen as premium.

Detachment Enables Complete Presence

It's so true that the deepest of life's truths seem to exist in their most baffling paradoxes..... that's just until the paradox resolves itself, and makes itself available to you as a simple truth. 

The deeper your detachment from self,  the deeper your capacity to be present.

Detachment comes not from de-attaching, not from non attachment, but from caring and loving so completely that it ceases to be about you. It's at one time the highest form of being 'complete from within', experiencing 'freedom from', yet being fully available for ....be it a situation,  an action, an opinion, a person, self........anything. 

 It's what enables being 'fully present'.

A Moonment Captured

There are moments in life which tell their own stories. You capture them, and it's a life full of beautiful stories. This was one such.

Diksha and I were chilling together yesterday. One of those rare evenings when we're both home. She looks out and says "ma, look at the moon". 

I was like, " I know .....it's beautiful"

Diksha: "But sitting there you can't even see it"

Me: "I saw it just a while back sweetie"

Diksha: "It's so pretty"

Me: " I'm too comfortably ensconced deech, me not getting up now" 

And my phone pings. From right where she was sitting she's taken this picture and sent it to me. The moon just got prettier.

Turn Inward to Expand Outward

Tongue twister or Paradox? Both I guess :)

What we know: the inside is limited and the outside limitless.

Experientially, until we're outward focused, our vision is limited. It's like a car headlights on a night drive, you can only see that much.

Once you turn inward and get that bit sorted and aware (ongoing process) is what drops boundaries,  it's like the inside expands, breaks barriers and then you see ( experience) the limitless outward. 

Motivation is experience of the outcome

By end of this post I'm hoping to better the title, alternatively, you'll just get it by the end :)

This morning, I was looking for excuses to drop out of my walk. Even after being up early....even after I was in my tracks. I could hear the self talk within, one side saying, "you can take one day off, what's the big deal, you can sit and read or write instead", and the other saying "no, you like it, what the hell.....if you take a break you know it's tough to get back in.... it's fun, just go", and so on and so forth.

I went.

I loved every bit of it.  The fragrance of the parijatam as I walked out my gate, saying hi to Gopi and Rita ( the two puppy friends above), the walk itself, the workout, the meditation, the podcast (loved it in fact), the veggie juice, picking up fresh greens on the way back....the gamut of it.

Best part of it; the wonderful feeling of coming back home dripping, no, pouring sweat, and feeling so good about it all....in fact such an exhilarating feeling, that I was like "that's all I need to recall when that little devil of a voice says, take the day off'.

Create a space in the mind to store the wonderful feelings from outcome....you don't need to look further for motivation :)

A Dostoevsky' ish Retribution

I struggle to write this....as I guess is clearly exemplified by title, literally and metaphorically complicated.

Why struggle... why complicated? Because one of the hardest things to do is to admit to our own stupidity. A mistake is still easier to accept ( I'm human, I make mistakes...easy enough, right?)

But stupidity? Bloody tough.

When I told of this I started with saying "I did something really stupid, in fact I'm feeling pretty foolish, almost ashamed to say it". 

So what's the story?

I was driving .....and I was on Whatsapp .....and I hit a car.

As said by everyone (me included), the road may be clear, but someone else makes a mistake and if you're not alert, you can't control the situation.

Exactly what happened. When I looked down to my phone, there was no car anywhere ahead of me. A couple seconds later I hear this baaannggg.

I was mortified. This cab guy had overtaken from my left...done a U turn in front of me, across my car. He had expected me to brake. And I would have....just that this time, I wasn't looking.

Two things that came out through this story. Two possible reactions.

Per situation it was both of us in the wrong.

Had we each focused on the other's mistake, there would likely have been an argument... a futile argument, some anger, some hurt feelings, and then a resigned acceptance. (Which would have also been fine I guess)

My latest mantra is...is there a better way of handling a situation. 

While he was initially mad, then turned got back in his car, I  called him back. Asked him about insurance (not an option for lack of time), then asked if he had a bank account, took his phone number, and called him once I got home. A few messages exchanged for bank details and stuff, and the transfer was done. ( Got back a 'thank you, madam')

The story in my head: 'If scratches on my car are tough for me, they are that much tougher for him.  Whatever his role in the accident, I could have avoided it if I had been in the right.... so what could I do better'.

Could I take ownership? Could I own the mistake, could I own my emotions, could I also own his, and do my bit?

What started as foolish ( lesson well learnt there), and then went onto possibly fearful as it's never easy giving your number to a stranger ( anxiety of being exploited), going through doubts and questions, but sticking with what I believed was right.....a whole process of thoughts and emotions.

I chose the second possibility. It's always a choice.

"A fool who has confessed that he is a fool, is not a fool anymore" - Fyodor Dostoevsky.

A 13 year old genius physicist speaks

I stumbled upon this, pretty literally. And it was almost symbolic of how dots beyond you connect.

This morning I was listening to a podcast with Salman Rushdie where he's talking (critiquing) theories of creation under different religions, and compares the Christian theory of Adam and  Eve story to the Hinduism one of  Indra churning the Samudra  Manthan. And then the host Jason Gots, asks 'wasn't Hinduism at core actually Advaita, and wasn't it closest to the Singularity and Abstractness that science today talks of'. (Salman Rushdie had to wriggle out of that one)

A couple hours later I'm home and reading something in my inbox, and it goes onto Darwinian evolution and then onto 'Near Death Experiences' and god ( so literally energy here) knows how, but found this video almost pop up. 

In essence, unintendedly and surprisingly close to the podcast of this morning. How the dots connect.

Anyways, let none of that take away from the beauty of this talk. 

There is something about the flow.....a naivety, an intelligence, a humility, a naturalness, an honesty with which this young boy talks that had me just so totally captivated.

Detachment & The Emotional Graph

As a follow through from yest's post, a natural question would be.....what's detachment, mindfulness, self actualization. If an emotional graph is aspirational, how does that fit?

I use the word 'mindfulness' to denote all of those above.

That is what comes with the 'hovering awareness'. What hovers? The 'I' that is watching all of these happen, is aware of it happening, and yet retains it's space and it's identity. The 'I' is still separate from those emotions. Experiencing them, not giving away control, staying separate in it's 'being'.

The 'I' is like the substratum on which this dance of life happens, and that's where rests the detachment.

In fact the word 'substratum' offers a beautiful analogy. As earth is the substratum on which the seasons play out, yet pretty much remains itself. It enables the flow of the seasons, be they the disruptions or the expressions of beauty, through all their varied manifestations.

At the extremes of the emotions, as said in Buddhism, sit the 'aversions and cravings', that's the space to watch for, as they can shake even the substratum. They can take over the mind and then they become the master and the 'I' the slave, and that's trouble.

There's a quote which brings this out best, in fact I heard it during the Vipassana 'Even Buddha gets a headache'. 

What does that even mean? 

That until you have the body, until you are alive, you will 'feel'. 

It's about 'how' you handle it....which takes over which.....and it's a journey. It's about, (to the extent possible) retaining the 'I' and yet being able to experience life... and watch the play of the emotions that makes life on earth, as a human, as a body, as a mind, as a heart. It's when you can understand your own emotions for what they are, that you also understand the others. A space that enables an authentic 'non judgmental'. It's when you can care deeply enough to 'live and let live'.

It's paradoxically the deepest space of joy and freedom.

A night without electricity

So what, right? What's the big deal.

True too.... yet, I found myself going through a kaleidoscope of emotions through the process. And thanks to this 'hovering awareness' that's become second nature now, it brought to clarity something quite interesting.

A clear and distinctive emotional graph, rather than a mixed kaleidoscope. Then somewhere the realization that a nicely curved graph, could actually be a positive thing....maybe even aspirational.

A point to note is that this was a not so intense, and rather quick emotional curve, and that's why the opportunity to observe.

At 9.00 pm current went out.

For a little while I sat around presuming it would be back. Within half hour saw the rest of the colony had current, and only our house didn't. Some disturbance felt there. ( annoyance kinds)

Then some checking of the fuse, then wondering if I'd paid the electricity bill. Both those quickly got sorted as non reasons. 

I was chatting on what's app and the only light in that pitch dark was my phone front light, which attracted so many little bugs, that the emotion turned to higher levels of anxiety and thinking.

How to sleep with so many bugs and no fan.

Diksha saying 'don't panic ma', which I didn't think I was, but obviously she saw something I didn't. (It's not often that the person in panic will admit to it:)

Then some frenetic attempts to contact the electricity department guys who each time said they were looking into it. 

So much drama in that two hours.

Soon the realization that it was a 'no go scene', one had done all that was possible, nothing more in our control, so time to make peace with the situation. And in that moment I suddenly knew it should be possible to sleep too. (all earlier doubts very sweetly disappeared). That's the clear space of acceptance.

Had a good nights sleep.

Next morning...was so surprised to find that current was yet not back.

Coffee done, saw that the laptop and phone batteries were down. 

And that's when the graph really shifted. A space of no phone, no laptop and no battery seemed interesting......an unexpected opportunity....it was just so full of new possibilities. (And as we all know, however appealing, this cannot be self imposed) 

And I started to get excited by the prospect.

The graph had gone through a full curve. When you move along the curve is when the excitement becomes palpable, so much more in awareness and cherished .

Here's what a rough curve would look like:

( If I had handled the 'pain of the power cut' with impassivity, I'd have handled the 'opportunity for silence' with the same impassivity too) 

You feel this...you feel that...... both with pretty much equal intensity.

It was like an experiential learning of the emotional philosophy........'as you can touch your spaces of vulnerability, so you experience the flow and the creative highs'. A straight graph can be peaceful, but it might not get you to the conscious awareness of the highs.

Embrace both to keep the mystery, curiosity and enthusiasm for life alive !

Musings - How Judgmental Are We

This was awareness from an experience at Puri. The evening we got back from Konark we were so washed out we decided to dine in at the hotel we were staying at (other days we were more adventurous).

We soon discovered that there was an event, likely a corporate event, with cabaret dancing on. We even got to peep in, and it was definitely high energy space. The girls had to walk across the restaurant from their changing rooms to the banquet hall, and sure they were dressed for cabaret, and needed escort. 

All eyes were on them, and there was a lot of hushed and not so hushed ooh aah 'ing on. 

We soon found ourselves talking about it too. Talking was fine, but was there a slight tone of condescension that had unknowingly sneaked in? I'm afraid so.

We were by default being judgmental...it was our conditioning.

And then the thought.....weren't we doing the exact same thing at Konark. All that we'd appreciated as art  was extremely graphic erotic sculptures, with expected impact. So how is it that as sculpture it is art and passes the test of decency, but live it doesn't. If the audience enjoys it and the girls are happy to dance, why are we so generous with opinion...with judgement. How hypocritical and judgmental are we really.

Was an interesting wake up call. Conditioning creeps in so quietly, it takes effort and conscious thought on a continuing basis to rise above it. How 'being aware' is a constant piece of work.

Musings - Our Best and Our Worst are the same

Quirky but True.

Think about it...think of what we 'most like' and what we 'least like' about ourselves. If you're game actually make your list, maybe three points each. Likely you'll find that what was labeled as the best and the worst, turns out to be the very same thing. Or more accurately, different versions of the same theme.

And this becomes really significant when we're looking at awareness and change...identifying what's not serving well and needs change. 

To watch..as it is also likely on the list of your best qualities too.

For instance, if least liked was one persons tendency to take center stage often, what was most liked was her dynamic and energetic and entertaining personality. If least liked was failure to be transparent, direct and spontaneous, what was most liked was her kindness, tact and respect for the others feelings. If another's sense of entitlement and 'me first' attitude was difficult, it was also her ability to identify and articulate her own goals, and 'go for it ' attitude that was most admired.

This is the inseparable nature of our strengths and weaknesses....... as they are woven from the same fabric.

What this really brings to the fore is why it becomes so difficult to overcome our weaker areas or change specific traits...they are too closely connected to our core strengths.

What seems to then work is awareness of its manifestations. More self acceptance and awareness. Focus not on getting rid of the difficult facets, but to identify and reinforce the positive facets...... they would then likely show up more :)

Intent ------ Action. The Gap

Baahubali recently, and Beauty and the Beast....and I was just reflecting on which my last movie before these was, when I realized I hadn't seen a single movie in six months. Not even on my laptop. And that took me by total surprise. 

I love watching movies (my kind) and I yet hadn't watched even one for a whole six months. I had to pause to ponder.  Was it the energy invested in the course? And then in the website? Did moving from B'lore to Hyd take away that space? Had I just gotten that busy?

In fact quite the contrary. My time was entirely my own. Not in a job, not in a course, house all set.......I had all the time I wanted.

I'm also wary of the term 'busyness'. Definitely don't want to be slipping into the default kind. I try to keep my days and my time, to the extent possible, at a conscious level. No newspaper and no TV was an aid towards that. No random socializing was again towards that. Lesser spaces of what happens to me, and more spaces of what I make happen to me. The phrase I like to use is 'space that nurtures the spirit'. So how did movies slip out.

That's the gap between intent and action.

There can be loads of energy, and focus on the intent, but if it doesn't translate into action, it's as good as nought. And if this can happen in so much conscious space, I can only imagine how much it can happen on auto pilot.

Reminds me of one of my favourite quotes " Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate" - Carl Jung

It was a wake up call. One that said, even what we want.......needs awareness, needs discipline, needs doing, needs follow up, needs checkins.

The path to getting to where you want to be, or the way of being the way you want to be, needs awareness, conscious awareness.

Musings - You never stop learning from your children

Yesterday was one such instance.

It's morning, I'm chatting around with Dhruva, actually oil massaging his head, a favorite favorite activity of mine, which I normally stretch to a good half hour (self indulgent trivia :). Krupa, our cook, peeps in, dressed in a nice crisply starched sari, to say she's going to the doctors. I was a little taken aback as I was going to be out for lunch and I'd presumed she was going to be taking care of arrangements for Dhruva.

Moms instinct I guess.......I asked her if she could possibly go in the afternoon, instead of now.

Dhruva says, in one quietly firm whisper 'let her go amma, it's my lunch, I'll figure'. And so I did. And she left.

Then he's like "that was pretty insensitive of you no amma, how could you even stop her". And in my defense I was like "I understand dhruva, I was only asking her to shift it to the afternoon".

And then I heard it:

"amma, if that were me, and I said I was unwell and wanted to go now, would you have done that"

If I thought I was a fair and sensitive person, it was yet a lesson in what equality and fairness meant. 

I was touched and humbled........and yes, deep down happy too.

Happy enough to narrate the whole sequence to Krupa today, and have them both give me a picture.

Musings - To Look Within

Three interviews in a row, and I had this buzz in my head. I was feeling the intensity of the experience, thoughts coming in from all directions, like a series of aha's.

An interview is defined as a one to one conversation, where questions are asked by one and answers given by the other. There is one definition by Bingham which I liked ‘conversation with a purpose'

And I asked myself, what was my purpose.

It seemed to have several components.......getting perspective, evoking thought, enabling deeper understanding, widening horizons, enhancing self awareness. And the realization that you cannot enter those deep spaces and come out untouched. It is invariably a mutually enriching experience.

Based on the few interviews,  ( and several counselling sessions), I sought to dig a little deeper and articulate what was surfacing through the experience. I share some of those thoughts:

• Societal conditioning creates so much rigidity around 'right and wrong' 'success and failure' 'good and bad', that by default 'there's strong tendency to run oneself down, to self critique....and self esteem pays the price'

• Our deepest thoughts and feelings are often kept hidden. We are concerned about not being understood, about being hurt, about rejection. We'd rather live behind walls and defenses, even or especially, with our closest family. In the process, we compromise authenticity and self acceptance.

• Popular opinion is that lives and opinions of celebrities and experts are worth knowing about, why would anyone care to know about me. So not true. Each has a story worth sharing. 

• Also, the human nature of negativity trumps positivity. We're good with looking at what we didn't do, what we could have done, what could have happened, what chances we missed.......and that list goes on.  They occupy so much emotional and memory space, that we don't seem to have recall of our own positives and achievements. Of our moments of resilience when we rose above those issues. Moments when we took risks. Time when we made decisions against the tide. Times we backed our friends. Times we stood by our family. Times we gave. The good times. 

If we don't give to ourselves, we can't give to others,  a follow through..... 'if we don't give ourselves credit, we can't give credit to others'. Maybe that's why there's so little compliments going around.

Net net a lot of us seem to be living in fairly superfluous spaces. Based off external expectations. Caught in the life of detail. In busyness. And there exists this gap between what I really am, and what I am expected to be.

Self awareness is key

Within each of us is this potential of abundance, of beauty, of peace, of joy. A sanctum sanctorium. If we can open those doors, we don't need temples. God is within us can literally come true. 

Musings - Why Change, Why Different

By default our culture seems to glorify 'stability' and 'conformity'. And a natural follow on is that 'change' and 'different' gets critiqued.

While many are happy to conform and do the 'right' thing, there are always those at the fringes.....those who choose to be different. And then it becomes an uphill task. There is the internal voice saying the one thing, and the external saying another.

This is cause for internal conflict.

Internal conflict causes stress, disturbance......takes away peace, productivity, creativity. A lot of our energy and time gets sucked into handling our internal conflict(s).

The feeling one sits with is  'I am not good enough'

I'm putting myself out on the line, so as to give an example. I've lived many years under tremendous internal conflict. 

I've often heard comments like : 'You're too impulsive' 'why can't you be contented' 'why would you take a chance like that'  'You're selfish, you don't think of how this could impact others' 'why do you over think things so much' 'why can't you just be happy' 

At one point (read as years on end) they would confuse me. Put me in the defensive. There was my gut telling me one thing, and there was this expectation from the outside saying another. Add in our innate need to please others, and we have not just conflict, but also 'guilt'.  

Confusion would point fingers at different spaces; at times society, at times another individual, at times my own inadequacy.

More conflict and more guilt.

Today I know different.  I know that those opinions and demands are just that..another opinion, another perspective. It's about the other. Not about me at all. Plus, that the choice of response at all times is mine.

A little clarity, and I'd have known none of those statements were even close to true. 

Impulsive? No, maybe spontaneous but not impulsive. In fact I think through my actions, each action is backed by a conscious decision..........albeit by different standards and principles. 

Not Content or Happy? It's being me that gives me happiness and joy, so I need the change to be contented and happy....you see the conflict. 

Taking risk? I'm willing to pay the price for what I want, I want to take that chance 

Overthink? I think the way 'I' think, by whose standard is this 'over ' think

Selfish? What happens to 'you need to be contented and happy, to be able to give' 

I'm going into all this, not because I want to talk about myself. It's to show how this could be true for each of us. And how external opinion and expectation can drag us down, undermine our confidence, make us feel not good enough.

And what's worse, we're as much in the perpetrators seat, as in the victims.

It's something that's worth becoming aware of.

When each of is unique in something as basic as Fingerprint and Iris, how do we think we can bucket people into standardized thought and behavior. It's inherently self defeatist.

A good question could be....why this overarching need for conformity. Why is it not apparent and acceptable that there are perspectives, more perspectives and more perspectives.

Can we please pause to.....maybe over think  ;)

Musings - A 'Time' Perspective

It's 10 pm and I pick up my personal diary to write in.  I had this feeling I hadn't written in there in a while, like a few days for sure.

I flipped the page back to see how long, and was so so surprised to find that I had actually written just yesterday. I couldn't believe it, I even did a check on whether I'd got my dates mixed up. But no, it was correct. I had after all written yesterday.

So what was that? 

I paused to wonder how and why. The realization was interesting. It wasn't just about being in the flow. The perspective of time, and of being had altered.

Between yesterday morning when I'd written and now, I'd done two, so to say 'interviews'. One was with my mom and then one with Poojari uncle (haven't yet published).  And I realized I'd somehow slipped into their lives for big chunks of these two days. Talking to them, making the emotional connect, listening to them, going through the notes, writing it out. I'd actually stepped into their lives. I'd left mine behind.

And I guess Diksha being out of town only aided, there was no life of detail that had demanded my attention. I had seamlessly shifted. 

I'd recently read Scott Peck, 'The Road Less Travelled', and something he said suddenly took on a whole new meaning. I quote from his book:

"True listening requires total concentration, and requires a tremendous amount of discipline. It is the temporary giving up of the self, setting aside ones own thoughts, frames of reference, biases, opinions and desires so as to experience as far as possible the speaker's world from the inside, stepping inside his or her shoes. This unification of speaker and listener is actually an extension and enlargement of oneself, and new knowledge is always gained from this. And since it involves a setting aside of the self, it also temporarily involves a total acceptance of the other. 

Sensing this acceptance, the speaker will feel less and less vulnerable and more and more inclined to open up the inner recesses of his or her mind to the listener. As this happens, speaker and listener connect into each other more and more. A duet dance of love happens.

The energy required for the discipline of setting aside the self, and focusing total attention on the other is so great that it can be accompanied only by love, by the will to extend oneself for mutual growth"

To go back to my realization.....it is about the layers at which this can happen. The mutual growth works at different layers. It's not just in the doing or the knowing, but also in the being. Almost a literal expansion of consciousness.

Musings - Trivial Triggers

'The more trivial the trigger, the deeper the root cause'

Many a time we hear of (or are part of)  an argument or disagreement which got triggered over the most trivial of issues. One which started over something small and maybe even silly, and went on to more angry or emotional space...maybe even become a fight. This will more often than not be in our closest relationships....between partners, or spouse, or siblings.

And the narration will often sound like 'actually I don't even know how it started, but it just got so ugly'..... 'it was a stupid reason, don't know why I lost it like that' ........'can't even recall what it was, but I was so upset'  and so on and so forth.

And quite often we come out feeling pretty stupid because we believe there wasn't enough cause, and we conclude there was no justification. 

Yet, in reality they keep happening. And the hurt caused is anything but trivial or small.

The hurt is not trivial, because it's accumulated latent hurt that's surfacing. And that's why the disproportionate reaction.

We'd normally deal with it in one of two ways; brush it under the carpet as what we see is the silly trigger, or worse, build walls, insulate ourselves, become indifferent .....and that's just moving away from authentic space.

Watch out next time. Be more aware. And you'll likely see what needs to be seen, the actual issue, the deeper cause. It's an opportunity to better. That's of course presuming you want to :)

Musings : Anticipation...Being In The Now

I started to write about 'Anticipation'........ how wonderful 'Anticipation' is, and how it has within it excitement, possibilities, expectations, hope, pleasure.....all of that right.(talking positive anticipation here )

And then as the thoughts started to sort themselves out in the mind... in came it's antithesis, (also something I dearly subscribe to).....'live in the moment' 'it's all about the present' 

Do they contradict? Seemingly So.......   But they really don't. 

When you're flush with anticipation, you are yet completely present. Anticipation of the future...but fully contained in the joy of the 'Now'. Thought about the future.......yet a function of the present. Nicely paradoxical, huh.

Musings

When Worried, Stop Worrying.......Think

"Worry gives a small thing a big shadow."—Swedish Proverb.

Issues will come up....the ups and downs will happen, after all life's dynamic.

But worry? 

That's of our own making. We're hard wired to worry. But look at it, rather than help resolve, worry typically comes accompanied......... accompanied by anxiety, fear, stress, tension, headaches, irritability ........and such others which can only drag us down further, and take away from our ability to think.

Once in a space of worry, our thinking gets clouded, and we just get good at adding 'What If's' and we add so many to a likely already 'uncontrollable situation' , and that's what creates that big shadow.

Worry is more likely to interfere with the problem solving than help.

Sure, worry has a space. Can we use it to look at the issue, face it head on, strip it threadbare and know what....you'll clearly see how much you can do and how much is in the non controllable zone. In how much you can do, find what you can in the present, and that's it, that's about all you can do. And know that that is the best you can do.  And your best is always good enough.

Try it...stop worrying and think...it will give you so much surplus energy to do so many nicer things in life, to even just be nicer.

You'll see more positivity enter life, for yourself and by default, those around too.