Insignificant nobody

Her feet touched the white line. She stood alongside the others. She was barely five feet. The others towered over her. She was a dwarf.

Her heart pounded much faster than usual. The air was thick with nervousness. But more than anything there was a sense of calm. This was an escape from everything else that engulfed her mind; her soul; her existence. The pitch, the wet grass, the long hours of torture ahead. All an escape.

It wasn’t like she didn’t have enough of torture already. Almost every day she awoke to the yelling and screaming combined with the overwhelming stench of alcohol. It began with muffled voices but no longer were there attempts to keep it quiet. Over time they kept getting louder and more violent. It became an everyday affair. She was unwanted there. Sleep helped her escape most of it. Closing her eyes transported her to a world where everything was quiet and peaceful. During the daytime however, she usually bore the leftover brunt of the previous night’s wrath. Either in the form of abuses and taunts or the occasional physical onslaught. Such matters are seldom confined within the sanctity of a home. The entire neighborhood obviously knew and they made it obvious too. She was even more of an outsider now and again for reasons she had no control over. Looking her best wasn’t exactly her priority and that brought more ostracism.She anyway wasn’t one to be identified by what she wore owned or came from. She couldn’t care less.

Here however, she loved pain. Looked forward to it, in fact. For the first time she had found solace with her eyes open and while listening to everything around her. She subjected her body to much more than what the others could endure. Every day made her stronger. Her fragile and tiny being gained confidence with every passing session. She began to look forward to the toughest of challenges. She wanted to overcome them all. And overcome them she did. Over time the others began looking to her for strength. Drawing from her resilience.They knew who she was and where she came from. They loved her for what she was and the best she inspired in all of them. 

Many a season later. The walls still failed to keep the discord at bay. The doors failed still to stop the stench of alcohol and hate. She didn’t need to pretend to sleep and find peace anymore.She found it with on the wet grass. Yet again she stood with her feet at the white line; stood side by side with the others. She was still the tiniest and most fragile. And there she was towering over all of them. She was a giant. She was invincible.

Unhappy winners

After the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics, researchers from Cornell University studied the facial expressions of all the athletes who won gold, silver, and bronze medals. They analyzed footage of ceremonies and television interviews and found that gold medalists seemed the happiest.
What a shock, right?
But they also noticed something surprising: The bronze medalists seemed much happier than the silver medalists.
How could athletes who finished third be happier than athletes who finished second? The answer lies in understanding what psychologists call counterfactual thinking, or what the rest of us call, "Wait; if only..."
In simple terms (handily enough the only terms I understand), counterfactual thinking occurs when we imagine how things might have turned out. When something happens -- especially something significant -- we think about alternatives to our current reality in order to place that event in context.
Counterfactual thinking sometimes makes us feel good about where we are in comparison to where we could be. And sometimes it makes us feel worse. Either way, we do a lot of comparing: Between where we are and where we could have been... both positively and negatively.
So take the silver medalists: They used an upper counterfactual, meaning they judged themselves in comparison to the gold medalists. As a result their, "Wait... but what if?" questions fell along the lines of, "Wait; if only I had just trained harder... then I might have won a gold medal," or, "Wait; if only I had just gotten a little better start... then I could have finished first."
Silver medalists tended to dwell on what they could have done differently to win the gold.
Contrast that with the bronze medalists. They used a downward counterfactual, meaning they judged themselves in comparison to all of the people who didn't win any medal. By comparing themselves to what could have been -- no medal at all -- the bronze medalists felt thrilled just to be standing on the podium.
And that made them seem happier than the silver medalists.

Passion's search for destiny

Passion's search for destiny.

She was haunted by a man whom she had never met.  He came to her in her dreams.  It was not just a reoccurring dream about some random Prince Charming archetype.  This guy had flaws.  He was just as mixed up and lost as she was.  She would wake up from a dead sleep to the sound of his voice whispering in her ear, "Look out the window."  She would argue in her half asleep stupor, "Be quiet!  I'm sleeping!"  Again, he would whisper, "Look out the window."  She would eventually drag herself up from the cozy comfort of her bed to gaze out the window.  There was the full moon big and beautiful.  It magically called to her from somewhere in the back of her soul's oldest memories.

She could feel him there, her ghostly suitor.  She knew that if she spun around quickly, he would be standing there behind her, but every time she turned, there was nothing there but silence and darkness.  Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she could hear him silently promising, "Wait for me. I'll find you if it's the last thing I do."  She would toss and turn for the rest of the night feeling his intense presence and wrestling with the fact that he was not 'real'.

 As the years went on, she would learn that he did not know her name and that he called her Destiny.  She began to call him Passion.  She was not allowed to search for him.  She was to sit still and wait.  It was part of the game, part of the agreement.  His challenge for this lifetime was to search for his Destiny.  After all, what is Passion without Destiny?  He had to learn how to recognize her.  She had to learn how to wait in blind faith that he would find her.  Both had to live real lives with real mates.  Neither could shake the very real belief that the other one existed somewhere out there.

How many times would she convince herself that the man standing in front of her was her Passion?  How many times would it not be true?  How would she know when it was finally him?  How many women would he mistake for her?  Would Passion and Destiny burn out and give up, writing it all off as just some figment of their imaginations?  Do soul mates really exist?  Or are we looking for an impossible ideal?

A soul mate is not just someone that you love from the depth of your soul.  They are not just someone that you have a karmic connection with.  They are not just someone that you want to spend the rest of your life with.  They are someone you miss hanging out with before you have even met.  They are the one that upon first meeting you simply sigh in relief and say, "Ah there you are, I've been waiting for you."  There is no questioning, no 'getting to know you' stage.  You have known them for all of eternity.  You may want to share the stories of your journeys and how you came to find each other, but you already 'know' them as well as you know yourself.  You see yourself in their eyes.  You understand them on a soul level because you share the same source.

Unfortunately, it is not always a blissful experience.  Most of us are not ready to meet our other halves because we are not even ready to look ourselves in the mirror.  Until you can truly love and accept yourself, then you will not be able to love and accept your soulmate.  They are not some fantasy person sent to save you from the ups and downs of real life.  They will not make your life a magic perfect delight.  They are not sent to rescue you, fix you, or even to make you happy.  They will simply love you on a level that is unlike any other.

If you do not hear the call of a long lost soulmate, count yourself as blessed.  I mean this with all of my heart.  You are the lucky ones, those who never hear the soft whisper of a far away soulmate.  You have the freedom to love anyone you choose.  You get to make any kind of match that pleases you.  Do not try to force a soulmate relationship.  Be content in knowing that you are exactly where you are supposed to be, doing exactly what you are meant to do.

If on the other hand, you do hear your Passion calling, or you see Destiny in your dreams, then my prayers go out to you my dear.  For yours is that path of finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.  Do not ask me to tell you if they are worth the hunt.  Can you bring yourself to give up the hunt even if you tried?  Only you can gauge your ability to silence that cosmic voice calling you to hold out for that certain person that only you will recognize.  Only you know what it is going to take to find them.  Perhaps the angels will smile upon the two of you and help with some old-fashioned happenstance.  Perhaps you will telepathically connect and find your way into each others arms.  Perhaps you were just meant to experience the longing.  Perhaps you will go through some bad relationships first so that when you find your Destiny, she will be that much sweeter and more appreciated.  Nobody knows for sure how it will play out.  But I believe that on some level, deep down, you know.

Did you already meet your soul mate and choose to walk away from each other?  Was the intensity too much?  Did it scare you?  Was it overwhelming?  Was it too hard?  Will you have a second chance with them later down the road?  Will you miss them forever?  Yeah, probably.  Will you learn something about unconditional love from them?  Yeah, probably.

Did you find each other and recognize the fact that they shared the same soul as you?  Did you hold on tight?  Count yourselves as the very rare and incredibly blessed.  Cherish the gift of finding yourself in another's eyes and seeing just how beautiful you are.

The Most Important Question You Can Ask Yourself Today

Everybody wants what feels good. Everyone wants to live a care-free, happy and easy life, to fall in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and well-respected and admired and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when you walk into the room.
Everybody wants that -- it's easy to want that.
If I ask you, "What do you want out of life?" and you say something like, "I want to be happy and have a great family and a job I like," it's so ubiquitous that it doesn't even mean anything.
Everyone wants that. So what's the point?
What's more interesting to me is what pain do you want? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives end up.
Everybody wants to have an amazing job and financial independence -- but not everyone is willing to suffer through 60-hour work weeks, long commutes, obnoxious paperwork, to navigate arbitrary corporate hierarchies and the blasé confines of an infinite cubicle hell. People want to be rich without the risk, with the delayed gratification necessary to accumulate wealth.
Everybody wants to have great sex and an awesome relationship -- but not everyone is willing to go through the tough communication, the awkward silences, the hurt feelings and the emotional psychodrama to get there. And so they settle. They settle and wonder "What if?" for years and years and until the question morphs from "What if?" into "What for?" And when the lawyers go home and the alimony check is in the mail they say, "What was it all for?" If not for their lowered standards and expectations for themselves 20 years prior, then what for?
Because happiness requires struggle. You can only avoid pain for so long before it comes roaring back to life.
At the core of all human behavior, the good feelings we all want are more or less the same. Therefore what we get out of life is not determined by the good feelings we desire but by what bad feelings we're willing to sustain.
"Nothing good in life comes easy," we've been told that a hundred times before. The good things in life we accomplish are defined by where we enjoy the suffering, where we enjoy the struggle.
People want an amazing physique. But you don't end up with one unless you legitimately love the pain and physical stress that comes with living inside a gym for hour upon hour, unless you love calculating and calibrating the food you eat, planning your life out in tiny plate-sized portions.
People want to start their own business or become financially independent. But you don't end up a successful entrepreneur unless you find a way to love the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures, and working insane hours on something you have no idea whether will be successful or not. Some people are wired for that sort of pain, and those are the ones who succeed.
People want a boyfriend or girlfriend. But you don't end up attracting amazing people without loving the emotional turbulence that comes with weathering rejections, building the sexual tension that never gets released, and staring blankly at a phone that never rings. It's part of the game of love. You can't win if you don't play.
What determines your success is "What pain do you want to sustain?"
I wrote in an article last week that I've always loved the idea of being a surfer, yet I've never made consistent effort to surf regularly. Truth is: I don't enjoy the pain that comes with paddling until my arms go numb and having water shot up my nose repeatedly. It's not for me. The cost outweighs the benefit. And that's fine.
On the other hand, I am willing to live out of a suitcase for months on end, to stammer around in a foreign language for hours with people who speak no English to try and buy a cell phone, to get lost in new cities over and over and over again. Because that's the sort of pain and stress I enjoy sustaining. That's where my passion lies, not just in the pleasures, but in the stress and pain.
There's a lot of self development advice out there that says, "You've just got to want it enough!"
That's only partly true. Everybody wants something. And everybody wants something badly enough. They just aren't being honest with themselves about what they actually want that bad.
If you want the benefits of something in life, you have to also want the costs. If you want the six pack, you have to want the sweat, the soreness, the early mornings, and the hunger pangs. If you want the yacht, you have to also want the late nights, the risky business moves, and the possibility of pissing off a person or ten.
If you find yourself wanting something month after month, year after year, yet nothing happens and you never come any closer to it, then maybe what you actually want is a fantasy, an idealization, an image and a false promise. Maybe you don't actually want it at all.
So I ask you, "How are you willing to suffer?"
Because you have to choose something. You can't have a pain-free life. It can't all be roses and unicorns.
Choose how you are willing to suffer.
Because that's the hard question that matters. Pleasure is an easy question. And pretty much all of us have the same answer.
The more interesting question is the pain. What is the pain that you want to sustain?
Because that answer will actually get you somewhere. It's the question that can change your life. It's what makes me me and you you. It's what defines us and separates us and ultimately brings us together.
So what's it going to be?

Mark Manson, the original writer of this piece, is an entrepreneur, author and world traveler.

Chinese Bamboo

I was watching a video of Les Brown. A motivational speaker from a time when, well, a long time ago.

He said this amazing thing about the Chinese Bamboo and then I looked it up on Google. It seems when you decide to cultivate the Chinese bamboo for the first season nothing grows. All you see is barren land, the way it was before you put anything into it. You need to, however, keep watering it and fertilizing it for another year. And still! at the end of the second year, you still see nothing on the surface. For the entire duration. Every day. You need to keep on diligently watering and nourishing the ground because you have for some godforsaken reason decided to grow Chinese bamboo!

And now it gets worse. The Chinese bamboo takes four frustrating years to break the ground.

For four long years you are watering, nourishing and fertilizing barren land or at least so it seems, to anyone and everyone who sees you at the task.

Some might think you've lost it, many others will voice their opinion on how you are wasting your time and effort for an eternity and have nothing to show for.

Now here the amazing thing about this stubborn, patience testing Mr. Bamboo. Once it breaks the ground after a gestation of four years, within the first season itself, the bamboo grows a massive eighty feet. Almost the entire adult size. EIGHTY FEET! in one year.

The point to ponder on, is did it grow that massive size in the one season that it was shooting towards the sky, or did the growth originate over the four years of diligent and disciplined nurturing? Aren't our goals, and targets very similar to this? Would that shoot have even broken the surface if it weren't watered, and tended to, with unquestioning patience?

For the fitness freaks here. The rest and nutrition that follows all the grunting and pushing in the gym is what results in an admirable self.
For the sports nuts, the numerous hours you put in perfecting a shot, getting your footing right, training in solitude in the mud and grime results in that brief stellar performance applauded by many.

For the suit and tie donning robots, the entrepreneurs and hopeless dreamers, how you tend to your goal when no one's watching you, with nothing on the balance sheet and no swanky office yet to show for, through the storm of doubting and questioning looks results in something worthy of praise and admiration from those very disbelievers.

Now that you are done reading this. Pick up that bucket and go water your bamboo.
(yuck, that sounds cheesy)

Better sore than sorry

The only one thing that you can do today to get you one step closer to
where you often wish you were, is action. When you get up change and walk out the front door, your body, that voice in your head that urges you to sleep some more or laze it off, has no choice but to kit up and come along with you.

Its amazing how many of us complain of running out of breath or lack of energy to take you through the course of your week, or an increasing tendency to do nothing and laze off entire evenings or afternoons or day dream about being on the field.
While the solution is well within our reach.
Living in Pune we are never too far away from a hill-side for a jog, or a school/coll ground, or a badminton court to get together and play, or a space within your society to throw some hoops, swim or run.

I'm certain of the 24 hours that we have so meticulously divided and dedicated to dinners, parties, get togethers, roaming around and doing nothing; we can manage to make an hour or two of fitness time to do some good to a body put through much neglect and abuse.

And since all of you have been engaged in sports at some point in time in the past, ask yourself if you have ever been put through a grueling practice session, or ran till sweat drips off your chin, or pushed a few more repetitions than usual and woken up the next day to regret it.
Never isn't it? Maybe a little sore, but never sorry.

So why stop now?
Wake up. Don't hit snooze. Kit up. Get out.

Mind over matter

We are surrounded by naysayers and disbelievers.

People who will enlist a truckload of reasons why you will fail on a chosen path before they can point out one reason why you should go for it. It becomes increasingly difficult to ignore those voices when they come from your close ones. Friends and family especially. But that’s when you reach for and hold on tightly to one inalienable truth. What you can and cannot do depends majorly on what you think you are capable of. The most powerful, versatile and equally volatile weapon at your behest is your mind and how you control what goes on within it. Let me stop before I get too preachy and ask you to retrospect. When was the last time you were up against a formidable task. An opponent on the field, a mountain to climb, a deadline too close, a challenge deemed grueling and too difficult but you decided to take it on nevertheless and prevailed. Try and think about your state of mind then and I’m sure one of the main reasons you overcame was merely because you believed you could. Strongly and firmly. And no matter what happened around you or what people said, you knew deep down you could and everything else followed suit when the moment came.

I stumbled on this story recently of how until April 1955 everyone in the world believed that it was impossible for mankind to break the 4 minute barrier. They believed it was impossible for anyone to run a mile under 4 minutes. And then along came a certain Roger Bannister who proved them wrong. The significance of this story is what happened after that. Since that day till today, over twenty five thousand people have broken that barrier and many of them include high school kids. Twenty five thousand! Do you know what changed?

When the people after bannister stepped on the track, they knew that someone else had done it before them. They knew it was not impossible. They believed that if he could they could too. The key word here is they believed.

This true story exemplifies the power of your own mind. Of belief. When training at the highest level most of the trainers put their teams and athletes through session of what is commonly called visualization. The sportsmen are asked to isolate and focus on what they need to do. Visualize themselves run, or hit a ball, or jump a hurdle. Picture them performing that act and here’s the wonder, when they train after, the body performs better. Its almost like your body has been given a step by step handbook of what it is to do and how and it follows it to the ‘T’.

The point I'm trying to make here, is that we all have a want list of thing we would like own, places we would like to be, how we would like to look and feel, podiums we want to stand on and feel what it tastes like to be the best. Things we want to work out for ourselves personally. Professionally. Materialistically. Emotionally.

What if you were told that everything you wanted was possible, all you had to do was believe in yourself with enough conviction to drown out the doubts of others and more importantly yourself. And when you get there and look back what you've just achieved, you will realize you've just broken a mental barrier and now everything else you deem possible is within reach.

As simple as it sounds, it’s not an easy task to do. But once done, nothing is impenetrable.