The Meaning of Life

When was the first time you thought that you are going to die one day? Do you remember
how you felt at that moment? I was in my early teens when I contemplated the
impermanent nature of life for the first time. I also happen to come across the
information on the life-cycle of stars around the same time.

In the distant future, our sun will die off and convert into a white dwarf destroying the
Earth in the process. It made me realize that not only I but also all the life on the planet
will die off. That was the first hit of existential crisis in my life. I wondered: if everything
will eventually fade away, then what's the meaning of all this?

My parents never suppressed my curiosity. They put me in touch with people who they
thought could answer my questions. But I didn't get a satisfactory answer from anywhere.
The Internet wasn't available in India in those days, not at least in my neighborhood.

I left my exploration there and continued with what kids do in their teens. I returned to
this exploration in my mid-20s with a fresh new perspective.

Generally, questions like "what's the meaning of life?" bring people into philosophy. Elon
Musk got his hit of existential crisis when he was 15. He read books by Friedrich Nietzsche
and Arthur Schopenhauer in search of answers. But he found them too negative. Then he
read the book "'Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy," and from there, he decided that
expanding the human consciousness is the answer.

Not everyone will find their answer in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Different
explorations give different answers. For example, if you try to find the answer in religious
texts, you'll see that some religions show you a god-figure and ask you to follow him. Such
texts declare that you are here to follow his path. Some religions say you are here to gain
mukti (liberation), and until you attain mukti you will keep on taking rebirth in this
universe for eternity. And some religions say that you are here to do good to others.

Turning to philosophical texts, you will again get varying points of view. The hedonistic
ones will say that life is all about maximizing pleasure. The scientific ones will tell you
that there's no meaning at all. And the cynics will tell you that life's purpose is to live with
virtue and abstain from all worldly desires.
On this journey, you might end up reading hundreds of books on religions and
philosophy, not realizing till the end that all of this is just a game of mind. Just because
you are seeking something, doesn't mean it exists in reality.

Nature doesn't give birth to meaning. Nature gives birth to humans, animals, trees,
planets, stars, and many other things. Let's assume these things are real. They exist in
reality. All these things exhibit various behaviors; let's assume those behaviors are also
real. But none of those behaviors is "meaning". The concept of meaning doesn't exist in
nature; the human mind gave birth to this concept. That's why, throughout history,
philosophers have tried to find the meaning of life but never got anything solid in hand -
because they were searching for something that doesn't exist.

I am not saying that life is meaningless. I am saying meaning is meaningless from the
context of reality. The concept of meaning makes sense only in the mind's domain, not in
the domain of reality. Nature doesn't care that a mammal species with a developed brain
created a concept named "meaning". Existence just exists.

In philosophical circles, you will come across people who believe that life is meaningless.
Some people in this segment take it to the extreme. They start to become uninterested in
life. They think their life is so meaningless. They wonder why to exist if there's no
meaning of life. These people are deep into the trap of the mind. And they take pride in
their knowledge of the universe -- another trap of the mind. They think that they know
the universe and its working. These intellectuals didn't realize when their intellectual
games turned against themselves. Their mind became so attached to the concept of
"meaning" that they think meaningless things are worthless and must cease to exist.

We fail to realize that all the labels we give to Nature's patterns and behaviors are for our
convenience so that we can communicate complex ideas with other humans. "Meaning" is
one such concept. It's just a notion created by humans.

I am not suggesting to stop finding meaning and stop connecting the dots. If you feel like
doing so, sure, go ahead. But try to keep in mind that it's just a game. Play. Have fun. But
don't confuse what's mental with what's real.

When you ask, "What's the meaning of life if we are going to die after some years?"
understand that it's just your ego asking you, "why the hell I am not immortal?" Yes, you
are searching for meaning because your ego (your sense of "I") doesn't want to fade away.

In trying to become immortal, your ego will make you do things that people remember
after your death. Things that leave a dent on the universe so that a part of your ego
survives even after your death. People call it Legacy - what you leave behind, the stories
people will tell about you when you are no longer here. But does that matter? The entire
civilization will eventually fade away. So what's the point of building a legacy?
People also confuse meaning with purpose. They ask what's the meaning of life when they
are actually seeking the purpose of their life. Let's take an example: A bread-cutting
machine is placed inside a bakery. What's the purpose of that machine? To cut bread. But
who decided that purpose? The Baker. What if that machine had cognition and wanted to
do something else? The Baker would force it to cut bread because that's why he bought it.

Now suppose there was a specific purpose for every human being on this planet. And
every human was supposed to fulfill that purpose to live a complete life. Wouldn't that
take away your freedom from you? Do you want a purposeful life at the stake of freedom?
You can't have both.

Some religions say that if you don't attain mukti (liberation) in your current life, you will
be born again. And you will keep on going through the endless cycle of birth, misery, and
death until you attain liberation. If you strictly believe in it, you automatically lose your
freedom. Now you won't be able to follow any other path. You MUST attain mukti; else,
you are doomed here forever. Are you sure you want to live that kind of life?

Machines have a purpose, my friend; humans don't. And that's a good thing.
Process-First Approach

Remember, picking a goal and not working on it will only add more frustration and self-
hate in your life. In my book, Learn & Earn, I call such goals Passive Desires.

We tend to imagine a specific configuration of the universe and set it as a goal. For
example, having visible abs, or closing a major business deal. To take the universe to this
desired state, you have to make some changes in the current state of the universe. The
desired state of the universe is the outcome, and the work you have to do to manifest that
state is the process. And when you desire the outcome but do not work on the process, it
gives birth to a Passive Desire.

A Passive Desire is like a slow poison. It keeps you subconsciously stressed throughout
the day.

"I am not working on the thing I am supposed to work on."

This thought keeps on repeating inside your head. But you postpone that work (as well as
the desired outcome attached to it), one day after another. You start to become short-
tempered. Even tiny ups and downs of the day to day life start to irritate you. You begin to
hate yourself for being such a lazy person. It's a miserable way of living.

Out of despair, you start to watch motivational videos. They bring you temporary relief.
And you get motivated to work harder. After watching motivational videos, you either
succeed in doing the supposed work or keep procrastinating. If you still procrastinate,
which is more likely to happen, you start to hate yourself even more. More frustration
builds up. And even if you manage to defeat procrastination and do the work, you might
hate every moment of the process and burnout at the end. This is also a miserable way to
live.

You need to understand that the mind that creates the desire for a thing is the same mind
that is procrastinating the required process to achieve that thing. You must be able to
differentiate when the mind is actually hating the process and when it is just distracted.

Suppose you are procrastinating a task, but you force yourself to do that task, and you get
so involved in it that you forget everything else. If this is the case, then your mind was
simply distracted, it wasn't procrastinating. But if you force yourself to do a task and hate
each moment of it, then that task is not made for you. You are only punishing your body
and mind by forcing yourself to do that work. It's self-torture.
Don't let motivational speakers and authors convince you that self-torture is a good thing.
It is not. It adds unnecessary stress to your life. Controlled cycles of stress and recovery
makes you stronger in many aspects of life. But a constant source of stress keeps your
body's cortisol level high for long periods of time. This puts you at increased risk of many
health problems, including (source):

Anxiety
Depression
Digestive problems
Headaches
Heart disease
Sleep problems
Weight gain
Memory and concentration impairment

You might look at Elon Musk and think he works so hard, and he has achieved so much as
a result. But you must remember that he loves what he does every day. If you take that
away from him, then that will become unhealthy for him. But emulating his process might
not be the right fit for your unique nature. That's why I suggest avoiding getting inspired
by others. Inspiration (of this kind) is the big brother of motivation. Both are external.
You need to find your nature and work as per that. In trying to emulate others, you fail to
see your true potential.

But, I digress.

We tend to select some outcome (a specific state of the universe) as a goal. And then
figure out what process we need to follow to get that outcome. But we don't realize that
we are going to spend more time with the process than the outcome. The shine of the
outcome, once you achieve it, will vanish within a week or two. But you'd have to invest
years of effort into the process to get that outcome.

If this is the case, then doesn't it make more sense to select processes, not outcomes, as
goals? We need to flip our thinking. Instead of thinking what outcome you want, think
what kind of work you want to do on a day-to-day basis -- the process. And then figure
out what outcomes you can achieve with this process.

Once a process is selected, you can add some sub-processes to take it in the direction of
the desired outcome. For example, suppose you like making digital paintings. But just
making beautiful paintings on your computer isn't going to make you any money.
Suppose, making $100k/year is an outcome that you desire. To achieve that outcome, you
can add some sub-processes to your main process (digital painting). For example, post
five paintings on Instagram per week to build a presence and get professional
opportunities. Or send emails to 5 game development and film effects companies every
week showing them your work. Over time you'll start getting a steady flow of freelance
work for digital painting.

You might or might not like the sub-processes. That's why try to select sub-processes that
don't require more than 2-3 hours of work per week. And try to automate or delegate
them as soon as possible. That way, you'll be able to spend the most time with the main
process you selected.

Pick a process and pursue mastery in it. Keep your eyes open. You'll get opportunities that
will take you to the outcomes you never imagined.
Ambition - Yet another mind trap

Who doesn't want to live an ambitious, exciting, and happening life? Like the scene from
the movie Limitless. Take one pill, and you become hyper-aware, super learner, and ultra-
productive - Going from a broke, procrastinating writer to becoming a senate of the state
within a matter of months. This seems to be the new American Dream. Retiring at 40 with
a happy family and a million dollars in the bank is not enough to inspire today's youth.

On the other hand, the mid-life crisis has preponed from the mid-30s to mid-20s. Around
the age of 26, the working-class starts to think about how long their 9-5 regime will
continue. The successful ones stare at the city-scape from their office in skyscrapers and
wonder if they will leave a dent in the universe. And the ultra-rich who "made it", looks at
the setting sun from his private Yacht and admits that something is missing which he
can't put his finger on.

The working-class tries to find their cure in the vacations and promotions, rising
entrepreneurs try to find their answer by setting bigger goals, and the ultra-rich goes to
meditation retreats in the hope of finding what's missing.

People think that bigger ambitions will solve their lack of meaning in life. When your
ambitions come from this place, you are eternally doomed to keep chasing it. Some
people grow and some decay in the process, but no one ever touches the bright light of
"meaning" they imagined at the end of the tunnel. (Another common source of ambition
could be inspiration from others, that's a trap as well.)

The worst source of ambition is rationality. If your rational mind convinces you to be
more ambitious because that's the right way - because that's how you contribute the most
to humanity, and that's a life well spent - then you will spend your entire life in guilt. Let
me tell you why. Logic doesn't lead to action; emotions and feelings lead to action. On the
one hand, your logical mind will keep asking you to achieve more, and on the other hand,
your body won't comply with that decision and won't follow the process to achieve those
ambitious goals. This inner conflict will eat up from the inside.

The only thing forced ambition can bring to you (that also in very rare cases) is the sense
of illusory satisfaction on your death bed. In your last breaths, you'd think, "Yes! I made a
dent in the Universe!" But are you sure you want to optimize your entire life for what you
think in your death bed? And that also when it's not real. It's not that the Universe
whispers in your ears that you made it; it's just your mind trying to convince itself,
justifying all the sacrifices and hard work you put into your ambitious goals.
Now, one might ask a clever question here: how to be naturally ambitious, not forced?
The clear answer is - you can't. Ambition, like many other things in Nature, is either given
to you or it isn't. Ambition chooses you; you don't choose ambition. Just like you didn't
choose your parents, you didn't choose your facial features, you didn't choose your
gender, in the same way, you can't choose ambition (especially when we are talking about
natural ambition).

But our current culture doesn't like to see the limits. We want to believe that everyone can
do everything that they desire. And there's a reason to spread this belief. If people
stopped believing this, then how are the self-help writers going to sell you their books,
how the motivational speakers will fill their conferences, and who will buy premium
courses from online gurus.

But what about all the successful people who advise the youth to be more ambitious and
aim for stars? Before answering that, I want you to ponder on another question: the
successful person you are talking about, did he manufacture his ambition, or the ambition
came to him? Answer honestly. Once a man becomes successful, he is free to make up
stories and build how-tos. But let this be clear, if you reverse the clock and give the same
man his how-tos, he wouldn't succeed. His own advice will reduce his chances of success.

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that one must avoid ambition. Having that mindset
will block you from possessing your natural ambition when it comes. I am just saying that
there's no use in trying to be ambitious.
Inner Mastery and Outer Success

Gaining outer success without inner mastery is like getting a fancy color job on a car
running on a poor engine. Such a vehicle is good to show others, but every time you ride
it, you feel the vibrations of its parts from the inside.

Due to the overly visible nature of outer success, most people catch the desire for external
success early on. Their mind asks them to get that fancy pen in school, that hot girl/boy in
college, a new car in the job, and a bigger home before retirement. The mind convinces us
that if only you had that one more thing, you'd be happy (that never happens, though).

I am not an ascetic. There's nothing bad in chasing external things, but if you are not
developing from the inside simultaneously, then even if you manage to fulfill every desire
of the mind, you'll still be miserable. Your life will look good on the outside, people will
admire you and get inspired by you, but you won't feel the same way while living it

Furthermore, if you are only focusing on accumulating external achievements, the path
towards your goals will be full of friction. A calm and sorted mind makes every goal
smooth, and an anxious mind makes even the easier pursuits difficult. Just imagine -- if
you have mastery over your mind, it didn't create any distracting thoughts when you are
working, it didn't get attracted towards shiny projects, it didn't fluctuate along with the
fluctuating circumstances -- it would make it so much easier to achieve any goal in your
life!

If you work towards mastering the internal, not only the path to external success becomes
easier, you also get to truly enjoy your external achievements. An untrained mind is
always worried. When he doesn't have a thing, he is worried about when he'll get it, and
when he gets it, he's worried about losing it and protecting it. As a result, if your inner
development isn't on par with your external growth, you miss out on life's full experience.

Most people try to go from outer success to inner success. That's why you see so many
successful people go to meditation retreats and hire personal development coaches. They
achieved everything on the outside, but without inner development they still feel the lack
of something in their life.

At this point, you might think that going from inner success to outer success would be a
better approach. But you don't necessarily have to pursue external and internal
development separately. You can make your pursuit of external goals a means for your
inner development. This is what the ancient Japanese martial artists and archers did. This
is what the Shaolin Monks of China did. This is what the Flute players involved in Suizen
did. Their mastery of the external skills were deeply connected to their inner mastery. Just
like these ancient masters, let all your outer challenges become a playground for your
inner training.

If you choose this path, you get the best of both worlds -- inner mastery as well as outer
success. You get to experience the inner richness of life along with the external
accomplishments. You need not abstain from the material world to grow spiritually. This
is the ultimate form of Karma Yoga proposed by lord Krishna in the ancient Hindu text
Bhagavad Gita. Karma means action, and yoga means unification. Unify with the universe
through your actions.
Buddha's Desires

It is generally believed that Buddha said, "desire is suffering." But I doubt if a young man
named Siddhartha could have become the Buddha without his desire to find the answers
to human misery. Buddha's journey itself started with a desire.

Siddhartha was a prince. On his birth, a monk said that this kid would either become a
great emperor or a sage. His father didn't want him to become a sage, so he shielded him
from all the pains and suffering of life and provided all the luxuries to him inside the
palace. But one day, in his late 20s, Siddhartha went on a tour of his city with his
charioteer. For the first time in his life, Siddhartha saw people in pain -- dead body, aging
men, and ailing people. His charioteer said this was normal, and everyone has to go
through these stages of life. The sights of suffering and their inevitability disturbed
Siddhartha so much that he decided to leave his kingdom searching for answers.

As you can see, the journey of Buddha started with a very strong desire. This desire took
him to many gurus where he learned yoga, meditation, and gained the knowledge of the
Vedas. But he was not satisfied. After six years of exploration, some through gurus and
some by himself, one day, he sat below a Sacred Fig tree and achieved enlightenment.
Some references say that his condition was very bad that day due to a lack of food and
excess traveling. After leaving his luxurious lifestyle, he spent his life in very harsh
conditions. But he kept looking for answers. He didn't settle until he found satisfactory
answers. Such was the level of desire that made Siddhartha the Gautama Buddha.

Even after enlightenment, he desired one more thing -- to spread what he learned. It is
said that after enlightenment, he was wondering if he should teach others what he
learned. He was more inclined not to teach it, but lord Brahma Sahampati requested
Buddha to share his wisdom with others. Brahma said, "There are beings with little dust in
their eyes who are falling because they do not hear the Dhamma. Throw open the door to
the Deathless! Let them hear the Dhamma realized by the Stainless One!" And Buddha
agreed. Either way, we can say that it was a desire -- either a desire to remove dust from
people's eyes or the desire to propagate his teachings.

So the spiritual gurus advising to stop having goals and chasing things in life doesn't
make sense, especially when they say it from a Buddhist context. Buddha himself pursued
two major goals in his life: finding the answers and spreading his dhamma. After
enlightenment, he gave many speeches at various ashrams and gardens; he attended
people in public and private. These conversations form the basis of all Buddhist texts that
we know of today. Buddha himself didn't write any book; all the suttas (Buddhist texts)
are the recordings of his lessons written by his disciples and attendees.

Although Buddha recommends giving up desires, the important thing to understand here
is that he never said to become inactive in life. The challenge here is to understand how
one can act without any desire? The answer is in your intention behind your actions. In the
next email, we will discuss Buddha's view on intentions and how it affects your work and
life. We will limit our discussion to the practical aspects of this philosophy.

How your Intentions affect your Life

We saw that Buddha pursued two major goals in his life:

1. Finding answers to human sufferings

2. Spreading his Dhamma (his path to liberation)

He succeeded in both of his goals. (Did you know, the name Siddhartha, Buddha's real
name, means one who achieves his goals). We are interested in understanding how one
can pursue goals knowing that desires cause suffering

In Buddhism, there are three mediums of action: body, speech, and mind. You perform
your actions physically through the body, verbally through your speech, and mentally
through your thoughts. In Christianity, these are commonly known as thoughts, words,
and deed.

As per Buddha, more than the actions, the intentions behind the actions are important.
Most people believe that karma is your action. It's not entirely true. Buddha puts more
emphasis on the intent behind an action than the action itself. The intention behind the
actions gives rise to one's karma.

It doesn't matter how holy of a thing you do; if your intention behind doing it is to score
spiritual points, then it's of no use. In fact, it will trap you more into the cycle of suffering,
just as much as intentionally hurting someone.

So, if you are performing an action, chasing a desire, or pursuing a goal with the intention
of gaining something from it, then you'll live in misery. Because you'll feel incomplete
until you gain that thing, and once you achieve it, it will satiate you only for a day or two
until it becomes the new norm. In the grave, looking back at your life, you'll find that you
spent years in illusory hunger with few glimpses of satisfaction.
There are only two periods in a man's life when he acts without any ulterior motive: when
he is a child and when he is in love. A child playing with his toys have no agenda behind
it; he is simply playing. He builds castles, his castles collapse, then he builds another --
and he goes on, he keeps playing until intruded by hunger or sleep.

Similarly, when a man is in love, he acts towards his loved one without any hidden
motive. His acts sprout spontaneously. When he purchases flowers for his love, he doesn't
expect anything in return from that person. Imagine how beautiful the world would be if
we could make all our acts like that, whether for our relationships or goals.

When your acts come out of love and play, there's no hidden intention behind them, and
hence they bring no misery. They might bring one outcome or another, but they do not
bring misery because you were not expecting anything in the first place.

Acting without expectation doesn't mean acting without a plan. If a team of engineers is
building a bridge, they need to know every detail of the expected outcome. To construct a
safe and strong bridge, they need to have a plan and follow it precisely. We need to
understand that the concept of acting out of play and love applies on a psychological
level. If an engineer in this team is working on this project with the intention of gaining a
promotion after it, then that's the issue. Compare this engineer with another engineer in
the same team who is working on this project just because he loves the mechanism
behind building bridges. In the end, both the engineers are equally likely to get a
promotion, but which one do you think lives a satisfying life?

Do without expecting, and you become satiated; do with hunger, and you remain
unsatisfied.

Are you living life Blindfolded? Most people are

If you own a powerful tool, like a Wood Cutter, but you don't understand it well, you are
likely going to hurt yourself while operating it. The same thing applies in life; if you have
a wrong understanding of how the universe works, your actions can hurt you and others.
Unfortunately, the universe doesn't come with a user's manual.

In Buddhism, any action that comes from a place of ignorance adds suffering to one's life.
Ignorance is a commonly used term in this context, but it doesn't accurately describe the
Sanskrit word "Avidya" used by Buddha. Avidya is more like misconceptions regarding the
universe and the misinterpretations of its workings. Let's look at some examples of such
misinterpretations.
The first and the most deeply rooted misconception is that something is permanent.
Impermanence is a fundamental nature of existence as per Buddha. So clinging to
anything -- your body, achievements, family, a desired state of life -- only brings
suffering. When you don't have something, you are upset because you don't have it; when
you get it, you are afraid to lose it; and when you lose it, you are again upset that you lost
what you once had.

Not understanding the impermanent nature of things and events in this universe is living
in ignorance. A result of this ignorance is the fear of death, illness, aging, and the regular
ups and downs of life. Even the urge to leave a legacy is just an attempt of your ego to live
after your body dies. But eventually, everything will fade away one day, and even if you
manage to make a dent in the universe, what if there remains no one to see that dent in
the future?

Another common example of Avidya is mistaking the illusions to be the reality. Your
reality is only what you are physically experiencing right now (we are not considering the
metaphysical experiences as of now); everything else is an illusion created by your mind.
The past experiences that you mourn on are not real; the future events you worry about
are also not real. These are just images and scenery created by your mind using the stored
information in your brain.

The information in your brain can be easily altered by your ego and some external factors.
Your memory is not as reliable as you think it is. False memories can be created, and real
memories can be modified. So, living as if the world inside your mind is the real world is a
recipe for a miserable life.

I can go on with more examples of Avidya. But you don't need Buddha or me to tell these
things to you. Simply drop your conventional thinking, and open your eyes to the Truth
about the situations in your life. As I always say, the Truth is always there, right in front
of your eyes; all you need to do is break your mental filters.
The Impermanence of Life

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of
thinking you have something to lose. — Steve Jobs

The fact that I am going to die one day shapes almost all the decisions in my life.

People often ask me, why I don’t like pushing myself in life? Why do I hate long-term
discomfort? Why am I against doing things forcibly?

I know where this comes from. People think higher the resistance, the higher the growth.

But no matter how hard you push yourself, you are going to die one day.

No matter how much you put yourself in uncomfortable positions to learn more, you are
going to die one day.

That’s why I love the pull approach.

I try to find alternatives that give me better results without forcing myself to do things
that I don’t like to do.

I have absolutely no wish to follow what society expects from me. Apart from the legal
rules, I don’t impose any other imaginary rules on myself.

I meditate, but not every day; only when I feel like meditating. I journal, but not every
day; only when I feel like talking to my diary.

Instead of forcing these things into a routine, I like to go with the natural flow.

Now, some of you will say, “I hate working out. You are saying I should not workout?”

Absolutely.

Don’t workout if you hate it. Instead, play an outdoor sport with your friends. Or go
running. Or go hiking.

Get involved in a physical activity that you like doing.

“But I have a job, I don’t have that much time!”

NOW you are coming to the root problem.

The root problem isn’t that you are not working out, the root problem is that your job
isn’t allowing you to do any other physical activity.

You were suppressing this root cause by forcing yourself to go to the gym.

Find another job, build a side-business, or start investing. Do something that gives you
more freedom.

After you get the freedom, if you still can’t get yourself involved in any physical activity,
which would be very rare, then you should force yourself to do that.

Why force now?

Because “You are going to die one day”!

Your experience on this planet is going to last only a couple of decades. You better
maintain a good health to live it well.

So, realizing that you are going to die does promote pushing but only in the matters
where you are enhancing your life, not pushing just for the sake of pushing.

Mindlessly pushing yourself to do something that you don’t like is a waste of the precious
life you’ve got on this planet.

Don’t force Morning Routines, Habits, Meditation, Journaling, and other productivity
hacks in your life just because the internet gurus say it.

Realize that you are going to die one day, and let that realization shape your decisions
naturally.
How to become an Opportunity Magnet

In marketing, there’s a concept of Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing. In

Inbound marketing, the company creates free useful resources for their target market.
People consume those resources, and some of them end up purchasing products from the
company. On the other hand, in outbound marketing, the company approaches potential
customers with their offer and tries to convince them to buy products from them.

The customers from Inbound Marketing are almost always better than the customers
gathered by outbound marketing; they generally give higher price and often raise fewer
complaints.

The same principle applies to the real life. You can either chase a job, a girl, or a position;
or you can upgrade yourself in such a way that these things chase you. When you chase
someone, you lose the upper hand to others; when others chase you, you get the upper
hand.

So instead of reading pickup books, search what traits you need to cultivate that the girls
approach you. Instead of asking for an interview at dozens of companies, try to find out
what mini-projects you can develop and showcase to the world such that the companies
approach you to work for them. Ask: do I have any practical skill that a business can use?
If no, how can I learn it? Upgrade yourself.

Focus on your strengths. When you decide what are the upgrades you need to make, look
at those upgrades which you are already good at or have interest in. Instead of trying to
get a weakness from -2 to 10, try to get your weakness from -2 to 0 and take your
strengths from 2 to 10.

Upgrading yourself is just one part of the equation. Another part is: put yourself in places
and situations where you are visible and approachable. Find the mediums through which
your desired person/thing/company can approach you. And be active there.

Let’s take an example. I frequently see young design students who create excellent
designs and exhibiting them online. They build an online portfolio and talk design stuff
on Twitter. Once they complete their graduation, they tweet out that they are open for a
job. A couple of big accounts retweet them looking at their portfolio, and they get job
offers from Google, Amazon, and other big firms. This is a normal sighting on my corner
of Twitter.
One benefit of getting things from the pull approach is that you often get more than one
opportunity, hence you have more options. The person with more options always has an
advantage in negotiations.

So instead of chasing around, create black holes that pull opportunities towards you.
Here’s a 4-step plan to summarize:

1. Find the upgrades needed to attract a particular thing

2. Upgrade yourself (preferably as per your strengths)
3. Be visible; exhibit your skills
4. Be approachable
No Desire is going to complete your life

Today I want to share a realization about desires that changed my life. Last year, in
December, I visited Kerala with my best friend. It was a wonderful trip, and one of the best
experiences was a stay in a mud-house in the middle of the Chinnar forest. Here’s the
view outside the mud-house:

The picture doesn’t do justice to the layers of mountains peeking through clouds and the
dense forest around us. But you get the idea. I got to spend two days in a jungle with the
closest friend I have. A dream come true.

But.

Something was bothering me. I was feeling very excited on the surface, but deep down, I
was feeling the same, as I always felt — a neutral feeling. Strange to describe. This feeling
reminded me of the day I launched my first book Pursue your Passion. The book sold 100
copies within two days. I was awestruck. I couldn’t believe this is happening. The feeling
of that high stayed for about a month, but after a month, everything was back to normal.
All the days were once again the same as they always were.

No matter how big of an achievement you accomplish, the joy from that experience stays
only for a couple of weeks. Right now, you might have some desires — some you are
working on, and some you are procrastinating on. But the fact remains the same: when
you fulfill these desires, your mind will find new ones — new worries, new anxieties, and
new problems to solve.

When I tweet such realizations, people often ask what to do then? What’s the solution?
Understand this: what I mentioned is just a pattern of the mind; it’s not a problem to be
solved. However, there’s one thing you can do: don’t expect something from a desire that
it can’t give you. No desire is ever going to make your life complete. Does this mean my
life will always be incomplete? No, on the contrary, when you stop chasing completeness,
the sense of incompleteness vanishes. You will see that the chase of completeness was
creating the illusion of incompleteness in the first place.

Take a step back and recall all the desires you fulfilled in your life — small, big, easy, hard
— any desire. Did any of those desires, when fulfilled, made you stop desiring more? Did
achieving any of them made you think, this is it, my life is complete now. You still kept
having new desires, right? Once a desire is fulfilled, you start looking for new things.

One caution before closing the email — don’t force to stop desiring. A desire to not desire
is also a desire. As desires come and go in your life, keep observing the truth behind them;
any change that has to occur will occur naturally.
Kobe's Biggest Lesson to the World

I am not big on Basketball. I came to know about Kobe from the book Relentless, by Tim
Grover. Tim mentions in the book how dedicated Kobe was to his game. I was in the
middle of the book when the news about Kobe’s unfortunate death came in.

After Kobe’s death, people started posting stories about how hard Kobe used to work.
From the book Relentless, and these stories, it seems he worked harder than most other
players in the game.

In one of the interviews, Kobe explains: If I practice four sessions per day, and other
competitors practice two sessions per day, after four years there’s no way the competitors
will get a chance to cover that up, they will always stay behind.

But behind the glamour of his insane work ethic, something is getting buried beneath the
surface. That thing is his LOVE for the game. Kobe loved Basketball with all his heart. His
love shows up in his poem Dear Basketball. Here are the lines that struck me the most:

"I played through the sweat and hurt

Not because challenge called me

But because YOU called me.

I did everything for YOU

Because that’s what you do

When someone makes you feel as

Alive as you’ve made me feel."

The YOU in the poem is Basketball. You can feel his deep love for the game. He mentions
in several interviews that he was lucky to find this love at an early age. Kobe also shared
how he exposes his children to different activities so that they can find their love too. I
think this is the most important message we should take from Kobe.

1. Find your Craft

2. Love it with ALL you’ve got
Kobe didn’t show us how to work the hardest; he showed us how to love the most. He
showed us what true love for your craft looks like. Unfortunately, most people coming
across the hustle-stories of Kobe will try to emulate that attitude (the Mamba Mentality,
in Kobe’s words) to whatever they are working on. Most of them will fail for obvious
reasons and end up adding unnecessary anxiety to their lives.

Don’t forget what Kobe said:

“Because that’s what you do

When someone makes you feel as

Alive as you’ve made me feel.”

Basketball made Kobe feel alive; what makes you feel alive?
The Truth about Hard Work

When we are talking about hard work, we aren’t necessarily talking about physically
working hard. On a physical level, depending on your current physical strength, a work
could be easy, demanding, or impossible. You might wonder if physically demanding work
can come under hard work, but if you enjoy that physically demanding work, you won’t
feel it as hard work.

Hard work isn’t about doing mentally challenging things either. You could come home
tired from work and play a game of chess with your son to refresh. Chess is a mentally
challenging game, but some people find it refreshing. So the hard work we are talking
about is neither a physical difficulty nor a mental difficulty, it’s more of a feeling.

You’ll feel a task is effortful if there’s an opposing force that’s stopping you from doing
that task. Such opposing force exists when there’s a conflict of interests within you.
Suppose a part of you wants to sit and do the work, but another part of you wants to rest
or scroll social media. If there was no desire other than doing the decided thing, then
there won’t be any force (psychologically) opposing you from doing it. Hence you won’t
feel that you are working hard to complete the task.

The concept of Hard Work can not exist without inner conflict. So the opposite of Hard
Work is not Easy Work; the opposite of hard work is working in sync. You could be doing a
work that squeezes out all your physical and mental capabilities, but if no part of your
body or mind is resisting it — your entire being is working towards it in sync — you won’t
feel that you are working hard.

Instead of trying to work harder, it makes more sense to resolve you inner conflict. By
forcing yourself to work harder by watching motivational videos and getting inspired by
successful people, you are covering up the real issue that needs some inquiry. By blindly
pushing harder, you are simply ignoring dealing with the root cause of the issue.

Hard Work and Talent

You are not wrong in noticing that all the high performers push themselves more than
average human beings. But I’d ask you to notice one more thing: aren’t they doing
something they are interested in and passionate about? Hard work without any love for
the process is just self-torture.
To be clear, I am not talking about the resistance that you feel before starting a work
session. I am talking about the lack of interest you feel while you are engaged in the
process – when you are doing the day-to-day tasks in your pursuit. A common example:
you might not feel like doing one more set of pushups, but once you do the first rep, that
resistance vanishes. If this is the case, then you must do it. Beat that resistance in the
beginning; it’s just your mind’s inertia. But if you hate yourself while doing each rep of
that set, then I believe you’d do better with some other sport.

Everyone has different tendencies towards different things. You might like a different
kind of partner than others; you might have a different taste for food than others. There
are some default likes and dislikes of your body and mind. I am not talking about likes and
dislikes created by the mind, but I am talking about the inclinations of your entire being
(body, brain, mind, feelings, emotions, upbringing, DNA, all combined).

A work feels hard when you are working against your being’s inclinations. You might be
good with logic, but are forcing yourself to do some manual work. That’s hard work for
you, but someone else might find the same manual work more engaging than analysis
work. If you are asked to eat a scoop of your favorite food every day, that’s not big of an
issue, but if you are asked to follow a diet composed of food you do not like, it becomes
hard work.

Expanding your current limits and growing your capability

While we are talking about talent and hard work, one must keep in mind that talent and
passion are not rare. Almost everyone at the top of their fields is talented and passionate.
Your inclinations and talents will take you to a level above the average players, but
beyond that, you need to get serious about your subject.

You can’t gain mastery in a field with unserious attempts. After one point, you’ll have to
grow your capabilities in order to level-up in your game. But that does not mean you make
“get comfortable being uncomfortable” your moto, which many motivational speakers
talk about.

Two things are essential: testing your limits and playing at the edge of your limits. You
don’t ideally want to go beyond your limit, because that’d technically mean you’ll
breakdown something. But most people have perceived limits, not real limits. That’s why
it’s important to test your real limits from time to time.

Once you find your true limit, spend a small time playing at the limit, and more time
playing just below your limit. Playing at the edge of your limits is the way to expand your
capabilities, to dive deeper into your skill. The major problem with the motivational
things is that they focus more on breaking the limits, which often break the person too. If
you currently deadlift 100 kg, and your goal is to deadlift 200 kg, you don’t go to the gym
and lift 150 kg the next day. You keep training at 100 kg and gradually increase the load
each week and check if you can lift the new weight with the right form. If you find your
posture is compromising at a given weight, you reduce the weight and train. That’s how
you take your current limit of 100 kg to 200 kg. You don’t reach a goal by getting
comfortable being uncomfortable; you get there by proper training.

For most people who read this, you probably can’t afford a coach. You are your own coach.
And falling into the motivational traps can damage your training. When you are working
with the hard-work mindset, the chances are high that you’ll either keep switching fields
or break down at some point. These two are the most common results I’ve seen in people
who watch motivational stuff. They are either running nowhere or push too far and crash
and burn. Being the coach of your life, you can’t afford this drama. The path to mastery is
straight: find the skill you have a natural inclination towards, find the secrets of your
skill, notice how your mind interacts with your skill, train according to the patterns of
your skill and the patterns of your body and mind. There’s no place for hard work in that
equation.

If your end goal is hard work, you will likely focus too much on working hard rather than
getting the results. Taking the deadlift example, your goal is to lift 200 kg, not to spend
more time in the gym. It’s easy to lose track of the real direction when you train with the
mindset of working hard.

Working hard for a better future?

It’s commonly advised to the young kids to work hard to accumulate the maximum
amount of things early in life. This is probably the worst advice for young kids. The youth
is for exploration. It’s the best time to explore their interests and talents. If someone tells
you to invest this precious time in making 200 sales calls every day to accumulate more
money early in life, I’d say run away from that person.

Investing time to find your art is the best investment you can make when you are young.
Once you find which skill deeply interests you, triple down on it. Gain mastery in it. And
you know what, it won’t feel like hard work. Yes, it will feel DIFFICULT for sure, but it
won’t feel like hard work. And eventually, all the external things you desire will come to
you through that skill.

We first fix a goal and then think about what tasks we’d have to do every day to achieve
that goal. We need to flip this around. Find your inclinations first – subjects that interest
you and skills that you pick up faster than others. Then try to build a career or a business
around that skill to fulfill your external goals (I know this is not simple; that's why I wrote
a book on it). But it’s much easier in the long run, and you’ll probably reach higher goals
than you can imagine right now.

Working hard today so that you can enjoy the rewards tomorrow is a flawed concept. Does
your life consist of “todays” or “tommorrows”? With the mindset of building a better a
tomorrow you end up living your entire life looking towards the future when your present
passes by.

I understand that you might be in a bad place right now, and desperately want to get out
of it. But tell me one thing: why are you convinced that you HAVE to do something you
don’t like to improve your conditions? Who wrote that law? Can’t you find some path that
interests you and use that path to uplift your current life? You can either work out of
desperation to get out of your current situation or you can work out of your love for an
activity or a cause. Which one will lead you to a better place, materially and mentally?
You decide.

The hidden cost of the Hard Work mindset

We can’t talk about hard work without talking about results. Let’s be honest, your desire
to work harder comes from the desire of getting bigger things in life at a faster pace.

The Universe works in cause and effects (at least that’s how it appears to us). To manifest
an outcome in the universe, a series of causes and effects have to be manufactured first.
Once the process is fulfilled, the outcome manifests.

What we are not taught is that there are always low-cost alternatives to achieve a result
similar to the one you are chasing right now. If the current process is hurting you, then
simply change the route, or change the destination altogether. Because the joy of the
destination will last only a few days, but the process will cost you years of struggle and
compromises.

Often you think you need to work harder to gain more results, but in reality, you might
need a better strategy. I see too many youngsters hustling and struggling to get results
just because they do not understand the concept of scaling, delegation, leverage, and
marketing. You are scaling your inputs by working harder, but the outcomes don’t scale
proportionately with your inputs.

In a simple system with fewer, tightly help parts, the number of options is limited. But
luckily, most of our systems, like economic systems, social systems, and biological
systems, are dense complex systems with loosely held parts. In such systems, options are
nearly infinite. There is an infinite number of arrangements you can make to gain the
desired result or overcome an obstacle on your path.
You are resorting to hard work because you are not aware of the alternatives, or you are
not thinking of creating a new path of your own — a path built specifically for you and not
for the general public. You don’t want to take that risk because you were never told to
look for options. Hence you think working harder on the only option. It is the only way
you know of to achieve more, and achieve faster.

It’s not that you’ll encounter no obstacles on your path. But every problem has a solution.
And when you can’t find an effective solution, you resort to hard work. Instead of
resorting to hard work, training your mind to find effective solutions to the problems is
far more advantageous in the long run.

Working hard is a typical employee mindset cultivated by our incomplete education

system. An employee knows only one path. So if he wants to increase his speed of growth,
the only option he has is to work harder. On the other hand, business people know
delegation and leverage, and they have an eye to spot profitable options. They don’t stick
to one path, and they are not afraid to build new paths if they get better results at less
cost.

When we think about work, we often don’t think about the environment and people.
There could be a work that you don’t like to do alone, but like to do it with your friends—
like, going to the gym. Going to the gym to pursue your physique goals could be hard work
for you, but what if you do it along with your friend? You might not like writing alone, but
you might enjoy writing with a team or writing on a specific theme.

If you get addicted to the Hard Work mindset, you will settle for the option that requires
the most hard work instead of finding the option that brings the best results. The difficult
path isn’t always the path to the best results. Quite the opposite, the difficult path is
almost always inefficient. If you put all the things at its supposed place, the system
should operate smoothly, not forcefully. A properly manufactured, well-oiled machine
works at high speeds without making any noise. And if you find some friction inside the
machine producing noise, it means there’s something wrong with the machine. A good
system should consume LESS energy, not more energy to deliver a result.

Working hard has shown to degrade your performance. The limit is different for everyone,
but the productivity starts to go low beyond a certain point. Dustin Moskovitz, the co-
founder of Facebook and Asana, talks about this in his blog post. He describes that if he
hadn’t worked that hard during the peak days of Facebook, he might have contributed
even more to the company. He shares how his work-induced panic attacks and chronic
health issues limited his ability to give his best to the company.
I must clarify one thing: looking for alternatives doesn’t mean looking for easy things. As
we discussed, the opposite of hard work is not easy work; the opposite of hard work is a
work that syncs with you. Those looking for EASY alternatives are more likely to fall into
the trap of various schemes.

Imitating Hard Work

We discussed the definition of hard work at the beginning of the essay. But there’s one
more kind of hard work — perceived hard work. This kind of hard work, which is prevalent
in modern society, is a correlation factor, not a causation factor. We commonly see
success and hard work at the same place, in the same person. That makes us think that
hard work must have caused the success. Then we try to imitate the hard work with the
hope of achieving that kind of success in our life as well.

What you perceive as hard work in a successful person is actually a side-effect caused by
something else inside him. The cause is not visible to others, often the person himself
can’t observe it, but the perceived hard work generated by that cause is visible to others.
As a result, those who get inspired by that person try to imitate the hard work, but no one
can copy the cause due to its hidden nature. For effect to manifest, the cause has to be
there; you can’t simply copy the effect without the underlying cause present in you.

For example, one of the causes of perceived hard work could be the person’s love for the
process. He might be doing more of it because he simply likes doing it, but you might not
like doing it; hence you think he is working hard while he’s just playing.

“To the experts, what looks like hard work from the outside, is play from the inside.” —
Naval Ravikant

Qualitative vs Quantitative Improvements

One more problem with the hard-work mindset is it focuses more on quantity than
quality. Doing more of something doesn’t necessarily mean you are doing it better. Most
people generally take working hard as working more. But the increase in quantity does
not translate into an increase in the quality of your work. Do you want to work more, or
do you want to work better?

An athlete who keeps on practicing the same moves isn’t necessarily a great athlete.
Practicing more and more of what you already know isn’t going to increase your
performance. But this is exactly what people tend to do when they work just for the sake
of working hard. It feels very hard for sure, and people take pride in it, but it doesn’t give
proportionate results.
If you are a writer, for how long you can write isn’t the goal, right? Ideally, your goal
should be to write a masterpiece whenever you put a pen on the paper. This reminds me
of Picasso’s famous story when he charged a lady $5000 for a painting that he made in 5
minutes. You don’t want to become capable of painting non-stop for 4 hours; you want to
become capable of painting a thousand-dollar piece in 5 minutes. Unfortunately, hard
work only helps you improve the quantity, not the quality.

When you are not blinded by the hard-work mindset, you’ll see that adding more
quantity, after a certain point, doesn’t show any improvement in the quality of your work.
If you take two people, one trains for qualitative improvement, and other trains for
quantitative improvement, who will win after a year?

Why is the Hard Work culture spreading so much?

It’s clear that the path of Hard Work is inefficient as well as ineffective. It not only gives
sub-optimal results, but it also adds unnecessary stress and anxiety to your life. If this
mindset has such disadvantages, then why everyone promotes it?

One of the reasons the hard work mindset is so much propagated in our society is because
many successful people talk about it. The story of hard work is the story of a hero.
Everyone wants to be the hero of their life, and more importantly, they want to show
others how heroic they are. What could be a better way to create that image than telling
the story of how hard you worked in your life to get where you are today.

There’s also a negative incentive to not spread the easy story behind one’s success. People
think a person needs to “deserve” success to possess it. That’s why modern society has
started to look down on pure talent. If you are brilliantly talented in a skill and win all the
competitions, but you don’t practice or train much, people won’t respect you. In fact,
people will admire the one who’s consistently losing matches, but trains and practices
very hard every day.

Some of the people you take inspiration from to work harder in life are addicted to hard
work. By working harder in life, many people are actually trying to run away from some
other real problems in their life. But on social media, that part isn’t shown. They exhibit
their work ethic on social media to get more admiration. The appreciations from their
peers, friends, and followers, and the short bursts of achievements bring them temporary
relief from the pain of their real issues.

Some people use Hard Work as a pre-defined excuse so that when they fail, they can at
least say, “I worked hard on it, but it didn’t work out.” This is a typical no-my-fault
attitude. But since the concept of hard work is over-romanticized in our society, people
don’t realize this truth. We don’t realize that hard work is of no importance if it doesn’t
bring results. It’s easy to use hard work to delegate your faults. And if you don’t accept
your faults, you don’t learn the important lessons from your failures.

Summary
When you come across the concept of doing something even when you do not want to do
it, instead of blindly forcing yourself towards action, it’s much better to pause and reflect
for a moment. You can either suppress the inner conflict by working hard or eliminate it
by inspecting your situation, goals, and feelings. Choose wisely.

Whenever possible, try to work WITH your being, not against it. Develop eyes to see the
patterns of the game and your mind. The better you know yourself, the more you can
customize the path in your favor. Build processes that sync with your nature instead of
following readymade processes.

Don’t get motivated by watching videos or other people. And do not build plans in a
motivated state of mind. When making a life decision, or building a business strategy,
make sure you are in a calm mental state to see reality more clearly. You need to choose a
path based on reality, not based on your emotions.

Remember, hard work is a form of laziness. Laziness to explore the best path, laziness to
understand your game’s patterns, and laziness to introspect. Observe your field,
understand your market, and carve out a path of your own. If you follow one of the limited
numbers of paths that everyone else is following, then you won’t have any other option
than working hard.

Short bursts of hard work are understandable. Not every step of your process will be
smooth; some parts will demand working on things you don’t like. Use hard work when
required, and then leave it. Use it as a tool in your arsenal, not as a mindset. If
occasionally, a small part of the process needs hard work, go ahead and get it done. But if
your entire process is based on the concept of working hard, then it’s a very inefficient
system.
Don't get Inspired by Others

A friend of mine is a brilliant video game player. But his inspirations are Elon Musk and
Steve Jobs. And he keeps experimenting with different entrepreneurial things. I am not
saying that he can’t be a great entrepreneur. I am saying that he’d be a top professional
video game player if he directed his attention to gaming. External sources of inspiration
will only take you away from yourself. It doesn’t take much time for an inspiration to
convert into imitation.

It’s fine to admire people’s qualities and learn a thing or two from them. But getting
inspired by others means covering up your core nature with theirs. Why try to live your
life as someone else? If 90% of the population gets inspired by the top 20 people on the
planet and starts to imitate them, we’d end up being a very monotonous species.
Unfortunately, we are heading in that direction.

In attempting to copy other people’s lifestyles and passions, we fail to explore our own
true potentials. Everyone has a different inclination towards different things. If one finds
these inclinations and pursues growth in that direction, he not only enjoys that journey
but is more likely to achieve greatness in life.

Your mind sees the rewards other people get for particular behaviors and tries to imitate
those behaviors to get the rewards. Your mind works with a reward-first approach. It
would be much better to work with a nature-first approach.

First, remove everything that’s not your true nature – layers imposed by schools,
unwritten cultural rules, societal norms, and inspirations. Get in touch with your core
nature. And THEN figure out how to use it for the rewards that you seek. Once you’ve
removed all the artificial layers from your personality, then you can add new qualities on
top of it. But your mind currently works backward. It keeps adding more layers burying
your true personality deeper and deeper.

We see inspiration as something positive. Internet gurus all over the place talk about
“fake it, till you make it.” I find that sentence very damaging to society. No other sentence
has taken people far from their core nature than this single sentence. Every individual of
our species has a unique nature. It’s a great gift of evolution. By trying to “fake it, till you
make it,” we are killing that gift.
Imagine what would happen if everyone on our planet embraced their uniqueness and
talents; everyone pursued goals as per their core nature. The world would be such a
vibrant place. And our society will grow exponentially. Everyone will contribute to
different aspects of society instead of trying to imitate each other. Our society needs
people who accept their originality and add value through their unique talents.

Talent is nothing but the inclinations of a person. Some people are good at math; some
are not. Some people enjoy writing; some find it boring. Some people like art, and some
love engineering. Everyone has a unique taste of things.

But on the other hand, humans are also very adaptive. So even if you work against your
inclinations, you’ll make progress, but if you align that effort in the direction of your
inclinations, you will achieve far greater results. We need to understand that it’s much
better to work with one’s nature than against it.

The meaning of the word “inspiration” used to be “divine influence”. I am not sure where
the divine influence comes from, but we’ve all experienced it at some point in life. I
experience it every time I get some deep insight on a subject out of nowhere. It could be
from the subconscious, some divine entity, or another dimension. I don’t know. But I
know one thing – the easiest way to not let that influence come into your life is by being
constantly stimulated. Unfortunately, that’s the current state of humanity. We’ll do
anything and everything to run away from sitting silently at a place doing nothing.
There’s no room for true inspiration to sprout in such a busy and occupied life.

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
– Blaise Pascal

The modern lifestyle filled with distractions and constant stimulus makes it very difficult
to find one’s true nature. The behaviors of the mind also add to that difficulty. Let’s take
an example: you get some free time and start scrolling Instagram. Your feed is filled with
travel pictures of your friends and vloggers. You feel good looking at them. You feel
inspired. At this point, you might think that perhaps Travelling is your thing. You are
made to travel the world. But this could be a false detect. The real travelers used to travel
the world, even when traveling wasn’t trendy.

One more example: many people think of starting a YouTube channel after watching
some content-creators on YouTube. What they don’t realize is that some of the top
YouTubers are the ones who were passionate about recording videos on their camcorders
when YouTube didn’t even exist. Taking my own example here: I used to write in my
diary, which no one read. I used to code projects that never saw the light of the day. I’d
write and code even if it never gave me any reward in return. That’s my true inclination.
What I am trying to convey is, you need to start from elimination, not addition. Remove
all the artificial things from your life that are adding no value. Only when you’ve stripped
off everything that’s not a core part of you, you get in touch with your true nature. And
once you find your tendencies, pursue them, hone them, master them. Put it online, show
it to the world. The rewards will come. Instead of building your career based on your
degrees, build it on your unique inclinations.
What's at the core of Self-Improvement?

All the people writing and reading about habits, productivity, grit, mental toughness, and
other things in the name of self-improvement are chasing just side-effects. The real thing
is mastering your mind. Once you master your mind, all the self-help advice render
meaningless to you.

Do you think the one who has mastered his mind needs any productivity hacks? Do you
think he needs any motivation or validation from others to move forward? Do you think
such a person needs to apply tricks to fight procrastination?

A man who has mastered his mind has complete control over his attention. He can focus
his mind on any subject any time and hold it there for as long as he wants to. No success
or achievement is out of reach for such a man.

A man who has mastered his mind has no dependency on motivation to keep moving. And
no setback can demotivate him either. He doesn’t need to listen to music to get in the
flow state; he doesn’t need to stick pictures of inspiring people on his wall; he doesn’t
need encouraging words from friends. He decides – He does. Motivated and demotivated
mental states are just illusions for him.

He doesn’t get allured towards the pleasurable things outside his path. And he isn’t afraid
of the painful thorns lying on his path. He knows that all the pleasures are mere mirages
that keep you chasing and forever distracted.

A mind out of reins gets a million thoughts every day; most of them irrelevant and
useless. A master of the mind only thinks when he needs to, and then shuts it down to
take rest. 100% ON – 100% OFF. He brings such a level of performance that an
uncontrolled mind can’t comprehend.

We live in a world where people take pride in working hard. Society rewards hardship.
People take pictures of themselves working hard and share on social media to show how
hardworking they are. People work hard to stroke their egos. They think hard work
entitles them to success. A master of the mind simply works on whatever he decides to. A
concept like “hard work” doesn’t even exist for him. He either decides to do or don’t.
Work follows as per the requirement and the decision, not as per the scale of “Hard work”.
He doesn’t get too happy when he succeeds because he understands the impermanence of
this universe. He doesn’t chase a result with the hope of becoming happier. Because he
knows that lasting happiness is a myth. He knows that no desire can give him permanent
happiness. For such a thing doesn’t exist.

No distraction can invade his activities. When he is working on something, he’s

completely focused and composed. When he is resting, he is completely relaxed and calm.
He does not waste his energy on any activity or thought that doesn’t fit his priorities.
When everyone around the world wastes their energy scrolling social media and binge-
watching Netflix, he saves his energy with rest and recovery.

He does not need to build habits because he can focus on whatever he wants and
whenever he wants. Hard work and pushing through is effortless for him because he is
unmoved by pain and discomfort, just like he is unmoved by pleasure and lust. He knows
when discomfort is just out of habit and when his body actually needs to rest.

He doesn’t care what society thinks about him or his methods. He looks at the patterns in
his field and his mind. He acts as per these patterns. He doesn’t care, which is the right or
the wrong way or the good or the bad way. Because he knows that good, bad, right, wrong
are all just constructs of society and culture, these words do not belong in his dictionary.

Failure can’t affect such a person because he sees failure as just one more situation to
update his mental models. On encountering a failure, he upgrades his pattern recognition
and moves forward. He either goes through the obstacle or around it; but never freezes.

Ups and downs of external circumstances can’t disturb him. He maintains a level of
detachment from the external circumstances. There’s a gap between the external and the
internal. The external state can’t directly affect the internal state of a mastered mind. He
only reacts to his environment when he wants to.

He does not need to schedule meditation sessions in his day. He is always meditative.
Similarly, he does not need to practice mindfulness. He is always aware of his inner and
outer state. His internal eyes (to observe his mind) are as developed as his external eyes
(to observe his surroundings). He is as much aware of his inner state as he is of his outer
state.

The goal of this post is to make you realize that everything you are chasing in the name of
self-improvement is just a mirage. It’s like four blind people touching a different part of a
giant elephant and describing it. Willpower, habits, mental toughness, productivity, hard
work – all these are just various tiny aspects of the real thing. And the real thing is
mastering your mind.
Dealing with Physical and Emotional Pain

Pain is inevitable. You can try to avoid it all your life, but it will show up at some point
with surprise. You can’t stay away from pain forever, but knowing how to deal with it does
bring some relief during its unexpected occurrences.

In the moments of pain, whether emotional or physical, the more you sit with it, the more
you suffer. Right now, my right forearm is painful due to a workout injury. But if I spend
the entire day thinking about the pain and being upset over skipping today’s workout, it
only increases the perception of the pain.

Dealing with Physical Pain

Have you noticed that in case of a physical injury, the more you think about the pain and
look at the injury, the more pain you feel? But if you get involved in other tasks, the
perception of pain seems to disappear. However, this doesn’t mean that we should ignore
our pains.

A pain asks for heightened awareness and proper care of the injury. When you encounter
pain, the first thing to do is locate and understand your pain well. Where does the pain
feel? Is it in the muscle, or it’s coming from the bone beneath it? Is it in a joint or a
connected ligament? Which movements tend to increase the pain, and which postures
bring relief?

Some people panic when they feel pain somewhere, and some people ignore the pain
until its sever. Both are not the optimal options. You need to feel it and understand it.
Don’t run away from it. But once you’ve taken the measures, don’t sit with it. Carry on
with the other tasks of the day.

In the moments of pain, you have to work on a new skill – a skill to be aware of the place
of the pain so that you don’t twist it in the wrong direction, and at the same time keep
your attention on other day-to-day work. This combination of awareness of the pain and
attention at work will prevent your pain from becoming suffering.

Sitting down with the pain and thinking that it’s your whole life is the worst kind of
suffering. You need to realize that this pain is just a tiny part of your life. You’ve focused
all your attention on that small part, so it seems that it’s your whole life. Don’t let the
pain fill your entire mind.
Dealing with Emotional Pain
The method mentioned above for physical pain works for emotional pain as well. I know I
am entering dangerous territory here. Severe emotional pain and psychological trauma
can lead to clinical depression and anxiety. One must take professional help when
needed, just like you’d do in case of chronic physical pain.

Along with professional help, take help from your own mind too. After all, it’s YOUR body
and mind; no one knows it better than you. A doctor or therapist can only guess what’s
going on inside; but only you can actually feel what’s going on inside. So make use of it.
Try to dig deeper into those feelings.

In case of emotional pain, watch which patterns of your thoughts are repeating? Which
thoughts generally triggers the whole series of depressive thoughts? Does it come from
seeing or being around something specific? Or to a particular time?

Once you get curious about your pain and start to explore it, you will realize that you are
not the pain. You are the one observing the pain. You are separate from your pain. Your
entire life is not that pain; it’s just a small part of your life. Once you experience this
separateness from your pain, it won’t occupy your mind. Now you can just be aware of it
and attend other things in life.

In the case of mental pain, remember that it’s always self-inflicted. External things,
events, and people can cause you physical pain; only your own mind can cause you mental
pain. An undesirable event might have happened to you at one point in time, but it’s your
mind that’s reliving that event now. The event has stopped, but your pain has not because
your mind is continually imagining it in a loop.

Just like dealing with physical pain requires a heightened awareness of the body, dealing
with emotional pain requires a heightened awareness of your mind and emotions. But not
all emotional pain is caused by the mind; some are pure feelings too. All your life, you
kept yourself busy in one stimuli or other, never asking yourself how you are actually
feeling in the moment. You start to get blind towards your feelings, but emotional
turmoils put you directly in touch with your feelings.

The goal is not to rationalize yourself out of the pain. The goal is to get in touch with the
pain. Feel it. Cry if you feel like crying. Don’t try to suppress it. But don’t fall in the trap
of the mind when it unnecessarily relives the moment in your head. Don’t fall in the trap
of the mind when it starts to make you think that this pain is your entire life. Don’t fall in
the trap of the mind when it tries to convince you that the entire universe is conspiring
against you. None of that is happening in reality; it’s just your mind playing games with
you. As the saying goes, “Mind is a good servant, but a bad master.” Take the reins of your
mind back in your hands.
Your Attitude towards Pain matters
We don’t want to run away from pain, but we don’t want to add more pain to our life
either. That’s why learning lessons from your pain is important. If you just try to get rid of
the pain quickly, then you miss the most important step in the process – you forget to
learn your lessons. As a result, you keep encountering similar pains in the future. By not
learning the lessons, you are adding more pain to your future self.

Painful moments are your opportunity to take more care of the aspects of your life that
you are currently overlooking. Inside the pain is hiding an opportunity to grow in your
life. Your attitude towards your pain determines whether this hidden opportunity sprouts
or not. If you treat the pain as your enemy, you’ll look for quick fixes to get rid of it. But if
you look at it as an opportunity to deepen your understanding of an aspect of your life,
you’ll take completely different steps. Then you won’t just pass through your pain; you’ll
grow through your pain. Your pain will make you wiser and stronger than you were before
that pain.

In the process of recovering from physical pain, you’ll get a better understanding of your
body. And in the process of recovering from emotional pain, you’ll get a better
understanding of your mind. Your emotional turmoils will get you in touch with your
feelings. You’ll start mastering your mind in the process of healing from mental pain. But
if you don’t accept the pain and try to apply quick fixes, you miss out on all these benefits.
And the pain is more likely to reappear.

Pain is a critical life-process

Pain is essential to keep you alive. Our body is a brilliant system. It knows when
something gets out of sync. And pain is its signaling mechanism. Pain tells you that
something is not working the way it’s supposed to; it tells you that some aspect of your
life needs more care. If you don’t feel the pain, you’ll never know when things are going
wrong in your life.

Isn’t it strange that pain is such an inevitable part of our life, but no one teaches us to live
with it? We are taught to suppress it, run away from it, and apply short-term band-aids on
it. But we are not taught to understand it and accept it as a part of life. Next time you
encounter pain, don’t ignore it, don’t suppress it, and don’t treat it as something
negative. Listen to it, understand it, grow through it, and learn from it.
Note:

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Micro Essays

Genuine Productivity
A couple of days ago, a friend asked me for some advice to increase his productivity. I told
him that I am not into productivity now, but when I used to experiment in this line, the
Ivy Lee method worked the best for me.

I explained to him how I used to apply the Ivy Lee method. But after disconnecting the
call, I realized that I didn't share the real thing that I am following right now
unconsciously -- elimination. I've removed everything from my life that isn't my priority.
As a result, I don't need to think about productivity anymore.

My phone resides inside a drawer, disconnected from the internet. No video games. No
unnecessary videos on YouTube or Netflix. No random chitchat and gossip. No social
media scrolling.

There's no activity in my day that doesn't fit into one of these three categories: Work,
Health, and Relationships. And any activity or thought that doesn't nurture at least one of
these three categories is ruthlessly eliminated. Life automatically becomes productive.

Why are we slaves of our circumstances?

What's the meaning of a life that keeps on swinging up and down with the ever-changing
situations. One day you achieve something, and you become excited. And another day you
lose something, and you become upset. Your entire life is a collection of such ups and
downs. It seems as if you rise, just to fall later.

But it doesn't have to be this way. Your inner state keeps dangling with your
circumstances due to this one reason: your ego. You live your entire life in a way as if you
are the center of the universe. You live as if everything around you happens to you or for
you. This is a subtle game of the ego. And this is why your inner state is so much attached
to your external state.

Remember, events neither happen to you, nor do they happen for you; events happen as
per their causes. When you start living as per this understanding, your mind will detach
from your circumstances.
Boo
I saw the documentary Being Mortal this week. It describes how doctors handle patients
who are towards the end of their lives. And how the patients and their families deal with
that situation. I felt bad looking at how our minds don't stop playing games even in the
last days of our life. This reminded me of a particular couplet by an Indian saint Kabir
Das:

The meaning of this couplet is: Even when the human is about to die, his illusions, mind,
hopes, and opinions don't die.

In the documentary, one patient was afraid of the pain to come, and one patient was
happy remembering his good old times -- both are entangled in the games of the mind.
Even in the last moments of our life, the mind doesn't let us just live; it keeps us busy in
its games.

Outer vs Inner progress

If outer development were all that mattered, then rich people would never commit
suicide; successful people on their deathbeds would never regret working so hard; a
famous person would never feel a lack of attention.

But the truth is quite opposite. Rich people are more stressed than middle class people;
successful people, near the end of their life, often regret working so hard; and famous
people are more likely to be the ones seeking more attention.

No matter how much you decorate your outer life, if your inner state is not at peace, non
of your achievements matter. We are so busy accumulating outer achievements that we
forget to pay attention to what's happening inside us.

I don't believe that mindfulness should be restricted only to few-minute sessions per day.
Mindfulness means being aware of what's your inner state. We are aware of our outer
state through our senses for the entire day, right? Then why we try to be aware of our
inner state only for a few minutes per day?
How to "Start" efficiently?
Never try to start perfectly. In an attempt to make a perfect first move, people often never
start. The goal of starting should be to get you engaged in the activity. Once you are
engaged, iterate and improve; then, take it to perfection.

You might have noticed that even the strongest person in the gym doesn't enter into the
gym and start lifting heavy weights. Before lifting his regular weights, he warms up his
body and nervous system with light exercises and cardio.

Painters also follow a similar pattern. They start with broad strokes that roughly
resembles their reference photo. And then they fine-tune it over many iterations.

"To know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing." — Pablo Picasso

So start with lower expectations from your initial inputs. Start just to get involved in the
activity. This is the best way to avoid the resistance that most people face before starting
a task. You'll notice that once you begin the task, the resistance vanishes. Starting is the
antidote to resistance.

People are overwhelmed by looking at the amount of work needed to complete the
project. Don't look at it in the starting. Once you get started, and you get into the flow,
progress will follow.

The bigger the ego, the smaller the life

Your ego is like your luggage. Luggage is important to carry the day-to-day essentials. But
if you fill it up too much, it becomes a drag. You can't freely wander if you are carrying
huge luggage.

Living with a big ego is like traveling with heavy luggage. It takes away your freedom, and
you don't even realize it.

A big ego prevents you from talking to your close ones who care about you. A big ego
leads to burning bridges and missing many future opportunities. A big ego ruins beautiful
relationships.

The worst thing is, a big ego prevents you from realizing your mistakes. Mistakes happen,
but the repercussions of the mistakes become permanent if you don't accept your
mistakes and apologize for them, and a big ego doesn't let you do that.
A big ego might fill you with energy to achieve great things in the world, but it also
hinders you from growing as a person. We need some sense of ego to survive in this
physical world. But above a certain level, the ego only adds more trouble to your life.

External Noise vs. Internal Noise

Some construction work is going on in my neighborhood right now. Hammers breaking
the walls, machines cutting marbles, drillers piercing into bricks and concrete. All kinds
of noise.

About two years ago, a similar kind of construction work was happening near my house. I
was a different person back then. I hadn't started my journey of inner exploration at that
time. I was developing a web app for a client at that time, and the construction work was
disturbing me a lot. I used to stay irritated all day long.

Today, construction work is producing the same amount of noise. But it's not affecting my
work at all. The sound is the same. Distance from my home is also the same.

What changed then?

My mind.

A man not aware of his mind lives a miserable life. His mind keeps manufacturing
troubles that don't exist.

There could be noise in your surrounding. But have you noticed that once you get engaged
in an activity, you forget about that noise temporarily? That means you are fully capable
of not getting affected by the external noise, but your mind doesn't let you use this
capability at your will.

The real noise is not outside you; it's inside your mind. Your thoughts are your biggest
distraction, bigger than any kind of external noise.

Living with Truth

Just like you can't ignore something put right before your open eyes, it's impossible not to
see the truth if you remove your beliefs, opinions, hopes, and preferences from your life.

Truth is always there, right before your eyes. But we are filled with prejudices and desires.
We tend to favor the things that we've labeled "good" and avoid the things that we've
labeled "bad". As a result, we skew our perspectives and miss the truth.
Nature doesn't work as per good or bad. Nature doesn't care about your desires, either.
Nature just operates, and whatever it creates is the truth of the situation.

So, to examine Nature, one must examine the truth. There's no place of hopes and beliefs
on this path.

Even if you are after a particular goal, giving up hope and belief is the best thing you can
do to reach your goal faster. Because once you see through the lens of truth, you see the
precise cause and effects. Truth is the shortest shortcut.

Follow your Curiosity, not the Manual

Here's how to NOT read a book: cover to cover. The best way to read a book is to look at
the index and start by reading the chapters that interest you. What commonly happens is
people try to read from cover to cover, and if some chapters in the starting don't interest
the reader, they put down the book, missing the good parts.

Use the practical-first approach to learn a new skill. Instead of reading the theory of the
subject, build something. It could be a tiny and useless thing but learn by building and
doing. Use theory as supplementary material.

Here's what Albert Einstein wrote in a letter to his son when he came to know that his son
has developed an interest in Piano:

"Mainly play the things on the piano which please you, even if the teacher does not assign
those. That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such
enjoyment that you don't notice that the time passes. I am sometimes so wrapped up in
my work that I forget about the noon meal."

Taste the Skill before learning it

Before having a new kind of food at lunch, wouldn't it be better to taste a little bit before
ordering it? In the same way, if you are deciding to learn a new skill, it's important to get a
taste of that skill before investing significant time and effort into learning it.

The best way to get a taste of a new skill is by making a tiny, beginner-friendly project.
Doing this will tell you if the new skill is the right fit for you, or it's completely out of sync
with your nature.

Luckily, for many skills, such project-based getting started tutorials are easy to find on
the Internet. Instead of jumping into a full-fledged course on a skill, try to find a tutorial
or a small course that can give you a deliverable output using that skill within a week.
In the first two weeks of learning a new skill, your goal should not be to become a
professional in it; your goal should be to get the feel of that skill. It often happens that we
think a skill is interesting, but as soon as you get your feet wet, you realize that it's not for
you.

Make the Leap

We read hundreds of reviews before buying earphones, we watch hundreds of videos
before purchasing a car, we explore dozens of houses before buying our dream house, but
we don't think once about trying different careers. We get a degree in one field and stick
to a single career for our entire life.

This approach made sense before the Internet when the options were limited, but that's
not the case anymore. Now you can learn any skill online and also make money with it on
the Internet. You are no longer restricted to colleges for learning and local factories for
earning.

In an environment with unlimited options, sticking to one option has a huge opportunity
cost. In a scenario of abundance, exploration becomes more profitable than holding. But
our education system doesn't teach us about this exploration. That's why I wrote the
guide Learn & Earn. It gives you practical strategies to learn new skills faster and make
money with them on the Internet.

The roller coaster of thoughts

Like the coming and going of seasons, there are the ups and downs of the mental state.
The seemingly constant human life is always on a roller coaster ride inside the mind. The
thoughts take you higher than mountains and deeper than the ocean. Your thoughts can
drag you to the happiest moments from the past and push you to worrisome moments in
the future. All the while, physically lying down on the couch of your living room.

The mental roller coaster is fun until it starts to go crazy. And the problem is, it
eventually does go crazy. You can't take the good parts and avoid the bad parts of this
ride. It's a package deal. If you enjoy the highs, you are destined to suffer the lows.

Your mind has a property: it becomes good at what you repeatedly do. So when you
indulge in the happy thoughts, your mind becomes better at indulging in thoughts. And
the more you get better at indulging in involuntary thoughts, the less you are capable of
stopping them voluntarily. This is exactly how addictions work, and addiction to thoughts
is the most common form of addiction in our species.
While indulging in happy thoughts, it doesn't come to your mind that you are
strengthening the power of your thoughts by indulging in them. Later, when you face
unpleasant circumstances in life, and your mind starts generating negative thoughts, you
no longer have control over them. All these years, you've empowered the involuntary
thoughts, and now when you ask to stop, it doesn't listen to you.

Have you ever run downhill? It's easy to start, but once you gain speed, it becomes
uncontrollable. As you descent, your body gains momentum, and it becomes impossible
to stop running down. You eventually crash. The same is with indulgence in involuntary
thoughts. The more you let your mind indulge in them, the more you lose control over
them.

Skills and Market

The market comprises of people and organizations. And if you can use your skills to bring
value to a set of people or organizations, you can build a profitable career.

I see fresh graduates hastily submitting their resumes to job portals and emailing
companies' HRs without thinking about their own interests and skills. All they have in
mind is: I have a degree, I need to find vacancies for this degree.

The work that brings you money doesn't have to be a chore. Your work could be a healthy
part of your life that you enjoy just like the other aspects of your life, like relationships,
travel, hobbies, etc.

Through Learn & Earn, I am trying to bring a new perspective towards career
development. To build a profitable and fulfilling career, all you need to do is learn a skill
that you enjoy and find a way to benefit others using that skill.

The Way of Artist

I believe everyone can be an artist. If you treat your work as your craft or make your craft
your work, everything you do becomes a form of art. The world needs more artists and
performers than employees and managers.

As an artist, you have three possible paths:

Path #1: Find an activity you truly love and give it all your dedication without thinking
about the results. This path will take you to unknown destinations. You will receive
otherworldly results, and rewards that you can't even imagine right now.
Path #2: Fix an outcome you want to get, figure out the process to achieve that outcome,
and follow that process with everything you've got. This path will take you to the desired
destination but at the cost of too much frustration, procrastination, anxiety, and self-
torture (a.k.a. Hard Work).

This path's hidden cost is the missed opportunity to reach the results beyond your current
level of thinking. Your present level of imagination limits your future results.

Path #3: The middle way. Find an activity you love and figure out a way to achieve the
desired outcomes through that activity. This path is much better than the #2, but your
currently set goals again limit your future results.

The hidden cost of the middle way is that you do not give your full performance. Since you
have an outcome in mind, your mind worries about it when performing your art (during
the activity). As a result, you can't fully engage in your art and never give your true
performance.

Thinking about your Goals is taking you far from them

Is thinking about the goal going to take you any closer to it? If no, then why spend so
much time daydreaming about it?

You must understand that your mind will create many distractions that feel productive.
While thinking about your goal, you might feel productive because you are not thinking
about something else, you are imagining about your goal. But the time and energy you
spend thinking about the goal could be utilized to implement the process.

Thinking about the goal only adds the feeling of "something is missing" in your life. It
does absolutely nothing except that. Once a goal is set, there's no use of dreaming about
it.

What would happen if you walk looking at the sky? You will crash into the obstacles that
come in your path. The same is true when working on a goal. Be engaged in the process,
watch your current steps, and occasionally look at the goal just to analyze your direction.

Constantly thinking about the end results is only going to add more anxiety and
frustration to your life. And with these impurities in your mind, you can't give your best to
the process. Thinking about the results only delays and degrades your results. That's why,
once the goal is set, direct all your attention to the process.
Tetris Effect and Porn
"The Tetris effect occurs when people devote so much time and attention to an activity
that it begins to pattern their thoughts, mental images, and dreams. It takes its name
from the video game Tetris.

People who have played Tetris for a prolonged amount of time can find themselves
thinking about ways different shapes in the real world can fit together, such as the boxes
on a supermarket shelf or the buildings on a street. They may see colored images of pieces
falling into place on an invisible layout at the edges of their visual fields or when they
close their eyes. They may see such colored, moving images when they are falling asleep."
- Wikipedia

Regular porn consumers often mention a very similar effect. Porn addicts find it hard not
to think sexually about any women they meet or watch on media. Their mind
automatically imagines what could be beneath the clothes and how their sexual behavior
would be. In the case of Tetris, people do realize that imagining colored boxes around
them is abnormal behavior. But in the case of porn, people don't realize that frequent
sexual thoughts and automatically thinking sexually about some people is not normal.
They think it's natural.

The Turbulent Life

If you have a habit of noticing your thoughts like me, you'd agree that many of your
thoughts are random. Sometimes I catch a thought that has absolutely no link to the
events around me; they aren't even linked to any previous thoughts in my head. Some
thoughts have a root that I can trace, but some thoughts seem to appear out of nowhere.

The second thing you will realize when you go deeper into observing your mind is that
thoughts come with feelings attached to them. Just like a spacecraft carries a satellite and
launches it into orbit, a thought carries a feeling and launches it into our body and mind.

If you combine the above two insights, you'll realize why an average human's life is full of
ups and downs. It's not necessarily because of the circumstances, but because of the way
his mind operates. Random thoughts keep appearing in his mind, inducing different
feelings inside him. One hour he is happy, the next hour anxious about something, and
the next hour missing someone. And this goes on until his last breath.
The Past is Not Static
One problem with memories is that false memories can be manufactured, and the actual
details often get erased. But the bigger problem is, the experience of a past event is not
static. It changes with your current state of mind.

Your current emotional state significantly affects your experience and interpretation of a
past event. If you are joyous right now, even painful moments of the past feel like sweet
nostalgia, and when you are upset, even the joyful memories tend to seem like a source of
sadness.

Handling Undesired Situations

We often come across unavoidable situations in life that we are not happy to experience.
It could be a boring conversation with your boss, a long traffic jam, or an ongoing health
issue.

In such situations, cultivate a habit to ask: “Can I do anything about this?”.

If you can do something, for example, create a good excuse to escape from the boring
conversation with the boss, then do it. If you can’t do anything, then getting upset or
irritated about the situation isn’t going to help. It will only worsen the experience.

If we categorize our emotional states as positive, negative, and neutral, people generally
go to the negative state in such situations. I am not asking you to be in a positive state,
but try to stay in the neutral state, the negative state is counterproductive.

When things go south

You planned to go to the gym in the morning, complete the top three tasks of the day in
office, and buy a rose for your partner on your way back home. Everything goes as
planned. All tasks checked off one after another.

We love such days, don’t we?

On such days, we are energetic throughout the day; we even do all the chores happily, and
also make people around us happy. The happiness radiates. That’s natural.

The challenge is, how you behave when things aren’t going right. You wake up with a
headache, you miss the workout, your tasks remain pending in the office due to someone
else’s fault. The entire universe seems to work against you.
On such days, you don’t donate to the beggar, you walk off without any expressions; you
don’t say thank you with a smile to the waiter. You are irritated, upset, and angry
throughout the day. These feelings radiate from you.

This is the real test. It’s not natural to radiate happiness when things are not going right.
It requires effort to keep your calm when things are going wrong.

Be Your Own Best Friend

The only person who will stay with you from your birth to your last breath is you. In all
the happy moments of your life; in all the miseries of your life, the only person who is
guaranteed to stay with you is you.

Friends may come and go; family may get separated. But no matter what, you will always
stay with yourself.

We often seek someone’s support when we emotionally break down; we seek therapists to
have deep conversations about our emotional issues; we seek friends to celebrate our
achievements with. All these are okay, but always remember:

Life is a single player game - Naval Ravikant

In the hard moments of life, learn to have deep conversations with yourself. In the happy
moments of life, learn to celebrate with yourself. When traveling to beautiful places, learn
to be happy without posting on social media. When learning new things, learn to criticize
your own work.

Be your own Best Friend.

Everyone is Not You

We are social creatures. We face dozens of people every day in our day to day life. The
problem arises when we expect others to behave in a way that lines with our world view.

A kid asks you a million stupid questions. You get irritated. You forget that it’s their
natural behavior. We expect them to behave like us.

A driver passes by at a dangerously high speed. You get angry. But that’s the nature of
that driver.

Someone makes a dumb argument. You get irritated. But that’s the nature of that person.
That person is not you.
The world is not made of people who think exactly like you. Expect people to be random,
accept them as they are. Don’t let the variety of human behaviors create turbulence in
your emotional state.

Time and Energy Wasted on Imaginary Things

We live more in imagination than in reality.

We worry about future events all day long when we should be preparing for those events.

We keep thinking about beautiful things to happen in life when we should be going to
sleep.

We keep daydreaming about our goals when we should be working on them.

We keep thinking about our past when we should be addressing our current problems.

We get a limited pool of time and energy every day, and we spend most of it on imaginary
things. This wasted time could be better used to act or take strategic rest to perform
better the next day.

Imagination has its place, but recognize when it’s just eating up your time and energy.

Internal Noise
When stuck in a traffic jam where everyone is pumping horn, or trying to work when your
colleagues are having fun around you, you think that it’s the external noise that’s
disturbing you, but it’s actually the internal noise.

There’s internal noise even when there’s no external noise; it's the noise of your thoughts.
Random thoughts pop up now and then. You are never really silent; there’s always some
noise. Learn to cultivate the inner silence, and the external noise will stop bothering you.

Once you shift the source of your calmness from outside to inside, no outside noise will be
able to disturb you. Find your calm inside you; not in places like mountains, rivers, and
forests; but inside you.
Equanimity
A Cart can’t move forward if its Wheels don’t rotate. It will be stuck at the place forever.
Same is with life; you can’t move forward without experiencing the cycles of life.
However, notice the Axle of the Cart; the Wheel rotates, but the Axle remains still,
equanimous.

The Sanskrit word for “suffering” is “Dukha”. “Du” means bad, and “kha” means an Axle’s
hole. A ride on a vehicle with a bad axle hole leads to suffering. If the Axle’s hole is
irregular, even the smoothest road will feel uncomfortable.

Learn to be in touch with your Axle. Life will throw good and bad moments at you (the
universe doesn’t know good and bad, it’s just your interpretation). Keep moving, keep
experiencing the ups and downs of life, but be in touch with your Axle. Move like a Wheel
from the outside, but be still like an Axle from the inside.

Don’t let your Mind Rationalize your Mistakes

Your mind doesn’t like to be seen as a fool, especially by yourself. So it often tries to
rationalize your mistakes. This is one big trap that everyone should avoid because if you
don’t realize your mistakes, you are more likely to repeat them. Your ego gets in the way
of your own growth.

How does one catch his mind when it’s trying to rationalize his mistakes? By being aware
of his thoughts. But that’s not normal behavior. Most people live in autonomous mode;
they react, but never look for the source of that reaction.

I am not asking you to judge your reactions, but analyze your reactions, try to see which
emotions triggered it, and which thoughts are playing in your head at that time.

For example, when you get angry, pay close attention to the cause of your anger.
Sometimes you get angry because you’ve made a big mistake and your mind is trying to
avoid accepting it.

Living Life with an Experimental Mindset

The easiest way to introduce anxiety in your life is to get attached to the numbers.
However, no matter which goal you are chasing, tracking numbers is important. Peter
Drucker said: “What gets measured, gets managed”.

Measuring is important. But getting attached to the numbers will reduce your
performance, and add anxiety to your life.
An act is best performed when you are enjoying the act itself and not thinking about the
outcome. But not all activities of life are so engaging. What to do about that?

Cultivate an experiment mindset. See all your life’s desires as experiments. And
remember this:

It’s not an experiment if you know it’s going to work. - Jeff Bezos

No one can say what exactly will be the output of your inputs, or whether it will be
favorable or disastrous. But once you start seeing everything as an experiment, failure
loses its negative weight; in fact, it becomes important to you.

With an experimental mindset, you start to learn from the unfavorable outcomes and
adjust your inputs accordingly. The use results just to improve and track your progress;
you don’t attach your ego with it.

Peak Performance is Effortless

A runner is running at his top speed, challenging the human limits, moving each muscle
in his body as fast as possible. His body is moving at a very high speed, but inside his
mind, he is in a meditative state.

The master of a skill doesn’t put in conscious effort while performing the act. The mind
only slows down the performer.

In a cricket match, when the ball leaves from the hand of a bowler, do you think the
batsman can consciously judge the spin of the ball, where it will hit the ground, and
which shot to play on the ball speeding towards him at 150 km/hr?

It’s easy for the commentators to look at the ball in slow motion and decide which shot
would have been perfect, but it’s not possible to do in real-time. If the batsman tries to do
this consciously, he will be slow and won’t be able to hit the ball in time. The batsman
must trust his training and play effortlessly; as soon as he starts to calculate, his
performance goes down.

The unreal nature of thoughts

Our mind is continually bombarding new thoughts. These thoughts don’t come from
external reality. They are the construct of our minds.
Close your eyes for 60 seconds. Observe the thoughts that pop up in your head. A thought
comes, you live it, it ends, then another one comes. One form of mindfulness meditation
is to observe the thoughts arrive, acknowledge, but not live them. But this email isn’t
about meditation.

I want to bring your attention to the illusory nature of our thoughts. They are not real, yet
they shape most of your reality. They shape how you perceive your reality; they shape
your actions and reactions; they shape your judgments.

Now, the curious ones will ask, “What to do then? Should I start meditating 10 minutes
every day? Which meditation do you recommend?”.

We are always looking for solutions. But in this case, just observing this process taking
place inside your mind every day is sufficient. Sometimes, realizing the truth is enough;
the change comes automatically.

Controlling the Mind vs Mastering the Mind

A true master of art does not control his art; he understands his art. Not just an
understanding on an intellectual level, but at such a level that the understanding becomes
his intuition. When you truly understand something, you update your intuition, and
intuition updates your instincts, and instincts naturally lead to action.

“When something serious is really understood, it naturally translates into action.” - J.

Krishnamurti

True mastery is more about understanding than controlling. But any understanding that
isn’t paired with execution and observation is not a true understanding. For example, I
may tell you that “thought indulgence only adds misery to your life.” But, if you don’t
inspect your thoughts and observe how each one is leading you to the path of misery,
then you understand the concept only on the intellectual level. Understanding, execution,
and observation go hand in hand. This eventually leads to fusing the understanding into
your intuition, and you act without thinking.

But what if we end up fusing a wrong understanding into our intuition? This is often
observed in sports when an athlete trains an incorrect pattern, and that leads to
hindrance in performance. It takes extra effort to correct the wrong form that has built up.
This is exactly why execution and observation are essential to gain a true understanding.
Don’t just listen to the gurus; execute and observe for yourself to gain a deeper
understanding. Repeat multiple times. In the journey to master your mind, the good thing
is that all you need is already available to you — your mind, and the bad thing is you are
your own coach.

Note:

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