Life

An act of kindness, or the act of giving, selflessly, is one that is truly rewarded. Forget generating good karma, or the well known saying, ‘What you do comes back to you’. That of course, is a benefit to look forward to. But something that is done without expecting anything at all in return, with the intention of wanting nothing from what you do, makes you feel like a million dollars. It is a 100% satisfaction guaranteed experience, and the rewards are enormous. A happy and blissful you, to start with. Add a bit of that feeling of wholeness, or completeness, and there you have it. That perfect state of being no one can take away from you.

Try doing something with the pure intention of expecting nothing in return. It might just surprise you.

A new year is almost around the corner. Before making those New Year resolutions that we mostly do not keep up with, do a little exercise. Reflect on the year gone by. See whether what you thought of doing in 2017 matches up to what you actually did in it. Add a general round up of hits and misses, regrets, mistakes , circumstances, good times and achievements, big or small. Factor in the surprises and the lucky gigs as well.

Now, compare this to how the previous few years went for you. Make a rough assessment of how this year was, you could call it ‘fair’, ‘average’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’ when compared to the last few years. Now, try and make three simple resolutions for the coming year, along with a rough plan for what you hope to accomplish in 2018.

If that is how you make your resolutions, then you are most likely someone who manages to stick to them. If not, give this method a shot. It might be worth your while.

A lot of us are inclined to investing in temporary adrenaline rushes, we are more or less inclined to show up when the party is in full swing. So whether it is betting on fast rising stock prices of a company or a product or letting the money flow like wine on a weekend, the basic idea behind temporary adrenaline rushes is the same – it’s the binge which gets us excited and high. Come a market crash, or Monday, the story has already predicted itself. We find ourselves on a low due to a loss and the end of a honeymoon period. Confusion and frantic action affect the speculator while the weekend binger counts his or her money losses for a good time he or she doesn’t even remember, and recalls the famous Monday morning blues.

This story has been on repeat for a countless number of people amongst us, yet we do nothing to change this cycle of emotions and fortunes, which, in the long run, is debilitating for us. The idea is to go moderate, and avoid the binge. It can save us a lot of trouble in the long run. This is easier said than done, who doesn’t like having a good time at the binge! Try reflecting on the analogies drawn for the matter at hand. You might just be surprised by the answers that you come up with for your own good.

Try avoiding investing in binges. You have two examples of binges here to start with, think of the others in your life and make a list. It would be best to minimise the number of binges, to start with. The rest, is upto you!

In the desert, when the temperatures are soaring, we encounter a phenomenon that can be explained as an optical illusion caused due to the heat and the environment. We seem to see objects at a distance from us when on the road, that are really not there. For example, those who have travelled in the desert have sometimes claimed to see a water body, like an oasis, in the middle of the desert, but when they actually reached the spot where they thought they had seen an oasis, it had not been there.

One can sometimes encounter several such illusions while on the journey of life. It may seem to you that you have reached an oasis, but it may just be a trick of the mind at that moment. The way to see through the deception is to remember that the temperature is soaring high when we are under an illusion in the desert. In life, you might be going through an extraordinary low or high, where your circumstances don’t feel ‘normal’. Make it a point to step on the caution brakes every now and then to assess yourself, and your situation.

Regret is an unnecessary emotion when it is prolonged in your heart for long. If you regret having done, or not done something, it is essential to make peace with yourself and learn from the incident for the future rather than nurse it within you and reminisce about your past. What has happened, unfortunately, cannot be changed. But your attitude towards it can certainly be altered that can have significant repercussions on your future.