I remember this conversation with my friend one evening, when we had a healthy discussion about awareness. It all started with talks about our experiences of life and the learnings from it. I concluded by saying that we can control most of the things in life. Almost everything is within our control and there isn’t anything called luck. To which he immediately retorted and said let me give you a scenario – While driving through the busy roads one fine morning, I find a biker on a cross-road rushing through to get to the other side. In that attempt he loses his balance and his bike skids hitting my car. He falls on the road getting bruised. So, am I not unlucky here? For no fault of mine, I had to go through the rage of people who thought I had knocked him down, had to take him to the doctor and get him treated by my own money. Even though it was his mistake, I had to apologize for everything that happened. And overall, I wasted almost an entire day on all this.
Certain unfortunate events not only take a toll over our time and pockets but also get us mentally drained with patches of these incidents remaining glued to our minds for days together. I could understand my friend’s feelings and he was absolutely right in questioning me about my statement on luck. As it is famously said by author and motivator Robin Sharma that “luck is when preparation meets opportunity”, but sometimes in real-life scenarios, it’s difficult to get a justification for such things. We might not be able to control certain things but can surely avoid them to a maximum extent by just “being aware”.
I knew that I could not just get away with saying quotes to him. I had to justify what I had told him. So, I gave him three scenarios.
First scenario: Let’s say that you need to reach the office by 9 am and it takes about 30-45 minutes from your home to reach the office. So, you get up by 8 in the morning and get ready within the next half hour and rush through the busy roads thinking about millions of stuffs that you did yesterday or have to do today. You are angry on yourself that you are not exercising or not doing things that you want to do and blah blah blah. Consider the state of mind you are in and in a case like most of us around, if you don’t like your job then I don’t need to explain the overall mood or situation that you are in every morning on your way.
Second scenario: Let’s say that you get up by 6 in the morning and spend an hour or so on your body with exercises and yoga. Then you have some time to plan your day, enjoy your breakfast and get ready by 815am. Now, you will be more relaxed compared to the first scenario and the chances of avoiding such incidents spoken above will be high. Still, in this scenario, you are anyway thinking about all the things about yesterday, today and tomorrow but the feelings will be positive comparatively. The amount of confidence that would be oozing from you would be immense due to workouts. Exercising in the mornings is a great way to building confidence and sets a good positive frame of mind for the entire day.
Third scenario: Let’s say that you get up by 5 and spend some time on your body through walking, exercises or yoga. Then, spend some time on what you like to do be it reading, writing, singing, dancing, playing musical instruments or anything. These will completely change the way you think and act. Then, if you spend about five to ten minutes in solitude just sitting idle keeping your eyes closed and feeling every essence of your life within the body which will help in boosting the morale for the day to a great extent. Training the mind to be calm takes one’s personality to a different level altogether. Now, imagine your state of mind while driving through the roads after you have made strides towards a healthy body. Will it not be like a calm lake? It is impossible to stop the flow of thoughts, but it is very much possible not to react or just ignore the thoughts. It saves a great amount of energy for better work to be done during the course of the day at work or at home. You are in the present and aware of everything. Feel your hands on the steering, feel your foot on the accelerator or clutch. Feel the sensations within your body. You are aware of your breath; you are aware of everything around. You know the roads well as you drive through them every day. You know exactly how many cross-roads would come in your way and slow down your vehicle anticipating caution. Your state of mind is peaceful and you are not worrying about any junk that has happened or expected to happen. Though this scenario is ideal it requires significant and consistent efforts to get there.
As expected, my friend said that he was always in scenario one except for the fact that he got up about half an hour early but always got lost in psychological jumbles of news, media, social media that hardly mattered. He got up by 730, checked news, spent his time checking social websites, rushed through his breakfast, get ready and off to the road. Getting up early will not matter even if you do not manage the time you have. The best thing would be to stay away from the internet or social media during the mornings. Technology is a really good thing if we use it judiciously. I feel most of us fall into the scenario one bracket of population or max in-between scenarios one and two. So, how can we get into the elite population of scenario three?
Well, it takes consistent efforts of simple techniques of time management to get there. I will talk about someone whom I know personally. Fortunately, I got acquainted to him through one of my ex-colleagues. He is someone who has an enigmatic calmness over his face, be it any time of the day. Someone who seems to be happy and content, be it any situation. He doesn’t care about the traffic or the weather or the workload and makes it a point to finish off things within the stipulated time. He is always early to the office and leaves early without caring much about anyone. He has made himself so skilled and productive that he is often considered as an integral part of every project he is working on. Still, he makes it a point to leave the office early managing to finish off his tasks on time and when required, he is available through calls from home if he is free later in the evening. When he spoke about his daily routine to me, I was completely moved by his skills in managing time and tried to emulate some of his teachings that worked wonders for me. More about him in another blog post, let’s focus on his routine.
He is an early riser and is up by 5 am every day including weekends. He spends about an hour on his body by exercising and yoga. Then he spends about an hour practicing guitar. He was always fascinated by guitar since his early days and wanted to be a pro with the instrument. Not sure how well he plays it though. Then he goes out for a stroll in a park nearby and spends his time alone watching nature, watching trees, birds, and whatnot. This half-hour or so is an integral part of his morning routine which helps him to disintegrate from his normal relationships, his work, his family, etc. He says it is not necessary to just sit in a lonely place and meditate to improve upon your concentration, you can do it by observing trees, watching birds, watching people carefully as well. This simple morning routine keeps him calm and always in the present.
Don’t worry if you don’t have a passion or have not recognized one yet. Make your health as your passion. Make your body as your passion, things will definitely fall in place. Just rewind your life and think about all the opportunities lost and I bet most of them would be due to lack of decision-making at that point in time. Most of the times in life, we are thinking about the past brooding over certain things or thinking about things that hardly matter, for example the social media posts or glancing through media to see which celebrity is dating whom and who broke up with whom, who is doing what, instead of focusing on what am I doing now? Am I aware that I am the most supreme creation on this planet? Am I aware of what kind of energies I possess? What would happen if I switch the data off my phone for half an hour and instead practice breathing techniques of yoga? Am I aware of every step that I take while I walk? Am I aware that I don’t hurt any small insect or creature while I walk? Am I aware when my lungs get filled with air while I breathe?
Question yourself every time – Am I aware? The best way to start your journey towards awareness is to just slow down all your movements by just one second. Try it out, it works. It works to a great extent seriously. Slow yourself down by just one second!
Be aware! Be present!
Nitish 😊
