When life throws a curve ball

What do you do when you are doing everything right like leading a good healthy life, exercise everyday, a loving family

and you also  make a difference in a society. You are leading your life with zeal and you are enjoying every moment

and then life throws a curve ball

We can say its all because of Past Karma or we say it is Random but whatever we say it all seems to be a “cruel joke”

Facing your mortality especially when you are having a terminal disease and you know your days are numbered is a

heart wrenching thing for both you and your loved ones.

What is character, its about who you are when the chips are down.

You can be a jolly, happy, pleasant person when everything in life is going good

but when life throws the curve ball, how are you facing it.

This article is triggered by Sarah Hallberg's story

 

Two other people come to my mind

1. Randy Pausch
2. Paul Kalanithi

These people without having any afflictions towards Karma, God, Heaven, Soul etc were able to face

their mortality gracefully and courageously.

 

I pray that we and our loved ones lead a long and healthy life, but at the same time appreciate life is fragile and finite

and do the best with "the cards given to us".

 

Don't be too caught up on the mundane things. Spread love, happiness and be pleasant, grateful

and respect and appreciate yourself and others.

Why I am learning Ukulele

 I read an article in Hindu about people turning to low cost music instrument to ward off  the lockdown blues. 

I came across one instrument in that article which was Ukulele. 

It doesn't cost much so I went to a music shop and I bought it. 

Later I tried youtube videos and that did not help in my learning. So I searched and found a teacher nearby and he teaches both online and offline and its been a month now. 

Its fantastic!! every time I go he teaches something which seems overwhelming and then I practice it for a week and then go back  with confidence only to return with some other new overwhelming things.

But why Ukulele? or why a music instrument and why learn from a teacher and not online 

I have been trying my hand on many things over the years. 

I am a software guy by profession and I absolutely love it but I don't want  to do coding in my free time. 

I tried pencil sketching I absolutely love painting and sketching but have no talent for them though!

I bought a cheap Udemy course but never progressed on it and later enrolled to a painting class but had to stop it after COVID lockdown 

But what I like about playing music instrument as a hobby over something solitary like drawing or writing is it may open up me socially

And I dont know anything about music and its a ocean learning an instrument is a life long process. But even though its life long we get tangible returns in every training. There is always some improvement which is visible. 

Once when I was in US my client asked what do you do in the free time. He plays guitar and has a small armature band. I have nothing else to say other than watching movie 

Nothing wrong in watching movie though. But we need 2 kinds of entertainment one of them is passive like listening to music or watching movie but other thing is active like playing sports etc

Active engagement will make us feel more fulfilling. Even if you just watch a movie all alone, if you discuss about the movie with your friends its deemed as an active engagement since it has a social angle  

What if the active engagement has both fun and learning like learning music

Another example of active engagement is sports -> competitive, healthy, social, fun 

There is a nuanced ice break question 

"What would you like to do after doing what you have to do?"

And you don't have to answer the person who asks this question. You need to live consciously and make your choices deliberately. 

I dont even understand what you are speaking about -JOMO its the coolest thing

 From Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) to Joy of Missing Out (JOMO )

There was a Tamil movie called Viswasam in which there is a scene where the Villain tells the Hero his designation and his business etc for say 2 minutes non-stop just to make the Hero realize how big the Villain was. The hero who is a simpleton from a Village says I am paraphrasing , "Do you know who I am. I don't even understand what you are speaking about. That's me".  

People in the theater erupt with applause for this dialogue since there is a coolness in JOMO. 

Lets embrace it, no more herd mentality, no compulsion to do the things everyone does. 

Lets do JOMO

On Affirmation for your future self

 Let's say you want to materialize something in your life like in 3 years you want to have x amount of money. 

Your affirmation should not be "In 3 years from now I will have x amount of money"

It should be "By July of 2024 I have x amount of money"

Did you notice the subtilties 

1. Have the exact date since if you are going to say "In 3 years from now" every day after 6 months it should have been "In 2 years 6 month from now.." but you don't generally modify your affirmation that you end up in no progress since the difference between today and the end date is constant

2. The first affirmation is in the future tense and the second one is in present tense.  The theory of expectancy should kick in and you already know it is happening.

3. Next comes how you say it. Feelings are important lofty goal but no emotion will not get you there. Say it with feelings. If you have an affirmation but it doesn't move you then please have another affirmation which moves you. 

4. Actions:  Many gurus says don't think about how to achieve your goals and affirmations how will take care by itself. Yes that's partially correct.. You need to get your why and then the what first and your incompetency of "How" it is going to happen should not reduce the loftiness of the goal. But once you have a vision you need to figure out the how, at least the first step. You are telling universe that you are doing your part and the universe can do its part. If you want x amount of money may be you should ask for a hike or upskill yourself for a promotion, change job, increase investment or reduce expense. You need to do something.

Tracking Habits and Goals - Instant Gratification

Some of your goals are milestones some of them are ongoing. 

Examples of milestones

1. X amount of Money as Assets

2. Becoming VP 

3. Building a dream house

4. Starting a company 

Ongoing goals

1. I am an Athlete

2. I have pleasing personality 

Please note that ongoing goals when you get started you may not be there so you may have some milestones to achieve and then maintain once achieved 

But since most goals are long term and milestones in nature if you have a habit trackers (daily, weekly) and may be a Goal tracker monthly, Quarterly, Yearly.

When you track and put a tick on a habit or a goal you get instant gratification even though the goal is not reached you have the happiness in measuring the goal and Habit and see that the progress is happening. 

So delayed gratification is good but our evolution has put in the instinctive "instant gratification" in our genes . 

Why can't we gamify the delayed gratification goals to a series of instant gratification?

Note: Need to acknowledge that most of these ideas were crystalized as part of mindvalley and life book  

Habits that helps winning in many areas of life

 I am a life long leaner and dont have a second thought related to investing money for getting paid courses. 

Some of these investments are hit and few are misses but its ok. 

I am having a goal of a fixed amount of money for donation and may be for courses for which I don't find value I will simply feel it as donation. Its better to pay someone for more than the value they provide then just giving donation isn't it. 

I loved mindvalley all access (I have taken a break from it now should be back when they have new courses since I already consumed whatever I needed to consume)

I also completed  life book + mastery  and I should say my life is changed permanently. 

What I found in that course was there are many aspects of your life (they say 12) of which 5 is all about you

1. Health 

2. Intelligence

3. Emotion

4. Character

5. Spiritual

There are some habits which you do will check more than one aspect of life. As Jon says "A win anywhere is a win everywhere"

What if you can have daily habits which can touch many aspects. 

Couple of examples:

If I do exercise (as a person who never did exercise previously) it checks my 

1. Health

2. Emotion - as body moves you get happy 

3. Character - it takes discipline

Similarly if I do Meditation it improves my

1. Emotion 

2. Spiritual 

If I upgrade my skill technical or non-technical it improves my intelligence and career

What is important is to bring consciousness to everything. 

If you can have a vision and you build a goal and break some of them to Habit and then if you can track it and reflect (or report it to an accountability group) then nothing can stop you from making measurable progress to the ideal vision of your life. 

This is how companies are run and some companies go bust but few great companies survive for a long time constantly reinventing themselves and check the entropy. 

Why can't we do this in our own life and have a good progress in our life vision 

Take the example of this blog. This affects the following areas of my life

1. Intelligence - my creativity and communication increases

2. Spiritual - I am giving. I am creating

3. Emotion - this makes me happy

4. Social - I am connecting with some people 

5. Finance - Either directly or indirectly I improve my skills and give value and so I should get something in return financially also 

6. Career - this may make me communicate effectively and can help me in my current career or may help me in my part-time career or my  next career 

I urge you to explore your areas of life and find a habit or a ritual which could be the highest leverage across all the areas. The best return of investment. 

Overcoming Behavioral Mistakes

SN: What tricks do you use to save yourself from behavioural biases? What are the most common behavioural mistakes you make?

HH: Most mistakes in investment stem from lack of knowledge. When one is walking in the dark, other senses become heightened. Similarly, when one is operating in the field of investments and one does not know what one is doing, the basic human survival instincts (being with the crowd – herd mentality, avoiding danger – loss aversion, etc.) kick in. These instincts sometimes may mislead one in stock markets which is a massive melting pot of human emotions.

Many advocate changing behavioural responses. I think if you try to do that you are up against thousands of years of evolutionary survival strategies. Instead, focusing energies on accumulating knowledge is a more reasonable task.

http://www.safalniveshak.com/value-investor-interview-huzaifa-husain/

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