40 Things I Learned In Last 40years. (Part 2)
In my previous post, I had shared first 20 learnings and hope you enjoyed reading it.
Here are the next 20 things..
21) Our needs & wants have limitations
It’s very important to find out what do really want in the life. In my 20s, I used to have lousy desires like becoming a billionaire, having huge mansions, etc but later I realised that there is limit to how much we can handle.
My good friend Vijay (Chennaite) used to give an analogy of Idli :-). He used to say, how many idlies Ambani can eat in a day? He was right.
We can lead a very happy life if we know our ‘needs’ and ‘wants’ correctly.
Chances are, we don’t need as much as we desire.
22) Intuition
Our actions either come from instinct, intelligence, or intuition. We know how instinct and intelligence work, but we often reject intuition (that gut feeling) as if there is no base to it.
Somehow, I always trusted my intuition. The more I stopped doubting, the stronger it became.
You can’t see Intuition from the eyes of logic. Logic is ‘intelligence’s domain.
Daily meditation practice helped me become more intuitive.
23) Law of attraction does exist
Like many others, I was introduced to LoA by Rhonda Byne’s ‘The Secret’ movie. Later on, books by Josesh Murphy, Nepolian Hill and the work of Wayne Dyer helped me go deeper into it.
So, the law of attraction is real. Our thoughts waves attract similar frequencies.
It’s not magic. It’s just another law like other laws that work all the time.
You need to ‘believe’ it to experience it.
24) It’s ok to play small
When I started my business, so called business gurus told us — ‘Go big or go home’. That’s a terrible advice.
When we look around, we see a lot of small business owners, popular shops and successful professionals.
Not everyone wants to be like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg and wants to build a billion-dollar business.
It’s absolutely fine to play small if it fulfils your needs and makes you happy.
25) Happiness is subjective
Oh god, this is such a simple learning but don’t know why people don’t get it.
Not everyone wants to be a millionaire, not everyone wants to live in a mansion or own luxury cars.
I’ve seen people enjoying at their time at farms, I’ve seen people running small cafes and passionate about serving food to their regular clients.
Happiness is not a standard thing. It depends on how you’ve been raised, where you are born and many other things that shape your thought process.
When I truly understood this, I was able to get rid of the burden to become successful.
26) Diet plans should not be generic
This is the biggest mistake that most of us commit — following a generic diet plan.
After trying low-carb, no-carb, low-calorie, high-protein, Rujuta Diwekar’s diet, Dixit’s diet, intermittent fasting, etc, I realised that any diet plan works differently for different people.
Ayurveda explains it beautifully. Finally, I understood my ‘Prakruti’ and designed my own diet plan.
It was sustainable & it worked :-)
27) Body is the best dietician
It’s important to listen to what our body says. It tells you when to eat, when to stop eating, what works and what doesn’t work.
But it’s not as easy as it sounds. I removed all the distractions while eating, meditated regularly, closely observed body’s reaction to a particular food and then I was able to understand body’s signals correctly.
This means, we don’t need to pay heavy fees to the nutritionist, our body is the best dietician.
28) Food affects the mood
When I’m in a bad mood or feeling low, almost in 50% of the time it’s because of bad stomach. It has nothing to do with others.
Sometimes a bite of chocolate or a good panipuri is enough to elevate the mood :-)
29) Don’t trust what you see and hear. Always question.
I have so many stories where I misinterpreted the person based on what they say. Many a times, I misinterpreted situations based on what I saw.
Now, I don’t form any opinion until I’ve taken a 50-feet-above view of the situation.
30) Surrender means alignment
I heard so many spiritual speakers talking about surrender. Read books on it but I never understood the concept.
Recently, I realised that the true meaning of surrender is to align with higher intelligence. After meditating consistently for days, I experienced this only a couple of times.
Lot of work is required to understand is completely. But when we understand it, it feels transformative.
31) Amazing things happens out of routine conversations.
We call this ‘Manthan’ — it’s when 2 or more people discuss a certain topic, and something really great comes out of it.
Interestingly, I got many great insights from the friends who are not from the IT industry just by talking about the problems I’m facing about my business.
I often indulge into such conversations with my wife which leads to better clarity and meaningful outcome.
32) Detaching myself from the outcome
In Bhagvat Geeta, Krishna tells Arjuna to focus on actions and not on the outcome (कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन). He further suggests to take only selfless actions that are beneficial to the larger society.
It took me 3–4 years to understand the meaning of this simple sentence. Why should I work for society? How can I get motivated to work if I don’t think about the outcome?
When I read about how Karmic cycle works, I understood what Krishna wanted to teach. Our aim should be to accumulate as little Karma as possible to exit the Karmic cycle. And only way to do this is to take self-less actions.
I’m still learning :-)
33) Nothing is permanent — people, places, situation
It took me a while to understand this. I always tried to make things permanent.
I lost touch with my best friends when I left the college, lost another bunch of good friends when I quit my job and so on.
I used to blog on MSN Spaces, had a website on Yahoo Geocities and used to spend most of my time in organising my MP3 collection in Winamp.
Nothing is permanent :-)
34) Victim mentality
When my business was going through a low phase, I unknowingly started blaming the employees, government policies and so on for our own failure.
But the new businesses were launched by others became successful during the same time, in the same environment.
Victim mentality is the lowest state of mind, and it shuts the doors for any possible opportunity.
35) Nobody is crazy
Morgan Housel used this term in his book while explaining investment behaviour. But this applies to real life as well.
People behave according to their memory imprint — where they are born, their family, friends, social circle, situations they went through, etc — there are so many factors that influence our behaviour.
That politician, that boy with a strange hairstyle, that boss, those people in religious rallies, that rash driver — nobody is crazy.
36) Forgiveness
In one of his books, Wyne Dyre had said that people don’t die because of the snake bite, they die because of the venom.
When we have an argument with someone or someone does terrible things to us, then after the incident (snake bite), it’s our thought (venom) that kills us.
Later, when I understood that we are one and part of a same higher consciousness, forgiveness became very easy for me.
Now, I don’t hold any grudges or resentments in my hearts for anyone 😇.
37) Karmic imprint drives our behaviour
Understanding about how Karma works was a transformative experience for me. You can get answers to life’s many mysteries using this framework.
In ‘Matrix Reloaded’, Oracle tells Neo that “we’ve already made a choice, we are here to understand it”.
38) The current moment is inevitable.
Whatever is happening now is not sudden. A consecutive series have events have led to where we are now.
This means we can’t avoid this moment. It’s inevitable.
There is not point in putting a label on it. We just need to experience it.
39) Books are not the only source of knowledge
Many authors have explained the power of subconscious mind in their books. We can tap into its true potential using meditation, self-hypnosis, NLP or other techniques. When we do it, we can get access to unlimited source of knowledge.
I’ve also met people who’ve gained divine knowledge using sacred ceremonies like Ayahuasca. There are people who can communicate with higher spirits to get answers to their questions.
Books are definitely not the only source of knowledge.
40) There is a limit to how much we can understand about the universe.
When my 10-year old kid asks me questions, I answer him according to his age. There is no point in giving him a complete information if he can’t understand it. He will eventually get it as he grows.
Same way, when I read Bhagvat Gita, I derived different meanings from it at a different point of time in my life.
Later, I got convinced that there is a limit to what a human mind can understand about the mysteries of universe and it’s creator.
We don’t know what we don’t know.
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Phew! That’s all folks.
I hope some of my learnings will help you in your journey of life.
Let me know in comments which one resonated with you the most.
I’m not done with learning yet. Will write a follow up post after a couple of years :-)
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Cheers!
P.S. — Here is a link to part 1 of this post in case you’ve not read it.
