Inspiring stories and articles for journey(s) of self-discovery and exploration!
In Between Times — by Sandy Dias Andrade, Just Being Center
That time in between. When you’ve just quit one job and not sure what’s next. When you’ve taken a break from work to look after your child and not sure what lies ahead. When the children grow up and you don’t know how life would be ahead. When your spouse passes on and your life needs to come together in a new way. When you’ve broken off with your girlfriend and you don’t know if you’ll ever have another relationship again. Transition time. Twilight time. In-between times.
‘I Took Break From Studies As I Felt Our Education System Was Providing Minimal Perspective Of World Outside School’-Sagarika Sivakumar
https://thelogicalindian.com/my-story/my-story-sagarikka-sivakumar-35256
What if We All Just Stopped
What would happen if we all just stopped? What if we all stopped going to work? What if we all stopped shopping or spending money on anything? What if we all stopped using numbers to determine the our worth and that of others — be it nature, objects, or other people? What if we only did that which brought us joy?
The Day You Decided to Take the Leap
Chances are there’s some area of your life where you feel like a leap of some kind is required. Whether it’s personal or professional, the idea of reaching one’s potential is deeply embedded in all of us.
From Hard Work to Heart Work by Nithya Shanti
Too many parents and teachers go on and on emphasising the value and importance of hard work.
Too few take the time to encourage youngsters to find and pursue their “heart work”. Things they are interested in, love to do and are naturally gifted at.
The paradox is, when we do our heart’s work, we naturally work hard, spending hours and years on what we enjoy and yet it never feels like hard work.
So instead of talking about careers, talk about interests. Who knows, they may go on to invent a whole new profession or industry! It’s happened before and is happening all the time these days.
Instead of talking about what can pay well, talk about what will enable them to live well, according to their values. Learning is about having a good life, not just getting a livelihood. It’s not just about pay; it’s also about what feels like play!
Instead of talking about what others are good at and indulging in meaningless (and heartless) comparisons, talk about what they are uniquely good at. Everyone has a genius. Everyone needs encouragement.
Instead of talking about which college or university is best, talk about what curriculum they would put together for themselves if they could (also called “Hack-Schooling”). This gets them thinking and makes them take responsibility for their learning journey.
Instead of talking about grades and marks, talk about insights, learnings and experiences. We usually learn most from reflecting on what didn’t go well. Celebrate failures as a family. Call it an “Oops” and discuss the learnings in an atmosphere of lightness and laughter. Such kids go on to change the world.
This means instead of defining failure as not measuring up to some arbitrary standard; we can define it as “not trying”. That’s it. Keep trying. Forget about success and failure.
Instead of asking “What’s the future in this?” Ask “What does it awaken in you in the present?” And “What excites you about this?” Remember that most great ideas were rejected by “experts” who first heard them.
Ask about experiences they want to have before they die, things they want to learn, places they want to visit and ways they want to make their community and world a better place. This awakens possibility and vision.
Ask about what they love, are good at and creates happiness for others. Then get creative in finding a way to make that into a profession that also pays them well. This is called “Ikigai” by the Japanese. Our reason for being.
In our dynamic new world, it is people with unconventional skills, experiences and career paths who are most valued and sought after. Those who do conventional things usually end up working for such people.
And please, enough lecturing about hard work! It never convinced us when our parents did it. It won’t convince our kids either. They look at us and think “You claim to have worked hard yourself… but you don’t look very happy right now… so I’m not sure I believe that the results will be as good as you claim!”
There is a quote I love, not sure by who…
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes your heart sing. Because what this world really needs, is more people with hearts that sing!”
It’s time for all of us to make the shift from hard work to heart work!
Green Options for Second Careers
There is a band of eco-heroes who are gradually making their presence felt — the second-careerists.
Time Out or Burn Out for Next Generation — Considering a Gap Year — Harvard College:
https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/apply/first-year-applicants/considering-gap-year
Welcome Home — The Gap Gallery by Chitra Iyer
https://www.travellersuniversity.org/post/welcome-home
What would you ask for if the world itself was yours?
How much would you care for a golden penny on a mound of silver?
You who have the choice,
Tell me how much it costs
To choose care over capacity
Calm over chaos
Character over custom.
Class of 2020, college can wait. It’s time to take a gap year.
by Abby Falik
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine the expectations and assumptions that have defined our educational paradigm for nearly a century. Rather than lamenting the forced “gap year” many will face in coming months, let’s embrace what this has the potential to be: an historic opportunity to launch the generation of empathetic and engaged citizens our world needs now.
My Journey — Self Directed Learning
As a little girl going to school and playing was what my life revolved around. I went to school because that’s what children do. I enjoyed school because I was a good student. I was very good at studies, very displinced, well dressed, punctual and I did not trouble the teachers or ask questions in class. I was good at studies not because I understood the subjects but because I mastered the art of memorizing and photocopying the answers in the test. I was well dressed because of my mother, I was punctual because of my father and if i was not curious or naughty I had lost the child in me.
Beyond Colleges and Universities
Every year, May and June are extremely busy months for students who have finished their high school. Students spend months preparing for entrance exams to get into colleges. They take extensive campus visits to colleges all over the country and weigh…
Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/supplements/dh-education/beyond-colleges-and-682174.html
How to sponge off family and relatives and be appreciated for it
by Claude Alvares
(Note: This article is not about giving anyone a sponge bath. But it’s about cleaning up your family networks of purposeless cash lying around in those quarters which, if not salvaged and used for your personal learning and liberation, will invariably get squandered on some new discount racket at the mall next door or Ponzi schemes like bitcoins. The crucial aspect of the lesson is how to feel extremely good about such socially beneficial sponging.)
Mind the gap: Taking a break year post school is ‘legit’, and teens are embracing the trend by Antara Rao
In this maddening race to be ‘successful’ today, students across the country are working to secure a ‘good and respectable’ marksheet, get an admission into a well reputed college, and consequently, live a defined life.
But increasingly, there are those who take a ‘break year’ right after school, before they get into college. While it’s a break from academics for some, for others it’s an opportunity to build their portfolio, or actually figure out what they’re interested in….
The Sacred Pause by Tara Brach
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-true-refuge/201412/the-sacred-pause
In our lives we often find ourselves in situations we can’t control, circumstances in which none of our strategies work. Helpless and distraught, we frantically try to manage what is happening. Our child takes a downward turn in academics and we issue one threat after another to get him in line. Someone says something hurtful to us and we strike back quickly or retreat. We make a mistake at work and we scramble to cover it up or go out of our way to make up for it. We head into emotionally charged confrontations nervously rehearsing and strategizing….
Are You Singing Your Own Song Or Dancing To Another Tune? by Sangeeta Bhagwat
What is at the bottom of the discontent and restlessness that so many of us are grappling with today? We imagine that we are not good enough, or do not have enough because of theabsence of some person, object or circumstance. In reality, we have it backwards. Everything that is wistfully parked in the future creates and contributes to an experience of lack. These thoughts concretize the belief that there is somewhere you have to reach, something you have to obtain, achieve or prove — so that you can feel a certain way…
Formal Education Is Not the Only Way To Success
Hindustan Times.
He does not have an engineering degree, and isn’t even qualified for admission into a regular technical college. And yet, at the age of 19, he is already an “engineer for the poor”.
Meet Ayush Semele, a resident of Prithvipur in Bundelkhand who makes a great argument in favour of those who believe that formal education isn’t the only road to success. He indigenously develops all electronic items for daily use — from induction cookers to refrigerators and bladeless fans — and even tutors people on manufacturing them at low prices….
Rethink the Gap by Brendan Pelsue, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Do alternative gap-year programs have lessons for traditional high schools and colleges…?
My name is Devika and I’m a 21 year old who loves drawing fish and drinking coffee. In March 2015, I finished my schooling at Centre for Learning in Bangalore. I decided to take a ‘Year On’ gap year after that to explore my interests and figure out what I really want to learn and how….
Should you encourage your child to take a gap year before college? by Navin Kabra
Should you (would you?) encourage your child to take a “gap year” before starting college (i.e. after 12th)? If no, why not? If yes, how would you suggest the child plan the year? What activities/experiences would you hope for the child to take up? Does your answer change depending upon whether the child is going to do college in India vs the US?…
If I had to do it over, I would skip the MBA by Anjali Gupta a mid-life musing
How to choose your career? by Manish Hatwalne
Ikigai is a fairly popular Japanese concept by now — it means ‘a reason for existence (or being)’. That’s same as Raison d’être in French. According to Japanese culture, everyone has an ikigai. Ikigai can also be translated as ‘a reason to get up in the morning’. The word ikigai is usually used to indicate the source of value in one’s life or the things that make one’s life worthwhile. However, finding it requires a deep and often lengthy self-exploration.
- What do you love doing?
- What are you good at?
- What the world needs?
- What can be paid for?
‘Doing Nothing’ by Shagun Rastogi
It was seven years ago that I last took a long break from work. I had been writing scripts for corporates in the year before that. Helping companies sell soaps and shampoos paid the bills, but it drained me of my reserve of magic, and I felt as if my life force was exhausted. Writing is a sacred act for me. It springs from somewhere deep within, like a lush green library under the forest floor, with a spring flowing next to it. That place is kept fertile by rest and reflection, and by nourishment of the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual self. In sacrificing this sacred space at the altar of cold commerce, I took more out of myself than I would first have imagined.
When I took a break, ( even literally, because I broke a bone in my foot at exactly that time), I immersed myself in books. I read a lot of mythology, from all over the world, and that renewed me in a way that more contemporary works could not. While food nourishes the physical body, stories, especially those that have shaped cultures and civilizations, nourish our humanity, and our psychology. They are regenerative and healing. It was only after reading and resting for about three months that I found myself able to write again.
After seven years of working, I am now taking a break again. I use the word ‘break’ since it is so commonly used, but I am not enjoying the word so much this time. It lays more emphasis on the before and after of itself, as if it exists only as a splinter between two phases of being productive and having economic agency in the world.
Unlike the last time, my latest job did not make the same demands on my creative resources,so it was easier to sustain. It also cycled between hectic work and periods that were not so demanding, and it took me to magical places all over the world, which was renewing for me. I met wonderful people, I had flexibility on time, and I learnt so many new things. However, I still could not write.
The feeling that you are on someone else’s time for most of your day, that you are answerable and accountable, that you should either be working hard or looking like you are working hard, creates a pattern of stress ( when working) and guilt ( when not ) that drains us, like a leaking tap. There is something about the corporate world, even the best of it, that puts people on edge, and makes it hard to be authentic. There is a false sense of urgency all the time, and an imposed value system that has somehow decided for you that meeting arbitrary goals (the more ambitious the better) is more important than baking a cake on a Tuesday afternoon. You participate in it either by believing this narrative and wake up one day wondering why you have lost your capacity to feel anything intensely, or you participate in it with awareness and face the inanity of what you do, and the pretense around it ,every single day. There is nothing wrong with it, it might work for you, until one day, it doesn’t.
I have now spent three months doing ‘nothing’, only reading, reflecting, witnessing, resting. And I am able to write again.
Work that is not a natural extension of the self, dams the river of creative flow. Dams might provide things of value, of utility. They have their place in the current world. But they take away the flow and the agency of the river, and then it dries up, barely recognizable as the powerful being that it once was. Undamming the river takes time and you can no longer use it to get something out of it, but when it finally flows again, you know it as a Goddess, that when revered, can bring you gifts you could never have imagined.
MTV launches a new show by the dropouts, for the dropouts — and no, it is nothing like Shark Tank! by Binjal Shah
What do Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Travis Kalanick, and Mark Zuckerberg have in common? If you guessed the obvious that they have more zeroes in their paycheck than you can wrap your head around, you would be right. If you also guessed that they all dropped out of mainstream education before the age of 21, you just earned yourself extra points.
In fact, Zuckerberg famously asked a Stanford graduate he was interviewing, ‘Why would you be studying it if you could be doing it?’….
My experiments with learning in a remote tribal village of Gujarat by Mihir Pathak
Disillusioned by the current state of education in India, I set out on a journey to discover the beautiful process of learning…
Why I packed my bags and moved to Dharampur by Mihir Pathak
I was born in a small town called Padra near Vadodara — Gujarat. In my teenage years, I did a lot of experiments. There has been an absolute disregard for security but a strong zeal for life. I failed 3 times in my 12th Board exams, finally got admission in Diploma mechanical engineering course in a local college and then dropped out in my final year.
My ‘Learning from India’ Journey post-Harvard — by Vipul Shaha
http://vipulshaha.blogspot.com/2013/11/my-learn-from-india-journey.html
52 Alivehoods by Manish Jain
What makes you, your community and the world come alive again? What are regenerative livelihoods for the planet?
Modern civilization spent the last 150 years destroying the earth in search of progress, so now it is time to make our ‘alive-lihoods’ by regenerating ourselves, the earth’s natural systems and healthy communities.
Are we learning to do any of this important work in our schools and universities?
Some may find it strange that there are no professional academics or policymakers on this list. We need ‘intellectuals’, ‘thinkers’ and ‘visionaries’ but these should grow out of practical experiences with these eco-careers, integrating our heads, hands, hearts and homes, rather than as a fragmented, ivory tower categories.
Here is a short list of growing eco-careers that I have encountered to heal ourselves and the planet.
For the Traveler by John O’Donohue
http://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2191
Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.
New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit….
I ditched my phone, moved to Nepal, and it changed my life: Kendall Marianacci
At 19 years old, I dropped out of college and moved to Nepal without any contact to home. Well, first things first, I think it’s safe to say I’m out of my mind.
A young girl moving to a third world country with no technology, contact to home, knowledge of the language, or understanding of the customs. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
The situation that led to this decision was simple… college. For me, college was an experience of sameness. I became overwhelmed with privilege and societal expectations that I needed to see who I was when I was stripped of everything that made me, me. Hence, Nepal. The experience changed my entire outlook on life and still continues to impact the way that I live.
5 Stages of Work by Divyanshi (Auroville)
https://ie.auroville.org/5-stages-of-work/
STAGE 1: Work as Livelihood
STAGE 2: Work as Passion
STAGE 3: Work as Social Responsibility
STAGE 4: Work as Service
STAGE 5: Work as Worship
What should truly motivate us at work
What would enable us to make the right career choices is something that seems, on the face of it, to have nothing to do with work at all: love, a profound experience of love in both childhood and adulthood.
College Alternatives Should Be Given the Spotlight
https://pizzokristen.medium.com/college-alternatives-should-be-given-the-spotlight-ab0bff417363
