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| -wear cape, fly, or jump into water (March 2012) |
Life is a lot like the desktop of a computer. At first it’s clean with a few programs on display, but slowly more and more things start cluttering the places and you may lose track of the things that are really needed and the ones that are just taking up spaces unnecessarily.
After being depressed for a while, a few concepts helped me out a lot in recent times. These helped me take control over my mood and output. And so far I am really happy with the way things are going. So here are the things I did.
At the heart of it all: The 80-20 rule
This rule was named after an Italian economist who said that 80 percent of the land was owned by 20 percent of the population. I know now it is more like 90-10-ish, but economy is not what I wish to talk about. This rule takes an interesting turn when applied to other walks of life. Let’s see:
20 percent songs give you 80 percent pleasure of listening.
20 percent works give you 80 percent of the good results.
Most of the other 80 percent songs and works deliver you significantly lower psychological value.
When I was aware of my 20 percent, I consciously tried to increase these things to a higher percentage.
Cleaning up the work load
First thing I did was to figure out what things I did in total and which of these I really enjoyed, had to do, did not enjoy and could live without doing. The list is totally personal and my list will not match yours I am sure, so I will not go into the details.
So I focused on cutting off the works I could go on without doing. I stopped trying to achieve qualities that I did not like trying to achieve. I focused on a very few things and gave them my heart. And the result was distinctively more consistent and more qualified output from me.
You can be good at anything, but not everything.
What you do is important in defining you, but what you don't do is equally important.
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| -free (April 2012) |
Here by relationship I do not mean the Facebook term of romantic affairs. I mean relationship with all of friends and family. Among them you have people who love, inspire and support you. It is YOU who matters to them, not just what you carry or where you are.
I found out the friends who I enjoy spending time with, who I can inspire and be inspired by at the same time.
You are the average of the five people closest to you.
–Jim Rohn
–Jim Rohn
Edit viciously
I REFUSED to be in company of people close who make me feel uneasy, are busy judging me and basically sucked the life out of me. I kept it to hi-hello, cut off all the rest of extra time spent with them.
Are you surrounding yourself with hard-working, creative, fun-loving, or just crazy people?
Quality and direction of life is influenced a lot by this choice.
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| -fix you (March 2012) |
Exploiting the pattern seeking psychology
Human mind is built in such a way that it seeks out patterns in randomness. Words like good luck, curse etc. are used because we like to think there is a pattern to everything that happens in life. Self-loathing like 'nobody likes me' is not based on census but rather a few incidents are enough to make a person think like that.
Good thing about this pattern seeking behavior is that you can exploit it if you want. This is hard to explain but some people can understand it very easily. Thing is, if you believe you are lucky, your mind will automatically filter out the favorable incidents to reinforce that belief. In that way most things can become self-fulfilling prophecies, as long as you don't believe the sun rises in the west.
I wake up every day believing I am lucky and that the Lord of the world is helping me to become good at life by taking me through all the twists and turns.
I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
-Thomas Jefferson
-Thomas Jefferson
Helping someone
Recent studies have found that the act of helping someone activates the same areas of the brain as when one gets some kind of physiological benefit. Helping out, being meaningful to someone other than to oneself is very much refreshing. And in today's ever so evident culture of 'life is a race, if you don't run fast, you become a broken anda (egg)' gives little emphasis to this. May this is why many of us are mentally stressed while being in good position financially and socially.
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| -awkward times (another one from March 2012) |
Help someone, don't think about what there is in it for you, but it is good if the person you are helping appreciates the help, otherwise you might just feel even bitterer.
I do not know if I am right. But for now it certainly feels that way. I’ll say things differently when I feel so.
All illustrations of this post © author.