Tag: peace

Why Me?

Have you noticed some people always ask Why Me? I was reading an article about some royalty somewhere—we shall not name names—and noticed that they were complaining about how they were getting attention in the media while appearing for a media interview! Now, these people have everything one could ask for. They were born with a silver spoon in their mouth—literally! I bet a majority of the people in this world would happily swap places with them. Even then, they thought they had this miserable life and anything that went wrong was a direct result of someone else’s action. So today, I want to talk about this victim mindset and how that is detrimental to our health and our progress.

People who have a victim mindset always have this scarcity mindset. They always feel that they have to compete for everything and with everyone. Some people wake up in the morning and are looking for things and others are to blame. That is no way to live a life. Let me tell you an interesting story. About 20 years ago, a good friend of ours was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Once we found out, I would call and talk to him every week just to have a conversation and cheer him up if you will. He was in an amazing state of mind. During one of those conversations, I casually asked if he thought if this had anything to do with the type of place he was working at. What he said was so profound, it stayed with him to date. He said, why not me? Why am I so special that a disease will skip me? He went on to say that he never complained and asked “why me” when things were going great. I had a newfound respect for my friend. You see he accepted life as it came. There was no complaining or looking for blame or anything like that. Not trying to figure out why let alone why me.

People with a victim mindset on the other hand try to blame other people for their own problems. They also tend to feel sorry for themselves. They have a negative attitude about almost every situation they come across. Because of this negativity, they some to attract people with a similar mindset so which creates its own downward spiral. In general, they don’t take responsibility for their actions. People with a victim mindset develop a setup of negative behaviors that are difficult to turn around. For example, they believe their life is somehow harder than everyone else’s and they always are looking for pity. They are pessimistic in nature and are risk-averse. They have this sense of entitlement.

Sometimes politicians are promoting a victim mindset because that is a lot easier than actually solving their problems. It’s always easy to throw money at a problem than to actually solve the problem. If one persists with a victim mindset, they may end up with permanent guilt or even depression. They may become resentful of other people and develop a tendency to thrive on drama.

Good thing there is hope. The best way to help people with a victim mindset is to show the power of generosity. If they begin to practice generosity, their ego will diminish and will allow them to see the bigger picture. Another antidote is gratitude. A gratitude mindset created an abundance mindset which is exactly the opposite of a victim mindset. If they begin to develop a gratitude mindset, eventually they will see the abundance and positivity in their lives. It is not easy to change someone who has developed a victim mindset but with a few months of gratitude practice along with generosity, you will begin to real results.

How much is enough?

I was a guest on the Mindful Fire podcast released today. So I thought it would be appropriate to talk about one question that kept coming back again and again on this podcast. Before we dig in a little about the podcast. Host of Mindful Fire Adam Coelho is a 10 year Google veteran and is passionate about financial independence and mindfulness. During our interview, he asked several times, how did I know I had enough when I decided to retire. So let’s dig into this age-old question How much is enough?

In our previous contentment discussion, we talked about how if you have food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare, you are luckier than 99.9% of the rest of the world. At times, it may not seem like that but think about it, how many people are struggling to put food on the table daily? What does that mean to be financially independent? If you are making more money than you did five or ten years ago, when do you believe you have reached a point where you have enough money without any worries for the future?

Wall Street has a formula for how much is enough. I am sure a lot of you know the classic 4% rule they have been preaching for the better part of four decades. It says that you should have 25 times your annual expenses tucked away in order to retire. Meaning, if you take a 4% annual withdrawal from your savings, based on average market returns will make sure that you outlast your money. Now, I have reservations about this formula because no two people are alike. If you own some rental real estate that is producing enough to cover your expenses, you may not need the 25 times your expenses. My point however is not about any formula. What I am here to argue is that it is a moving target. If you think about it, your expenses are much higher today than they were when you were just starting in the real world! As your income kept increasing, so did your lifestyle and expenses.

So let’s discuss how much is enough in the context of our expenses. We live in this consumption culture where everyone wants the next best thing that is being bombarded by advertisements and marketing experts. I remember, we used to use our mobile phones for three to four years on average. Now, these devices are being replaced annually or every two years at most. Does everyone need that iPhone 12? And it is just not about mobile phones. We used to live in a house for all our lives—that is where the 30-year mortgage was originated. Now people keep moving “up” every three to five years. our consumption culture is creating a lifestyle that has become so expensive that the majority of our households need two incomes to run a household. That has reduced family time and relaxation time for the entire society. We are the most tired nation on earth. Here is an interesting tidbit—people are so afraid to lose their jobs that they are checking emails on their vacation! So the first thing we need to do is reduce our consumption. That is good for us individually as well as the society as a whole—think about the resources we will save. Once we curtail our consumption, obviously it will reduce our “number” for financial independence no matter what formula we use.

Another point I would like to make is that most people think that financial independence is that destination. They will reach that someday and their life will change! It is never like that. One thing I have often advocated is to “leg in” to your financial independence. If you think you are halfway there, for example, try making some changes in your life and begin to do what you would want to do during retirement. You never know what you may and may not enjoy. So don’t wait till that someday, begin living your life today!

The last thing I would say is that figure out your purpose. Because there is only so much golf one can play. If you are fortunate enough to reach that financial independence, you may get bored or even depressed if you don’t have a plan for it. The best way to avoid that is to make sure that you have a purpose for which you are passionate. Whatever that may be for you but it is important to figure that out before you call it quits. I may have said this before but start volunteering for your favorite cause. Just a couple of hours per week. You would be amazed what giving back does to our mental health.

Live Free or Die!

Live Free or Die! Have you heard that slogan for the US State of New Hampshire? People in New Hampshire are independent-minded have this libertarian streak if you will. They don’t want too much interference from the government in their lives. If you think about it, most of us want to live free. We want to be able to make our own decisions and do what we think is best for us.

But are we really living freely? Most times, we are tied to the so-called eight worldly winds: Pleasure & Pain, Gain & Loss, Praise & Blame, Fame & Disrepute. Think about it, almost every decision that we make is either to avoid the negative winds or to attract the positive winds. Let’s take pleasure and pain for example. We all want pleasure from any activity that we engage in. What we don’t realize is that pleasure is transitory. When the winds shift, pain replaces pleasure. What gives pleasure at the moment may inflict pain at some other time. I have often talked about the pizza example that is so appropriate here. Say you love pizza. Eating pizza gives you pleasure. But if you keep eating that pizza beyond your capacity, you will eventually throw up. The same pizza that brought pleasure can inflict pain. It is certainly not the pizza that gives us pleasure. Sadhguru always says that “pain and pleasure are within us”. It is so true. What does that mean you may ask? It means that the experience of pleasure and pain comes from our minds. It is our mind that interprets something to be pleasurable or painful. Pizza itself from its own side is neither pleasurable nor painful.

Let’s talk about the next set of worldly winds: gain and loss. If we get elated by gains, we will be hurt as much by the losses. As we all know, it is a cyclical world. What goes up must come down and if we are too excited when we are going up we will be really in pain when it comes down. My dad always says to remember there is always Sunday after Saturday. What does that mean? It means, not all days are going to be as comfortable as you are enjoying right now. Just be mindful and not get overly excited when things are going your way.

The next set of worldly winds are praise and blame. We all like when people praise us or our work. But with praise, we should be prepared for criticism also. If we are all pumped up when someone praises us, we will be equally disappointed when someone criticizes our work. It is natural to think that not everyone is going to praise us or our work. It is just not possible. Let’s make sure we stay even kill when praise comes our way and that will help us stay even kill when the blame is assigned to us.

The last set of worldly winds are fame and disrepute. Everyone wants to be famous in this social media culture of ours. We live by likes and dislikes on social media. But if the fame puts on top then we must be prepared for disrepute that may show up someday. In the age of social media, that is very easy, unfortunately. Remember that saying that goes the higher you climb, the deeper you drop? If the fame brings you on top of your world, the disrepute will drop you to the bottom.

Why do I talk about all this? This ties back to the equanimity discussion we had in the past. When the worldly winds of pleasure, gain, fame and praise are blowing our ways; we need to learn to be equanimous and not let that boost our ego too much. That will prevent us from falling hard when the winds shift towards pain, loss, disrepute, and blame. That is what is most important. If we can do that, we will be truly living free and not be slaves to worldly winds.

Reliance

Let’s talk about something called Reliance today. We come across a lot of people and information all day long. What should we rely upon to make our decisions? Let’s get into it.

The first so-called reliance is the phrase I am sure you have heard over and over again. Don’t kill the messenger. It is so true. We often get bog down into who brings the message rather than the message itself. Who brings the message has absolutely nothing to do with what the message is. We must rely on the message and not the messenger. I have seen this playing out in the corporate environment quite a bit. There are certain people who are resistant to an incoming CEO and whatever they say, for some reason is wrong because this person is an outsider if you will. In doing so they miss out on opportunities to work together as an organization and make forward progress towards pressing issues of the day. You see we all have these inherent biases against certain individuals or groups of people. Because of those biases, we tend to focus on the messenger as opposed to the message itself. This wrong reliance is detrimental to our own progress.

The next reliance is on the meaning. Rely on the meaning and not the words. This is a little difficult to understand so let’s break this down. Sometimes what the words are trying to tell you is hidden. What we call reading between the lines. What is not said out loud is more important than just the words. One can play with the words but what they are trying to tell us behind those words is more important. This is not an easy skill to develop for sure. This is where perception comes into play. Developing good perception is very important and for that, we need a clear mind. We must learn to develop perception. It takes a lifetime to develop this. Most people in my experience have difficulty reading between the lines. So hopefully all of you youngsters would learn to develop this. One way to develop this is to take in a diverse set of information. If you read or listen to all sides of an argument, you would be better able to develop perception. Unfortunately, we live in this conformation bias age where everyone has a limited number of sources of information and they all just confirm our inherent biases. The social media algorithms also contribute to this problem since they tend to display what you like and have no opposing viewpoint.

The next reliance is intention. This is very important. What we should rely upon is the intention of the speaker and not our own interpretation of what they are trying to tell us.

When we understand what it is the speaker intended to communicate, if we then continue to think about each word and expression, we will grasp the concept much faster. This is similar to getting conceptual knowledge before looking for a detailed understanding.

If we misinterpret what is said and then think of more words, we’ll never stop till we run out of thoughts, but all the while we’re only straying further and further from the meaning. Like children playing, we’ll only end up exhausted.

Even for a single word like “and” or “but”, when taken out of context, there’s no end to what it might mean. Yet if we understand what is meant, then with that the need for the word is finished. Remember the classic, it depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is? Sorry, I could not resist!

When it comes to the meaning, we should know what is provisional and what is definitive, and rely not on any provisional meaning, but only on the meaning that is true definitively. I refer to the example of Yudhisthir confirming that Ashwathama was indeed dead in the epic battle of Mahabharat. Here, Yudhisthir meant Ashwathama the elephant and not the warrior but people took his words literally on their own peril.

Motivation

If you are like most people, you are not able to maintain your meditation practice on a daily basis. Why is that? For the most part, motivation or lack of it has a lot to do with it. I am sure you think there is just not enough time in the day. But with motivation, time would never be an issue. So let’s talk about motivation in detail today.

It is one thing to discuss the motivation for meditation but motivation is necessary for everything you want to do in life. How do you develop motivation? I read something interesting the other day and it really caught my eyes. When you set out to do something whatever that may be, have you noticed at times you are all ready to go and jump right into it until the task is complete? Other times, those things just stay on your task list and you keep postponing the task as long as you possibly can. Why is that? The root cause for this is a lack of motivation.

Next time you are set out to tackle a big item, do me a favor, make a list of 25 reasons why you want to do something. You may say, why 25 reasons? Why can’t I just have one reason? You can, but in my experience, the first few reasons tend to be superficial. They are usually, what you are telling yourself or what you want people to believe. Once you start writing this down on a piece of paper, by the time you come to reasons 15, 20, and 23, the real reason comes out. Your hopes and dreams, your enthusiasm will display themselves. Once these reasons show themselves, motivation naturally comes. There is no more reason to procrastinate because now you know exactly what it is that you doing this for. So when do you get motivated? This is another interesting part. Usually, you will notice that motivation comes once you begin a process. If you look at where a task tends to have difficulty, it is usually, in the beginning, having difficulty getting off the ground and then towards the end getting it to a finish line. In between, momentum usually carries the day. So when the task begins, we need motivation and that is when the list of reasons comes in very handy. Once a task gets going and reaches the finish line, a lot of people wrap up before they get it to where they really wanted it to see. They call it good enough. This is another place you need motivation. At this time, going back to those really deep reasons—reasons 18, 22, 24 come in really handy. Once we get the boost of the motivation getting it to the best possible end is just a matter of time and process.

So now that we know how we can tackle obstacles, let’s use this to overcome our lack of daily meditation practice. If you would make a list of why you want to meditate. Again, at least have 25 reasons to meditate. Once you have developed that list, you will notice that I don’t have time or that life gets in the way or I need to take care of my family and all other superficial excuses will just melt away. In my experience, there is such not having the time it is just a lack of importance we put on whatever that we are not doing. If it is important enough, you will make time. We all have the same amount of time no one has 25 hours in a day. Let’s make sure we put importance on our own peace of mind over the business of life. This is similar to the four-quadrant we discussed a few episodes ago about urgent vs important. Let’s not get the urgency of life get in the way of the importance of keeping a peaceful mind. A peaceful mind will help us carry throughout the day. Hopefully, you will get motivated to develop motivation for your meditation practice!