I just stumbled upon this video on TED. The speaker talks about doing something new for the next 30 days. This stuck to my head. I challenged myself to do something new over the next 30 days.
The question was what to do? I love taking photos and I do take photos almost every day. I walk and hike almost every day- thanks to COVID. As I work from home, I get some time every morning to go on my favorite local hike which can be done in an hour and gives around 600 feet elevation gain. So what new to do? I decided to write something every day, and the result is this blog. I am going to call it Man ki Baat. This is a term popularised by Indian PM Narendra Modi. Of course, my talks are not as significant as his but I want to express myself, my thoughts here on this blog. I am going to focus more on making life simple, and more enjoyable. Being in tune with nature and how it intended life on the earth to be like (IMO).
Here is Day 1: What I want to unLearn.
I spent a few decades learning- learning everything that I could and that came across me. Then I started realizing that the majority of this learning has not helped me much; instead, it changed me into a somewhat different person. This has created a mask on me. I have lost my originality. Now I want to focus more on unlearning what is really not needed (in my humble opinion).
- I was hammered about the benefits of multi-tasking in life. Why stick to one thing, when you can do multiple! Nobody told me that multi-tasking is a CPU job- it is a brain's job. As I get older, I want to live by heart, not my mind or brain. I want to focus on and enjoy one thing at a time. I want peace, not rush. I want to stay human not become a machine.
- I am taught that I should always go for winning; now I think it is not always necessary to win. If only wins bring happiness and when everyone tries to win, the world is supposed to end up as a more miserable place. For every winner, there are tens or hundreds of losers. If happiness is in winning, every win is supposed to create 10 or 100 times more unhappiness.
Also, success is a lousy teacher. Failure teaches you more. - I was told that knowledge is power; now I think wisdom is power. Knowledge is definitely good- no doubt about it. However, as everything else in life, it also has a dark side. We don't talk about the dark side of knowledge. The feeling of possession of knowledge makes one arrogant. It can sometimes take you out of reality. It can make a person stiff, and with stiffness, you miss the opportunity to be humble, the ability to bow and respect the other person. It makes you argumentative. It makes you believe that you are right, and sometimes, with arrogance, and other times with the 'noble' urge to correct/educated guess the other person, you indulge in arguments. Arguments are for winning, and I don't want to win because I don't want to make the other person lose, feel sad.
- I learned to be independent; now I think it is okay to take favors and give favors. Nature wanted the world to be interdependent. Just look around. Everything is dependent on some other thing. If someone needs some help, offer help. If someone offers some help to you, accept it with grace- don't be stubborn. It is not a sign of weakness.
- Be perfectionist. No, I don't want to be perfect. I am okay with what I am. I am okay if I am not perfect.
- Don't talk with strangers: No, I want to talk with everyone that crosses my path. Every human being has a story, and every story is interesting enough for me.
- The more we have, the happier we are. No, I don't think so now.
- Take all that you can. No, leave some for the next person. If you have a fruit tree in the backyard and you find some birds or insects coming to eat them, don't pick all the fruits; leave some fruits on the tree for them. No need to be selfish.
Oh, here is the link to the video that I referred in the opening paragraph of this post.
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