koolhead17
How much should our past matter to us? We can sulk in pain or celebrate. In either case, it is gone. Past is a mere experience.
We try to dive for numerous hours into our past for happy or sad moments. It depends on the current state of our mind. How much does it help? I don’t know.
We are here now, at this moment, breathing with the hope of a better future. Criticizing ourselves or hoping to rewrite it will only make us vulnerable. We can not be scared or over joyous about our past.
I keep asking founders who come to pitch for intros and funding why they are building this. On a few occasions, people walk away being angry. It comes as a rude shock to them.
Our media and glorification surrounding startups have made entrepreneurship some fashion parade. As a result, many of us are not in it for real but for glory. As a result, the entire ecosystem suffers, mass firing says the story. Companies are making no revenue, founders in all glitters, and mic sharing through leadership. Now the cash crunch has made them all naked. It happens when you are building without believing but for something else.
Building anything fruitful takes time, and as a founder, you have to believe in the problem and live through it till eternity. You cannot hire someone living your life and journey. Most importantly, what you believe has to be channelized like wildfire across the organization.
We live in a world where most don’t like the grunt of PPP: pain, patience, and persistence. Nothing creative or marvelous came without it.
Van Gogh, Leonardo Da Vinci, Wright Brothers, Monet, Edison, Tesla, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. All went through it.
Our generation wants everything with a click: food, medicine, sex, etc. The virtue of pain, patience, and persistence is not there anymore. That is where we are all ending up as a monster. We are ending up dumber and sicker with lifestyle diseases.
We all carry distinct faces, which we bring out in different scenarios or with people we are dealing with. As a son, we act differently with our close friend’s circle. We are different from a uniqueness when we are with our lover than in a formal setup.
Sometimes in the journey, we get at loggerheads with society. The conflict arises when all these faces intermingle, which happens most of the time. Very few of us can stay rational and virtuous to manage them by keeping it all in a separate box.
How will we know the depth of the river? By measuring it. How are we going to measure it if not by swimming in it? A painful journey will lead to the destination. Every piece of advice, book, or teaching will have a limited influence on our life if we are not living in the moment and traveling in it.
Most of us give up on life without even trying. As a result, the guilt keeps biting them till their death bed. What could have and not in the past keeps eating their present.
We seek external validation and advice, which does no good. We get lost because we are not taking the journey but leaving it there.
Most of us die of regrets and not taking the path less traveled. We create imaginary obstacles in our way.
Who are we?
What do we want and don’t want?
Are we living our life or the one told us by our parent’s society or education system?
Are we just living our life for the heck of it?
During a conversation with my grandparents, I heard him saying what else he could have done better for himself and his kids.
I asked why he felt so.
He answered that as he aged, he had more time for introspection.
He advised me to do whatever I like diligently and not care what others or society thinks.
It has stayed with me so far.
My sanity, the company of great friends avoiding assholes come top of the list.
It has resulted in losing a few relationships and business propositions as well.
I have no regrets.
I will die in peace.
We are working too hard to reach our goal.
We obsess with the outcome leaving the grader picture.
The author of Man’s Search for Meaning and holocaust survivor Viktor E. Frankl has coined it hyperintention.
You are too obsessed with making money and getting rich.
It has taken a toll on your mind and body.
Even after accumulating all the wealth, you cannot enjoy it because cancer will kill you in a few years.
You want to lose weight.
You are obsessed with your looks.
As a result, you are trying all kinds of foods and drinks, resulting in your liver going nuts. The quick outcome kills you softly.
Somedays, my brain gets into introspection mode.
It will ask a few questions and leave me there.
It feels like a hanging.
These moments become tough on me as I enter into self-critique mode:
It is me.
I am responsible.
It was my mistake mode.
In these times, rationality, stoicism & all the learnings get into the warzone.
It’s me fighting with myself.
It’s overall stress on the downside. Like a headless chicken brain acts stupid, moments like these make me realize that we are humans and that negative emotions can ruin good moments of life.
It also makes me realize how imperfect I am.
Stop being emotional. It’s a vice and showstopper in success. My friends tell me time and again to me. I feel they have lived or met enough in their world that has made them conclude all this.
I see a different world, and the world has a place for emotions. We are still humans. Can we involve ourselves in a cause or relationship without emotion? I see emotions defining actions that can have dual impacts, good or bad. We can always learn and improve. But by living a life like a machine with dead emotions, the world around us would look like a machine, and we are just an operator.
Empathy is the new poster boy in the market.
I see people talking about it and then treating their maids and drivers like trash. They are the same influencers and thought leaders telling you to kill your emotions.
Has it occurred to you that you are absolutely restless about the outcome? The quest of knowing the result makes you work hard or distract you. Would pro athletes or mountaineers go through the same?
How can we overcome this restlessness: walking on the journey, being in the moment? Is it easier said than done?
Why does our monkey mind craves so much for the end result instead of enjoying the journey?
Are we humans greedy? Is our pain the byproduct of expectation and the quest for outcome making us mad?