The Quiet Moments Are The Best Moments

In search of peace, we go to temples, churches, mosque, hills or any such place where noise is very low. We look peace in this place, instead inside ourselves. We have the calmest place inside our self.

We can meditate, can do Yoga, can do Dhyana (One form of Meditation) or just simply sit quite with empty mind. Do it just for 15 min daily and you can observe the new energy within you.

There is a line from Lao Tzu.

“Peace is in the emptiness. Emptiness is in the fast of the mind.” It’s in the quiet, still moments that we feel what matters in life. Standing on the shore of a lake. Looking out over a canyon. Resting your head against someone else’s. It’s a shortage of these moments that give rise to the feeling that we haven’t lived enough, that we have to keep going. Seeking them out, encouraging them is what makes you feel like you’ve done plenty."

In quest of gaining more, we forget the power of less, we forget to enjoy those, that we already have. We forget to spend time with our loved one's (Parents, Spouse, Kids etc.). We are just running behind an imaginary goal.

Just do a postmortem test on your life, think you are at the age of 65, now you are retired, you don't have any work to do, your desires are less now, you want to spend the time with your loved one's but unfortunately some of them is not with you now: It's life my friend! Your kids are young now, they are married, and they have their own life and they are too in the race of life. They also don't have time to spend with you now, the same as you were not having time to spend with them in their childhood.

We normally, skip the very important things for later in life, but my friend life does not stop for you, it will continue, and that later moment never come. Whatever is there, it is now. Spend the time with your loved ones, do the work you want to do now.

And when you realize this, when you are in quite moments. Spend some time with you only, alone. Just sit calm in one corner of your house or on any natural place, far from any kind of noise. Let the soul talk to you, that is the best conversation you would have in your life.

In a fast-paced world driven by noise, excitement, and continuous connections via mobile, Facebook etc., thanks to technology, I think we’ve lost an appreciation for something essential to the human experience: Quiet moments.

Each person has their own way to spend time with himself, t can be just sit calm and close your eyes and try to empty your mind, it can be just sit and start reading any good book, it can be exercise, it can be swimming. It can be anything that you enjoy doing.

In today's world, we are too busy with technology, mobiles, Facebook, twitter, WhatsApp, movies, news, TV etc. This all things do not matter to you most, when you think in a long term. News and TV programs are momentary, just collecting facts or information does not help you to improve the quality of your life. Increase the number of friends and like on Facebook and twitter does not help you to get a loyal friend and it also does not help you to improve your life. Too much use of mobile also not good, it may damage your eyes and there are many case where people lost their life while they were too busy with their mobiles.

Technology have both the sides, if you use it in proper way, it will help you to improve your life and your work. But if you misuse it, it will ruin your life, your relations, your health.

Now the question come, how do we overcome this noise in our lives and reconnect with our inner voice? Do we abandon society’s progress and values?

The answer is different for each person. These quiet moments can be a simple fifteen minutes unplugged on the deck in solitary reflection. They can be a trip to a local park or outdoor area or a temple, mosque, church. They can be a walk in a quiet section of town with a loved one or an afternoon on a lounge chair. They can be a long, hot bubble bath or an hour on a secluded exercise, swim.

These quiet moments come in all forms.

These moments remind us what truly brings joy and purpose to our lives. They remind us to live the life we have today, and to focus on the beauty around us in the present. They remind us there is so much to be thankful for and that life is a journey we need to appreciate every step of the way.

So, take a moment, take a break, and take some time to find the quiet in your life. For a moment or an afternoon or even a full day, let the sun and the outdoors be your life’s soundtrack from time to time. Let the quietude of your surroundings remind you that life is beautiful and meant to be appreciated.

Most of all, let the quiet moments in life remind you that your inner voice deserves to be heard.

I think the below image is the best help to get more quiet moments in our life.

-Keep reading, Keep learning

-Mahesh

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what you want, the other is getting it

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what you want, the other is getting it.-Oscar Wilde

In life, everyday we need to make many decisions and the outcome of those decisions decide our future. Sometimes the outcome is in our favor and sometimes it's not. When the outcome is not in our favor, we feel measurable and it becomes a tragedy.

Every action of ours have a defined wants to achieve something and outcome of the action had only two possibilities, either we get what we want or we don't get the want.

We always desire something that we even do not know what it really is, but the problem, here, we will not be satisfied by our desires even we get it. There will be always some missing elements, and even our desires will change its forms. However, the interesting part is that when we lose it, our desires for that object will boil up again, which is the other tragedy that we all experience in our lives.

For a moment, let's imagine, that I make you the offer of a lifetime:

I am going to give you rs 100 million, but…you have to accept this money publicly during a widely televised event.Would you take my offer?

Before I even finish this sentence, your mind is already racing about what you could do with rs 100 million. You could own your home, you would never have to work again, and you could say goodbye to your boring job forever. Wouldn’t life be big? Accepting the money is a no-brainer, right?

But think about what else this offer entails. You are worth rs 100 million and everyone knows it. Long lost lovers and friends that you fell out of touch with are coming out of nowhere. They apologize for being too busy to keep up with you, but were “just thinking of you” the other day.

In fact, You now have hundreds of newly found “relatives” who can’t wait to meet you. Unscrupulous financial advisors are blowing up your phone and every charity in the world is trying to convince you why their cause is the most worthy. Forevermore you won’t know who actually cares about you and who just wants to get closer to the money. Who is legitimate and who is a charlatan? Who can you really trust?

It’s easy to see how rs 100 million would arguably improve your life without even trying. However, it’s much harder to imagine the 2nd order (and higher) effects of having this much money.

Remember, money and fame can destroy lives too. It can happen to anyone. While the upsides are clear, the downsides are obscured. You can imagine the benefits, but not the hidden costs.

Felix Dennis writer of How to Get Rich: One of The World’s Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets:

Still, let me repeat it one more time. Becoming rich does not guarantee happiness. In fact, it is almost certain to impose the opposite condition—if not from the stresses and strains of protecting wealth, then from the guilt that inevitably accompanies its arrival.

Or, how about what one of the greatest modern financial writers George Goodman wrote in The Money Game:

I have known a lot of investors who came to the markets to make money, and they told themselves that what they wanted was the money: security, a trip around the world, a new sloop, a country estate, an art collection, a Caribbean house for cold winters. And they succeeded. So they sat on the dock of the Caribbean home, chatting with their art dealers and gazing fondly at the new sloop, and after a while it was a bit flat. Something was missing.

Yet, this goes beyond just getting rich. Time and time again I have seen how our society idealizes things that are littered with hidden costs. We want the great body, but without the exercise. We want the returns, but without the risks. We want the lake house, but without the frozen pipes bursting because we forgot to put in antifreeze.

We can idolize wealth, status, fame, and beauty all we want, but we don’t think about what happens if we ever actually get them…

Be Careful What You Wish For

“There are only two tragedies in life:one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it ”

I believe it’s a perfect example of human thinking, we humans really don’t know what we actually want in life.We keep on discovering what we desires from life.

If somehow we discover what one wants then by “not getting it” you end up by chasing your desire with accomplished DEPRESSION for not getting it.

If somehow “someone gets what one wants ” then you will LOOSE it’s worth soon and it all will seems as a basic thing of life.

When we finally get the things we are chasing after, will they truly make us happy or fulfilled?

-Keep reading, keep learning

-Mahesh

Eisenhower matrix - How to prioritize, what matters

“The most urgent decisions are rarely the most important ones.”—Dwight Eisenhower

We are the result of the decisions, that we made in our past life. It may be the education stream selection like I selected the post-graduation stream as computer and become a software developer, it may be the physical health, mental health, it may be your social life, it may be the habits you choose. Your decision of choosing, decides your future.

We always complain that we don't have time, we are always busy, we are fatty etc. This all are the outcome of our bad choices. We need to manage our time and life properly.

So, it is very important that we should choose right decisions today, so we never regret in future. Now the question is, how we take right decisions? 

We take hundreds of small decisions in our daily life, and some of them are very quick. It's fine to take some less important decisions quickly without much thought but there are many important decisions, we need to make in our life, that may define our future. For those important decisions and slightly less important decisions, we need to give proper thought and then take decisions and do the actions.

To make the right decisions, Dwight D. Eisenhower has developed a decision metrix. It is very simple and help a lot to make the right decisions in our life.

Eisenhower’s productivity is legendary not only because of his accomplishments but also because his methods stood the test of time and worked in various situations. Through various roles and environments, Eisenhower delivered with remarkable consistency for decades.

The Eisenhower Matrix is his best-known technique. It’s a simple decision-making tool that you can  start using today.

The Eisenhower Method

The Eisenhower Matrix has four parts, which you use to categorize the work in front of you:

     1: Important, but not urgent

     2: Urgent and important

     3: Urgent but not important

     4: Not important and not urgent

If you think about it for a second, you realize that the Eisenhower Matrix can help you not only with prioritizing what you work on today, but also with deciding which big projects to work on. The matrix helps you distinguish between what is important and what is urgent.

Whenever something comes on your desk, begin by breaking it down and deciding how to proceed.

The key to making the Eisenhower Matrix work is distinguishing between the urgent and the important.

Urgent tasks are time sensitive, sometimes because we have put them off until we can’t anymore. These tasks can be anything from responding to emails and returning phone calls, to realizing that you’re almost out of gas and have a report due in 20 minutes.

If we’ve put off doing an urgent task that’s also important, then when we finally tackle it, we’re probably not going to think about it as much as we had intended to or as much as we should. We’re setting ourselves up to make poor decisions.

Important tasks are more strategic. They are things we want to get done, such as launching a new product. These tasks are deliberate. We want to pay attention to them and they mean something to us. Rather than being reactive and irrational, we can, with the right planning, be thoughtful and engaged. Because we’re not reactive, we can avoid mistakes. This will free up future time.

For those, who always excuses that they are busy. Tim Ferriss said the below quotes:

“Being busy is a form of laziness — lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.”—Tim Ferriss

Ask yourself when you’re going to deal with things that are important but not urgent. Ask yourself why you’re avoiding what’s important but not urgent. Are you scared of something? Are you procrastinating? Are you too distracted?

How to use Eisenhower Matrix in Practice

I use this matrix routinely as part of my productivity system. It’s helped me stay focused on where I want to go and not get too bogged down in things that don’t add much value.

The conventional wisdom is that you should do the next thing on your to-do list.

Important and non-urgent tasks are scheduled and generally worked on in the early afternoons.

Important and urgent tasks are worked on right away or scheduled and are always evaluated.

The urgent and not-important tasks are usually, though not always, delegated. Take help from someone to help you on this kind of tasks.

The not important and not urgent tasks in the list, no need to attend, just remove from the list. It will save you lot of extra time. example of such tasks: Watching television, doing time pass on mobile, you tube etc.

Time management should be your key decision of the day. Do it properly.

-Keep reading, Keep learning

-Mahesh