Listening is difficult, when you are biased like always

Mind seems to be rational and logical but its not!

The thing with us is that, we make decisions first based on our instincts and then give a cover of logic and rationale.

This is the probably the only reason, why "Art of Listening" is so difficult to master.

Given the fact that I enter a room to listen to a person, and I am pre biased that I am correct, cause I have reasons. How will I ever learn new things?

For being a better Listener, you need to have Doubts. Doubts to entertain, some one else point of view.

Your own growth is your own personal journey and without having a doubt within, your bias will never break and you will never learn new thing.

So what is more important

Having a Strong Believe or having a doubt?

I have believed many things in different phase of my life and I had my doubts.

I would rather live with a Doubt than a firm belief.

After the secret of my Confidence is, "I am as confused as everyone else".

Focusing on Wants over Needs

Last few days I did not sleep properly. One reason was my shoulder is hurt, but the main reason was I was weighing my "wants" being more important than my "needs".

What I need is simple 8 hour long peaceful sleep. What I want is entertainment and a sense of achievement.

We sacrifice of many things our sleep for lot of things.

1. Getting bored, watch more TV or Movies, sacrifice sleep

2. Test coming, study late night, sacrifice sleep

3. Work pressure, work late hours, sacrifice sleep

4. Emotional Situations in family, weep late night, sacrifice sleep.

I meet a man once, many years ago. I was in Canada, working for a client. And I felt very proud that I worked 24 hours straight. He simply called me and told me "If you not going home to sleep at night, Something is terribly wrong with you."

Humans, sorry Rational, Smart and especially Cosmopolitan Human beings live in a virtual world. Its a Matrix of its own, where

1. You meeting your image is very important

2. You meeting your social expectation is very important

3. You being an excellent Mom,Dad or Spouse is very important.

All and all people live in world of thoughts, not the real world.

Me by nature is ambitious and time bound person. Quite opposite to me, is my Wife, who takes life easy go lucky. No goals, no ambitions and no time bound rituals.

I changed a lot living with her, for good. The world of thoughts now doesn't take over my real world. My real world, is waking up doing a small run, getting ready for office. Come Home on time, telling my wife about how the day went and watching either a serial or a TV.

Yes at times, I go back to living in thought world, sleeping less, but the next morning I know the day is a drag.

Today was one such drag days due to me missing sleep. Had a bad office day also.

The solution is very simple and I will follow it. Go home early and Sleep for over 8 hours.

Let's all make Life simple (as in the old days), have a good 8 hours sleep, because we deserve it.

Cheers,

Rohit

Social Remote Control - What will people say?

Social Remote Control

Most of us will deny that our there is a Social Remote Control in our lives. As we grow and become successful, yes we feel much more control in life and society.

But think deeper, some where back of our mind, we have the society having control on us.

Remember the young days, when almost all of us had a rebel inside us. Some managed to keep it caged while others let it free. But if you think of it, those where the days we had energy but also trouble being accepted.

If you tend to see it, till the age 18 almost 95% of our self esteem is determined. Determined by how we are treated by our Parents, Teachers, Relatives and Friends. Some people have a great self esteem irrespective of how the person looks, performs in sports or studies or family background. Others how ever do not have this trait. They tend to fall short some where, either confidence, speech, expressing emotions etc.

Do you see what is happening here? People with low Self Esteem are victim to the Social Remote Control.

What will happen to a child who is constantly being compared to others , being told he needs to become better, he needs to have some predefined ideals. Overall you are telling the child "You are not right the way you are, YOU NEED TO CHANGE". This is what Social remote control does, DOESN'T ALLOW YOU BE NATURAL.

Take example, two small kids playing with toys, one kid hits another, both of them flight. One kids parents scold him, abuse him for doing this. The other kids parent, accept it, kids do this.

See a small action or inaction by parents have a long term effect.

The first Kids will now always look for approval of his parents before flowing his instinct. What a Artificial Life?

This does not stop in just home or School. The best part is in College or Job when we have friends, we are grown up and have so called control on our life. This is the time we have lot of energy. But where is it channelled.

People who think friends are not one of remote control, think again. Any one who has expectations from you is a remote control. The idea here is not to run away from everyone who has expectations but to understand simply how it affect you. Once you know this, accept this, you will see how others don't have control over you.

You are a clean white board and every one wil come and write something on you.

Friends have great bond and so inherently there is either a strong attachment and sometimes expectations. Your ideas of right and wrong (set in your child hood) will now be altered by your friends. Nothing wrong in it, just be aware how much of these ideas are more experience then being borrowed. More or less same thing happens in Job.

I can't speak of future when there are kids and so on, I am still young at 30 and to be yet blessed with kids.

Right, so we know others have influence on us, but why we are talking about it so much.

Because its very important to understand this part if you want to feel content.

You can only feel content or expanded when you follow your instinct. Instinct is what is really yours, even your logic is borrowed from others. Please, my dear friends, learn to trust your instincts, your own self.

The day you start this life changes. You are born again, as YOU yourself. Your actions will be more favorable for you and others as well. Please study what you like, work in the field you like and pay what ever price is needed for it Smilingly.

If your education is over and you are working in the field, which you do not know is your passion. Simply start doing it the way you would enjoy.

Please be Self Centered. Understand the word Self Centered. A person is self Centered, when his center is with in him/her self. This person is balanced. If your center is outside you, how can you be at rest you are always struggling to avoid falling.

So watch what you do, why you do, understand the Social Remote Control.

And be SELF CENTERED, be balanced and be BORN AGAIN as YOU!

Cheers,

Rohit

Loyalty Vs Desire in Married Life

VS

(Photographs taken from internet - People in photograph have no relation to this blog)

Today, I was approached by a person. Who was puzzled by loyalty towards her spouse.

Apparently, she shared some intimate conversation with another person and her spouse found out. Her Spouse apparently, understood the situation and accepted this.

But she failed to get past the guilt and remorse. So much that she could not face anyone for 3-4 days.

Finally today, after talking to her for a while, I explained her a fundamental difference between Loyalty and Desire.

Here is an extract of what I told her

As a person, if you did not have a feeling where you wanted to leave your spouse or you have developed a feeling of disowning and disliking your spouse, the part of bounding is still intact. In such case, be clear in your mind that you want to grow old with your spouse and love her.

The other part is of Desire. Desire is part of Human nature. If you had an sexual desire and you watched adult content and helped yourself get past the desire, this is acceptable form. If we change it a bit to get a live person in between (say talking intimate things to him), suddenly we see ourself in a region of social taboo.

And believe me the guilt comes due to the confusion between your loyalty and dealing with a naughty desire. More over the social taboo, devastates us.

Please understand one thing, I am not supporting you blindly running and fulfilling each and every desire you have (mostly I am talking about the ones not accepted by society or family), you have to gauge the cost Vs the benefit

In the above case, the female I talked to had quite a guilt accommodated in her and it took a while to show her this difference. She was indeed loyal to her spouse, liked him and wanted to live rest of the life with him. The problem being she also had a desire, which kindda doesn't fit in her situation.

Basically, we all have desires and hence we all have secrets. The problem with few us is mistaken identity and lot of guilt.

After a life explaining that, her loyalty is intact and this trouble is caused by desires alone, I was able to give her the message - "Fulfill your desire knowing the cost." Which is this case was nothing really.

In a cosmopolitan environment acknowledging your sexuality and talking about it is well accepted. She just wanted to talk about sex and her desires around it to another person (other than her husband). Ofcourse the cost is to know how your spouse takes if he finds it. And sometimes there are unexpected costs to be paid, but that is the topic for some other discussion.

Overall, to couples around the world, the secret to continuing and fruitful married life is to understand very well your liking and commitment to stay and grow with your spouse. Also, there are incidents in married life, there it is important to understand the human side of desires.

So folks who are married and who are likely to get married, do one right thing, "ACCEPT YOUR SPOUSE THE WAY HE/SHE IS" and accept the fact that "HE/SHE IS MERELY HUMAN".

My 50 cents on being happily married.

Cheers,
Rohit