Tag: Blissful Life

Life, in the blink of an eye!

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“Life is like riding a bicycle”.

Albert Einstein wrote in a letter to his son Eduard.

Balancing work, family, and leisure time can lead to a more harmonious existence.

One should maintain balance. To achieve it, we must be willing to adapt to new circumstances and embrace change.

But, that doesn’t happen too often. Life poses many challenges.

We grow old and lose a loved one. We get fired, get separated, meet with an accident or suffer an unexpected financial loss — any of these can happen when you least expect it.

A loss in life puts us down. But we should learn to move on with the same vigour rather than continue to suffer in pain.

Patience is what we should keep when overcoming challenges.

We all know how COVID-19 hit us all unaware. The pandemic showed how life is impermanent.

We suffered huge losses. Events were postponed, our travel plans cancelled, the economy tanked, many lost jobs, and uncertainty reigned supreme.

Buddha taught Four Noble Truths. 

They can be more simply put as: 

1) suffering exists. 

2) suffering has a cause; 

3) suffering has an end; 

4) and suffering has a cause to bring about its end.

Buddhism and Hinduism share the doctrine that says “nothing lasts, everything is in a constant state of change”.

Even Taoism and Sufism teach the same thing. 

We can’t take our bodies with us and accepting the impermanence of all things brings us closer to our divine nature.

The impermanence of life refers to the ever-changing nature and eventual perishing of all things in our universe. Plants die. People die. The universe keeps disappearing into eternity.

Everything ends.

Our life is recycled into the universe. All stars burn out. The universe will one day fold up, come to a close, so nothing, regardless of how big or small, can escape an ending.

You don’t have much of a choice. There’s no pause button in life.

‘This should also pass’ – should be one’s motto in life.

You’re here for a moment, so you might as well enjoy the blink of an eye that you’re here.

And remember what Jim Rohn said, “You cannot change the destination of your life overnight, but you can change your direction”.

 

All is fair in love and war.

Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.


Evolution is a brutal process. Only the strongest and the fittest will survive.

Millions of sperm are released into the uterus in a single ejaculation.

Conception is an arduous journey. The woman’s egg might reject the sperm of her chosen partner, says the latest research by a group of researchers at Stockholm University, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and The University of Manchester.

The female body considers sperm to be a foreign object and hence her immune system reacts to eliminate them.

And, defying the odds, a lone sperm staying alive in the uterus for up to three days, winning the war, swimming upstream, going on to penetrate the egg and completing fertilization is what we call successful conception. 

Being born, therefore, on this Earth must be the toughest and riskiest journey yet, and one should celebrate the moment rather than regret it.

I’ve won the war, a risky venture against a 250 million strong army, and I have no regrets.

 

Too good a partner. Yet too short to continue! Sorry!

Think of Brazil. A football legend’s name comes up. He’s none other than Pele.

Three-time World Cup champion. 1279 goals to his credit. It’s a Guinness World Record. 

Intentional Player of the Century. FIFA player of the Century. And more.

But we are not talking about Pele here.

Kaka is another popular player from Brazil. He formed part of the team which won the World Cup for Brazil in 2002.

He married his childhood friend Caroline Celica in 2005. They were living happily for 10 years before his wife announced divorce in 2015. 

What did she say the reason for the break-up?

The social media were outraged at what she did say. 

She said; “Kaka never cheated on me, he always treated me well. He gave me a wonderful family, but I wasn’t happy. 

Something was missing”.

She said Kaka was too perfect for her.

A husband as good and perfect as Kaka was too good for a wife. And that means a complete man or perfection in a man can still split a pair. 

How ironical!

Takes Two to Tango!

Stop! Don’t take a restroom break!

Look at the image. (A Reddit user posted this abominable circular pasted in a company located in the USA). 

Doesn’t that sound so ridiculous? But don’t be alarmed. That’s how many companies across the world function nowadays. 

Time is precious. 

Agree, but when did companies start treating staff who go for a leak (during office time) as criminals since?

Companies often base their rules upon staff wasting time at restrooms, helping themselves with many cuppas at the coffee machine, chatting at the desks, browsing, checking (personal) e-mails and spending time on smartphones etc.

They impose strict rules so that staff put in more productive hours than wasting time during those needless breaks.

Remember what Mr. Narayana Murthy of Infosys said? He asked the younger generation in India to spend 70 or more hours in office so that India would become a superpower soon. And you know how outraged the social media were.

My boss was worse. He was Asian-British.

 

I worked for a multinational media company based in the UK. We had employees from all parts of the world, including people who are native British. 

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On Fridays, he made sure he would stand at the exit and wish the British and the non-Asian staff a ‘happy weekend’. 

He would appear at where most of the Asian staff (on work visas) worked and tell them to finish up the day’s job however late it might take. Some he would ask to report to work on weekends too. How audacious!

He had staff exclusively to monitor employees taking breaks. There were occasions he showed CCTV footage that helped him count how many pieces of pizza staff ate during meetings. He was so disgusting.

The emphasis, as they say, might be to increase productivity, but the question is; at what cost?

The image we see, asking staff to ‘use restrooms before the start of work’ evokes laughter in the first place. Will the staff hold up when they feel like going for a leak? 

And the company, as the circular says, will deem those who take a restroom-break after punching-in to have committed a “time clock fraud”. They might be getting the boot. How sad!

The image sent the social media into a fit of anger and one aggrieved customer asked; “Funny how they don’t mention the time clock fraud of telling you to work over a scheduled hour or work through breaks”.

This will surely make most employees lose motivation to work. 

If you keep them at the desk for longer hours without a break, they will appear to be busy working rather than seriously working. 

As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. 

Job Up for Grabs! Apply Now. Free!

What job would you do for free?

Wanted! 

A job as minister. The job involves collecting offerings from people and splitting them with the Lord.

What should you do?

Sit each week. Throw the money into the air. Let the Lord grab whatever that’s sent up. You keep the one that falls on the floor.

Anyone can apply! This is a job for free!

No experience is necessary. 

Keep a strong arm and bring your own bag. But no plastics, please.

Best wishes!

Home Alone! For Two (Looooong) Decades!

Monowi, Boyd County, Nebraska, USA.

Meet Ms. Elsie Eiler, who is a 91-year-old solitary soul living in the town for two long decades. All alone.

She and her husband, Rudy, had been the only residents in the town, but she sadly lost her husband in 2004.

She’s the mayor, treasurer, clerk, secretary and librarian. And she owns Eiler’s Monowi Tavern Restaurant and Bar. 

Tavern has been her longstanding job since 1971. She has been pulling it through despite her age.

Monowi was once a railroad town in the 1930s with farming as mainstay. There were about 120 businesses, including grocery stores, restaurants and even a prison. But people moved out seeking jobs in the cities.

Eiler hit the headlines when people read about her on the internet. They visit her for the curiosity, food and a pint of Budweiser.

She serves them six days a week. Her lonely life now is separated between just three buildings: her home, the tavern, and Rudy’s Library, a small building with 5,000 books. 

She is an embodiment for simple (single) living as doesn’t even own a smartphone. All communication happen through a fixed landline phone.

Seeing her steely determination, Prudential Financial once filmed a commercial with Eiler and titled it suitably as the ‘Quintessential Independent Woman’ 

Source: http://www.eater.com 

 

Keep the good. But give the bad, the ‘kick’!

What strategies do you use to cope with negative feelings?

No big strategies. Just plain reading of how our brain works. That will do.

I’ve read on the internet that our body has a natural response to both positive and negative thoughts.

Our body secretes a hormone called dopamine when we read or hear good news. India winning the test series against touring Bazball-England should make us happy. So that’s loads of bright bulbs in the brain. No damage.

But, there’s a villain hormone at the same time. It’s called cortisol. It begins to flood the moment when you know you run to work late. And it doubles up in a deluge when you see the traffic on the road is moving too slow.

So our body basically plays both a good and bad cop. The bad guy is noticeably the dominant of the two. It’s tough calming him down.

There are no quick fixes to kill a bad thought, to say honestly. We should see the situation and act accordingly. 

Give an example.

Imagine, the traffic is now cleared. You start cruising along. Suddenly, you hear the sirens and an ambulance appears quickly in the rearview. Flashing and asking the right of way. You know clearly there’s someone in need of an emergency.

How would you react? Give way or keep pressing the pedal?

Giving way should naturally be the best way to react. Because you know you should help save a person in trauma. And the law says to give priority to an ambulance.

The same is the case with all negative thoughts put together. When the thought knocks at the door, do one of the following. Without thinking twice.

Just give in.

Walk away.

Drink a glass of water and relax.

Take a cold shower.

Shut down the phone.

Take the dog out for a walk.

Visit a local store and buy some candy.

Feed the fish.

Visit the beach and watch those waves kissing your feet.

Pay the guy at the balloon stall and pick up the gun. Check how good your aim is. 

Give no space for negative thoughts. At all.

Till about time your bad cop ‘cortisol’ runs completely empty. Leave no trace of him.

Life is a battle of wits. Keep calm when you win. Laugh whenever you fail.

Keep the good and give the bad cop the kick. On any day.

Be the winner. Always!