SOCIETY

Unlock your potential
Make passion your work or make work your passion. Therein lies the key to a happy you
Nishit Lal

Research reveals that in the US a majority of heart attacks occur on a Monday morning between 8 and 9 am, and it starts with a sinking feeling which engulfs a person on a Sunday afternoon. The biggest reason for this could be that people have to go to jobs they hate. People are not doing what they were made to do, they are not playing the roles they are made to play, and they are not incubating the ideas that have been given to them.

Don't let other people's opinions affect your life
Don't let other people's opinions affect your life

Unfulfilled dreams

Don't carry the burden of unfulfilled dreams, it's the heaviest. Life is not a sprint but a marathon and you can't afford to carry the regret of crushed dreams all throughout. Every person is made to do great things but they discover this revelation only when they are at the fag end of their lives. If you are in a mess, you don't need to stay there.

Money vs family

The last words of one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world and founder of Walmart, Sam Walton, were "I blew it." Can you imagine how can a person with billions dollars' worth wealth can blew it? Did he regretted not expanding Walmart across the world? No, his regret was he blow it with his family, he admitted that he wasn't connected with his younger son nor his grandchildren. Money can give you clothes to cover your body but not a healthy soul.

Social death

People kill their desires with the sword of social approval. Social approval is the most commonly used drug now. People have become intoxicated by it. Everywhere people looking for approval - "Is this a good dress?", "Shall I get into a relationship with this person?", "Shall I get a new car now"? What people say about your dreams is not your business, it is their business. Don't let their opinions become your life.

Don't settle for less

A Chinese bamboo tree is unique — you water it, nurture it for four years and nothing will happen. There would be no sign of growth but all of a sudden in the fifth year the bamboo tree shoots to close to ninety feet. When you work on your dream, things will happen. Sometimes you may not see any sign of growth for long. At that moment don't believe your eyes, believe your heart. The bamboo tree is growing beneath. Have faith. People will make fun of you telling you, "Is that all you got after four years!" Remember at that moment that you have to believe in your heart and not your eyes. Napoleon Hill, the author of Think and Grow Rich, said, "Whatever the mind can believe and conceive it can achieve."

It takes at least 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become master of your domain
It takes at least 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become master of your domain 

What can I do now?

Don't just say "I am bored with life", instead ask, "What can I do that is of interest." Don't put your life on snooze, get up and take action. Don't let life happen to you, instead you make your life happen your way and here's the way:

Pump up your drive: Imagine how you will feel when you are doing what you love to do in life. Let this picture pull you towards your dream. And if that doesn't pump you then think "What pain will you feel when you reach the fag end of life without living the purpose you were designed to play?","What will happen when you will engage your complete life doing the thing that you don't like to do?". Get these answers in a dairy and go through them whenever you lack the drive to move forward.

Decide what you want to do: Write a list of skills and talents that you possess, the things which come easy to you, the tasks that you enjoy doing, the problems you love solving all day long. Discover yourself for the first time. At first, you may not get it right but keep trying till the shell breaks and you can see your treasure. You will reach the place where you are meant to be.

Master your craft: Become the Michelangelo of your passion, the Mozart of your domain, because mastery lies inside you — you're meant to be great. Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers found out that the difference between experts and others is the amount of time they have put into practicing their craft. He suggests that it takes at least 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become master of your domain. This comes down to a little less than three hours a day of 10 years of practice to become a world class master of your subject.

Leave a mark: The work you do is an autograph that you leave so let your signature shine in the dullness of the world - even if it's a small piece of work. Sir Martin Luther King Jr. said, "If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well."

— The writer is a corporate trainer and life coach and has written self-help books

 



S
oul Talk

Dogs can get jealous too
Jealousy may not be the sole domain of humans, according to a new study that found dogs can also get possessive when it comes to the love of their master. Dogs exhibit more jealous behaviours, like snapping or pushing their owner, when their owners displayed affectionate behaviours towards what appeared to be another dog compared to random objects. The study by University of California, San Diego, is the first experimental test of jealous behaviours in dogs.Researchers show that dogs exhibit more jealous behaviours when the owner showed affection to what appeared to be another dog (actually a stuffed dog that barked, whined and wagged its tail). Dogs exhibited these behaviours more than if the same affection was showered on an object and much more than when the owner's attention was simply diverted by reading a book. The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Kids with strong reading skills grow more intelligent
Children with strong reading skills are more likely to have higher intelligence levels as young adults, says a new study. The study on identical twins by researchers at the University of Edinburgh and King's College London looked at 1,890 identical twins who were part of the ongoing Twins Early Development Study. The researchers found that earlier differences in reading between the twins were linked to later differences in intelligence. Reading was associated not only with measures of verbal intelligence (such as vocabulary tests) but with measures of nonverbal intelligence as well (such as reasoning tests). The differences in reading that were linked to differences in later intelligence were present by age 7, which may indicate that even early reading skills affect intellectual development. The study was published in the journal Child Development. — Agencies





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