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When you’re alone, it is super important to pay attention to your thoughts.

“What am I thinking about? Why am I thinking only what could get worse? What if I expect good things as much as I anticipate bad ones? What else could this mean?”

It turns out, what we end up doing in the world is largely a product of what we end up thinking in solitude.

In solitude, our attitude builds up. 

In lack of it, we’re just a product of succumbing to someone else’s thoughts. 

Last thing we’d signed up for.

Help is a beautiful thing. 

It lets the other person know that they are cared for. 

It helps us feel good for getting out of our own selves and extending a hand to another person.

However, help sometimes does more harm if not done with the right frameworks. 

Two frameworks are: Do they need my help? Am I stable in my life?

Do people need your help: They may not. Or they may do. 

If they don’t but you believe they do, a great thing would be to share your experiences. They’ll get a perspective. To pick help or not, becomes their choice.

Am I stable in my life: You may be going through your own fair share of valleys. Going out of your way when you do not know your own way isn’t an act of courage. 

The best help, in that case, is to help yourself first.

The best help is to get yourself in a position of being able to help. 

A good project coming your way. But you’re not too excited.

You have an important task.
But you don’t want to sound rude to a friend calling to play video games.

You want to study further.
However, you might just avoid it because your parents want you to get a job and settle.

In all these cases, the easy choice is to say yes to how things are and let them just be. 

A more difficult choice is to stand by what you want to stand for.
And say no to everything else.

We say yes more often than no because we are hardwired to be accepted. 

Thousands of years ago we moved in groups in the savannah, because of fear of being prey to the wild animals. 

The savannah lifestyle is long gone.
What is still left behind is fear. 

Fear of being out of the group. Fear of being rejected. Fear of being called a rebel. 

Thus, we never face these fears and end up living a “fearless” life, which ends up as not living a life.

To be truly fearless is to face your inner fears of rejection, say no politely more often, and see how fearless life actually becomes when you say yes to yourself.

Anger is an unhealthy emotion. So we want to control it. 

However, when it arrives, it arrives in a wave sweeping all our resolutions away.

No matter how much you resist it, anger wins each time.

The key is in not resisting it.
Yes, you read that right. 

Don’t resist anger. Rather spend time with it. 

Why do I feel what I feel?
Which need of mine is unmet?
Why am I letting my denial take over where I could have an open mind by rather being a skeptic?

As we answer these questions honestly, there would be no need to resist anger.
Because then it won’t arise in the first place.

The extreme emotions are usually a result of not spending time consistently with our own selves.

When we talk about secrets to productivity, mostly we think they would be Pomodoro technique, having a schedule, working out, etc.

While all of that is true, there is something way bigger than it:
Our rest schedule.

Rest and rejuvenation is not sitting idle, wasting time, and something to be done when we will have more time. 

It is rather a way of getting more productive. 

Because even when we are not doing “work” on the outside, amidst the games that we play, the music that we work on or maybe while folding clothes, the mind is working on its own patterns to bring us our solutions.

And that, in turn, accelerates our productivity.

Old ways (of napping, engaging in creative pursuits, not being busy) are indeed the real gold.

When we are appreciated, we feel powerful.
When criticised, the motivation goes down.
When the economy is at high, things look in control.
When it plummets, so does our feeling of control.

Ever since our childhood, we were coined as “good boy” or “good girl” when we recited poetry in front of guests. 

Otherwise, we were just a shy kid not trying to open up. 

That conditioning led us to believing that we needed to depend on external factors to feel powerful. 

Or worse, it made us believe we could control them.

People’s responses, micro or macro, are a product of their conditioning and moods.
If not aware, the human brain is wandering in different directions and unable to control itself.

Thus, falling for others’ opinions is a recipe for disaster.
It succumbs us into a false belief of valuing things that we cannot control.

True power is when we are able to do things that we can control (self talk, our habits, our mindset), instead of whining about things that we can’t.

As humans, leaders and wise humans, we love to solve problems for others. 

It makes us feel better, and we believe that it would make them feel better as well.

Except, that it doesn’t.

Smart people suffer from a problem called The Curse of Intelligence. 

They want to solve things fast.
Make everything aligned.
Remove the chaos. 

It hardly helps anyone. 

The one whose problem needs to be solved – the company, the family or friend have a certain way of operating that is different from who we are as an individual.

A smart way is to ask questions. 

Questions help them understand the problem better.
So do they help us. 

The best part? The one seeking for help gets it in the manner best for them.

Someone is not respecting you for your work.

Someone else took your important project lightly. Someone else made fun of you.

All this keeps you questioning yourself.

“Am I doing things right? Do I deserve to be here? Maybe they all are right!”

When they don’t treat us right, it’s rarely because of us.
They’re themselves dealing with a lot. Sometimes even without being aware.

Your value is a measure of what you bring to the table, your confidence and cool, and how you have the courage to figure things out when the plan has failed. 

It is rarely a function of what others do to you.

Pegging your value to how others treat you is like pegging your health to the health of others. 

Hardly correlated.

“You must be outgoing and hanging around with people. Your introversion isn’t going to help you!”

Almost every introvert has not only heard these lines, they have also lost touch with themselves whenever they’ve tried to fit into the world this way.

Introversion isn’t being curled up in a room forever and not talking to anyone. 

Introversion and extroversion are rather a manner of how we respond to stimuli.
As author Susan Cain notes, “For some, it’s a Broadway spotlight. For others, a lamplit desk.”

It becomes increasingly important to know this, as 1 out of every 2 or 3 people are introverts. Imagine the collective damage we’re doing as a society.

Like every other important thing, life and our perceptions take a twist when we become more aware. And accepting of our/others’ introversion.

I often talk about suggesting kids in their 20’s to go about exploring different career options. 

But what should you do when you have really found what you love, you’re good at it, and the world is ready to pay you for it?

Double down on what you’ve found. 

Think of what all could be possible and what kindles the fire in you. 

Ask yourself what is the next level in the field you’ve picked.

And then, work super hard on being the best at it.

Exploration never stops. Rinse and repeat.