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I’m addicted to YouTube.
I’m looking forward to F.R.I.E.N.D.S. reunion (we all are!)
If I start watching reels once, there is nothing stopping me!

Habits that stop us from doing productive work. Habits we believe we have no control over.

What if we delete the apps? Or turn off WiFi at a specific time daily, no matter what? Or build an empowering self image?

To exercise control over an addiction, exercise control over it.
Sounds simple, not easy. Just like all valuable life advice :)

When you’ll do things their way, they will be happy. And so you kill your own happiness to make them happy.

However, they still don’t get happy. Guess what happens? You aren’t happy either.

Why not do what makes you happy?

If you’re getting it right for others, you are certainly not getting it right at all.

The past few days have been severely unpredictable for everyone. No one is certain  when a more stable time will arrive.

For those of us who are not directly in the jobs of helping someone through our work, we begin to question the purpose  of our work:

Why am I selling luxury products while so many people are dying? What’s the purpose of me ordering from Amazon to put someone else’s life in danger? Should I even think about marketing?

All of this is true. And very human.

However, here’s the flip side: Your work helps people be optimistic about the future. Your work helps thousands of families gain employment. More than anything else, your work is an example of staying true to your responsibilities while taking care of everything else. That’s huge!

All of us cannot and need not be on the front line. Being in line with your thoughts and reality is as powerful.

Asking for help is a powerful thing. It shows we are ready to go beyond ourselves. 

However, keeping it open-ended and expecting “any” help is shutting all doors for help.
Stuck in career? Do you want help with referrals or want mentorship?
Having a feud with parents? Do you need help with solving it or do you need help with how to figure out living on your own?
Feeling hopeless? Do you need hope or do you need someone just to listen to you?

When we are specific in seeking out for help, we make it easier for the other person to help us. And for ourselves to be helped.

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 someone else’s product of solitude. 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 humans are hardwired to be wanting 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. 

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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 little time consistently with our own selves.

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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.

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!

People, 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.