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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.

The other day I had a 40 year old doctor join my Instagram live. Despite having worked so hard to get that degree, and she was now a full-time life coach.

“What made you make the shift?” I asked.

My daughter attempted suicide. She even left a note. Not only that, thrice she had tried escaping the home. This finally made me think and work with a psychologist about where I could be wrong.

As she continued to tell her story, she added it was much fun and thoughtful to work with youngsters as they are easy to learn and flexible to unlearn.

It was so beautiful to see someone take responsibility for her relationship even though it was flexible for her to avoid it completely.

Isn’t it strange how much we discover within ourselves if we are willing to look within instead of poking fingers (even subconsciously)?

You’re starting something you’ve never done. It’s making you anxious. You find yourself lacking confidence.

What if I fail? What if I’m laughed at? What if my critics say: “I told you!”

It’s impossible to have 100% confidence when you’re starting something new. It’s however 100% possible to know that you will figure it out. That you care about your progress more than what people think of you. That even if you fail, you will own it and make it better.

Confidence that you don’t have confidence as of now but you will figure things out is the only confidence you ought to have.

If it made you happy yesterday, don’t put the pressure on it to make you happy today as well.

We humans change. External things don’t.

A wiser choice is to pick something different that matches your current state of happiness.

One of the happiest definitions of happiness is to know that happiness isn’t rigid. Nothing could be a happier realisation!

Most of us have been raised to study, work hard and get a comfortable job.

Except that most of us want to pursue something else that we love. So we work toward it. Waiting for that big break. Waiting for someone to recognise us. Or the least, to get at least one chance.

If we work hard and if we’re lucky, we somehow get that chance. 

But what happens after that chance? Do we work harder or do we become complacent? Do we underpromise and overdeliver or do we commit and don’t fulfill it? Do we become more fierce or do we lose our fire?

Shah Rukh Khan was once asked the reason behind his success, to which he replied, “Most people work hard to get a chance. But no one works as hard as me after getting a chance.”

Working hard when you don’t even have to, gives success when you don’t even ask for it.

Our parents want us to choose a risk-free path of life. Engineering, CA, lawyer, doctor. Stability was something they craved for. Stability is something they wish for us as well.

However, we have a different take on life. Rightly so, because we have way more exposure, opportunities and options than they had. And most of us want to go against our parents’ wishes and choose the path of risk and see how things unfold.

As we have these conversations with our parents, they may understand our PoV. Or they may not. However, there’s one thing that we ought to communicate to them:
We disobeying them does not mean we are disrespecting them.

Most important things in life that need to be said are unsaid.

To go for the career of your choice. It’s risky.
To choose your happiness over society’s validation. It’s risky.
To leave the comfort and chart for new territories. It’s risky

Of course it is risky. But isn’t not taking that risk a bigger risk?

We chase goals, work hard towards them, and when we finally achieve them, we still feel incomplete. Why does that happen?

Because we tie our happiness to a place. Showing people that you can. Proving them wrong. Making sure you have their respect. It all becomes a journey where we couldn’t care less about the journey, because we have all our eyes on the destination. 

Except it makes us more drained out in the end.

I had a student come over my Instagram Live the other day, who has been practising magic tricks for 6 years now, and baffled me with a few of his tricks on the show. He does not plan to make it full time, nor does he plan to monetise it. 

But just the fact of getting up each day and having something to progress to, has kept him through the troughs and valleys. 

Daily progress = daily happiness minus Conditions attached

Chasing daily progress is the ultimate antidote to the emptiness of chasing goals.