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It’s human nature to be inclined towards people who are like us.

They make us feel comfortable, validate our ideas, and even protect our opinions.

However, they don’t help us grow.
We just become a bigger version of ourselves, not a better version.

What if we spent time with people whose worldview was exactly opposite to ours?
How would our life be different if we were to, as a discipline, spend time with people who have a different worldview from ours.

The goal is not to become them.
The goal is to explore different perspectives, while evolving as who we are.

The people we do not want to spend time with are the people who know something we don’t.

Most of us won’t laugh at the same joke again.

Then how is it that we get upset with the same situation again?
How is it that the same past makes us feel hurt again?
How is it that a painful event keeps us unhappy for years after that?

We react to the stories we tell ourselves.
Long after the story is actually over.

“Can you please ask my son to stop having sweets?” said a concerned mother to a saint, whose kid used to consume sweets incessantly.

“Sure, could you bring the child back a week later?” the saint replied, to which the mother agreed.

After a week when the mother brought her child back, the saint told the child, “Son, eating sweets is not the right thing, and I want you to never have them again.”

Perplexed, the mother asked the saint, “You could have told the same thing last week as well?”

“No,” replied the saint, “I couldn’t. I first had to stop consuming sweets myself.”

To teach the path, we first have to walk the path.

We are constantly fighting for something. With someone.
Fighting with our parents, our siblings, our boss.
Trying to convince them that we are right.
And that they are wrong.

Defeating them, however, is easy.
Winning over them is easy.

What isn’t easy though is to win them. 

Real victory is not in winning over people.
It is winning people over!

What is home?
The place you were born?
The place where you stay?
The place you go back to?
The place where your family is?

Is home a place? Or something deeper?
An emotion?

Home is a place where we belong.
Home is where we would never want to run away from.
Home is a vibe where we could be us, without any.

Home is not just a place of four walls.
It’s an abode where all walls collapse.

You’re loving your journey.
Working hard. Making remarkable progress.
You can see it. Everyone else can see it.

And then you see, there’s someone else more successful.
Getting more accolades than you. 

Does that suddenly make you feel that your success is lesser?
Does that make you doubt your own self?
And perhaps your wonderful journey so far?

To not be insecure of someone else’s success and finding security in your own achievement, is the biggest achievement.

When do we feel bad?
Almost always because of an external trigger – circumstances or people.

When do we feel good?
Almost always because of an internal trigger – something we have done or felt. 

If these both statements hold truth, how is it that we feel bad more often than we feel good?
If feeling good is within our control, why do we allow an external stimulus to make us feel bad? 

If we do not want anyone or anything to make us feel bad, especially when we don’t want to, we have to allow ourselves to be happy, whenever we want to.

How do we truly know what is it that we value? 
The thing that is most important to us.

Whether in our relationships.
Whether in our work.
Whether at our company.

It is the thing we measure frantically.

If we measure sales, as against customer success, then that is what we value..
If we measure bank balance as against time spent with family, then that is what we value..

Anything that we measure the most, is what we value the most.

There is a way to avoid failures and rejections altogether.
By not trying in the first place.

The result: no failure, no rejection. 

And
lifelong regret.

Failure is an answer.
Rejection is an answer.
Regret is a lifelong question you will never have an answer to.

If we truly love someone, we would never call them a failure.
No matter how they had tanked at something they were enthusiastic about.

We would rather appreciate them for the relentless effort they made, how they overcame their fears, and the fact that they shipped instead of waiting for perfection.

Then how is it that we do not love ourselves enough to have a similar conversation, when we fail?

How would that change things? 

Failure is inevitable.
The conversation we have after that with ourselves, is a choice.