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When we get angry, we end up doing things we don’t want to be doing.

Our actions become impulsive, words get uncontrolled, and thoughts become really fast.
None of this allows us to calm down and be thoughtful.

And we often ask ourselves:

Why does anger hurt me more than the other person? Why do I feel empty after that emotion of anger? Why am I not able to focus for long even though the situation has passed?

Gautam Buddha described anger aptly when he said: “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else.”

When we are angry at someone else, we are the ones who get affected the most. And yet we feel that giving up anger means giving up power..

Giving up anger doesn’t mean giving up power.
Giving up anger means having power that no one can take away.

There are people that have gone on to do exceptional things. 

Changed the world forever. 

Leonardo da Vinci. Madame Curie. Albert Einstein. Steve Jobs. 

What’s a special trait they have?

Were they child prodigies?
Or naturally gifted?

It’s because they kept telling themselves: “I don’t know a lot, I’m still learning.”

In the quest of being a student forever, they became teachers of creating an epic life.
In their ordinary curiosity for knowledge and education, they became extraordinary.

Being extraordinary is going the extra mile by remaining an ordinary student forever.

Do you sometimes feel lonely?

You feel no one understands you, feels your emotions, or knows what you’re going through.

How to go about fixing it?

When we listen to someone who’s going through the same pain,
When we let them know they aren’t invisible,
When we assure them there’s nothing wrong with their emotions,
We take the first step in moving beyond our loneliness.

When we allow someone to walk away from their loneliness, our own walks out along with it.

In the healing and hearing of others, lies our own.

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.

Here’s a small yet effective three-step formula to learn anything: 

Observe. When we see others doing something, our brain creates a picture of it.

Do: Execution is the mother of motivation.

Teach: The teacher never forgets. Sharing what you have is the best way to keep it with yourself forever.

We want to build that product.
Create a community of like-minded people.
Change the way things work.

But there is a lack of time.
Or we are not sure if the idea will succeed.
What will people say if we fail? 

How will we ever know the result until we do the work?

Intentions hold power only when they’re backed by actions.
Otherwise, they’re the lies we are hypnotising ourselves with.

When something doesn’t go the way we wanted it to, our brain goes into default mode of imagining the worst case scenario.

They’re not acting the way they should.
They don’t like me.
They must think I am useless. 

But what if this imagined world is just that – imagined?
How would we ever see it differently from reality? 

Before you assume, try this crazy thing: Ask! 

Your colleagues are doing better than you.
The classmate who flunked in school is doing better.
Everyone’s life seems sorted, other than your own.

And all this makes you worried.
Perhaps jealous of their success.

But why are we jealous of it?
Because we are not focused on our own success.
We are not busy and lost working hard for ourselves.
We haven’t found that calm while enjoying our own journey. 

If we are truly focused on our success, we can never be offended by someone else’s.

An alcoholic father had two sons.

One grew up to be an alcoholic.
When asked why, he responded, “I watched my father.”

The other grew up hating alcohol.
When asked how he chose to be sober, he responded, “I watched my father.”

So it wasn’t about what happened to them.
It wasn’t about the circumstance.
It wasn’t about the situation. 

It was about what they took from it.
It was about the stories they told themselves of what they went through. 

We are the stories we tell ourselves. 

Whom should you trust?
Who deserves to have it?
Who doesn’t?

It’s a big thing, because maybe you’ve been betrayed.
Maybe your heart’s been broken.
You trusted someone and they let you down.

However, is trust only about the other person?
Isn’t it a measure of how much we are willing to invest in a relationship?

Whenever I ask myself this question, the answer I get is: I should trust people. I should trust them not because they are trustworthy, but instead so that they become trustworthy. 

Trusting is not only about who they are. It’s also about who they could become when they have your trust.