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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.

Why are we teaching our kids 2+2=4?
Why do we spend our time making them mug up that Delhi is the capital of India?
What is the outcome of this?

What if we taught them the uniqueness they possess?

That there is sheer joy in being themselves without any pressure.
That there is a brilliant opportunity of creating anything we want.
That there is power in letting ourselves evolve into whatever we want.

We want to be accepted for who we are.
To be loved despite our flaws.
To be loved unconditionally by everyone – partners, friends, family.

But do we offer them unconditional love?
Or does our love come with a bag full of conditions?

How will we ever receive anything good if we don’t offer it wholeheartedly ourselves?

The best way to be unconditionally loved is to love unconditionally.

Thoughts occur at rattling speed.
We can’t speak clearly.
We fumble, stammer or ramble. 

Is this what happens when you start presenting your point of view?
Could be an interview. An office presentation. A family gathering.

Here is what helps to speak effectively.
Writing.
Because writing is slow.
We cannot write as fast as we think.
So when we write, we find a way to pace our thoughts.
We find a way to get into a rhythm.

The best way to express your thoughts clearly, is to write your thoughts before you speak. 

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.