Perception

 Let me start with a question!

What is your perception of life? The perception of life keeps changing. Atleast for me, it had changed quite a few times. The different experiences in life along with time, had given rise to new perceptions, I believe. And each time it happened, it had opened windows of new experiences and opportunities which changed the way i look at my life.

I was talking to a colleague of mine a day back, about his 3 year old son. About those kids who are full of energy. From the moment they wake up to the moment they sleep, they are full of extreme enthusiasm and energy. Maybe because all they want to do is, be happy, doing whatever they feel like and nothing else really bothers them. During my Childhood, I still remember spending hours and days trying to learn to spin an old wooden top, which comes with a rope. I had to wind it around the top and throw it, pulling the rope back somehow so that it would start spinning on the floor. I remember when i was at my hometown, cursing the top because it would never spin even after i tried it a hundred times. At the end when i learned to do it, i felt like i had conquered something huge. If i was given the same top now, i would never have had the patience to spend so much time to learn that. My Colleague was telling that even if he scolds his kid, he would wake up the next day with a fresh mind and same enthusiasm, as if nothing had happened because they don't really care. Its envious to see kids being so carefree and happy and thinking of those moments usually makes us miss those childhood days, and we feel like we want to be that kid again.

The joy starts fading when you let your senses and feelings take over you. I have always noticed the kids who start going to school, who always have the enthusiasm to learn, because all they have to do is learn new things and they have absolutely no pressure. The whole concept of learning becomes a nightmare when the exams kicks in. It is not about learning new stuffs anymore. It is all about scoring 100 on 100 and if you don't, then you will be compared with that topper, which I d to hate like anything. It is when the we start to see the different side of life. With these kind of incidents my happy childhood started fading away. I still remember when we had a sports in my Kindergarten, years back, there was a competition of throwball, in which i participated with a lot of enthusiasm and effort. I had to throw a volleyball as far as i can to win the game and I was not able to win. I was depressed when all the friends in my van came in the evening with prizes like plastic bats, and footballs and i had none. That was the first incident that i remember,  where feelings started taking over my happiness in life. Life started giving me more hardships in different forms one by one after that. It came in the form of Attention,Grades,"What people might think" and so on.I was made to believe the system, that if i don't do certain things which the majority does, I may fail in life. Most of us might have had similar experiences. It is all about how the society makes us trained to live under the mis-concept of pressure and attention.

I was watching a movie a few days back. "Insurgent"

The concept of the movie was just brilliant.A city had 5 groups of people who were supposed to do only what they are good at. Each groups were specialists, who did different roles like farming, Science and Research, Maintaining law and order, The ones who runs the government, and the Soldiers who protect the city.

Everyone had a day when they are forced to go into either of the groups.If someone had interests or skills in more than one field, then he was considered to be a divergent and as a threat to society. 

The second part of the movie " Divergent" comes with a twist to the plot when everyone in the city realises that divergents are the ones who will change the face of the city in future.

The concept was interesting for me as this was something which was happening around me quite often.

During my high school I had a group of friends who had ideas to start their own music band because they were extremely good at it, and they knew it. They were not so good with academics and they were set as  examples. But later by breaking all the misconceptions and struggling through their dreams they came up with the Band of their dreams and then people started accepting their efforts.

When i wanted to start a company during my graduation, I asked a few of my seniors who already did that and all i got from them was a lot of discouragement. After being discouraged from my dream for a couple of days, i decided to start over again. I had to struggle  to set the company up. I was more focussed on company than studies and hence I started facing a lot of criticisms. Only because i decided to face them, I had my own company registered since my second year of graduation and who ever I am today, is only because i took the first step, back then.

I had a friend who had almost dropped out of college to follow his passion, interests and startups and I still remember the hard times the college used to take him through for not being able to attend classes as he had to focus more in his interests. He heads a company now and has employed many of his friends as well.

So the whole concept of the story being how the society tries to pull us down when we try to do things we love. Because it is only when we do things we love, we start enjoying life and we become successful. 

Some of us might be already doing what we want to do, whereas some of us will be struggling to reach there. But which ever the case is, it is never too late to achieve your dreams or to find your passion.

I will be adding a blog on that here, soon

So whichever phase of life we are in, it is extremely important to be happy and not to give a fuck when life tries to fuck us. I started to think different when i met certain mentors in my life accidentally, But they have given me new concepts and perceptions of life. One of those perceptions which i follow now is by recreating the same life as my childhood. 

From what i have experienced, there are a few things that helped me in this.

1. Not Expecting

         It took me over 18 years to realize that expectations are all what causes this ups and downs in life. I have been trying hard not to expect anything since the past few weeks and believe me, it had a huge impact on my life. Now when certain good things happen in life, it gives me immense joy.At the same time if nothing happens, Im still happy because i wasn't expecting anything.

2. Enjoying what you do

        Not expecting doesn't mean that you should just let go of your life. You should always do what is needed. To make that clear, if you want to achieve something, put in your best effort and enjoy the work you do. Focus on what you want to do, and work as if there is no pressure on you and the results will follow.

There is something related to the how we can shape our future in the way we want it, just by the power of our subconcious.I will be adding that blog over here soon.

3. Dealing with the Energy Vampires

              There are three types of people.
1. The ones that give you positive energy and motivation to hit the life back with all you got.
2.People that neither give you energy nor takes yours
3.People that drains out all your positive energy or motivation.

You get limited energy everyday and it is similar to a cell phone. You energy graph gets to the peak when you sleep by gaining more and more energy and you are left it for the rest of the day. I charge my phone twice a day. But it is not possible to sleep twice a day to just fill up the energy. So you have to bring in your power saving mode just like your phone, for your life as well.
You can decide where to invest your energy. Whether to invest in people who give you back good thoughts or more energy in return or with energy vampires. Energy vampires are people who drain out all your energy and leave your rest of the day as a mess. The best way to deal with energy vampires is to spend less time with them. The more you extend a conversation with an energy vampire, the more exhausted you end up being. Keep the conversations short and end the phrased with a fullstop rather than a question mark.
When he/she asks you 
Hey, How are you?
End it with
Im doing great. Thanks :D
Rather than
Im good. And how are you? (Because do you really care of he is doing good or bad? :P)
Because the question marks takes you to more troubles than full stops .

The concept is as simple as that, and now it is we who have to decide how to plan out the day.

4.Stop stalking on your competitors

        It can always be a tendency to check if your competitor is a step ahead of you or not. But the question is why should you care?
If he/she is ahead, you get tensed trying to speed up your pace, which most of the times takes you into a mess.
If he/she is behind you relax and slow down and eventually you end up being behind.
Best thing is to avoid this and focus on your part. You may cross him at any point of time.  Because become more focused on the person ahead ,you are more prone to cover up what you are good at with envy and depressions.

There may be even more things which can help you to be happier or pleasant through out the day, but these 4 points will definitely bring about a change.


If it helps and if you are trying it out, do let me know how it goes in the comments below.
Looking forward to see more happy faces!