Let me recite a story from Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habits. This is a true story of a woman named Lisa(as per the records) who was the subject of a scientific study for understanding behavioral change and habits.
Please note: Though the story is the key to appreciate this article, I am summarizing the story for those readers who don’t want to read it. If you want to read the story, go to it here. Else continue reading the summary.
Like many others, I read about the lives and work of many great artists, writers, physicists, musicians, innovators, and thinkers. But rather than quoting them, I generally prefer to share my interpretation of their ideas. I feel I haven’t assimilated their words well if I share them plain rather than kneading them with my thoughts.
Benjamin Franklin, Elon Musk, Virginia Woolf, Ruskin Bond, Rainer Maria Rilke, Vincent van Gogh, Marcel Proust, Nietzsche, Josh Waitzkin, and The Little Prince of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry — I’ve adapted lessons, inspirations, and visions of all these great human beings.
But it is not always about the source or amalgamation of motivation. Ideas and inspiration need to keep floating in the universe irrespective of where they come from. After all, we are only the means to an end, and we all need a guiding light.
In this piece, I am sharing some of the most deep, inspiring quotes about life I have come across. The hope is to read these avant-garde quotes, to come back to them whenever we need them, and sift through them even when we feel we don’t require them. Thus we keep ourselves soaked in inspiration and don’t let it deplete.
Let the journey of imagination and belief begin. (Also Read: What is Self-Improvement)
The Artist is no other than he who unlearns what he has learned, in order to know himself .
E.E. Cummings
While writing full-time for almost three years now, I have spent a lot more time looking inwards (and would continue to do so) than I did before. When I reflect on myself, I see how imperfect I am. With this self-knowledge, I am able to look outwards with more compassion. I have also realized that life, though, complex, is also simple. It all depends on how we look at things.
These growing insights into the external and internal world lay the foundation of my personal growth and creativity, both of which, in turn, help me understand more. (Update May 2022: I’ve been reflecting inwards for close to five years now. And I’m updating this list of things I have learned as per my current understanding. I also have my learnings from the year 2022 written down separately, in case you want to look at the latest only.)
Learning paves way for more learning.
In this piece on the most important lessons in life, I share everything I have learned so far. I have penned down the ways that help me simplify things. I believe that all that is important must have made itself available to my mind and heart while I’m writing the article. And if I have missed something, either I do not care about it enough or the learning will appear in some form later.
This collection of lessons is more a cheat sheet for me and less a guide for a reader looking for life’s wisdom. But I do hope I have shared experiences that will help one sail along this immense sea of life with a bit more ease.
This list of life learnings is long with sections randomly arranged. If you like the article, consider bookmarking it to return to it later at a time of need.
While you are here, also consider checking out my collection of deep meaningful quotes on life. I have put these together from years of reading.
You don’t always have to find your passion to create an enjoyable and fulfilling career. Instead, you can follow your curiosity to build a career you will love.
In this essay I will show you how.
First and foremost.
I changed my career at 30 – quit my investment banking job and shelved a CS degree to write – so I better not be against following passions.
As much as I am a spokeswoman (and a living example) of following the ethereal path of doing what you love to do, finding a passion is hard, and pursuing it is even harder.
A software engineer by education, I was once a coder and an investment banker, but now I write full-time.
In this essay I talk about my six-year-long journey of thinking of a career change, why and how I quit my job, and finally went through a career change at 30.
If you are looking for a career change in 30s, I would recommend you read this piece for I have given an honest account of my own journey from coding to writing.
Let’s read.
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A lot of us get bored with work. But we think that it is okay to get bored at our jobs and we continue working. In this article I unfurl why we expect work to be boring, why it shouldn’t be, and how does this belief harms us.
We always say that work is supposed to be boring — because adults separate the idea of fun and work early on for us.
Since childhood, we are trained to think that work sucks. We are told that we should play all we want for we would have to work one day. We see elders going to their jobs, but they don’t seem to have fun — they say that work is something they have to do even if they get bored at work and don’t enjoy it.
No one ever mentions having a good time as part of a profession/job, and we start believing that work is a dull thing grown-ups do to earn money(the more the better) irrespective of how they feel about their profession.
Now no one can ever enjoy 100% of her work 365 days a year(I’m happy if you do) but the problem arises when we are mostly bored of work and do what we do to only get money.
We witness enough close people following the idea that work is boring.
My father opened his shop every day of the week except Tuesdays. He never complained about his business, but he never cared if he enjoyed his work or not. He was only concerned about making enough to raise his family. Our teachers, relatives, elder siblings all seemed to pursue a career to earn at their maximum potential.
Fun was never discussed in the context of work and even frowned upon. In his book Le Petite Prince, the French philosopher Antoine de Saint-Exupéry raises similar thought-provoking questions about adults keeping their matters of consequence disjoint from (and above) fun.
You want to work or all you want to do is have fun? Someone would say when we created a game out of a mathematics problem.
From our younger years to adulthood, we grow up concreting the idea that something we enjoy can’t become our career.
But this isn’t true. Let me tell you why.
One of India’s most popular writer Ruskin Bond was born in 1934 in Dehradun, in the foothills of the Himalayas. Ruskin’s parents—both British—got divorced when he was four. After a few years of the divorce, his father put him in a boarding school in Shimla for he couldn’t keep the little boy with him.
Ruskin was only eleven when his father died of the plague in the second world war in Calcutta. After his father’s death, Ruskin continued studying in the same school in Shimla and lived intermittently in Dehradun with his grandmother and mother. When Ruskin was seventeen, he went to London to get a job there and work. His mother had insisted him to build a career there.
But neither did Ruskin like London nor did he enjoy his job. He wanted to become a writer since he was a little boy.
Productivity is a measure of doing things efficiently. It is the rate at which you deliver work.
We adults constantly worry about our productivity.
I wake up to a long to-do list. By the end of the day, I have only picked a few items from the top. Even after working all day long, everything important still seems to be in the queue.
Rather than thinking about what I have done, I think of the work I haven’t done.
One blog post is published. But what about its marketing? I made that phone call. But what about the email I had to send?
Some days, I don’t work with a task list. On such days, I am hazed in the cloud of things to do and cannot focus on one thing.
Pending tasks hover in the sultry evening, and then it is a never-ending game of self-blame.
When I went to Chile in 2016, many Chileans asked me if I knew yoga. While traveling around South America for nine months, I realized the popularity of yoga in the world.
Apprehending the vast influences of yoga and seeing the craze of the westerners towards India and yoga, I became a wanna be yoga learner.
In those immature years of my life, I wanted to be a solo female traveler who also did yoga. I wished to bend myself one-eighty-degrees on the sultry Goa beaches and the summits of the mighty Himalayas alike.
After all, the social media pictures of yoga teachers and practitioners over the internet kindle enough narcissism that you forget the real purpose of yoga (if you ever knew) and only admire the overwhelming curves on the trending photos.
Yoginis look like the epitomes of Urvashi from the Indra palace. Maybe we can compare the Yogi to Shiva who is said to be the first-yogi or the Adiyogi?
Those yoga pictures look as perfect as the postures held in the frame, but remember that pictures don’t tell the entire story.
Yoga is not about a few jazzy posts on Instagram or Facebook. And I kept this in mind when I traveled to Dharamshala and practiced yoga there.
Yoga, a word derived from the Sanskrit word Yuj meaning join, means union — of the mind, body, and soul.
Yoga is not only comprised of Hatha yoga and physical exercise but it is an ancient science which has various methods to amalgamate mind, body, and consciousness. Practicing wholesome yoga leads one towards personal awareness and development.
We all hope to become a better version of ourselves. I want to be a better writer. My partner wants to be a good coder. My friend wishes to be a reliable mother. You dream of winning a swimming championship. Someone fancy playing the piano as Lady Gaga plays.
But how to achieve our goals? One method to get to your goal is to possess the willpower to get up and do the thing every day. Another way is to form a habit (I will explain what are habits as the article progresses) which you practice regularly to move towards your goal. I should develop a habit of writing daily. My partner can become an efficient coder by developing a habit of focusing on his code quality. My friend has to create a habit of not losing patience when her child annoys her. You get my point. (In the linked piece I have shared 23 small but good habits to have that can change your life.)
But you might ask the difference between having the willpower to do these things regularly and forming a habit to practice them as a routine? Both ways need you to work.
To make this distinction clear, we will understand habits in detail.
You would encounter sharp rocks jutting out of every mountain you wish to climb. Through my perseverant journey as a new writer, let me show why you have to go on even if your hands bleed. Never give up. Fight for your dreams. It is the only way to succeed.
You start. You are exhilarated. You shriek at the top of your voice from the roof of your confidence. You laugh from your stomach. You give long motivational speeches to your friends about how they need to start living. You wake up singing a tune praising the morning sunshine. You look forward to Mondays because life has taken a route you could only dream about.
People say you are inspiring. They applaud you. Your friends like and share everything you post. They read everything you write. Some of them even help you correct the grammar. You are glad as getting set right by friends is better than being ridiculed by unfamiliar readers.
You don’t worry about the money, yet, as the savings save you. Your family is appalled by your decision. But they don’t say anything this time. The last time they did, their words dug a deep valley between you two.
Your Mac is your new Nietzsche. All your philosophy seems to pour out of it.
