learning | On My Canvas

A Definite Guide to Purposeful, Healthy, and Mindful Living

Purposeful, Healthy, and Mindful Living

What is the main method that we will follow to live this amazing, mindful life?
What is Ikigai and why the hell are we talking about it?
- What is Ikigai
- The story about Ikigai living in India

I had planned to share lessons from the book “Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life” and experiences from practicing a sustainable and conscious lifestyle in this piece. But as I wrote, I also added health concepts I had learned (and practiced) growing up in India, lifestyles I had studied from books, and ways of living I had seen while traveling.

So now this article is a conglomeration of the most logical, useful, and effective ideas — that I’ve found — on living a healthy, simple, and, yet, purpose-driven life.

What is the main method that we will follow to live this amazing, mindful life?

boy getting knowledge from nonfiction books cosmic energy

Out of the 48 or so books I read in 2020, 25 percent—that’s only 12 books—were non-fiction. The rest were fiction books and children’s tales.

I started reading non-fiction in 2017 when I started this blog On My Canvas. I always read stories and novels, but nonfiction wasn’t a big thing around me. Not that reading fiction was a trend in my social circle either. I can count the selected few readers amongst my friends, batch mates, and colleagues at my fingertips.

There was one guy in college who loved Shakespeare and read philosophy. There is a poetry lover and creator who is still a great friend. Some of the elites from Vidya Mandir and other high-class Delhi schools could talk about Mark Twain and J.R.R Tolkien but only seldom did I see them with a book. Or maybe I wasn’t noticing books at that time myself.

best fiction books i read in 2020 cover photo

I write because I read. I grow because I read. I can never be bored because I read.

Out of the 48 or so books I read in 2020, 75 percent — that is 36 books — were fiction. The rest were non-fiction books, children’s stories, and travel books.

Even though most of my writing is personal growth and travel-focused, I also write short stories and personal essays.

And for any kind of creative writing — travel, short stories, and even self-development — reading fictional books is crucial. Otherwise, how would I know how to describe a scene on the street or a conversation amongst two people sitting in a cafe? How would I keep the articles interesting and give them a story arc? A beginning, a middle, and an end, you know.

Apart from helping me write, fiction short story books and novellas are interesting and entertaining. They teach a lot about the history of the world. Fiction books also unravel the behavior and inner workings of human beings. (Here are 21 books that changed my life.)

So while The Outsider taught me how straightforward life can be, Gora and Anna Karenina showed me a lot about the desires and limitations of human beings while telling the history of India and Russia. I wouldn’t have known so much about the Brahmo Samaj and the Russian high class if not for those two books.

Here are the creative fiction books I loved the most in 2020, that helped me understand something better, moved my life ahead, or made me feel as if with the characters I had progressed, too.

1024px-Augustus_Leopold_Egg_-_The_Travelling_Companions reading in a train compartment two girls sitting while the train goes through countryside (1)

Has anyone ever asked you to read books to change your life? I would go as far as to say reading is one of the synonyms of personal growth.

I started reading books, both fiction and non-fiction, sincerely only for the last six years (linked are the best books of the category I read in 2020). But during this time, I read some books that shifted the course of my life. They exposed me to unbelievable facts. They laid open the science I didn’t know exist. They told me stories I could never imagine. They made me cry like I hadn’t before. They made me laugh as if I had nothing to worry about. They accompanied me when I was lonely. They told me life can be lived in many ways. They reassured me it was okay to be who I was. But that I could learn, too.

By a life changing book, I don’t necessarily mean a bestseller.

By life-changing books I mean the books in which the most obvious things have been said in the simplest form; that tell the history of life not as how people want us to know but how it happened; that show life writhing out of the mouth of suffering with full force; that remind us of adventures we had as little children that give sense to our today, too; that seem long and convoluted but essentially they talk about things we have always ignored; that make us reconsider if the thing is worth beating ourselves about; that make us look at life with a child’s eyes again; that make us ask questions we were too scared to even think about; that unravel the science behind all this and help us be a little less clueless; that give us hope that change is nothing but little things done every day; that show us compassion and tell us we are okay as who we are.

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Rules to Live Your Thirties By

On my 30th birthday three years ago, I had written 30 life lessons my twenties had taught me. From exercising regularly to fixing a hung laptop before anything else to not running after money but finding my calling and chasing experiences were the core learnings of my 20s.

As I’m about to turn 33 in less than two weeks, I found myself riding the life lesson wave again. “How am I managing life in the 30s” question stared at me.

Contrary to how it might look like, I always say that age is just a number(as many of my friends told me when I asked them to contribute to this article). Ignoring my steeping age that rushed towards my 30th birthday like a break-less ambassador car and blocking my parents who looked at me as if the time for me to do anything good had gone by, I shifted my life gears in my late 20s — changed my career, left my apartment to travel long-term, found the love of my life, took physical health sincerely, and finally chose life skills over money and ignored short-term gratification.

Though my late 20s lifestyle has poured over into my thirties, life feels different now. Personal awareness and growth have been the top priorities on my mind since I graduated into the 30s decade.

galaxy as representative of questions about life (1)

Important Life Questions to Ask Yourself

I remember a quote that once said, ask the right questions. Over the years I have realized that questions are much more important than answers. Without asking the right queries we can never hope for the right knowledge.

But it took me a while to even understand what questions I should ask of myself. Some of those doubts were always there in the background, hovering, emphasizing that I didn’t understand life. I had a vague feeling that I was dismaying over things that didn’t matter while ignoring the universal realities that would pull me out of my little problem bubbles. But I wasn’t sure. And I never took out time to pin those deep questions about life, and, hence, could never answer them.

The process of questioning deepened when I started writing and reading full-time. As I had redesigned my life from a corporate cycle of drudgery, I was too eager to question everything and to be better at things. It was like I had found vigor again. The more life changing books I read, the more I understood, and the more life questions I had.

As Franz Kafka once said, “Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate… but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.”

The effort continues.

I am putting down some thought-provoking questions that have hitherto found me here. I have followed a natural course and have clubbed thematic questions together.

I have answered all the questions to keep an account of my thoughts on the matter. As you will see, I have some answers, but some of the questions to life still dodge me. You can completely ignore my responses and find your own.

Along with the important questions about life and their answers, I am also putting down the books that have helped me understand the matter.

I plan to update these self reflection questions and answers year-on-year or whenever my understanding changes.

Till then, I present to you the questionnaire of life from my lens.

a girl having fun in the park with books and beetles and flowers as title image for deep quotes on life article.jpeg

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)

_pottery- everything I have learned so far

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.

ubiquotous graffitis in valparaiso in chile.jpeg

Covid-Related Travel Update, Jan 2024: Chile is open to international tourists. Visit the Chile government’s official website for travel-related information and regulations. Don’t forget to read the government’s rules to be followed in public spaces here.

I went to Chile in July 2016 to teach English in a state school. I’m not a trained teacher, but I was volunteering as part of the English Open Doors Program, an initiative of the Chilean government.

All my friends, family, relatives, and acquaintances asked me what made me go to Chile. I told them I didn’t think much. They asked me if I could speak Spanish; I replied I would learn Spanish in Chile.

My family concluded my idea to travel to South America was an immature escape as the journey would leave me all alone and financially unstable. I was sucked into a whirlpool of emotional hurdles stirred by my loved ones who asserted they cared.

I was fired. I had just ended a two-year relationship I believed was my long-lasting love. The Titanic sank. I was going to be twenty-nine soon. Friends were getting married. Babies were being born. I did not know anyone in Chile. I did not speak Spanish.

Before I left, an uneasy feeling lingered in my stomach. Like the one that makes you shuffle through your pockets when you walk out of your home. Later I understood I was scared: of being alone, of unknowns, and of not knowing Spanish.

I did not know that in a couple of months I would learn the foreign language and speak it fluently.

sunset-123926_1920 life river flowing freely

Let Life Happen to You

Let life happen to you — Rainer Maria Rilke told a Young poet, Franz Xaver Kappus when he expressed his doubts about his poetry to Rainer in a letter.

Out of all the golden words that Rainer said, this advice struck me the most when I read the twelve-letter correspondence between him and Franz. Those letters are a brilliant read. But calling them a read would be undermining them.

The art that those twelve letters hold in their hearts thrives with life and hope and advice. That art is like that thunder which roars at night. That art is like lightning which dances across the grey sky. That art is like that twilight which doesn’t know any bounds.

a woman bent with a text of courage of heart and a heart

How to Achieve Goals – My 12 Principles

I hail from a small North Indian town that doesn’t offer many educational opportunities beyond high school. When I was 15, my father took me to Kota city in Rajasthan. There I was to study for the entrance examination to the well-known engineering university the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).

Settling me in a paying guest house, Papa left for home. That was the first time I was so far from my parents.

For two years, I studied. On my first attempt at the entrance examination, I failed. I continued staying in Kota for one more year. The second time I ranked seventy-eight amongst half a million students.

My success didn’t come by chance. I understood the importance of goals even back then. I knew I had to achieve mine.

mountaineer image climbing high to show how elon musk work ethic

The prime-time news and the first page headlines of reputed national newspapers and the gossiping internet forums and the geeky silicon valley blogs have bombarded us with Elon Musk. They scrutinized the guy first for his electronic money transfer system (Paypal), then for his electric cars (Tesla), then for his rockets and space stations (SpaceX), and then for solar energy (SolarCity).

But I felt I still knew nothing about the silicon valley tycoon who manufactures rockets and cars in one of the most expensive places on earth aka Silicon Valley. So to know more about the real-life Iron Man, I read his biography – Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future by Ashlee Vance.