The 500th post

This post marks a significant milestone in this insignificant blog written by a nobody.

This is my 500th post.

Wow! Never expected to be on this journey so long! While I am a procrastinator, I realize I can also be unimaginably persistent. You my dear readers have now dwindled to probably a single digit number since I started writing here more than 14 years ago. I sincerely thank you for indulging in my egocentric rants here and patiently reading whatever I have to say.

If you have been reading me for the last few years, I think these are the 4 most important ideas that have impacted me (in no particular sequence) and I believe they more or less keep repeating in one form or another in my blog posts. (A summary of sorts):

1. Minimalism
2. Fitness
   
3. Building Habits
   
4. Meditation and Mindfulness

So, 14 years, 500 posts and I hope this relationship continues - either till death (or Google) does us apart.

 

Mindfulness

So I managed to read the Miracle of Mindfulness a third time. It is a super simple book and can easily be read in a day. It is the only book I have read more than 2 times in my life, because I felt I was too shallow in understanding it.

I realize that every time I read it, I understand a little bit more about mindfulness. While it sounds very mystic and spiritual, it indeed is a very simple concept. The problem really lies in how difficult it is to be mindful every breath of your day!

If I have to summarize my understanding of mindfulness it would be - Your mind has a continuous stream of thoughts (Monkey Mind). How you "react" to those thoughts decides how you "feel" (Fear, anxiety, stress, love, hate, anger, jealousy are all feelings - outcomes of thoughts that came in your mind). When you are practicing mindfulness - all you are really doing is completely focusing on whatever task you are currently doing (eating, sleeping, reading, walking, etc.). From a mind's perspective you are neither engaging in thinking about your past or your future (consciously or subconsciously). Also, even when thoughts indeed come in your mind (which they always will!), you are acknowledging the presence of "those" thoughts, but choosing not to "engage" in them (By not "engaging" I mean you do not "feel" or "drift" with the emotion that your mind generates with regards to those thoughts). 

If you are a practitioner of mindfulness, you might as well correct me. This is my current understanding and it may definitely change as I try to implement it more in my life and potentially understand and experience it more. And if you are not yet a student of mindfulness then I recommend you give it a shot for a few days/ weeks/ months to really "experience" it.

Game of Life

So I am approaching a very significant age milestone in my life. Naturally I have been ruminating about age and life in general for the past few weeks. My current understanding of the journey called "life" is a bit more gamified than before. At this stage of my life I equate it to a game.

Why do I think of life as a game now? Well, we spend first 2 decades of our life learning skills (tooling) to survive the rest of it. If we survive the first 2 decades, then we "apply" these skills and get better at it (experience). As you progress through life you collect coins (salary). The world brings obstacles in our path and based on our "knowledge" (our weapon of choice) of how to overcome the obstacle, we "solve" and move on. There is nothing truly "right" or "wrong". Whatever you do is based on your understanding of approaching life at that point in time.

As you grow older hopefully you develop more skills and/or gain more experience increase your risk appetite and the game continues. Of course there is always that probability that you do something stupid or something happens and you are terminated. The game of course only gives you 1 life (unless you believe in rebirth then you re-enter the game in a new body and start all over again - Life does not give you the possibility to save your progress mid-way unfortunately).

So if you wish to be good at this game called "Life", you need to be continuously learning and evolving. Your only weapon to survive this game is your ability (skills) to manage obstacles. The last and most important aspect is - the journey itself is the entertainment, there is nothing at the end other than the "credits" (a euphemism for game-over) which you are not really looking forward to.