Sam Smith, and heartbreak!
Its amazing what a pair of good headphones can do for an empty evening.
More cheerful music soon!
Until then, I didn’t believe this song could be any better, but this version is as close to perfection as its possible to be! Well, for me.
All of Me. John Legend featuring Jennifer Nettles and Hunter Hayes. (so much alliteration!)
Oh, man. Music wreaks quite a havoc, doesn’t it?
I cant get over this Marc Johns illustration. What fun these glasses would be!
Invictus. Keeps coming to my rescue. The power of words never ceases to astound me.
Having hit a sudden and definite lull in the study marathon, I found myself reaching out to the internet for a pick-me-up. I was flailing and clutching at anything that would help me regenerate that desperate need which fuels the hours in the library. While social media has its obvious advantages, it also seemed to rub in its point about how most of my contemporaries seemed to have a three dimensional life; everyone seemed to be in the reaching out for their goals, travelling and living phase and I seemed to remain, if not regress, into the living at home and studying phase. Suddenly, the goal just wasnt enough. I felt like I was at the 12th km of a half marathon, and my need for finishing was..flagging. This is not such a great place to be in. According to general consensus, this was the time I was supposed to feel adrenaline, and gear up, set a pace, so that I can finish strong, pass with flying colours etc. Instead there was just, ‘meh’.
Then I hit the concept of “delayed gratification”.
I seem to have arrived at this mental bus a little late. It isnt a new concept, but just those words werent quite framed in that way and embedded in my brain. The oft repeated, and severely cliche-d “this too shall pass” has begun to take new root and spread out its branches, like a tree growing caught in time lapse photography. (This may be a terrible metaphor,haha, but it says exactly what I want.
)
Dr. Sean Richardson, in his TED talk on Mental Toughness, says, ‘Keep your eye on the big picture. Tune out the compusion. Focus on your actions, not on your results.’
And, Im not even religious, but I found:
2 Corinthians 4: 17-18 “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever. So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”
Beware, it says delay gratification, not everything. We cant get caught up with the delay, and turn it into complacency.
Here, the snippet about being action oriented inserts itself seamlessly into the tapestry.
The Bhagavad Gita puts it together well;
Verse 2.47: कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन। मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥
Karmaṇyēvādhikārastē mā phalēṣu kadācana, mā karmaphalahēturbhūrmā tē saṅgō’stvakarmaṇi.
Very roughly translated, it says, “Act, and dont worry about the fruits of your action.”
Evidently, the concept isnt exactly just ’emerging’.
2 TED talks, and a Stanford Marshmallow Experiment later, this is what I have gathered.
Make the decisions that are harder, and act on them. Then stick by it.
Effort is the key. Embrace the failure, as long as you are doing everything you can to achieve the goal. You can be action focused AND result oriented at the same time.
The essence seems to lie in the quality of effort and the persistence mindset.
I can imagine that all of this sounds trite, old and repetitive; like stuff out of motivational posters. I obstinately ignored any motivational poster category advice until these dots connected like the stars in Orion, and it all literally just fell in my lap. Into place. Into place, in my lap. I suppose you must really need to ask a question to be able to understand the answers that ‘the universe’ leaves lying around.
As it always happens in these situations, in the end Rocky Balboa prevails:
…and with that unforgettable rocky soundtrack playing in my head, I return to the battlefield of multiple choice questions and negative marking.
Living vicariously through strangers on the net. When wanderlust strikes with a vengeance, and one is stuck among piles of textbooks and travel is out of the question, finds like this post are difficult not to share! Cannot wait to take off for an adventure of my own. Until then, there is always the internet.
Without you
The days are like islands in the sea of the night.
Though there are showers of moonlight,
Why do I find nothing
But fist-fulls of darkness to clutch onto?
Hindi movie songs translated into english? This has got to be an all time low in the standards of plagiarism. Somehow, the song is stuck in my head. Though I know these takes romantic a bit far into the hallmark cards category, I do wish I had someone to miss. Of course, its corny and probably an effect of the heady cocktail of hormones and long days of studying in the library for months. But who doesnt crave a bit of love, a warm hug and a someone to drag along on a walk?
If you come from a strong place, you have the tools to keep things simple, and find constructive solutions to the problems of circumstance and opinion.
Un-clutter your ear for what your intuition says, and you will be able to tell when you are doing something that your principles agree with, when you are making excuses, when you need to push yourself that one extra mile, and when a break wont hurt at all. But to be able to really tune in to it, you will want to get rid of all those outside opinions and judgments that bother you and stick like Velcro to your self-esteem.
Don’t victimize yourself, stop wallowing in self pity. The hard truth is, that it doesn’t move things along, just intensifies the inertia. If you want out of the problem, the only person who can get you out, is, well, you know. At the end of it if you’re stuck, unhappy, disappointed, unsuccessful or not where you want to end up, you may have a valid reason, you may have someone other than yourself to blame. But its still you, where you don’t want to be.
You have to find the solution. Happiness, or success or whatever works for you, comes usually from hard work, perseverance, and a whole lot from your ability to get up every time you fall. Mental strength is defined by not giving up when things seem insurmountable. Another one of those marathon analogies that recurs in my mind like a misbehaved alarm clock, is that while it matters how consistent your efforts are in your running, what really gives you the edge is how well you recover.
Let go of all those limits that you think you have, find some new ones and then push them. Don’t cage yourself, yourself.
Or, you could just be a cat and sleep. All day. 🙂 🙂
Does it wake you up every day?
Discipline. Intent. Consistency. Hard work. Momentum.
Is it at the fore front of your mind? Is it ALL you have?
(yes, I have an exam tomorrow :P)
The Nomad in Spirit 