Blissful Life

Month: March 2010

  • Error: Your Soul Needs to Be Upgraded

    The analogy is that our body is the hardware, and our mind or soul is the operating system.
    When you are exercising you are upgrading your hardware.
    When you are learning a new language you are installing a new software.

    But mind you, you are stuck with the same old operating system.
    You might be tweaking your soul with a lot of new software, but basically you are just that same old operating system with a lot of vulnerabilities, missing dlls, and accumulated junk files.
    You learn a lot of new things in life. You learn how to make friends, how to spring back from mistakes, failures, how to be infinitely happy and so on. But very soon you revert back to your old ways, you uninstall those software.

    When you try to ADD a quality to your life, you display that quality for some days, and then you become the same old person. Because YOU are that old person, YOU have not changed. Deep inside, you are thinking that you must go back, you must be you again.

    So, instead of adding new qualities, just change that basic YOU. Upgrade your operating system completely. Just redefine YOU. Let the quality be an integral component of you (a system service that cannot be uninstalled). And thus even if you become YOU again, you do not lose that new quality.

    With every new thing you learn, you must redefine who you are.

    Scenario 1:
    Once you were not going well with others. “I do not go well with others”
    And then one day you just decide you will start behaving well with people that day onwards. “I usually do not go well with others, but I will try to do well”
    And the next day you get angry with someone. “I knew I am an insensitive idiot who just cannot get on well with others”
    RESULT: Back to square one.

    Scenario 2:
    Once you were not going well with others. “I do not go well with others”
    And then one day you decide that you are someone who goes well with others. “Who told you I am bad, I do go well with others”
    And the next day you get angry with someone. “Well, I go well with others, but today is just not a good day”
    RESULT: Just a momentary glitch, nothing to worry.


    So, when you find some 2-3 new qualities that you could have in life, just bundle them together, and release them into your soul as a new OS update. Just be a new person, with those qualities inherent. Be a new you.

    And those qualities will never leave you.

  • How 6,692,030,277 People Live on this Earth

    I like to travel. Because whenever I go outside my home, I see people. The old man sitting right next to me in the bus, the man who is selling oranges, the woman waiting anxiously in the bus shelter, the kid talking to his friend, the youth resting his eye on every one coming his way, the sweeper, the policeman, the drunkard who asks the way to the policeman, the people who smile to the policeman when he answers the drunkard, and hundreds more, may be thousand.

    So, how does that make my life blissful?

    With every new person I see, I realize that everyone among those 6 billion+ people who are living on this earth has a life of their own.

    And then I think how egocentric our lives are. About how our lives revolve around our own existence only. About how selfish we are.

    Because every one of the people I meet, every one among them is doing something. Every one of them is going somewhere. Every one sleeps at night. Everyone lives.
    And so do I.

    I am just another one.

    That thought can bring us a lot of relief.
    To know that we are just another one among those billions.
    To know that our lives are as valuable and as worthless as the life of anyone else.

    And that brings us the ability to empathize. The ability to listen to what others have to say. The ability to feel for others, and be sincerely a part of their lives. The ability to regard their lives as a part of our own.
    It allows us to see the interconnectedness of the lives.
    It allows us to talk to the minds of others.
    It allows us to open up.
    It makes us human.

    We soon start to respect everyone, regardless of what their status in the society, what they are, or what they are doing. We start to love everyone. Everyone starts to love us.

    And when there is infinite love, there is infinite bliss.

    So, the next time you are in a bus, look outside. See a man, think of how he is struggling to move forward, think of where he will sleep that day, think of how many people will be waiting for him. Then think of yourself. Then see another person, think of how she is going on in life. Then see another, then another.

    And by the time you reach your destination, you will be feeling the love for others welling inside you.
    Just pour it out on your friends, enemies, everyone you meet.

    Start loving sincerely.

    Soon you will have a blissful life.

  • Brand Your Self through Personal Branding

    All those companies out there, they are brands. Google, Pepsi, Reliance, Nokia, Vodafone, Adidas, LG, Samsung, Hyundai…
    Think of any one of them, without their name.

    Think of Adidas selling their sports wears without their logo on it. How about a new Google service which does not begin with “Google”? Every one of those companies, and the others out there, have a brand.

    This branding does not come on its own. They need to advertise, they need to put logos on their products, they need to put in their product as theirs. And after all of this they grow as a reliable brand with customers worldwide.

    Not just that, when we hear of a brand name, all the values, all the ideas, all the causes that brand supports suddenly pops up into our mind. So, when we hear Google we will know it is about simplicity. Firefox – open source. LG – Making life good. Pepsi – Selling more (dil mange more :D).

    Now how do we apply that to human beings?

    Let us say a person X has a lot of qualities. X finishes the task assigned well in time, X meets all dead lines, X is punctual, X never wastes time, X loves working late.

    Now, if you were asked to give an urgent task, one that will become messy if postponed, would you not consider X automatically?

    Because you know X knows to manage time.
    Then we say X is a brand in a person. A brand which puts time up in their priority list.

    For becoming a brand you need to have a set of values, which you strictly adhere to.
    Could be Gandhian values (like me), Buddhist values, Islamic values, or for that matter the values of any religion, English values, American values, European values, Indian values.
    Or it could be hybrids.
    Or it could be a new set of values that you define on your own.

    But whatever be your values, you need to strictly adhere to it.
    If you say “you will always be happy”, you must always be smiling.
    If you say “impossible is not a word in my dictionary”, you must display that courage to do anything.
    If you say “I love sleeping”, you must have even tried polyphasic sleep.

    The idea is you must be predictable. If you say “I will be unpredictable”, you must be always (and predictably) unpredictable.

    And then people will know what to expect from you and what not to.
    That way when there is some thing that you can do well, they will know who can do it well.
    When an expert is needed in what you love to do, they will know whom to run to.
    And you will not have to explain the reason behind things you are doing. Because they know that it is your nature to do such things. You will no longer be misunderstood, because they know what you are meaning.
    Life becomes so much more easier.

    So, brand yourself.

  • How to Mess Up Life and Still Be Happy in the End

    Sometimes messing up life can be more delighting than going through the routine systematically.
    How?
    When you do something systematically:

    • You do it
    • You go home

    You talk with people, but you are not emotionally associating with people.

    When you mess up:

    • You try to do something
    • You mess up
    • You try your best to make amends for the mess you made
    • In that process you talk with a lot of people (or may be just one) most often through your heart

    Finally you end up emotionally a lot more closer with those people than you would have in the first case.

    Emotional intimacy converts into friendship or at least a deep sense of attachment.
    That is increased number of people ready to provide warmth to you.
    And in the end how happy you are depends a lot on how warm they keep you.

    So, if you do something as you should have; OK, go home, sleep well, be happy!

    But if you mess up?
    Make amends.
    Try all out to make amends.
    Do not leave anyone unhappy.
    Do not allow anyone to sleep that night with a grudge on you.

    Then go home. Sleep well.
    Next morning you will wake up a lot more happier.

    When you have no problem in life you will be happy; but when you have problems and you solve them, you end up happier.

    Mess up life.