What is the importance of a grain of sand.? Imagine you have been to the beach. Although it is far away, I have been to the beach many occasions in the past. You can see the waves, bubbles, constant humming noise of the sea, wind and the sand. Truckloads of pure sand dumped and washed by the sea with each wave. You can take a walk on these sandy beaches from one corner to the other, until you meet some rock formation. Imagine you bent down and picked up a handful of sand. Compared to the beach, it is less, but still, something you can look at with your naked eyes, and use to build something on the beach. But now take one grain of sand out of that thousand on your hand. If you drop the handful of sand still there would be plenty left on your hand. Most of them are barely visible. And even barely palpable with your fingers. So, they have lost the significance. As we can comprehend things in life only when they are macroscopic. When it is microscopic We have to find a way to magnify them. So, let's agree to the fact that a grain of sand has no significance in life. Sandy Beach: https://unsplash.com/@zerotake Grain of sand in a building. Let's imagine our grain of sand in a building. If you just remove a grain of sand from the structure of a building, nothing will happen immediately. The building will remain strong. But if you remove a grain of sand every day, still the building would last for few generations. however, will weaken over a millennium. And this is what actually is happening. A real building is losing its grains of sand every day. With a tiny bit of force from its edge, with corrosion, wind and rain, heated by sunlight, crushed by the weight of itself. Tiny atomic bonds loosen and grains of sand just change its composure to become free of bonds. Ultimately the building would weaken and collapse one day. So, Grain of sand is not important, and also, it is utmost important when taken collectively. Now consider this metaphor to the above quote by Emily Dickinson. Forever is composed of Nows - Emily Dickinson. When you consider life, it feels like a beach, a bulding, or a truck load of sand. It seems a lot and it seems important. It makes sense only when you look at life retrospect most of the time. We speculate the future with the amount of sand we see on the beach. However, life does happen with single grains of sand which on minute scale makes no sense. If taken alone, a second in your life doesn't matter. A second of your life during today would not even feel anything, It won't significantly affect the outcome. True? But I have shown you above that all what matters is the seconds. Imagine you stopped existing for a second in your life. I am sure you would disappear and die if that happens. That is how important a second in your life is. But the problem is our minds cannot comprehend a second, only can imagine it. Another example. Imagine a tiny cell in your body. How long does it take one cell to get a mutation and turn into a cancer? It is even less than a second. But if it happens and this tiny cell escapes all the repair mechanisms in your body would develop into full blown cancer in your body and there would be months and years of your life lost! That is how important the second in your life is. So what can we do when the forever is composed of nows? What can we do about seconds of life? There is nothing we can do other than to be aware of the present moment. If we just dwell in the past or even the future, the seconds which create life would be lost. We might not be able to see what happened during those times. Awareness is like the watchman of the Titanic, the ship. If you loose the consciousness to look at Jack And Rose on the deck, you will miss the iceburg and crash the Entire ship. Awareness can cost life! awareness can bult and enrich life. So, there is no time to be aware, as it is just now? The question is what are you aware of? Does it make sense?

Self-discipline What do you feel when I say self-discipline? A form of resistance, right? You will feel like there is some difficulty when you try to gain self-discipline. As mind always like to wonder, like and inquisitive child. It is hard to keep it in a place where it doesn't want to be in. But there are other things. Resilience: https://unsplash.com/@yenvu2410 Sometimes self-discipline feels like we should make an effort. Imagine you are an athlete. You want to become self-disciplined in your routine. You feel like you need to wake up before everyone else and run around. You feel like you need to control what you are eating and drinking. You feel you need to run the same route every day. You need to improve your technique and build your muscles so you can try winning the next race. But what if I told you there are some other aspects of self-discipline that we often neglect and overlook? One such aspect is that self-discipline starts with mindfulness. To be honest, everything starts with mindfulness. For a brief moment, we are aware of our feelings. Consider when you were angry the last time. How did you remember the incident if you were not aware? Before you lost your self-control and made a huge, shameful mess, there was awareness. But it was too brief and not enough to stop your reaction. But what if you were aware that discipline is all about reaction, not the feeling? mindfulness comes before self-discipline Let's consider the case of the athlete. Imagine he woke up early in the morning, as he planned. He walked for 15 minutes and ran for half an hour. The first day was fine. After a week, he would lose his self-discipline and fall off his routine. Unless he was aware of what was happening, he would revert back to his old self. He can be mindful and say he does not like watching Netflix until late at night. That doesn't work. He needs to be aware that there are barriers to his routine. It may be laziness, perhaps tiredness, or sometimes it may be family problems. If mindfulness is there, he can recognize each and every specific problem that might lead to failure and change the variables of his life so there are fewer problems likely to arise, and choose the response in advance using an if-then routine. It is all about making a comprehensive plan, or a system, considering all the failures. How can someone improve mindfulness? As you can see, mindfulness is very advantageous, or we can call it the first domino that falls when something falls apart. When mindfulness falls, there would be no recovery until it is too late and the end of the day. But each and every time, there are brief moments where you can take a pause and bring back mindful awareness. Mindfulness meditation practice is nothing but an exercise that we do to bring awareness to the present. It is difficult in real life when you are faced with real problems, when you are chasing illusions of life thinking it is reality. It is easier to practice mindfulness when you are free, alone, and calm. So, close your eyes and set aside time every day to feel what it is like to be you. This will help to increase the gap between your feelings and actions even when you are "not meditating."

I am not a politician. Even if I benefit from a clean and uncorrupted legal system, I would not be a policymaker. Or run for presidency. You can ask me all you want, I would not even run for local election, or even a leader in the Saturday book club. You would not find me talking about politics, in a forum, a gathering or here in the blog, except as a concept to illustrate a fact. And I wasn't all like this. Corrupted monitors Perhaps, in the past, once or twice I might have wanted that. Furthest I have gone is to become the "MONITOR of my class" Which was given to me by default. The power it gave me was enormous. I could ask the kids in the class to be silent. My mates would listen to me. I could write their names on the black board if they speak too loudly or disturb the peace. As I always loved the peace, I would write their names. If a teacher comes, he will find all the kids on the board and punish them. And only one who would get credit for this action would be me. That gave me the power. I am not sure whose name I wrote, if ever anyone got punished from my action. I would always erase the names. Perhaps it was a tit-for-tat game like described in the game theory. When they were co-operative, I would erase the name. Best game for the perfect outcome. However, I could see myself abusing power. In subtle ways. I know I could never play a drum. I am not capable of singing. When some kids start to play drums, I would write their names on the board. Part of me made me irritated I did not play the drum. Of course, their beats were great, and all I wanted to do was dance, like a monkey. Join them in the beat and make it a mini party inside the classroom. But instead, I wrote their names and erased them later. I am not sure, what I thought during that time. The power of "Keeping 50 students in life" means I have to use drastic measures. Presidency: https://unsplash.com/@claybanks Abuse of power Forget about the classroom. Consider our society there are so many people with so many thought patterns. Doing so many stuff guided by their selfish greed. A politician has to be strong. He has to take rough decisions to keep everyone in line. Send someone to prison and release them to the society when it is time. Just like they like to dance to the beat of the drum. Politicians would be the criminals if they were given the opportunity and the mindset. It's just a matter of human nature to follow selfish patterns. With this corrupt self, nobody in the power of a politician would not abuse it. Unless they are fully aware of it and have a strong enough will to overcome that. I haven't met many men or women who can just do that in real life. Maybe, I have once or twice seen a humble monk, who would not listen or follow their thoughts. To reach that goal, there is a long path of self-discipline. I am pretty sure; politicians are the ones who would avoid such tedious routes in life. So, I can see a politician is someone who is already corrupted and with hidden desire to abuse power, just when you chose to run for Presidency! For this reason, I would not consider myself running for presidency. As the job itself demands corruption.