I'm just a floating leaf on river waters. Flowing downstream, washed by the stream. I go with the flow fast and slow. How far I will go, nobody would know. Destiny awaits in the seas. Why does a leaf float on water? Scientific explanations first. Scientific explanation is that due to the spaces inside the leaf which captures some gas, in its parenchymal cells a leaf is less dense than water and have a buoyancy. However, as time goes by more and more air will be lost and the gaps will be filled with water and the leaf will become heavier, until it starts to sink in water. Some plants living in water makes oxygen, and air trapped underneath the leaves. And this helps them with floating. Examples for this include water lilies lotus and water shield etc. https://pixabay.com/photos/leaf-vein-pattern-foliage-tree-4139030/ Floating life of a leaf on water. Have you ever taken your time to be by a stream. If you haven't let me remind you what I have seen. I have seen, slow moving water streams. When a leaf falls on the water it floats and gets washed downstream. Does it ever go upstream? no, it doesn't. A leaf always follow the water down the stream. When the stream is narrow, it travels hurried in turbulence. When the stream is wide, it slows down and reduced in speed. Sometimes it goes into a stagnant pool of water and stay afloat there. After hours or days, it gets soaked with water and become heavy, and it slowly sink down to the bottom of the sea, to degenerate there and either become food to some small creatures or become elements and enrich the bottom of the sea. Have you ever thought about this? How similar our lives to a floating leaf in a brook? Let's compare our life with a floating leaf and be amazed of the nature. Similar to a leaf, we are dragged by the powers of the nature. When I was a student, I had hard time controlling my feelings. And someone wise said to me "control yourself". The exact words still ruminate in my mind, because I wrote about it. I wrote, "control yourself is the best advice I've got" which was not true. I knew it was not true. But now I know why. If thoughts of my mind is like a floating leaf, it is bound to flow with the current. There is nothing the leaf can do about it. If the leaf thinks the leaf can change the direction, the leaf must be mad. The leaf is powerless, helpless against the nature's forces. If you stop once in a while to look at yourself, you will notice this. From morning till night, the leaf of mind just floats this way and that way, to whatever you hear, to whatever you see, and whatever you feel. The leaf has no choice . Poor, poor leaf. I would feel sorry for every leaf that floats. https://pixabay.com/photos/underwater-photography-pond-plants-1529209/ Similar to a leaf, we cannot go back. We cannot go back to our past and change anything. Leaf can only float downstream. Maybe slow, maybe fast. How far the leaf would travel will be determined by the current. And they travel alone on the river. Although surrounded by some similar leaves, they will separate. They will meet new leaves along the way. But from start to end, only the leaf knows where it has been, what it has seen. So, from the perspective of a leaf, it is a lonely journey. Like a leaf, sometimes we tend to suck in stagnated pools of water. In some places. Nothing seems to be moving. No, interesting sights, no improvement, just floating on the water. Maybe hoping a rain would come and wash away. Often would not. Once you are caught in the stagnated pool, usually a leaf would end at the bottom of the pool. It is all part of the leaf life. We cannot know which leaf is going to end up how. You would say, that is sad and depressing. You should not stagnate. You should push against all the odds and break the barrier and float downstream. I would say to what end my friend to what end? If you look at the analogy you would understand, it doesn't matter how far a leaf would travel, its destiny is at the bottom of the river. It doesn't matter how many flower gardens it had seen, It doesn't matter how many waterfalls it had seen, It doesn't matter how many mountains or trees. If you are a leaf, you end up in the bottom of the stream. Nobody can change it. https://pixabay.com/photos/water-lily-beautiful-nature-blossom-2580950/ So, how are we different from a floating leaf? I would say, not from much, but enough. Imagine being a leaf, knowing what the journey of a leaf is. Imagine the ability to see a leaf from a bridge is given to the leaf. That I would say is the different from a leaf, from many other aspects being similar. We are just leaves with ability to look at ourselves from a bird's eye perspective . But how many of us just float downstream thinking we are boats. Even if you are a boat, bottom of the water is your most likely destination. So, let us take our time to observe more and more leaves in water, so we would not be worried when water is fast and slow and stagnated. Thank you for reading. You may like to read: what is a paradigm shift and how to use it .

Life is a game Sometimes we say life is "like a game" not exactly "it is a game". By agreeing to this hypothesis, we assume there is something beyond this game like perception of life. A higher meaning, a higher target, an enlightenment perhaps. And in back of our minds, we always keep and entertain this belief of a virtuous life which exist outside our day-to-day childish games. By calling "childish" I do not assume they are insignificant. Just look at the "wealth creation game". It could generate a handsome income and a deposit for your retirement. It could mean life or death when a person is struck by a serious illness. So, by significance it is no childish game. But if you consider end game called death everything is a childish game. As there is a physical limit to everything we can achieve before death happens at a time Decided by nature. And only within this framework of uncertain future that we are supposed to play and win these games. Games we play in life. I remember the times we played, In our backyard with cousins. My brother, was a policeman, Catching me and others We hid behind shrubs, and broken walls Of old dilapidated lavatories of deserted houses We laughed we cried we fought against imaginary foes Enjoyed nothing more than hide and seek Till my mother called us all for supper. Playing games Imagine a computer game. Or any other game (one which played in Olympic). Everything about this kind of game is imaginary. Rules which define the are made by humans. There was a time the games which we play today did not exist. At the time of hunter gatherer there exist only game of survival, and game of reproduction rights. They seemed fundamental and natural. However, these games also characterize by originated within mind of the person who is living, and conscious. Only dead people do not play any game. But here is one truth if you must understand. Our happiness and Sadness which fluctuates throughout the day depends on the games we play. Life is a game. We might be playing some games out of necessity. Out of passion, or out of force by others. Whatever the reason, we tend to be either winners or losers at the end of the day. As there are discrete outcomes to these games. Yet, for a wise person, who have investigated the phenomena of self, would reveal that games that we play are entirely mental. And more you see these games as games, more you will be happy and content. As outcomes of individual games do not affect the inherent understanding of the world and self. This is why you should look at everything you do as a game. Not as actual reality, or 100%truth. The detachment from the worldly meanings occurs while it is still being attached to worldly games. Paradoxical it may seem but call that first rate intelligence if you may.

Modern Era. Once it was called liquid Gold . Oil is most valuable source of energy up to date. One barrel of crude oil would do nothing to an economy of a country, but oil is sold in millions of barrels per trade, brought by massive tankers all around the world. Oil is major part of any company portfolio, including famous Harvard institute (Ps: in recent years Harvard PF has reduced their oil exposure to less than 2% but crypto and gold exposure increased). Even surpassing Gold as a way of a class of asset in many cases. Just a few sentences are enough to emphasize the fact that, oil is the real motor of all our economic activity. It may not be in the future. But for now, we have to settle for that fact. Iran war has reduced the doubts in any mind. I cannot even hear, any environmentalist talking about climate change as it is totally obliterated by news on rising oil prices and missiles. Maybe they find it difficult to gain funds to have a media appearance. Victorian Oil Story of oil in Victorian era. Before fossil fuel was discovered in the beginning of the last century, oil came from, plants and animals. In the Victorian Era, the rising demand for oil had made it an industry to tap the sources of oil. The great majority of this supply was harvested from the largest Mammal on earth, the Whale. Yes, I am talking about Moby Dick and whaling industry of 18th Century. In a world where oil was a scarce resource, even than today, to power ever expanding economies and demand, people have killed thousands of whales per day, to harvest their blubber, to extract oil at refineries, like ones we have today. That is the true extent of the bloody nature of oil business. If you search for it, you may still find a video or two where they show how whale hunting occurred and they were skinned, near shore, until whale hunting was banned in 1980's. Today oil is still a bloody business, indirectly responsible for some starvation, and famine and war, in less so fortunate countries. It will be a bloody business until world runs out of oil in the future. Future of Oil Fossil fuel will run out in 50-60 years; story of oil would end there. So, a child born today, would have a peep into this era, of no oil to burn. Hopefully countries will turn into other sources long before it happens. Yet, as for now, it seems a distant future dream. Only 8% of global energy supply is still covered by renewables. But we will not only miss oil. There are thousands of petroleum products that we are so much used to nowadays. From Medical equipment's to clothing, plastics to lubricants. I am not sure there are even any replacement available for every one of these products. At least some of the factories would stop functioning, and some of the comforts we have today would not be a viable option in the future. "It doesn't matter to me" is the right response when I look at it as a capitalist with ever greedy eyes. But, if I looked at is as a philanthropist, I would be more concerned. Plant more awareness, encourage more research and write about it again . Maybe we can change our planet before we think about others if we get together for a purpose.

Why you should practice mindfulness 1 .Markets cannot teach you everything. If you closely followed behaviour of any market, it closely resembles how an average person feels during a day. In a moment we feel fine and positive, and in the next minute there is a dip in emotions. Sometimes, hikes up on the happiness can last a few hours, followed by pensive afternoons and gloomy nights. In fact the stock price burns such emotions of thousands of people into a single number and display on our screen second by second. I am sure, at somepoint, you may have looked at this and thought to yourself that you have figured it out. That you have found a way to navigate through this emotional mess and make a profit like a trader. It is not impossible, for some, but for majority, just a risky move. More important is how you react when market is in a panic buying or panic selling mode. How to react with stratergies, not with emotions. How to respond when all stratergies fail and you are at the verge of bankruptcy? Obviously no matter you try, markets cannot teach you everything. It is better to look other ways when we think how we can gain control over our mind, before even start doing some trading. Market fluctuation You are closer to the truth than anyone else. Mindfulness is all about intelligent guessing, on the presense of mind, while being aware. One important side effect of being aware is you come to know about valuelessness of the experience. Whether it is a high, or low emotion that you feel now, it is going to change just like value of a company or stock price. The coin will always be flipped throughout the day. Ups and downs are inevitable, just like revenue. Unexpected events occur in like, competetors coming and going. Sometimes everything you do seems not working, and you wonder what life is all about. Is there any meaning to what you are trying to build today? So, at the end, if you succeed you become a philanthropist. But unless you practice mindfulness and peek into your own so called self, earlier in your life, you might never have enough time to understand and hypothesize a hoistic view about everything. I wonder why anyone should settle for partial understanding about themselves, when they have offered a good healthy 70 years of life. Remove 20 years from each end, yet, you will have a good 30 years, in the middle for this purpose. 3. You play by different rules. By now, as an enterprenuer/ CEO you may have understood there are differnt rules that you play, than general population. The business you own, if is a cash cow, and employers will milk the customers as long as you give them a fat bonus. If everything works out the capital will grow and you will have enough to maintain a luxurious life, and entertain your craziest dreams. But, then what? I do not think many of us will ever come to that level. It is likely you will end up 800 mill USD in debt. (Like D.J. Trump once did in his career.) Consider the fact, that you are playing a game that two of these extreme outcomes are equally possible. Of course you have to play by different rules than ordinary paid worker in your firm. While doing that, to keep your sanity in check, I suggest you practice some mindfulness everyday. There are so many ways you can do that, take a walk solo. Stay quiet for a half an hour in your office chair undisturbed and write down all your thoughts when it is necessary, or take a mindful shower . I am sure you will find a way. This is not a to do list as I do not treat you as a normal human being. :)

"If your mind is clam and peaceful enough, you will find gratification in just living. There is no need to chase any dream." - MML Instant gratification Curtains. I have been observing my boring mind for few minutes on the mat. Until my eyes started to scan all over the room looking for gratification. Trust me there was nothing of that sort. There were no fancy chandeliers flower bouquets, there were no Banksy drawings on the walls. There were no paintings of African savanna. No Moving pictures. Finally, it ended up on the curtains of the doors. Sometime ago, someone had selected these curtains, which I did not know who. Imagine the trouble that person has gone through to select, perfect color for the curtains. I can remember last time I did that kind of shopping; we went through half of the material on display in the curtain house just to pick up the perfect match for our windows. If it wasn't there, we would have walked away into a different shop. And now I am looking at similar curtains picked up carefully by someone, who chose them because they were aesthetically pleasing for the eye. I have been living in this place for some time now, have I ever appreciated the curtains? For their vivid blue colors, Nice white circles on the light and dark blue background? have I appreciated the fact that these circles were not same size, or in same rows but in the sides of the curtains. Did I appreciate the blue stripes which divided each circle vertically? Maybe I did not up until now. But I feel happy just by looking at these curtains. It is not a boiling happiness when I listen to a standup comedy. Or watch SNL. It is serene, and calm. The fact that someone made this art hanging on the doors, just for someone else to appreciate. And I am sure who ever lived in this place before me, even did not care, with a good reason. When did you appreciate your curtains, like you appreciate a painting in Louvre Museum. I am sure if we just show these curtains to men and women of 1800's they would appreciate not only the colors, but also the texture and technology. Instant gratification floor tiles. Similarly, were the tiles. I wasn't aware or appreciating these floor tiles which made reflections like mirrors as they were polished to the maximum by modern equipment. Now they give a comfortable cool feeling on my soft feet, which is not used to the rough terrain of the earth. I cannot remember the last time I walked bare feet, and mud squeezed between the toes. Or I stepped on a sharp rock to feel pain. But the tiles are amazing. They are of top quality that someone would use them to build the Taj Mahal if these were produced in that era. Here I am living a luxurious life surrounded by curtains with vivid colors and tiles with soft soothing surface. Should I Not be grateful about the life I am living. Forget the fact that I gave a thousand troubles at work, and there are hundreds of problems for me to solve tomorrow. But I am happy as a tiny ant, who crunches on a breadcrumb under my couch. Maybe If you implant some deliberate boredom and dopamine detox , and water your mind with mindfulness you will start to feel your curtains of life. And will have a source of instant gratification available to serve you at any time.

A word of caution when reading lists. Nothing in this world is ultimate. If you are starting out early in a success journey, it is helpful to memories such lists as following, to help with clarity. Yet, the life is not a Tic-tac-Toe game. There is no strategy you can always win, and unexpected turns occur in one's life, not once or twice but repeatedly, making you doubt your strategy all the time. Hence, if you seek the meaning of life , there is a direction we all should look beyond any list. As an adult I may not agree with all the 13 virtues of Benjamin Franklin, but I would agree that is a darn good list. It would make more sense if you follow some articles. 13 virtues of Benjamin Franklin - the list Temperance Eat not to dullness, drink not to elevation. Food can either make you sick or healthy. It is one of the joys of the nature, to taste something. It is a privilege to have a taste. But eating is something which can be hard to master and be satisfied with. One who controls their mouth, will have enough discipline to steer their lives in any direction. -> Taste as a side effect of hunger Silence Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Silence is a bliss . I have written an article about silence. Here Benjamin Franklin the Polymath. Order Let all your things have their places, each part of your business its time. I am disorderly being, but I see value of order. Order is something we try to keep against the forces of nature. As entropy is always fighting against order, to make it chaotic. I would rather have a natural order, than artificial order, and preserve my energy leaving chaos untouched. Resolution Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. Action is the most important step in progression. Thoughts in the absence of action is just blips in the universal void. Wasted energy from your food. Hence, every thought, should be made into reasonable steps, one step at a time. Inspiration is perishable , immediate actions would make it eternal. Frugality Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself. Resources are sparse. There is an urgent need of sharing if we would like to survive longer. Singer's famine relief argument suggests, if we consume more, even if it is not immediately apparent would indirectly affect the fundamental needs of some unfortunate human beings. Industry Lose no time; be always employed in something useful. I would disagree to this. As doing nothing had been most productive times of my life. Would watching a film , a waste of time? Walk in the park a waste of time? But rather, being in a place where you do not want to can be considered a waste of time. If you are thinking of working in your office while at the cinema, then it is clearly a waste of time. Sincerity Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly. This includes being true to yourself as well. If we seek truth, we must be humble to discard whatever prejudices, we had when we are aware of them. Blind faith would work against true wisdom. There is no easy path to the truth . Justice Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting benefits. Opening statement of the novel Great Gatsby, suits here. Hence, I will copy paste it. Be the judge of it. This was advice given to Mr. Carrey protagonist in the story, by his father. “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “Just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” How to give infinite hope to someone by reserving judgement . Moderation Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. Effort, and anything we do, needs more control and moderation as there is paradoxical effect if we make it life or death situation, each and every time. Cleanliness Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation. It seems trying to tackle dirt every time it occurs, is energy consuming as, the world is always moving towards higher entropy. If Benjamin Franklin is just talking about body, cloths or habitation, I would agree otherwise we would have to live with tics and Mice. Read about entropy and why world prefers chaos Here . Entropy in action. Tranquility Be not disturbed at trifles or accidents common or unavoidable. Peace is the Ultimate happiness; tranquility needs deliberate nurturing than spontaneous discovery. Chastity Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness or injury. You may have an individual opinion on this which I would not doubt, or debate upon. Humility Imitate Jesus and Socrates. It doesn't cost anyone anything to be humble. But it might cost everything if you are not. It is a good practice to know and remind what is the Ground Zero in life . This concludes the 13 virtues of Benjamin Franklin. Which one do you like the most?

I haven't written about mindfulness lately. That doesn't mean it has become a less significant part of my existence. In-fact, as I see, mindfulness cannot be separated from life itself. If I am not mindful, my existence is just a dream, during that period of time. If I cannot account every second of my life, it must be just a matrix that I have spent time in, a discontinuity of the function of life. Part of mindfulness is not just watching yourself. But deliberate effort for understanding. I have to be careful here, as what am I going to say next can be paradoxical to the above. Flowers for a change About free will and mindfulness If someone is deliberately trying to do something, and if we accept that as it is, then we spontaneously agree that the free will exist. Same goes, with mindfulness practice, as if there is someone who is practicing. Yet, if you look carefully and live by with your mindfulness, you will notice the contradiction. At the time of mindfulness, there is watching, but watcher disappears. If you try to focus on the watcher, the watcher appears but the object disappears. Watcher becomes the object of watching. What if the watching ceased? Would there be any watcher in the first place? You may say the watcher is always there in the background watching everything. Who is watching? Yet I see, the idea of the watcher is always just temporal relationship of watching. When I see the watcher typing some words, mindful about his presence it is there. And if I am not mindful about it, instead about the bottle of sauce on my table, there is just that. In simple terms I am aware of the continuity of the mindfulness, but I cannot say the same about the knower. He seems to take a vacation sometimes, when mindfulness is deeply focused on something. To be honest, I cannot call this "mind" or "mindfulness" as me. Obviously, the concept of Me has a free will built in itself. Yet I cannot guarantee about the object of mindfulness, what it chose to focus on in the continuum of time is by my free will. I am just aware of the crickets in my backyard moment ago, and mindfulness did this without asking for my free will. Understanding self is best way to understand others If you are confused by this argument by now, I have successfully accomplished my objective. I write for my own understanding, of my existence. It doesn't even matter one ever reads or think about these things. But as the topic suggest you should. By so called living, we all are indirectly trying to solve the problem of our existence, but they just come out as "life troubles". Only the ones with deeper understanding about life would agree to this, as others are simply not aware, as their awareness is not sharp. I wouldn't even call this scenario unhappy. It is just a way of nature. More flowers for more change Why should you hypothesize about your own existence? Everyone is stuck in their own subjective reality. So, hypothesizing about their own existence have in-fact formed the trajectory of their lives. I haven't come to any conclusions yet. But let mindfulness gather its own wisdom in its own phase. Just like a river, flowing without a free will towards its destiny. What have you done lately about the death you have to face in years to come? Would that not be a something to do? Or are you just worried about the oil price? It seems that it is impossible to live without discovering the purpose of your life. And the first thing which a person should do is to understand the meaning of life. But the majority of people who consider themselves to be educated are proud that they have reached such a great height that they cease to care about the meaning of existence. - Leo Tolstoy

Why lies matter? Lies do matter as much as the truth. Lies can move crowds. Lies can start campaigns. Lies can start wars and stop them. Ever since we started to listen to our parents, we do not know whether we are living a lie or is there something called "us" and "future" in the first place. However, this article is not about deep philosophy about existence or time . This is just superficial facts about how a lie can shape our world for the better or the worse. "A mine is a hole on the ground owned by a liar" This famous quote tells us something about someone who sells us a future. Apart from owners of mines, who sell us, unpredictable precious stones which may or may not be there, there are many other sellers, life insurance companies does the same. So does investment banks. So does the stock market. As future is unpredictable, we are buying into some of these lies. But the tragic is there is no, alternative. Similarly, we educate ourselves without a guarantee of future success. We invest our time without ever knowing what is there beyond our death. We live a life as per societal expectations without a guarantee of a peaceful death. I am not saying education doesn't improve the odds of a satisfied life. But I am saying there are no guarantees to this hence partly a lie. A mine Pathological liars There are some, and there are few of these kinds. Current American President seems to be one of them. I am not in a position to comment about his conduct, yet, as his lies have far reached consequences, and it has affected me, in the form of a financial crisis, I am qualified to write about him. Consider this man who cannot make a pudding without extravagant toppings. When there is one ship in strait of Hormuz, he says there are thousands. When there is one missile shot down, he says thousands were shot down. When there is one telephone call between Teheran and Oval office clerk, he says they are so close to make a "Peace Deal" leaders of Iran. I have never seen world leaders so confused about US president's intentions, before this era. It is hilarious on one hand, and on the other he seems bold and blunt. Liar liar pants on fire Oscar wild once said, in his play, "I can resist anything except temptation". Here is a man who cannot resist temptation of lying. On the other hand, he seems to be impenetrable to lies of other world leaders. The fake humanity that everyone else covers their faces in the morning, hiding the hedonistic one which comes at night, seems to have no effect on him. Once I saw a guy who was a comedian, who became a president of a country and acted like he was a president and dragged them into an unnecessary war. Here is a businessman who acts like a comedian, while being the president of a country. I am not sure what would be the outcome, whether the act is intentional or not. Only time would tell. But sometimes I wonder, is there a way without a cost to life? Can we weight the current ongoing killing of people, against a future nuclear war? It seems, that alternative universe is not going to happens while current president of US is alive. So, we would never know.

Lesson 1 - Mr. Beast - Story of Growth. The Journey of James Steaven Donaldson - or commonly called Mr. Beast is nothing but extraordinary. He is the greatest YouTuber ever. His growth story is amazing for many reasons, the first is about resilience and consistency. As told by himself numerous times, and by looking at posts of his own, you can find out bits and pieces of his growth story. If you look at his number of subscribers each year, you will see that there was not much growth from 2011 to 2017. Just average number of followers. Yet after this period, what grew in hundreds before, suddenly started to grow in millions. It is evidence to compounding takes time, and it takes patience. For many of us such an endeavor is impossible even to think about, as we are dopamine addicts, looking for instant gratification. Apparently, he had mastered this ancient wisdom from Bhagawath Geeta for success, before everyone else he has thought about it. What is more important is, so did, Warren Buffet, as majority of his wealth has grown after his 65th birthday, So, did JK Rowling, as she went to 100 publishers to get her first Harry Potter published. If you are entertaining a project like Mr. Beast, consistency is the only thing you should be Focusing about. Not the outcome measures. And each iteration of your creative cycle is for a marginal improvement, which eventually will compound in the long term. I assure you, not many of us are able to tolerate such mental torture. Instead, we would use easy path of procrastination or moving away from what is important to urgent. Next - > How a bamboo grows Lesson 2 - Mr. Beast and his journey - Story of Capitalism. If you have seen the movie Wall-E. You may have seen the robot, Auto - which is the autopilot robot of the spaceship Axiom. Over the years, Auto, has become a terrible dictator given the status and the power. I saw side by side photos of Mr. Beast over the years and appreciated the remarkable similarity. There is a reason he is called Mr. Beast. As I can see some evil is hidden in his videos. Superficially he is giving up so much wealth to his participants. Sometimes, it is a luxurious car. Sometimes it is an enormous pile of money. But, if someone asked what he is getting in return, there you will find the Capitalist as he always doubles his money each iteration. Each video which is packed with emotions of his participants is an ASSET. A class of asset which hook millions of people to watch and pay with their valuable time on earth. The truth is anyone can do it. It is free. But nobody but few are prepared to endure hardships like him. And there is not a drop of luck in many of their soup. Wall-E According to Karl Marx When capitalism is at its peak, the human emotions will become commodities. In-fact, everything will become a commodity in this system. From words we speak to our food. What you eat at lunch, and the noise it generates when you crunch on a shrimp. You can make a YouTube Video out of it and sell. You can sell your kids innocent drawings on eBay. (I saw, 5-year-old who draws abstract paintings, and there are buyers thousands around the world). You can sell videos of dirty jokes and show how 85-year-old grandmother reacts to these. She would happily oblige to your demands as she is well aware of value of dollars you make. But I am not sure we should be doing these things, just because we are allowed. Unless we want to become hollow people with a label of success on our backs. It had been the same even 30 years ago. Chris Eubank, the Great UK boxer and the media sensation, once told in an interview, he does not like to fight. He does not want to become a hero, but the system has made an arena such brutal fights to occur between humans and he is just a part of the system. He had repeatedly, accepted the lowest point in his life is when his opponent Micheal Watson, had brain injury after a fight in 1991. This is a sacrifice made for just the entertainment of others. He also said, he wants nobody to become a boxer. Ironically his son became a boxing sensation few years down the road. It seems great Eubank Senior was unable to stop the wheel of capitalism which seems to be in perpetual Motion crushing and modelling every humane ambition. But someone would argue capitalism have done great many things. It has helped anyone to grow. Increase living conditions of rural African people. Contained wars, and distracted people from conflict. I am not saying it is totally bad. But it has provided a platform for evil to reach innocent kids even without them knowing it. Maybe it needs a major upgrade. Better be somebody working on these errors before it becomes apparent as a system failure. Mr. Beast lessons number 2 -> beware of the system, and what it does to your soul over the years.

The Principle of priority -You must focus on what is important and not urgent. This quote I randomly picked up from, where I cannot remember now. But the moment I read it I picked up the significance. Did you? If you did not read the quote again. PS: apparently origin of this traced to Stephen Covey the author of the book "The seven habits of highly effective people". In the first instance it seem there is something wrong with the quote. And it feels like rubbish advice. But Behold your thought just there, drop that prejudice. I will explain why this is great advice. Let's go back to college days in memory. The college example for the principle of priority Prioritize Imagine you are taking a literary class in college. And your teacher gives an assignment which needs to be handed over, by the end of month. You go home on the day 1 and what would you do? 99% of the time if you're a normal kid, of normal human parents you would just enjoy life. Doing urgent things, like going to meet a friend. Watch the final series of game of thrones. I am sure of this, unless your parents have deciplined you to start with important work, not the urgent ones. This pattern of behaviour will repeat until the last week. If you are lucky, your brain will switch to panick mode atleast few days prior to the deadline and, start working on the project. But 20% of the time still there would be some urgent things to be done, which takes precedence and you will pull an all-nighter to finish the project. This would not have happened if we focussed our attention on important things, without waiting them to become urgent ones. This view of priority is not uncommon in any decipline. If you ask a civil engineer he would say, maintainning of a bridge is important. It is far less expensive than trying to repair a one which has history of decades of poor maintaining. Similarly, we can assume if something have become urgent, we have already missed the opportunity to address it while it was important, as we haven't prioritised properly. I'm not claiming we can always avoid such emergent situations by prioritising, minimise is a correct word we can use. Four types of work. - Eisenhower Matrix If you are curious I have following list of types of work. We already have discussed two. I wouldn't bother about explaining others to you as by definition they are un important. But if someone is obsessive about getting all the unimportant information than using practical advice, and for completeness I will write them down here. Urgent and Important – crises, emergencies Important but Not Urgent – planning, learning, relationships, prevention Urgent but Not Important – interruptions, some meetings Not Urgent and Not Important – distractions Next -> story of the Monk who did not prioritize work

Some time ago, I wrote about leading and following. That there are two groups of people in this world. Sometimes, we behave as leaders, and sometimes as followers. I considered myself a follower than a leader. Never did I bother to ask what is best, or atleast I couldn't choose one over the other as both had positives and negatives. Yet, I came across following quote in the book by Leo Tolstoy - Calender of Wisdom. Apperently both are a crime - an Equal crime. "There are people who take responsibility for making decisions for others and determining their relationship to God and to the world; and there are people, the overwhelming majority of them, who give this authority to the others, and blindly believe in everything they are told. Both groups of people commit an equal crime." Let's apply this principle to the quote itself. And create a paradox. Firstly, we cannot divide any group of people into two groups. As I mentioned above, each and every one of us have potential to be a leader and follower. At work you may be the Boss who boss around a group of people, but at home, you maybe just following the lead of your spouse. But there is some truth in this scenario, as at any given time, there are more followers in the world than leaders. If the scentence is true then we should not believe the scentence as it would be just believing, what Leo Tolstoy (the leader) said. We would be just foolish followers. Then there is the question what should we believe in? Can we live devoid of any belief? A leader Axioms of Philosophy. In philosophy, axioms are basic assumptions taken as starting points for reasoning, such as the law of non-contradiction from Aristotle ( something cannot be both true and false at the same time) , René Descartes’ “ I think, therefore I am ,” the principle of sufficient reason from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz ( everything has a cause or explanation ), the identity principle (“A is A”), and ethical starting points like Immanuel Kant’s idea that humans must be treated as ends in themselves or John Stuart Mill’s view that a ctions should promote happiness . For something to be an axiom it should have following characteristics. It is self-evident (seems obviously true), or at least widely accepted It is not derived from other statements It is used to support further reasoning How not to commit an equal crime? As you can see there is a problem in this. As nobody can prove with absolute certainty that any of these axioms that we assume true are infact true. There seems always a probability that they are not true. Whatever we believe in day to day human functioning, is built upon layers and layers of abstraction, above these axioms. For this reason, they are not absolute. When you say you got a promotion, today at work, it is both true and false at the same time. As there is a framework we can argue "You" do not exist. (this is only one simple explanation). And for this reason, and only for this reason, we commit a crime when we start to blindly believe others. So, the correct action would be to think for ourselves with information, and see what is true and what is false in the same observation.

Why discard thoughts? Have you ever tried to forget some memory? Why on earth you should? You may ask me. Unless you have PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder) It is not only in movies, about veterans who flown home after war, that they try to lead a conventional life, sometimes even awful memories haunt us every day. We might carry the burden and the noise created by these thoughts to places where we shouldn't. I can give you an example. The other day, when I was driving in the morning towards home, I saw a van was parked in front of the house. Almost obstructing the driveway. And obviously I could not bring my car to the shed without reversing several times, if the van was not moved. How annoying this is? You come home to face this, and the guy who owned the van did not move it. Instead, he started to teach me how to drive my own car into my own driveway like he owned the place. And My temper meter was skyrocketing, although it was a chilling morning, I felt my blood boiling. My composure no longer looked tranquil. Even the lazy cat of my neighbor would notice my red-hot ears. I honked angrily and asked the guy to move his van. Obviously, he did with a frown on his face like I was interrupting his whatever damn business in front of my house. And that was it. The incident took place only for one minute. Yet, it was now carved into my brain with deep emotion. I am ashamed of losing temper. Parked Vehicles As you can see, I have carried this bad memory for several days, now I have written about it and made it a little more permanent. I have done the opposite thing of forgetting this memory. I have given it a negative value (or positive one). When memories are enmeshed with emotions by values, they are difficult to forget. This seems to be the reason why bad memories torment us again and again. Is there a way around this problem? How does our memory work? A simple framework. Do you remember everything happened when you drove home today? No right? Our minds have the remarkable ability to sort out important stuff from ordinary stuff. Generally, this happens automatically. Only the things which are extremely positive and extremely negative are kept in mind. Positives because they bring us pleasure, and we need to repeat creating these memories. Negatives because they hurt physically and mentally and we need to avoid these. To avoid you need to remember. But the problem arises, when the memory itself starts to hurt us. More you try to forget; more you will suffer from it. Just like that stupid van driver who is happily sleeping while I write about him. Ridicules, right? Exactly my point. You are not the center of the universe. When I say you are not the center of the universe, this is both true and false. It is intelligence to live with two opposing ideas and be able to choose what is best for the situation. As an example, if you choose to believe you are the center of the universe, as it seems the universe would not exist unless there is an observer, then all that matter is what you think. In that case whatever happens to you would have a great significance, hence by definition is what matters. Good or bad we cannot get rid of the memories. But for a moment look at the universal point of view. You're just a tiny speck of a dust in a tiny speck of a dust, in the milky way. Have you seen an image of a supercluster? (large collections of galaxies). If you put into this perspective a random consciousness in the universe would not be able to find you no matter how much they tried. This is how much insignificant "We" are together as 8 billion people. (You can throw in some animal species to make the biomass bigger, heavier, yet it would not make up to any significance) So, the best way to discard thought is to attack the significance of the thought. Negative or positive. It doesn't matter. When you consider the universal time scale. Or the perspective of other people. (Keeping in mind paradoxical nature of this argument). Now, if you have any other better alternative method, you can mention here. I wouldn't give much focus on distraction activities like physical exercise or going for a walk, or even meditation. As Even in these activities, what we are trying to do is give less value to the haunting memory.