Morning Thought

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Indeed, what one thinks in the morning shapes up one’s day. By “one’s day”, I mean the thought patterns for the day which define how one would react to situations. Situations, obviously are quite beyond one’s control. But the responses to the situations aren’t – they can definitely be controlled to suits one’s goals.

One very powerful way which has worked for me to regulate responses and build mindfulness is the “Morning Thought”. It is not an original concept. Several experts have already shared deep insights on what I refer to here as the “Morning Thought.”

Very simply, “Morning Thought” is what one consciously thinks first thing in the morning. I stress here on “consciously”. So far as I am concerned, as soon as I wake up, my chattering mind is all over the place – having just got free from its wild dream-world and into the cage of conscious existence.

A few years ago (no idea when), I realized that to regulate the day and make it productive, one should make the day’s plan early in the morning. I got into the habit of mentally listing out the tasks or activities for the day and my strategies to attend to those tasks. I would mentally list out priorities, set mental (or mobile) reminders as required. This helped me a lot to keep my focus for most part of the day and I realized the importance of the “Morning Thought”.

But planning the day’s activities only helps to manage one’s material life.

The next version of the “Morning Thought” I adopted (maybe a year back) was of gratitude. This is an undoubtedly powerful thought to keep one happy during the day. Telling oneself that it’s a great day and mentally (or verbally) thanking God / the Universe for the little and large pleasures and comforts (home, kids, family, car, food, greenery, rest, job, money, etc.) is a wonderful way to calm the mind for the day. I continue my practice of saying thanks to everything in the morning.

About three months back, I came across another very significant “Morning Thought”. Surprisingly it came in a management course I undertook.

I digress here to state that one thing I respect about the West is that they work towards building up spiritual practices into day-to-day material life. A lot of management techniques reflect inner practices of developing peace and spreading joy. I personally believe that spirituality should be practice-able by every person while doing their normal activities.

So back to the “Morning Thought” which I use now.

It is: “What kind of a person do I want to be today?”.

This is then followed by a detailing of the question – some options which could come up are:

• Calm and Peaceful
• Focused on work
• Kind
• Grateful
• Happy
• Relaxed

This then extends to how the chosen aspect/s would reflect in the day’s situations. For e.g.: “I will be a calm person under work pressure” or “I will maintain focus on completing all pending work and relax later” or “I want to be kind to my family and co-workers today”.

As long as the thoughts are positive, it will steer the day to happiness and contentment.

For me, this one thought – “What kind of person do I want to be today” – sets a great direction every day. It is a paradigm shift from activity-based thinking to character-based thinking. The “Morning Thought” is powerful, potent. It is also a way of ensuring that one’s mind is under control from the start of the day.

Family Fun and Bonding

This was an exercise I really loved. As on many occasions, it was initiated by my ever-enthusiastic daughter – Stuti.

We were having dinner. Most likely my mother would have said something reflecting under confidence in herself. (Some people having this habit of under-rating their wonderful life – but that’s a different topic to write about).

Stuti doesn’t like people becoming negative and would not let this go by. I was sitting next to my mother. Stuti asked me to say something good about my mother.

One thing about my daughter – you can’t say “No” to her for 2 reasons:

1. She generally asks for the right things.
2. If you say no – she will gently, sweetly and persistently make sure you end up saying “Yes”.

It’s funny about family – while we may appreciate each other, we don’t express it. It’s generally taken for granted – the morning coffee, the timely food, clothes washed and stacked properly, whole days spent to get the month-end salary, the laughter – so many such day-to-day occurrences.

So, when Stuti persisted that I say something good about my mother, I thought (for maybe a minute) and I said a couple of lines about her balancing work and family when I was a child. It didn’t really change my mother’s perception (old impressions don’t fade quickly). So Stuti passed on the baton to my wife, Subhashree, who was sitting next to me. By the time she had finished, Stuti brought up the full scheme – everyone was to tell something good about everyone else.

We all fell in line and it was a great 15-20 minutes spent over the dining table. Six people telling each other what’s good about them. We didn’t get up even after we had finished eating as the round robin scheme was still continuing.

A lot of positivity was generated that night. It was an exercise which reinforced several beliefs and strengthened the familial bonds.

I would recommend every family to do this – maybe even on a regular basis and I do hope you see how much it makes a difference over time.

Knowledge is Only for One Who Seeks It

People have a tendency, a liking to share what they know. It feels nice, gratifying actually.

The methods vary from person to person. Some are emphatic, some are matter-of-fact, some do it to show-off, some do it with under-confidence, some do it with kindness, some with the stick. No matter what the style, sharing of one’s knowledge is a natural tendency of humans. It helps in overall evolution of the human race. It in an integral part of the human ecosystem.

Information is the basis for knowledge. Information is a fact or situation.

Knowledge is distilled from information. It evolves after the person processes the information with his or her perspective and makes conclusions. The process of converting information to knowledge is also influenced by others. But the final take is always of the person who uses the information.  Thus, a nuclear scientist uses information on nuclear reactions to create the knowledge useful to make either a power plant or an atom bomb. It’s a question of perspective and intent.

Information thus processed to knowledge can do many things to people – make them arrogant, humble, silent, talkative, able to forget and forgive, vindictive, all those contrasting things.

Our world today is greatly driven by information. It’s a flood, a deluge, rather. It’s too much for a person to handle. Yet the addiction for more information is strong. More the supply, greater the demand.

Along with information, gets passed knowledge created by people with their own perspective and intent. In the flood which rushes in, it is difficult for people to discern what is information and what is opinion. People end up taking in knowledge of others unwittingly. A large contribution, of course, is from social media. Other’s opinions are taken as facts and these borrowed opinions influence one’s thinking.

However, what I’m trying to say here is that the knowledge that one acquires is exclusively his or her choice. While there is access to vast stores of information and knowledge on the Internet, people only take what they are attracted to. A person is drawn to that he or she wishes to see. No amount of coaxing, forcing, presenting, requesting makes someone take in knowledge he or she did not seek out.

That is the really funny thing about knowledge. It can’t be pushed down someone throat. One only picks up that knowledge which he or she is seeking.

The crux of the matter, while there are enough messages floating on the positive side of things, the general tendency is to take in huge amounts of negative sentiments. Its futile to expect people to lap up what they do not intend to. This is the greatest challenge to positivism. Even if one person is trying to spread positive thoughts, it really depends on the whole lot of others whether the thought is really carried forward.

It’s necessary that each person does his or her bit to spread positivism. Doing it without expectations is the best that one can do. A good thought will find its way to one who needs it and one who seeks good thoughts will come up the same. It’s beautiful the way the world works with everyone doing their part in this huge cosmic design.

Fooling the Mind to Positivity

Everyone wants to be positive. I’m yet to see someone who says that he or she enjoys being negative. People all want to be happy, to have hope and aspirations, to enjoy themselves, to be positive in general. But few are able to actually be so, especially when faced with challenging situations, unfavorable conditions, difficult people to handle and many other such aspects of life.

Here is one method which worked for me in some difficult situations.

It originates from the basic belief that being positive, being happy, originates not from outside but from within one’s own mind. If you haven’t heard of the story of the happy man without a shirt – here’s an abridged version:

A King was perennially unhappy and wanted a cure for his unhappiness. Many a physician, jester and other tradesmen tried to make the king happy and failed (and as with most kings, lost their lives in the attempt). Finally, a wise man advised the king to wear the shirt of a happy man to cure his unhappiness. The king sent out his whole army to search for a happy man and bring back his shirt. After several failed attempts, the soldiers found a man smiling, laughing and having a thoroughly good time all by himself. On being questioned, he confirms to them that he is truly happy. When asked for his shirt, the man who is bare-bodied replies that he has no possessions (and specifically no shirt) and that what’s makes him truly happy. The king realizes that he needs to look within him and not outside for a solution and over time, becomes happy.

(Here is a link to the poetic version of this story “The Enchanted Shirt”, in case you want to read it:

http://www.english-for-students.com/the-enchanted-shirt.html)

So, with the firm belief in place that being positive and happy come from one’s own mind, the next step is to convince the mind to be so. Which is easier said than done especially if one is inclined already to being plaintive, depressed, obstinate, and harbors all those feelings which are negative.

So Step Two is to be aware of those negative aspects that one wants to overcome. I’d suggest that one should take one trait at a time. Swallowing more than one can chew is a common mistake and leads to no useful results. We have all the time in the world to work on ourselves. Hurrying up on internal change doesn’t work out. The mind is stubborn and it likes to be the way it is. It generally rejects change and making one’s mind change requires patience.

So, having developed the belief that being positive starts with one’s own mind and then identifying one negative trait to overcome, here is Step Three – as the title says “Fooling the Mind to Positivity”. It originates from the fact that the mind generally responds better when it is compelled to accept a situation or solution, when it knows that there is no other choice. I am not suggesting that a particular thought be forced upon oneself – force will not work as the mind is an adamant mule and will not like force.

So how does one fool his or her own mind?

By convincing it – listing out reasons why there is no other choice but to be positive and happy. This involves reason and not force. It involves justification, logic and analysis.

What that means is to list out for oneself all the consequences of being negative in a situation and the reasons to be positive. Negative sentiments will in turn evoke negative reactions from the environment.

For example, when someone bangs into your prized car, you can start a fight and its’ most likely that the other guy will also fight back. He’s not going to take it lying down. So the negative action will in turn evoke a negative reaction.

Say, you’ve lost a promotion to your colleague. Being uncooperative with him and others at your work is not going to enhance your performance. It may put a brake to the other’s growth (in some cases), but will definitely not improve your own output.

These are examples. One can make their own reasons for the situation. Ultimately, a list must be made of the positive consequences of being positive and negative consequences of being negative. While making this list, negative consequences of positive actions and positive consequences of negative actions (if any all) are to be strictly ignored. One should focus on making a list of reasons why being positive will help and why being negative will not help. The list is meant to drive the minds thoughts in a particular direction. It’s best to make a written list and keep it readily accessible. A written list always helps and it must be read, re-read and modified to be more effective. One needs to show to oneself that negative reactions will generally not get them anywhere. (By the way, positive reactions are not guaranteed to take you anywhere convenient either but they are guaranteed to help you be at peace with yourself.)

After this analysis, it’s easier to now tell or rather fool oneself that there is no other option but to be positive and happy because being negative is not going to give any good results anyway. So, that’s where the mind can be fooled – by telling it that it has no other option but to be positive.

To help believe that the mind can be fooled, I repeat the anecdote used in the film “3 Idiots”.

The watchman of a town would go about the night shouting “All is well” and the people slept peacefully. All was truly well for a long time till there was a major theft. When the people ganged up on the watchman, they discovered he was half blind and had no way of seeing a thief coming in at all. They had slept so long in peace because they were fooled without knowing the truth.

So the mind is a fool. It can be tricked by none but itself.

It’s good to start this practice when all is generally well outside. It’s a start to the practice. It’s easier when the external environment is conducive. One’s mind is also a creature of habit. So making the habit of fooling the mind to positivity when one is in a happy situation will make it easier to extend the habit to more challenging situations.

There can of course be more ways to developing a positive approach to life and the above is just one possible method. It worked for me and over a period of time, it’s become a habit now to be positive in most situations.

Another way for later…