What is the benefit of death?
Well, I’m starting out with a very sad point but it is the reality for all of us.
If we accept now that we are mortal and that day is sometime in the future, we live a very powerful life.
Late Steve Jobs said and I quote here, “The benefit of death is you know not to waste life living someone else’s choices.”
This is the real secret to life: to be completely engaged with our own choices with what we are doing in this life here on earth. Our choice shouldn’t be our everyday work, it should be our everyday game.
Human mind is constructed in such a way that we don’t want to work at all but we want to play the game all the time.
Work and game both are our own mental activities but the mind distinguishes them pretty quickly.
Practically, work and game are two different things, work is to satisfy others but game is to satisfy ourselves.
Life without our own choice of game is the most common reason to give up early.
We have to have our own choices in life, our own systems and measurements, and we have to stick to them thoroughly.
We can not measure the effectiveness of our own choices in life unless we stick with our own system.
Someone else’s choice in life in the long-run gives us nothing but only regret.
The bottom line is if we live in other people’s choices then we remain unhappy and unfulfilled later in the future.
We must practice to live with our own choice that makes us happy, healthy, and fulfilled.
“Life never becomes perfect, only perfect life game makes our life perfect if we become interested to play it.“
One perfect example is Warren Buffett. Buffett is an American investor, philanthropist, and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, one of the world’s most powerful companies. He is considered one of the most successful investors of our time. He started his game of choice at age eight and he is still playing his game of choice. He is 94 years old now, still active and vibrant with his game. Warren Buffett always says, “Do what you love with people you like and enjoy.”
Majority of us don’t realize that our life will whisper our own everyday work schedule.
If we become flexible and thoughtful in our daily work as our everyday game, we not only get better results but our life also becomes better as a result of playing better game. James Clear, habit expert and author of ‘Atomic Habits‘ says “If you want a significant change in your results, then you probably need a significant change to your strategy. Play better games. Win better prizes.”
Life never becomes perfect, only perfect life game makes our life perfect if we become interested to play it.
If we are not willing to play the life game, no one can teach us but if we are determined to learn the life game, no one can stop us from playing.
Life game doesn’t come easy, it doesn’t come from what we do occasionally and when we feel playing it.
It always comes from what we do each day and everyday with heart and mind.
Many of us only hope for a perfect game in life which is not going to happen anytime soon until we put practice and serious hours on the game.
Only hope of a good life game in reality is the worst of all evils because it only prolongs our desire and torture on us.
Only hope without serious hours on the game is a daydream. Simon Sinek, the author of ‘Start with Why‘ often emphasizes that vision without execution is just a hallucination.
“Daniel Kahneman: intuition is an automatic process that operates through unconscious thought and generates solutions without logical argument.”
There are mainly two very different aspects of human minds which guide our choices in life.
The first is the logical mind which is driven by our thoughts that connect what we already know about our problems in order to provide the solutions.
Most of the time this mind puts us in our comfort zone.
Many times this mind is also influenced by other people’s choices.
The second thought comes from our inner intuition, driven by cool mind that can look at the problem and figure out the innovative solutions.
Most of the time this comes suddenly in our mind from our own choice of life game.
Intuition is subconscious thought that brings feelings first and when feelings are put into action produces results. Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate and author of ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow‘ refers to intuition as an automatic process that operates through unconscious thought and generates solutions without logical argument.
“Unlearning gives free space to our mind so that we can learn new things immediately, it’s a trust on our intuition.”
I would like to share a real story about how intuition works and why we should nurture it.
Edwin Land, an inventor of Polaroid cameras, a pioneer of instant photography, was on vacation with his family in 1943.
During vacation, his three years old daughters pressed him why she couldn’t see a picture she’d just taken because she needed the picture right away.
The impatience of his daughter catalyzed him for a strong intuition.
After the vacation, Edwin Land and his research team focussed their research effort to the challenge of instant photography.
Instant intuition became similar to instant photography for him.
In only three years after this vacation, the product of instant photography was ready in the market.
Our human mind is intuitive if we practice it in the correct way.
Sometimes we bog down so much how to learn things but what we forget is that unlearning things is more difficult than learning the new thing.
Our intuition is indirectly related to the process of unlearning.
Because unlearning gives free space to our mind so that we can learn new things immediately.
Trusting our intuition automatically tells us to unlearn things which were not working before in our lives.
“Intuition doesn’t come regularly, it comes when we have a habit of engaging with our serene thoughts.”
Human progress and prosperity doesn’t come from the development of just new theories, it mostly comes from somebody applying and testing these theories and finds a solution.
Intuition is our key to test these new theories and find the long lasting results.
As done by Edwin Land, if everybody uses the power of intuition in their toolbox, the world would be a different place now.
Ask the power of intuition to many entrepreneurs and innovators who absolutely failed to utilize it completely.
Xerox developed personal computers ten years before Apple, it also created icon-based operating systems fifteen years before Microsoft.
Not only that, Xerox developed an internet service twenty years before Netscape, yet Xerox bypassed all of these opportunities.
The real problem is Xerox read theories nicely but couldn’t apply the intuition to test the real theories in to practice.
Any person who runs a marathon knows that finishing a marathon requires more than just running.
No matter how powerful your body is, at some point during running your body wants to stop and take a rest. But the runner has trained the mind in such a way that he or she keeps running mentally.
Body becomes tired but still he or she runs because of trained willpower.
Our intuition is our willpower, more we use it, more it enhances the willpower.
If you stop running in the middle of the marathon, it’s due to your emotion. I’m a marathon runner so I’m saying this based on my personal experience.
Our emotion which comes before anything else deplete our intuition and consequently diminishes our ability to control our actions.
Our intuition is our catalyst for the run to finish because we know we can finish it, we have trained so much for this run.
Our intuition tells us to stay focused on the run, keep moving and keep running.
Intuition doesn’t come regularly, it comes when we have a habit of engaging with our serene thoughts.
We cannot force ourself to be more intuitive, it comes naturally when we honor it with our life game by practice. Mel Robbins, the author of ‘The Let Them Theory‘ said “Your intuition is guiding you towards the truth. Don’t ignore it”.
Conclusion
Our intuition power also depends on our health status.
To do mental work we need a lot of glucose, a source of energy. We can not do a thinking job without a lot of glucose in the bloodstream.
The glucose itself does not enter into the brain but it changes into neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are chemicals which are used by our brain cells to send signals.
If we have a deficiency of neurotransmitters, we stop thinking, we stop our intuition, we deplete our willpower.
I have three kids, and one saturday, my wife told me to look after them and she left.
After she left I made sure that the entrance door is locked so that I wouldn’t lose track of them.
I discovered very quickly that if they were making noise, they were good, no problem. But after a few minutes everything became very quiet, then my intuition started to work and telling me something isn’t right.
I came around the kitchen and saw that two older ones were trying to cut the younger one’s hair with a sharp scissor.
Intuition works best when we store energy and patience. Invitation of stillness is storing body energy.
We should spend time on quietness, observe things mentally, meditate, exercise, walk and run, where our intuition works the best in our lives.
It is very simple as it is. Intuition works best for me when I go for running and walking.
I don’t know how the microwave works, but I know when I put my sweet potato inside it, it will cook my sweet potato, and I’m using it every single day.
Mark Twain, the greatest American writer and the father of American literature said “I never worked a single day in my life, everything has been done by my subconscious and intuition”.
Ron Chernow’s recent biography ‘Mark Twain‘ elaborates Mark Twain’s journey from steamboat pilot to literary icon, exploring his complex intuitive life. Always nurture your intuition for a better life game.
Yam Timsina, PhD, writes primarily on health basics, scientific progress, social upliftment, and value creation.
Disclaimer: “Please note that some links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission if you make a purchase through them, at no extra cost to you.”
