Author: yamtimsina

“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” – Sir Edmund Hillary

I asked her name.
She said, “Ramitta.”
I asked, “What exactly is this work that you are doing?”
She said, “I’m training to be a magician.”
She also added without stopping that she wants to be one of the greatest magicians in the world.
Again, I asked her age.
She said that she was 13 years old.
She looked very energetic, excited, and happy during her performance.
Her face was so confident that it seemed like she was stealing all the attention from the audience.
She looked pretty focussed when she was playing with three coke bottles with two hands, I was seeing a very bright caliber about her future magician career.
In the meantime, I also noticed that she was not able to do every single time, she was struggling in some attempts. She was purely an amatuer.

She was in the street and attracting the passers-by for small money to survive. I gave her a 20 rupees bill (Indian currency, a quarter in US currency).
She used to look constantly straight in my eyes, probably because I was the one giving the highest amount of money in the small crowd of around 15 people. Most of the money I saw were only coins.
That was a small poor rural city of India near Nepal border. I’ve seen extreme unbearable poverty in many such rural Indian cities.
Many people around her in the show were not that amazed as I was, because that might be an usual everyday thing for them, but not for me.
When she said that she wanted to be one of the greatest magicians in the world, nobody was judging her because she was just 13 years old. If that would have been said by an old adult, I guess, everybody would mock her, would laugh at her.
The advantage of a child performer: all the audience were only smiling, shaking their heads, and enjoying themselves.
She told her desire as a pristine truth from the bottom of her heart in front of the audience: “I wanted to be one of the greatest magicians in the world.”
I was seeing something else with this statement but I abandoned my overthinking.
Let’s be honest, at age 13, nobody lies regarding their future aspirations because they don’t have experience with how life unfolds every single day.

After the show, everybody left, people didn’t care much.
I stayed a little longer.
When everybody was gone, I asked her about her school and family.
She said that she dropped school without finishing grade five.
Her dad disappeared suddenly, her family had no clue what happened to her dad.
Due to this unbearable loss in her family, her mom became sick and was under medication.
She said that her mom is depressed.
I asked her, “Do you know what depression is?”
“I don’t know but the doctor said so,” she added.
“My mom has to take medicine everyday and we don’t have money for that. I do this show in the street for medicine and food. She always loves to stay inside the house all the time. Most of the time she murmurs and says- there is threat and danger outside for us.”
I could guess what that means.

I said, “Ramitta, always perform your magic work, keep doing it regularly, entertain more and more people whenever you can. Take more training from your resource person whoever taught you if you can. Don’t give up the magic work, forget about the number one magician in the world at this time that’s not under your control. Just do magic work consistently.”
I didn’t want to see her in the track of depression with the “number one magician tag in the world.”
I gave her another 100 rupees bill (Indian currency ) and left.
She was smiling and waving at me.
Suddenly, something unusual came into my mind, I turned back, approached her again and gave a piece of paper in her hand.
I told her, “Ramitta, you don’t know me but this is my email address. I know you cannot read this. I tell you this-if you perform your magic work everyday for 89 days regularly, I will send you 5000 rupees (indian currency). Find somebody who can read and can use a computer and tell him or her to write me an email on your behalf that you did magic work every single day for 89 days. If you didn’t find any people to show your magic work, just do it for yourself at home. Do not skip any day.”
Remember, if nobody is around to see the magic, just do it for yourself, have fun just for you, this will hone your game.
“Trust me, I will send you 5000 rupees (Indian currency) and I will be one of your well wishers forever,” I reiterated.
My intention was a little bit different, anyway I’m a scientist by profession, so one additional small experiment, I wanted to develop new neural connections in her brain regarding her passionate magic work in 89 days so that she will never give up her magic process.
I don’t want to go into detail about the science behind new neural connections and neuroplasticity here, maybe next time.

Finding a passion as an amatuer is just the beginning, it’s like dating with as many as we can, developing the passion is harder, it’s a commitment, it’s like marriage after dating many.
And, deepening on it is a lifelong process, it’s like having kids and settlement after marriage.
Additionally, the stage of development is the stage of deliberate practice but deepening on the craft is just effortless flow.
When we reach the deepening stage we can craft our products regularly raising grandchildren on the side.

But I will tell you this: if we practice anything new for at least 89 days every single day, we create new habits and that sticks with us forever.
Once a habit sticks with us, we only need vision and grit, both are actually the power of perseverance. This is how excellence follows in our lives.
I have a personal experience on this but let’s leave this for next time.
Each of us as a human being has a lot of weaknesses, everyone succeeds by picking one strength and honing it regularly day in and day out.
We have to craft this strength as a lifelong process.
If Ramitta constantly engages her mind with her magic process, I believe, she won’t go the same path of depression as her mom.

My head was still spinning with the word depression. I don’t know why? I’ve seen this insane disease in so many of my close friends and family members recently.
In the meantime, I also did a little bit of digging to know why this depression is growing alarmingly.

My great grandfather, my grandfather, and even my father’s generation didn’t have this depression thing, at an alarming rate at present . Why is it so behemoth, suddenly, from our generation?
I found something very unique.
The aforementioned, my previous generations, always remained busy in farming, they used to work from sunrise to sunset in farmland, house chores, herding, livestock.
They were poor financially, long physical labor work on farmland was required to survive, but still they didn’t develop depression.
They were happy with the process of their busyness even though there was no guarantee of their agricultural products.
Sometimes, due to bad weather; sometimes, due to pests; sometimes, due to drought and other natural disasters; all of their crops were demolished.
Sometimes, due to seasonal epidemics, all of their cows and goats died.
But still they never stopped doing whatever they were doing, their work was their life, they were happy and busy in their process.
They showed no symptoms of depression whatsoever.
They always had a nice sleep at night.

Pabloo Picaso was one of the greatest artists of human generations.
He produced more than two art works per day in his artist life. If we count the total number of his art products, he produced thousands and thousands of artworks during his art career.
Because he always loved the process of crafting art more than the final products, otherwise, these many arts were almost impossible to produce by one artist.
But surprisingly, he has only a little over one hundred master art pieces out of thousands and thousands he produced.
Again, because he loved the process rather than the final art products, suddenly about 100 became masterpieces without his notice.
He never aspired to produce masterpieces only, he gave his best sincere effort for each of his art creations. Those masterpieces were just the most liked products by people of his continuous process.

If we love the process of any endeavor throughout our lifetime, we never become depressed in our lives.

We don’t produce our results, results are produced by the process that we are involved in.
Devotion to the process is meditation, that’s why we don’t get depressed.
It can be anything that we are pursuing.

One of my friends’ dad, Rick, has been driving trucks for the last 20 years.
Whenever he finishes driving for the day, he always sends a beautiful flower as a message to one of his family members.
I was interested to meet him, so, one day I met him and asked, “why do you do this?”
He replied, “isn’t this the way to live a life?”
“Otherwise, we get depressed in life because we all do the same mundane repetitive work every single day whatever it is. Sending one different flower each day to one of my family members not only makes me a completely different person but also stimulates the receiver.” he added.
I became speechless.
I reflected on myself, my habits, and my way of living life up to now.
What do I do immediately after I get up from bed?
Well, I grab my phone and watch cat videos in tik-tok.
I open facebook first thing after I get up from bed and I lose my control.
I do these things and somebody or something will control me and my time.
Somebody’s pictures, somebody’s likes, or somebody’s email is controlling me all the time.
After a certain time, this habit becomes perennial and I lose focus. I no longer entertain other people’s activities on screen anymore, I think about my own life, I’ve done nothing concrete, and finally I start to feel depressed.
I wish I could have sent one flower to one of my family members immediately after I got up from the bed.
Do you think that Elon Musk and Tony Robbins grab their phone first thing in the morning after getting up from the bed?
I doubt it.
They control their lives themselves first before being controlled by anybody or anything else.

Nobody owes us anything so that we are free to do whatever we want.
But most of the time, we don’t do anything, even if we do, we anticipate the result first, not the process.
This is one of the biggest reasons for depression in our generations.

In reality, we invite depression when we constantly judge others.
If we only fantasize on the bed rather than doing five push-ups and five squats, then depression certainly follows us.
Depression also appears when we constantly compare ourselves to others.
Nowadays we have multiple ways to compare, this is the age of facebook and twitter.
Depression appears at some point when we focus on external things more rather than our internals.
If our goals end as our internals; not only depression but all the violence, obesity, illness, and greed will disappear.
If we deny our internals knowingly or unknowingly, our emotions will erupt in some other uglier forms.
Depression is just one of them.
The person who doesn’t have time to understand his or her internals by devoting 30 minutes physical activity or 30 minutes meditation suffers the most from depression.
Our life always leaves clues to us, those who are chasing only for externals bleed the most internally in life.

Depression comes when we try to live the same year 75 times and call it a life, as said by Robin Sharma.

Remember, depression is nothing but a byproduct when we don’t have any process to make our own product.

Scientifically speaking, there is a wide-acting neurotransmitter, serotonin, which if deficient in our body, has a high chance of depression.
The very fundamental and interesting point regarding serotonin is to be noted: the head brain produces only 5 % of serotonin.
Very few people are aware about this, the rest of the 95 % serotonin is produced in the gut, that’s why it is also called “the second brain’.
The gut is nothing but a gastrointestinal tract which is the long tube that starts at the mouth and ends at the back passage-anus.
Poor gut hygiene and poor gut-brain communication is directly or indirectly related to depression.

If we devote our life in any process to make either a product or service, we are less likely to suffer from depression.
This looks complicated but doable and easy.
Complicated in the sense we should be really aware about our activities in life.
Doable means developing a small process that engages our mind constantly rather than a final product.

This is one of my favorite sayings from Peter Drucker: what gets measured gets managed.
Measure your life by process, your product itself gets managed.

Remember, process is not a noun, it’s a verb.

By the way, until now I’ve not received any email from Ramitta.
I can only wish her all the best.

Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina

Saying no to multiple things can be the ultimate self-care. -Claudia Black

Last two weeks were really crucial for me, an important part of my self-nurturing and self-discovery in my life.
I was covid positive and my whole family was covid positive including my youngest two and half years old.
When I found my daughter was covid positive, I was suspecting myself personally because I was also experiencing a mild headache and chills on that day.
I was in the office but I didn’t want to give the covid positive information to my 10 years old daughter via message or phone, I wanted to be with her with the result.
I knew my daughter’s habit, she could be very reactive very soon.
I went home, she was constantly asking me the test result, and I told her you are covid positive.
She cried initially, I saw her scary eyes but I hugged her and said, “don’t worry, viruses will go away in two weeks, we all the family members will be isolated from the outside world for two weeks. We will expel this virus from us very soon.”
I couldn’t do anything except to strengthen the morale of my daughter, make her as positive as I could.
After knowing the test result of all the family members, we all did nothing except taking medications, resting, sleeping, drinking water, juice, soups and ginger tea.
I did a little bit of reading and writing completely out of science, my professional area, if I didn’t feel tired.
Most of the time, I felt really tired.
I couldn’t eat much so I was feeling very weak.
I could feel my weakness quite easily due to fatigue, dullness, and body pain.
My body is accustomed physically to running, which I couldn’t do. Even though I couldn’t eat solid food much, I drank plenty of water, juice, soups, and ginger turmeric tea.
When our body hosts contagious viruses, we start to think a lot.
I realized this for the first time in my life.
Thinking became my notorious tool even if I wanted to ignore it.
Thinking becomes more contagious than viruses, when we’re awake.
Why is this never stopping tool so corrosive?
I have no clue.

I wanted to shift my moving brain to something positive, something creative like sitting for longer period meditation.
I knew I couldn’t go out and do other activities so that I could only calm my active brain by indoor activities. I was locked physically but my mind was not locked.
In the past two weeks, I slept two thirds of the time to decelerate my thinking.
I forced myself to sleep even though I wasn’t feeling sleepy.
The only time I felt relaxed is immediately after I wake up from a deep undisturbed ibuprofened sleep.
When the body becomes weak, the only thing the body needs is rest.
Full rest is possible only if we go on deep sleep, our mind shuts its doors so that we can recharge and refuel.

I did some creative light synthesis work in the kitchen.
I made tuna soup for my family.
I fried some onion and tomato pieces with fenugreek, carom, and cumin seeds.
After two minutes of frying, I added tuna chunks and stirred for a few minutes.
I added turmeric powder, salt, and I stirred again.
I grinded ginger and garlic pieces and made a paste and stirred with tuna chunks for at least five minutes.
I added two small chillis, a little bit of cumin seed and coriander powder, and half spoon mixed spice powder again.
I poured 5 cups of water and boiled it for 10 minutes.
After that I transferred it in the bowl, squeezed the fresh lime on top of it and took a sip of it with my favorite spoon.
I felt really energetic with each spoon.

I used to drink the soup, and then I tried to sleep but I couldn’t sleep again.
This became a routine for more than two weeks.
What to do next, I used to sneak inside my daughter’s dark room, I checked them.
I also used to check my wife’s room, she was sleeping next to my two and half years old son.
I touched both of their foreheads.
My wife opened her eyes, a mild face, she held my hands for a few seconds but didn’t say anything.
No need to say anything, I could understand her eyes because I had been reading those eyes for the last 15 years.
I felt both of them hot, I checked their temperatures, both of them were around 101F.

When we have viruses in our body either our body will fight or flight depending upon our body immunity or strength.
I told my wife to take a few sips of cold water which was next to her bed.
She did but my youngest one was in deep sleep.

Every night was a new beginning for me, I knew that.
But I was forgetting it as I moved through pain and fever.
I needed to do one thing that was ahead of me, I didn’t know what was ahead of me, but I needed to do one thing: be calm and positive as much as I could, do meditation as long as I could.

Many nights, I couldn’t sleep.
Next to my bed was a book “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron.
I used to read a few pages.
Julia was talking about our inner artist character which we usually kill very early in our life to avoid unnecessary hurdles and pain.
Julia’s book reminded me why we humans think so much about other people’s opinions to kill our creativity.
I also thought why am I so scared to share my own personal feelings?
Why do I need to share only formal words?
I’ve written many things in my diary but very few things I have shared with the outside world. Why?
Is my life only formal?
Don’t I have private feelings to share?
Then why am I hesitant to share it?

I know everybody has bad and good feelings depending on their personal journey.
Another thing I learned from Julia’s book is we have many things to do in our life, but we have only one thing to accomplish at one time.
This time one thing for me is to take care of my health and my family’s health, and get rid of covid viruses as soon as possible.
Filter every other noise and concentrate on one thing only.
Just one.
I didn’t want to surf facebook because I was not happy. Facebook is the place to share happy faces, nobody posts authenticity there, everything is edited, but our real life is always unfiltered.
I turned off facebook and thought about making chicken soup this morning.
I made chicken soup for lunch.

I always fight to make ginger tea or just drink plain water.
I couldn’t pick one quickly.
What was bothering me about making ginger tea?
I wanted ginger tea but I didn’t have the energy to make ginger tea.
Was I feeling tired or lazy?
Tiredness is different from feeling lazy.
Tiredness is my physical condition but laziness is procrastination.
If something takes less than 2 minutes to finish and if I don’t do it then I’m not tired, I’m just lazy.
Lazy because I’m thinking more rather than doing, I’m accepting everything that comes to my mind but not doing 2 minutes’ work, I am lazy.
I realized I’m lazy, I’m unable to distinguish one thing out of many.
I used to stop my mind quickly, I made ginger tea multiple times in a day, drank, and slept all day.

Among many ways, one way not to feel lazy is to pick one thing that takes less than 2 minutes, and just do it.
Pick one small thing.
Just do it.
Due to weakness, I have been sleeping a lot these days but I always keep one notebook with a nice pen and one of my favorite reading books next to my bed.
I always leave one book on the dining table too.
Whenever my daughters come to eat, they read the title and they also read about the author if the author is female, If the author is male, they rarely read. I don’t know why?
I have noticed this but have not mentioned it.
Once I sit at the dining table, I read one page or maybe two if I feel so.
The book I have right now at my dining table is “The Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert.
I’m reading 73 pages of it.
Today morning, when I opened my eyes, I went to the kitchen, I still had pain in my body, and made ginger tea. I didn’t read the book but I saw only the picture of Elizabeth Gilbert on the back cover.
Of course, she was older than me, she is a white lady, attractive, and has an amazing face-cut but I was in love with her finger and mind connection more.
I asked her, “ what’s in your mind?”
Your genes are chemical engineer’s genes but how do you portray my feelings, my words, and eventually my stories?”
How did you know that I have all of these in my mind?
You are a genius mind reader, I love you Gilbert.
I’ve eaten you, I’ve prayed for you, and I’ve loved you.
Keep shining us through your beautiful words and keep writing, keep inspiring us.
I will keep looking at your passport picture everytime on the book cover when you publish something new and love you always.
But please keep updating your picture in every other book so that I feel I’m getting older too.

I wrote one sentence in my diary.
I wrote, “why do some people become such good artists?”
I was still thinking about Elizabeth Gilbert.
It was 7am.
I wrote “why do I have a headache again?”
Why do I take ibuprofen to kill my headache?
Because I have no other options.
But why?
Because I don’t want to think when I have a headache and body pain.
There is no option, Ibuprofen works only when I sleep.
This is my routine now.
Why cannot I break my routine?
Because I am accustomed to my routine.

What happens if I start something really small to break my routine?
I started to accumulate my personal diaries.
I am hoping to compound everything one day.
That’s the beauty of one thing.
I want to compound not to think much, nowadays the fancy name for this is focus.
Today my one thing is to make chicken soup, one small thing but little different than before.
I’m compounding my soup skill too.
My wife told me I can make nice chicken soup too.
She told me it’s easy, whatever I did for tuna soup, repeat exactly the same, just exchange chicken pieces instead of tuna chunks.
That’s it.
Wow, how do people become so creative?

I realize that life doesn’t need to change a whole lot of things at once, it needs only a small one thing to change at a time.
Today there is just one thing to do, chicken soup, completely different recipe and different taste with only one small tiny change.

If we compound one thing for a 5 percent increment for 10 years how big would the number be?
Guess.
This is the power of one thing compounded over time.
No plans, no time management, no priority, just one thing, that’s it.

I don’t know how to be happy but the sure way to be unhappy is to do many things at one time, to please many people doing many things for them at one time.
We spend too much time doing many things to make a living in our life rather than building one thing by doing one thing everyday.
To make a living by doing many things in life is a circle but to build one thing by doing one thing in life is an uptrend line.
Spending quality time to build one thing by doing one thing is a responsibility.
Building one thing by doing one thing requires a solid appointment each day and every day.
Make your appointment with one thing everyday whatever it is.
Mine is tuna soup, chicken soup, my midnight diary, Julia’s book pages, Gilbert’s words, Buchwald’s new article, Hartwig’s book, one hour nap on Sunday afternoon, just a few but one thing at a time.

Let’s be serious even though I still have a mild fever.
Let’s see the proof.
Twelve American writers have won the Nobel prize in literature since 1901.
Not one of them had a formal Masters degree in creative writing.
Four of them never even finished high school.
Then how come they got the Nobel prize in literature, well, because they had one thing in their mind.
The only one thing.
They wrote something everyday, maybe less than two minutes everyday.
Maybe one sentence everyday.
They made an appointment with writing for two minutes everyday.
Their one thing was maybe one sentence, or two or maybe five sentences.
If you compound one page for a five percent increment every year for 10 years,
could you guess how many books you could write?

I am formally a doctorate, somebody somewhere gave me this degree by spending five years on one thing only but I assure you all this.
When we pass a certain age in life, no matter how we are spending our time, we will certainly earn a doctorate in how to live a life.
Living a life comes from individual personal experiences.
Any two people’s living experiences’ rarely match.
Let’s make one thing for living a life, whatever it is.
Let’s make an appointment with this one thing, everyday or every night.
My whole body is in pain due to covid, but I would like to make mushroom soup today, my one thing for today.
I will change one thing today, mushroom pieces instead of chicken or tuna pieces, which I made before.
Just one thing but a completely different recipe, every other thing will remain the same.
Gordon Ramsay became the most famous chef in the world by changing just one thing at a time in his recipe.

I hope my whole family will be virus-free soon.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

“My father didn’t tell me how to live. He lived and let me watch him do it.”
-Clarence Budington Kelland

Look around us.
What do we see?
Things made by humans and things not made by humans.
All of these things made by humans are inspired from things not made by humans.
All of the natural things like water, air, earth, oxygen, animals, and plants carry immense pontential for us.
Always use them for good purpose, education, and motivation.
Whatever things human made which we see around are not made by people smarter or better than us. These people are the same as us.
The only thing they did differently is they spent time studying nature and, most importantly, the complex relationship of it to humans.
They just developed better daily routines and habits to study nature and evolution of human beings, which after a while became automatic and required less conscious energy.

Many times in our life we become illusioned by originality, or quote and quote, something new for the first time. Nothing is original in this world.
We first invented black and white photos but we still had blue sky, light rays, seven colors, brown clouds, green trees, and blue ocean, just to name a few.
These are originals, yes, exactly originals.

Nature is only original, the rest of all is synthesis from it.
Originality only happens if we exactly know what are the edges of reality, and the reality is nature and human beings.

It’s very hard to understand the value of originality if we only listen to a Harvard MBA, a tobacco company CEO, but ignoring a primary school teacher and a forest conservationist in Nigeria and Nepal.
Originality is directly or indirectly connected to us, humanity.
What impact do these people have for us?
If we dig a little deeper for the cause of humanitarian efforts, everything would be clear.
We are living in the age of bubbles, we don’t go deeper because we don’t have time to make a human connection.
Is there any difference between hard-core bribery or corruption or making money by selling tobacco?
I don’t believe the original idea from a Harvard MBA, a tobacco company CEO, there is no such thing, what I believe is derivative of the originals from a primary school teacher or a forest conservationist in Nigeria or Nepal who are devoted to making human beings healthy and happy. Inside the derivative is the human picture that translates the originality into humanity.
There is nothing special, new, and clean except human connection to nature.
We have to clean our house everyday to make it dust free otherwise in no time the house looks crappy.
That everyday cleaning brings originality into the house, the same applies to nature.

Nature has amazing things to offer: we can plant, we can grow, and we can harvest. Plant means to start, grow means to take care, and harvest means to take advantage.

Nature is also an amazing therapy.
It cures a lot of things which modern medicine can’t cure. Of course, it’s slow but way more effective.
Think about the situation where you and your spouse had a severe verbal argument. One of you said sorry and offered a walk in nature.
You tightly hold your spouse’s hand and offer to see the sunset tonight from a rocky mountain. While watching the sun set, what comes to your mind?
Why do you forget everything that you had a few minutes ago?
Imagine the whole universe, observe the sky, look at the horizon, feel the flow of gentle wind.
Are you still stressed with your tomorrow’s goal or weekly goal?
Of course not, you both feel amazingly different.
Why nature settled you both is because it has immense power which we don’t know yet.
If you are planning for a marathon run, a marathon coach instructs you to walk barefoot on grass for 30 minutes every week, why?
Because nature provides strength to your feet.
If we only eat the kind of food which gives life if we throw it on soil, for example, plants, seeds, or grains etc then we never become sick.
Why?
Because soil is nature, grains and plants are also nature they provide strength to our body.
Nowadays, our everyday breakfast has sugar and doughnuts, they are against nature.
Our grandmother doesn’t recognize them as food.
By the way, our grandmother is also nature.

Remember, if we are healthy then only we make thousands of dreams in life but if we are unhealthy then we have only one dream in life: how to get rid of the disease.

If you are a person to believe in magic diet pills to be slimer and beautiful rather than the daily 7am run in nature then you have not understood the power of nature.

Always look a few steps in front of you before looking too far too quick.
Right in front of us is oxygen to breathe, water to drink, trees to get shades, soil to plant, and animals to pet.
We have sunlight that converts our cholesterol in the skin into vitamin D3 in our body.
These resources are interlinked with our mind and body, and they communicate with us constantly.

Accept it or not, nature gives energy, strength, and freedom to us.
But for that we have to think a little deeper, learn at least a little bit from Galileo, Aristotle, and Henry David Thoreau.
Freedom provides creativity if we try to understand the complexity of nature.
Amazing things are amazing the first time when they happen but this amazing wanes with repetition.
But nature never wanes.
Think of the moment when your wife or girlfriend tells you for the first time that she is pregnant, a true gift of nature.
Think of the sentence ‘I love you’ when your partner said it to you for the first time.
You both represented nature at the moment.

Politics, peace, love, hate, jealousy, money, marriage, sex, status, birth, death, disease, and religion, each is a powerful source of human emotion.
Do we actually know whom to marry, where to work, where to raise a baby, and where to retire. Of course not, but we are still worried all the time about them and become emotional.

Remember, happiness and success aren’t found when we are emotional, we don’t become happy by buying things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we won’t know in 5 to 10 years from now.

Many of our emotions cloud our judgements. This is a severe weakness for human beings. Nature has an aesthetic power to control our emotions. Scientifically how it works I don’t know but it works.
I feel tired, I come home, I sit on the couch, I take off my socks, my cat knows I am at home, my cat sits next to me and stares at me, my cat comes and snuggles my feet, I feel relaxed.
If I’m overwhelmed, I also come out in my garden, I touch the ground with my bare feet and I feel different.
I feel calm and relaxed.
I feel connected to all the human beings around the globe through earth because every human being is touching the earth.
Isn’t it power?

All prospective moms know the nine months pregnancy would be troublesome.
Every mom knows the pain and suffering of delivery but still they are very happy to give birth to a baby.
All prospective parents know they have to clean up poops, change diapers, they have to spend time on their kids’ homework, they might have to cut their sleep time, they have to spend their life savings for college tuition but still they want to go to become dad and mom.
Why?
Because parenthood is nature, there is something incredible inside it.
I’ve seen a billboard with just the words ‘dad’ and ‘mom’. Do we need any sentence to complete these words?
I don’t think so.

Recently, I asked a 77 years old man, who was smoking outside of his office building, “you always seemed relaxed, what is the reason for it?”
He said, “my son finished college, my daughter gave birth to a healthy daughter last month, I’m a grandfather now, isn’t it enough to be happy?”

I just smiled without any comment, I don’t know why but his answer touched my heart.

“I also look at my marriage. Yes, I’m a father, I’m a grandfather, I’m uncle, and I’m a friend. Wait, I’m boss too in my office, but at my core, I’m just a human being doing my best to create a life for my kids and grandkids that makes me proud,” he further added.
“I should mention this, if you want to be relaxed in life, always wear nice and comfy underwear and socks, never compromise on these things, two thirds of your life time you wear those, I’m serious, do the things whatever makes you happy, healthy, and comfy,” he said laughingly but seriously.

Isn’t this 77 years old man a student of nature?

We can become whatever we want in life for a very short period of time but we have to be either dad or mom forever.
Being dad and mom is nature; no, no, I’m not saying natural, I’m saying nature; but any other role in life is temporary and easily interchangeable.
The strength that you generate being a dad and mom is immense, that needs to be preserved to transfer in generations to come.
Being a dad or mom, never ever talk about yourself more in front of your kids, let them see your activities more.
The only way they learn more is by mirroring you.
Let them see you walking on the grass, let them see you running in the morning, let them see you watching the sun-set, and let them see you eating only whole grains.
You must be a very good student of nature yourself first to be a dad or mom forever.

Our adult suicide rates have tripled over the past forty years, the most selling drugs at present are for depression, anxiety, and stress.
Anxiety starts at age 11, depression starts at age 14, obesity and diabetes are at epidemic level at the moment.
Do you really know, why?
Because we forgot to plant, we forgot to grow, and we forgot to harvest.
The biggest problem, as a dad and mom, we forget because we don’t have time to teach our kids about these activities.

Remember, a tree doesn’t speak, it remains calm and serene but it gives flowers and those flowers turn into fruits when time comes.
Parenthood is nature: let our kids see how to plant, grow, and harvest.
If we learn patience from a tree, we become dad and mom forever.
Silence is also power; it also comes from a tree.
As Brene Brown, an author of ‘Daring Greatly’, says: talk less, listen more. This is a secret sauce to become a great dad and a great mom forever.

Time is a non-renewable resource in our life.
Let our kids know that time is nature, it is a zero sum thing, we cannot make more of it.
The most important thing in life is time, it has no color, no shape, and no size, we don’t see or feel it, it doesn’t wait for anybody.
It is not an object but it is an abstraction, treat it as such.
Respect for time is respect for nature.
The human being is the only animal that thinks about time, thinks about past, present, and future.
As a human being, the donation of time for any human cause is more powerful than the donation of money for the same cause.
As a dad and mom, let our kids see where we donate our time.
Donate our time to teach computer science in rural public schools so that they know why information is power, donate our time to teach chemistry in rural public schools so that they understand why we have to make more medicines to cure diseases.
Donate our time to build a local library in your community so that they will know what knowledge and wisdom are hidden in the pages of a book.

Donate our time to teach young generations about nature so that they will know why we should live our life happily.

Learning to donate time to humanity is learning to be a best dad and best mom forever.

I wish you all: a very happy, healthy, and prosperous new year 2022.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

To be happy means to experience that we are alive. -Anonymous

I was reading a newspaper in a coffee shop.
Suddenly, I saw a couple at the corner table with espresso coffee and banana muffins.
I wasn’t in a good mood, I don’t know why, a bit depressed, thinking about a lot of things in my life: my unfinished projects, no time for family and kids, mundane career, no time to travel, and not enough money. Name a few of them.
In addition to that, I was also worried about my legacy for my children.
What was I thinking at the coffee shop?
Maybe I was a bit overwhelmed.
I wasn’t happy at all.

Suddenly, the same couple sitting at the corner table approached me and handed me a Christmas card.
On the back side of the card there were five very important quotes from very influential people.
One particular quote from Anne Frank is still in my head: “think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.”

After reading those five quotes, I wasn’t the same person as before entering the coffee shop.
I smiled to myself, a little bit excited, at least I was happy for a moment due to the momentum brought by those quotes.
Quotes are creative human expressions, and a lot of times we try to live by them based on our lifestyle. Sometimes it’s possible to live by these quotes, sometimes it doesn’t.
Quotes not only speak our inner voice they also speak what is outside of our life.
In my case, those quotes which I read were real and took me to a higher energy level for a moment.
I don’t know why but I felt a different kind of happiness when I finished reading them.
I am pondering now, did the couple transfer little happiness to me?

I am still reflecting now, getting a bit emotional remembering the past incident at the moment.
Am I crazy to think about that small moment again?
But wait, life itself is the combination of many small moments which we don’t get time to cherish.
Do I feel happy right now?
Well, how to know?
My mind is still not accepting the present reality that I’m happy because I’m constantly searching for something.
I’m very anxious because I’m worried about the future.
Why do we need a constant push to remain happy at the moment?
Do you have any clue?
Have you ever experienced something like this before?

I know happiness is a subjective experience, it’s difficult to describe because your happiness could not be mine, and my happiness could not be yours.
Could I read the happiness of the couple sitting next to me? They seemed pretty happy, laughing and talking together, cuddling to each other with sips of coffee and bites of muffins.
Hell, no, I couldn’t read their happiness externally from my mind.
I told myself, the experience that I was having at that moment was different than that of a couple, the couple couldn’t have the same experience as mine, we were two different emotional creatures.

As Daniel Gilbert, the author of ‘Stumbling on Happiness’ said that happiness cannot be measured but we can only either participate in it or be aware of it.

What I have seen from movies and read from great books is: happiness is internal, it is being.
Many great spiritual leaders and great authors have said that calm is also happiness.
Many social scientists have based their research on this topic.
The common saying is we attract happiness, we don’t search for it.
Then, why am I searching for it?
Because this is our human nature, we always search for happiness.
I remember one of my mentors who told me that whether the person is happy from inside or searching for happiness, always look for two simple characters.

These two characters are: unhappy people always argue, they argue a lot about anything, big or small, and most importantly, they argue to win.
The person who argues has ego, it suppresses happiness.
They don’t care about facts, figures, and knowledge.
Ego comes when you are not happy with your life, you have a lot of dissatisfaction inside you, mostly created by self centered confinement.
When ego is gone, humility comes, then you smile naturally, this is how happiness emerges.
If you are happy then you discuss things with positive intention but you never argue.
Discussion is not an argument, discussion is sharing with others, when you show a sharing attitude, your mind glows and you become happy.
Always share or transfer your happiness whatever it is, small or big, it always multiplies in ample quantities.

Know this, you only become happy when you make others happy.

The second characteristic of unhappiness is gossiping.
If we are not happy with our life then we talk about other people.
This is hilarious but a fact.
Remember, if we gossip with somebody, somebody also gossips about us.
Gossiping is the elongation of our dissatisfaction about our own life in a fake happy appearance.
We are just taking time to avoid our unhappiness for the time being.
Unhappy people mostly gossip to compare things, appearance, and habits showing the hidden motif that I am superior.

Remember, happy people always talk about ideas and experiences, they don’t gossip about things, appearance, and habits of other people.

Nowadays, happiness has been contaminated by things; money which never becomes enough, big house which never becomes big enough, big car which never becomes luxurious enough, and many others.

Our happiness never becomes happy enough if we constantly look for things to possess.
Possessing things consume us very quickly if we are not aware of their nature.
In reality, happiness is peace with whatever we have.
This ‘have’ ridiculously becomes ‘want’ if we don’t practice peace in our lives.

Few years ago, I met a man at my family friend’s house. He said that he made one million dollars in five years going the extra mile in his business.
He said that he is very happy because he made that money after a long struggle in the medical equipment business as a sales representative.
Few months ago, I met him again in one conference and he shared his mom’s undiagnosed health issue. He was very worried thinking about his mom’s health condition.
I became familiar with him through our professional connection because I am also involved in the medical research area.
Few days ago he called me and shared the good news that a doctor in Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City identified his mother’s disease.
But the doctor said it would cost upto one million dollars in total to cure the disease. His mom was suffering from a very abnormal cancer.
My friend said to me he was so happy that his mom would be alive.
He added that finally God saw him and helped to save his mother’s life.

After our conversation, I was very happy for him that his mom’s disease got identified and will be cured soon.

After seeing my friends’ stages in life, I became quite unhappy about one thing.
Why does this happiness move in our life so quickly?
My friend was so happy with one million dollars in his bank account, but now he is happier to spend the money to save his mother.
What is so unique about our happiness?

One day I met the same friend in a Barnes and Noble book store, he shared his mom’s health and told she is free from cancer now.
He told me that only peace can bring happiness to us.

He further added, “if we want to have a happy life we should anticipate a lot in life but we should never react. We humans always blame other people or things for our own suffering or unhappiness.”
“In fact, we ourselves are the cause of our suffering and unhappiness. If we develop a non reactive attitude, we bring peace into us that is essential to remain happy,” he further added.

If you aren’t happy then your unhappiness doesn’t remain isolated within you, you will send this unhappiness to all of your family members, loved ones, and colleagues. They never become happy with your unhappiness.

Life is too short to be unhappy.
Happiness doesn’t come as an end product, happiness is the series of small moments we pass every single day.
We have to learn to be happy in those small moments, we have to practice to cherish those moments.
Therefore, choose happiness and always practice happiness.

Shahrukh Khan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Lady Gaga aren’t happy because they are famous celebrities and they have millions of strange followers; they are happy because they also have life like us, they have family and loved ones around them like us, they can breathe and smell this wonderful world as we do.
We don’t always get what we want in life, but if we practice happiness we always get what we need in life.
‘Need’ gives us a sense of fulfillment but ‘want’ doesn’t.

Last week, I was in the Wal-Mart self-checking counter, behind me was an old woman waiting with a gallon of milk and some apples. That would probably cost less than five dollars.
I smiled at the lady and asked her, “Mam, you have just two items, I have many, could I scan your milk and apples first and let you go?”
“And mam, don’t worry, I will pay for you.”
The woman looked at me straight in my eyes first, she smiled and said, “God bless you.”
I still have her smile in my head.
I hope I transfer a very small happiness to her.

Remember, Socrates taught Plato, Plato also taught Aristotle, and Aristotle also taught Alexander the Great.
What do these great people have in common?
Each of these great people were transferring their happiness in the name of knowledge and wisdom.

By the way, if you know any other secrets of happiness, please share with others. Let’s make this world a little happier together.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

More than a decade ago when I was an undergrad, I joined a music class.
I liked singing, I spent a significant amount of time on singing because I wanted to become a professional singer.
I also sang a few songs on stage in various school and college programs.
Many of my contemporary friends used to compliment me that I sang pretty well and my voice was very solid, suitable for many modern sentimental songs.
Actually, similar types of words from many of my friends catalyzed me to pursue my music journey.
I believed at the time that music could be one of the reasons to live a purposeful life for me.

I used to attend music class in the evening after school.
My teacher taught me classical music very thoroughly.
My music teacher always told me to practice classical songs because he was a firm believer that classical music only produces a good vocalist.
I still think I wasn’t a bad student at least, I might be an average student but I’m sure I wasn’t meeting my teacher’s expectations as I could imagine.
I was clearly unaware what his expectation looked like.

After about six month’s music class, one day my teacher asked me a very thought provoking question.
That question was a heavy load for me to rethink my music passion.
I still to this day have no clue why he asked me such a question and what he saw on me on that day.

He asked me, “Is this singing your dream or goal?”

I didn’t know what he meant then.
I didn’t understand upfront so I was confused about what to say.
I’d heard that many of my friends used to say about their dream job, dream car, and dream house.
But I’d never heard about any goal for a house or car or job, at least by people whom I was surrounded by.
I also thought the same way and said to my teacher, “singing is my dream.”
He didn’t say anything except a silent soft laugh.
To be honest, I didn’t know the difference between dream and goal, so I told him, I wanted to become a singer.
I told him that I wanted to become a professional singer, singing was my passion, it was a kind of dream but I wanted to make it come true for me.

My teacher added, “Most of the time dreams are fantasies in our life, dreams don’t come into reality because they are very volatile.
We see so many dreams at night during sleep but most of them we forget by the time we wake up in the morning.”

“But the goal is different, it is a stepwise concrete rational process of achieving something.
Goal is not a dream, goal is something we can only see when we are awake,” my teacher further added.

I didn’t respond to anything he said except I greeted him and said, “bye”.
This was my last conversation with my teacher regarding music class, after that I never returned to the music class.
I still to this day don’t know why I didn’t return to the music class because I wasn’t offended by what he said.

I talked about this conversion to one of my close friends during lunch time the next day.
My friend told me, “Dreams may come from your goal too, but you have to pass the goal threshold.”
I asked him, “What is the ‘goal threshold’?”
What he said about the ‘goal threshold’ on that day stuck in my life through today.
My friend made me understand what goal is and what dream is.

Goal itself is also just imagination if we keep this inside us but if we take action and finish 5 percent of the goal then we pass the ‘goal threshold’.
Our goal could be anything but we must finish at least 5 percent of it in the beginning, if we want to see our goal in our dream.

My friend added, “Dreams evaporate in the morning, but goal condenses in the morning.”
Evaporation is disappearing from us but condensation is reappearing in more visible form.
We never visualize the dream in the morning, we never try to remember.
But all the successful people always visualize their goals.
Goal setting is a visualization process to make impossible possible for them, but always stepwise.
When we have the habit of visualizing the goal, we don’t have to compete with others, we will compete for ourselves, and also win for ourselves.
Winning to yourself is the best win ever.
My friend said, “once you finish the 5 percent goal threshold, you create the habit to anticipate more than to react. This is really important for any kind of goal in life.”

My friend gave me a very simple example of how things work out when we process any goal in life and how the 5 percent threshold works.
He shared his goal of being healthy in life by adopting this technique.

He told me, “I always start the day by drinking one glass of water in the morning immediately after I wake up.
When I drink one glass of water immediately after I wake up, I win over my dehydrated body that gives energy to win my day.
This is a very small task but worth doing every single day if I want to become healthy. This is my 5 percent threshold for the day.”

Keep in mind, small tasks matter the most to achieve any big goal in life.
If small tasks are done consistently over time, we will achieve the big goal, it’s only a matter of time.
Drinking a glass of water right after we wake up is the first step that we are ready to battle the day.
It also provides a sense of pride to us, because this is another indication that we love our body which is our incredible engine in this life.
It’s so easy to snooze the button and sleep five more minutes rather than go to the kitchen and drink a glass of water.
Once we get up and move out of bed, it is less likely that we come back to bed to sleep again.
This is another advantage to make a habit of early rising to benefit from a miracle morning.

This looks like a small task but many of us rarely do it because walking to the kitchen is an initiation step for our goal that needs some mental energy to begin.
Going from bed to kitchen is a motion that produces energy.
Drinking water is an action, remember, action produces emotion and that is what drives us to accomplish any of our life goals.

Truth to be told, the majority of us don’t drink enough water during the day, not because of any specific reasons, but only due to our busyness.
We forget to drink.
Many of our everyday discomforts like headache, dizziness, and tiredness also happen due to dehydration in our body.
Keep in mind, the majority of kidneys, liver, and brain diseases start due to dehydration in our body in the very beginning.
Drinking a glass of water immediately after we wake up is a less than a minute task, but it changes life if done consistently everyday.

The consistency in action is the first step to achieve any life goal whatever small the action might be.

To make our body and mind healthy, we don’t have to do big and difficult tasks but we have to do small tasks everyday regularly.

Life is a battle of winning small things everyday.

We all want to be happy, we all know what we need to do to become happy and healthy.
We’ve read about how to be happy and healthy, we’ve seen about it in books and movies, we think we know how the happiness steps work in our life.
But the problem is we never make a clear goal to achieve it and take action consistently.
We have no idea how the ‘goal threshold’ works in the case of our happiness.
If we don’t do anything small consistently everyday related to the big goal then we don’t have any goal, and if we don’t have any goal then we never experience happiness.

Happiness is the internal feeling of satisfaction of doing something regularly.

I believe inconsistency is what my music teacher realized and saw in me when I was doing music class. I was not consistent in any of my work.

Happiness is an unseen but felt emotion which releases gradually while moving towards any goal in life with consistency.

Having a goal is like starting a wall with a single brick or stone you know nothing about in the beginning, but eventually a wall is made.
Happiness is like how it feels by increasing the wall 2 inches taller everyday.

But, having a dream is a little different as we know it, we’ve read it, and we’ve seen it, but unfortunately, never translating it into reality.
The problem is every night a new dream appears and vanishes in the morning.

Goal of being healthy, happy, and wealthy should never be complicated.
Complication is in our laziness.
Complication is in our only thinking habit but never to start.
Complication is in our only saying habit but not doing.
Complication is in our only postponing habit.
Complication is our only procrastination habit.

We don’t want to spend 5 minutes on small but important things everyday early in the morning right after we wake up which passes our ‘goal threshold’ for the day.
Drinking one glass of water takes less than 1 minute.
Early meditation to clear our head takes less than 2 minutes.

Remember, meditation is a purposeful silence which is way more powerful than busy, hectic, and rush in life.
Busy, hectic, and rush are common words in our everyday life.
These words have been created by our own circumstances, people around us, and personal choice.
Our life is way more important than these few selected words that we throw around all the time.
If we play the busyness card only on the treadmill and never learn how to put a ladder, then we reach nowhere. We make a circle over and over again and end up in the same place in life.

Purposeful silence heals the body permanently but medication heals the body temporarily.

Stretching our body early in the morning takes less than 2 minutes which regulates our metabolic activity and blood circulation.
Not only that, by stretching our body or by doing little physical workout, we also enter into a little higher state of mind where our thinking becomes different than before to start the physical workout.
But we never do physical workout consistently because we are in a rush, we don’t have time to do it.

All of these aforementioned tasks take a maximum of 5 minutes and this is what gives a healthy, happy, and wealthy life in the long run.

Whatever weird the goal is, if we stick to the goal and battle the small humps everyday, we will win the race.

I don’t know how this system works but the result appears automatically once we are in the process.
I believe this is how any of our life goals translates into reality, slowly but surely.

People without goals are more likely to be depressed at some stage in life and generally have terrible mornings because their mind is relatively quiet in the morning.
Quietness is the enemy for those who are depressed in life.
They have to bring stuff from the past, maybe from the previous day or a few days before to run their mind.
They also don’t sleep at night because their mind is constantly buzzing from the whole day’s activities or by old past activities.
They never practice how to clear their head before going to bed or in the morning after they wake up.

Depression generally happens when we focus more on us rather than our meaningful goal.

Once we have a goal in life, things run smoothly and we are less likely to have a depressed mind.
Our days and nights run very smoothly.
We sleep well.
And ultimately, this is the secret of our happiness.
When you have a goal, when you sleep well at night, when you become healthy, you learn how to reduce time on things that you hate the most.
This habit automatically generates more time on things you love the most.

Remember, who you are is what your goal is.
Goal is not what we know, what we tell others, and what our plan is, the goal is what we do everyday consistently.

In the end, the goal of a goal is to change it into a smooth system and live a happy life.

By the way I’m so thankful to my music teacher for such a thought provoking question that helped me to shed my life.
Thank you teacher.


Thank you everyone for your time.
-Yam Timsina