Category: Social Upliftment

Bob said, “I am stuck here in my office but my school friend Robin is in Vianna enjoying his life”.
He further added, “I saw his facebook posts recently”.
These are everyday gossip we hear all the time in all places.
Because we don’t have time to compare our lives to our past self, but we always have time to compare our lives to other people’s lives.
If we compare our life to others, we get nothing but envy, the worst enemy of all.

Remember, knowing, doing, and then realizing what you knew and what you did, is the most powerful edge in life.
Not spending time to realize where you were is certainly the road to failure, and road to unhappiness.
We don’t spend time in comparison of knowing, doing, and the final realization of the outcome in our own life.
Our comparison to other’s lives only creates dissatisfaction.

Envy is the cancer of our mindset, we can become influenced negatively so fast by the success of others.
There is nothing wrong with this attitude because it it natural but it hinders our self-reflection and self-growth.

Abhi is a corporate CFO.
Natasha drives BMW.
But, I drive a Chevrolet.
This pattern of thinking is the key to our frustration.
Who we are as individuals, what we actually want, and what are our core values become overshadowed when we compare ourselves to others in various things.
BMW might give a little more comfort in our body while driving, but both are tools to solve our problems in the same way and most importantly both are not different to ingrain mental experience.
The funny part is our mind doesn’t distinguish BMW and Chevrolet, it only absorbs experience of driving.
It doesn’t mean I am against BMW, I am just against comparison.

We are so quick to idolize ourselves to Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Tony Robbins and think that their path to success is our key to happiness.
But we never review our everyday activities, habits, and especially diets.
Envy is a difficult human emotion, we all feel it.
It’s really hard to manage if we become prey on it.

Envy also takes our focus off from our own work and passion.
We completely erase our own goals and are attracted to passing-by shiny objects.
When we have envious feelings, we try to copy someone else’s success, we completely forget our own path.
We forget that there are different paths to reach the same destination.

False comparison is actually the cause of envy, we shouldn’t compare our first chapter of a book to someone else’s final chapter.
We shouldn’t compare fictional stories with non-fiction stories because both have different sets of target readers.
Each of our life has different paths to lead different destinations.

Mahatma Gandhi never compared his revolution with other rulers across the world who used force in their demonstrations.
In his time period, no rulers were doing peaceful demonstrations across the globe.
He was exceptionally good to follow his sheer determination, not to follow what others do.
Mahatma Gandhi, in his famous “Quit India” speech inspired every single indian to liberate themselves from British rule without using violence through peaceful protests.
Mahatma Gandhi is not only the inspiration of individuality but also the symbol of wisdom.

When we compare ourselves to others, we can’t differentiate among information, knowledge and wisdom.
Information is simply facts or data or somebody’s opinion; but knowledge is information of value.
If we are unable to differentiate these two, then we will remain foolish even though we watch news all day on television.
Similarly, knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit but wisdom is not putting tomato in a fruit salad.
Never ever think that having an abundance of knowledge is the same as having an abundance of wisdom.
The actual understanding of relationships among these elements: information, knowledge, and wisdom is possible when we stop comparing our lives with others but only with our own past self.

When we compare ourselves to others we become envious, we start to work more.
Most of the time grossly, not with a cool and calculated mindset.
We think working more might be the only option.
We confuse ourselves and think that more is better.
We forget that more is never the substitute of better.
Better is always better.
This feeling inside us comes when we are free from comparison.

Envious people also start to work more in negative perception and the more work turns into fatigue.
Fatigue leads to compromise in our health, family, and friends.
It’s definitely not better.
If we aim for more in a corrosive environment, we invite stress, conflicts, and deteriorating health.
But if we aim for better with self-reflection, we invite greater freedom.
Multiple scientific research has shown this trend over and over again.

I remember the conversation between two dads in one of the conferences where I was also a participant.
One dad said, “I rarely get to see my kids, that’s a risk you have to take in life.”
Another dad replied, “Is it really worth it?”
The first dad added, “I have to make payments for my BMW.”
The second dad again replied, “Chevrolet runs the same like BMW but the difference is Chevrolet gets time to give rides for your kids but BMW doesn’t.”
I just listened and laughed but didn’t respond.
The conversation was hilarious and worth-consuming.

However, there is also a good part of envy which is the result of comparison.
Sometimes envy becomes like a forest fire, we all know envy isn’t good, but it also stimulates some part of our human growth.
The forest fire burns the old trees to make space for new trees.
The heat of the fire pops open the seeds so new trees can grow.
Same happens with envy.
Just as a new tree can’t grow while the fire is still burning, a new you can’t grow higher while the current envy is still inside you.
However, as soon as your current envy dies down and a new you begins, the next you take off.

Envy also diminishes trial and error from our life, we just compare the outcome.
We hope for the best, and only dream.
And, oh, we develop the habit of comparing ourselves to others during lunch and dinner.
Anything great in our life is a process of trial and error.
We try something, we see results, if happy we continue, if not we eliminate.
Science is so fascinating that it doesn’t allow us to prove anything, it only allows us to disprove our thoughts by results.
We can accept and keep working on the remaining thoughts until we can’t disprove it.
But if we become envious by comparison, we disprove it without working.
We never try, we never take even a small risk of working to disprove it.

Risk taking is essential to sooth our envious character.
We all know there is still a chance, one in a million chance that when we go on a car trip, we may die.
But, we don’t, however, let it stop to visit our dad.
We don’t let it stop to visit our grandma.
Or do you?
Then why are you afraid to take even minor risks in life?
Take a risk and sooth the envy.

Remember, we all came into this world naked and we will leave this world naked, we are here to fill the gap of birth and death by our own choices in life.
Be humble, dump your envy, and never ever compare yourself to anybody else.
You are unique in this generation, there is nobody like you on the planet.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

A teacher and a student were out for a walk.
Student saw a fox chasing a rabbit.
Teacher said, “The rabbit will get away from the fox.”
“I don’t think so,” the student replied.
The teacher said, “The fox may be faster, but the rabbit will elude the fox.”
Student asked, “Why?”
Teacher said, “Fox is running for his lunch, but the rabbit is running for his life.”

So the hidden question is what is the motive behind the run?
The motive behind the run always wins, if it is with purpose, sometimes winning may not appear immediately but eventually it will.
Then, why do we all run everyday?
To go through the day.
Most of us make our day as our immediate goal, but it doesn’t limit us to run for the real purpose of our life.
Very few of us really understand or try to understand the real purpose of life, but each and every one of us should have some kind of purpose for our life.
Purpose is a drive.
We can’t make our day only for lunch or dinner even though lunch and dinner are equally important.

Abraham Lincoln ran for the sole purpose of his life: to preserve the union and freed the slaves.
Franklin Roosevelt ran for the sole purpose of his life: to lift the people out of a great depression and helped them win a world war.
BP Koirala ran for the sole purpose of his life: fight for humanism and social justice.
Nelson Mandela served 27 years in prison but never stopped running for democracy and social justice.

If we only chase for everyday lunch or dinner, we will never taste real life.

Extraordinary achievement and legacy is directly determined by not how fast we run, but by knowing the goal behind our run.

Powerful runners aren’t made in gyms, they are made from something they have deep inside them- a desire to run.
They have both a desire to run as well as the will, but the will must be stronger than the running skill.
This is the difference between running for life and running for a day.

If we’re running to lose weight for external reasons like to look slim for a wedding or anniversary, then we might reach our goal but the problem is we may gain weight back as soon as our wedding or anniversary ends.
If we’re running for life, we want to lose weight to feel good and to become healthy forever.
In the later case we definitely make slow progress at first but achieve sustainable results in the long term.

When we see a medical doctor, we see at least ten year’s knowledge accumulation related to medicines. That medical expertise they develop over time is by running consistently for at least 10 years.
It’s all motive for a gradual accumulation of knowledge.

One of the best ways to make the decision to run for life is by following or choosing a mentor.
Mentor is not simply our casual advisor.
He or she is more than that.
Mentor is somebody who has already walked the road we are willing to walk and he or she sees us as his or her past self.
Mentors help us to run our life course easily on track if we become able to choose the correct one.

Nobody knows our ultimate ceiling for our prosperity, so mentors teach us not to worry about it, they remind us it would just be a waste of time.
Rather than to know the ceiling of success, they help us to focus on one thing at a time.

When Sabeer Bhatia stepped on the soil of the USA, he had only $250 in his pocket, but he was running for a dream.
He created Hotmail, later Microsoft giant bought Hotmail for $400 million.
Sabeer Bhatia was running for his dream because he had Farouk Arjani on his back, the mentor.

Mentors are very special people.
Our interests and passion are two different things, most of the time we mix them up together.
Mentors help to convert our interest into passion and create value out of it.

Nobody offered a job for Walt Disney, pioneer of the animation industry, later his brother Roy appeared to be his mentor and gave him work at an art studio.

Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, had no money for any business, his father-in-law appeared to be his mentor and gave him $20,000 to start a retail business.

Albert Einstein had Max Talmud, he not only taught Einstein math, science, and philosophy but also ate either lunch or dinner with Einstein family for six years.

Mentoring forces us to implement new thinking, new skills, and new relationships. Without a mentor these tasks don’t seem natural at first but mentors force us to see them as natural even though they seem unnatural.
It’s very hard to act naturally for yourself.
Mentors can see unnatural things as naturals which we might not see.

No one can run alone, everybody’s gasoline has limited time but each successful runner has somebody behind to refuel.
Somebody standby in the gas station.
It’s the truth.
That somebody is your authentic mentor.

Even Oprah Winfrey, media personality and philanthropist, had Jeffrey D Jacobs as a mentor.

John Lennon of the Beatles had George Martin as a mentor.

One thing mentors remind us is that our most important appointment each day is with ourself, and we shouldn’t miss it.
Our appointment with our mission.
One secret thing that mentors teach us is that we can’t please everyone, there is no way.
We shouldn’t try it.
If we try to please everybody, there is guarantee that the one person we won’t please is ourself.
Our time is finite so we must keep pleasing ourself first.
Mentors are incredible people to reassure us that we aren’t missing these appointments everyday to please ourself.

Mentors will help us to find the right direction in life as well as finding the right action.
The real mentors will also help us to keep our relationships with friends, family, and colleagues in perspective and our daily actions on track.
What we shouldn’t forget is that they have already walked down the same road we’re walking or planning to walk.

We can research, model, benchmark, and trend their experiences for our success.
The research and experience of mentors is the best place to start our own life.
Most of the time we hear people saying that you are very smart but we rarely see them saying that there were many smart people before you so you study them.
These people who did before you, who walked before you, would be the best mentors.
Some mentors are living but many of them are dead but still they can guide us through their legacies, works, and publications.
Our job is to study them and build our actions on the back of their studies, their successes, and their failures.

Seeking a mentor is also hard work. Of course, it takes time but if we are serious about our life, it’s doable.
Generally we think life is about finding ourself but mentors help us to create ourself.

And one thing, never confuse with this, mentors are not advisors or consultants.
They are not.
Period.

Advisors and consultants charge money but mentors work free for you, but their value is priceless.
When you have a mentor on your side, one plus one almost always equals something greater than two.
It’s never too soon or too late to have a mentor.
Commit to achieve excellence.
Having a mentor gives us the best chance possible.
Always associate yourself only with great mentors who are going to lift you higher no matter what.

But just keep in mind, finding the right mentor certainly takes time, if you don’t have anybody right now.
It needs little extra effort, just keep working for that.
I wish you all – the best.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

Every one of us is not perfect, we all are trying to figure our own shit out, this is part of who we are. Everybody is struggling, everybody has a space to grow towards perfection.

One of the biggest hindrances of our growth is anxiety.
Anxiety banishes the good nature of human experience.
We suffer a lot from anxiety but that is nothing more than an imbalance in our daily life.
Many of these imbalances we create by our personal and professional habits.
If we want to grow, we have to accept every pain or anxiety as a bad day, not a bad life.
Life is a series of bad and good days, our only effort should be how to minimize bad days and maximize good days.

What we have to understand is that when we wake up in the morning, our body produces cortisol as an energy stimulant.
This is a natural chemical in our body that lets us for a fresh start each day and everyday.
But it is the same hormone which is also produced when we’re stressed and worried.
This means the same chemical works in two different ways in our body.
We have a control system for our own body chemicals.
This is also indicating that we have to know how to utilize our body secretion properly for our growth, prosperity and happiness.

There are two simple recommendations I can provide, from my own personal experience, if you’re imploding with anxiety and worry all the time.
The first is shower everyday with cold water after you wake up, whether you go out or not, you will start your day feeling pride and a sense of accomplishment.
This comes into play because you are calming down your body chemistry.
Not only that, a typical manifestation of each person’s orderliness starts from shower every morning.

The second is don’t scroll your electronic device first thing in the morning, don’t fill your mind with other people’s stuff.
Don’t start your day letting your mind compare your stuff with others.
Reserve the morning slot for you, for your peace, health, and growth.
If we learn how to own our morning, we will elevate life by decimating anxiety.
Start the day with deep breathing: breath slowly, inhale by nose and exhale by mouth, 3 times, repeat a couple of more times.
That’s it.
Now your body becomes a good reservoir for all day activities.
Congratulations.

We all know how it feels when we’re in pain.
But know this, pain is not a weakness everytime, it’s also a strength.
There is a power inside pain to connect us as humans because every pain is different.
Ask a mom who lost her 23 years old son in a car accident, what pain is.
Ask your neighbor who lost her spouse due to COVID-19, what suffering is.
We must absorb these pain experiences in our body and mind but never ever compare our neighbor’s pain, who lost her spouse due to COVID-19, with mom’s pain, who lost her 23 years old son in an accident.
Because these two people have completely different kinds of pain. No comparison.
This is the only way pain works in our lives.
Pain is personal, absolutely personal.
Pain teaches us how to show our inside out but in our own way.
Pain could be our greatest strength, but the best strategy is not to rely on it in all situations, we must save it for emergencies.
There is a good reason that we have a saying, “ the more the body suffers, the more the spirit flowers.”

One of the most important things we have to keep in mind is that any kind of advice for anything from other people (except trained professionals in the areas) may or may not work for us because advice is also personal.
And most of these advice are biased based on your relationship to that person.
It’s natural.
It is generally offered through the eyes of somebody’s own experience.
Your experience for anything happening in your life is completely different than somebody else’s.
Every personal situation encompasses a few unscrupulous individuals, so you’re always better off if you find your own facts rather than rely on someone else.
We can still show our courtesy by thanking the person for suggestions but we’re not obliged to follow all of them.
In many situations, others’ advice helps us to be chess pieces not the chess player.

Even family members’ advice doesn’t work all the time.
Remember, Michael Dell, Bill Gates, and Larry Ellison, the greatest tech-savvy billionaires and the most successful innovators of our time.
They all are college dropouts, they all couldn’t follow their parents advice not to drop out of college.
Their parents’ advice didn’t work for them because their life experiences were different from their parents’ experiences.

We can take other people’s advice as a risk even though many of us are scared when we hear the word risk.
Risk in life is something that happens regularly but we must know how to quantify the damage.
Uncertainty in life is more dangerous than risk because it can happen at any moment and no one can figure out the damage.
The bottom line is, if we don’t know how to quantify the risk then somebody else’s advice may lead us to uncertainty.

As a human being, we might not experience the same after pain, but sure we can still shine.
Hiding our pain-scars inside does not do good for us, we have to wear them as pride and tackle every single day.

The truth of the matter is we aren’t entitled to be happy all the time.
The world doesn’t owe anything from us.
We are emotional creatures, we must experience sadness, grief, frustration, anger, hate, loss, which we cannot ignore.
But we always have to strive for a fulfilled life.
Happy life might be short but fulfilled isn’t.
If happy life craves for knowledge then a fulfilled life is for wisdom.
If we aim for fulfilled life then pain is no more weakness, it becomes strength.

Suffering from pain requires rest, complete and full rest.
Rest is not a pastime, it is the gasoline for the body to recharge.
Albert Einstein, the greatest genius of our time, used to play the piano and violin that helped him relax, focus, and get back to his scientific work.
Einstein’s wife, Elsa once said, “I fell in love with Albert because he played Mozart so beautifully on the violin.”

Though rest is essential for our mental and physical well being but we cannot take rest if we have unfinished tasks or goals pending.
This is one biggest cause of our anxiety.
According to Baumeister and Tierney, authors of “Willpower”, we don’t have to finish the task to take rest but we must have a plan to finish the task.
If we have a plan to finish the task, we don’t wake up in the middle of the night just thinking about the pending task and pending deadline because our unconscious mind stops asking questions to the conscious mind about the unfinished task.
Just planning is also so much more powerful even if we are far from finishing the task.
To fully utilize the advantage of rest in life, we must create the mental workflow and habit of executing them according to plan.

Finally, solitude is another tool to turn pain into strength and happiness.
We shouldn’t fear solitude, we have to recognize that it is normal, healthy and it’s essential.
Spending time alone has huge advantages in life.
Modern research has shown again and again that solitude fosters creativity, boosts self-knowledge, compassion, and lowers stress.
The only approval we need is our own way to isolate our body and mind from others for the time being.
Solitude empowers compassion.
Spiritual leader Dalai Lama has said and I quote here, “ if you want others to be happy, practise compassion, if you want to be happy, practise compassion.”

Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina

Few days ago I entered my daughter’s room and saw that she was doing high-school algebra.
She is in middle school and I asked her, “can you do it?”
She replied, “yes, of course.”
I added, “if you encounter any problem, get help from Tony, my son.”
My daughter became upset. I could read her face.
She replied to me, “Dad, why don’t you trust me?”
I didn’t respond immediately but I felt that I hurt her feelings.
I came back to the kitchen and reminded myself what I had learned from Dr. Carol Dweck book ‘mindset.’
I had read, I had learned but I wasn’t applying the principle given by Dr. Dweck.
I would definitely recommend Dr. Dweck’s book “mindset” as a recommended reading for those who are suffering from a fixed mindset in life.
At the moment when I replied to my daughter, I was operated by my fixed mindset which is actually hidden inside me.
Even Though I was aware of it, I was still not shifting toward the periphery of another area, a growth mindset.

The other day I also saw a similar scene.
I was attending my daughter’s parent conference meeting in her school.
Me and my wife were sitting at one table and my daughter was sitting at another table.
One of her friends’ dad approached my daughter and asked, “what are you doing?”
She replied “I’m reviewing my story for competition. It’s a little bit complicated, I’m a bit confused.”
“You secured first position last time, am I right?” he added.
My daughter replied, “Yes I did.”
He replied, “Oh, you spend so much time on your story.”
He further added, “I used to think you are a genius and your competitors must not be as smart as you’re.”
After watching this scene of conversation, I realized that this is another example of an individual suffering from an ill mindset, a fixed mindset.
Actually, these are only some examples but there are so many of these kinds of stories prevalent in our society.

Incident after incident, our society carries flawed perception.
We all want natural recognition rather than recognition through hard work.
We try to make natural recognition as our desire leaving hard work behind us.
We completely forget how our mindset works.
As Marie Curie said beautifully, “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.”
Fear comes from a mindset.
We show fear to our kids to be supertalent as they should be born with it.
We want them as Albert Einstein, Michael Jordan, and Steve Jobs.
This kind of wish is not only bad for the kid’s psychology but it also degrades their confidence for a long time.
Our society is full of people with fixed mindsets.
If we have to teach our kids only to be a genius, then we have to lose a lot for them, most of the natural talents deplete if we have an unchanged mindset.

There is another problem we have as a society.
We label our kids as genius in various fields.
My son is good at math.
My daughter is excellent in storytelling.
It seems like we are encouraging our kids but actually we aren’t.
Unknowingly, we are saying that my daughter can’t do math and my son can’t do story telling.
This happens because we are not creatures of logic and reasoning, we are creatures of emotions.
Logic and reasoning is the result of a growth mindset.
In reality either son or daughter can do either work, math or story telling, fabulously if we develop a exploring mindset, a growth mindset.

People who believe in a fixed mindset need a quick fix to succeed, and when they do, they feel proud, more important, and famous than others.
They feel a sense of superiority, since for them this is a win.
The truth is we shouldn’t lurk behind the self-esteem of a dark cloud.
Fixed mindset is a dark cloud because sometimes it gives us false impressions as clouds cover the sun.
No doubt, a fixed mindset hinders our growth potential and development.
A growth mindset teaches us how to pinpoint our identity when we are unsuccessful because it is so easy to spot who we are when we are successful.
We must be able to give a specific and precise answer for it and most importantly we must teach this phenomenon to our kids.
If we answer this question properly then only we nurture our mindset in a positive direction, and teach others to do the same.

In many cases the societal reality remains opposite.
The answer for a growth mindset as opposed to fixed mindset is hard work.
If we love something or we are thinking of it as our long lasting career, we have to work hard for it to achieve.
One simple example, Michael Jordan became the king of basketball because he used to practice when other players were taking a break.
Michael Jordan wasn’t a natural player by birth, he was the most hard-working person.
He wasn’t selected in his high school team, he wasn’t selected by his college team, and he wasn’t selected by the first two NBA teams.
So then what kind of mindset he had when he was beginning his basketball career.
Truth is he gave his all for basketball that he only valued and cared in his entire basketball career.
Michael Jordan taught us: we have to take the challenge, learn from our mistakes, and continue the positive mindset to achieve more.
He grew his positive mindset every single day.
Our mindset isn’t static, it is dynamic as cloud. Clouds don’t change into something new, it only changes its shape and size.
As what Michael Jordan did, we have to value and respect what we’re doing regardless of the final outcome.
And we have to show and teach the same to our kids.
We must teach our kids: Becoming is way better than being.
The only way we can teach our kids to improve their everyday skills is by keeping track of what works for them and what doesn’t and trying to understand why.
Michael Jordan became the symbol of basketball due to his everyday growth attitude and discipline of keeping track of it.
When we believe our core qualities can be developed through a growth mindset, failures can still hurt, but they shouldn’t deviate and distract us.

One of my friends works in a pharmaceutical company as a lead scientist. He told me that he has to tackle problems everyday, review new courses of actions, figure out what works and what doesn’t in vaccine development.
He once told me during this COVID pandemic, “we haven’t found the effective vaccine for coronavirus yet, but the search is continuous.”

He reminded me once again that mindsets are our beliefs. They’re quite powerful even though they’re just faith in our mind, and we can grow our mind every second.

We don’t always need hard confidence in everyday lives to succeed but we always need a kind of mental push subconsciously.
Our subconscious mind works 24/7 so that it doesn’t contradict with our conscious mind of not having pure confidence everyday. The equilibrium between conscious and subconscious mind could be shifted in our decisions by our mental habits.

From my reading what I learnt is that Buddha passed through absolute stillness and peace on his way into nirvana, this was possible by moving both conscious and subconscious mind in one direction.

We have to have a habit of forming a picture in our brain forming new connections even if we aren’t doing any practice or work. The picture of a growth mindset helps to take challenges and more to learn continuously.
There is nothing like innate talent, this is crystal clear, we must teach our kids about this misconception that talent isn’t born, it is made.
As Dr. Dweck says, “success is more than 99 percent is hard work.”
Hard work beats talent if talent doesn’t put into work.

According to psychologists Karen Horney and Carl Rogers, many times our kids feel insecure particularly from parents. Kids feel distress, pain, and lost in the crazy world. The truth is they are very young and cannot speak against parents. They cannot walk alone, they have to find out how to win parents’ trust.
The most important thing is that we must give our kids the freedom to grow.
They learn more from their own interest than our own interest.
We as parents must learn what our kids are trying to tell us rather than what we are trying to tell them.

Let our kids know that Albert Einstein, Michael Jordan, and Steve Jobs have made the word ‘impossible’ a very small word.
‘Impossible’ word is thrown around by fixed mindsets who find it easier to live in a small bubble of the world.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

Why was I lacking focus in my required task?
Was I sick?
Not really.
Was I a victim of instant gratification?
Maybe, but I had no clue.
Was I a lover of pleasure rather than happiness?
I had no idea but I felt like I was addicted to something, and it was a strange feeling.
In the past I used to think alcoholism is addiction, drug or tobacco use is addiction, but later I realized I was addicted to something more unusual than that.
Now I firmly believe that addiction does not only indicate alcoholism and drug use, it also indicates lack of focus and concentration.

I am re-examining my past life, my past activities and how I was spending my time.
These are some other forms of addiction that I have seen in my surroundings, in my family, in my close friend circle, and colleagues.
Many are addicted to excessive web-surfing, they can’t stay even fifteen minutes without their smartphone. Smartphones are a tonic for them.
Some are addicted to excessive texting, they enjoy chat rooms more than their spouses and family.
Few are addicted to driving and texting, it’s fun for them rather than to wait until they stop.
Couple of my crazy friends are addicted to excessive sexting, let’s not go deeper, it’s self-understood.
Two of my former colleagues are addicted to excessive twittering, whoa, they love that twitter-bird, how fast it flies.

I was addicted to excessive facebooking, contemplating its influence in my life, I decided to invest some money in Facebook stock. How far can I go?
Everytime I surf, Facebook makes money, so why not take a small share of the profit?

When I became an excessive facebooker, I began to live in the past and dream about the future because I have less time to do the real work at the present moment.
I always procrastinated for my real work.
I used to open my facebook page to warm up my task but I never noticed the passing time.
In the end I regretted, I couldn’t finish the task.

Many years ago I had a family friend couple, who used to upload many happy moments pictures everyday on facebook.
My wife used to tell me how happy their relationship is.
I thought the same way for many years.
But three years ago we heard they divorced.
Me and my wife both became shocked.
After reading a book “Atomic Habits” by bestselling author James Clear, I realized that they were too busy to upload the pictures on facebook rather than to work on their real relationship.
Well, this is only my reporting, not a judgement, maybe they became addicted to facebook and couldn’t comprehend its caustic effects in their lives.
Not only Facebooking, any kind of addiction costs us enormously.
Most of the time, Facebooking teaches us to follow the digital shiny objects rather than spending time on real objects.

With Facebook, I have a personal relationship so that, please, allow me to go a little bit deeper here.

Facebook is a double-edged sword.
It helps to stay connected with the lives of people we care about.
Amazing, how far we have come due to technology.
We must salute the people who innovated this technology.
Kudos to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
But Facebook also tricks us into dreaming of other people’s digital happy lives.
Life is far from comparison as shown in Facebook.
We rarely see negatives of people’s lives on Facebook, everybody posts only their positives.
Life never becomes only of positives, it’s a conglomerate of both positives and negatives.
Ultimately Facebook is only a trailer, not the full movie, the real life is with us as a full movie.

I have another friend who spends a lot of time on facebook but he makes a living there, he is an advertisement optimizer. Facebook is his employer.
Facebook is his playground for his earning.
But I became the only addicted customer for facebook.
Anyway no regrets for the past. I learned from it and now moving ahead in life.

Alas, I forgot the worst, I used to surf facebook during pee break at 2 a.m.
What a shitty habit I had !

Why was I having a hard time to break the addiction?
It took a long time to crush the addiction.
Because it required work, hard work, mental work.
It required initiation where I was very lazy.
If no initiation, no beginning, and no flow.

One of my friends shared with me about another addiction that he is suffering.
He loves frequent changes of girl for love, which I have noticed quite regularly.
We may not think it as an addiction but it is also another form of severe addiction.
His family life is in choas.
This is the addiction to friction.

When we become addicted to something, this something brings deeper addiction due to repetition of the same habit with no realization of harm.
This habit doesn’t allow us to keep track of time.
When I was severely addicted to Facebook, I was also addicted to distraction, so I used to open my facebook page all the time even during time of focus reading and writing.
I was in love with distraction.
When distractions came my way, I stopped the task at hand and used to talk either past events or future plannings.
Distraction became my good buddy either to fear me or to show hope.
I wanted to finish my task but I was unwilling to turn off my facebook notification on my cell phone.
I used to respond to text messages immediately, absolutely no patience to wait.
I used to count the number of likes on my facebook upload all the time.
No regret, even at midnight.

I loved to be more reactive than proactive because I wanted to impress others by my comments, my shallow expertise.
I was crazy like a rat between two holes, I used to check my email more than hundred times in a day, maybe every 10-15 minutes.
I used to carry my smartphone all the time with me in my pocket, in class, in meetings and check the phone every couple of minutes ignoring what’s happening inside the room.
I couldn’t make good, healthy and intimate relationships with anybody because I never paid hundred percent attention to anybody because of my smartphone.
I was pathetically poor at listening.
The person who was next to me physically and to whom I was talking always felt unimportant and insulted because in our talk I used to text constantly to somebody else.
Author of “Start With Why” Simon Sinek says, “if you keep your smartphone in front of you on the table in an important meeting even if your phone is in silent mode or off, you are addicted to the phone. If you talk to anybody in person by holding your smartphone on hand, you are addicted.”
As Sinek said, whether it’s true or false, I lived with all of those habits.
Ultimately, I also became addicted to shallowness.
I hated focus and depth.
I became superficial rather than a person of depth.

One of my friends, who is a security analyst in a brokerage firm, has an interesting addiction.
As you know from his job title, he is not a celebrity, he is a normal person with a normal job.
When he comes out of bed, immediately, he surfs the tabloids.
Later he confessed to me he is addicted to celebrity-gossips, celebrity affairs, break-ups, and divorces.
He told me he couldn’t stop reading.
At one point he felt sick if he was not keeping up with Jennifer Lawrence, Kim Kardashian, and Namrata Shrestha.
Once he told me that those things have no value in his life but still he is addicted to reading them.
He realized it and said to me that he is wasting his precious time.

Spending time on celebrity twitter feeds, perusing the Facebook uploads excessively of the people we don’t care about is a self-sabotaging habit.
I love the quote from my favourite personal development expert, Jim Rohn, “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
In my view, we are also the average of the five habits we spend the most time with.

The bottom line is:
Without inspecting our life, our activities, and habits thoroughly, we can not expect something out of it.
When I was addicted to Facebook, I wasn’t aware of what I was doing.
Awareness comes only by knowing what we are doing in all aspects of our lives. It’s the same as peeling off each layer of onion even though we know there is nothing inside.
I was having the ripple effect of my addiction to my family and relationship.
At one point I became aware of its effect when I received the email from my daughter’s teacher saying that she is weak in reading comprehension according to her grade standard. This was just one ripple effect.

As a human being, we all are able to forgive and forget. We must be able to forgive our terrible habits and addictions, and we must be able to forget these habits and addictions as well.
We don’t need any counselling, advice, courses, or any other commercial products to kill our addiction.
All we need is we have to change our mind.
To say it simply, change is tough.
Mental change is extremely tough.
Remember: if we don’t bring mental peace and happiness which of course require findings, addiction will always follow us.
Be aware of your life.
Stay away from addiction.

Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina

Few years ago, I was working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. One day I was returning home from work and I was on the metro-train in the street of Philadelphia.
At one stop, a man with two young boys entered the train, boys were not happy, they were crying. The man sat next to me and there were other people inside the compartment where I was reading some journal article. Many other people were also reading newspapers, some were busy on the phone, few were listening to music on earbuds, and some were just relaxing with closed eyes after a long day of work.
The train compartment, where I was, was mostly quiet.

The man who sat next to me closed his eyes but the two young boys were extremely active, basically they were in a rowdy mood, crying, running here and there, and they were snatching newspapers from other passengers.
This man didn’t open his eyes.
He acted as if he came alone, there were no boys.
Everybody inside the train compartment was really irritated and confused about what to do.
The whole serene environment inside the train turned into rowdy, noisy, and intolerable.
Everybody was looking at each other’s face because the adult man to whom these two boys belong was still in deep sleep, eyes closed.

I realized everybody was explosive inside with the man.
One lady across my seat whispered, “How irresponsible he is.”
I didn’t say anything but nodded my head to support her.
The scene became chaotic and uncontrollable.

Suddenly, one man across my seat stepped up and shook his shoulders, making him aware that he is with two boys and they are creating mess for others.
He said to the man, “Your boys are making too many problems, you should be responsible.”
The man replied, “Oh yeah, I should be.”
He added, “I lost myself, I became unconscious, I completely forgot I am with my boys”.
He said, “I am very sorry.”
His voice became brittle and said, “Their mom just died in the hospital, and they wanted to stay with their mom but I brought them home.”

Immediately after that sentence, everything changed inside the train.
The whole scene inside the train changed.
Everyone was shocked.
All the passengers inside the train immediately changed their attitude, behaviour, and perception towards the boys, even though the boys were still in the same rowdy behaviour.

The woman who whispered to me before and said him irresponsible was torn down.
I saw her moist eyes with tears.
She was trying to touch the boys as if she could cuddle them, I could read the emotion in her face.
I myself turned 180 degrees and became almost unresponsive.
I wanted to hug the man who was next to me but I couldn’t do that.
I couldn’t say anything, I became speechless, I guess I was trying to hide my tears in front of other people.
I remember somebody told me that emotions are fine in weddings and funerals but not in other places.
But I was unable to hide my emotion, my tears inside the train.
Emotions play a role in every part of our life but it’s up to us how we control them.

During this emotional mess, I got out of the train in my station and drove home from the train station parking lot.
My mind was full of those two boys’ pictures.
I even shared this experience with my wife at home.

I became so curious how this small squishy mass inside the skull works.
Why do I become so judgemental?
Why do I become so unconscious?
Why is this squishy organ inside the skull behaving so erratically?
Why does it allow me to change my mood, thinking and perception abruptly?

I was judging somebody fiercely a few minutes ago but immediately after knowing the fact I was regretting.
It’s not only one time that I judged one particular person, but how could I be completely non-judgemental?

Being judgemental is an unconscious human habit created from a raw mind, it is deeply seated in the human psyche.
We struggle to improve this habit because our brain works so quickly without giving us time for a second thought.
In majority cases, often the thoughts we perceive exist in negative ways in our mind.
Only the constructive and positive beliefs influence what we think or choose not to think.
Our judgemental practice runs on auto-pilot, entering into subconscious level, if we don’t work on to improve it.
We don’t become non-judgemental by any motivation, it happens only by mental clarity.
We must be aware of the shift of unconscious habit to conscious habit to succeed.

Our brain is designed to be unique.
Each of us is created or born uniquely.
We have different capacities and understandings, we are given different choices with various outcomes possible.
The way we think is also our choice.
There are a lot of things we can choose in our life.
We can choose one glass of wine or five glasses of wine tonight.
We can choose one cup of tea or five cup of tea in a day.
We can choose to go running outside or sit and watch the 10th season of friends on Netflix.
And most importantly, we can choose anything irrespective of the type of mind we possess.
Choice is the result of our brain action.
Thoughts are also the same, we can think positively or negatively based on our choices.

I recall David Hawkins’s words, an internationally renowned spiritual author and psychiatrist, in his book “Transcending the levels of consciousness: “My mind is like a sponge, it has absorbed all the information, but I’m still in the same place.”
Human mind is incapable of segregating judgements and biases from truths even though we all are aware of it.
We have to work and practice consistently on our mind to achieve this goal.

Though we have an unique mind but in case of judgement, why do we respond in the same way?
We all perceive various things in various ways and thus live in various structures.
But why do we all have the same judgement in situations like that I experienced on the train?

What exactly happens to our minds when we start to judge others?

When I heard the sentence, “Their mom died today;” my judgemental mind turned into the opposite direction.
Not only mine, all passenger’s minds in the train did the same.
I started to see the world of those two small boys in very different ways than the normal boys who have their mom with them.

The important pattern that I recognized is when the boys were creating problems, I became vulnerable of my own fixed judgemental mindset.
I became a victim of my own rooted perception.
My fixed mindset only blamed the dad of the two boys.
Before I shift to a fixed mindset in any scenario, I should have given some room in my mind to wiggle, so that I don’t turn into fixed ready-made thought.

Actually I could alter my judgemental mindset but I couldn’t do that because I wasn’t trained to do so.
Strong will, patience, and power to ask why to the mind, are essential to shift into a room of non-judgemental mindset.

I learned the lesson: quick reaction to our existing perception doesn’t do good.
I need a non-judgemental mindset for a positive change in my life.

The key in such a situation, I learned, is to wait before to make our preconceived ill notion public.
I should not try to hurry things along my existing beliefs.

I have a tendency to focus on what I don’t have and what I don’t see.
I don’t focus more on what I have and what I see.
This is one of the main reasons that I quickly judge others.
If I start to focus on what I have and what I see, the whole world changes for me.
I will move towards the zone of non-judgemental arena.

When I was next to those boys’ dad, I didn’t ask anything to him, I was only thinking what’s wrong with this man.
Many times I don’t ask questions, I simply prepare my answers.
Many times I don’t listen, I only wait to respond.
During the whole train ride, I wasn’t ready to ask the question, I wasn’t ready to listen to him, I was only thinking: Why was this man so irresponsible?

Human judgements are so vicious that they are key causes in polarizing relationships with other humans.
Let’s work together to empower human relationships by being non-judgemental.

Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina

Have you seen any person walking out of a ship as an underwater welder to rescue a sinking ship?
Of course, less likely.
It’s impossible without any prior training, and if it is done without training then it would be a senseless act.
But for a maritime army engineer, this could be a normal task.
The bottom line is the same task could be risky for some but normal for others.
The whole intention of this background is: risk clearly is personal.
Risk questions us who we are, what we do, how we prepare tasks, and most importantly, what do we see twenty to thirty year from now in our life?

Do you remember when you first took a big risk in your life?
How did it feel for you?
It’s quite the challenging experience for me when I was learning how to drive a motorbike in my upper teen age.
I wrote every single step of what to do in a paper and memorized.
I drove the motorbike almost half a mile on the first day without anybody’s assistance, just following the memorized steps very carefully.
Nothing serious happened to me that day, next day I did the same. In a week, I became at least a moderate driver without taking any help from another person. Fortunately, I didn’t harm myself physically, but I still remember it was a big risk.
I don’t recommend taking this kind of physically challenged risk to anybody, but it was an amazing mental experience for me.

Normal experience becomes mesmerizing when we are immersed in risk.
Before the pandemic, I had a discussion at the dining table of one of my friends’ homes.
I asked one of my friends, “Do you like gambling?”
He immediately replied, “No.”
He added that he has not received any ounce of luck in his whole life in any of his past endeavors.
I asked him, “Do you want to own a casino?”
He immediately replied, “Oh, yeah, of course.”
I was thinking to myself why people hate gambling but the same people love to own casinos.
The fundametnal is we enjoy other people taking risks but don’t want to take ourselves.
Even though owning a casino is still a risky bet but far less riskier than handling blackjack on the table as an individual player.
The casino owner has an edge with percentages so this is not considered risky.
They also sell their play book in their gift shops and other players buy it to win.
Casino owners know very well that when the play book doesn’t work.
And surprisingly, you can guess why drinks are free on the casino table, owning a casino doesn’t belong to risk-taking.

The underlying reason is that we are not taught to take risks in normal life.
Society doesn’t teach us to take risks, society teaches us to avoid risks.
The only way we learn to take risks is by taking more risks with minimum failures. We also stop scaring ourselves from taking risks.

It is quite common that we feel good after getting success and not so good after failures.
Life is a probabilistic game, and risks are inevitable in life.
They are not necessarily indications of failures. If we think risk-taking as an unnatural game, then we will certainly truncate success too.

If we want greater success in life, we need to take more risk; if we don’t want to take more risk, we will be mediocre or average.
Risk is everywhere no matter what we do in our life. I vividly remember the fire in a house of my friend; he lost everything he owned.
Many years ago, one of my friends was going to the office in the morning in New Jersey, and he was hit by a truck on zebra crossing and he died on the spot. My hands are shivering recalling that accident.

In the United States, around 50 percent of all marriages will end in divorce or separation.
This is quite shocking.
We don’t realize that marriage is also a kind of risk if we don’t know how to grow and nurture a family and a relationship.
Most of us try to predict how the person we are dating will turn out as a spouse based on how he or she speaks to us or how he or she holds a knife and a fork to eat chicken pieces during dating days.

This tells me RISK is not only a four letter word, we have to learn how to live with it.

Risk taking is a part of education in our learning process.
Nobody gets success just by taking risks.
We have to spend a hefty sum of time around risk, we have to think big around risk, and most importantly, we have to work subconsciously 24/7 around risk to get anticipated results.

Are you willing to undertake risk?
A fulfilling lifestyle integrates the strength of risk-taking. Some of life’s greatest fulfillment comes from accepting risks in multiple forms.

The average person is a risk-avoider who wakes up in the morning, has coffee and breakfast, goes to the office, has lunch, comes back home in the evening, has dinner, watches TV, and sleeps.
The cycle continues. If he or she has some extra dollars, put it in the saving account.
He or she never takes risks in life.
There is nothing wrong with this habit but this cycle never revolutionizes and transcends the society.

There are some other people like investors and traders, venture capitalists, inventors and entrepreneurs, who keep grinding on odd hours, and most importantly take immense risks putting themselves outside the box.
If they fail also, they learn from it and take another calculated risk, and eventually succeed. They know how to create emotional diversification on risk.

People grow in exponential ways when they place themselves in risky environments that enhance their strengths.
Bill Gates to Mark Zuckerberg, they all took immense risk, they dropped out from graduate school, they went from a stagnant environment to one that multiplied their strengths.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, dropped out from graduate school and turned his dorm room project into one of the top multi billion dollar companies on the planet.
He is the most successful entrepreneur of our time, he became the synonym of innovation, vision, and leadership.
He is certainly a risk taker.
Only risk taking taught him self-mastery and the process of improvement in the journey of his entrepreneurship.

The truth is that when we age, we become less enthusiastic, less optimistic in our goals, and a lot weaker in risk taking.
We aren’t necessarily against taking risk but we simply lack the beauty of risk-taking.
How we relate to risks very much impacts our life experience.
Our brain grows when we compel it to learn something out of reach at the moment.
By the process of neurogenesis, we develop new brain cells that catalyze new learning.
Risky tasks allow us to make mistakes, but that also challenges us how to move forward.

From my motorbike driving experience, I can tell that risk-taking is about developing positive emotional experience.
It invites exercise of hidden talents and skills to transform the process.
We definitely become idealistic thinkers to realistic thinkers, we learn to challenge the status quo, and move the ball forward.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, was admitted to Stanford University for his PhD but left after only two days, deciding to test his entrepreneurial spirit.
He never returned to finish his PhD at Stanford.
He also took immense risk to venture out entrepreneurship instead of a relatively stable PhD path.

Taking risks helps us to build the best within us that gives us energy, that also allows us to persist beyond unimaginables and unthinkables.

Many people are passionate in their profession but very few dedicate their time for reflective thinking. Reflective thinking is a tool for risk takers.
Reflective thinking clears the mind and pushes the limits of action.
This is also a cognitive exercise in some way.

One great experience of reflective thinking I realized personally is when I myself became a dad to my kids. How much care and sacrifice my parents did for me, I understood and felt the importance of parents in life on a deeper level than my existing understanding.

We all develop our strengths by using both physical and mental exercise in fresh and stimulating ways.
Physical and mental exercise both stimulate our core talents, skills, and interests.
This might be one reason after finishing five miles running, I become more motivated to run seven miles even though my stamina may not allow me to do that.
Without fresh inputs producing better stamina for my body, I risk to weaken my strengths leading to the concept- if I don’t use my body with respect, I lose my body.

We all say that profit is the single most essential ingredient in a successful business, a positive cash flow is equally essential for our finances. We should not deviate our business which hampers the cash flow.
Similarly, we should not take any risk that crumbles our life in a second.
The proportion of risk comes with research, preparation, and analysis.
We must complete the sentence, “I want to take risks to accomplish ……”
We, of course, need time, knowledge, and discipline to take risks in life.
Risk in itself should be our plan.

Only experience doesn’t take us to expertise if we don’t do research and don’t show willingness to take calculated risks.
E. Paul Torrance has beautifully expressed in his book, The Nature of Creativity, “Don’t be afraid to “fall in love with” something and pursue it with intensity.”
Creativity follows passion and deliberate passion attracts risks.
The most essential part of life is to make sure we are spending sufficient time studying risks, not just studying safe routes and safe destinations.
Amazingly enough, not every risk in life leads to success.
The risk-setup is a probability outcome that, if followed over time, should lead to lasting success in life.
Risks may take us to loss and frustration; but it is how we react to them determines our future success.

Finally respect your limitations, never test the depth of the water with both feet.
This is not called risk-taking, this is called pure idiocy.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

Few days ago I was watching a kid’s movie with my daughters on Netflix. Suddenly, two teenagers started to fight over the issue of their beauty. My elder daughter looked at me and laughed.
I laughed with her and told her that they are fighting in nonsense.
My elder daughter asked me, “Dad, is it essential to be beautiful?”
I paused for a moment and didn’t reply with a straightforward answer.
I simply replied to my daughter, “It depends on your perception of what beauty means to you.”
I elaborated to her that someone might be beautiful for me but may not be beautiful for you.
I gave a simple answer to my daughter but this topic was really complicated to deal with an eleven years old girl.

One of the reasons it is complicated is because of the current media. They always present tall and skinny women as the most beautiful.
In addition, they present flawless complexions, nice teeth, younger face, fuller lips, and smooth skin as beauty symbols.
I was thinking to myself, what kind of impact does it give to my eleven years old daughter?
As the media portray, how much percentage of women are in that level of beauty around the globe?

I told my daughter, “In reality, these women’s pictures shown by the media are not real. You have to understand this. Everything you see on the screen is edited.”
How can I make my daughter understand that part of the hidden story?
This is hard to believe just by saying. We generally believe our impressions and act on our desires.
To understand the rules of beauty, my daughter must be able to recognize the illusory pattern on the screen and what she understands about it.
All illusions are not visual, this is the biggest secret of the beauty industry.
The background behind these tall and skinny women is mysterious for my daughter.
It is easier to recognize other people’s beauty than our own if we become victims of our own illusion.

To get a deeper understanding of this issue, I told my daughter to launch her own youtube channel.
Nowadays she does magic in pictures and videos in her channel.
We all are aware how much we can do by digital editing in those pictures and videos.
Initially she was not interested in video works but as we become skilled in a task, its demand for energy diminishes.
Brain study shows that pattern of activity linked with any task changes as our skill increases, with fewer brain regions involved.
Nowadays my daughter is very quick to edit pictures and videos.
She makes pictures and videos amazingly different in various forms than originals.
I realized that we all are born prepared to perceive the world around us, recognize objects, direct attention, and focus what we like.
It is not the most beautiful from outside that attracts us, it is the one that is the most adaptable to change the status of beauty.

Once my daughter told me that we are most scared of dying, public speaking, and losing money.
After these three, fourth is being wrong and fifth is not being beautiful, especially for us, girls.
I immediately replied, “How did you know this?”
She replied, “I read somewhere in the book, but for me number five is quite surprising.”
“In my view, beauty should be the confidence to achieve something bigger,” she added.

People who engage in a cause larger than themselves are the most beautiful women in the world.
Malala Yousafzai, Anuradha Koirala, and Oprah Winfrey are some of the representations.
I can’t understand how an eleven years old girl brings such an image around her mind.

I recalled the experience of trying to peek at the beautifully dressed lady at the neighbouring table in a restaurant many years ago when I was in undergraduate college.
That was the consequence of my fast thinking on beauty but the result of slow thinking could be quite opposite. This understanding came to me after reading “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman.

I told my daughter, “If you really want to be beautiful, there are several ways of achieving the same goal, but you should not quickly gravitate to the least demanding course of action; buy and use expensive cosmetics products.”
I added, “Belief in yourself is beauty that is important for success; flexibility in your self-belief is the cornerstone for sustaining beauty.”

The hardest route to become beautiful is a daily healthy diet and healthy habit.
These two things should be routine, and routine should not feel like routine.
Laziness is constructed deep into our own nature. We generally don’t act on pressing needs, this is not because we are lazy. We always operate on a certain principle that makes sense for us evolutionarily. We have a habit of conserving energy, if we see a threat, either we fight or flight against it but if it feels safe for us, we don’t waste energy.

Beauty is not only the ability to be seen charming, it is the ability to find charm in surroundings and to deploy attention when needed.
To feel beauty differently, we must see differently than others.

When we feel beautiful on purpose, we feel deeper connectedness, we feel making contribution.
I told my daughter, “Effort in healthy habits and healthy diet is a cost, and the acquisition of beauty is driven by the balance of advantages and costs.”
“You don’t have to struggle to become beautiful if you are spending time to make your purpose and tasks beautiful around you.”
Keep in mind my cutie pie, “Switching from one habit of buying La Prairie and Dior products to another of healthy habit is effortful. Self control gives you lasting beauty but requires effort.”
“But it will be worth it in the long run.”

Beauty should be a part of our discipline because discipline is required for any great undertaking: Serena William brought beauty in tennis, JK Rowling brought beauty in Harry Potter, and Rosa Parks brought beauty in the freedom movement.
Beauty alone can not substitute for skill, talent, and insight.
Remember, it is not enough to be beautiful; you must be consistently beautiful in your attitudes and behaviours.

Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina

Many years ago I visited a dentist for my tooth pain and the dentist asked me a question, do you floss your teeth regularly?
I said, “Sometimes, but not everyday.”
Actually I had never flossed my teeth up to that point, many other dentists had suggested me before to floss but I never took it seriously.
I lied to the dentist because I felt uncomfortable to tell the truth.
Dentist immediately replied to me, “If you don’t floss your teeth regularly, your four teeth will be gone in six months to one year.”
I startled, I pitied myself, I realized how negligent I was. In addition, I also realized how severe my teeth condition was.
From that moment to this day, I haven’t missed flossing even if it is 30 seconds or one minute everyday, if I am at home.
I love my life and I love to have my clean and healthy teeth in my mouth, and I believe everybody should.
Nothing comes close to good health in life.
I didn’t adapt to this habit of flossing until it became severe and the dentist warned me of several negative consequences.
This isn’t only my story, there are many similar stories of other people.

We all go through different periods in life when we are in tune with our desire and anticipation, taking one activity after another. When everything we do turns to a positive experience, that’s the time to get involved actively in the continuation process and also start to seek new good habits.
Of course, there would be difficult times like at present with pandemic coronavirus when everything we touch might result in a complete disaster.
We also have to go through periods when our habits contribute to chaos in the society, reminding us one unfortunate moment after another.
At the time of writing this piece of content, the USA is suffering with more than 40,000 coronavirus cases in a day. This is an insanely big number and many of them are contributed by our own habits.
It’s important to recognize such painful periods and not push ourselves but rather step back and think before to act.
This is the time to think about how we can reduce or avoid the spread of viruses.

Many of us react to habits like frogs to hot water. If we throw a frog into hot water, it’ll jump in response to sudden pain but if we put a frog into cold water and heat it slowly, we can boil it alive. If a sudden habit change hits us, we jump from its pain, we quit it immediately.
Initially I felt the same way when I didn’t have a flossing habit.
On the other hand, I also noticed that consistent slow habit change can be very effective if the results of the change give positive feelings gradually.
I noticed no bleeding from my gums. I experienced it and enjoyed it.
More often we don’t feel ready to start anything that we never did before, we postpone and postpone, but once started, we keep on running, we can’t stop it.

The first news story on the viral disease HIV/AIDS published in the gay newspaper, New York Native, in 1981. AIDS was first clinically reported with five cases in the United States.
This disease completely changed the sexual habit of humanity across the globe.
Now a days we all adapt safe sex practices immediately, if need be.
We learned the lesson and safe sex habit is ingrained in society like an essential norm due to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

I never bought hand sanitizer before for household purposes.
I always bought only hand soaps and shampoos.
Judgements and decisions are not always rational. Most of the time these are based on psychological principles of how we perceive and process information.
I always believed that washing hands with soap is way more powerful than using hand sanitizer, but sometimes circumstances also help to change our habits.
I could buy and use hand sanitizer before when I was out of the house and had no access to soap water. But I didn’t do it because I didn’t feel the necessity depending on how I process information through my brain.
But now my habit changed because I processed information differently due to some external factors like pandemic coronavirus.
I started buying it regularly and the pandemic has created this habit in me.
This is only a small example of my personal habit change.
And I hope you are also having similar experiences.

The coronavirus pandemic will change social life in the same way as AIDS virus did in our sexual life.
Due to the nature of pandemic at the moment we must accept hygienic social life: Wear mask in public places all the time, don’t mix up with groups, don’t shake hands or hug to people, don’t indulge in partying, avoid or reduce mass gatherings, avoid or reduce public transportations, always have sanitizer in your bag when you travel or go to new places.
Try to avoid theatres, concerts, and stadiums as possible; instead look for alternative ways of entertainment and sport activities at home.
If you really need to travel, go with extra precautions.
At the moment these may look strange but when we start to accept them slowly, these become our new normal.
During this pandemic period, movie theatres are empty but netflix is blooming; stadiums are empty but computer gaming apps are at their peak.
This is how we are forced to change our habits and society follows it.

We have a “monkey see, monkey do” attitude in society.
In the beginning some of our activities may look somewhat out of track because they differ too sharply from the group practice.
This always happens in the initial phase of a new beginning like this phase of coronavirus.
Change requires courage and it begins with a single person.
Standing alone for change feels scary in the beginning, and most of us like to huddle, but in the time of crisis like at present, it is safer and wiser to stand alone.

Nowadays, my office is accustomed with zoom and other forms of online meeting forums.
We are comparing the results of online meetings and their effectiveness with pre-pandemic in-person meetings, if we found better results then we would continue this as a new office trend even in the post-pandemic period.
Society prioritizes things in terms of working culture and its effectiveness.

Most of us conduct our lives as if we will live only today and tomorrow-repeating the same mistakes, not learning from the past, and hardly ever planning for the future.
This comes to my mind when I see people on beaches in Florida and California during the coronavirus pandemic.
Unconscious mind doesn’t have the notion of time.
Our deep-rooted wishes remain largely unchanged throughout our lives.
A habit is a plan for some people but no habit is also perfect for some others. As Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
But crises like this pandemic must bring change even in unconscious people’s minds so that we all remain safe.
Our survival and success depend on our willingness to adapt changes in life while they are relatively small.
We can’t be irresponsible and spread the virus all around.

Some of us focus only on the present moment because we pay little attention to other people’s life.That is just another sign of being caught up in quick pleasure.
Crowd in Florida beach during a pandemic like this is a perfect example.
People with no social responsibility are more likely to keep pushing these habits until their own lives become crippled by its consequences.
The education of time is a good sign of civilization, and this is the time for education.
An intelligent person is likely to take a break in deteriorating habits, continue to monitor the surroundings, and wait to get in gear with social mingling.
An educated person is aware of time, while someone who is acting impulsively is not.
Any person who pays attention to the current virus becomes aware of its enormous impact in the society.

Society always tends to flow in channels, like rivers in their valleys, but we should be the creators of channels.
When a society feels an isolation, it turns negative. When it feels the group, it turns positive.
This is just the rule of society but sometimes we have to learn how to ignore the regular social trends.
The wave of coronavirus will affect immensely in a negative way for our economy, science and invention, and social mobility for a very long period of time.
We have already experienced a lot of negative results from different corners of society.
But let’s hope that this negative effect will turn to a positive outcome soon by changing our personal and professional habits, our attitudes and practices, and work cultures.

Our mind is looking for an order- a society free of coronavirus.
We have to make it and let’s make it possible.
Remember, only discipline and good hygienic habits will help to break the chain of coronavirus.
Once again, remember, this endeavor starts with each one of us, and please, don’t forget to have a hand sanitizer in your everyday bag.

Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina

I received a phone call and my friend Sam asked me, “What are you doing at home during stay-at-home order, anything new?”
I became more aware of how I am spending my time. Little regret but no complaint.
“Nothing, same as usual.” I replied.
Actually I read two non-fiction books besides my regular professional books, journal articles, and reviews; the first non-fiction book was “Contagious” by Jonah Berger related to branding and the second one was “Poor Charlie’s Almanack” by veteran investor Charlie Munger related to investing.

The first most important lesson I learned during stay-at-home order: How painful it is to be online at home without in person or face to face interaction with the outside world.
All the time either talk to family members or spend most of the time on the screen.
I got more time with my family, there is nothing wrong but I also realized the value of face to face in person interaction more than ever as one of our human evolutionary spirits.
I used to think someday online digital work will replace the onsite in person work.
But now, I highly doubt it.

Life is a series of social and face to face in person interactions. These are vital- if you interact in person more, it works for you; but if you don’t interact in person, it weakens you, it decays you internally.
Our biology corrodes us from inside.
I am reporting only my sincere observation. I have not studied a scientific foundation to support it. But I strongly believe there is some connection to explore.
This is only my personal observation and feeling of the past few weeks.

Talking and sharing information in person are some of our most fundamental human behaviours.
In person actions connect us, shape us, and make us who we are.
Our words from mouth are not always persuasive online on the screen as they are offline.
There is always a hype around social media so that we ignore the importance of offline words from mouth.
Now it is the proper time to ponder to understand the value of being offline.
Think of your offline conversation for the first time with your dating partner after having multiple online conversations.
Being offline is about spreading love and life.
And being offline is natural, sustainable, and healthy.

Recently during this stay-at-home order, one of my friends, an assistant professor in university, complained to me, “Online teaching is boring, I have no enthusiasm to teach, I don’t see my students lively and most importantly, I don’t feel their expressions.”
“My teaching is very dry.” He added.

Now I am a firm believer that offline conversation is way more powerful and prevalent than online messages.
We were devaluing the offline activities because we like to spend time online, and never actually compared the difference between online and offline.
Now this is the moment to compare.
Facebook, Twitter, Zoom, and Youtube are technologies, they are not living things. They provide strategies to perform the task but can not replace the human liveliness.
Do you know why facebook and twitter conduct in person conferences spending so much money and resources?
Because these giant technologies inventors know at their core that humans are built to transmit the power of words via face to face in person interaction.
They are quite aware that their invention is just one tool of many to expedite human experience, but not to replace the same.

The second most important lesson I learned during stay-at-home order: There is a huge difference between spending time with family and with the outside world.
Family is our fundamental, a craft of social creation, but beyond family there is a growth elevator, an artistic part of life.
Art requires a significant amount of time to master but it happens mostly outside of home with colleagues, coworkers, mentors, and advisors.
This is the main reason we have neighbors to share neighborhood news, we have schools and universities to learn, we have shopping malls to shop, and we have our offices to work and collaborate, just to name a few of them.
We can appreciate our family time as a crafting time but our outside home time is interaction time for our artistic growth.
Learning art in life is a process and that happens through talking to friends, neighbors, coworkers, and observing gestures of mentors and advisors rather than inventing it online at home.
When we meet and talk to others, we don’t only transfer information; we transfer something about ourselves. Being outside home is about tapping our genuine enthusiasm for whatever we find useful, fun, and beautiful for us.

Outside home interaction is more than simply nodding, responding, and listening.
Understanding yourself is the secret of outside interaction.
People who make mistakes often are those who allow their emotions to control their decisions, which is one of our biggest enemies when it comes to poor social interaction.
For example, I have made more poor decisions online than offline personally.

We are missing many things during this stay-at-home order.
We are not getting a chance to chat at a party or eat with our coworker.
We are not having face to face conversation in churches, temples, chaitya, and mosques.
We watch movies at home but don’t get a chance to share with a colleague during lunch.
What do you feel when you don’t get a chance to share the hilarious movie plot with your best friend at coffee break?
Nothing is more satisfying and thrilling than when you and your friend go to a cozy restaurant and dine with full swing of chat and giggles.
This is called human necessity and we are missing it terribly.
We are understanding its value more than ever before.

We can share our thoughts and opinions online but nothing can replace offline chat, meeting, and laughter.
We are excited to talk about our vacation plans with our close friends at dinner gatherings, but now it has become a distant memory.
Imagine telling a story in front of a group, how entertaining it would be rather than posting online.
My kids are not able to share the warm weather with their close friends to go fishing.
My daughter once asked me, “What is the price of freedom?”
I said freedom is priceless.
Her question was sarcastic because we were planning to go Orlando, Florida, Disney World, and my daughter had a dream to shake hands with Mickey Mouse and Goofy.

Ultimately, we are social animals, our words from mouth need people around us, their expressions, and our instant responses.
We are missing all of these.
Let’s hope that we will go back to normal soon.

Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina