Category: Social Upliftment

My friend was 31 years old, very dynamic, and prolific.
His mother died two days before his PhD graduation in a car accident.
It was devastating, and excruciating for him, no words.
Sometimes, the meaning and purpose behind some tragic events are unknown but cruel.
This is the time we have to take a test on our faith.
My friend couldn’t bear it and went into depression.
He was in constant therapist’s supervision for 2 years. Due to his sedentary lifestyle and negligible health behaviour, he gained a lot of weight, and became overweight by almost 90 pounds.
The good thing is that he came back to normal life gradually, started a job, but was still struggling to overcome his mother’s sudden death.
He was close to me, we used to share a lot of our professional life but not much of personal life.
One day he knew from our common friend that I run at least 2 to 3 miles every single day.
He came to me and asked for advice on how he can lose weight.
Our conversation inspired me to write this piece of content.
The first thing I told him is that everybody has some sort of painful events, major or minor in the past.
Ten percent of our life is what happens to us but the ninety percent is how we respond to the past actions. This shapes us in various forms throughout our existence.
We have to convert the past pain into new strength.
I told him, “In your case, you can turn the pain of your mother’s death to your healthy body, it’s up to you.”
I added, “Whenever you see or remember your mother, visualize her from liberation, imagine your mother is seeing you fit and healthy.”
“Make your health a passion for you, but a pray for the soul of your deceased mother.” I encouraged him.

There are many reasons we suffer in life, in my friend’s case he is already weak due to his mother’s sudden death, in addition to that his health is deteriorating everyday.

If we are healthy then only we can bring peace of mind, happiness, and prosperity.
Focus on your health and fitness that could be the best tool to start a new life.
Many of us don’t do anything to improve our deteriorating life due to past actions. We just think about the past actions, or results and move our brain in the past. This is one of the worst ways to live a life.

If we look only in the rear-view mirror while driving, there is a high chance that we encounter another accident.
We don’t have to drive into the past life using our rear-view mirror as a guiding compass.
Our past actions always work as scientific experiments in our life. Many experiments don’t give the results as per our expectations but still they give us some positive directions and references.
Even the negative results act as references to set up new experiments with the hope of our expected results. We must learn from our past experiences and actions but never ever live in those gone moments. It’s difficult but we have to absorb the pain and release it through our body and mind. We must focus more on those things which uplift and empower us at present or in the future.
In reality, the past is just a conceptualization and it doesn’t exist. The only thing that exists is the present.
If we remain in the past, our stress increases but if we move to the present or positive future by some tool, stress gradually fades away because of the change in emotions.

I make my living by doing science. Many times, I have run scanning experiments to see the real peaks but if I zoom in the baseline I also see tiny peaks called noises. In many circumstances, I have to abandon them and focus on my real peaks. In life, those small noises are past experiences and actions. We have to let them go.

There is another way to look at things in life called overview effect.
When we are in spaceflight and see our city, everything on earth looks like dots. Therefore, we have to see things in perspective. We are very small creatures on this planet. One kind of various forms.
My life philosophy is no one owes us anything in life. If you die today less than 30 people would be affected, and the world continues as it is.

From my personal experience, one tool to let go of the past is to massively focus on fitness and health. If we make health our priority, we become a completely new person never been before.

I advised my friend to be resilient.
I told him, “Don’t complain that you can’t lose weight even though you tried some physical activities”.
If we are unaware about the science behind the exercise, it is very difficult to achieve our health goal. Good health should be the continuous priority rather than doing some random physical activities here and there. We must know how to do it properly.

First of all, health and fitness are not the same.
Majority of people have confusion regarding this.
Healthy person can be fit but a fit person can’t necessarily be healthy. It’s the same as working hard versus working smart.
You can be seen clearly fit, but also unhealthy at the same time. Or you can be healthy without looking fit. My great uncle is still in good health at age 102 but he never looked fit during his lifetime.

Many people do exercise everyday but some of them still feel more fatigued and weak than others, why?
Because they are confused with the rules of health and fitness games.
Fitness is the physical condition to do athletic activity but health is an emotional or mental condition where all of our organ systems are doing their job in normal condition.
Fitness doesn’t necessarily indicate good health, sometimes it requires many skills with the sacrifice of health.
I asked my friend, “What do you want to be”?
He said, “Both”.
I said, “Pick one, and pick health first and work towards fitness”.
For the majority of people I recommend the same unless you are going to participate in athletic competition. That would be a different scenario.
We have to put our health first, and move towards fitness if we want.

One way to achieve this goal is aerobic exercise that burns fat with the help of oxygen.
Another form of exercise is anaerobic exercise that burns glycogen without oxygen.
This also causes our body to store fat.

Many of our activities with lower intensity and lower heart rate are aerobic such as walking, jogging, dancing or running but the activity with higher intensity and higher heart rate such as tennis or basketball are anaerobic.
Anaerobic process burns glycogen first and moves towards blood sugar. This phenomenon can completely disrupt our health and vitality. Our organ systems, especially nervous system demands a lot of blood sugar, but if that is deficient due to excess anaerobic activity, then we suffer health problems.

Our society should be aerobic friendly, but in reality it is anaerobic friendly. We don’t do regular light aerobic activities, and suddenly we feel our overweight body and we are ready to do forced activity or heavy exercise without proper understanding our body’s chemistry.

First, we have to develop aerobic exercise habits and slowly move towards anaerobic activity. Aerobic exercise makes us energetic, healthy and endurant.

Very simple example, if you have never run before, can you run ten miles consistently?
Less likely, if you do so, you will likely have serious leg, muscle, or heart problems.
There is a high chance that after your run you might not walk normally even for several days.
The reason it happens is because you enter into anaerobic exercise zone without much practice of aerobic zone.

One of the biggest benefits of aerobic exercise is that it prevents the clogging of arteries, which is the main cause of heart disease. Aerobic exercise helps to spread oxygen throughout the body organs.

You can go on diet, avoid all fat from your food, starve yourself for a longer period of time, but remember, nothing can beat aerobic exercise to burn fat.
Eat and train is much more functional and productive for our body than doing fitness and exercise on diet.

Christopher Sommer, a former US National Team gymnastics coach said, “Consistency wins over intensity, certain adaptations in body take weeks or months of consistent stimuli, if you rush, the reward is injuries.”

We also receive the burst of growth hormone after heavy exercise. Nowadays, It can also be synthesized in laboratories and given to children who have dwarfism.

Human growth hormone stimulates tissue growth, increases muscle tone, thickens muscles, and stimulates growth of bones and organs.
From birth to around age thirty, this hormone is naturally released into the bloodstream. High levels of this hormone naturally drop in older age. By age sixty to sixty five, men produce little or none of this hormone but women continue to secret into their old age. This is one of the reasons that women live longer than men.
Hyperthermic conditioning which is heat exposure can increase our growth hormone levels and improve our endurance. Sauna or hot baths after exercise are extremely useful in this regard.
In the end, I am going to ask you a simple question.
Who do you think is the most healthy person in the world?
I don’t know your answer, mine is: me ten years from now.
“This is the mindset we have to create”, I told my friend.
Make your health a priority everybody.

Thank you so much for your time.
– Yam Timsina

This is the biggest truth. Each human being, whether the person lives in Kathmandu or New York city, whether the person is PhD or high school drop-out, male or female, young or old, poor or billionaire, has the same desire: Everyone wants to be happy.
I have asked one question to many people around me, though I am not a journalist, just for the sake of my own research and curiosity.
What do you want in life?
The overwhelming majority of people said, they want to be happy.
And I followed them with another question, what makes you happy?
Almost ninety five percent have no clear answer.
They smile, mumble, some say material things, many say hypothetical imagination, few say well…I…. want….to…but no specifics.
Many of us can’t answer because we don’t know exactly what makes us happy.
We have never done research or study on our happiness.
If we study about us, our attitude, our interest, our style, our habit, and our reaction, then only we can tell what makes us happy.
We can not try happiness. There is no such thing trying happiness.
We can not lean towards happiness. If we lean, we fall down.
Because happiness is a commitment.
Majority of people are not happy because they don’t commit on it.

I would like to share a story, one of my mentors told me.
One newly hired salesman asked to his manager, “How can I become happy?”
The manager replied, “If you sell this cell phone today, you not only be happy yourself, you also make me happy.”
He went door to door to sell the cell phone all day, but nobody bought it.
It was 10 pm at night, he was going home.
Suddenly something came in his mind and he knocked one house door.
One gentleman opened the door and said, “What do you want?”
He replied, “Do you want to buy this cell phone, no down payment?”
The man screamed, “No, get lost.” He slammed the door.
He went to another house, knocked the door.
An old lady opened the door, he asked “Could you buy this cell phone, no down payment?”
Old lady said, “No, are you crazy? It’s 11 pm.”
The salesman politely asked, “Do you know anybody who is interested?”
She replied, “My cousin who lives three blocks down the road is interested.”
The salesman went there, knocked the door hesitantly at midnight and said, “Your aunt told me that you want to buy the cell phone, with no down payment.”
The man said, “Come in.”
When you help others to make them happy, you become the happiest person yourself.
Commit to become happy.
Former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said very eloquently, “Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.”
Happiness is same thing as love, we don’t need anything to express love. Love speaks itself.
We only feel happiness, I am happy.

To activate happiness, we must, in first place, know ourself.
Happiness can make our life three hundred percent healthier and fulfilled, if we identify it.
The question is.
How do you activate happiness?
Dig deep inside your life and find your two favorite things or two places or two people that make you happy. Ask yourself how much do you really know about these two?
You will find the answer and say, ‘I don’t know much.’
Your relationship with these favorite two is shallow, you don’t see firmness of your purpose and stability with them.
These two just soak up your life, deep down you know they don’t make you happy.
To activate real happiness, we must learn and commit more about us than these two favorites, that we think make us happy.
Happiness is not something that you saw last week in Boston, so you want to have it now.
It is also not any profession or place or thing that your best friend told you about so that you want to pursue.
Don’t waste time and energy on things to become happy without knowing who you are.
Michael Jordan was born to be a happier basketball player but Aristotle, as a happier philosopher and scientist.
Happiness is not same for all. It is internal and designed by our individual mind-configuration.
Happiness is individual.
I have seen the happiest people in the world. When I was growing up in a village, I had one friend who used to fish everyday, used to collect crabs all day. Now he has one hundred fisheries.
I have seen the most unhappy people who has millions of dollars in the bank account, but he uses drug every single day to seek happiness.

Dig deeper inside you; learn, research and commit about yourself first, then you will be able to create your own happiness.
Superficiality is not happiness; happiness is your depth.
Never ever try to buy happiness, it’s never be on sale. The only thing we can buy is pleasure, which is completely different from happiness.
I can go movie and buy two hours happiness, nope, two hours pleasure.
Many people go to beach to become happy, but when they reach there, they feel bored after certain time, and they seek another thing to be happy. They come home with tiredness.
If you are not happy at home before to go beach, you will not be happy at the beach.

Throughout my life, I saw my father always happy when he was around cattle, raise them, feed them, and milk them. I always saw him happy because I saw true authentic expression inside him doing that. No matter the profession, if we don’t produce vigor, we remain unhappy. Vigor is the process of doing the task, not the end-result.
If you have vigor on anything you do, you fill the dead space between activities in your life, which creates the ultimate happiness.
Our life is made up of dead spaces between our daily activities.
My father taught me, “Don’t do anything to impress others, fill the dead spaces in your life. This is a key of happiness.”
But I was not happy doing cattle activities as my dad. I still don’t know three hundred percent what makes me happy. I have only a sense of it.
But everyday I am working on it, and I’m sure one day I will find it out.

I can provide you a hint, you can activate happiness in your life by four things: health, family, relationship, and experiences.
Connect these four dots in your own way, while doing that you will find a process. Devote on that process, you will be happy forever.
Dig deep inside you and carry your body and mind with these four dots: health, family, relationship and experience.
I am three hundred percent sure; you will create your own happiness.
Remember, our time on earth is limited, so spend with your choice because happiness is only your choice to commit for an interest, and nothing more.
Because, you must have an interest in life just to keep living happily.
Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

Few weeks ago, I was in Milwaukee downtown outside a beautiful park. I was crossing the street with a water bottle in my hand. I saw a big trash can in the street outside the park. I was trashing an empty water bottle and an old man around seventy approached me and said, “thank you.”
I was sitting on a bench as I was waiting my kids to come there. He started chatting with me and I came to know that he was a retired truck driver, he also did a little bit work in municipal office in his youth age. In our chatting, we went deeper, and he told me how he transformed his life. I love to listen to people, that’s what make human evolution so aspiring.
In our conversation, I knew that he comes to park every week to do some volunteering work because that inspires him to become a complete responsible human being. He gets opportunities to serve people.
He spent a significant portion of his youth life as a truck driver outside home. During that time, he had an ailing wife at home, not severe but not quite healthy too. During her lonely time at home, she used to come in the same park and enjoy the nature.
She passed away seven years ago, he told me, since then he comes almost two to three times in a week and spends time in the park.
He started driving truck early in his life, so he did not even finish high school.
He mentioned that he did not appreciate his wife during her time what she did for him because he was out of home most of the time and focused much on driving truck.
After listening him, I realized why he was saying ‘thank you’ to most of the passers-by who were trashing the stuffs in the bin.
In our short conversation I learned a very good lesson about life, appreciation, and gratitude.

We are human and we tend to forget to appreciate things until they are gone. Everything becomes precious after that and we live in shadow of those gone moments.
This is an unhealthy way to live a life. Most of us learn these things in a hard way.
We always strive for more recognition in life and most of the time we mix recognition and appreciation without much thinking.
But there is a crucial difference between the two. We become pretty happy when we get recognition, that is normal, and we should be happy.
But remember this, recognition is short-lived in many cases. Everybody praises you when you achieve something outstanding. When you win a soccer tournament or any event, you will receive a bunch of recognitions.
But just think for a second, same people will boo you if you miss the penalty kick that led to lose the game.
On the other hand, appreciation is permanent, it is deeper than recognition.
It is unconditional.
Appreciation is not just for changing what is outside of us but for finding out what is inside of us.
It comes from humbleness, and from daily mind rituals.

Most of the time we forget to appreciate little things in life that actually make us unique species on the planet.
Be the person to appreciate the passing moments in life in its real form. Don’t wait to appreciate until rainfall, learn to appreciate the cloud or even sunlight moments.
Make a habit to appreciate your partner when he/she prepares food for you.
Appreciate your dad and mom when they share their life experiences to you.
Appreciate your daughter when she calls you on weekend to check you.
When we express gratitude, we create the state of present and transform our emotional pain to joy and happiness.
If we don’t express appreciation or ‘thank you’ to others, we freeze our mind, we block our mental capacity and it prevents us from developing a positive attitude.
“Thank you” is the only way to multiply the blessings in our life.
When we say thank you, we control our body and mind but if we don’t express it, then something or somebody else will control us.
Others express in us what we express in ourselves.

There is an outstanding research on this topic that says gratitude makes us happy, declutters our mind, and brings serene thoughts.
Praise and complement everyone for anything like food, appearance, work, family, and achievements. This is another way to practice gratitude.
Human craves praise. It is one of the tools to empower human beings.

When I was kid my maternal uncle taught me where the US is on the world map and said then that Ronald Regan is the President of America. He taught me at that little age that America is the most powerful nation on earth. Now I am in US and work for the progress of humanity through science and technology. I still remember my uncle’s memory, but he passed away many years ago when I was in high school.
When I appreciate my uncle, I don’t remember his words or phrases, my mind brings only his pictures and images. His image in my mind is worth a thousand words for me. When I express gratitude, I close my eyes and say ‘thank you’, at that moment I generate a lot of positive vibration that flows in my body.

Develop a habit to cultivate gratitude.
We can practice gratitude on anything: our body, plants, vegetables, animals, sunrise, smile, and even every single breath.
Recently, I watched a TED talk by BJ Miller, a renowned palliative care physician and a death expert.
While watching him I realized something unusual, I stopped for a moment on my body organs; hands and legs, lungs and heart, eyes and mouth. I saw them, I heard them, I felt them, appreciated them deeper, and moved away.
BJ Miller is a triple amputee due to an electrocution accident in college.
Gratitude is nothing but a positive perspective on everything that we have, we feel, and we experience.
The retired truck driver taught me, “There is one best way to appreciate anything in life. Find the best way to close your eyes and say, ‘thank you’. Then never deviate from it and make it a habit.”
Remember, ‘thank you’ will work when nothing else will work for you.
‘Thank you’ for all the people devoted to science.
And ‘thank you’ for your time.
-Yam Timsina

I hate to use words I and me. These are not great words to use frequently in any place. But forgive me here. Almost one year ago, I was in a job interview as a scientist in a biotech company. I gave my presentation, and, in the end, I had a slide of acknowledgement, as we all show our respect to the people and organizations who are involved in the project. On the top of the slide, I had my parent’s passport size picture followed by my mentors, supervisors and colleagues. One of the interviewers asked me, are your dad and mom scientists?
I said “no”.
The hidden motive of the question, though he didn’t say anything, was reflected as why did I put my parent’s picture in the slide?
This incidence inspired me to write this content.
I guess I am trying to give the answer as well as how we should develop the relationship with our parents and acknowledge them in life.

My belief is our parents are neither professional nor personal in our life. They are our soul, heart, and mind.
We are biological gifts to this world by our parents. The chance we are born and alive now on the planet is one out of four hundred trillion. Think about this chance for few seconds.
I have seen few people around me always complain about their parents. First of all, we must forgive our parents in any circumstances even if they did some serious mistakes, small or big, while bringing us up on this planet.
We are alive now in this moment due to our parents. No anger, no blame, no complain. Forgive your parents unconditionally, if you have to. Period.
If we cannot forgive our parents, we would remain in a prison of victimhood throughout our life, forever.
They brought us here and devoted for us whatever they could.

When they become old, it’s our turn to invest on them. It’s not only money, they need our time, care, respect, and attention in their lives. And they deserve it.

As we grow older, we also realize that our parents are also getting older faster than before and know this, they will not be in this world after certain time. It is sad but hard truth.
Spend your time with them before you realize it’s too late. Otherwise, you end up with only remorse throughout your life.

Building healthy, inspiring, and supportive relationship with parents is key to our success.
Our life is built through the leverage of relationship, mostly familial relationship.
Our parents can be lonely and sad even if we have five siblings who are very successful in five different walks of life. The eighty year’s Harvard study of adult development has already showed that good life is built on good quality relationship. As Robert Waldinger, director of the study, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School said, “Loneliness kills us same as smoking or alcoholism.”

Our relationship to our parents is the fuel to happiness.
The most significant attribute in any person’s life is to have parent’s blessing.
We take this relationship for granted but it’s important to understand that our parents should feel that they are our highest priority in life.

How we spend our time with our parents is more important than what we have done for them.

When did you hug and say I love you dad, and I love you mom in person last time?
When did you have long conversation with them in person last time?
When did you visit in their anniversary last time?
When did you wish happy birthday to them in person last time?

Don’t make excuses that you cannot visit them frequently because you are busy doing your stuffs. Believe me your project and work can wait but your dad and mom’s time in this world cannot.
If your parents are still alive, feel a very lucky person, and buy a ticket today and fly, don’t postpone.
Give them a surprise visit.
I am sure you will not be able to buy the happiness you see in their face when you reach home. Seeing you in front of them is a visceral reaction. You can see in their eyes how much they love you. This emotional response and our instinctive empathic connections to it makes us why we are here. We can fake anything in this world, but not this moment.

We always invest on things which bring value in our life so don’t wait to invest on this connection before it would be too late to make correction.
Spend a quality time with them. Drink a glass of wine with your dad.
Go shopping with your mom.
These seem like very small moments, but these will be the real moments to cherish and remember and this will make up the remaining part of their lives.
Talk to them and mostly listen, encourage them to share their experiences of life. Ask them what they learnt from life and any worth remembering incidences while bringing you up in this world.
Care them and serve them as much you can.

Experience in life is bigger than our formal education.
Discuss your goals and ambitions with your dad and mom. They may not know the whole details of your craft but can see your vision through their eyes, they see it and feel it.
The experiences of life they had, and your education start to connect the dots you never saw before. After your intimate conversation with your dad and mom, you see a connection between seemingly unrelated dots and making sense in your life. That could be the biggest motivation for you.

If you really can’t visit them often, though it’s rare, mail them a hand-drawing picture which you used to draw when you were kid, to their address. In your absence, your parent would laugh and scroll their fingers through your drawing and bring your childhood memory into their eyes.
This drawing on a sheet of paper has an immense power than any other existing technology.

Don’t just call or write birthday wishes on facebook wall all the time. Facebook words are processed on the screen when they read, but not on their mind. Facebook is not real; it evaporates way faster in a click.
That’s why facebook is facebook, not a feelbook.
When you hug them or visit them or make an eye contact with them, they produce serotonin and oxytocin in their body that make them really happy. Seeing the real is more powerful and it elicits emotions. Emotions move and drive them. It can soothe, reduce and destress the pain in their body and mind.

Our relationship with our parents is our strength to fight a cause in this life.
Parents are creator for our passion. Passion is that work for which we happily suffer and sacrifice. The one thing on which we spend countless hours but still we feel happy, energetic and not an ounce of tiredness. Parents ingrained this passion on us in our childhood because we had a lot of free time back then and not much responsibility. They provided a roof over us, food on the table and clothes to wear.
This passion seed became a full-grown plant, turned into a more profitable venture later in our life. But remember, that small seed of passion were sown to us by our parents in the early stage of our life.
Don’t dilute your relationship with your parents only thinking about your million-dollar idea project.
We can not become pilot just by reading how to fly airplane books, we become pilot by sitting inside the cockpit and doing practice with control panel.
If we don’t make an investment to go inside the cockpit of this relationship, then we will know the importance of this relationship only when we become parent ourself and wait to see our children next to our bedside.

Build up your weak parental bondage until it becomes strong. Sometimes, it takes a little bit thought and gratitude rather than over-thinking on our time and busyness, but in the end, it’s worth every minute you spend on with your parent. Success becomes best when we get moments to share.

There are only two ways we can make our aging parent feel proud, and happy.
Do activities that pay off the suffering they endured throughout their life while they were bringing us up in this world.
And, spend the quality time with them as often as we can.
They want us to be in their bedside more often than any other things in life.
Our connection with them is not a luxury, it is a necessity for rewarding, fulfilling, and wonderful life for us, and for them.
That’s it.
-Yam Timsina

Who buys your dress and shoes?
Who picks your college and university?
Who decides your major in college?
Who approves your dating partner?
And when you are in bathroom who do you see in the mirror?
If you answer the top four questions sincerely, you encounter either one or two persons in the bathroom mirror. The conflict between these two personalities generally dictates your level of confidence.
Why do we need permission or approval from others in everything?
We have to live our life, and we are solely responsible for this life. Parents did their part whatever they could, no matter what they always encourage and wish success for us, now it’s our turn to make this life epic. Parents and other family members cannot have our dreams because these dreams belong to us and make us unique. We have to own our dreams.

Most of us grew up in the society where we need approval or permission all the time. Seeking approval is not bad thing but completely honor it without understanding ourself indicates lack of confidence. It doesn’t mean we should be arrogant and never take advice from others. We have to show humility and respect to others but should not hesitate to make our own decision based on choices. Arrogance and ignorance are two different things, but both eat up our confidence.

Confidence is not a state of mind or knowing some particular thing better, it is a skill that we develop and nurture every single day. A well-groomed confident person doesn’t need approval all the time but seeks advice from others to align his or her intuition, thoughts and ideas to his or her core values and principles.

As a rule of nature, we develop different traits and characters mainly from family and society. Our raising standards and practices make us more vulnerable at some point. Among various vulnerabilities, not able to recognize our confidence is one.

Our inner desire to do more and to be more is leading the world in technology. It seems nothing is impossible, and every single problem is simply new opportunity. Many innovators, entrepreneurs and inventors are confident people who are a major driving force behind our unparalleled growth and success. They have created extraordinary technologies, products and services which are job sources for us. But if we go deeper in their lives, they are confident practitioners at first hand.

We all are born with the power of confidence. Mother nature has given us this tool when we were born. But in our development process over the time, we also grew doubts, fears and worries which eroded our confidence gradually.

We often have no idea what other billions of people are planning in their mind. Many PhDs and MBAs were doing business plans, strategies, charts, maps and statistics in conference when Jeff Bezos was driving the packages to the post office himself in his Chevy Blazer when he first started Amazon. He sold books from his garage and now he is launching rockets in space. He worked every single day that sharpened his confidence. Practice flows to confidence and confidence still flows to greater ideas and thoughts like water.

We don’t know what was coming in Muhammad Ali’s mind when he decided to be the best boxing player, but he was laser focused on his goals and played boxing every single day no matter what. The real everyday practice brought confidence in him every single moment. He always said, “I am the greatest.”

Confidence is a triangular combination of our wishes, doubts and continuous practice on our doubtful wishes.

Research shows that people who create massive success don’t rely much on past activities or results. They know that every situation from past to present to future are very different. Their pure confidence comes from practice and only practice.

There is a trend that majority of people stop learning when they get out from college or universities. Academic curriculum is designed to create a clear map or definite path for life. Full of instructions in life. Nothing more, nothing less. If somebody wants to become a brain surgeon or lawyer or accountant, we all know what the track is, everybody can follow. But if anybody want to invent a washing machine that doesn’t require any detergent, then where is the track or any curriculum?
The one way to enrich massive confidence is to get involved in something which doesn’t have clear track or path. There is only dark and fear. Try to create something from nothing with imagination. Try to win the fear. This is basically nonlinear thinking, nonobvious.

Education means acquire information and do practice at the same time. But our education system is designed to focus more on information but less on practice. Academic books don’t teach much about past, present or future situations of life and many educated people have one particular way of analyzing things because they have been trained to do so. Relatively, present school system still helps us to be famous theoretician but not practitioner, no matter which school we attended, what degrees we earned, or how great our IQ is. Once we become academically sound, we encounter cognitive dissonance meaning we think our ideas are sound but when applied on the real ground they are actually not.

I used to think why Nobel laureate in economics couldn’t beat Warren Buffett’s investment strategy. They know more research, economic data, market and statistics. But after studying Warren Buffett, I also revealed that competence in life requires intense knowledge of our real game that we practice everyday than anything else. The constant study of our own game reveals who we are and how we are doing. Standing apart from the crowd, flow against the tide, and practice the hard stuff every day is Buffett’s message. Dominate the game by learning and practicing every single ingredient in it. This is the only way to gain confidence and achieve the desire goal. It is difficult to find the key to success in life but it’s easy to find the key to failure if we try to follow everybody without going in depth of our own game.

Warren Buffett was eleven years old when he first started to practice investment and he is still very active on the game at the age of eighty-nine. The biggest lesson we can learn from him: confidence doesn’t teach us how to compete, but it teaches us how to create. If we become confident on our task, our potential expands, and we start to realize that we are more capable then the current version. Confidence breeds obsession to achieve more and to be more than the current reality.

I started my alphabet in fourth grade and could not write my name in English in fifth grade. I couldn’t count numbers up to one hundred in grade five. My maternal uncle taught me every single day how to read and write. The one lesson I learned from my uncle is do something over and over and over again so that it becomes natural. I have filled numerous notebooks writing just my name in grade five. My personal story tells me that the only single way to develop self-confidence is repetition, repetition and only repetition.

Confidence is not a place where we reach but we grow it every single day by practice. It can be excellent and is as much of a practice than anything else.
We all have to-do lists, we all have moments to cherish and moments to regret but if we keep waiting for the right time to practice our game, we will lose the game of life.
Confidence is a stepping-stone to get the color in life but if we keep going, we get the full rainbow which is a collective bundle of health, family, love and wealth.
Confidence is not the opposite of fear but the opposite of inaction.
-Yam Timsina

We are fragile and temporary. Our body can be diseased, damaged, broken and hurt.
We gradually accept aging and one day we die. This is dismal and sad to start this content, but it is true.
Many of us don’t realize this until doctor gives us very little time to live. We recall our partying 20s and a little bit more mature 30s. But when we hit 40, body’s chemistry start to change and we all know, we start to regret, I wish I could have done that.

The only way to thrive, prosper and add value in life is by being healthy emotionally and physically. Being healthy means be selfish and love your body first, to love ourself first is the best relationship ever. That’s why, air hostess always says put your mask first before to help others. Be yourself healthy first and then only you can serve the world.

I believe health is our destiny and there is no better investment than to invest on our health.
The important question to ponder- is working eighty hours a week without carefully examining body and mind chemistry truly worth?
The present trend shows that many of us sacrifice health for money in our early stage of life and regret later spending all the money for few days’ health.
What is the point of accumulating money if our body doesn’t allow us to fly to travel the world?
What is the worth of having millions of dollars in bank account, if ill body does not allow us to sleep well at night?
We are working and we need to work, there is no question, no debate, and no exception.
But many of us are practicing how to be busy at work rather than doing real work. Our work culture and technology are making us unhealthy everyday.
Reply email and message instantly.
Attend meeting at 9 am.
Call a client at 11 am.
You are already late for lunch.
Attend an emergency meeting at 2.30 pm.
You missed the snack time.
Send report to the manager by 4 pm.
Get out from office at 5pm.
Stuck in traffic.
You get the picture of our work culture.

The first secret of healthy life is food habit. Our daily fuel.
I have seen some of my friends using premium quality gasoline in their car regularly, but I have never seen quality fuel in their body. This is not judgement, this is reporting. Our life is what our fuel is every day. Good food not only enhances the premium thought process of our brain but also reduces the lethargy.
Excellent physical and emotional health requires small but repeated good food habit. Starting a day with heavy protein and good fat as breakfast is not difficult but making it habit is difficult. It’s not easy to turn our attention away from cookies and sodas in regular office meetings. Food via drive through in KFC and McDonald are increasingly popular. When we reach home in the evening, we are burnt out, tired and exhausted mainly due to low quality food that we ate during the day. Needless to say, this habit will cost us a lot in the future.

The second secret of healthy life is body movement.
Our body is designed to move. Nature has taught us to do this.
But we don’t do regular exercise, so our body forgot to produce brain-derived neurotrophic factor BDNF long ago which is essential to repair dead cells in the brain.
Author Robin Sharma has given us a gem book called “The 5 am Club” that tells how the morning exercise transforms our life.
When we do exercise early in the morning, we set our body and mind for a day. Research shows that new genes get turned on. These genes code for new proteins and these are building blocks for new formations in the brain.

If we don’t have few minutes to think or meditate or exercise in a day then it would be worthless to talk about productivity, creativity and efficiency.
Excellent research is showing that creativity and focus depend on our exercise, food, relaxation, and sleep.
Actually, we all have time to do meaningful and important things in life. Obviously, we don’t have time to do everything, and to be honest we don’t need to do everything. The biggest problem is we don’t optimize our life. We add many different things in life everyday, but we never bother to remove or filter items from our daily basket.

We all want to do twenty minutes meditation everyday because we know it is good. It cleans our mind. It helps us to focus on meaningful things. It has power to control our body. We also planned three years ago to do so, but we never abandoned reality TV and social media. Technology has owned us so deeply that we sometimes forget that we are breathing. As a result, more and more people are suffering from obesity, heart disease and mental health issues ever then before.

I started this writing with secrets of health. But there are no secrets of health.
In 2015, my weight was one hundred and eighty pounds. After reading Tony Robbins and Robin Sharm’s New York Times bestselling books, I decided to do experiment and put myself into work. Since then I made a habit of spending at least twenty minutes everyday either in swimming or running. Since 2016 to until now, my weight is constant, one hundred and forty pounds. The morale of my personal story is, small but consistent routine produces astounding results. I am a proof. Nothing is secret and fancy here, a small tweak in everyday life. A very small optimization.

Think before adding fuel inside the body. Respect the nature’s rule. Nature has given this body to move.
Aim for extremely good health so that we can dance every single evening until we become one hundred years old.
The best day to start our meditation or yoga or running or whatever it is, was five years ago, the second best was yesterday and third is today.
Life does not always have to be glamorous, but it should be healthy. This brings ultimate joy in family, friends, neighborhood and workplace.
Invite the strength of healthy life that opens new avenues for greater accomplishments.
A life lived healthier thoroughly justifies the living.
-Yam Timsina

We all think we have real friends, but do we really feel real friends? This is the question I tried to answer. After doing research on my own friends I also asked myself, what type of friend I am myself?
Putting myself in the zone of friendship, I asked myself how many times I actually offer help and support to others?
And how often do I get support and help from others?
If we answer these questions sincerely, we will spot the difference between real friends and fake friends.

A friend is a person with a set of shared values and goals. His or her activities, morale, and functions affect us in all parts of life especially family, health and relationships. If one of these aspects of life is corroded, then our life crumbles because they are interconnected.
The ultimate goal of friendship is to create an inner support that help us to remember our common goal and accountability. In friendship, common objectives come first before the mindset.
Our network of friendship also reflects our net worth in the long run.

How transparent are we in the real friendship? It is a key ingredient. It doesn’t mean we have to open each other’s secrets, but a higher level of mutual consideration for each other’s thinking and a clear understanding of responsibilities are required.

The hardest truth is, people are superficial, they don’t have time to go in depth because we all have things to do.
We expect quick return and have a tendency to judge everybody by cover. We post only happy and beautiful moments in Facebook. Nobody posts suffering, pain, depression, and sleepless nights.
Nobody actually cares about our plans until we produce values. A lot of people around us still don’t care about our process to produce values but raise questions and use our process as a ladder to promote their agendas.
They bring more similar failure stories in front rather than success stories, if we are about to execute some plans.
These are some of the spots to find fake friendship.

If we are surrounded by real friends, they care more about time, devotion, and process rather than results. They clap hands on our successes.
We have to believe that nobody and nothing is perfect that we all grow wings over time by excellent relationships. Through the pool of these few best friends we start to make impact and produce values to the society.
When our influence increases, then amazing things happen that everybody start to follow us on social media even though we don’t know them personally. This is a rule of nature.

There is a great saying that we are the average of six people whom we spend the most time with. The quality of the life we get will depend largely on the quality of six friends that we make.
A very good friend invites debate rather than to avoid it. That deep conversation is not to prove someone is right or wrong but to open mind for logic and evidence. A good friend never backbites in your absence. That is a symbol of nurtured relationship.

If we choose the right friends with right values and remain attached with them, we will create a beautiful life song, consisting of each friend as a good vocal, lyrics and composition.

Focus on six quality friends than fifty fake friends. We actually need a very few real friends who return our call at 2 am in the morning when we need them rather than have hundred fake friends who don’t return our call in the time of need.
Seek friend who is better than you in maintaining and nurturing friendship.
If we distinguish real friend from fake, that creates a path for a long relationship, though it needs time, commitment, and generosity.
Real friendship is pristine but fake friendship is contagious.
If your friend says you deserve more, and you also respond you deserve more, this is how we grow and nurture a lasting real friendship.
There is no price tag for a valued friendship, it is above money.
-Yam Timsina

People are celebrating Father’s Day in my native country and I remember my dad who is 85 years old now. I am dedicating this piece of writing on him. Thank you so much for this life Dad. I love you.

When I was in middle school, my dad used to take me to his birthplace Solma, Terhathum where his mom, my grandma used to live. I remember, it was approximately one day’s travel by bus, but my dad used to take me using different route so that it would take us almost two days to reach my grandma’s house. My dad used to take the route that was little bit unexplored and uncommon. He always used to take me in different places than the previous visit for eating, lodging, and other recreational activities. He always thought and lived with the concept that traveling makes each of us more evolving which is life’s greatest accomplishment.

He taught early in my life that we get this life once so why not to live epic?

What is the point of living a life in a cage?

There is a huge difference between a tourist and a traveler. Tourist is a product designed by somebody to monetize us. As a tourist, we don’t explore the unknown, we always walk in our comfort zone with tons of instructions. Most of the time we repeat same food, same place, and same people. But a traveler is a different format, a pure form, ready to experiment the life to venture out for the unknown. My dad was a pure traveler, not a tourist.

He used to share different foods, cultures, and society that makes an amazing memory before we die. These memories are assets to inspire the next generations. Glorious life comes with full of zeal when we encounter new newness in any regard. The experience of having a meal in Johannesburg gives a new layer of understanding and memory than the usual everyday food in hometown Chicago. He tells me: the more unusual place we visit, the more interesting thing we discover. We can’t appreciate things which we can’t see.

When we travel the world, our values and goals will change, we will start to learn the value of empathy in comparison to the value of material possessions. This might be one of the reasons why Bill Gates and Warren Buffett engages so much in philanthropy. Most importantly, we realize the value of experience a lot less than cooperation, humility, and connectedness.

The secret part of being a traveler is that it destresses us from mundane rat race and help us to see the blind spots in our hamster wheel lifestyle. If we don’t travel and interact, we always feel proud at something that we already know better. This is definitely a trap zone so that we learn less and always make poor decisions. We can’t differentiate between pleasure and happiness. Pleasure, a tourism product, can be bought from a very comfort Chicago home, but happiness, a travel product, is internal. Spending couple of hours with people in Asia and Africa who make a dollar in a day gives a lot of sense of purpose of living a life. Happiest and fulfilled people travel a lot and find their own nature and match their life to it.

The person who travels and interact with others more always feel proud to see things through others’ eyes and have clear understanding of opposite perspective.

In the end, I would like to pass my dad’s motto and end this piece of writing: Embrace the challenge, travel more and deal with new people and new circumstances. The beauty of life lies on the other spectrum of the world which we are constantly avoiding.
-Yam Timsina

My daughter Aryanna was studying the physics principle regarding the change of state from rest to flying. She was working on the complex mathematical derivations.
Once she said, “I gave up becoming an aeronautical engineer.”
I said, Why?
“It’s too complicated and I’m not absorbing the information”, she replied annoyingly.
I told her, “Do you know what simulation is?”
She said, “it’s a computer program to make a model.”
“What about you become a model of aeronautical engineer, be yourself in this position at the moment. Think of your life in this position. Make emotional connection to it and pretend you’ve achieved it. How does it feel? Would you feel undefeatable? What would your mom say? What would your friends say? What would be the taste of that life?” I told her.
She sat down on the floor and closed her both eyes and started to visualize it.
At the present moment she was aeronautical engineer.

In reality, the term simulation is very complex. It generally represents approximate imitation of the activity or process. Its application is diverse depending on situations like technology, computer and natural phenomenon. The most critical aspect is its use when the real does not exist and the valid source of information is not available.
The less explorable part is it is an unstoppable source of inspiration when the road of life becomes tough.

I am a practitioner of science and technology. I have experienced that when we say or do some new activity, we seek scientific evidence to support. The common question we ask: is there scientific evidence for that or this? Simulation is that power which bring us momentum to try out something new. It teaches us to be the evidence ourselves. So, the next generation will use us as a scientific evidence.
At its core simulation does not indicate future. After realization of the moment, it brings joy in our mind. We become more attached to the activity. We enjoy the activity or process and produce the result.

If the present task doesn’t produce any result, or if it is cumbersome then drop it for a moment, close your eyes and simulate the work, process, as well as final outcome.

Present activity happens in pure consciousness. When we simulate the circumstance, we make connection to the point from where consciousness starts. Simulation is feeling that will bring you closer to the truth of who you really are. And who you really want to be? Complete attention through simulation brings full acceptance of the present reality. This is a catalyst to act.

Aryanna opened her eyes and said, “Dad, I let my future clarify the present, I was creating time and space for my present task. I was honoring the present moment by allowing simulation to come by.” “I also found total equality between my present state of trying and perfect aeronautical engineer. There is a flow of life which I am experiencing now. Until I achieve the desire goal, I continue to practice simulation.”
“There is no doubt that I am going to be a very successful aeronautical engineer.”
-Yam Timsina

My niece is a sixteen years old girl and one day she asked me a very difficult question.
What do you recommend me to study in college?
I paused for a moment and said, “This is a very complicated and difficult question to answer.”
She said, “I am so confused from the suggestions of my friends and family members, so I need your help to make the decision.”
“I have read about some prominent successful figures across the globe and found that their study and work align to their core values in life, and a lot of time they go against society, family or friends.” She added.
She expressed very powerful statement that we experience ourselves in everyday life. It’s true that very few people’s opinions matter in our life. Rest is just noise and interferes with real life signal all the time.
She continuously added, “I not only want to be successful in future but also want to be authentic.”
Silence. A confused smile of desperation.
As I was observing her expression especially with her question, I was fascinated experiencing her assessment to measure success in her life.
I didn’t say anything to her that particular day.
Next morning, I asked her, “What do you read more, fiction or non-fiction books?”
She said, “I do read more fiction books.”
And I added, “Why do you read more fiction books?”
She said, “Stories are touching, and they bind me closely while reading.” “Sometimes, I feel like I should fake the story until I really make it.”
I said, “That’s wonderful.”
“Now, you have the answer of your question that you had asked me before.”
“Life is the understanding of few things rather than knowing many things. Understand the disciplines or subjects, by which you can make many stories throughout your existence.”
“These are your real-life stories, and should bind your listeners and audiences like what you experience when you read fiction books,” I added.
“If you are able to do that in your life, you will be successful and authentic. Remember, if nobody interests your life story, then you should seriously rethink what you wish to do with your life.”
“You would be more valuable person in life, if you make a very large pool of people paying very close attention to hear your stories. While you are telling your story, but if listeners mind wanders, then you aren’t successful. Bind and captivate them and create the flow of inspiration. Plain, unemotional stories do not influence the sub-conscious mind. Sub-conscious mind works twenty-four hours.”
Remember, if a middle school science teacher starts class about moon as, “Once upon a time there was a child in the moon……..” All the students will remain calm, relaxed, and quiet to take all the information about moon. This is powerful and would be therapeutic especially in learning. Miscellaneous information about moon gives miscellaneous results.
Study whatever and wherever you want, but get your story ready as you continue your legacy.
There is another worth remembering part in the story telling.
“Do you know? When is the best time to tell your story?”
If there are many other story tellers in the room, “Tell your story in the end, if possible.”
Try to absorb the information as much you can from all other story tellers, and you tell your story in the end.
I learned this technique from the autobiography of Nelson Mandela, who was wrongfully imprisoned for twenty-seven years but evolved as one of the best story tellers of the world to influence billions of people on the planet. He learned this skill of storytelling from his dad early in his childhood. Sometimes, despite spending months and years working in our own story, there is zero progress. But by using one simple idea of somebody else’s story line could spark the whole new series of results.
Listening another person’s story before our own story is a skill and doesn’t come overnight but we can build it slowly. This skill is hard to learn but will pay off forever.

-Yam Timsina