Milan Kundera, the author of ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ said, “Human time is not circular, it races in a straight line. That is why humans are not happy. Happiness is the longing for repetition.”
These lines touched my heart when I was really unhappy and at a very low point in my life in the past.
I’d think, why do I want the same food which I ate yesterday again next time?
Why do you want to hang out with the same friend to whom you already spent 5 hours yesterday?
This year I finished a marathon in 3.5 hours.
I’m really happy but I want to run it again next year and would like to touch the finish line in around 3 hours.
Why?
Why do I want these repetitions again and again in my life?
I guess I want to be happy as said by Milan Kundera, happiness is the longing for doing the same thing over and over again.
So what I learned over the years is that the only way I can remain happy is by executing my most important tasks over and over again.
Execution is many hundred times more powerful than just pure ideas in our mind.
These ideas vanish very quickly.
Execution moves the needle in our life.
Running, walking, biking, calling, swimming, mailing, delegation, selling, logistics, persuasion, presentation, writing, communication are key executions.
The tiring stuff, the everyday stuff, the mundane stuff, the boring stuff but that’s what many winners of our time get right and remain happy.
The completion of our important task, which by the way is the result of execution, makes us really happy.
“Make a habit to empty tasks, which are not urgent and not important, from your life so that you can buy back the time for important but not urgent tasks.”
One of my friends who runs the lawn mowing company in Richmond, Virginia told me, “The first thing in life we must execute is urgent and important activities and then the next thing we have to immediately start is important but not urgent activities.”
“The habit of executing these two kinds of activities in a methodical way consistently is the hallmark of success and happiness,” he added.
Nick Huber, entrepreneur and author of ‘The Sweaty Startup’ says “Important but not urgent tasks are the proactive, high-leverage activities that build long-term value, rather than reactive, everyday firefighting.”
Mostly, our reactive and everyday firefighting activities are just urgent but not important tasks.
Many successful people are masters at delegating urgent but not important tasks.
These activities have no long term consequences but we have to do them immediately to run our lives smoothly.
What we, generally, don’t do is we never make a habit to say ‘no’ for some tasks, not urgent and not important tasks from our lives.
Smart people completely eliminate these tasks and buy back the time for important but not urgent tasks.
Dwight Eisenhower, 34th US president said, “I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent”.
“Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ is teaching me to realize my physical and mental enemies for my personal health and happiness so that I can achieve victory without direct confrontation with my own body.”
As we know, we all have 24 hours in a day, these 24 hours are our assets whether we realize it or not.
I, my friend Josh, my boss Scott, Donald Trump, and Elon Musk, we all have the same amount, 24 hours in a day.
So the breakthrough in our life happens only if we start tracking how much time we are spending for important but not urgent activities.
Humanity is on the plate now and it is taking a giant technological leap.
This leap is returning and will return to each one of us with more of this precious asset, our own time.
Manual agriculture labor to Henry Ford’s self assembly to internet revolution to FAANG time to AI’s chatGPT, you can imagine the picture.
You can see the patterns here, what is happening is each one of these advancements is giving us more time.
It’s not the technology that we have to fear, it’s the application of technology, and how it is shaping humanity.
For sure, groundbreaking innovation and human desire will continuously make our time more free and abundant in the near future.
We will use this time to tackle more of the most important issues rather than just urgent issues.
Sometimes, I think, the essence of being me, a unique human being incomparable to the other 8 billion on the planet, is to make something, to solve something, and after all to survive.
Then what?
Then I create urgency in my mind for some important tasks to do.
And then just live a happy, healthy, and fulfilling life for the long run.
Brian Tracy, the author of ‘Eat That Frog!’ says, “Eating a frog is a metaphor for tackling your most challenging task but also the one that can have the greatest positive impact on your life.”
Most of the time, ‘that frog’ is also an important but not urgent task, just looming somewhere on the horizon in our mind.
In my experience, once we finish one important but not urgent task, we become more self-renewed for the next important target.
For example, every day in the morning I do 20 minutes, yoga, meditation or breathing exercise.
I generally do any one activity or more than one depending on my mood.
This task is not my urgent task at the moment, at least, nothing will happen if I don’t do or skip it some days or for a short period of time.
I’m making it important only for my long term health and happiness, I know how it compounds everyday in my life for longevity.
Once I finish them, it feels amazing and fulfilling in my body and mind, I feel self-energized for the whole day.
Stephen R. Covey in classic book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ says, “Our self renewal is very important for progress and prosperity.”
The spiritual, mental, physical, and social-emotional part of our personality completes our self-renewal.
Self-renewal is nothing but the gradual growth in personality in a holistic way.
One of my evergreen books to read is ‘The Art of War’ by Sun Tzu.
Sun Tzu wrote ‘The Art of War’ around 2500 years ago but why its relevance is still so powerful, I’m now understanding little by little.
Everytime, when I read and reread this book, I find more nuggets in it which are making more relevance to my past, present, and future life.
I’m sure it does the same to your life too if you read Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’.
For me, it is teaching how to be proactive and penetrate through difficult situations which we encounter all the time in life.
I want to apply Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ framework for my strategic thinking regarding my personal health and happiness.
What are my physical and mental enemies for my personal health and happiness?
Is it a disease, poor habits, or my fixed mindset?
I want to be clear, I want to know my strengths and weaknesses so that I can plan for my health as well as other challenges.
We all want to achieve victory without direct confrontation or unnecessary battle with our own body.
“Dr. Valter Longo and Dr. Luigi Fontana: ‘Eating more protein than what is needed will not increase muscle mass but will accelerate aging and increase the risk of developing chronic disease’.”
Nowadays, I use a phone app to tackle my daily life challenges.
Sometimes it’s helping, but mostly, it is not helping, it’s hampering me.
I become easily distracted and waste a lot of time, especially if the task is important but not urgent.
Maybe I’m more influenced by the instant gratification of scrolling, or checking, or watching.
In ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’, authors W. Chan Kim and Renee A. Mauborgne say, “Technology is an enabler, not a panacea.”
Though, ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ is for a business concept which is to find new markets rather than compete in existing markets.
But the relevance of technology is very similar in many parts of our life.
In my opinion, our whole life is also a market, sometimes we have to keep looking inside the body to find new areas to expand, this is basically how our body as a consumer whispers to our ear.
One of my new areas of life I found by this whispering is understanding our body physiology and biochemistry for happiness and longevity.
I started regular fasting a few years ago, I started eating maximum plant based foods for my health and longevity.
I started these habits after reading many books and research papers for two reasons: first is to be healthy and happy and second is for longevity.
What I found is quite amazing, during fasting, our body cells switch over to a protective mode.
This leads to reduction of free radical damage and inflammation in our body.
Both free radicals and inflammation in our body are key causes of most chronic diseases especially heart diseases and cancers.
Long time longevity researcher and author of ‘The Longevity Diet’ Dr. Valter Longo, PhD, designed a five day meal plan to try to simulate the metabolic effects of fasting by being low in proteins, sugars, and calories with zero animal protein and animal fat.
By making it plant based, he lowered the level of the cancer promoting growth hormone IGF-1, which is by the way directly related to animal protein consumption.
Dr. Longo accomplished the desired results along with drop in markers of inflammation, after 3 cycles of his five days a month program.
Dr. Valter Longo and Dr. Luigi Fontana, both longevity experts of our time, always advise us to cut down on proteins to live longer.
They say, “Eating more protein than what is needed will not increase muscle mass but will accelerate aging and increase the risk of developing chronic disease.”
Dr. Longo’s TedTalk ‘Fasting: Awakening the Rejuvenation from Within’ is worth watching.
“Reduce methionine, the hallmark of cancer cells, in our foods either by caloric restriction or protein restriction or switching from animal protein to plant protein.”
Fasting is one way to drop IGF-1, cancer promoting hormone, but it isn’t the only way to drop IGF-1.
The type and the amount of protein intake is considered a key determinant of circulating IGF-1 levels in our body.
Dr. Valter Longo, PhD, a biogerontologist, professor at the University of Southern California, and expert on nutrition, fasting, and longevity research says, “Some of the anticancer and antiaging benefits of eating less food could be captured by just eating less protein.”
In 2000, a new hormone FGF-21 was discovered and it has emerged as a key agent for promotion of metabolic and artery health, leanness, and longevity.
This hormone appears to act through multiple aging pathways like boosting AMPK and sirtuin activity while inhibiting IGF-1 and mTOR signaling at the same time.
mTOR, mammalian Target of Rapamycin, is a complex of proteins that regulates growth and metabolism.
It is regulated by nutrients that we eat everyday.
If everything is normal, mTOR is the master driver of cell growth.
Regular exercise also boosts FGF-21 levels in our body.
Fasting does boost FGF-21 levels but for a notable surge in FGF-21, we need multiple days fasting which is unsustainable.
The best way to boost FGF-21 up is by eating starchy foods like legumes and whole grains.
FGF-21 is bumped by butyrate, the short chain fatty acids, which are made continuously by our good and happy microbiome in our gut by fiber eating habits.
Protein restriction also helps to boost FGF-21, however, not all proteins are the same in this regard.
Remember, diets with excess proteins might increase oxidative stress, inflammation, and lower the NAD+ which is critical for sirtuin function.
Reducing protein intake also reduces IGF-1 in blood in our body.
Among many, methionine is one amino acid found in proteins, a key food for cancer cells.
It is mostly found in meats.
Avoiding only this could potentially boost FGF-21.
Remember, legumes like beans, split peas, chickpeas, and lentils provide five to ten times less methionine than meat.
Dr. Robert M. Hoffman, PhD, discoverer of the ‘Methionine Addiction of Cancer’ says, “One of the hallmarks of cancer is methionine addiction, this means cancer cells, unlike normal cells, are unable to proliferate efficiently if methionine is removed.”
The most practical three options to reduce methionine in our foods are:
Caloric restriction, for example, fasting.
Protein restriction, for example, eating less protein in comparison to carbohydrate, ideal is 1:9 ratio.
Switching from animal protein to plant protein, a high percentage of methionine is in animal proteins.
The traditional Okinawan diet was 9 percent protein and 85 percent carbohydrate, mostly sweet potatoes.
The Okinawans had the highest numbers of centenarians in the world with 80 percent lower rates of common cancers.
“Dr. David Sinclair: ‘When we age, there is loss of NAD+, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, which controls sirtuins. This decline in sirtuin activity is the reason our body catches diseases when we become old.”
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, MD, the author of ‘Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease’
says, “Heart disease, our number one killer, can largely be halted or reversed, and risk for heart attack almost eliminated with the help of a whole food, low fat, plant based diet.”
For example, by eating enough fiber daily, which binds pollutants like PCBs, DDT and potentially help flush them out of the body.
These chemicals are key culprits in our body to cause heart diseases and cancers.
Dr. David Sinclair, PhD, professor of Harvard medical school and the author of ‘Lifespan’ said, “After 25 years of researching aging and having read thousands of scientific papers, if there is one piece of advice I can offer, one surefire way to stay healthy longer, one thing you can do to maximize your lifespan right now, it’s this: eat less.”
If the genome is a computer, the epigenome is the software.
Aging is nothing but a loss of information, both digital and analog.
Aging is the continuous disorganization of the epigenome, which is the software that controls gene expression which is hardware.
Aging disrupts cellular function and leads to many age-related diseases.
Sirtuins are enzymes, a key component of the epigenome, they change the packaging of the DNA, turning genes on and off when needed.
Sirtuins are not only longevity genes, there are others too.
Dr. Sinclair says, “When we age, there is loss of NAD+, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, which controls sirtuins. This decline in sirtuin activity is the reason our body catches diseases when we become old.”
I highly recommend watching Dr. Sinclair’s TedTalk ‘Is Aging Reversible’?
Conclusion
To conclude, here is one more example from recent research how animal protein like milk is associated with risk of cancers.
DNA is our blueprint where our genetic code is stored.
Messenger RNA transcribes DNA code which is a gene, and translates into a finished product which is either protein or an enzyme.
The fascinating thing in our body is that only about two percent of our total DNA actually codes for proteins.
The remaining 98 percent transcribes into noncoding RNAs, which don’t code for any proteins.
Among these noncoding RNAs, one is microRNA.
MicroRNA grabs messenger RNAs to stop them from being translated into proteins.
Let’s put this way, DNA is our pharma company.
Messenger RNAs are scientists working in pharma companies.
MicroRNAs are FDA regulatory bodies to check the safety of the finished products like approval of drug molecules.
As an example, one of the most abundant microRNAs is found in our milk which is microRNA-148a.
It is a key inhibitor of crucial suppressors to the aging enzyme mTOR.
In reality, both very high or very low mTOR are not ideal for us, we need a dynamic balance for health and longevity.
Recent research shows that microRNA-148a directly stimulates prostate cancer growth in vitro.
This indicates there is a link between milk consumption and increased risk of developing prostate cancer.
T. Colin Campbell, PhD, an expert nutritional biochemist: “The people who eat the most animal protein have the most heart disease, cancer and diabetes.”
Yam Timsina, PhD, writes primarily on health basics, scientific progress, social upliftment, and value creation.
Disclaimer: “Please note that some links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission if you make a purchase through them, at no extra cost to you.”
