“My father didn’t tell me how to live. He lived and let me watch him do it.”
-Clarence Budington Kelland
Look around us.
What do you see?
Things made by humans and things not made by humans.
If we go deeper at core we will find that all of these things made by humans are inspired from things not made by humans.
All of the natural things like water, air, earth, oxygen, animals, and plants carry immense power for us to inspire new innovations.
I’ve always tried and will continue to try them for good purpose, education, inspiration, and imagination.
The limit of reality is, Steve Jobs used to frequently visit a Hare Krishna temple to eat free food but never abandoned his imagination
Steve Jobs said, “Whatever things human made which we see around are not made by people smarter or better than us. These people are the same as us.”
Walter Isaacson, the author of the biography of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk writes about him, “Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology and imagination.”
In my view, the only thing Jobs did differently is he spent time studying nature and, most importantly, the complex relationship of it to humans.
Jobs just developed better daily routines and habits to study nature in depth and evolution of human beings, which after a while became automatic and required less conscious energy to understand the relationship.
Many times in our life we become illusioned by originality, or quote and quote, something new for the first time. Nothing is original in this world.
Scientists first invented black and white photos but we still had blue sky, light rays, colors, brown clouds, green trees, red flower, and blue ocean, just to name a few.
These are the only originals, yes, exactly originals.
Nature is the only thing that is original, the rest of all is synthesis from it from different kinds of imagination.
Originality only happens if we exactly know what are the limits of reality, and the reality is nature, human beings, plants, and animals.
Recently, I met a business owner in Milwaukee, Wisconsin who runs a landscaping business with five million dollars plus annual revenue, who didn’t finish high school.
I realized that it’s very hard to understand the value of originality if we only listen to a Harvard MBA, a blood thinner pill company CEO, but ignoring a primary school teacher in the suburb of Chicago and a forest conservationist in Nepal.
The limit of reality is, Steve Jobs used to frequently visit a Hare Krishna temple in Portland, Oregon, to eat free food when he was a college dropout and struggling financially, but never abandoned his imagination.
During marathon training, barefoot walking on grass for 30 minutes everyday provides strength to our feet
Originality is directly or indirectly connected to us, humanity.
What impact do these people like teachers and forest conservationists have for us?
If we dig a little deeper for the cause of humanitarian efforts, everything would be clear.
We are living in the age of bubbles, we don’t go deeper because we don’t have time to make a human connection and understanding.
Is there any difference between hard-core bribery or corruption or making money by selling tobacco or date expired foods?
Its hard to believe the original idea from a Harvard MBA who has never created anything, a tobacco company CEO, or chicken farm CEO who injects salt water on chicken thigh to increase weight but the ingredient label reads natural on sale.
There is no such thing, what I believe is derivative of the originals from a primary school teacher or a forest conservationist in Nepal who are devoted to making human beings aware and sustainable. Inside the derivative of their work, there is the human picture that translates the originality into humanity.
There is nothing special, new, and clean except human connection to nature.
We have to clean our toilet everyday to make it usable otherwise in no time the toilet looks crappy.
That everyday cleaning brings originality into the whole house, the same applies to nature.
Nature has amazing things to offer: we can breathe, we can live, and we can enjoy. Breathe means we are alive, live means to take care of nature, and enjoy means to take advantage of it.
Nature is also an amazing soothing therapy.
It cures a lot of things which modern medicine can’t cure. Of course, it’s slow but way more effective.
I had a situation in the past where I and my spouse had a severe verbal arguments. I’d say sorry and offered a walk in nature.
I’d tightly hold my spouse’s hand and offer to see the waves in a nearby lake from the side. While watching the waves movement, something would come to my mind.
Why did I forget everything that I had a few minutes ago?
I’d imagine the whole universe, observe the sky, look at the horizon, feel the flow of gentle wind.
Am I still stressed with tomorrow’s tasks?
Of course not, we would both feel amazingly different.
Why nature settled both of us is because it has immense power which we don’t know yet.
I was planning for a marathon run and I learned that many marathon coaches instruct to walk barefoot on grass for 30 minutes everyday for few weeks, why?
Because nature provides strength to our feet.
I don’t become happy by buying things I don’t need, with money I don’t have, to impress people I won’t hang out in five years from now
Similarly, if we only eat the kind of plant food which gives life by planting on soil, for example, plants, seeds, or grains etc then we never become unhealthy.
Why?
Because soil is nature, grains and plants are also nature they provide strength to our body.
Nowadays, our everyday breakfast has sugar, eggs, hotdogs, and doughnuts, they are against nature.
Our grandparents don’t recognize them as food for breakfast.
By the way, our grandparents are also a form of nature.
Remember, if we are fit and healthy then only we make thousands of dreams in life but if we are unhealthy and ill then we have only one dream in life: how to be free from the disease.
If you are a person who believes in magic diet pills to be slimmer and beautiful rather than the daily twenty minutes running and eating fiber and legumes everyday then you have not understood the power of nature.
It’s always better to look a few steps in front of us before looking too far too quickly.
Right in front of us is free oxygen to breathe, clean water to hydrate, and green trees to enjoy, fertile soil to plant, and numerous animals to pet.
The abundant free sunlight that converts our cholesterol in the skin into vitamin D3 in our body.
These resources are interlinked with our mind, body, and physiology, and they communicate with us constantly in various forms.
Please accept it, nature gives energy, strength, freedom, and inspiration to mankind.
But for that we have to think a little deeper, learn at least a little bit from Galileo, Aristotle, and Henry David Thoreau.
Freedom provides creativity if we try to understand the complexity of nature and its relationship with us.
Amazing things are amazing the first time when they occur but this amazing part fades away with repetition.
But nature never fades away.
I can correlate this moment when my wife told me for the first time that she is pregnant with our first baby, a true gift of nature in our family.
The sentence ‘I am pregnant’ reverberated in my mind all the time when my wife said it to me for the first time.
We both represented nature at the moment.
Politics, love, hate, money, sex, status, death, disease, and religion are powerful sources of human emotion.
We actually don’t know whom and when to marry, where to live and work, when to have a baby, and where to retire. But we are always worried all the time about them and become emotional.
One thing I learned over the years is that happiness and success aren’t achieved when I become emotional and make decisions rather than being rational. I know I don’t become happy by buying things I don’t need, with money I don’t have, to impress people I won’t hang around in five years from now.
If you want to be calm and relaxed in life, wear nice and clean underwear and do ten minutes meditation everyday, never compromise on these two things
Many of my emotions prevented my judgements in the past. This is a severe weakness that I experienced. Nature has an amazing power to control our emotions. Scientifically how it works I don’t know but it works beautifully all the time.
One of my experiences. I feel tired, I come home, I sit on the couch next to fish tank. I take off my socks, my fish in the fish tank knows I am at home, my fish becomes happy and jumps around the food hole, I look at fish and give some food, I feel relaxed, why?
If I’m overwhelmed, I also come out in the garden, I walk with my bare feet for few minutes and I feel different.
I feel calm and relaxed, why?
May be I feel connected to all the human beings around the globe through air and oxygen because every human being is breathing the same oxygen.
Isn’t this a power of nature?
One more example. All prospective mothers know the nine months pregnancy would be painful and excruciating.
Every mother knows the unbearable pain and suffering of delivery but still she is very delighted to give birth to a baby.
All prospective parents know they have to so much extra work to do, change diapers, they have to spend time with kids, they have to cut their sleep time to finish their tasks, they have to spend their savings for their education but still they want to become father and mother.
Why?
Because being a father and mother is amazing, I felt incredible inside me when I first became a father. The first time I held my own baby, I cried and remembered my own father when my father was in my shoes, no words after that.
I’ve seen advertisements, billboards, and pictures with words ‘father’ and ‘mother’. Do we need any descriptions to complete these words?
At least not for me.
Recently, I asked one of my old colleagues in my office, who was taking snacks in the office cafeteria, “you always seemed calm and relaxed, what is the reason for it?”
He said, “my son finished high school, my daughter gave birth to a healthy daughter last month, I’m a grandfather now, isn’t it enough to be calm and relaxed?”
I just smiled, nothing came from my mouth, I don’t know why but his answer was full and complete.
“I also look at my life. Yes, I’m a father, I’m a grandfather, I’m uncle, and I’m a friend. Wait, I’m boss too in my office, but at my core, I’m just a one person doing my best to create a life for my kids and grandkids that makes me calm and relaxed,” he further added.
“I should mention this, if you want to be calm and relaxed in life, everyday wear nice and comfy underwear and do ten minutes meditation, never compromise on these two things, I’m serious, do the things whatever makes you happy, healthy, and comfy,” he said laughingly but seriously.
Isn’t this old boss a student of nature?
When we shut ourselves off from noises, we distance ourselves from the unnecessary that bring purpose and meaning to our lives
We can become whatever we want in life for different periods of time but we have to be either father or mother forever.
Being father and mother is eternal; no, no, I’m not saying compulsory, I’m saying eternal; but any other role in life is temporary and easily interchangeable.
I realized that the power that we build being a father and mother is enormous, that needs to be preserved to transfer in multiple generations to come.
I learnt that being a father, I never ever talk about myself more in front of my kids, let them see my activities more.
The only way my kids are learning more is by seeing me doing it.
I let them see me walking on the grass, running five miles on weekends, reading the book ‘Mindset’ by Dr. Carol Dweck in the living room, and eating sweet potatoes with cinnamon and clove powder.
By the way, ‘Mindset’ is one of my favourite books to recommend to our kids early in life especially when they start high school.
The author, Dr. Dweck said, “People with the growth mindset know that it takes time for potential to flower.”
Our kids must know this fact.
I must be a very good student of growth mindset myself first to be a father forever.
Our adult suicide rates have tripled over the past forty years, the most selling drugs at present are for depression, anxiety, and stress.
Anxiety starts at age 10, depression starts at age 12, obesity and diabetes are at epidemic level at the moment.
I sometimes think, why?
Because we forgot to breathe, we forgot to live, and we forgot to enjoy.
The biggest problem, sometimes I feel, is that I forget all of these because I don’t have time to teach my kids about these activities.
Remember, a river doesn’t speak, it remains flowing continuously with its own pace and sound but it gives electricity to light our house.
Parenthood is continuity and continuity is nature: let our kids see how to breathe, how to live, and how to enjoy.
If we learn only continuity from a river, we become father and mother forever. Continuity, in case of parenthood, also means less talking and more listening.
As Brene Brown, an author of ‘Daring Greatly’, says: talk less, listen more. This is a secret sauce to become a great dad and a great mom forever.
When I was in high school, my father used to say, “When we shut ourselves off from noises, we distance ourselves from the unnecessary that bring purpose and meaning to our lives.”
Conclusion
Time is a non-renewable resource in our life.
I want to let my kids know that time is nature, it is a zero sum resource, we cannot make more of it.
The most important thing in life is time, it has no color, no shape, and no size, we don’t see or feel it, it doesn’t wait for anybody.
It is not an object but it is an realization, we have to treat it as such. If I understand time, I will understand nature, I will understand I’m getting older and my kids are growing.
We as humans are the only animals that we realize about time, feel about past, present, and future.
As a human being, the realization of time for any cause is more powerful than anything else in life.
As a father, I want to let my kids see where I invest my time.
Last year, I invested my time teaching chemistry in rural public schools so that they know why our body is powerful. I donated my time to teach chemistry so that they understand why we have to make more medicines to cure diseases.
This year I plan to donate my time to teach nutrition in our community so that they will know what secret ingredients are hidden in natural foods to avoid chronic diseases.
Let’s invest and donate our time to uplift young generations so that they will know why they should live their lives happily.
Learning to invest and donate time for nature is learning to be a best father and best mother forever.
I wish you all the best.
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.”
