yamtimsina

“When life gives you people around you, make relationships with them.” -Unknown

When I was in my mid-twenties, I had a very good friend. Her name was Kara.
I used to call her to meet in a restaurant.
In our first few meetings we became pretty close and I, probably we both, felt that we were moving in a different direction of our friendship.
Good friendship easily turns into dating if chemistry and life philosophy match each other’s internal calibration.
I remember, it was our 4th or 5th meeting. All of the sudden she questioned me about what we talk about in a restaurant?
How do we share our thoughts and experiences when we talk in a restaurant?
She said life is natural. Isn’t it a good idea to test it upon our natural flow?
I became speechless, I couldn’t understand what she meant?

I still remember at one point, she proposed to me to meet in a small grocery store.
She said that we can share and exchange a lot of things on the aisle of the grocery store rather than sitting in the corner of the restaurant.
I wondered at that moment what kind of girl she was who preferred to meet in the grocery store instead of a cozy restaurant.
How many of us prefer a grocery store instead of a restaurant for dating?
After that meeting she called me once but I never responded.

Now I’m a bit mature in all directions, I laugh at myself remembering that moment.
Even though she was a few years younger than me at that time, she still showed a deeper understanding of the essence of a relationship.
I know now, but I didn’t know back then.
I think I was definitely immature and superficial in my thoughts to build a relationship.

Ego is a killer of relationship

Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD, author of “Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People” teaches us to see the “important” people in our life, and how and why they are the way they are. She also teaches how these people can really impact how we live and who we are. I can totally correlate my thoughts now with Kara’s thoughts. I was pretty immature back then. 

I know now that perfection, sound judgment, and proper understanding never comes only with age in our lives.
Josh Waitzkin was only nine years old when he won his first national championship in chess. His book “The Art of Learning“, tells his remarkable story of personal achievement and shares the principles of learning and performance that have propelled him to the top.
How come he became such a good player in such a thoughtful game like chess at such a young age?
Well, I guess, it all depends upon how we train our mind and see things in our lives irrespective of ages.

In today’s technologically driven world, at the highest levels of any kind of relationship, everyone is great no matter the age or maturity.
Nowadays, the decisive factor is rarely who knows more about the relationship, but who applies the essence of the relationship.

The flow of life, actually, is just a relationship and its movement how it passes us within it.
There are so many relationships, relationship to girlfriend or boyfriend, relationship to spouse, relationship to parents, relationship to siblings, relationship to kids, relationship to neighbors, relationship to boss, and relationship to colleagues, and so many others.
How we understand these relationships is very complex but if we try to understand each one from scratch without any superiority and ego in our mind, each can be very simple too.

Emotions like superiority and ego stopped me from responding to Kara after her offer to meet me in a grocery store.
Any kind of excellent relationship remains sustainable only if there is no judgment for the person next to you.
I remember that one of my students told me he grew up all his childhood at his aunt’s house.
From the age one to five, he doesn’t remember anything but he remembers every detail of his aunt house, and what time their parents dropped off and picked him up from aunt’s house.
This clearly indicated to me that his real relationship was only with his aunt and her house.
I guess there is a fundamental truth in how we should grow our relationship as parents to our kids.

Accepting discomfort deepens relationship

Few days ago I met my friend Nick who works in our department.
I saw that he was very impatient.
He was standing in line at the food buffet with his wife.
He had a project to finish as he said but that tension was not away on the buffet line.
He was in discomfort even though he was with his wife and other people’s gathering.
This still counts how we have nourished our relationship, it may be with people or with occupation or with other situations in life.
It’s so interesting to learn about people’s relationships as an observer when they are in various moments.

We see people’s different behaviors when sudden discomfort bombards them.
When people encounter unexpected rain in the street, what do they do?
Many will run with their hands over their heads to avoid wet.
Very few will smile and enjoy the wet clothes.
Some will smile and take deep breaths and continue their normal walk.
People’s reactions to any surprises show their understanding and their preparation for controlling any incoming discomforts.
Our relationship with comfort, with discomfort, and with surrounding people make us who we are.

I think the understanding of a relationship in life is like floating on a swimming pool.
Our relationships grow in the same way as our life builds up from a child to adult stage in our lives.
As a child, there is no fear, no sense for the danger of drowning.
The water feels amazing and fluid, and natural flow allows for creative steps and fast learning and adaptation.
Children can swim very soon, always experimenting themselves with a desire for innovation and new challenges.
If they happen to fail in any case-no problem, they just get back on with no hesitation.
But then, as we get older, we become more aware of the risk of drowning and injury.
The pool becomes dangerous if we don’t know how to swim.
Sudden efforts would be humiliating for adults but not for children.

As I said before, as an adult, when Kara offered to meet me in the grocery store, I simply judged her and stopped any new discoveries and challenges inside me to nurture our budding relationship.
I became totally egoistic.
Do you know why older people hesitate to learn from young people?
Because of ego.
As a result, my growing relationship with Kara ended immaturely.
My inner pool wasn’t fluid, so I couldn’t stay up on water longer.
I didn’t take any test and action for that relationship to grow, I simply ignored it.
What possibly could happen if I would have accepted to meet in the grocery store?
Nothing.
I would definitely learn more of her side and she would learn more of my side.

What I learnt over the time is that tests and actions are needed at any time in our life especially when something is going in the direction of discomfort, crisis, and challenges.
We can take a lesson from the basketball legend, Michael Jordan.
Michael Jordan, the basketball legend, gave more last minute shots to win the game for his team than any other player in the history of the NBA.
What is also important is that Michael Jordan also missed more last minute shots to lose the game for his team than any other player.
What made him such a vibrant and successful player is not the perfect shots that he delivered but to accept and enjoy the tests, challenges, and actions at times of discomfort.

Roland Lazenby, author of “Michael Jordan: The Life” says “For all Michael Jordan’s greatness, there is a mixture of complex family with a darker side, a ruthless competitor attitude, and a love of high stakes.”

Remember, depth always beats breadth everywhere in any area.
It applies equally in life and relationships.
Depth opens a path for the intangible, unconscious, and creative components of our hidden potential.
To look for depth in any relationship is one of the key components of human potential to flourish.
If we don’t pick up a friend’s call at 4 am in the morning then our friendly relationship with him or her is not deep.
If my daughter at a time of crisis don’t call me first as a mom or dad then my relationship to my daughter isn’t deep.
As a parent If we fail to become the most deep friend for our son and daughter then neither we are understanding them nor the relationship.

Deep relationship is a full time task

When I was undergrad, I thought I have many trusted friends but over time each relationship lost our flow, and we became worse and worse at reading the subtle signs of a quality relationship.
Soon enough, learning becomes unlearning in relationship because each one of us needs space to grow, by some reason I didn’t grow that space and lost it.
The stronger friend, I found, is often the one who doesn’t interpret the relationship but only practice.

Healthy relationship requires a lot of intuition within us and there are a lot of variations of it.
Many people used to think that intuition is a natural gift.
Many artists, performers, and scientists often think of intuition as a catalyst to act.
In my view as a scientist, intuition is our personal litmus test which makes us aware about our unconscious and conscious mind.
It is basically the glue that makes us stick in a relationship.
If we don’t understand this glue then it’s harder to find a depth in any relationship.

Sigmund Freud, a neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis said “A normal relationship utilizes only the conscious mind but a quality relationship utilizes a lot of the unconscious mind.”
The conscious mind, though amazing, can only take in and work with a certain limited amount of information at a time.
If we forget our marriage anniversary due to workload then our relationship with our spouse is not even normal, our relationship works only consciously and occasionally.
But if we never forget our marriage anniversary and spouse’s birthday then our relationship with our spouse is a deep relationship, this relationship utilizes a lot of our unconscious mind.
After going through fifteen plus years marriage with three kids, I learnt that a relationship isn’t a one time task, it’s a 24/7 full time task.

When we practice a relationship regularly, it works the same way as skilled scientist.
Skilled scientist internalizes a large amount of data.
Once we reach a certain level of scientific expertise, the challenge is how all this expansive dataset to navigate and put to use.
Exactly the same way how to put a relationship to work also internalizes a large amount of information.
It’s the acceptance of information inside us and its correlation with the person next to us for mutual benefit.
Always one step at a time.
I couldn’t tolerate Kara’s offer.
I couldn’t correlate her thinking to my thinking.
I couldn’t see mutual inclusion between us.

Conclusion

Have you ever called your married daughter at 3pm Monday afternoon?
Don’t hesitate that it’s Monday afternoon, she might be busy at work, just call and see what happens.
Ask her favorite strawberry smoothie whether she is drinking nowadays or not which she used to love after coming from school in her teens.
Your relationship with your daughter goes in a whole different direction even if she is married now with two kids and long gone from your home many years ago.

Remember, if your financial advisor calls you only to give bad news about market then your relationship as a client and financial advisor is not going to survive long.
But if your financial advisor also calls you to give good news about market then your client advisor relationship will be long lasting.
This is how we humans are designed to grow and evolve.

Robin Dunbar, PhD, author of “Friends” says “Humans are good relationship hunters.” This book “Friends” is a eye opener to understand the number and quality of our friendships, their influences on our happiness, health and mortality.

If we can’t listen quietly for a few minutes from our spouse or kids or parents or siblings or boss then our life is distracted.
Distracted life can not nurture any relationship, we must work to order our life first to enrich our relationship.
If I can’t remain patient for a few minutes in any discomfort then I have to practice walking many miles on discomfort to understand its relationship to me. Lesson learned from Kara.

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.”

“Risk means more things can happen than will happen.”
-Elroy Dimson

I was with my friend, Srinivas, in one of the isolated places of the US earth, hot and humid, in Seymour, Texas.
This trip with Srinivas, was an adventure, a week’s vacation, a search of life through some difficulty in a slightly different way.
My chemistry with Srinivas was pretty solid and exploratory for many reasons over the years.
We have known each other for ten plus years now, as we both are scientists in two different companies and very interested in philosophy and psychology.

Mandeep was an overall man of the motel, where we’re staying in Seymore, Texas.
I’d known Mandeep back in 2020 on my first night in the same motel as I’d stayed there, and had a nice dinner.
It was my second time staying in the same motel, and this time I was with Srinivas.
Mandeep, didn’t seem exciting enough to his job, at least for me. He’d seemed utterly and profoundly pale, a lanky tall man somewhere in his fifties, as quiet as the isolated Seymour motel itself.
He was serving us ice water and some snacks.

Greed, fear, envy, and ego drive us to take unstudied risks

I asked him, “how did you end up here?”
He said, “There is long story.” “So, what is the story?” I asked. “I was a stock trader all in my twenties and thirties,” he continued.
“What kind of stocks did you trade?” I asked, expecting to know something about trading stocks.
“I traded financial sectors and real estate,” he replied simply with no explanation. “I was one of the crazy risk takers, I lost my home and all of my balance due to herd mentality.”

As he said that, I remembered a great investor, Howard Marks, author of “The most important thing” and his words “greed, fear, envy, ego, and capitulation are our common human characteristics. They compel us to take action when it is shared by the herd.”

Mandeep told us how he’d graduated from Upenn, Philadelphia, in the early 2000.
Here, in the middle of nowhere, serving plates, cleaning and changing bed sheets, was a guy who’d lost everything in his life by trading stocks.
I asked again,”how did you start trading?”
When he was a kid, he said, his father used to skip all pages of the newspaper and directly go to the finance section.
His father used to say, “if you’d owned a share of this company yesterday, you’d have $1 more today than yesterday. The stock went up automatically. “
I was 14 years old and I asked my dad, ” Can I make money without work?”
My dad said “yes, but you have to know the stock to make money. If you don’t know stock, you won’t make money, you’ll lose money.”

“Well, I wanted to make money without any work but never studied stock, so here I’m now, I couldn’t understand what my dad was teaching me,” he said.
I realized with amusement how unpredictable our life is.
The world really is stranger and unpredictable than we could imagine.
The funniest thing about life is we don’t know what will happen tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or a week from today.

I asked him again, “So why’re you here in this place?”
Mandeep shrugged.
“After losing everything that I had, God again played another game to me,” he added.
A car accident in New Jersey killed his wife and two children, he said quietly looking over the ceiling.
His own head was injured so badly that he became normal after 3 years, his trading business was over.
“I needed to get out of New Jersey,” he said.
“This motel owner needed a helper and I needed a job in isolation, far away from my own place in New Jersey,” he said without a trace of self-pity. “So here I’m.”

“When I look back on my life, I was one of the crazies. I was an obsessive, addictive, maniacal, masochist risk taker, I wasn’t only a risk taker actually, I was a freak trying to become a millionaire overnight,” he expressed softly.
“I would buy today and sell tomorrow, my risk was heavily concentrated with the time horizon. I always acted in anticipation of market prices rather than market prices after they occurred.”
“But no regret now, the only thing is my wife and my two children’s faces suffocate me sometimes at night during sleep,” he became emotional.
“I cry because I feel good when I cry occasionally, I also feel sorry for myself,” he added.

Risk is a future event so impossible to know fully

I couldn’t sleep well that night.
I was awoken, mainly catalyzed by Mandeep’s life story. Sorting through his memories also made me see something inside human life.
Getting up from a complete loss personally and professionally is an act of pure faith and trust.
I didn’t really know how Mandeep’s mental crisis would end, but I’d believed he could find an answer.
It was another paradox of life, by getting up from a devastating loss, we find out how to get going. By believing that an unseen source of strength exists, it becomes the new source of survival.
Mandeep is acting as though he is among the losers, and perhaps he will eventually be the winner because he might be living the unlived part of life now.

Many years ago, one of my friends gifted me a book on my birthday “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield. I didn’t read this book immediately, I never got interested to read it. After certain time, by some reasons, I read it. I regretted a lot by not reading it immediately after reading the book. Even today, I read and reread it every time when I feel low point, discouraged, and going through hardships and sufferings. There are many nuggets in this masterpiece to live again and again. It works and particularly my favorite lines from “The War of Art“, “Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.”

When Mandeep said he was a crazy risk taker, I remember a story, one of the investors shared about a gambler.
I was a postdoc back then.
One day a gambler heard about a horse race with only one horse in the race competition, so he bet all of his borrowed money on it. Halfway around the track, the horse jumped over the fence and ran away.
Think about the mind of the gambler, what he’d thought before betting on the horse and what actually happened.

I’d seen a similar experience a few years ago. One of my friends bought a brand new car, paid money, and finished the paper work at the dealer. So he finally drove the car and headed towards his home. Immediately after he made exit from the dealer, he was hit by another reckless driver and got into a crash. Fortunately, he got only minor injuries but his brand new car got damaged completely.
The essence is, there is nothing guaranteed in our life, there is almost nothing without risk in our life because risk is invisible.
Risk is always associated with future events, it’s impossible to know for sure what the future brings.

Mark Twain expressed it best, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

There is a very diplomatic word the legal system uses all the time.
Rebuttable presumption, that clearly indicates something that should be presumed to be true until someone proves otherwise.
So, risk in our life is exactly the rebuttable presumption.

Real work means taking risks but with many second thoughts with slow thinking

Up until now I’d generally agreed with the modern view of the world that faster is better and faster comes only with risk. If we need anything faster it means it is riskier, if we drive the car, we sense it what it means. Anyway, what we are learning from society is risk is exciting and futuristic, we should take more risks. Secureness is slow and retarded.

Risk is like Zen, which teaches that all enlightenment comes through stillness of the mind and the body. This lack of motion is not a measure of idleness but strength, discipline, focus, and character.

After reading “Zen in the Art of Archery,” by Eugen Herrigel, a German Philosopher, a classic art on eastern philosophy, I clearly understood what the target means in our lives. Target is only the perfect release of the arrow, and then we must stop thinking. When we perfect the release without conscious thought and expectation, we achieve an archer’s place of perfect calm and that perfect calm, of course, leads to perfect accuracy.

Many value investors like Warren Buffett and Howard Marks say that risk is another name of perfect calm in our lives but calmness is required to evaluate the risk in advance.
Calmness leads to deeper thinking, a secondary thinking, which is different from many others.
Deeper thinking doesn’t count emotions, it only counts reality.

Of course, risk takers are courageous people. The success and failure in risk taking is a measure of our moral strength. A rich man’s wallet only weighs him down when he becomes a reckless risk taker, and a poor man can beat him by accepting calmness on risk. The real work doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take risks but to give many second thoughts on them properly through slow thinking.

Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate and author of “Thinking, Fast and Slow” said, “When we face with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution.”

Life is unpredictable, we have to accept the inevitability of change and adaptation, we have to accept the ups and downs in life. Our life runs in stages, our body becomes old, many things will appear and disappear. We must recognize, accept, cope, and respond to the change.
Our environment and circumstances will change in many ways beyond our control.
I learned the same lesson from Mandeep’s life.
Life is easier than we think but a lot difficult than it looks.
But, still, the greatest use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it, I still think Mandeep is on the same path.
He had two kinds of risks, one he could control or minimize in some ways like stock trading, but the other probably not like car accident.
Therefore, our life juggles around various kinds of risks, always, everyday, and every moment to expect something.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of “The Black Swan” said, “The payoff of a human venture is, in general, inversely proportional to what it is expected to be.”

Conclusion

We have a tendency to overestimate what we’re capable of knowing and doing, this is very immature thinking.
What happens if the pilot is overestimating the mileage and fuel capacity and the President is overestimating the governance?
We must accept our limitations of what we know and what we can do considering our limits.
In life, we come across with many emotions, we must not flow with them rather we should recognize them and face them.

As Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate and author of “Thinking, Fast and Slow” said, “Our slow thoughts are always stronger than our emotions, that’s the reason we stop and study risks before to act.”

By studying risks, we can’t stop them but we become more aware of their consequences in our lives.
Again, there is a big difference between reading the business book and doing the business.
Reading is a guess but doing is exact calculation.
Risk in our lives is the composite mixture of both.
Risk is really a question of guess, exact calculation and balance between slow thoughts, circumstances, and timing for action.

Howard Marks, investor and author of “The most important thing” said beautifully, “we never know where we’re going, we ought to know where we are.”

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.”

“You don’t stop running because you get old, you get old because you stop running.”
-Jack Kirk

Few years ago, I was driving in the rural areas of Ohio. I made a stop at McDonald’s to get a snack and drink. I’d ordered chicken nuggets and coffee.
I was wearing a T-shirt with a big number 26.2 on my chest.
A cashier lady at McDonald told me, “I never heard about the 26.2 radio station.”
I said, “what.”
She replied, “the big number on your T-shirt.”
I know I’m a polite guy, didn’t laugh externally, and told her, “this number is about a marathon.”
She quickly interjected without a second thought, “I’ve never heard of a marathon radio station, I know a marathon gas station.”
I told her again, “this is about running a marathon, not a radio station.”
And then she said, “oh yeah, my niece used to run that.”
I quietly paid money and left saying “thank you”.

Making people fun on anything is lack of emotional intelligence

In the car I told myself, “why am I laughing now?”
I remembered an incident from a few years ago.
I’d finished my 10K run and I was eating hot dogs under the shade of a tree.
Another race participant joined me in the shade because the day was pretty sunny.
He inquired me and asked, “do you know the recent Badwater sad news?”
I replied, “what?”
“Badwater, what’s this?” I asked.
He said, “never mind.”
To ease my situation, he deviated the conversation to that day’s running experience.
He said that he ran a half marathon the same day.
I could see from his bib number that he ran a half marathon.

When he left I did google search on my phone, what the heck Badwater is.
I saw it as one of the most intense hard running experiences of human life.
Badwater is the world’s toughest foot race, a 135-mile course starting at 86 m below sea level and ending at an elevation of 2548 m high.
I told myself, are you kidding me?
I regretted laughing quietly at the woman at McDonald.
I told myself, head down man, and don’t laugh at people, there are people who might laugh at you too.

I started driving and headed towards my destination.
Making people fun on anything which they don’t know, whatever simple it is, indicates our lack of emotional intelligence.
I guess I’m more mature now, at least a little bit, both mentally and emotionally.

Running improves our emotional intelligence

The reason I shared the above story is related to my running habit and its impact in my life.
Nowadays I feel I’ve improved my emotional intelligence over the years due to running incorporation in my life.
Don’t ask me how.
I don’t know but it’s working. When I accumulate more mileage in a week, I think and feel both differently.

Daniel Goleman, psychologist and author says the exact same thing in his masterpiece book “Emotional Intelligence,” “In a very real sense we have two minds, one that thinks and one that feels.The fact that the thinking brain reveals about the relationship of thought to feeling.”

My wife and I would argue about anything, and don’t get me wrong, we still do occasionally.
This is how a husband and wife relationship grows bringing and seeing our differences by wearing different lenses, but together.
When the argument would become hot and intense, she would leave the spot with an irritating voice.
I’d get out of the house to run without making any sound at the front door.
I’d run for at least one hour.
I’d be back home, enter in her room and said, ” I’m stupid, I’m sorry, I hurt your feelings.”
I’d not hug because I’d be sweating.
I’d bend down to untie my shoelaces.
My wife would tell me, “if you’re becoming this kind of person by running everyday, I’ll untie your shoelaces everyday for you “
I’d simply smile, no words, and say “thank you.”
I’m pretty sure not only running, any athletic activity improves our emotional intelligence.

Ramona Hacker describes about six steps to improve our emotional intelligence in her TedTalk. One main lesson I learned by adopting running as a habit is “No one on this planet will love you more than you love yourself. Be intentional about what you do.”

Running strengthens our relationship with loved ones

There are many other reasons they hypnotized me to run.
First of all, I enjoy it.
I feel happy and relaxed when I’m sweating on the road.
I feel free and independent from my deadlines, reports, writings, power points, presentations, experiments, and meetings from my professional scientist life.
Even though I feel tired after running, it’s not the mind, only the body that is tired.

I run to avoid my personal pain, discomfort, and many others.
Few years ago, I lost my maternal grandma. I grew up with her. Truly speaking, she raised me in so many different ways which is almost impossible to express here.
The last time I spent time with her before her death, her memory was very thin, many times she couldn’t recognize me so I had to describe myself to her as who I am.
I would tell myself, “am I going to be the same with no memory when I become old?”
“Am I going to be a child again?”
These questions would come to my mind after spending time with my grandma, after seeing her activities, after listening to her quietly when she was in her mid nineties.
She would behave like a ten years old child, pure thoughts, no regrets, no shame, no opinion, no judgements, nothing hidden, emotionless, and truth.

I remember, at one time, while I was sitting by her bed, she told me, “Nati means “grandson”, I don’t like white bed sheets, can you buy yellow colored bed sheets for me?”
I became teary and told her, “of course, grandma, I will.”
After five minutes, I told her, “ I’m going to get a yellow bed sheet for you.”
She replied, “why, I like this white color so much.”
I’ve read that about 3.4 million people in the USA aged 71 and older, have some form of dementia.

I’ve read about my mentor Tony Robbins’s biological father that he died from Alzheimer’s disease, he couldn’t recognize Tony when he passed away. That might be one reason he is investing and doing so much in the area of preventing disease, and extending human health span.

Tony Robbins in his must read book “Life Force”, “Each one of us should be the CEO of our own health especially considering that many doctors find it difficult to stay abreast with the latest developments in the medical field.”

I couldn’t be there with my grandma in the final days of her life.
There are multiple unavoidable reasons for that because we’re separated by more than 7000 miles away from each other.
This was a very complicated grieving period for me.
She was the center of our whole family, she was the reason for our family gathering, and now we have to make up some reason for those kinds of family gatherings.
The reality is that the spirit of our family cohesion has ended.

Whatever I told about my maternal grandma also applies to my maternal uncle, who is my first teacher in this world. I’ve so many memories with him.
Unlike my grandma’s situation, I was there with my uncle in his final days of life. His death was untimely due to chronic disease.

When I get out of my home and run, I bring those lost loved ones close to me, close to my heart, so many of my memories about them come to mind and become vivid.
I absorb those memories that strengthen me with different vibrations and I become emotionally more mature.

I don’t want to explain who our parents are in our life, everybody knows the importance.
I remember them a lot when I run.
I bring a lot of activities that my dad and I did when I was in middle through high school.
Sometimes, immediately after coming home from a run, I make a call to my parents, otherwise, I more likely forget to call them due to another set of busy life that intrudes us.
So, I simply run to comprehend and strengthened my relationship to my parents, to my wife, to my kids, to my brothers, and to my sisters. I run to remove my depressions and anxiety.

Scott Douglas, lifelong runner and author of “Running Is My Therapy” says “Any run is better than no run when it comes to short-term mood improvement or long-term help with depression and anxiety.”

Running is a meditation to filter our random thoughts

I also run to experiment my personal limits.
I just don’t love running, it is my keen desire to see and explore the bravery and beauty of my body, my endurance, my nutrition, and my thoughts.
I believe that physical enabling is a part of the process of mental growth, and endurance is a demonstration of my trust.
Sometimes I become tired, I want to stop but if I ignore it and continue, amazing things start to appear in my mind.
Running itself becomes a meditation. In reality, anybody can do meditation in the activity of their choice, it only depends on that person how to see things around that activity.

When I reach a flat surface in my running, my breathing becomes normal and smooth but when I reach a hilly surface breathing becomes quick and shallow. I do nothing, I keep running and my body goes into next level.
The beauty is to observe what’s going on in my body and mind.
I focus only, breathing in and breathing out, sometimes with open mouth to get more oxygen.
In marathon, I focus the planet, Himalayas, road, my body, my steps, my inhale and exhale of oxygen and carbon dioxide, we all human beings are sharing to each other.
When oxygen and carbon dioxide flows in the air, it goes everywhere, I see it and I feel it.

After making running a part of my life I’ve improved my cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance is to have conflicting beliefs, to have discomfort so that we go to ease our feelings.
In the past, I used to think “just imagination is bad” but at the same time I also used to think “I need more creations.”
I knew from the core of my heart that it could take many years of hard work and sacrifice to make more creations.
So the simplest way I would take was an easier and safer path-” just imagination is bad”; “imaginative people are not real”; “aiming to have more creations never ends.”
This was my pure cognitive dissonance.
When I knew and read about creative people, their studies, habits, struggles, and their contributions to society, I gradually moved away from my unexplored and vague beliefs.

During my running, my cognitive dissonance started to fade away. Many times I accepted my strengths and weaknesses as a scientist, a runner, a creator, or as a family person like dad or son or husband.
For me running not only helps me to lose my body weight and make me healthy, but also cleans my overactive mind.

Remember, what we accomplish in life is not the only important thing, it is equally important how and why we accomplish it. I’ve received the answer of what to accomplish at home when I’m relaxing but I’ve received the answer of how and why to do it while running.
When we dissociate our body from normal state and associate it with excited state, something unusual happens in our mind. For me, one of the excited states of my body is running.

I cannot become a great scientist just by spending more time in the laboratory, I have to detach myself from the laboratory, I have to go in an excited state so that my mind can think, create ideas, and strategize them accordingly. When I’m running, I’m quiet but I’m in mental flow, me and my pure thoughts.
I’ve gathered many ideas regarding my professional scientist life not in the laboratory or at home or reading literature somewhere in the quiet room, they came from seemingly unrelated dots connections during my early morning runs.
I filter a lot of randomness in my mind. These random thoughts come into my mind during running.
When we filter random thoughts based on already known information, we create so called new knowledge.

This is one example how it works.
If I ask you to predict the weather for tomorrow, your probability of saying correct prediction would be only 50 percent because you are purely guessing.
But if I ask the same question to a meteorologist, his or her probability number would be different because he or she has done many studies and observations even if that particular study to determine weather hasn’t been done. This clearly indicates that meteorologist has much more information which you don’t have.
Meteorologist can filter the random thoughts more easily than us to guess the weather.
For me running has become pivotal to filter my random thoughts to improve my personal and professional life.

Remember, nature has given our body to run.
Alice Roberts, professor and author of “The Complete Human Body” discusses the evolutionary adaptations that allowed us to become efficient long-distance runners. Her words “Look at our two legs, hand motions, torsos, sweat glands, and hairless skin. What all of these tell us is we can run and we have to run.” We have a vertical body that helps us to retain a very small amount of direct sunlight. This simply means we can run longer.

Conclusion

Why do we run when we see any danger or any threat to us?
Because our body is designed to run to protect us and this is natural.
Nature from evolution says we become happy and healthy when we run. When we are far from any danger or threat, we obviously become happy. This is only possible because we can run.
Children always run, they become happy when they run, they never feel tired if we let them run.
Our children chase their friend or dog or cat and they run.
The crux is, humans are to run.
That’s it.
Running is a natural and basic activity, purity to our being.

Abraham Lincoln was a very smart foot racer, Nelson Mandela used to run seven miles a day when he was imprisoned. Both were emotionally very intelligent and both are iconic figures of humanity.

If we run, the number of deaths from degenerative heart disease, sudden cardiac arrest, obesity, hypertension, blocked arteries, and diabetes would be significantly lower.
There is one more advantage of a longer run.
It helps to increase the number of happy mitochondria as well as capillaries in our active muscles.
It improves our muscle’s ability to remove and utilize available oxygen.
Running also recruits our muscle fibers that would otherwise go unused and it also removes our fatigue in our central nervous system.

Daniel Lieberman, professor at Harvard and author of “Exercised” said “if there is any magic bullet to make human beings healthy, it’s to run.” Lieberman, a leading scientific expert, explains in “Exercised” how exercise can promote health; debunks persistent myths about sitting, speed, strength and endurance.

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.”

“If you want to run, run a mile but If you want to experience a different life, run a marathon.” -Emil Zatopek

When I was in school from 6th grade to 10th grade, I used to walk one and half hours both ways.
I remember I ran 100, 200, 400 and 800 meters track races many times in school.
When I entered college I started to study science, there was very less time for extracurricular activities, I did not participate in any of those.
More than that, life happened and I stopped running.
This is not only my story, this is the story of every lower middle class family.
I’m not talking about the upper middle class or above, especially financially.

Marathon requires proper eating, proper sleep, and a lot of self care

After college, I worked as a high school teacher for many years.
I used to jog and run early in the morning regularly.
I was a kind of early bird from very early in my life and still I’m.
After coming to the USA, I ran many 5Ks,10Ks, and a couple of half marathons. In each of those races, I realized that even after touching the finish line I would feel I’m still in the mood to continue running.
This is one of the driving forces that pushed me to think about a marathon running.

I know running a marathon is not easy, it’s not a sudden emotional decision, and I wasn’t taking it lightly. I was quite aware that marathon training requires a major commitment of time, energy, sweat, and a lot of other things.
Even before running a half marathon I always visited my physician for a final assurance of my vital organs, especially my heart’s ECG.

In all my life up to now I learned to read, I learned to write and publish, I learned to teach, I learned to do research. As a scientist now, I am also a curious mind who wants to do research on my own body, physically, chemically, and psychologically.
Nowadays, I’m very health conscious, I pay much attention especially to what I’m eating and how many hours of quality sleep I’m having everyday.
There is no way I can grow wings and fly 26.2 miles, but if I take care of these two things, proper eating and proper sleep, I certainly can run marathon.
This was my self confidence from my self care.

Marathon reminds us: our body is an incredible machine

In the last two weeks before my marathon day, I didn’t read anything regarding my nutrition, body, and running. I had read a lot about them in the last one and half years.
But in the final two weeks, I tried to dissociate myself from running even though it was almost impossible.
At least I tried from my side.
I ate a lot of nutritious foods: fruits, vegetables, legumes, meat, fish, and good carbohydrates.
Thanks to my wife Dipi for arranging everything and especially my personal favorites, almond butter and raw honey, for me.
There are always easy steps in life if family supports our goals.
I meditated a lot with one of my best focus words, ‘dad’.
I slept more hours than I normally do.
I watched the romantic movie “Love on the Sidelines”.
I read the romantic love story “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen.

The night before the marathon I slept at 8pm, I locked the door from inside.
I woke up at 4am.
I did 30 minutes of warm up and body stretching.
At 5 am, I ate oatmeal with 2 percent milk topping with one banana and three pieces of strawberries.
I watched Indian movie “Kedarnath”; a love story between Hindu girl and Muslim boy before to go to marathon event at 8 am.

Running a marathon is one of the most fulfilling experiences of human life.
I have been dreaming about it for the last two years and preparing for it physically and mentally.
I was at the marathon spot.

In last two years only I read six books regarding running, endurance, and body physiology: Adharanand Finn’s “Running with the Kenyans”; Christopher McDougall’s “Born to Run”; David Goggins’s “Can’t Hurt Me”; Meb Keflezighi’s “26 Marathons”; Tim Ferriss’s “4-Hour Body“; and Haruki Murakami‘s “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running“.
These six books shaped and changed my life in many different ways.
Of course, I learnt a lot from these books and I will be writing about them in future.

I recommend to read these books even if you are not runners. They teach a lot of things of life especially hope, life, dream, and purpose.

Haruki Murakami‘s words from “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” always touched me “The most important thing we ever learn at school is the fact that the most important things can’t be learned at school.”

I crossed the finish line 26.2 miles without a moment of stop or walk except momentarily stopping to grab the drink at drink stations.
After one hour of running, I’d run a little over six miles. Snow started, it was ok, the road was still dry but subsequent hours became more challenging and my pace decreased significantly.
After finishing half way 13.1 miles in little over 2 hour, I was in very good shape but after that there was a lot of snow on the road.

I finished 26.2 miles in 4:58:58, my target was under 4:30 but I couldn’t meet it.
I was exhausted, exhilarated, I had tears in my eyes. I saw tears in my wife’s eyes when I met my daughters, son, and wife at the finish line.
My boy was crying when he saw me at the finish line, not because I finished 26.2 miles but because I had disappeared for almost five hours. He knew I was with him there in the morning.

I was holding my boy and one of the organizing staff ladies who was offering me a banana told me, “ I salute you, you just finished 26.2 miles and now you are holding your boy and still walking.”
I couldn’t reply, I just smiled at her.
I was telling myself, I will never run it again.
But who knows what will happen in the future, life is unpredictable.
After finishing the 26.2 miles, I realized that our body is an incredible machine, the only thing we need to do is maintain it all the time.

Marathon is a meditative visualization of finish line

There were many plateaus I hit during the marathon training and on the marathon day.
I never ran more than 18 miles during my training.
The other thing I realized is that our muscle cells become experts at processing oxygen very efficiently. All our muscle cells learn to use energy very efficiently. After passing 10 miles my pace was increasing. That happens due to practice in muscle cells. I was pretty good but snow interfered with my pace. I experienced that my cardiovascular system is really strong.

Not only that, my joints, muscles, and ligaments were learning to adapt to running. I also realized that in running this adaptation remains more important than our cardiovascular system.
It’s the same as our car, just think that the car engine is very good but wheels and tires are out of shape, what happens, we can’t drive.

For me the whole running experience remained fantastic, it was me, my body, my movement, the sound of my steps’ pat, pat, pat; and, of course, many many thoughts in my mind.
My marathon journey was possible only due to the support from my family, especially my wife Dipi.
My wife Dipi bought energy drinks, gels, running shoes,and a waist pack for me.
I’m not a shopping guy, to be honest I don’t enjoy it. I don’t know why. Nowadays my daughters help their mom.
Dipi pushed me to try everything during training, to test and feel everything during my practice runs especially shoes and gels.
One thing I’m learning very clearly is that if we get support, especially from our family, we prosper in anything in life, in any choice of our endeavor.

During my marathon when I hit around 20 miles, I almost gave up, I had no energy, my legs were dead.
Running a marathon burns about 2600-2800 calories, but remember, our body can not store more than 2000 calories of carbohydrate.
I used all of my glycogen.
My body began burning fat which is a much less efficient energy source.
I am not a professional runner like an Olympic athlete so my body doesn’t know how to switch from glycogen to fat to release calories.
This switch becomes efficient only by practicing longer runs, tempo runs, and many interval workouts.
I refueled with energy drinks and gels to add the glycogen supply and I also maintained proper pacing.
At this point I used my meditation technique, I visualized my two and half years old son, his face and visualized that he is waiting for me to hand over a drink at the finish line.

There is power in visualization which I learned from my meditation practice.
I pictured myself accomplishing something which my brain could write.
I was creating more vivid images with sights, sounds, motions, and my breathings so that my mind was assuming it as more realistically.
Brain power is amazing, our brain can not differentiate between fake and real when we visualize.

In the last 6 miles, my pace decreased a lot, I didn’t have any glycogen, I was only giving chocolate gels and water.
In addition, there was a lot of snow on the road.
I visualized my daughters, my wife, my parents, all standing at the finish line.
I was bringing my dad’s face constantly in my mind when I was hitting around 22nd miles.
When my two and half year old son sees my medals hanging on walls at home from my previous runs, he always says, baba, run, run, run.
I visualized him, pushed myself further and touched the finish line.
I felt that I’m no longer the same person before the marathon.
I felt like I’m becoming an incredible machine now.

You remain no longer the same person after finishing the marathon

In reality, thinking about running 26.2 miles doesn’t need only endurance, it also needs a lot of courage and a lot of self-trust.
Yes, self trust but unemotional self-trust.
I don’t think it’s good for everybody, I thought multiple times to quit but I kept running.
I remembered Dean Karnazes, an ultramarathoner and author of “A Runner’s High” who ran 50 marathons in 50 consecutive days in all 50 states, it helped me to push my tired legs further.

Dean said “Unless you’re not pushing yourself, you’re not living to the fullest. You can’t be afraid to fail, but unless you fail, you haven’t pushed hard enough.”
Mahatma Gandhi said beautifully “Strength does not come from physical capacity, it comes from an indomitable will.”

Long term endurance is basically conserving energy which is done by the brain but performance is shown by the body.
Remember, our brain is only 2 percent of our body weight but demands 20 percent of our total energy.
I brought these statements over and over again in my mind and finished 26.2 miles anyway.

For me, finishing a marathon is the same as adding a PhD after my name, getting married and having a baby, a different milestone in my life.
This is an extra bullet point in my resume.
When I crossed the finish line, I felt like I’m a member of an elite crowd.
Believe me, finishing a marathon changes our life forever.
I’ve seen and met many people who fantasized about running a marathon before they die.
There is a saying that if you run a marathon in your life, you will never die from a heart attack.

I’ve also heard that when anybody runs 100 miles, a person enters in Zen state, becomes Buddha, that person definitely brings peace and smiles to the world.
I don’t know how true these statements are but one thing is sure there is something hidden here about running.
I can certainly say that I am no longer the same person I was before the marathon.
I was postponing this marathon as a long due activity of my choice but I did it this time.

Conclusion

For the last many years running has been creating life energy for me. Engaging with running, and even talking to others about running, creates excitement and energy for me.
My brain releases a lot of endorphins when I run.
Recently in my life I’ve learned a lesson: Before I can get where I want to go, I need to know where I am.
And to know where I am, I need to know who I am.
Knowing who I am and where I want to go are essential elements of building my marathon vision, that gave me the horsepower to get to where I want to go.

I learned that no matter what the outcome is, eventually I’ll look back and think “Running a marathon was a beautiful thing. I’m glad I did it”.
Finally, I simply love running, I love its spirit.
The biggest thing is I love being healthy, fit, lean, and happy.
I simply want to use my body that nature gave me in the way it’s meant to be utilized.

I’m going to keep running not as a professional runner but as a recreational runner.
I’ll keep going to races and other running events.
I’ll keep running 5Ks, 10Ks, half marathons, and probably marathons in the future too.
I’ll run for many different reasons in the future but ultimately to make this world a beautiful place for us and for future generations.

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.”

“The only sane policy for the world is that of abolishing war.” -Linus Pauling

Few months ago I was in a conference with one renowned research professor.
We were walking and talking simultaneously to go from one building to another building.
It was a little bit a cold day, about half a mile of walking to go from one building to another, so he decided to drive. Once we reached the parking lot, I saw a dollar 10 bill laying on the ground. I told him that there is a dollar 10 bill laying on the ground.

Without any second thought, he replied, “if it was a dollar 10 bill somebody else would have already picked it up.”
I was behind him so I slowed down, I ignored what he just said, stepped back, picked up a dollar 10 bill and put it into my pocket.
We got in the car and reached our destination, another building.
We separated immediately after we got in the building.
I had to stay on the ground floor and he had to go to the 3rd floor.
I greeted him saying ‘bye’ as he went towards the elevator.

I had to use the restroom so when I was in the restroom, I took out that dollar 10 bill and looked very carefully on both sides.
I asked myself, “is it a real bill?”
It was a real dollar 10 bill.
At that moment, I realized whoever the person is, famous or successful or with a couple of PhD, MD or MBA after the name, everybody lives with certain limitations.
This renowned professor has produced many theories from his lab, he has published some influential peer reviewed journal articles, but I realized, each one of his theories and publications might have some sort of limitations.

I’m absolutely not judging him, he is phenomenal, a great human being and a great scientist.
I really admire him as a great mind, a creative research scholar, and, of course, he has contributed a lot for the scientific community.
He inspires us everyday, no doubt about it.
What I’m saying is, we all have self awareness inside us, at some point in life it matures and helps to shape our lives.
But the only thing is we have to work to grow our self awareness.

There is a rarity in richness in both intellect and emotions

One of the things Patrick King, a social interaction specialist and author of “The Art of Self-Awareness” teaches a lot is that self-awareness is not just a journey about ourselves, it involves the people around us. His words, “Self awareness is social awareness. Know thyself and your relationships will benefit tenfold.”

Every human being is relative in this world so that we can’t just trust and follow someone blindly.
The amazing thing is that we become more self aware when we self indulge in the activities of our second choice which is, sometimes, little far from one’s expertise.
Self-indulgence, especially little far from one’s core expertise, shines our intuition and explores our inner awareness and character in very different ways.

One of my heroes in my life is Linus Pauling.
After reading his childhood, schooling, and what he achieved, I was wondering how one person could be that much of significance and inspiration for all of us.
One thing that intrigued me is that Linus Pauling used to mop the floors when he was in school.
He worked in a grocery store to survive, he also worked as an apprentice machinist.
That reminds us how humble his beginning was.

Linus Pauling wrote a book “How to Live Longer and Feel Better” when he was about 85 years old. In the book, he explains about natural health information on various vitamins and minerals for our body.

He said “Every ailment, every sickness and every disease can be traced back to an organic trace mineral deficiency. Provided one has the correct level of vitamin, mineral and nutritional input, the body can overcome disease.”

Up to now in my life, I’ve worked and experienced some special people, who are richer intellectually, but many are bankrupt in emotions.
I’ve also seen and worked with some jerks with MD, PhD, and MBA after their name. I’m sure they are less likely to be remembered as a good human being in the future even if they accomplish something intellectually.
My point is, humanity comes before intellect.
I’ve also seen, worked, and experienced quite a few richer people in emotions but bankrupt in intellect.
To be honest, I’ve seen, worked, and experienced majority people who are moderate in both faculties of emotion and intellect, in general they are good, ordinary, and common everyday people.

But I’ve rarely seen and experienced richness in both intellect and emotions.
Linus Pauling falls in this category, at least, for me from reading and thinking about his contributions.
As a result of his unique personality, he received the highest recognition on earth, the Nobel prize in both faculties.
He got the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1954, one of the pinnacle of intellectual richness.
He also got the Nobel prize in peace in 1962, one of the pinnacle of emotional richness.
He became a peace activist and a vocal proponent against any kind of warfare in the world.

He is one of four people to have won more than one Nobel Prize, only a person to get it unshared in two distinctly different areas.

The question that came in my mind is how did he become such a towering figure in intellect as well as in emotions. There is a transition in life between intellect and emotion, only very few can realize it.

Compensate the lack of intellect with more emotion, peace, and awareness

Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun and author of “When Things Fall Apart” said “Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it.” 

When Linus Pauling was 9 years old, he read the Bible and Darwin’s Origin of species.
He got lost in the wonder of nature by studying many things that interested him like the study of insects and the study of minerals.
He had a habit of self indulgence whatever he liked.
When he was 14 years old, the fascination of chemistry engulfed him completely.
He said, “I was simply entranced by chemical phenomena, by the reactions in which substances, often with strikingly different properties, appear; and I hoped to learn more and more about this aspect of the world.”
He was intrigued by the mystery of chemistry and devoted his life to Chemistry.

At least, nobody thought that Linus Pauling was a child prodigy.
He became what he was by his habit of self indulgence on things that interests him.
Around his habit of self-indulgence, he built the skill of self-awareness.
Once he said, “I made use of the college library by borrowing books other than scientific books, such as all of the plays by George Bernard Shaw, the writing of Edgar Allan Poe. The college library helped me to develop a broader aspect of life.”

Many of us have no idea that self-awareness is also a skill that we can develop by reading George Bernard Shaw and Edgar Allan Poe.

Aristotle, the great philosopher, said some 24 hundred years ago “Excellence and lasting happiness depend on our ability to find out our intermediate position that is equal from each of the extremes.” Intermediate position is finding stumbles and limitations.

David Brooks, leading writer and author of “The Road to Character” says that it is okay to be flawed, since we all are. Sin and limitations are woven through our lives. We are all stumblers, and the beauty is in the stumbling, the beauty is in recognizing our stumbling and trying to be more graceful as we grow older.

When we think of physical pleasure like sex, sweets, alcohol, smoking; great people always suggest that we should take middle ground between overindulgence and abstinence.
In reality, indulgence is a lot different from overindulgence.
We find in Buddha‘s philosophy that he also taught his students to pursue the middle path to avoid the two opposing extremes.
Another great philosopher, Confucius, said the same, “Middle ground always leads to mental equilibrium and a harmonious social order.”

Self-awareness is actually knowing the two extremes in our lives and enjoying the moderation.

Many times people try to become intelligent, that’s good but they lack emotion and awareness.
In the real world we have to compensate for the lack of intellect with more emotion, peace, and awareness.

Many successful people say that once awareness replaces intellect, we forget about perfection and focus only on progression.
Progression is simply the compounding of minor improvements, that’s what Linus Pauling followed throughout his life.

Awareness and intelligence sometimes work as light and shadow, brighter the light darker the shadow, as said by Carl Jung.
There are natural things in life like love, hate, birth, death which were the same hundreds of years ago and still the same, but what is different is how we perceive them every single day.
This falls into the category of understanding of humanity as done by Linus Pauling.
We understand this better when intelligence and awareness are mixed and grow together.

Conclusion

Many thousands years ago, the Taoist philosopher, Lao-tzu wrote that the path to wisdom is subtraction of all unnecessary activities.
He said, “to attain knowledge, add things everyday but to attain wisdom subtract things everyday.

Self indulgence, devotion, and meditation invite awareness in different settings which are far from formal education but, as Lao-tzu said, they help to subtract things in our lives to attain wisdom.
Linus Pauling‘s parents did not push him to study chemistry or any other self indulgent activities even though they supported him later.

Linus Pauling not only became the elite mind of science but also the serene mind of humanity.
He understood human life very clearly, he hated warfare, crime, and suffering in human life.
It’s so simple to understand that when our life is more important than our principles we sacrifice our principles. But if our principles are more important than our life we sacrifice our life.
This insight had a profound effect on Linus Pauling so he developed an intense desire to do something with human life and lived it by principles.

I recommend to watch Linus Pauling’s take on the role of scientists in the peace movement.

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.”

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

It was a small Indian city of Bihar. I asked her name.
She said, “Ramitta.”
I asked, “What exactly is this work that you are doing?”
She said, “I’m training to be a magician.”
She also added without stopping that she wants to be one of the greatest magicians in the world.

Again, I asked her age.
She said that she was 13 years old.
She looked very energetic, excited, and happy during her performance.
Her face was so confident that it seemed like she was stealing all the attention from the audience.
She looked pretty focussed when she was playing with three coke bottles with two hands, I was thinking a very bright caliber about her future magician career.
In the meantime, I also noticed that she was not able to do every single time, she was struggling in some attempts. She was purely an amateur.

She was in the street and attracting the passers-by for small money to survive. I gave her a 20 Indian rupees.
She used to look constantly straight in my eyes, probably because I was the one giving the highest amount of money in the small crowd of around 15 people. Most of the money I saw were only coins.

That was a small poor rural city of India near Nepal border. I’ve seen extreme unbearable poverty in many such rural Indian cities.
Many people around her in the show were not that amazed as I was, because that might be an usual everyday thing for them, but not for me.
When she said that she wanted to be one of the greatest magicians in the world, nobody was judging her because she was just 13 years old. If that would have been said by an old adult, I guess, everybody would mock her, would laugh at her.

Practicing anything new for at least 3 months every single day gives a new habit that sticks with us forever

The advantage of a child performer: all the audience were only smiling, shaking their heads, and enjoying themselves.
She told her desire as a pristine truth from the bottom of her heart in front of the audience: “I wanted to be one of the greatest magicians in the world.”
I was seeing something else with this statement but I abandoned my overthinking.
Let’s be honest, at age 13, nobody lies regarding their future aspirations because they don’t have experience with how life unfolds every single day.

Maria Konnikova, a poker pro and author of ‘The Biggest Bluff’ said, “Our experiences trump everything else, but mostly, those experiences are incredibly skewed: they teach us, but they don’t teach us well.”

Maria talks about ‘the biggest bluff’ of all which is that skill is enough. Bad cards will come our way, but keeping our focus on how we play them and not on the outcome will keep us moving through many a dark patch, until luck once again breaks our way.

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

I said, “Ramitta, always perform your magic work, keep doing it regularly, entertain more and more people whenever you can. Take more training from your resource person whoever taught you if you can. Don’t give up the magic work, forget about the number one magician in the world at this time that’s not under your control. Just do magic work consistently.”

I didn’t want to see her in the track of depression with the “number one magician tag in the world.”
I gave her another 100 Indian rupees and left.
She was smiling and waving at me.
Suddenly, something unusual came into my mind, I turned back, approached her again and gave a piece of paper in her hand.

I told her, “Ramitta, you don’t know me but this is my email address. I know you cannot read this. I tell you this-if you perform your magic work everyday for 3 months regularly, I will send you 5000 rupees. Find somebody who can read and can use a computer and tell him or her to write me an email on your behalf that you did magic work every single day for 3 months. If you didn’t find any people to show your magic work, just do it for yourself at home. Do not skip any day.”

Remember, if nobody is around to see the magic, just do it for yourself, have fun just for you, this will hone your game.
“Trust me, I will send you 5000 rupees and I will be one of your well wishers forever,” I reiterated.

My intention was a little bit different, anyway I’m a scientist by profession, so one additional small experiment, I wanted to develop new neural connections in her brain regarding her passionate magic work in 3 months so that she will never give up her magic process.
Neuroplasticity is the science behind new neural connections and this is the fact in short.

If you really want to build new neural structures full of happiness, love, confidence, and peace; I recommend you read the book ‘Hardwiring Happiness’ by Rick Hanson, PhD, a psychologist and author.

We’ll learn to see through the lies our brain tells us and lay out a simple method that uses the hidden power of everyday experiences. Remember, whatever we repeatedly sense and feel and want and think is slowly but surely sculpting neural structures in our brain.

Finding a passion as an amateur is just the beginning, it’s like dating with many, but developing the passion is harder. It’s a commitment, it’s like marriage after dating many.
And, going deeper in passion is a lifelong process, it’s like having kids and settlement after marriage.
Interestingly, the stage of development is the stage of deliberate practice but going deeper on the craft is just effortless flow. In all these plays, we are setting up new neural structures in our brain.
When we reach the deepening stage we can craft our products regularly with no stress raising grandchildren on the side. It feels like no more hard work, just a kind of play. 

Research says that if we practice anything new for at least three months every single day, we create new habits and that sticks with us forever.
Once a habit sticks with us, we only need vision and grit, both are actually the power of perseverance. This is how excellence follows in our lives.

Angela Duckworth, PhD, professor and author of ‘Grit’ talks about the Power of Passion and Perseverance in our lives. Dr. Duckworth said “Grit is a predictor of success.” In her must-watch TedTalk she said “The ability to learn is not fixed, it can change with your effort.”

I have a personal experience on this but let’s leave this for next time.
Each one of us as a human being has a lot of weaknesses, everyone succeeds by picking one strength and honing it regularly day in and day out.
We have to craft this strength as a lifelong process.
If Ramitta constantly engages her mind with her magic process, I believe, she won’t go the same path of depression as her mom.

Devotion to any process of life is meditation that is the best way to get rid of depression

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

My great grandfather, my grandfather, and even my father’s generation didn’t have this depression thing, at an alarming rate at present . Why is it so behemoth, suddenly, from our generation?
I found something very unique.

Our previous generations, always remained busy in farming, they used to work from sunrise to sunset in farmland, house chores, herding, livestock.
They were poor financially, long physical labor work on farmland was required to survive, but still they didn’t develop depression.
They were happy with the process of their busyness even though there was no guarantee of their agricultural products.

Sometimes, due to bad weather; sometimes, due to pests; sometimes, due to drought and other natural disasters; all of their crops were demolished.
Sometimes, due to seasonal epidemics, all of their cows and goats died.
But still they never stopped doing whatever they were doing, their work was their life, they were happy and busy in their process.
They showed no symptoms of depression whatsoever.
They always had a nice sleep at night.

Pabloo Picaso was one of the greatest artists of human generations.
He produced more than two art works per day in his artist life. If we count the total number of his art products, he produced thousands and thousands of artworks during his art career.
Because he always loved the process of crafting art more than the final products, otherwise, these many arts were almost impossible to produce by one artist.
But surprisingly, he has only a little over one hundred master art pieces out of thousands and thousands he produced.

Again, because he loved the process rather than the final art products, suddenly about 100 became masterpieces without his notice.
He never aspired to produce masterpieces only, he gave his best sincere effort for each of his art creations. Those masterpieces were just the most liked products by people of his continuous process.

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

Marcus Buckingham, the author of ‘Love and Work’ said “Love is the most powerful human emotion and it is the source of all creativity, collaboration, insight, and excellence. But, it has been systematically drained from our lives, we can bring love back by focussing our strengths and nurturing them.”

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

One of my friends’ dad, Sora, has been driving trucks for the last 20 years.
Whenever he finishes driving for the day, he always sends a motivational quotation as a message to one of his family members.
Coincidentally, one day, I met him and asked, “why do you send a motivational quotation everyday?”
He replied, “isn’t this the way to live a life to inspire somebody each day?”
“Otherwise, we get depressed in life because we all do the same mundane repetitive work every single day whatever it is. Sending one different inspiring quote each day to one of my family members not only makes me a completely different person but also stimulates the receiver.” he added.
I became speechless.

I reflected on myself, my habits, and my way of living life up to now.
What do I do immediately after I get up from bed?
Well, I grab my phone and watch funny videos in tik-tok.
I open facebook first thing after I get up from bed and I lose my control.
I do these things and somebody or something will control me and my time.
Somebody’s pictures, somebody’s likes, or somebody’s email is controlling me all the time.

After a certain time, this habit becomes perennial and I lose focus. I no longer entertain other people’s activities on screen anymore, I think about my own life, I’ve done nothing concrete, and finally I start to feel depressed.
I wish I could have sent one inspiring quote to one of my family members immediately after I got up from the bed.

Do you think that Elon Musk and Tony Robbins grab their phone first thing in the morning after getting up from the bed?
I doubt it.
They control their lives themselves first before being controlled by anybody or anything else.

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

In reality, we invite depression when we constantly compare our lives to others.
If we only fantasize on the bed rather than doing five push-ups and five squats, then depression certainly follows us.
Depression also appears when we only constantly entertain all the time.
Nowadays we have multiple ways to entertain, this is the age of facebook and twitter.
Depression appears at some point when we focus on external things more rather than our internal things.

If our goals end as our internal things; not only depression but all the bad habits, obesity, illness, and greed will disappear.
If we deny our internal things knowingly or unknowingly, our emotions will erupt in some other uglier forms.
Depression is just one of them, from my personal experience too.
The person who doesn’t have time to understand his or her internal things just by devoting 30 minutes of physical activity or 30 minutes meditation suffers the most from depression.
Our life always gives us a clue, those who are chasing only for external things bleed the most in their internal lives. So make a small habit to nurture the internal things in life.

Depression comes when we try to live the same year 75 times and call it a life, as said by Robin Sharma, the author of ‘The Everyday Hero Manifesto’. Sharma says “Genius has far less to do with your genetics and much more to do with your habits.”

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

Conclusion

Scientifically speaking, there is a wide-acting neurotransmitter, serotonin, which if deficient in our body, we have a high chance of depression.
The very fundamental and interesting point regarding serotonin: the head brain produces only 5 percent of serotonin.

Very few people are aware about this, the rest of the 95 percent serotonin is produced in the gut, that’s why it is also called “the second brain’.
The gut is nothing but a gastrointestinal tract which is the long tube that starts at the mouth and ends at the back passage-anus.
Poor gut hygiene and poor gut-brain communication is directly or indirectly related to depression.

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

This is one of my favorite quotes from Peter Drucker, a thinker and author of ‘The Effective Executive’ “what gets measured gets managed.” Measure your life by a process, your product itself gets managed.

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

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

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.”