yamtimsina

Two years ago I read a book “What I talk about when I talk about running” by Haruki Murakami.
Different people have different tastes and different perceptions on other peoples’ experiences but many core values always remain the same.
That’s the reason all 8 billion people on the planet have unique experiences to live and share with the world.
Many times each author expresses his or her emotional, intellectual, and physical experiences in their writing.
Haruki’s book is one of the best books I have ever read where he portrays his life sincerely as a writer and a runner.
I rarely repeat the book but this Haruki’s 175 page book is one of them.

Though this book is based on his running life, the nuggets in the book are extremely valuable in every aspect of our normal life.
One such nugget, my personal favorite, is: “the most important thing we learn at school is the fact that the most important things can’t be learned at school.”

This book reminds us many times that we are limitless in life.
The author Murakami is a tremendous human being, a novelist, and later turned into an unstoppable long distance runner.
He’s run dozens of marathons in many places around the world including ultramarathons.
He started his running at age 33, which is already a huge inspiration to all of us.
At this age many other people, especially in sport activities, generally start to think about retiring.
I remember from the book, at one point he was running an ultramarathon in Japan, thinking about 62 miles to finish which he was running for the first time in his life.
In the middle of the ultramarathon, he passes the finish line of the marathon, 26.2 miles, and he reads the words on the side of the hoarding board.
The hoarding board says, “this is the finish line of a marathon.”
This was the first time Haruki was running beyond a marathon finish line in his life so that he was having a unique experience of post marathon run.
After passing the marathon finish line he says to himself, “I’m not a human, I’m a piece of machinery.”
He was running to finish 62 miles but he kept saying the same words again and again, “I’m not a human, I’m a piece of machinery.”
He finished 62 miles comfortably.
As we all know, any machine doesn’t bear any pain but produces only beautiful products, the Murakami machine produces only beautiful experiences.

After absorbing Murakami’s life, I realized there are many things that are inevitable in life but pain and suffering is a personal choice.
He talks about forced pain and desired pain in our lives.
Forced pain is something different and in many cases not beneficial, but desired pain is amazing, it is a real pain indeed but makes us happier once we start to love the process of pain.
Marathon running can never be a forced activity, it can only be an individual’s desired activity.
Not many people can run a marathon, only very few selected people can run.
And running a marathon multiple times is unthinkable for many ordinary people.
It’s not only strong will power that is required for marathon running, it’s the love of the process that makes marathon running beautiful.

Once we know how to release the pain from the body, the void appears inside us and is very beautiful, that’s what Murakami says life is all about.
There is so much physical and mental pain to finish a marathon but once we pass the finish line, there remains only joy.
No words how to express the feeling.
There is only joy.
Murakami said, “The only thing that comes to mind after finishing a marathon is how I can run better next time.”
The mind becomes more repetitive, more patient, and a lot more disciplined.
Think about this, if this becomes habitual in life then where do we find the pain?

Another runner, Phil Knight, founder of NIKE, author of ‘Shoe Dog’, was also famous in track running, though he was a middle distance runner, he used to run 7 miles every morning from his work to home in his early life.
Phil Knight also says that runners have no destination, their destination is their path where they are running.
Phil Knight started running at a time when people used to tag ‘weirdos’ for them.
It wasn’t a socially accepted athletic activity then.

Murakami and Knight both agree that to make pain beautiful, we have to follow the motto: “be yourself.”
‘Be yourself’ means be far from the crowd, be far from competition, be far from comparison, and be far from rejection.
Murakami had a decent restaurant bar business before giving up everything to become a professional writer and professional runner.
Phil Knight revolted to his family, especially to his dad and visited dozens of countries around the world before giving up his father’s decent media business.
When he was visiting Japan for his shoe business concept his mother dropped him off at the airport and wished him saying ‘be yourself.’

When we become our own uniqueness, as the slogan ‘be yourself’; pain and suffering no longer bothers us, it only becomes the motivation for the final destination.
Amelia Boone, one of our all time heros says, “I’m not the strongest. I’m not the fastest. But I’m really good at suffering.”
If we cherish suffering, life becomes marvelous.
Learn how to cherish the suffering.
Kudos to Murakami, Knight, and Boone!!!

In my own personal experience as I also run quite often, people who love running and run regularly have keen attachment to a few things.
In reality nature has given us two healthy feet to move our body, in that sense we all are born to run whether we run or not.
In addition, when we run we also become grateful to our two healthy feet so that our pain of running turns into a beautiful destination.
When we run we become grateful to oxygen in the air so that our pain turns into a beautiful breathing resource.
When we run we become grateful to our healthy body and healthy mind so that our pain turns into a beautiful thought.
When we run we pass objects, pedestrians, trees, and many other things, these passing things make us a connection which is humanity so that pain dissipates from the body.
This may be the reason there is a saying that if we run a marathon in our lifetime, we will never die from a heart attack.
I’m not sure whether it’s true or not but it definitely has some validity.

Many years ago I had a friend from India, he was a graduate student in computer science.
One evening many of his close friends gave him a party in his apartment, it was his 31st birthday.
I also attended his birthday party.
Few friends offered him different kinds of alcoholic drinks so he drank quite a few mixed drinks.
He was fine at the time when we all left his apartment around midnight, he greeted us good night.
The next morning his mom was coming to see him all the way from Bangalore, India.
He was excited to pick her up at the airport, he was constantly checking the flight time to make sure her flight was on time so he also set an alarm clock to remind himself that he doesn’t oversleep.
His diabetic mom was travelling alone because his dad expired 3 years ago due to a chronic kidney disease.
She could barely read in Hindi, an indian language, she couldn’t speak English, she couldn’t make telephone calls by herself.
After arriving at the airport at 8am in the morning, she took help from airport people and called multiple times on her son’s cell phone.
Her son didn’t pick up the call.
Due to a mixed alcohol hangover and probably by an alcohol reaction, he wasn’t fully conscious at around 8 am and woke up only at 11 am.
Though he knew the night before that he had to go to the airport to pick his mom in the morning at 8 am.
He saw more than 50 missed calls on his cell phone within a 3 hours period from 8 am to 11 am.
He was very sad but anyway he drove towards the airport.
He was devastated at this point not by anything but by his own irresponsible behaviour.
He told me, “he had so much pain in his body, he was shivering due to pain thinking about his diabetic mom.”
He said, “his mouth was dry, his headache was moving all around his head.”
He had a panic attack, his body pain was so severe that he pulled over on the side of the road for a couple of minutes.
He drank water because his body was dehydrated due to excess alcohol and he also washed his face with cold water.

Finally after 45 minutes driving he reached the luggage claim area at the airport, he saw his mom laying down on the bench.
He sighed, his eyes became teared.
He walked closer to his mom, he saw his mom’s face from a little close distance, he reached to his mom but couldn’t speak, mom also didn’t say anything, she only smiled.
Once he saw his mom on the bench at the airport and when she smiled, he said to himself, “Why is pain so beautiful?”

Few minutes ago, his body pain was excruciating, his headache was moving all over his head but once he saw his mom’s smile everything became clear, he had not even an ounce of pain in his body and in his head.
He only experienced beauty now, the whole pain is gone.
Once he approached his mom, he bent down, he touched her feet, and started to cry.
He sat flat on the bare floor at the airport and broke down, he couldn’t control crying.
His mom didn’t ask any questions, she wrapped his head around her arms, she didn’t ask why he didn’t pick up the phone, she didn’t ask why he was late, she didn’t ask what happened?
Finally he drove his mom to his apartment.
When they reached the apartment, he asked his mom, “‘Maa, can I tell you something?” ‘Maa’ means mom in indian language.
His mom replied, “sure, beta.” ‘Beta’ means son in indian language.
He touched her feet one more time and said, “Maa, I promise you I would never ever drink alcohol in my whole life from today onwards.”
His mom replied, “beta, I’m 62 years old now, I’m illiterate, the only degree I have in this life is trust. I trusted your dad and lived the fullest life when he was alive. I gave you birth, you are my everything now in this life, if I don’t trust you then who do I trust?”
Both mom and son smiled with teary eyes and entered the kitchen.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

Recently I attended a virtual scientific conference.
I usually participate in these kinds of conferences when time permits me.
I work on science so I make a living doing it.
One of the speakers in the conference, a business management guru, said, “never ever talk about politics, religion, and sex in business networking session.”

I grew up in a society where people blindly follow politics and talk about it as a pastime.
I have seen a conflict between brothers, between sisters, between aunts, and uncles within a close family circle due to the favor and disfavor of their political affiliation.
I remember one particular incident regarding this between two brothers which is still fresh in my memory.

Both brothers were claiming that each of their political parties is the best one out of many others.
Both brothers were claiming that their political leaders are the best.
Their dad was an ordinary countryman, not highly educated but an literate, occasionally used to ask ‘why do political parties make us fight?’
He used to reflect and think, ‘is politics always bitter and divided?’
“What kind of lacking I had to raise my sons?” I frequently heard this whisper from his mouth.
Dad was unaware how politics enters into our life and ruins the profession of our living if we are not careful about it.
I was also quiet and just observing the argumentative political fight between two brothers with no verbal expression.
Elder brother was saying, “my political party liberated more people than any other political party so it deserves to form the government.”
The younger brother was saying, “my political party has made the most progress and development in the country than any other party in the history of government. My political party protected the country during many difficult junctures of foreign interventions so it deserves to make the government.”

It’s worthless for me to spend time on who is wrong and who is right and this is not my intention here because both brothers were not politicians by profession.
They didn’t make a living doing politics because the elder brother was a high school teacher and younger brother was an accountant in a private firm.
I didn’t say anything to either brother during this heated political debate.
I simply said, “each of you are saying I am right because each of you has a huge ego; ego of severe political addiction.”
“You are not saying I am right, your ego is saying I am right.”
“When you are addicted to something your ego always bolsters,” I added.
“You are not saying your brother is wrong, your ego is saying your brother is wrong because addiction suffocates the judgement.
I just added to the elder brother, “Hey brother, you’ve shared many things with your younger brother, you shared the same house and same parents with him, if you can’t align your political thoughts with him in a family, then how would you align so many other thoughts in your professional life?”
He didn’t respond.

Interestingly, during the middle of this intense argumentative and corrosive political fight, the elder brother’s daughter ran over and said to her dad, “dad, why don’t you say ‘sorry’ to uncle?”
Her dad paused, looked at his daughter and became speechless.
His daughter was just 13 years old.
The whole verbal political fight turned into silence.
His daughter was still insisting to her dad to say ‘sorry’ to her uncle.
Eventually, her dad said ‘sorry’ to his younger brother and both daughter and her dad left the scene.

When the word “sorry” comes out from our mouth in any situation, amazing things happen.
Serotonin produces and stabilizes our mood.
It also helps to change our behavior to make us feel good or at least comfortable.
Most importantly, we win over our ego when we say ‘sorry’.
Our relationship whatever it is, in this case brotherhood, wins over ego.
The word ‘sorry’ teaches us that family relationships are way more important than a conflict due to mere political ideology.
Not to mention politics, religion, and sex are the most sensitive and divisive part of people’s lives but they shouldn’t disrupt our family values and relationship.
We learn to create human values from inside the family to promote and uplift one another in the society.
Remember, the best time to make our family relationship stronger is actually before we need it.
We have to create value in an existing relationship rather than just capture the value from it.
Always nurture the value of brotherhood by thinking of small actions that you were involved in the family when you were young, this helps to push the edges of the relationship further.

There are many things in life that we have to prioritize but there are very few things which we can not prioritize and have to take in parallel, our relationship with family is one of them.
Think of this, your son is 4 years old and you are in medical school. You can’t prioritize your medical school over your son and say once I finish medical school I would start to love my son very much.
You can’t do this, if you do this you will regret in life even after having your medical degree.
Whatever happens in our life, our relationship with family should move in parallel.

Grudges and divisive arguments in the family are for those who are very short-sighted and can’t control their emotions.
People who forgive and say ‘sorry’ are generally far-sighted and can control their emotions in the family.

I requested both brothers who were fighting over the choice of political parties to go home and change the question to “is any political party wrong instead of saying my political party is right?” “Ask yourself, does any political party have a wrong manifesto?”
Always remember, no political parties are bad, each one has only a different path to reach the best society.
Similarly, no religions are bad, they are only the different forms of expression of human beliefs.
Quote, I am pondering, “Your well being, success, and humankind is reflected in the religion you are practicing right now. Don’t change your religion,” -Dalai lama, an author, spiritual leader, and nobel laureate.
In the similar way, we all know what sex is, how it works, and why we need it.
Do we really need to go deeper in it?
I don’t think so.

Each of these categories; politics, religion, and sex has extreme ends, we don’t have to go there, we absolutely don’t need extremes if we don’t make a living on these things.
If we make a living on these things then it would be a different scenario, for example, professional politicians, religious leaders, or adult movie makers.

Keep in mind, the beauty of politics, religion, and sex is always in the middle for those of us who don’t make a living on these things.
If we start to consume every piece of information regarding politics, religion, or sex, we surely become addicted and its very difficult to break.
Trust me, this is garbage, we don’t need it.

After coming to the USA for my higher studies, I experienced and saw some of the very unusual things.
On presidential election day in the USA, the entire country works and remains active on its business, it’s not a holiday. It shocked me initially.
I went to the grocery stores, and people were working as usual.
I visited public and private offices, people were working as usual, public transportation was as usual.
School and colleges remain open as usual. Nobody talks about the ongoing election. If you bring that subject up, people smile and say “let’s see who will win.”
Only during election night, we will see how people are divided into two parties almost equally half as democrats and republicans.

Donald Trump, the former president, wanted the supreme court to overturn many states’ election results so that he could stay as a president in white house for 4 more years.
This is the country where the supreme court denied the petition filed by former president Donald Trump to overturn the state election result with one-line ruling as follows:
“The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.”
Amazingly, the general public has no interest in the inside business of the supreme court.
There are no phones, no cameras, and no journalists allowed in the supreme court.
One line final decision by the judge.
This was also a big surprise for me to know how the judicial system works.

I’m bringing these aforementioned two cases here just to smell the perception of ordinary people with various other professions towards politics and the judicial system.
How does it happen? I have no clue, I’m still studying this.
This may be one of the reasons that american economy is still so vibrant that none of the organizations or businesses are politicized.

My one line understanding is this: if we politicize the workplace where we work for a living then it is highly likely that we become addicted to politics.
And same applies to religion and sex too.

One way to get rid of addiction from politics, religion or sex is twist a question away from “I and my.”
Once we do this we generally get completely different answers because our ego doesn’t control us.
If we reorder or rephrase the same question excluding ‘I and my’, we get a distant view of life, even though the motive of the question still remains the same.
With this approach, in many cases we solve very difficult problems, especially political and religious problems, there are many examples of it.
When we are angry or in disagreement with someone, we have to change the question and ask ourselves a different version of the same question.

Problems are not always solved by just asking the correct question to others or ourselves because there is no question which is wrong.
Problems are generally solved by reordering the same question so that we see different parts of the same problem.
Once we reorder the same question, different parts of the brain trigger and we get completely different answers.

Remember, when we argue or when we confront, we lose our control, this is normal and natural.
In life how we react to what happens determines who we are.
By the time we react, we already rearrange our thoughts, we rearrange our expressions more than what we initially had.

Once we take a question or answer away from us personally, we become more free and accepted.
Why does Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla, think such a humongous and unpredictable task?
Why does he think 200 or 500 hundred years from now?
He thinks of colonizing mars for human settlement, because he is taking both questions and answers far away from him, because 200 or 500 years from now, he won’t be alive. We all won’t be alive. Legacy also comes into play when we go far personally from our question and answers.
The world we are living in right now is made by those who twisted the existence then, who ventured the unknown question, and those who thought about the uncomfortable question in their own new way.

When we reorder things, creation appears.
Rearrange the sofas in your living room, your mind says, wow, it’s gorgeous because your mind identifies the new creation.
Renew, refresh, reshuffle, reselect, reshelf, redecorate; all they have amazing things in common.
They change the dynamics of our brain.
They help to see things from different angles.
The Pareto principle also indicates the same: only 20 percent of anything produces more value, 20 percent comes from reselection.
20 percent of words of any language are mostly used in any conversation.
20 percent of stuff in our home we use again and again.
20 percent of products of any company sell over and over.
20 percent of spices the chef uses again and again to produce amazing dishes.
20 percent of our questions have the best answers.
The remaining 80 percent of all of the above are mundane and can not produce valuable outcomes.
Remember, when you say “I and my,” it’s mundane, it doesn’t produce the most valuable 20 percent result so that reselect your question.

Think of it this way, sugar is an essential ingredient in our life.
We need it to survive. But if we over consume it then it converts into more fats and that is the main culprit of our many health problems in modern life including cancer.
Overconsumption of anything is bad, including sugar.
Overconsumption is against the principle of reselection.
Don’t over consume anything in life including politics, religion, and sex.
Reselect the same so that we don’t over consume.
Let’s start by using one spoon of sugar instead of two spoons in our morning tea or coffee.
Let’s consume coffee or tea only two times in a day instead of four times.
Let’s consume the news only once in a day rather than to follow every piece of news during the day.

There is also one reason why we hesitate to reselect because we are social animals.
We tend to be skeptical of new questions and uncomfortable with change.
We are likely to stay with the same old question about anything.
We are likely to challenge anything new.
This is our nature.
We feel so comfortable living in a small echo chamber: the same old friends, the same colleagues, the same road to go home, the same food everyday, and the same kind of entertainment shows on TV everyday.
We are afraid of reselection.
If we have any new information coming in our mind, we have to trust it but we always have to verify it.
Verification is the reselection of the same old with new eyes.

Remember, we all will die sometime in the future, sad but true, and the desire to make us important all the time is just human nature.
That’s the reason we always say, ‘I and my.’
Accept this fact that we have to reselect our statement excluding ‘I and my’ even if we are right.
When we start to develop this skill we make a habit of saying “sorry” to the people.
To say ‘sorry’ is an acceptance that I’m accommodating you for my mission, you are more important than me, and I listen more than I talk.
We can’t beat human nature unless we know how to accommodate other humans.

There is another misconception out there that academically sound people are always right and they know more because we see these people leading in many places, we see these people on the stage, we see these people all over the places trying to control others.
Forget about their academic degrees; PhD, MD, or MBA if they are not using their expertise in the field where they make a living.
I’m sure you’ve also seen and worked with so many of these people who have these degrees but are the most absurd and polarized in society.
I have personally seen and worked with so many of these people who have PhD, MD, and MBA but are the most argumentative, short-tempered, arrogant, corrosive, and politically motivated.
I’m not saying all are bad, what I’m saying is, don’t follow them blindly.

Just believe, our formal education never prepares us 100 percent in the real world.
I believe I have some credit, at least, to say this.
I’ve spent 5+ years in my PhD and 4+ years in my postdoctoral training.
We must have real world experience to be successful in the real world.
This is not only by me, this is also by those who are successful in the real world who don’t have PhD, MD, and MBA but are generous, collective, and logical.
Apply the principle of reselection for these people too if they are influencing your lives directly or indirectly who have these tags of PhD, MD, and MBA after their name.

Real world education means starting a grocery store, traveling far from home without much money, driving a taxi to survive, and running 5K for the first time if you’ve never run before.
Real world education means studying your mind about what comes in the middle of your 5K run.
Real world education means trusting the gut and intuition and applying the feeling of that 5K run that never comes by sitting on the couch at home.
Just one living example, John Paul DeJoria, an entrepreneur and the founder of the Paul Mitchell line of hair-care products, started his business career with a loan of just $700 with a high school degree. He now owns a business empire worth $3.1 billion.
If we are involved in real world education, it owns us and we are more likely to quit the different forms of addiction in our lives.
Our gut, our intuition, and our real world experience is more powerful than the advice of PhD.
Asking many questions in life is a choice but tweaking the same old question over and over to get the new result is a decision.
Real world education is nothing new, it is the application of tweaking of the same old question to see our lives with a new lens.

Reorder the same old question in different forms and avoid things which are not important in life. This is called focus.
There are two types of real work we can do in this world depending on our personalities.
We can either work as a CEO of our own company or we can work for a CEO’s company.
If you drive your own taxi or if you own a grocery store, then you are CEO; if you are accountant or lawyer in a firm then you work for a CEO.
Both are equally important, choose what suits you the best.
We have to choose where we fit the best depending on our own personality.

Similarly, we can also select to work in two sectors: public or private.
Both are equally important, also depending on our personality.
Be either a public servant or work in private firms; be kind, be generous and always make a habit of saying “sorry”.
I personally prefer the private sector because it teaches us entrepreneurship in life.
If we know entrepreneurship, we can live freely wherever we go.
Keep in mind, we spend the 1st half of our life time learning and the 2nd half in working based on 1st half’s learning; this isn’t going to work in the 21st century and after.
This concept of education has already stopped working because it is based on the 19th century education system dictated by the industrial revolution.
Entrepreneurship is one of the tools to win over this old education system. The important thing is that it teaches us how to adapt to the fast changing environment. More than this, it teaches us how, where, and when to say ‘sorry’ to others.

Always remember, “sorry” doesn’t mean you are wrong, it only means you might not have reordered your old question.
The best time to say ‘sorry’ is when you realize that you are only a single dot in a sea of billion other dots, if you realize this at your core you never get addicted in anything including politics, religion, and sex.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

He was in high school in grade twelve, so called intermediate second year then.
Our other dear friend was also in the same class but she was a little bit quiet.
She used to talk only about classes, teachers, subjects, home assignments, and exams, nothing more than tidbits about school life.
Occasionally, she used to go for snacks during break but only in a group of friends.
He was my dear friend and was interested in talking beyond that boundary of school tidbits, he was interested in talking about life, relationships, and future plans.
But it never happened because he was unprepared, he was scared, he didn’t have any maturity on how to express feelings or love to somebody else.
As far as I know, he never expressed his feelings to her, he always kept inside himself until he left the school.
Occasionally he shared his feelings with me but not with her.
He absorbed his feelings internally, I am not aware when and how he released it out.
I don’t know how he’s living his life nowadays but recently I made a connection with him via Facebook. Thanks Zuckerberg.
I’m sure there are many people out there who are in the similar situation as my dear friend.
I hope this content will help them.

Feelings convert into pain very quickly if it doesn’t get space to sprout.
After more than two decades now, I figured out how somebody’s feelings and love towards another person dissipates and infects the person internally.
If we live carrying the unexpressed feeling in life, this would be the road to disaster, this could be one of the root causes of our unhappiness.
Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse and an author of “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying” a phenomenal book which is translated into 27 languages talks about unexpressed feeling as a number three regret of dying person.
Number three regret the dying: “I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”

Few months ago, I remembered that my younger daughter insisted that I go to play with her in the park.
She told me to leave my cell phone at home. I was a little surprised but I could understand.
I asked her why to leave phone at home.
She said that you don’t interact with the park and you don’t enjoy it if you have your cell phone with you.
At that moment I told her, sure, I will leave the phone in the car and I will engage fully with the park.
I spent 30 minutes with her in the park without my cellphone but I saw her cheering face which I’d rarely seen before.
When I came home, I re-evaluated and mostly regretted how I spent the past years with my daughter.
The main reason I was happy that day was because I made my daughter happy by tweaking my small habit to allow her feelings to express.
She expressed quite a number of concerns and feelings during our 30 minutes park tour.

Like it or not, we are living in the world of instant gratification.
Our cell phone has become a tool of instant gratification.
We are caught up in the hustle and bustle of modern life.
We need everything instant, we have e-tickets, we have express check-outs, we have fast food drive-through.
We have microwaves and we need food in a few seconds.
We expect anything to happen in a few seconds to a few minutes.
We don’t expect to wait.
This pattern of life is making us more unhappy than ever before because we are losing the grip of life slowly, we are losing patience very fast.

I’ve also observed the other reason for our unhappiness, “the culture of more.”
We are living in “the culture of more.”
We have one nice house, we need a couple of more including vacation house.
We have one bike, it is working perfectly for our purpose, we need at least two more of different styles.
We have one car, working nicely, but we need one more luxurious car.
I am not against these luxurious things, I personally love them but I’m against the sense of their control in our lives at present and regret when we turn older. I wish I could have lived differently.

What we forget here is we have only 24 hours in a day, we can’t stretch it, we have just 24 hours, that’s it.
When we have more things to take care of, obviously we need to earn more money to maintain these things; a vacation house, a second bike, and a luxurious car.
We have to sacrifice more time to earn more money, not only that we have to also give extra time to maintain these extra things regularly.
Buying is just a first step, major responsibilities come after buying. We have to renovate the vacation house, we have to change the oil in the second bike and second car regularly.
These extra things are soaking all our personal time, sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly.

When we create a little free space in our mind then only happy hormones roll the ball on us.
All our emphasis is going more on changing oil in the car rather than changing oil in our body.
Oh, today, I can’t go to the gym, I have to change oil in my car.
Oh, today, I can’t make dinner, I’ll eat frozen pizza because I have to finish the wall painting in my beach house.
All of these “more things” are making us stressed out, remember, we’ve only 24 hours in a day.
We don’t eat nutrient food because food is not our priority, we don’t drink enough water because dehydration goes unnoticed.
Our health is crumbling down because all the time we are hustling out for more things.
We easily become tired due to all of the above, we slept less, we spent less time with our kids and spouse.
If you don’t spend more time with your kids and spouse, you remain unhappy. This is a fact.
For those who don’t have kids or spouses, have a pet and spend time with it, a miracle happens in your life.
Keep in mind, more is not always better. If you know how to distinguish ‘the culture of more’ with ‘culture of enough’, you will remain happy throughout your life.

Our body stops communicating with our mind when we have no clue what meditation, gratitude, and mindfulness are, and how they balance our life.
We never dedicate any time for these things because all of our time is consumed by noise around us.
Meditation, gratitude, and mindfulness teach us a secret of life, here it is: our past is already gone, our future has not been written yet, the only thing we have is the present, so be happy and enjoy it to the fullest.

After a certain time we start to look outside for happiness, outside of our inner life.
By the time we know there is something imbalance in our life, it’s already too late.
Happiness is not outside, it is inside us.
Remember, outside may bring pleasure but it doesn’t always bring happiness.
Understand this fact, happiness is not pleasure, you can certainly buy pleasure for a certain time but you cannot buy happiness.

Think of the time, in school, asking your teacher why you had to learn national geography if you had no intention of using it in real life. Probably, your teacher might have said that you need to learn national geography for your brain development or college preparation or harsh case scenario, “because I said so.”
Now you are an independent adult with a fully mature brain.
Your teacher’s answer doesn’t apply to you any more.
Therefore, you don’t need to fill your mind with useless information.
Always believe what you see and what you do or plan to do, not what others tell you to believe.
You don’t need other people’s approval all the time in your life.
Information is already overloaded due to finger tip’s digital access.
What kind of value are you producing by remembering the names of all the rivers and forests of your country in 21st century’s education unless you are participating in a national quiz competition?
Now you are an adult, if anything that isn’t interesting to you or relevant to you by any means, don’t consume it.
Only consume what is relevant to your life.
Create an extra space in your brain by taking only things or experiences that are relevant to your life.
Don’t let junks walk all over your mind.
Happiness comes from things that matter to you, not from junks.

Happiness is a state of mind, to be happy we have to change our mind.
The interpretation of happiness is highly subjective and it is not an exact science.
Some people read Playboy to become happy, some people read physics to become happy, and some people read companies’ legal and financial reports to become happy.
Some people sing songs to become happy and some people do fishing to become happy.
You get the picutre, why there is so much variation in happiness because it is internal, it has nothing to do with other people’s choices.
We cannot find any good tool to quantify the level of happiness.
If I get my thing then I would be happy is basically an illusion.
If you are not happy now before getting the thing, you will not be happy after getting that thing also.
You must be happy first to get things, otherwise you will stretch your expectations all the time that never end. If it never ends then you never become happy.

Many people think that a lot of money makes them happy.
But in reality people who don’t have money think this way only that a lot of money makes them happy.
I am sure you have seen many people with a lot of money but still unhappy, they are unhappy because they still want only more money, I have certainly seen many of these people.
Here is the fact.
Money itself doesn’t make us happy, it is just a paper with pictures on it, but it gives us freedom and security.
We can utilize money to get freedom according to our interests that make us happy.
If we have nothing to do during our free time, then we again become unhappy.
Money is an amazing tool, one tool out of many, that provides us things and experiences that make us happy, treat it as such.

Happiness also comes from growth, it comes from trying new things, it comes from taking educated and calculated risks in life.
Learn to take big risks, learn to survive big failures. But most importantly, learn how to win big in life so that we can give back to society even bigger.
When we give to society, we become the happiest person because we make other people happy.
Think about your happiness level when you make your kids or your spouse happy, what do you feel? Just go a little bit further to make your neighbor or your community happy, you feel a rush of flow of dopamine and serotonin in your body.

Why didn’t my dear friend propose to our classmate in grade twelve?
Because he didn’t have courage to ask, he didn’t have a risk taking attitude.
Worst of all, what could have happened if he had proposed to her, either she would say yes or no.
Either answer would produce no harm to both of them, but by not taking the risk of asking he got only regret.
Imagine the movie industry and stock market, which movie is going to be a blockbuster and which stock is going to be a 100 X multiplier, nobody knows.
Nobody knows what’s going to work. We can just guess, an educated guess. We can be lucky by an educated guess.
But people who dedicate themselves to making movies or people who invest in the stock market keep doing the same thing. They just don’t expect only the best result, they enjoy taking educated and calculated risks, and when they win, they win big.
Remember, regret of not taking risk is permanent but risk itself is temporary.

People always doubt what you say because these are words but people always believe what you do because these are actions. Happy people love actions not words even though actions are risky.
We all have innate observational and investigative skills for any kind of actions, the only thing is we have to explore by using it.
Once you start exploring, you become more interested to explore more, you start to make flow of your exploration.
This flow institutes a happiness inside you.

Many celebrities are brand-conscious and we have a culture of following them on social media.
I’m not against following the ideal person but I’m against following blindly.
They all wear Gucci items and we try to imitate their persona.
They wear Gucci because they get paid from Gucci to attract the poor and middle class.
This comparison doesn’t make us happy because we are not celebrities, their personal values and our personal values are different.
I have seen former first lady Michelle Obama wearing a pair of J. Crew sage green leather gloves to hold the bible for her husband before a worldwide audience of 140 million plus on TV to be sworn in as America’s first ever African American president.
She could wear Gucci but she didn’t, she wore items from an ordinary retail store.
She did this because she is real, she is not a pretender.
I have seen Barack Obama also wearing J. Crew bow ties many times.
The Obama family declined brands, they showed their love for mass consumer retailers.
Only Louis Vuitton and Gucci don’t show our personality, they are just symbols of luxury.
Remember, luxury is not happiness, it is only pleasure.
To become happy, we must be authentic based on our priorities and values, not by comparing ourselves with Gucci wearing celebrities.

Understand this, you don’t possess happiness, you have to create it according to your own standards.
It is absolutely internal based on your personal expectations and reality.
If you are unhappy, immerse yourself in life with some passion.
We, as humans, came to earth almost 1.2 to 2 million years ago before the modern humans, Homo sapiens, appeared. At that time, there was earth, dirt, soil, rocks, and some plants on the continent.
Many animals appeared and disappeared but why did we humans always thrive?
Because we have a passion for progress, but animals don’t.
We have an amazing brain in our head which other animals don’t have.
The science about our brain is still mysterious, we barely know how it works, but when we associate our passion with it, it works fabulously. Don’t ask me how.
Passion ignites us, passion gives us a reason to live.
Once you have passion to live, you start to marry to yourself first before you marry anybody else.
Now you find a reason to live, you always remain happy.

Connect and engage your passion with your family, friends, and colleagues.
Start small, but start now, once you start, you will know exactly what to do, how to do, and when to do.
This passion would be your happiness project.
We have seen many happy people buying time with their passion but unhappy people waste time complaining about everything.

The mother of John Lennon, the evergreen artist of the Beatles, once asked her son, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”
John Lennon replied, “I want to be happy.”

Remember, if you love somebody, just propose today, take the risk and ask, don’t wait for the day that never comes in reality, the so-called tomorrow.
Accept the result and move on, you won’t regret, you feel proud that you asked, you will remain happy irrespective of the answer from the other side.
Good luck everyone, always be happy.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

Few years ago, I had a colleague in my office. He was older than me, he was also more experienced than me in various ways, in life as well as in career.
One day in our informal chat he told me, he hasn’t spoken to his dad for the last 7 years.
I became so awkward and surprised to know how one can pass 7 years without talking to his dad who is living just 300 hundred miles away.
He continued, “yes, I haven’t spoken with him since our family feud broke out.”
Without going into specific detail I asked him, “have you seen any family which is untouched by any kind of feud?”
His reply was simply to ignore my question.

In reality, there is no family which is free from any kind of feud.
Feud can be major or minor but we all go through this.
We all have problems, we all have things to resolve but it doesn’t mean we stop talking to our dad and mom.
In the middle of our conversation he suddenly asked me another question, “what did I do last weekend?”
Instead of giving him the straight answer I asked him, “what did you do?”
He said, “I went to the botanical garden with my daughters.”
I further added, “Do you imagine the same situation as you have with your dad at present between you and your daughters in the future?”
He unequivocally said, “no, it’s not possible, he continued that he is different than his dad, he was raised by his parents in wrong way, and he is raising his daughters in different way than how he was raised by his parents”
He was blaming his dad in various ways but I didn’t comment at all. I just listened because I don’t know his dad. I simply knew that he was talking about his dad to me.
Nonetheless, I couldn’t remain silent without asking, I asked, “who is more educated and resourceful now compared to your dad when you were growing up with him?”
He simply avoided my question and didn’t answer.

We all devote our time with our kids, we want to raise them in such a way they would become successful and independent when they grow up.
As parents we don’t expect anything in return, this is how human generation transforms, progresses, and moves.
This is the beauty of generational transformation.
I asked him, “Does your daughter know you don’t speak to her grandpa?”
He said, “Yes, she knows it but she never brings that up in the family.”

Whatever happened to us in our family in the past, especially with our parents, whoever is involved in the fedu either dad or mom, whoever is faulty either dad or mom, we must forget it and forgive them, and move on.
Dad is dad. Mom is mom.
Remember, this life is a gift our parents gave us. Period.
Nobody can replace them in this generation.
We are here, we are alive, we became the luckiest product of the luckiest winning sperm and winning ovum.
This chance is rare.
We became the luckiest of all.
Think about this, the probability of us being born is at about one in 400 trillion.
One in 400 trillion.
Isn’t it luck?
If this isn’t luck then what is it, I don’t know.

One thing, keep in mind, whatever our parents did in the past, they did according to their capacity, knowledge, and resources available at that time.
They might have made major or minor mistakes while raising us, whatever it was, just forget it and forgive them. Period.
They gave us this amazing life.
If you haven’t spoken to your dad for a long time, just pick up a phone and call, start the conversation.
If you haven’t visited them for a long time, give them a surprise visit.
Drink a beer with your dad if you can, if not drink tea with him in the nearest most beautiful and expensive restaurant.
Express the experience, tell your parents that you love them.
When they see you in front of them, they will forget the past feud, don’t bring that up.
Start the conversation fresh.
There are only three things you can enjoy in life: best conversation, best food, and best experience.

Always remember, we all die but our parents will die before us leaving all the family feud behind us.
You always see them growing older than before.
This is emotional but a fact.
Our family feud is temporary and it is due to ego but if we don’t forgive our parents the regret will remain forever.
That will remain as a scar in our heart.
Regret is permanent, this regret will eat us from inside throughout our life.

Humility and forgiveness are human tools to uplift our life.
They serve the best for human endeavors.
If we fail to forgive the mistakes then there is no way we can grow as a free human being.
This also hampers our ability to improve our other skills to upgrade our own life.
We often mix ego with confidence but they are very different.
For some people it takes a few seconds to distinguish whether they are egotistical or confident but for some other people it might take a longer time to differentiate.
If we are able to separate ego from confidence from inside then only we can recognize our identity.
It’s alway better to be confident than to look confident, because both take the same amount of time.
The research of social science also suggests that forgiveness is a multi-dimensional trait and takes into account self-understanding and awareness, as well as openness.
Ego ruins us, confidence talks loud but humility and forgiveness whispers.
We need many more whispers for a free and happy life.

So first and foremost, forgive your parents unconditionally.
Secondly, if you can, forgive your ex-spouse, ex-boss, and ex-friend unconditionally.
Once you forgive them, you feel amazing, you don’t know what they feel but you feel free, you feel you are winning at life.

Humility and forgiveness are inherent human characteristics which are different from other acquired human skills.
In many situations, people choose advisors or life coaches or mentors to acquire various skills.
But advisors don’t help to acquire inherent characteristics.
Their role is to find out how to reach our life goals, how to make reasonable plans, and how to stick with the plan.
They don’t help to find out what our inherent characters are.

Nowadays, technology has become an integral part of our life to connect.
There is nothing we cannot find on the internet as information.
The Internet has become an extension of our behaviour.
The way we are living our lives these days is heavily influenced by technology and smartphones.
There are both pros and cons of it.
It has become a massive timesaver for us in many ways.
It solves a lot of problems quicker, there is no doubt about it.
In the meantime, technology has also become a huge distraction for us if we don’t know how to react to our human emotions.

Similarly, technology is also helping us to be more reactive than proactive, making us poor thinkers and poor decision makers.
It gives ads 24/7.
The commercial motif of technology is to distract us more and more with ads, mostly with attention grabbing items, news, and notifications.
If you cannot hold information for a certain time to absorb and analyze and show your reactive attitude too fast on the internet forum then you degrade your inherent character.
You become too reactive to people whom you don’t like, places where you have never visited, and circumstances which you have never experienced.

When technology rules us in many ways, we must focus on where it doesn’t rule us.
Humility is to pause and think before making any judgement or reaction.
Forgiveness sits on the corner of humility.

Reactive nature invites more distraction and leads to a habit of multitasking which is absolutely bad for real solution oriented people and deep thinkers.
Keep in mind, there is a difference between problem oriented mindset and solution oriented mindset.
Multitasking might be good for mindless things but harmful for a solution oriented mindset.
Only we can multitask but our mind cannot multitask, that’s the reason we shouldn’t watch iPhone while crossing the street.
As always, our mind cannot multitask, otherwise a moving vehicle doesn’t hit us while watching the screen on the street.

I started this piece of content with the relationship between son and dad, but please allow me to go a little deeper why we keep bitter feelings, acrimony, and ego inside us.
According to psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, there are two types of thinking processes.
Fast thinking and slow thinking.
Fast process recognizes patterns automatically, quickly, and effortlessly and tells quickly what happens next and what to do next.

When the sky is predicted to fall and you cannot save it then the fast process says run, but for the same situation slow process says relax.
Slow process instructs us: reduce the fast intake of outside information, be calm, and don’t be reactive quickly.
Fast process only informs us “ what happens next? What to do next?” “Where to go?” but the slow process instructs us “how to handle next?”
But for a slow process to happen we have to wait, we have pause, which we don’t do most of the time.
Humility and forgiveness comes only in our life if we practice to adapt to the slow process.

Our relationship with our parents must be a slow process, we should not be quick to pull the flowers because we might end up watering the weeds.
Remember, life’s too short to wallow in the weeds of negative vibes and self-pity.
Slow thinking process always allocates attention to beautiful flowers, but the fast process might invite the weeds.
Slower the process, the higher the chance to reach a rational decision.
In reality, our decisions often originate in a fast process which in most cases lead us to the wrong track.

I believe that’s what happened to my colleague and he is living carrying the acrimony over his dad.

Forgiveness is an essential human quality which can be improved everyday by practice.
Most often ego appears as confidence and corrodes us, that confidence which comes from ignorance rather than from knowledge which is very dangerous.
Fast process also nurtures ignorance and ego.

We have a natural tendency, our emotion is inversely related to our knowledge, the less we know the more excited we become, the less we know the more confident we sound.
This is the reason that religion, politics, and love act in the same way.
The real followers of these disciplines always remain steadfast regardless of any kind of circumstances, evidence or consequences.
They are called blind supporters.
Political followers become like smokers.
Smokers become addicted to tobacco by the nicotine, but the real health risks come from inhaling burning tar.

In an underdeveloped society where people are less educated, political leaders feed the tar to the general public all the time so that they keep fire on for their motivated political agendas.
When a politician has a criminal record, or a history of cheating people or even just feels above the law, we as public must stop following them and think slowly.
If our mind remains in the middle of good and bad, most of the time we do bad stuff.

Philosopher Hannah Arendt has said beautifully, “most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”
Crook politicians don’t suddenly sprout a sense of responsibility, that is possible only when the general public starts to think slowly based on social merits.

If we think slowly and act slowly, we always select fewer but better choices.
It helps us to separate ideas from the person, and let ideas fight to each other, but not the people.
When the superior person gives order to the inferior person, the inferior person stops thinking and starts reacting.
Because the authority or hierarchy shuts down our mind.
This is how our mind works and we can not go deeper, this is natural but we can change it by practice.
There is no guarantee that the order from the superior person is correct but our mind takes order in such a way that there is no alternative of higher authority order.
But if we pause and think slowly, one single word or one single sentence or one single idea could change our existing mindset and we become better decision makers.

While testing the general theory of relativity, Albert Einstein said, “ if a single one of the conclusions from it proves wrong, it must be given up.”
Just one counterfact is enough to show that the scientific theory is wrong.

If you can not forgive your dad unconditionally, then your theory of life is wrong and you will remain wrong forever, you will never be happy, healthy, and wealthy again.
Therefore, always and always forgive your dad unconditionally.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

Life is amazing and we don’t understand its gist until we see it crumbling in our own eyes.
Very early in my career, I worked as an assistant in a refugee camp.
I’ve vivid memories of these crumbling lives.
When we talk to refugees who lost everything, who ran from their home to save their families; the role of our life becomes crystal clear.

We dedicate our whole life to protect our family and to do so when you flee abandoning your home, your property, your relatives, and your own land, you definitely feel like you are dead.
If we’re born in Bhutan, we would feel the same.
If we were born in Syria and our house is bombed to shambles, we wouldn’t hold any dreams in life.
How can we see any dream from a burning house?
This is very emotional but it is a fact.

One of my long-time friends and his family emigrated to the USA from Cambodia.
He had a very beautiful wife and two wonderful daughters 11 and 14 years old.
If we were born in Cambodia and have seen the killing fields where Pol Pot slaughtered three million people, we would visualize life very differently.
When we have these kinds of painful negative vibrations in life, it makes us realize that even if we are born into a very poor family of a poor country, we have won some amazing things in life.
We definitely feel we are winners in life because fate didn’t make us refugees.

My friend and his wife saw and experienced many similar devastating moments in life.
They saw so much carnage, killings, they fled from their native country, they emigrated as refugees, they settled in a new country, their kids are growing in a new environment and still need a lot of support and care.

Unfortunately, my friend and his wife decided to end their 17 years of married life.
When my friend told me about this, I couldn’t believe it.
It was shocking and beyond my expectations.

In 2019, we heard the news of Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos, the wealthiest couple on earth, 25 years of marriage ending.
Recently, we also heard the news of Bill and Melinda Gates’s separation, another globally powerful couple, after 27 years of togetherness.
I was taking these news as normal and tried to digest thinking that these are everyday news.
But, in reality, this recent news of Bill and Melinda’s separation helped to refresh my friend’s old story.


I couldn’t take my friend’s separation easy because I was involved physically, mentally, and emotionally with their separation.
I’ve experienced tears in my eyes multiple times when I was playing with their two little girls.
They were very small and innocent, they weren’t mature enough to experience what life is throwing behind them.

As I learned a lesson from them, it’s very difficult to change our core values in life.
If we are developing our core values in opposite directions under the same roof, then separation is inevitable.
To identify it, as a couple we must have a dedicated contemplation.

After a few weeks, I asked my friend, “Why did you both make this painful decision?”
He replied philosophically, hard to understand for me at the moment.
He said, “Your core value in life is a white horse, you can paint it with black stripes and you can call it zebra for other people but not for yourself. No matter what the color tells to other people, the horse would still be a horse for you.”
He further added, “We as human beings, cannot choose our core value by its external appearance. Me and my wife nurtured different sets of core values over the time. I’m not saying they are bad but they don’t align with each other now”
I asked, “How come you didn’t know then and you know now?”
He added, “My friend everything is time, you don’t expect apples tomorrow by planting apple seeds today. We need to plant it, water it, care for it, and wait to get apples. I am sure me and my wife planted the right seed but couldn’t care and couldn’t water it properly so that the plant died before it could give us apples.”

I like a quote from Mahatma Gandhi, “Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, and your values become your destiny.”
Now I’m adding here, if your destiny is different than your spouse, sooner or later, your marriage ends.

When my friend got married 17 years ago, he hadn’t heard the word prenup.
His parents and grandparents used to tell him to get married with the girl who is in your level as much as possible.
The question was in his mind, what kind of level?
It’s very complicated, he couldn’t understand it, the level could be professional, financial, emotional, intellectual, or physical.
He didn’t pay much attention either because he had no idea of personal values at the time when he was getting ready for conjugal life.

Marriage is a tough game, pivoting is the name of the game.
If you can not pivot, you will definitely lose.
Marriage doesn’t grow itself; it needs time, effort, and consistent dedication from both partners to mature.

Any person can kiss the supreme success in his or her professional life but may experience the rock-bottom in his or her marital life.
We can take examples from multiple professionally successful people like Bill and Melinda Gates, Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, just a few who failed miserably in their marriage.
Marriage in itself is not a final human product, it is a continuous working product.
Nature has given it as a working contract, work on it until you die.

Nowadays many rich people get married with prenup.
I’m not against prenups, it’s a product of real society, but marriage is more a human aspect than business or financial transaction.
When you are in prenup from the beginning your mind and emotion works differently.
The advantage is you can sincerely work to make your marriage great but there is no guarantee that your other partner will work equally on your marriage.
Prenup could change each partner’s mindset pretty quickly.
Prenup certainly contains some kind of pre-existing notion regarding your finances.

Recently, the two richest couples on the planet, Bill-Melinda and Jeff-MacKenzie, got divorce.
It became a national and international headline because both couples have touched billions of lives through their work.
In spite of their pinnacle success in their professional life, both couples failed miserably on their marriage.
This is definitely a sincere lesson for all of us, relationships are damn hard.
Professional success never predicts personal happiness and success.
We certainly believe that both couple’s marriage was pristine, both couples didn’t have a prenup, and their marriage was faithful from the beginning.
It doesn’t mean marriage with prenup is faithless, it only means dedication and respect was alive more than finances.

To be honest I learned more about marriage and relationships from my friend’s divorce than my own 15 years old marriage.
I got a chance to study and analyze very closely about their relationship because I was quite familiar with the couple.

In marriage the possession of an insight from only one partner is not sufficient.
We can only benefit from this eternal relationship if both partners have the insights.
We must go through all hindsight, insight, and foresight.
Lack of trust and respect crumbles the relationship, especially marriage.
The problem is, trust is an intangible quality.
It can not be quantified in our life in the same way as we can look in our other activities.
Trust creates order in our married life but lack of trust creates a lot of chaos.
When we trust somebody, that person goes into our heart and communicates with our mind.
That trusted person is called a spouse.

Marriage is a long journey with a lot of ups and a lot of downs.
We cannot pay equal attention during ups and downs in our lives, otherwise we wouldn’t remain an emotional creature.
At peak up and bottom down, marriage has a high chance to bring a necessary evil.
I call it necessary but evil because during this long journey, there comes something which is unpleasant or undesirable but is essential to succeed in the relationship.
This evil tests us and we must pass it as a couple.
Very few of us see the existence of this necessary evil coming.
We never plan and prepare for this evil. Marriage fails if we don’t see the existence of this necessary evil. This evil can be both pain and happiness.
Marriage is not only chocolate and cake, not only burning candles, it also includes the shadow under the burning candle.

Many of us take marriage lightly, we don’t dedicate time to grow this relationship because we take it for granted.
We assume it as a free lunch, and we never foresee the risks associated with it.
And many of us have no idea how to minimize these risks even if we have little knowledge about these risks.
And most importantly, we don’t see these risks until it becomes too late to face.
When you have a habit of walking together for 5 minutes as a couple in the evening, you reduce this risk.
When you write a paragraph of something and your spouse read aloud, you reduce this risk.
These are very simple steps but we never apply, we have ready made answers, oh, I know but I don’t have time.
Well, nobody has time to do everything in life, but we must have time to do necessary important things.
Marriage is an important thing.

Higher the society, more educated the couple, more is the risk in marriage.
There is data on that but I’m not going into the details.
It is virtually certain that the risks will show up from time to time.
Unfortunately, we cannot know when and how they will appear or how long they will last or how severe they will be.

A necessary ingredient for successful marriage is to have the discipline to adhere to our relationship.
We have to ignore a lot of noise and a lot of emotions fueled by the circumstance.
Marriage is our choice not a circumstance so that if any hurdle, pain, happiness or emotion comes through circumstance, we have to deal with it. Plain and simple.

We should not be overconfident with our marriage.
Oh my wife is different, oh my husband is a different kind of person.
Please, be humble, head down and work on.
Be patient and never stop working on your relationship no matter what.
Don’t make your marriage just familiar, make it safe.
There is a difference between familiar marriage and safe marriage.
Familiar marriage is full of words and appreciation from both partners; but safe marriage is full of actions from both partners.

Married life, of course, is complicated and difficult, but if we work one step at a time, it becomes marvelous.
Spend time with your spouse on the dining table, not with your screen.
Hold your spouse’s hand for 30 seconds and tell two sentences about the food you are about to eat.
Whoever wakes up first in the morning, kiss your spouse on the forehead and start the day by saying good morning.
It takes only 30 seconds to do this but you will be amazed how fast your 30th anniversary knocks your door.
Make it a ritual not a habit.
Most of the success in married life is in just remembrance that you are married.
There is nothing new in married life but we must make something new everyday. This could be as simple as this: brush your teeth together for one minute.
Remember, never ever turn your desires into needs, by doing this your married life crumbles.
Always and always enjoy your life in desires.
I wish you all the best.
Happy married life.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina