SELF-CONTROL

                 “If you learn self-control, you can master anything.”

There was a time when I was at the mercy of my wants. I used to enjoy my sleep and never even thought that I should wake up early and exercise. There was no goal in life as I was a homemaker. All that I wished to do was, to keep the home spic and span & cook well. But once my son was born, I developed some discipline. I wanted to do everything on time for him. In what I wanted to do, I was disciplined. There was no compromise. My needs always took a back seat. My family was my priority. Something that I loved doing, brought discipline into my life. So, I realized that, if you really love something in life, you will learn to prioritize and do it whole-heartedly, without being distracted. That is called self-control. As an educationist, I am absolutely disciplined. I subordinate my likes and dislikes to the Purpose of my life.

As teenagers, you sometimes get carried away by the attention you get from the opposite sex. Then you don’t know where to stop. You tend to even cross the limits and succumb to these temptations. On gaining maturity, you will realize your folly and will live a life of regret and even hate yourself for losing out on your moral values. Hormones pump high at that age, but what is your priority? To live a morally right life and not to succumb such temptations? Or to live life frivolously.  There are so many teenagers who focus on their future with single -minded devotion. All their energy is focused on their goal, so they don’t give any attention to anything that is not futuristic. When you live life out of momentary pleasure, you will never experience peace in life. Every time you falter in life there is bound to be some casualty, and that will be your happiness. Why should you lose your peace and happiness for momentary pleasure or instant gratification? Let it always be mind over body.  That is self-control.

Everything else that is not important should be on pause mode as far as your growth is concerned. You need to develop tremendous will power to achieve self-control. Start loving yourself much more than anything else. You must be the most important person in your life. Don’t allow anyone or anything to pull you down in life. I am not asking you to be selfish. But understand that even to be useful to the world, you need to have a high net worth. You can give only if you have. Any kind of contribution to the world can happen only if you possess what is required. So, use all your time productively.

 To be one of the scientists who put the rocket on the moon, or a world champion in chess at a very young age, or a Neeraj Chopra who made India proud in javelin or an entrepreneur who has put India on the world map, you have to exercise great restraint to reach where you have reached. They too would have had temptations and distractions on their way to glory. But their self-control helped them from falling in life. Thus, they rose to glory. Nobody or nothing could stop them from achieving their goal. That is possible only if you have self-control.

There are many ways in which we can contribute to the world. But, to reach there, we need to exercise self-control. Without self-control, all our time and attention will go towards trivial things and we will make nothing out of our life. Your life is precious. How well you utilize your time, will define your growth. Don’t allow anyone to steal your time or divert your attention or trigger your feelings unnecessarily. Be the master of your emotions. Don’t get carried away by the trappings of life. Hold on to your dreams. You are only an evening away from glory. All you need is, SELF-CONTROL!!!

“Self-discipline starts with the mastery of your thoughts. If you don’t control what you think, you can’t control what you do.”

#Thoughtfulthursdays #nsn #nsnschool #mentoring #parenting

 

A PEACEFUL LIFE

 

“Don’t choose from one suffering to another

Instead, choose between some peace and all the peace.”-mahatria Ra

When I was young, my go to person was my mother. We shared everything with her. Life was pretty peaceful and joyful. Our only distraction was the television. That was also only in the evenings, and not throughout the day. I was more into reading books as a child. I kept reading the same books over and over again, as we did not possess too many books. Nevertheless, childhood brings beautiful memories to me, though our life was simple. Today I find a lot of restlessness in children as well as parents. Tempers fly high in public places. People don’t seem to have control over themselves.

 As an educationist it does concern me because we need to build a beautiful world. I was actually trying to find the cause for a restless society. Social media is full of verbal vomiting. Everybody has an opinion and also form a judgement of the other person. Indulging in blame game, mud-slinging, mouthing unparliamentary words, capturing an accident in the mobile video without saving the life, writing nonsense about people who refuse to compromise, making disparaging remarks about organizations, seeking media coverage to tear them apart, and much more, not realizing that children are watching all the drama and it will have an adverse impact on their thought process. We have the responsibility for setting the right example.

When we have so many issues in our own life, why judge others? Who cares for our opinion? Other than exposing our own self, it is not helping anyone in any way. Should we not take a step forward to be of help to people, rather than hurt the feelings of people, humiliate them or insult them? It shows the frustrations of people. When we get angry, when we cannot accept something, when we cannot have our way, when we get irritated, remember, acid is secreted in our body because of the negative emotions we experience. Buddha said, “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”

 “You will not be punished for your anger.

   You will be punished by your anger.”- Gautama Buddha

Become a good news propagator. So, every time you appear on social media, people will wait for the good news. Write something that will transform the world, about the beautiful relationships you enjoy, the breakthroughs that you achieved, the lesson that you learnt in life, the compassion that you showed, your timely help that turned around someone’s life, one habit that made you an achiever, the discipline with which you live life, how being consistent helped you to achieve your goal, the company of friends that you gave up to be right in life, and many such inspiring information. It will motivate the younger generation. I have insulated myself against people who gossip about me, those who back bite , who betray me, who act against me. I do not let the behavior of others destroy my inner peace. My acceptance level has become high. My guru once said, “The goal of every goal should be peace.” Ever since it has become a premium. When you don’t react to allegations and fabricated stories of people who are jobless or jealous, you experience PEACE.  I live a peaceful life! Decide today to live a peaceful life amidst the chaos around you. Don’t trade it for anything. Work on your area of influence. That alone gives peace. Calm down by sitting in meditation everyday for eleven minutes. You will discover a NEW YOU!

#Thoughtfulthursdays #nsn #nsnschool #mentoring #parenting

GETTING YOUR LIFE RIGHT

 

“Getting our thinking right is the sure-fire way of getting our life right. It is even more important to THINK RIGHT, when things are going wrong.” -mahatria Ra

 On some days, when I stand by the gate in the morning, children wish me with a lot of love. They walk in happily. They enquire about my well-being in a loving tone. All they need is a smile from you. It brightens the day. Just a smile from you can change the school climate. Thus, it creates a positive environment. A positive environment helps the child to think right. There are three things that we have to get right, to get our life right.

1.Quality of our thoughts

2. Quantity of our thoughts

3.Direction of our thoughts

How do we get the quality of our thoughts right? By improving the quality of our vocabulary, we can improve the quality of our thoughts. Think about it. Is your vocabulary resourceful? Consciously work on your vocabulary. Let it be positive. Wherever you feel it is negative, substitute with a positive word. This has to be done consciously. I was in the habit of using the phrase, “You won’t believe” to convey something amazing. One day a friend of mine corrected me saying, “Please say, believe me or trust me.” That day I stood corrected. The tongue should never resort to the lower, but focus on the higher. Surround yourself with the right friends, receive the right inputs and you will see a shift in the quality of your thoughts.

In order to reduce the quantity of thoughts, we need to sit in non-doing (meditation). I suggest you begin by sitting for five minutes and then slowly progress to eleven minutes. Have a dedicated space and time. Make it your dinacharya, which means, you will do it without absenteeism. Many thoughts to one to none, is meditation. When you sit in non-doing, you may get thoughts. Don’t bother about it. Try to focus on your breath. What is important is that you sit in the seat of meditation every day. As far as I am concerned, meditation is the master key to all solutions. You don’t have to address each of your challenges separately. For eg; your anger, laziness, lethargy, fear, procrastination, etc. Over a period of time, when you practice it consistently, you will find that the traffic jam of thoughts is slowly settling down and you will start experiencing clarity in thinking. It will also give rise to awareness. You will start becoming aware about your actions and you will start correcting yourself. Just be with yourself every day. You should have your daily appointment with your God.

The direction of your thoughts will be the direction of your life. Everyday make it a habit to sit by yourself and run through the entire day. Take a mental marchpast of the day. You will actually realize how you reacted or responded to situations and people. You will be able to instantly correct yourself only through introspection. The more and more you make it a habit, the more and more you will stand corrected. Choose to think in the right direction. There may be times when you have negative thoughts, immediately replace one negative thought with five positive thoughts. Develop the habit of gratitude. Being grateful to and grateful for, will fill your life with holistic abundance.  Closely watch your thought process. Everything begins with effort initially. Slowly you will reach a point of effortlessness. It will come naturally to you to think in the right direction. Begin today and gift yourself a beautiful tomorrow.

#Thoughtfulthursdays #nsn #nsnschool #mentoring #parenting

DO YOU HAVE EXPECTATIONS FROM THE WORLD?

 “I always feel happy 

  Do you know why?

  Because I don’t expect

                                             Anything from anyone.” -  William Shakespeare

 When the whole world was confined within the four walls of their homes, and none could venture out without fear, during the pandemic, complaining never helped. Whom to complain to? Everybody in the world, without an exception, was in a similar or worse situation. All that we could do was to take precautions and protect ourselves. We lived in the hope that we would be relieved of this situation soon. School going children were very happy not to have school. But their joy was short-lived when days became weeks, weeks became months, months became years. Happiness turned to sorrow and then, to agony. Not being able to go out, unable to meet their friends, some of them confined to a room, all of this took a toll, not only on their physical health, but also their mental health. Many lost their jobs, businesses were closed, the economy took a bad hit, lives were lost. It went to that extent that people started losing hope of returning to a normal life. Disappointment was writ large on everyone’s face. It was wise to operate from our circle of influence rather than our circle of concern. We learnt to accept and move on in life. In fact, the pandemic taught us a big lesson in tolerance and acceptance.

 ‘’Expectation is the root of all heartache.”

 Nevertheless, we continue to have expectations from the world. We expect favors from our friends, we expect love in all our relationships, we expect the other person to apologize first, we expect parents to provide us with not only our needs, but also cater to our wants, we expect our teachers to be lenient, we expect the school to be liberal, we expect our country to be clean and the list goes on. We do not have a dedicated study time, but we expect to score high marks, we do not go early to school, but expect the gates to be open even after the bell, we don’t practice consistently, but we expect to  win a gold medal in sports, we don’t respect the other person, but we expect everyone to respect us, we are focused only on  our well-being, but we expect others to extend their help, we don’t practice honesty, but we expect everyone to be sincere.

 Our expectations from the outside world have no limits. It gives us nothing but disappointment in capital letters. On the contrary, if our expectations can be turned inward, we will experience growth. This has been my personal experience. I had this huge expectation from the world. I grew up as a love starved kid. I was too young to understand life. I was so pessimistic and disappointed with the people around me. “Why me God?” was my constant refrain. In my new-found maturity, I understand how the world works. Today, no matter how the world is, I have decided to be happy & peaceful. I will not hand over the keys of my happiness to the world. It is priceless. Momentary disturbances may be there, but I don’t stay disturbed for long. I bounce back soon. I have become more loving, happy, selfless, calm and peaceful in life after I dropped all my expectations from the world. I am no more the person I used to be. I started expecting more from myself. Thus, it paved the way for my incredible growth, both, personally and professionally. Today my past looks like somebody else’s past. Life is beautiful! Start expecting more from yourself. You are assured of unbelievable growth.

 #Thoughtfulthursdays #nsn #nsnschool #mentoring #parenting

DO IT LONG ENOUGH

            

      “Life is like a notebook. It’s up to us to either scribble on it or to write poetry on it.” mahatria Ra

 The imaginary finishing line is what differentiates a champion from an also ran. The finals of this year’s Wimbledon was one of its kind. Carlos Alcaraz created history by beating the four-time defending champion, Novak Djokovic. Carlos grew up watching the games of all the Wimbledon champions, and at twenty, he won the Wimbledon championship. He practiced long enough to become a champion at twenty! It took what it took for him to receive world recognition. Give up would have been a major part of his life. As a youngster, he would have given up many of the pleasures his friends would have indulged in, so that he could achieve his dream one day. It would have certainly been a life of great discipline, with his goal in mind. When a desire is backed up by a goal system, you achieve it.

 “Discipline enables you to be the master of your time and thus do what is important before it becomes urgent”

 Anything done long enough becomes a habit. What is most important is, to not give up. Some of them give up, not realizing that they were very close to success. Every champion has a clear focus. They use their time productively. They are the masters of their time. They know to prioritize. They plan a daily schedule. If you can concentrate long enough you can see a difference in your marks. By scoring good marks in each test, it helps you to score high marks in every school exam. Eventually, you stun yourself by scoring incredible marks in the Board exam. But the journey will be tough. There will be moments of despair, times when you will feel like giving up, days when you will be tempted, moments when you will feel like throwing away everything and partying. Just pause at those moments, without being impulsive. Understand that you need to give up to go up in life. Here, give up is not a sacrifice. Rather, it is giving up wrong ways to embrace the right ways, which will only help you to go up.

“Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny”

  If you can hold on to your value system long enough, you can grow up to become a wonderful human- being. There will be temptations on the way. Can you overcome these temptations? Your environment will play a huge role in who you turn out to be. So, you need to take care of whose company you keep, as a student or as a professional. A man is known by the company he keeps. Be in the right company to get your thoughts right, and thereby your actions. Living a value-based life will give you peace and happiness. It will make you trustworthy and reliable. It will help you to build relationships as well as grow in your professional ladder. More than receiving an endorsement from the world, when you hold on to your values always, you grow in your eyes. You start believing in yourself and feel proud of who you are.

 When you hold on to your Faith long enough, you will be carried by Him. I have had testing and challenging times in life. But I just persisted. My guru once said, “God will test you, but He will never forsake you.” From then on, I have just held on to my Faith with Gratitude in my heart. My Faith in the Almighty is very strong. So, I never feel I am alone. There is an unseen Hand above my head and a Force that fights all my battles.” Faith is beyond human judgement. Faith is the ability to trust what you are not able to see. The reward of faith is that one day you will be able to see what you always believed in.” I have my daily appointment with my God. I meditate everyday without absenteeism. It is a constant in my life. Today, experientially I can say that, when a thought is released from the seat of Silence, a mere wish becomes a command to the Universe!

 Whatever you take up, hold it long enough, and don’t give up. You will be rewarded abundantly in life.

1.Fix a goal

2. Define the time frame

3. Create a road map

4. Associate with the right group

5. Celebrate every milestone achieved

The goal system is a priceless opportunity to motivate yourself. Consistency is achieved only through emotional participation. Think like a winner. “Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached.”

 #Thoughtfulthursdays #nsn #nsnschool #mentoring #parenting