Unlike every day, I like to wake up early during weekends and get on with the work I plan during the weekdays. These two days are quite significant as I get to work on the stuff I usually learn during the rest of the week. Estranged from the rest of the world, I simply give myself some ‘lone time’ with a hot cup of tea. After all, we all need to some time to connect with ourselves without external interference.
The ‘lone time’ has its own benefits and consequences; either it can be highly productive, or you can just lay in your bed endlessly. It will not be a fair judgment on how the rest of the world deal with the ‘lone time’ but I have struggled over the years to make this highly valuable period as productive as I think it can be. Trust me, it hasn’t been easy! When you are aimlessly fluttering about the empty rooms of the house, it’s not very difficult for the shady and gray thoughts to out-power your happy morning hours. When we start seeing these tumultuous images with open eyes, we tend to lose the sightings of what’s actually around us.
The successful people that I have met and/or read about, they had one thing in common, which I like to call it - Thought Process Management. It is the way you channelize your thoughts and put conscious efforts to make your brain process the information smoothly. In a way, it is also a way to teach your brain how to prioritize these thoughts. It’s the natural tendency of a human brain to run wild if loosened up. In my perspective, that’s the primary reason why we worry too much because it’s our natural tendency to unleash the randomness of our mental processing, leading to the unrealistic and random imagination.
1. Have you ever noticed that sometimes we think about multiple things at a given time & often, the things that bother us?
2. Have you ever noticed that through the day, we give only a very little time to the thoughts that will give us joy, motivation, happiness or an idea that may simply turn the course of future?
There are other questions also that we need to ask –
1. Why are we in a continuous process to think about the things that we desperately want to avoid?
2. Why are we in a habit of staying in a continuous loop of repetitive thoughts? Repetitive to such an extent that it almost feels like a trapped song that keeps on playing till it drives us crazy.
Scientific studies have shown that an average person can process 50,000 thoughts in a day, meaning 38 to 40 thoughts in a minute. What if we start processing 100 thoughts per minute or even more? Chances are, we will go crazy. It is also important to note that even a single negative thought can trigger 1000’s of other negative impressions of the present and the past. We often tend to start losing touch with the reality. Most importantly… the present! When it happens, people spiral down to experiencing anxiety and depression. Many times, we think about something, we do something else and our interpretation of the event is out-of-context. Hence, it becomes extremely vital to managing our thought process. And it takes effort and practice.
Thinking with Singularity
Growing up hasn’t been easy for me. It has been my habit, which I have inherited from my mother, not to let go the thing easily. Adversities left a resonating impact on my personality. I experienced a drastic shift in my mindset. The scary frescos of my bad experiences made me increasingly fearful. Over the years, I continued adding obstructive thoughts to my bucket but cared very little to let go of the ones that were already in there. For the first time, I could witness the multiplicative nature of the impeding thoughts which were obstructing the good things that were on my way. My over-burning brain was finding it extremely difficult to differentiate and process what was more important. It drove me insane; I was apprehended with depression, paranoia, and resentful anger. I could literally hear voices in an empty room. Yes, it was that bad.
Back then, I was estranged with the concept of meditation. As I increasingly submerged myself into the various meditative techniques, my own thoughts became more and more tangible. I could identify them, differentiate & observe them like a third person. It helped me to take a long walk with a single thought at a time. I could muse on it as much as I wanted to and then, let go of it for good. It helped me to gain a better understanding of how much importance I was giving to so many inconsequential memories and how I could open the gateways for more positive objects. Finally, meditation brought me in peace with my inner demons. To a greater extent, it helped me to achieve singularity in my way of thinking i.e. to channel my entire focus and concentration on a single thought at a time.
Once I was able to achieve this, I was resolute in applying the same approach in my day-to-day work. This approach not only helped me to focus on my work better but also helped to manage the welter of problems that I was surrounded with. I convinced myself that I am not a superhuman and it would be best for me to deal with superficial issues only when I have absolutely nothing else to deal with.
Have a hobby
While returning back from work every Friday evening, I try to answer one significant question. What is it that I am going to engage myself with? After a seemingly endless and lackadaisical job, I feel an immediate need of something that can boost my creativity; something that can compel me to think differently; something which can help me to channel my thoughts in a positive direction. That’s exactly what hobby is for. A hobby is something which can spark & stimulate creativity. Moreover, it happens to be the only verb in the English language that can exhilarate us emotionally and physically. Yet, people miss out on this very important aspect of life. When I connect with new people, I feel the curiosity to know what is it that they love to do and I get to hear very interesting things and related stories. Sadly, I also come across phrases like, ‘I don’t know what I like…!’, ‘I haven’t discovered it yet’ or ‘I like to sleep or take rest’. This shows that people who give out such excuses have become accustomed to and trapped inside a very single tracked & a hard-lined routine. They live their lives with a fixed mindset.
A few days ago, I was attending two days of training cum a workshop wherein the trainer asked the audience to tell everyone about their hobbies as a part of their introduction. One attendee said – “As a hobby, I like to roam around”! On being asked to elaborate, the morose gentleman said, “I just like to roam around and do nothing”. Well, even the zombies share the same hobby. They live, they eat and they die when they get shot in the head. Well, I think that’s the area we need to work and avoid getting a bullet in the head if we are mistaken for a zombie. As I child, my only hobby was to play video games… all day long. To a certain extent, it helped me to develop some strategic thinking along with my cognitive skills. But as I grew up, I made it my responsibility and took a challenge of exposing myself to the other things as well.
Back in 2009, on 26th July, I was watching a Kargil Vijay Diwas special broadcast on one of the Indian news channels as a tribute to all martyrs of the wretched war. I was spell bounded with the stories of their martyrdom. It struck me so heavily that could feel the tears slipping down my cheeks. It was a moment when I was feeling intense emotions like never before. As soon as the show got over, I took a couple blank sheets & a pen and I went on writing for hours & ended up with four pages long poetry. Till this day, it is the most heartfelt stuff I’ve ever written. That night I had discovered a hobby that would become the most exciting part of my life. It would be wrong to say that it was easy. Rather, I made it look easy but I had to write as long as five hours at a stretch to bring out one of my most cherished creations. In next few year, during my college days, I was earning my pocket money as a part-time columnist in one of the local newspapers. I saved some money and bought myself a new, but very basic digital camera.
It was a hot afternoon of the year 2012. I noticed that there was a tiny bug sitting on my bed. I took out my camera, closed my room, put all the curtains on and captured my little friend in an absolute dark.
That became one of my most memorable clicks; that was My National Geographic Moment.
I exposed myself to certain conditions, took an intense interest in exploring my abilities beyond textbooks and got myself some attention despite being horrible in mathematics. Hobbies are important and should be taken seriously.
Avoid Social Media
Social Media is a platform where you can showcase the wonderful life you are living… telling the world, that how forgiving your life really is. For some, it is just virtual space where they can hang out to have some fun, get important updates about your social circle and the world around us. For some, it is a space that makes people feel deprived, insecure and overwhelmed. But such big claims require logical backing –
1. Social Media is highly addictive.
2 2. It happens to be a major source of false information, fake news, and exaggerated opinions
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3 3. A huge mental distraction.
Dr. Cal Newport rightly said in his Ted X talk, that “social media is not a fundamental 21st Century technology, rather it is something that leverages the technology for hooking up people”. He also mentioned very interesting fact, “The social media companies hire individuals called Attention Engineers, who work on the borrowed principles of the casinos in Las Vegas among other places to make their platforms as addictive as possible in order to maximize the profit from the user and the data he provides/share on such platforms”. Like Dr. Cal, I too am doing great without the social media and still have too many friends. We know what we give out to such virtual platforms but we know very less on what we end up losing in this process… and it’s called Attention. Many of us spend countless hours running up and down through our profiles in the name of entertainment, but we often lose sight of more significant duties & responsibilities that lie on our way. And we procrastinate!
The widespread engagement of the youngsters has statistically shown their declining level of motivation, self-confidence, and self-esteem. When a teenager is exposed to the virtues of falsely conveyed realities, it leaves him with the feeling of despair, loneliness, and frustration, more often due to perceived inadequacies when comparing themselves to friends. This is a perfect recipe for an implosion. It also impacts their ability to think independently. The biggest downside… our real-life conversations go downhill.
Avoiding the social media can not only help achieving the singularity in thinking, but it can also bring you out of your biggest life crisis. Just imagine the world, where Facebook won’t be reminding you of your mother’s birthday anymore. Take a moment and think about it!!
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