Ways to have control over things

Philosopher and novelist “Umberto Eco” is a big fan of lists and has some fascinating ideas about why they’re so important to humans:

Umberto explained that lists are often seen as relics of primitive cultures – simplistic devices that don’t belong in our modern day and age. However, the simple form of the list prevails again and again over time, because, as Umberto says, it has “an irresistible magic”.

When we struggle to express ourselves, we use lists. Like Umberto says, lists help us to make sense of the world around us. We create lists of the sights we see on vacations, the places we want to visit, the food we want to eat and the groceries we need to buy from the store; and the other tasks we need to get done. It is a simple habit of increasing our day to day productivity.

We pack all the madness and ambiguity of life into a structured form of writing. In short, making lists is a great way to increase our overall happiness and feel less overwhelmed.

The Funny reality

To-do list in particular is one that we spend a lot of time and energy on perfecting. Somehow, we don’t seem to struggle when it comes to making a shopping list and buying everything on it, but getting the tasks on our to-do list done is a whole other ball game.

LIST FOR PRODUCTIVITY: 4 top tips for a to-do list that gets things done

1. Break projects into tasks, don’t succumb to the ZEIGARNIK EFFECT

We kind of have a reminder system built-in to our minds that nags us about unfinished tasks, that is called the ZEIGARNIK EFFECT. It sounds pretty cool that we already have this, but it’s actually not that reliable or healthy for us.

What really happens is that there’s a disconnect between our conscious and unconscious minds—the unconscious mind can’t plan how to finish the task, but it gets annoyed with the feeling of it being unfinished. To shake off that feeling, it nags the conscious mind with reminders about the task—not to finish it, but simply to encourage us to make a plan.

The best way is to get familiarize with the method called “next steps”. It’s the process of breaking down a project or task into smaller tasks, and planning which one will be the next step towards completing the whole thing.

This abates the nagging of the unconscious brain, as it satisfies that at some point we’ll get onto that task, and we know exactly how we’ll do it. And the essentials of creating these do-able next steps are to make “a few very specific, actionable, non-conflicting items.”

2. Prioritize ruthlessly

There is a story of a psychologist who gave a talk about managing time and resources. Before the talk began, the psychologist asked everyone in the group to write a summary of their strategic approach in 25 words.

Apparently, 25 words were too little for the men to express their strategies, and the only response came from the single woman in the group, whose summary read as follows:

First I make a list of priorities: one, two, three, and so on. Then I cross out everything from three down.

I’ve heard this approach suggested before in various places, and I would suggest you to post it on your desks that should read, “Prioritize until it hurts” in other words, learning the powerful skill of saying NO.

To-do lists invariably crop up when we have so many things to do that we can’t keep track of them all in our heads (Aha! We’re back to Umberto’s thoughts on how lists help us to create order from the chaos of our lives!); which means that we end up with lists far too long for us to complete.

Prioritizing ruthlessly seems to be the only way to actually get done what’s most important in the little time that we have.

3. “Plan ahead” – advice Charles Schwab paid $25,000 for

Here’s another cool story of how to-do lists evolved in the workplace:

Almost 100 years ago, the President of the Bethlehem Steel company in the USA was Charles M Schwab. His company was struggling with inefficiency and Schwab didn’t know how to improve it, so he called in Ivy Lee, a well-known efficiency expert at the time.

Lee agreed to help the company, with his fee being whatever Schwab felt the results were worth after three months.

Lee’s advice to each member of the company’s management team was to write a to-do list at the end of each day, which consisted of the six most important tasks to be done the following day. Then they were told to organize the list based on the highest priority tasks.

The next day, the employees worked through the list from top to bottom, focusing on a single task at a time. At the end of the day, anything left on the list would get added to the top of tomorrow’s list when the employees once again planned for the following day.

As the story goes, the company was so much more efficient after three months that Schwab sent a check to Lee for $25,000.

In your own planning, you can take Lee’s advice for free and use the night before to plan your workday. Setting out the most important tasks you want to complete the following day will help you to avoid time-wasters and distractions by knowing what to work on immediately.

4. Be realistic in your planning

Sometimes it’s nice to know that even our great heroes are fallible. This story about Benjamin Franklin’s struggles to keep up with his daily to-do list shows how important it is to be realistic about how much time we have and what our priorities are.

Franklin was known to be a meticulous tracker of his daily routine and his work towards the virtues he prioritized. Unfortunately, the demands of his business meant that he didn’t always keep up with his ideal daily routine. He often got interrupted by clients and had to ignore his schedule to meet with them.

He also noticed that some of the virtues he aspired to practice, such as frugality—not wasting anything—took up too much time for him to live life as he wanted to. Preparing his own meals and mending his own clothes all the time, for instance, meant that he didn’t have enough time for business or his side projects.

The result of these conflicting priorities was unhappiness over not completing the tasks he set for himself. As a result, he had to re-prioritize, which is something we should keep in mind.

If we’re struggling to complete our to-do lists on a regular basis (we’ve all been there at some point!), we need to make a change to the list—make it more realistic.

Although a to-do list can be infinite, our time is not. We need to match the tasks we require of ourselves to how much time and energy we can afford to spend on them. This is where prioritizing can really come in handy, as well.

Starting to develop your own, personal daily routine is one of the most powerful ways to become a great list maker.

 

Bonus: Johnny Cash’s perfect, semi-efficient to do list

As a last example, I found a to-do list from Johnny Cash. This wouldn’t necessarily be one we’d advocate to help you become more efficient. But then again, we can’t argue with Johnny Cash’s success, can we?

And I promise, if nothing else, at-least you will feel that you have some control over things and time.

Recipe for Happiness

All of us are humans, we are all enmeshed in a world full of opposites – pleasure & pain, joy & sorrow, profit & loss, victory & defeat, success & failure, birth & death. We work and sweat and plot and plan and spend all our time trying to achieve one side of each pair of opposites – pleasure, joy, profit, victory, success – while avoiding the other – pain, sorrow, loss, defeat, failure.

But here’s the thing – both sides are really not at all that different from each other. What’s more, one cannot exist without the other. You cannot avoid the bad side of the equation because rejecting the bad side means denying the good side as well. You don’t feel even half much of pleasure of achieving something if you have never failed in the process. More importantly, neither side ever lasts – not pleasure, not pain, not victory, not defeat.

So what should you do? Accept both sides of each pair of opposite with the same sunny attitude. And there is another way of achieving the same result – rejecting both sides of each pair of opposites! Whichever one you pick, it means the same thing – you neither get elated when something “good” happens nor depressed when something “bad” happens. You are always calm. And calm means no fear (of failure), no desire (for victory), no sorrow (over loss) and no anger (at rejection).

Isn’t it very hard to accept or reject every pair of opposite, especially since our entire world is made up of them? You bet it is. But one simple way to start on the long journey is to stay completely focused on the work at hand, whatever that work may be – studying for exam, helping your parents around the house, taking care of cranky grandparents, researching a science project with team-mates you don’t go along with…… Don’t think about how disagreeable the work is, don’t wonder what the point of it is, and don’t worry about whether it will bring you any rewards, that you hope, or the failures or dread. Instead put your head down and JUST DO IT.

Eventually, the work itself will become the purpose, and you will not care about the results. The work itself will become the reward, and you will stop looking outside it for rewards.

On the surface, it may seem like a recipe for a dull life, but those who have tried it swear it is actually a recipe for perfect and lasting happiness.

If the Gita’s philosophy were reduced to one sholka……

It would be Shloka 47 of the second chapter of the Gita

You only have the right to perform your duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself as the cause of the results of your activities and do not attach to inactions.

Ways to improve your mood when you feel low

“The secret of joy is the mastery of pain.” ~ Anais Nin  

Since quite a sometime now, I got depressed and stayed depressed for a little over half a year. For that time, every single day was a battle with myself, every single day felt heavy and pointless.

I have since made tremendous progress by becoming more self-aware, practicing self-love, and noticing the infinite blessings and possibilities in my life, but I still have days when those familiar old feelings sneak up on me.

I’m not always self-aware, I don’t always love myself, and sometimes I agonize over everything I don’t have or haven’t accomplished.

I call these days “zombie days.” I’ll just completely shut down and desperately look for ways to distract myself from my feelings.

I suspect we all have zombie days from time to time. I think it’s important to give ourselves permission to not always be happy, but there are also simple ways to improve our mood when we’re feeling down.

Everybody is different, and everybody has different ways of dealing with pain, but if you’re looking for suggestions, you may find these helpful:

1. Step back and self-reflect. Whenever I start feeling depressed, I try to stop, reflect, and get to the root of my feelings. 

2. Reach out to someone. I used to bottle up my feelings out of fear that I would be judged if I talked about them. I’ve since learned that reaching out to a loving, understanding person is one of the best things I can do. And the role is played by my husband only.  

 3. Write. Writing is usually the first thing I do when I’m feeling down. It always helps me get my thoughts and feelings out in front of me. And that is why I have started writing new blog which was all about love and the stories we live. Check that out on tanukathuria.blogspot.in

4. Take a nap. Sometimes we just need to recharge. I always feel better after getting some rest. Because that is the best way to shut your mind and stop thinking about anything and everything which makes you feel depressed and low.  

5. Go for a walk. Walking always helps me clear my head and shed negative energy. It’s especially therapeutic if you choose to walk at a scenic location.  

6. Do something spontaneous. Some of my favorite memories entail choices I made spontaneously. We should all learn to let go of routine every now and then and do something exciting and unplanned.  

    

7. Prioritize. Sometimes I feel depressed when my priorities are out of balance. I try to make sure I’m giving a fair amount of attention to all the priorities in my life, such as work, relationships, health, and personal happiness.

8. Look through old photographs or snap some new ones. Sorting through old memories or capturing new ones usually puts a smile on my face. 

  

9. Laugh. Watch a funny movie or spend time with someone who has a good sense of humor. Laughing releases tension and has a natural ability to heal.  

10. Cry. I don’t like crying in front of people, but whenever I have an opportunity to slink away and cry by myself, I always feel better afterwards. Crying releases pain.  

11. Read back over old emails or text messages. Whenever I feel dejected or bad about myself, I like to read kind emails and comments from my blog readers. Doing so reminds me that I’m loved, thought about, and appreciated. 

12. Reconnect with someone. Get back in touch with an old friend or a family member that you haven’t spoken to in a while. Reconnecting with people almost always puts me in a good mood and fills my heart up with love.   

13. Bake something. Baking has always been therapeutic and entertaining for me. Plus, I can eat whatever I baked and share it with others afterward. 

14. Focus on what truly matters to you. Sometimes I forget what matters to me and what isn’t that important. Some things just aren’t worth getting too upset over. 

15. Take a negative comment or situation and look for something positive about it. If someone says something negative to me or I get stuck in an unpleasant situation, sometimes it helps to look at it from a different angle. Perspective is everything.  

16. Let go. This is a very simple mantra of mine. I usually say it to myself multiple times each day, which has been very liberating and empowering.

From Woman to God: Through OSHO's Eyes

When you love a woman, what do you really love in her?

It will be different with different people and it will be different at different times. If love really grows, this is the way: FIRST you fall in love with the woman because her BODY is beautiful. That is the first available beauty – her face, her eyes, her proportion, her elegance, her dancing, pulsating energy. Her body is beautiful. That is the first approach. You fall in love.

THEN after a few days you start going deeper into the woman. You start loving her HEART. Now a far more beautiful revelation is coming to you. The body becomes secondary, the heart becomes primary. A new vision has arisen, a new peak.

If you go on loving the woman, sooner or later you will find there are peaks beyond peaks, depths beyond depths. THEN you start loving the SOUL of the woman. Then it is not only her heart – now that becomes secondary. Now it is the very person, the very presence, the very radiance, the aliveness, that unknown phenomenon of her being – that she is. The body is very far away, the heart has also gone away – now the being is.

And THEN one day this particular woman’s being becomes far away. Now you start loving the WOMANHOOD in her, the femininity, the feminineness, that receptivity. Now she is not a particular woman at all, she simply reflects womanhood, a particular form of womanhood. Now it is no longer individual, it is becoming more and more universal.

And ONE DAY that womanhood has also disappeared – you love the HUMANITY in her. Now she is not just a representative of woman, she is also representative of man as such.

The sky is becoming bigger and bigger. THEN one day it is not humanity but EXISTENCE. That she exists, that’s all that you want – that she exists. You are coming very close to God.

Then the LAST POINT COMES – all formulations and all forms disappear and THERE IS GOD. You have found God through your woman, through your man. EACH LOVE IS AN ECHO OF GOD’S LOVE.

A Tribute to the Journey from being Agnes to being Saint Mother Teresa

Catholic nun and missionary Mother Teresa was born on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, the current capital of the Republic of Macedonia. The following day, she was baptized as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. In 1919, when Agnes was only 8 years old, her father suddenly fell ill and died. While the cause of his death remains unknown, many have speculated that political enemies poisoned him. In the aftermath of her father's death, Agnes became extraordinarily close to her mother, a pious and compassionate woman who instilled in her daughter a deep commitment to charity.

Although by no means wealthy, Drana Bojaxhiu extended an open invitation to the city's destitute to dine with her family. "My child, never eat a single mouthful unless you are sharing it with others," she counseled her daughter. When Agnes asked who the people eating with them were, her mother uniformly responded, "Some of them are our relations, but all of them are our people."

In 1928, an 18-year-old Agnes Bojaxhiu decided to become a nun and set off for Ireland to join the Sisters of Loreto in Dublin. It was there that she took the name Sister Mary Teresa

A year later, Sister Mary Teresa traveled on to Darjeeling, India, for the novitiate period; in May 1931, she made her First Profession of Vows. Afterward she was sent to Calcutta, where she was assigned to teach at Saint Mary's High School for Girls, a school run by the Loreto Sisters and dedicated to teaching girls from the city's poorest Bengali families. Sister Teresa learned to speak both Bengali and Hindi fluently as she taught geography and history and dedicated herself to alleviating the girls' poverty through education.

On May 24, 1937, she took her Final Profession of Vows to a life of poverty, chastity and obedience. As was the custom for Loreto nuns, she took on the title of "Mother" upon making her final vows and thus became known as Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa continued to teach at Saint Mary's, and in 1944 she became the school's principal.

Mother Teresa's 'Call Within a Call'

However, on September 10, 1946, Mother Teresa experienced a second calling, the "call within a call" that would forever transform her life. She was riding in a train from Calcutta to the Himalayan foothills for a retreat when she said Christ spoke to her and told her to abandon teaching to work in the slums of Calcutta aiding the city's poorest and sickest people. 

But since Mother Teresa had taken a vow of obedience, she could not leave her convent without official permission. After nearly a year and a half of lobbying, in January 1948 she finally received approval to pursue this new calling. That August, donning the blue-and-white sari that she would wear in public for the rest of her life, she left the Loreto convent and wandered out into the city. After six months of basic medical training, she voyaged for the first time into Calcutta's slums with no more specific a goal than to aid "the unwanted, the unloved, the uncared for."

International Charity and Recognition

In February 1965, Pope Paul VI bestowed the Decree of Praise upon the Missionaries of Charity, which prompted Mother Teresa to begin expanding internationally. The Decree of Praise was just the beginning, as Mother Teresa received various honors for her tireless and effective charity. She was awarded the Jewel of India, the highest honor bestowed on Indian civilians, as well as the now-defunct Soviet Union's Gold Medal of the Soviet Peace Committee. In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her work "in bringing help to suffering humanity."

Death and Sainthood

After several years of deteriorating health, in which she suffered from heart, lung and kidney problems, Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997, at the age of 87.

However, despite the enormous scale of her charitable activities and the millions of lives she touched, to her dying day she held only the most humble conception of her own achievements. Summing up her life in characteristically self-effacing fashion, Mother Teresa said, "By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus."

In 2002, the Vatican recognized a miracle involving an Indian woman named Monica Besra, who said she was cured of an abdominal tumor through Mother Teresa's intercession on the one year anniversary of her death in 1998. She was beatified as "Blessed Teresa of Calcutta" on October 19, 2003 in a ceremony led by Pope John Paul II. 

On December 17, 2015, Pope Francis issued a decree that recognized a second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa, clearing the way for her to be canonized as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. The second miracle involved the healing of Marcilio Andrino, a Brazilian man who was diagnosed with a viral brain infection and lapsed into a coma. His wife, family and friends prayed to Mother Teresa, and when the man was brought to the operating room for emergency surgery, he woke up without pain and was cured of his symptoms, according to a statement from the Missionaries of Charity Father. 

Mother Teresa was canonized as a saint on September 4, 2016, a day before the 19th anniversary of her death. Pope Francis led the canonization Mass, which was held in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City. 

 “After due deliberation and frequent prayer for divine assistance, and having sought the counsel of many of our brother bishops, we declare and define Blessed Teresa of Calcutta to be a saint, and we enroll her among the saints, decreeing that she is to be venerated as such by the whole church,” Pope Francis said in Latin. 

Saint Mother Teresa always lived the saying “your actions should speak louder than your words”. She never waited for any recognition nor did she deviate from the path she was moving on. The purpose, the longing within to serve the community, the spur to do something for the neglected people and the humanitarian will were few things she lived for.

I was pondering that the recognition she got recently, is it not late now? But then I found my answer instantly that she never waited for that nor did she ever served to have that. And being a true follower, why should I also worry for something which is just an acquisitive thing. Suspensions and deferment should not affect your efforts towards your goals. That is what I have learnt from her life and want my readers to accept the same while trailing their goals.

Pampering can be dangerous

In some of the recent conversations with few kids of age 7-8 years, I have realized that the role which upbringing plays in ones’ attitude towards life, cannot be substituted by anything else in the world.

Let me share the incidences where I have felt that there is some problem with the attitude of those kids and the faults were not of their own but of their guardians who are upbringing them.

One of the guy, with a very sound background a well-educated set of siblings, friends and parents, use to tell to his friends to do friendship with a particular boy of his age because he was rich and his dad has a hotel where they can go anytime and eat anything. What does this show? To me it is a upbringing wherein parents are inculcating just the importance of money and status around any kid. They are guiding the kid to take the maximum opportunities possible by being surrounded with the rich friends. Is it not showing the hungry, opportunist, and starving attitude of parents? Will it not affect the future growth of the child?

On the other hand, I heard a small kid saying to the other that you cannot take admission in my school as it is the costliest among all the neighbourhood schools and you can not afford it. Where from is he hearing this? Is it not the conversation of parents which is bringing the wrong impression to child’s mindset? Are the parents want to teach the kid the power of money which they have? Or is it the beginning of a wrong attitude development in terms of considering everyone around you as the inferior. I think such parents should stop boasting about the money or income they earn, at least not in front of the kids and instead should teach their children about the true value and meaning of status, politeness and good relations.

Another situation which I faced was of a kid who was visiting his relatives. When jokingly, the owner of the room (the youngest in the house) played a prank and told him that it’s his room and he should be the one dictating the rules, then very cunningly the child said, that this room belongs to the owner of the house, which you are not and thus not to you. There I have realized that how does this kid knows about all the in and outs of the ownership? And also, is it not the case always that any logical parent teach his/her kid the value of sharing and obeying to elders. In this very case, I think parents are putting in the wrong impression in child’s mind that only the owner of any material thing is the supreme authority and rest others are just the dummies and should not be bothered about.

On the contrary, when I happen to meet the parents of the same kids, they are always safe guarding their mistakes, always being extra protective for them, always busy teaching the world that it (the world) should behave well with their children. And then I always pray to God that he should bless me with all the courage to either avoid these types of kids and their wrong parents or give me courage to detach my own parts from any such kid and parents. Whenever I will be having my own kids, I will try to save them from the wrong company as well as try to teach them the best for them by giving them the training to lean from their own mistakes, instead of saving them from the scolding of right people.

I wish to reach every such parent, through this write up, who are busy protecting their kids, even when they know that they are wrong. May I request you all, that this will make your as well as your child’s future really dark and at that time, you will not find any such torch which can bring light to their life back? It’s a humble request to all the loving parents of this world, to take care of the things at present instead of harvesting the damaged crop (your children) in future.

A door to Love Stories

Its been quite some time that I have been writing out of interest. With just a little innovation in my present writings, here I am bringing in some fun by adding the love stories to it. Out of my interest, and thinking it to be a mode of bringing in some colours and charm to every reader's life, I have started with another initiative and that is of writing love stories.  These are random ones and I am reproducing them as they are coming to my mind. I am hopeful that I will continue to write something interesting until you all are tired of reading or I am tired of writing. And at the same time I wish it to not happen.

Therefore to all those who have interest in reading short love stories, I have a gift to give this festive season. Keep reading and enjoying life.

The link to the page is tanukathuria.blogspot.com