Live

How can we live life with ‘Life’?

We are living in a busy and fast world.  There is so much we want to do at the fastest time possible.  With the advent of technology usable in everyday life, it has gotten even more complex.  We are able to do almost everything on the move through smart phones and the other gadgets.  Technology is built around human-beings to help them to get smarter.  Choice is one of the edges that technology provides.  We literally get a plethora of choices to make.

Fundamentally man is a choice maker and he doesn’t want to make wrong choices.  On several circumstances we are overwhelmed with the options in front of us, we are constantly browsing them all the time to grab the best one.  While this may not be bad for most important things in life, the fact is that we are in constant mode of search for everything and at times we don’t even have a reason to search.  Eventually we become prey to the industry which thrives on impulsive decision making.

On the other hand, there is over dosage of media coverage that is zapping our attention on different directions which may or may not be of any value to us personally.  News and entertainment has become a habit for many of us.  Instead of it serving a purpose to contribute in our personal growth, we are becoming consumers of news and entertainment with a burden of accumulating unwanted knowledge.

Multi-tasking is another buzz that is draining our energy.  With all the technological penetration and the intent to get the maximum from everything, we are constantly engaged in multiple things at the same time.  Phone with multiple windows open to slide, computer with limitless windows to navigate, countless channels on the television and radio, several other gadgets tied to our wrist, hip, head, neck, lap and beyond!  At any moment, we are almost appearing as if we are steering a spacecraft with countless gadgets around us to navigate to the space.

I believe it is time for us to pause and take a moment to validate what’s going on.  There are so many distractions around us through which our attention is getting dissipated.  It is nothing much different from keeping our eyes open and day dreaming.  We would probably be better off with day dreaming instead of being active on multiple gadgets.  We take pride in claiming that we are very busy.  The question that we should ask ourselves is, are we productive?  Let us think about it.

Life is nothing but the duration between birth and death and whatever we do in this period is called living.   The clock starts ticking from the time we are born until the last breath.  Living is not just about being alive; it is about being able to live life to the fullest.  This requires us to do justice to every moment we get as a benevolent gift from the Creator.  The following are the teachings of Mahatria, which has benefited me immensely and I wish to share it here with deep gratitude.

Spare a minute for non-doing: Everyday let us take few minutes to practice non-doing, which is just staying away from doing anything; stay still.  The best way to begin this journey is by investing a couple of minutes every day in silence with eyes closed.  By practicing this couple of minutes of non-doing every day, we are training our senses to slow down in order to enhance our attention span.  As we continue to practice, our energy level gets enhanced over a period of time.  To get the best results, practice non-doing as a group.  All infinitheists practice one minute of non-doing everyday at 11:11 a.m.  Since thousands of infinitheists converge into silence at the same time during infiniminute, the potency of this process energises everybody involved.

Plan your day: At the beginning of every day, make it a point to list down the Top 5 things that you want to accomplish for the day.  List them down on a piece of paper and place it prominently in the most visible place where you operate during the day.  Make it a point to allocate time for completing the Top 5 as per plan and stick to it.

Reduce the distractions: Ask yourself whether you are focused on one thing or getting distracted with many.  For doing the important things like your Top 5 for the day, make sure that you do not get distracted by the gadgets around you.  Keep them on silent mode or switch them off.  Do not get tempted to check them.  Importantly, at your place of work, if you have many distractions such as CCTV monitoring system, glass door that is transparent, please avoid looking at it by being aware of the time wasted on this.  Give your fullest attention for the most important things.

Allocate time for non-priority activities: We are in a world where we are required to keep track of few things although they may not be critical.  These may come in handy for starting a conversation, getting new ideas or just for entertainment value as a distraction.  We need not abstain from them as long as we are conscious of the amount of time that we are allocating for it.  For example, we would not be spending endless hours in a shopping mall on a daily basis without a reason.  In which case, why would we want to spend so much time in scanning through endless online shopping sites to strike the best deal?  Let us allocate time for non-priority activities and stick to it.

Analyse: At the end of every day before going to sleep, it is good to rewind the events of the day to recognize what has gone well and what can be improved upon.  The beauty of our mind is that the moment it recognizes there is an opportunity for improvement, it prompts us the next time to do the right thing when we encounter a similar situation.

For best results, let us repeat all the above five steps on a daily basis.  With consistent practice, we will surely realize the true potential in us.  Let us live using our potential to the fullest.