Things rarely turns out the way we hope. Hope is a good thing but rather figuring out the cause for not happening the things like we wanted is the best thing.
Sometimes, if we are lucky we will be able to figure out the why things didn't work the way we hoped.
There has always been the reason for the cause. If we find a lesson and learn from it, it's always worth to be that lucky.
We live in a disruptive world. Nothing here lasts long. One thing comes and then something else will overrule it.
That’s how it works and has been working…
Uber came and disrupted Taxi and many other transportation companies. Airbnb came and disrupted the big lobby of lodging and tourism companies.
Similarly, crypto-currencies is on the verse disrupting the paper money as whole. Digital wallets are evolving in a rapid pace to overrule banks. And smart devices are outsmarting all the big technologies.
And this all is fair because we live in a disruptive world.
In the 1980s, the Coca-cola company was nervous about its future. Before 1980s, coke was dominant when it came to soft drinks but in the early 80s, Pepsi was close to coke making the Coca-cola company nervous about their future. The taste test was done between the Pepsi and the coke, where the sip of each Coke and Pepsi were taken and eventually Pepsi won over the Coke.
The Coca-cola company was concerned about their future and they decided to make their Coke lighter and sweeter - more than Pepsi, which they called "New Coke". In the blind taste test the Coke researchers noticed an improvement. But in the real world, the New Coke was a disaster. Coke drinkers rose up in outrage against New Coke. There were protest around the country. Coke was plunged into crisis and few months later, the company was forced to bring back the original Classic Coke.
This story of the New Coke clearly illustrates how complicated it is to find out what people really think about and it's foolish to generalize the taste test (the context). Taking a sip is different form drinking the whole can and one cannot decide the taste from the sip because it is good to for the soft drink to be sweet when you take a sip but not the whole can. That's what the Coca-cola company learned.
It's not only about the sensations in the taste buds that matter, there is the brand, the memories and the imagination about the product. So, it's absurd to service one dimension and ignore the other.
Ray Dalio in his book "Principles-life and work" highlighted five step process of great decision making. I have been inspired by this process and believe that these steps are the gem when it comes to make decisions. This five step process includes:
Setting a goal
Identifying and not tolerating the problems
Diagnosing the problems
Coming up with the design and finally
Doing the task required
In order to be great, one can't compromise the uncompromisable. Uncompromisable things might include all the struggles, tough path, heartbreaks, failures and many more.
Putting comfort ahead of your way is not only counterproductive but also it produces worse outcomes. Compromising all those things for comfort is the worst way to take in the journey of your life. Avoiding mistakes results in the lack of broaden way to success and misses the key component which is learning.
Compromising the uncompromisable lead to settling for some moderate or trivial standards instead of high standards. It's worth to think twice and hard before you ever think of compromising the uncompromisable.
It is very important to start morning with a positive vibes as it reflects the whole day. The weak morning will result to a weak day and strong and active morning will turn into very strong day.
I always follow Marcus Aurelius quote every morning which goes," The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil but I've seen the beauty of the good and the ugliness of the evil and have recognized that the wrong doers has the nature related to my own not by the same birth or blood but by the nature and possessing the share of divine. And so none of them can hurt me."
Don’t let pain stand in the way of your success and happiness.
Don’t worry about looking good- worry instead about achieving your goals.
Don’t confuse what you wish were true with what is actually true.
Don’t focus on short-term instead go for long run.
Nationalism and patriotism exist nowhere other than in our imagination. Yet as history unfolded, this imagined reality became one of the most powerful forces in human life. In many ways, human beings became dominant not only because of physical strength or intelligence, but because of our unique ability to create and believe in shared fictions even though we were less strong and had less cranial capacity than Neanderthal (1650cc vs 1400cc). These shared beliefs made large-scale cooperation possible and gave rise to nations, cultures, and collective identities.
When it comes to nationalism, it is important to recognize that it has both a bright side and a dark side. On one hand, nationalism can be understood as a triumph over division at a smaller scale. It allows millions of strangers to feel connected through a shared story, shared symbols, and a shared sense of belonging. It makes cooperation possible among people who will never know each other personally. Without such imagined bonds, it is difficult to imagine modern societies functioning at all.
I am from Nepal, a small country with about 30 millions of people, and I do not know most of them. Yet nationalism makes it possible for me to care about people on the other side of the country, to feel connected to them, and to believe that we are part of something larger than ourselves. In that sense, nationalism has been one of the great forces behind social cooperation and human organization.
But nationalism becomes dangerous when it hardens into extremity. When it turns into ultra-nationalism, it can easily become xenophobia, fascism, war, and even genocide. History has shown that clearly. So nationalism should not be seen as entirely good or entirely bad. It is a powerful imagined reality—one that can unite people toward cooperation, or divide them toward destruction, depending on how it is carried.
The truth is that nationalism is one of the greatest examples of the human power to imagine collectively. It has helped build nations and organize societies, but it must always be held with caution. At its best, it creates belonging and cooperation. At its worst, it becomes a weapon.
We all have deep-seated needs, and from those needs we build our dreams, ambitions, and personal definitions of success. These dreams matter because they give life direction, energy, and meaning. Without them, life can feel flat and mechanical.
But dreams alone are not enough. At some point, they must meet reality. Reality is not always pleasant, but it is always instructive. It shows us what is working, what is failing, what is missing, and what must change. Ignoring reality does not protect us; it only delays progress. The more honestly we face it, the more effectively we can move forward.
Accepting reality does not mean giving up on dreams. It means working with truth instead of against it. It means recognizing the difference between what we want and what is actually happening. That recognition gives us a stronger foundation for action. Without it, even the best intentions become fragile.
Reality also teaches through failure. When something does not work, it reveals a weakness in the plan, the effort, or the understanding behind it. This is why growth often follows a repeated pattern: Try, Fail, Diagnose, Redesign, and Try again. Reality keeps correcting us until we are willing to learn from it.
To accept reality, then, is not to become passive. It is to become practical. It is to stop wasting energy resisting facts and instead use those facts as material for better action. When we appreciate the beauty of reality, even when it is difficult, we become more capable of building something real and lasting.