Blogs

1. 3P's: Priorities vs. Probabilities vs. Possibilities. Know the differences.
2. Memento Mori: Remember that you will die.
3. Risk, Reward and Returns: 3 R's

This morning I had a conversation with one of my friend regarding the education system we currently have. This made me think that most of us are completely unaware of the term education.

Let's dig in the word 'education' :

The word education came from three different root words: "educare," which means to bring up, nourish , and "educere," meaning to lead out and educatum which is composed of two words: 'E' (meaning: movement from inward to outward) and 'duco' (meaning: developing or progressing). These word looks and sounds different but they all represent in the word "education"

When we look closely to the current dictionary, the meaning of education completely contradicts with its original meaning.

"The process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university"-This is how dictionary defines education. While the true meaning is the process to evolve, develop and progress towards lightness (from inward to outward).

We all have it wrong. We think the information we carry from the university or school as an education and based on that we make different conclusions and live our life for generations.

Well, its not... Education is meant for nourishing a child to evolve and reach his/her highest potential not to gather bunch of information that are not going to be utilized in our real life.

Next time when we think of education, let it hit all of us: Does this really develop, progress and evolve us towards being greater human being? Does this nourishes us to reach higher potential?

And that is self awareness...

Self-awareness is enlightening ourselves. Whatever we gain or lose, all the successes and failures will make no sense when we are self-aware.  All the rejections, guilt and insecurities does not exist in the face of self-awareness.

Self-awareness is the end point and the beginning point of everything. And this is how it should be. Nothing can move us if we are self-aware of our situation. But the tragedy is we are underestimating it...

We are often too quick to judge the situations we encounter. A difficult moment becomes a bad life. A fortunate event becomes permanent success. We reach conclusions while the story is still unfolding, and then we suffer from the meaning we assigned too early.

This is one of the mind’s most common habits: it mistakes a moment for the whole narrative. We experience a setback and assume defeat. We experience progress and assume arrival. But most events are not final statements. They are partial scenes. What feels painful today may later reveal itself as necessary. What looks fortunate in the beginning may carry hidden costs. Our first interpretation is rarely the full truth.

The problem is not only what happens, but the speed with which we label it. We judge according to immediate comfort or discomfort, and from that narrow position we create a story about what the event means. But life often takes longer to explain itself than our emotions allow. Time reveals what impulse cannot.

That is why patience in interpretation matters. Not every hard season is a sign that life is going wrong. Not every pleasant season is proof that everything is right. Sometimes the wisest response is simply to leave the meaning unfinished for a while and ask: What else could this become? It is often not the end of the story. It is only the part of the story we can see right now.

What we do everyday becomes a habit and we are the reflection of what we do everyday.

Based on your past experiences we make assumptions and conclusions on many things including our ourselves and our potentials.

The way we talk to others or to ourselves reveals our character. The way we deal with different situations shows our strength and weakness. Every step we take is the reflection of our character, our mindset, our loopholes, our worth and ourselves as a whole.

So before taking any action we got to realize and ask ourselves what does this mean to me? Does this mean something more? Is it really that important? Why is this happening? What is the best approach to deal with this situation?

...everybody would be doing it. Whatever we have dreamed of doing and didn't continue because it wasn't easy to achieve we got to remember if that was easy everybody would do it.

There must be a reason behind those things being undone. It is destined for us to make that happen or do those things.

When difficulties arises, it might be a good news for us because all other person are not dedicated towards it as we are and it is a plus point. So next time when we think of giving up on something, we just need to remember its not easy because it's meant to be that way by the nature and if it were easy everybody would be doing it.

For the first time in human history the world is dominated by one economic system and that is Capitalism. We all are capitalist now whether we realize it or not.

Branko Milanovic in his book "Capitalism Alone" examines the historical shifts that have led to capitalism’s dominance and highlights the varieties of capitalism at work today to propose choices to ensure that capitalism delivers a more equitable future. He provides a novel paradigm within which analysis of distributional issues in different economies and social systems can be placed.

Milanovic categories ideal-typical social and economic systems as  Liberal Meritocratic Capitalism representing the typology of capitalism embraced by the core economies of the West, with the US being its most paradigmatic example and Political Capitalism representing China where the autocratic and technocratic bureaucracy in power has the duty of delivering high economic growth .

According to the Eastern Philosophical book  Tao Te Ching, written by Lao Tzu in 4th century BC,” there are three treasures of our life which are:

Simplicity: Always see simplicity in everything. It is the ultimate sophistication.
Patience: Practice patience.
Compassion: Develop compassion for everything you do.

Those who practice these three treasures they can master their self and reach to ultimate fulfillment.

There is two words that come to us from ancients that we should remind ourselves of, in every situation, every minutes and every seconds: "Memento Mori" - remember that I will die.

Most of the ancients talk about death in their books and arts from Seneca to Epictetus to Marcus Aurelius. In the face of death, every thing falls apart. Every regret, guilt, shame, success, pleasures, happiness and every failures are minute in the face of death.

Stoics talk about death and they reminds us that we don't live forever and they drags us back to reality. "You could live life right now, Marcus Aurelius said. Let that determine, what you do and say and think."

It's true that our death reminds us to focus and live present moment. There is a quote that Seneca told which fascinates me: "This is our big mistake: to think we look forward towards death. Most of the death is already gone. Whatever time has passed is owned by death." What he means is that do not think that you are moving towards death; every second you have passed is death. It means we are dying everyday. It's like: The hour I spent on the couch, I died one hour of my day.

"You are scared of dying - and, tell me is the kind of life you lead really any different than being dead?" Seneca questioned bluntly.

Marcus Aurelius explains the hard reality of death and quotes: "Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what's left and live it properly."

Marcus Aurelius in his journal, which became the present day book "Meditations" wrote doing less is the way towards tranquility.

He says, "if you seek tranquility, do less." To be more specific do what's essential - what brings internal satisfaction.