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Do You Learn From Your Mistakes?

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Do You Learn From Your Mistakes

Photo Attributed to Thenix

If you are anything like me, and I hope you aren’t, you do not learn from your mistakes. You keep on repeating the mistake again and again, until it gets worse and worse, until it is like an itch that needs constant attending to, and you are unable to take it anymore. Making a mistake in my opinion isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Humans learn through a process of trial and error. We would like to learn through history and the mistakes of others. That would be ideal. But as mother constantly laments, I refuse to learn from her mistakes, and keep on repeating the same mistakes she’s made, in spite of her warnings.

Making mistakes is obviously important because you are never going to get the true import of a lesson unless you have been beaten over the head with it. For example, unless and until you touch a hot object as a toddler, you will not learn that when your parents tell you that something is hot, you shouldn’t touch it. That is a small but meaningful example. If as adults, we kept on touching items that we were told are hot, our hands would be in serious trouble. But I also believe repeating certain mistakes hold some value as well.

The true importance of repeating mistakes comes into play when you are playing relationships, just as an example. The first few horrendous relationships seem to be practice runs for the final, fabulous relationship that blows your mind away. If you had given up the first time you had a bad relationship and never tried again, you would definitely not be with the person you are meant to be with for the rest of your amazing lives. There are other ways you can see the importance of repeating mistakes. Like finding your true career, finding your vocation in life, finding what fashion style works for you, finding what kind of a blogger you are, and many others.

My conclusion in this mini-essay is that even though you are obviously meant to make mistakes, I believe you are meant to repeat certain ones, until the message truly lodges itself in your tiny, underused brain.

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Face The Music

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The road from Santiago to Mendoza

Photo Attributed To Thenix

I always assume that whatever situation is put in front of me, I’m ready to deal with it. The reason I am able to see it clearly as a situation or an issue, is because the universe has decided that I’m finally ready to deal with the music. But Thenix said to me, “Why do you think that you can deal with everything as soon as it is put in front of you? Maybe you need to take the time to figure out what is going on before jumping into action?”

Harsh to hear from a loved one, but true. I always assume that action is better than inaction. I want to do everything right away, and I want to finish everything right away. That is unacceptable in two ways. First of all, you haven’t analyzed all the pieces in front of you, to know the best action suitable. Second of all, you are only one person, and you need to prioritize, otherwise, you are going to be running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

For a Vata like me, action is not the problem. I always worry that I do not want to become one of those people who have the same lives day in and day out, without any change in routine. Even a minor one. If they are happy with the routine, that’s fine. But most people are not happy with that routine, but are too fearful to change. I have the opposite issue. I am happy with changes. The more changes, the better. I can change from hour to hour. But what I need in my Vata-intense life, is grounding. I need the smooth calming effect of the Earth.

I need to realize that if action is always my counterpart in life, I need to switch it around sometimes. Take the time to slow down, assess the situation, and then decide on a plan of action. Instead of taking an action, even before all the pieces have fallen into place. What do you think of action vs. inaction? What is predominant in your life?

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The Illusion Of Time

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Church South America

Photo attributed to Thenix

We all are eluded by time. We think an hour has gone by while meditating when only ten minutes have passed. We think an hour of the movie has passed when it has been two. We think it has been a month since our last dinner, when it has been two weeks. There are a hundred other examples of this. We do not realize where the time has gone, or will go. We are not efficient gate-keepers of time. We do not know time even though we own a wristwatch or a clock.

I was really hit by this when I counted the time until my trip to South America. In my head, we had six months left before we leave. Then, Thenix calculates it and it is 4 months and 17 days. How did that happen? I mean, how did it even happen? I am still in awe of it. Time had given me the slip once more. It had put on some camouflage and had sneaked by me without alerting me to its presence or absence or even movement. I am sitting here expecting it to return, and it is long gone.

Where did that extra month and a half get to? Where is it gone? It hasn’t disappeared. It is still here. It was in my hands. I passed through it. I haven’t blacked out for the past few days so I know I was awake through it. Or was I awake? Maybe that is the problem. I sleepwalk through the day. My commute through the TTC or car is spend on auto-pilot. I spend minutes at work wishing I wasn’t there, and other minutes day-dreaming about travelling.

I am not present in the moment, and the moment eludes me. I think I have been gipped by time, but the reality is that I am gipping myself. I steal from myself when I do not pay attention to every second. I thought that I have been doing myself a favour by letting my mind wander and not be present. I thought I was making the time go by faster by not being present. But when the time did go by faster, I realized that it just robs me of the opportunity to be truly alive.

I am not here and I am not there. I am nowhere, and I steal from myself.

Time is bound to me by my mindfulness. I have to remember to awaken, awaken, awaken.

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Yoga Practice Mirrors Life

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South American Sunset

Photo Attributed to Thenix

The way you move through your yoga practice is a bang-on reflection of the way you move through life. I realized that right at the beginning of my yoga journey. Some of my examples are below. Maybe you might see a reflection of those examples in your own life. The first step to any journey is realizing there needs to be a change. Once you become more aware of the issue that you are facing, the next time it comes up for you, you will be able to deal with it in a saner manner. In a manner that results in positive, fulfilling energy, rather than destitute misery.

In yoga practice, I run from challenging poses, choosing to do the modified versions, consoling myself with the fact that I am ensuring I do not get injured. In life, I run from challenges, by literally running away from confrontations, arguments, discussions, and I console myself by playing the victim card.

In yoga practice, I close my eyes when I am transitioning from one yoga pose to another. In life, I pretend change isn’t happening, by closing my eyes to it, and pretending everything is exactly the same, realizing too late that things have changed, and I haven’t changed with it, having to adjust painfully.

In yoga practice, I sometimes do not listen to what the teacher is telling me, because I am too busy making up stories in my head, spending time thinking over what I have to do, or bringing my ego into it, thinking I know better than the other person. In life, I do the same, not listening to the advice of colleagues, parents, or others. Going through the challenging situations I face thinking I can do it on my own, with the few tools I have, bringing my ego into it and thinking I am better than others.

In yoga practice, I do not take the time to rest even when I am sick, on my period, or need to take a slower practice. I plough through the poses, pushing myself further than I need to, aggravating injury that I know exists, by pushing my body into random patterns, ignoring the signals from my body that it needs to rest. In life, I push myself and feel guilty for sleeping or resting even when my body needs it really badly. I get sick, do not allow my body to get better, get to the worst point possible, before I realize I need to stop and rest.

Do you see similar patterns in your life? There are a hundred ways we lie to ourselves. But your yoga practice if observed impartially can help you figure out how you do things in life. Use the teachings of the yoga practice to moderate your life accordingly.

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Meditation Increases Dissatisfaction

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

I am dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. With the current way I live my life. I have certain aspirations, certain ideas in my head, that I wish my life to look like. Right now, those aspirations are in my head, until I can figure out a way to make them a reality. It made me wonder if dissatisfaction is a general state that we can never get away from. Will we as humans knowing all that we do, having all of this knowledge and power, will we always have an issue being and remaining happy?

I read this post, about Progress in Meditation, that exemplified that. The more you meditate, the more clearly you see everything around you. The crystal clear matter around you cannot be hidden behind a shiny exterior anymore. You cannot gloss over items in your life any longer. You start facing your deficiencies, and the deficiencies in your life little by little. You realize that you are dissatisfied by the way your life looks, and you look in the mirror. You cannot wait another moment before you change.

That is a problem for a person like me, who’s fairly impatient. I have improved quite a bit in the past few years, but I still have moments where I just cannot control myself. I am hasty and make impulsive decisions. I see the ugliness in my life, and I want it to go away right now. Like a petulant child, I want everything now. The problem with getting everything now is that you lose appreciation for everything almost as instantly. You do not see the beauty that your life is. You have gotten everything too easily.

In real life, you never get everything instantly. You have to wait hours, days, months to achieve something that you have been working towards. You have to accept that fate, and let it happen as it happens. Trying to hurry things along might actually ruin them in the end.

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Not Running Away

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

A friend of mine and I were having this conversation about running away from problems and difficult situations. It is easy, isn’t it? Just to run away from situations you don’t care to think about, and ignore problems in the hope that they would go away. Such an easy way seemingly to deal with life in general. If you wait long enough, all your difficulties will give up and disappear.

The more courageous thing is to stand up and face your fears, anxiety, difficulties, your demons, head-on. That is the hard way to do it, but once you get used to the idea that you are going to face everything as it comes, your life in general becomes easier. Ignoring problems doesn’t really make them disappear in reality. It just postpones the inevitable. It creates tension in yourself. It takes up space in your head. It festers and grows, until it blows up. You are sitting there in fear waiting for the day when the problem will finally grow too big to ignore, when you would have to deal with it no matter what.

If you face the problem as soon as it pops ups, make a plan of action to deal with it, and put the plan into place, you instantly feel better about the problem, and a thousand times lighter. You haven’t swept it under the rug, you haven’t just looked at it, and given up, you are actually doing something about it. Action in a thousand ways is better than any other way of dealing with situations. Once you start with action, you also give the signal to the universe to start doing something about it. The universe turns on the faucet, so to speak. It starts sending you opportunities and people who can help you with your situation. Suddenly, you find you are not alone.

You might find that there are among your friends who have dealt with the same situation. You get feedback and advice from people all around you. Instead of brooding about it, festering inside about it, killing your insides with stress and anxiety, you are able to get some real feedback and advice. The situation also resolves quicker than it would normally because the whole universe is behind you. You aren’t using the power of only one, but the power of many.

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Feeling Guilty For Taking Care Of Myself

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

I have been sleeping a lot for the past few days. My days are long and heavy, just like everyone else on this overworked, overrun planet. I wake up at 5am, do some yoga, some blogging, some bathroom duties, and some meditation before or after breakfast. I get to work at 8am, after an hour on the TTC, and I work almost straight through until 430pm, with nary a break for lunch or anything else. I get back home at 0530pm, cook, eat, and by the time 730-8pm rolls around, I’m dead.

I have learned the value of hard-work from my parents, who worked their bums off to get us to where we are right now. We come from humble beginnings in India, but my parents did not settle for a life in the back of the line. They pushed themselves to the front, and now I am able to enjoy all the amenities of living in a developed country like Canada. But even though I love Toronto to death, it is a fast-paced city, getting faster every day. We have to keep up, or fall behind. Most of us will choose to keep up at the expense of our health, our relationships and our life.

Falling asleep at 8pm, I still have put in a solid 15 hour day, but guilt isn’t far from my bedside. I feel guilty for taking time for myself and falling asleep when my body asks me to. I feel guilty for taking care of my needs. I feel guilty for not pushing myself harder and staying up a few more hours, working, doing yoga, or other random things. But for the past few days, when I wake up in the morning after a full 9 hours of sleep, I feel rested and relaxed. My mind and body are calm and healthy. I feel better in general about myself and my life.

The calm of sleeping enough pervades the rest of my life, ensuring I do not have to caffeinate myself in order to stay awake through the day. This shows me the power of a full night’s rest in my own life, and implores me to continue with the practice. I shouldn’t feel guilty for taking care of myself, but it will be a while before I can truly say that I do not.

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Resistance Falls Away

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

Everything is happening for a reason. It is so easy to see that in hindsight. The reason I was late for work was because there was an accident on the 401 that I missed. The reason I wasn’t able to sell the car to the first offer, was because I was about to get a better offer from someone else. The reason this guy broke up with me, was because I was able to meet a much better man. That is easy to say when you are able to look back over the last few months or years. But, it isn’t very easy in the moment. That is the problem isn’t it?

I try and try to think of everything that happens in the moment as necessary, not good or bad. It is what has to happen in order for the next thing in the order of things to happen. You cannot force a child to start walking before he/she has learned to crawl.  You cannot hurry up life by skipping a few steps. Those steps will come back to haunt you in your sleep or daydreams. But sometimes I falter as well – I have a hard time with accepting everything as is. I resist, I try to change the circumstances too fast, I get frustrated when things are moving too fast or too slow, I get angry, emotional, anxious, fearful, jealous. I go through a number of different emotions, until I realize calm, peace, and stillness are the only way to go.

An example of this would be travel. I see a lot of my friends on FB talking about being in South America, and Thailand. Reading about it, makes me excited for them, and also jealous that I’m not somewhere exotic, fearful that I will never get to travel, anxious that I am not saving up enough money to go travelling, anxious that Thenix will leave me if we go on a trip together or before we go on a trip together. One person holding all of those emotions inside isn’t a right way to live. Eventually you are going to burst into pieces and splatter some of that onto the loved ones around you.

Hard as it may be, you have to realize that everything is happening as it should. The only way you can truly live your life is plan for the future, but live in the present. As long as you are doing everything possible in order to plan for the future, all you can do is live in the present moment and pray for the best. Nothing you do right now will change the future. Even the best planning might turn into naught. Realize that, and just assume some zen.

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Forgiving Myself

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

In conversations with myself, and over some meditation sessions over the past few weeks, I have come to the conclusion that the reason I feel unforgiven by my past and my family, is because I cannot forgive myself. I haven’t forgiven myself and therefore, I feel the showers of shame and condemnation from everyone around me.

I cannot forgive myself for all the horrible ‘sins’ that I have committed in the past, some more heinous than others. But because of those emotions that linger, I am having a hard time moving forward. Moving past the past. It sits there in my head, telling me that I’m not good enough. The past literally haunts my every move. I do something similar to the past, and I have already condemned it with the settings from the past. I cannot do something similar to the past, without expecting the same results.

I have a hard time forgiving myself, because I feel I do not deserve to be forgiven. Why would I deserve that? What have I done to deserve that? It doesn’t matter that I have been living to the best of my abilities, to the best of my happiness, for the past few years. It doesn’t matter that I have been trying to live a good life, with good people, and surround myself with goodness, in order to bring more of it into my life. It doesn’t matter that I have been giving and receiving for the past year, with meditations and yoga, volunteer work and learning.

All of it, nothing of it, matters. Whenever I do have a few moments, I tell myself that I forgive myself. It is a process. It will take a while, but I have to begin treating myself properly in my head. I have to stop berating myself for the past, move on and look at the present moment. How am I living right now? Why am I letting the past taint the present? What good would that do?

Forgiveness for myself doesn’t come easy. I wish to do it, and then I remember I do not deserve it. The main tenet of 2013 for me, will be forgiveness for myself. I deserve it and I have to realize it. Slowly, but surely.

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Psychology Speaking To Biology

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

Sometimes you are in class, a spin class or a yoga class, or anything else, and you notice a few people in the front, who didn’t realize that the class would be harder than they thought. Usually, I see this in Yoga, because everyone always underestimates yoga. They always think of it as stretches and OMs, and something to be scorned. They stand in front of the class, and say, ‘Here I am, I am that good. Watch and Learn, suckers.’

Then, the lunges come up and the Warrior series, and everyone falters. Some are able to keep up, some aren’t. Depending on the day, some regulars falter, some newbies excel. The point isn’t about excelling, but about showing up. When you do show up, you have to ensure not to start letting your mind do the talking. You hear it in class sometimes. A long audible sigh. A sigh that indicates that their life is in shambles, and they are sad, very sad. A sigh that indicates that they are letting their mind tell them, that this class is hard, and sighing about it, is the only way to let everyone around them know that they are in pain and need help.

This happens not only in Yoga, but in life. You are sitting at a coffee table with a friend, enjoying a cuppa and they sigh. You HAVE to ask them what is going on, which is when the story of their suffering-filled life spills out. I’m not trying to be a hard-ass or unsympathetic here. Everyone has a hard life. Everyone has stuff going on. Everyone is dealing with a lot.

You have to remember to stay in the present and stay grounded. Remember a bad day or month doesn’t mean you have a bad life. If you have a job, a car, a house, heating, food on the table, and clothes in your walk-in closet, you are doing really, really well. You are ahead of 90% of the people on this planet. Put things into perspective before climbing into the victim mentality and denouncing this world.

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Selling out your soul

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Photo attributed to Thenix

Photo attributed to Thenix

Yes, it is Christmas Day and this seems like a rather dire topic for such a day. But I feel like I have the time today, due to the fact that I do not celebrate Christmas and I have a day off, to think over such important issues. If you are not going to think over such issues right now, when will you?

Thenix bought up the issue of selling out your soul a few days ago, and I needed to let it percolate in my head for a bit, for what it means to me. Why do I go from day to day doing what I do? When I worked at Intuit a long time ago, I would go into work, everyday feeling a little bit sick. I had an amazing job there, easy, no pressure, amazing boss, great benefits and salary, and great prospects. Everyone loved me, and wanted me to grow in the company.

If I had stayed the prospects to move up in the company were a surety and the prospects to earn oodles of money a definite. But still, I went in feeling dead inside. I felt like I was selling out my life, soul, precious time, and everything else, for money and a chance to be Director of something. My boyfriend broke up with me, thank the lord, and gave me the extra push to declare enough is enough. I started planning my first long-term trip then.

The problem of course is that, not everyone has the opportunity to get up and leave. People have families, responsibilities, obligations, and other various items holding them back, mostly in their heads. They have a million excuses why they cannot start up their own business, or leave their current job for something better, or change something in their life to improve certain aspects of it. They can think of a million reasons why not, and maybe one reason for why they should.

The thing people forget and that I forget from time to time is the limit that they have on the amount of time on this planet, and the amount of energy that their souls have to keep on reminding them. The time thing is pretty self-explanatory. Everyone knows that they do not have an unlimited amount of time on this planet. Everyone knows that, but they do not remember that.

The other thing they forget is that after a while of soul-sucking time on this planet, your spirit will eventually give up. You will lose that verve inside of you, that little voice that encourages you to do something different. You will lose any inclination to move on and upward. You will not care anymore, and will drown your sorrows in shopping, alcohol or something else.

Are you selling out your soul right now? What are you doing about it?

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The BullSh*t Counter

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Photo attributed to flickr user Wonderlane

Photo attributed to flickr user Wonderlane

I was speaking to a friend of mine, Jakob, and he had just come back from a vacation down south. It was a short trip, but he found that he had had one major insight from his trip down south. He spoke about it as follows:

Well, in your day-to-day life, you build up a tolerance for bullsh*t around you, your coworkers doing or saying stupid things, stupid things you have to do, etc. But you go on vacation and get away from all of it, when you come back, you look at all of these things you do on a daily basis, and realize, ‘Wtf? This doesn’t make any sense.” I think it comes down to you being able to see clearly and unobstructed when you are on vacation or just away from the daily grind. Versus, when you are actually entangled in all these things every day, you lose perspective. You forget how much unimportant stuff we deal with daily.

This actually made me stand up and take notice. I started wondering about the things I do on a daily basis that is just plain dumb, that doesn’t really move me forward in any sense, it doesn’t bring me closer to my ultimate goal of financial independence. A lot of it has to do with social media and time-wasting on that. But a lot of it has to do with behaviours like not setting a proper goal, being afraid of the results or the process, whining or complaining about something rather than getting on with it, and little things like that, which add up pretty quickly.

It also reminded me why I really love travelling. Because it brings you to that unobstructed, clear view of your life and your priorities. It brings you to a place where you can really see everything that you are meant to be doing, that makes you happy, the life that you wish to be leading, un-muddied by obligations, duties, culture, myths, and other random ideas that float around in our heads.

It is hard when I’m sitting here in Toronto, surrounded by my friends, family and other folks, who think that consumerism is key and bigger is better, to figure that I’m living a good life when I do not want the normal. But that all gets easier when I’m on the move, surrounded constantly by people who are travelling and living differently, doing different things and being proud of it. Why do you like travelling?

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Vision for the new year

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High Park in the FallI have been thinking for the past month about the year coming up, and wanting to have a solid vision for what I would like to accomplish in this new year. A new year feels like a new start to me, a new beginning, a clean slate. You can start over, and not feel like you are doing a foolish thing. Everyone seems to have a new beginning in the new year.

But I do not want to begin anew without a clear vision about it. I want to have an idea where I wish to be at the end of the year. When I’m sitting down somewhere on December 17th, 2013, I wish to know that I accomplished something with the year past. There are certain parts of my life that will be a certainty no matter what I do or where I go, like yoga, meditation, blogging, writing in general.

There are other parts that are uncertain, but I want more of, like ideas for financial independence, Travel, lots and lots of it, more connections with people who are living a different life, who believe they can make a difference, making a difference ourselves, through volunteer or donation. I don’t know if any one of you are sitting down like me, thinking over what you are going to be doing over the next year, planning it out on paper, tablet or any other device. Or maybe you are going to be keeping it all in your head, like I used to do, until the burden of carrying it around in my head became too much to bear. Whatever you are doing with your vision, I wish to share at least part of uncrystallized vision with you amazing people.

As most of you who’ve been reading my posts know, I am going to be Debt Free by April 2013. That is one of my goals that is set in stone. Nothing will disturb its path. Another is going travelling next year. That is another one set in stone. I wish to do yoga 3 times a week consistently, go to the yoga conference and grow in my yoga and meditation practice. I wish to meld my relationship with my parents. I wish to concrete my relationship with Thenix.

The part of this that I feel is missing is the part about service to others. I realize that’s something that people are going to berate me about. I think of it this way. You cannot help others, until you can help yourself. Until, I establish myself body, mind and soul into the kind of life that I would like to have, I cannot imagine I can help others in any major possible way. I do the things I can by volunteering here and there and giving cash whenever I can, but it isn’t what I can really do when I am settled and ready to go at it.

Let me know your ideas about the Vision for 2013.

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