WHAT TO DO DURING LOCKDOWN ?..QUARANTINE BLOG..

The world is going through tough times. Citizens of many countries are under lockdown for months now. The graphs for the infections are showing spikes and the time ahead does not seem promising. But there is a good side to all these too. In today's blog we will discuss one of the positive impact that this lockdown has on us.

The most important thing that we lacked during our normal work days was time. But now we have abundance of time. All the things we wanted to incorporate in our lives but we could not because we were too busy with our lives can now be brought in and easily adopted. One of them is beneficial habits.

One's need for a habit can be wide ranging. This need depends on one's lifestyle, future aspirations and personal mindset. Some want to adopt to-do list for better organising each day. Some others want to start eating healthy or doing exercise. All these habits can be easily incorporated during this time when we are in the safety of our homes and are having abundant time in our hands.

The need for time has been sorted. Now the next important thing is action. We need to take steps so that all the habits we want can be achieved. Once we have started, almost 90% of our work has been done. Because start is the most important phase of anything.

The small actions that we take now needs to stick and get incorporated into our daily routine as a task. We all know that it takes about 21 days to build a new habit. Thus, our path is clear. We just have to keep taking actions regularly so that it fuses into our daily routine. Once the task just happens on its own and we don't have to push ourselves into doing that, we have successfully made a new habit.

All this can be very overwhelming. But my advice to you all is to take on the things slowly. Everything can not be achieved simultaneously. We have to focus on creating one habit at a time. Once we have successfully built one habit we can shift our focus to the next one.

It's an obligation for us to use this time to our benefit. Start learning new skills, build new habits etc. Once this lockdown is over, we should be able to present to the world a transformed form of ourself. One of which we are proud of. Because you never know whom you might be inspiring.   

Here are some blogs for you to read next.....

https://archishmansardar.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-lesson-learned.html

https://archishmansardar.blogspot.com/2020/04/blessing-in-disguise.html

A LESSON LEARNED..

"Life is the best teacher". This is an old saying, passed on for generations now. But the significance of this saying has not aged at all. The mindful souls, learn each day because life is full of teaching. And it never stops teaching.

In some of my previous blogs, I have talked about humble living and greed free intentions. Both  are very much interlinked. A person who is humble will never be drawn towards greed. He lives a mindful life and draws energy from the fact that endeavours backed with greed never become successful.

The above is not just a fact but rather a truth. The work which begins with greed to back it will never become successful. Rather it would end badly. Many people must have realised it after facing humiliation and I am no exception. I have too learned it the hard way. Indeed life has unique ways to teach us the lessons for life.

The greed I am talking about is not always monetary in nature. It can be the greed for fame, promotion, attention, social upliftment etc. All such greeds blinds the eyes of mind. We start working in a haste. This haste does not allow us to keep track of our movements. With no mindfulness in our task, we have no control. And at the end, everything falls apart along with our greedy aspirations. Thankfully in my case the loss wasn't that big but a lesson is a lesson when we learn from it. I have indeed learned.

Well humans can never be flawless. One can not guarantee that one will never be greedy. It all depends on the situation and how well one can control one's emotions. But at the end the fact remains that our intention behind every work we do should be pure.

There are two other markers that can guide us back to the right path by indicating to us that we are doing something wrong. They are haste and over imagination.

When our judgement is clouded by greed we try to accomplish everything quickly. This haste to reach the end should be an eye opener that something in what we are doing is wrong. We should stop at that point. Reflect upon our task and then proceed mindfully.

The second is over imagination. Once we notice that we are over excited about the end result of our work and we can not stop imagining all good things at the end, we should immediately stop our work and judge the outcomes we are imagining. If the outcomes reflect greed in any form, which they will, we should immediately take steps to correct our wrong.

We should always learn from other's experiences. This would keep our outlook broad and would enable us to face the challenges posed by life with a mindful approach. You can also go through my other works for more such lessons that would definitely help you live a more mindful life. Here are some suggestions:-

https://archishmansardar.blogspot.com/2020/04/blessing-in-disguise.html

https://archishmansardar.blogspot.com/2020/02/silence-perils-of-excessive-talking.html

https://archishmansardar.blogspot.com/2020/02/enhance-productivity-time-slotting-of.html

IMPROVISING..

Improvise simply means to act in the flow. ACT being the center of this thought. We achieve the greater success in life not by avoiding the hurdles but by struggling through them and improvising at each and every point. Yes it is important to have a plan but we all know life is uncertain. It rarely goes according to our thoughts. Things often fall in the right places. In such a scenario, improvising becomes crucial. But there are limits to it too. Those limits can only be known with experience.

Our life becomes meaningful only when we fix an aim. This gives direction to our efforts. Without aim we can only flow with life. In such case improvising becomes impossible. Life is uncertain and it is never a one door/ direction phenomenon. It is filled with opportunities of growth and success. These opportunities are disguised and hence a mind which can improvise each scenario can recognise it and act on it. Without such a mindset we will struggle and make the journey hard.

Allow me to use a famous line from the movie series named harry porter. It goes as "There are always two choices, one is easy and the other is right" . Improvising in a situation never means to leave the morality and gulp the chance available. Life has a bad habit of testing peoples characters. The ones who truly shine are the ones who have chosen the right. Such wisdom to choose the right comes from experience.

In every situation the first thing that needs to be done is analysing the situation with a calm mind. This will let us screen out the opportunities. After this, an impartial analysis should be done. This will make us avoid getting into traps and doing the thing that is right. Finally the most important thing is to act. Without this final step we cannot move ahead. Thus improvising is easy to hear but in reality it involves many crucial elements. When we look back on our lives we can easily make out the linkages. These linkages are based on our decisions which are related to our skills of improvising. Practising slow living can really help with this. As per every skill, improvising can also improve with practise and experience. Thus keep living and keep improvising.. 

ART OF BEING BUSY..

We have a lot of responsibility. It may be personal requirements or societal demands. All such tasks demand our time. Adding to our already busy schedule is our future that demands time of its own. These all are tasks that make us busy. They may not be adding any value to our lives, but as they eat away our time, they make us busy.

Busy is a term we all are familiar with. It means that our physical and mental selves are occupied with a task. In early days humans had limited tasks. The only thing that kept them busy was the task of their own survival. With the humanization of Earth, survival is not a task but an accepted reality. Food gathering and hunting have been replaced as we entered into the era of surplus food production. Although all this advancements have taken place, human life seems to have become more and more busy rather than being a relieved one.

With the emergence of society things got more and more complicated. Humans now had different kinds of tasks. They now had to earn. This earning enabled them to have food and other necessary items. Then came social responsibilities. Humans now had to play diverse roles which all required sincere attention. As aspirations grew, competition also grew. People had to work hard to reach their goals and make their dreams come true. The most recent is social media. A communication tool which transformed and made a space for itself. For most individuals this is the most time consuming thing of a day which keep them busy but does not provide with anything substantial other than pleasure.

So we have looked into the timeline of humankind and seen the things that make them busy evolve. We all have aims and aspirations, but we are humans, so we can not remain without being social. Then the question is how can we indulge only in those things that can keep us busy but add value to our lives at the same time. This requires very deep thinking. A careful thought will keep us busy in a positive way, this is the true art of being busy. The secret is mental decluttering. We have to group tasks into two categories. Indulge more in tasks that help us grow and limit time donated to the other category ones.

This idea is not alien. We hear about it all the time. But it is high time now to implement it into our lives. Taking social media as an example. Unless you earn a living or any substantial opportunity from it, limiting social media is the wise choice. Next is social demands. Society is made up of people. People have their own lives to care of. Thus indulging more in societal essentials is a foolish choice unless you are doing something worthwhile for the welfare of the masses. The only thing that can keep you positively busy is the work done towards yourself. These are the work you put into to make your dreams come true and make your life worthwhile. Being busy working for yourself and growing while doing it is the true meaning of life. All other things that occupy our time and make us busy are not worth the attention they get. Classify the task first, segregate them and then start working. This will free up more time and help us enjoy life as well as grow us into a mature human being..

BELIEF SYSTEM..

TRADITION AND CUSTOMS.

In India life is all about belief and customs. All the elements of life are worshipped and believed to have a deep impact on our everyday life. The customs followed for centuries have given way to a rigid traditional setup of Indian society. This setup is unique and cannot be found anywhere in the world. This attracts many who want to witness it and many in them find the divine bliss in these believes end up adopting them.

Indian subcontinent has been home to many civilisations. The ancient river valley civilisations have enriched the past and have had impact on our present. These civilisations emerged, prospered and then died out but they were all unique in there own way. They also had their own unique contributions in the past.

Indian belief system has become rigid today but it was not like that in the past. It was open and gave way to changes brought about by many civilisations that came and went. It also was happy to adopt and mould itself to influences coming from the new world. But this flexibility faded out and now its a kind of rules to be followed in order to get the result. Anyone who does not follow the rigid rule system has to face the wrath of the society. This in many ways has contributed to the decreased popularity of this belief system. Its old and filled with wisdom gained from experiences. But it is in complete denial of the modern era facts and does not wish to be adopting a generalised approach. 

Belief system if coupled with modern knowledge can lead to many breakthroughs. There are many aspects that cannot be explained by science. In these spheres the belief system should work to contribute the wisdom it packs to positively impact the society. If this can go through in the future then Indian society can advance at an unprecedented rate and can even surpass others because of all the wisdom of life and living it packs. This will make it attractive and will help the human kind as a whole..