DELAYED GRATITUDE..

Our world today is filled with materialistic attractions. People today live paycheck to paycheck to fulfill their lust for such materialistic demands. They are not needs. This is true because such materialistic distractions are outcome of capitalism. These things are advertised in such a way that they grab sudden attention. People are made to believe that they absolutely need it. Thus these luxuries become needs rather than being just demands.

There have been studies that prove keeping cash away every month can result in good wealth accumulation. While this is true but the sad reality is that people spend this money on such luxuries. This results into stagnation and they do not move up the financial ladder. People believe that they could have better lives if they would get a pay hike. But this does not solve the problem. Once this spending habit gets embedded in our life style, with a pay raise we just increase our spending, thus remaining financially stagnant as earlier. The money is just a tool. It becomes powerful only if we give it the power.

The method or may I call it the practise of delayed gratitude is a habit when incorporated can do wonders in our life. This in the most simple way means postponing the wants for a later period so that we can concentrate on securing the future first. It does not mean that we should give up our wants. This practise in turn tells us to have conscious purchases. To give our purchase some time so that we can categorise it properly as a need or a want.

The categorisation is crucial. When a thing is a need and we can afford it we should do it right away. But once the thing falls under the second category we should give it time. We should ask ourselves whether our lives would be better when we incorporate that thing? Whether we have any alternative for that thing which is cheaper but can do the task equally well? Such questions will give us time to think about our purchase decision. And as seen, most of the times people avoid buying that thing. Thus hard earned money or soul kept savings is saved.

Some individuals may argue that we have one life and we should live it to the fullest. YES, we should. But having material possessions does not always make one happy. Happiness is a choice and we should only allow those things into our lives which can compliment our joy of living. Being financially deprived leaches away happiness and no one wants that. That is the reason we see people working soo hard to secure a living. But then these people give away their hard earned money is search of happiness in material things. They come out depressed.

We should have a balance of everything. We should delay possessions but not happiness. In the race to obtain more materialistic things people forget to live and end up having a half life. A life of regret at the end is what they get. Thus practising delayed gratitude can do wonders. Incorporate it as a habit and see dramatic changes in your life and personal finances..

TAKING IT SLOWLY..

We are surrounded with events and things that demand our attention. With the development of time this pressure has manifolded many times. The result ? Hypertension among youths. Heart attacks occurring to 10 year olds. Among many others.

It is basic human tendency to seek action. But human minds have limitations as well. There have been numerous studies that show that multitasking is a myth and that it has its toll on the work and health as well. All these things that seek one's attention are usually overwhelming and forces one to take it all in one go. This propels multi tasking and results into neglect and faults in the outcome.

Our education system has been designed to make all entities function equally. It does not take into account that each individual is different. The pace at which each person responds to tasks varies. As a result people are mostly lacking life skills. They almost never know the trick to handle tasks and pressure generated due to task loads. Thus, we can assume that the general masses are mostly incapable to cope with the trends that this new era brings with it. The evidences in support of this are evident.

This is not something that is not discussed often. There are awareness programmes being conducted in educational institutions. The common thing among these programs is that they treat this as a disease and try to heal the one suffering through counselling. A change in ideology is needed to bring visible changes. The youth should be made to acknowledge the changing scenario and provided with the skills to handle the same.

The demand for our attention is not going to decrease, rather the opposite of this is eminent. The secret is to Take It Slowly. Let the reality seek in. Give time to plan and prioritise the tasks at hand and then proceed. Never should we try to multi task because it is never fruitful.

Some tasks can be overwhelming but a mind well trained to contain these feelings is the one that can make it through. A well trained mind will find ways to better manipulate time and ways to automate tasks taking away unnecessary time. Time is the most valuable asset and it should be spent wisely.


Taking things slowly can solve half the problems by itself and the rest is just our action which can do the ultimate justice. Take the days one at a time and tasks too in the same way. This ancient wisdom is a life lesson and learning it is a life skill which we all need. Things are gonna get more complex. Ideal surrounding is soon going to vanish. It is high time to gain as much skills and wisdom as we can. There are many such skills and indeed this is an important one. Learn it and adopt it as a life style and never forget to take it all slowly in the process.. 

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..

MINIMALISM..

Almost all of us are maximalist. The term maximalist is nothing but a term describing our capitalist and gatherer mindset. The gatherer mindset is embedded into our human system. But it has been pushed beyond the satisfaction line due to the growing capitalist ideology. Capitalist ideology is the outcome of growing demands which empowered the market to take steps to meet the demands. These demands are no longer restricted to basic needs of existence rather it has gone much beyond that. This extra things that are excess to our basic needs are nothing but cutter that have influence on our minds and robs away our peace of mind not to forget the financial burden it puts on our daily lives.

The mindset that counteracts to the above is termed as minimalism. These are just terms. They can be called with different names but the thing that is important is the ideology which has the impact on our mindset. The minimalist mindset is one that helps an individual to satisfy himself/herself with the bare minimum. This guides us to do away with the things that are not used in our day to day lives. This ideology does not limit itself only to things, rather it is very broad including our thoughts and time. The thoughts that are in no way going to enrich us are done away with. This decluttering of thoughts gives back to us our valuable time which could be instead used to enrich our soul with healthy thoughts. Similarly minimalist ideology also tells us to limit wastage of time by doing things that are not that important. To explain this we can sight the example of our mobile phone addiction. This simple device robs us 6 to 7 hours of our day on an average. We spend hours mindlessly scrolling the newsfeed or getting entertained. If we limit this wastage of time we would have time left to do things that would actually bring us closer to our loved ones.

Minimalism is simply a way of living simply. When incorporated into our lives it can result into wonders. More time to do things we love. Better family relations. More time available to pursue our passion that can enrich our souls and make us truly happy. And above all it can save us a lot of money. Minimalist living helps us focus only on what's important in our lives. This helps us do away with the societal pressure to impress. It helps us to overcome the fear of other people's judgement of ourselves which actually neither happens nor should it matter to us in anyway. Thus we start avoiding the blind race for the new. The new fashion, the new gadget etc are all things that are not our needs rather our demands which are taught to us by the society. Minimalism is the filter that keeps all these unwanted stuff out of our lives for good.

A life free from clutter is a life full of happiness. Once you let the unwanted out, your vision becomes clear enough to focus only on the essentials. This clutter free living attracts opportunities, happiness into relationships and financial security for the years to come. The time and effort saved can be productively used in many ways that helps an individual to grow and flourish. Minimalist principle can vary as per ones needs. This versatility is what that makes it so popular. There are innumerable references and guides that can help one understand minimalism better and help to adopt it into ones life. The results are so attractive that once you start experiencing them, you long to take those further. This is a life that's fulfilling on its own. Give minimalism a try and I am sure you will never wanna leave it..