Gifts, Talents

The first time I saw this quote on Pinterest, it was attributed to William Shakespeare. It didn’t seem like the thing he would have said. I looked up online and saw that the quote is often attributed to Shakespeare and Pablo Picasso. Although there is no evidence linking either of them to those words, other than a couple of enterprising Etsy shops! :)

There is much evidence that this words came from David Viscott, a psychiatrist and professor at UCLA. Here is the full quote

The purpose of life is to discover your gift
The work of life is to develop it
And the meaning of life is to give your gift away

David Viscott

We’ve all been blessed with amazing gifts and once we discover and develop our gifts, nothing compares to the joy and satisfaction you feel deep down in your heart by sharing your gifts with all around you.

Here is a lovely poem by Desley Finedon

God fashioned all your parts
before you were even born.
He wants you as you are;
for His purpose you were formed.

He made you in His likeness,
unlike the beasts and creatures.
He’s given you gifts and talents;
you are special in your features.

So discover all your talents;
work hard, try lots of things.
Watch for what you’re good at;
these are the gifts God brings.

It may be violin, guitar,
singing or in art,
writing stories, maths,
history, good at facts;
determined, a leader, kind,
thinker, user of your mind,
organiser, helper,
encourager of others.
Or is it sport, a ball or bat,
God has made you strong and good at?
Whatever kind of hat,
develop fully that.

But He gave you gifts to honour Him,
not puff you up or think you’re smart.
Nor should you covet someone else’s gifts
and hide your own: this hurts your heart.

To do your best is how He wants you.
This is the way to be fulfilled.
Do not complain you would be different;
this robs of joy and twists your skills.

God made you very special.
Thank Him for how you are.
Ask Him to use you to bless others
and you will shine just like a star.

24-Hour reset button

They say nature is the best teacher. Each morning we wake up to the rising sun and at dusk the sun sets. This happens every day, without fail. No matter what we’ve accomplished today, no matter how low we feel, the next day is a new beginning, a fresh start.

If our efforts at doing something different, something remarkable have failed today, or we have not been able to achieve what we set out to do, then we do have some time to rest today before we start afresh the next day. It could be something small that we’ve been trying like making your bed in the morning or just a thank you prayer at night.

When I Awake
Poet: Catherine Pulsifer

Each day I awake I can lie in bed
Or I can get up and get ahead
A new day to achieve my dreams and goals
Or a day to relax and just take a stroll.

My attitude determines what each new day will bring
I can be thankful for all the little things
Or I can be full of dread and fear
And miss opportunities that are so dear.

Life is too short to waste our days
Get out of bed, be happy and say
A new day has been given to me
I bring to it the best I can be.

For all you Celine Dion fans like me, I am sure you will have recalled by now her song “A new day has come”. Although the context of the song is completely different, I am sure you’ll enjoy listening to it here :)

Don’t let other people control your mood!

We all have people and things in our lives that drive us up the wall! Don’t we? And this is something that will never change. However we are definitely in control of how we respond. Here are a few things that help me respond in a way that makes me less worked up!

No reaction

Most of the time our reactions to situations bothers us even more. Remaining silent is more often than not a better method of dealing with annoyances as opposed to speaking up.

There’s a reason why people don’t voice all their thoughts.

Most of us try to filter our thoughts in order to not make us say negative, naive or hurtful things. This filter normally keeps us cool, calm and well-informed. However, when we are bothered by something, we sometimes forget to use this filter.

Don’t exaggerate

We also tend to exaggerate things that bother us. For example, if a friend/colleague is late for a meeting, our self-talk is around “he/she is always late”. Or if your child/spouse drops something in the kitchen, “you are always breaking things!”

By blowing things out of proportion, we get bothered even more and often start believing the exaggerated version of things which isn’t really helpful.

Assuming the worst

Along with exaggeration, we also tend to assume the worst. There have been situations at work and home where we’ve gotten very upset with someone and then realising the other either wasn’t aware of what you assumed or had some other intention in mind. For example, when someone corrects us, we assume they want to put us down or insult us.

The question we can ask ourselves here is Why. If we are able to truly answer this question, we won’t be as bothered as before.

Reverse empathy

We’ve had situations where others have been very harsh with us, they’ve been rude and nasty. In the heat of moment, we get so worked up with what they’ve said to us. We need to understand that people don’t mean most of what they say when they are angry. Another thing that helps me is reverse empathy. Rather than putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, try to remember a time when you wore the same shoe.

For example if someone is frustrated and angry, go back to a time where you were the same. Why did I get so angry? What did others around me do or say?

When we go down this road, we start helping the other rather than getting worked up and aggravating the situation.

The bottom line is that we can’t let the behaviour of others steal our joy or stop us from being kind.  But if you do, it’s your choice.  Focus on being the best and happiest that you can be – that’s where your energy should go. 

Stop letting people who do so little for you control so much of your mind, feelings and emotions.

Will Smith

Please let me know in the comments below if you have any additional tips for not allowing other people’s emotions to affect you.

Ubuntu ~ There is no future without forgiveness

We’ve all been hurt by others with their words, actions and even inactions. We feel angry, bitter and at times even seek revenge. When these feelings are prolonged, they become imprisoning. As has often been said, the victim becomes twice a victim – a victim of the event and of an all-absorbing bitterness. And subsequently leads to renewing the cycle of hurt with yourself and those around you.

When you forgive, you in no way change the past – but you sure to change the future.

Bernard Meltzer

Every culture has a unique way of seeing forgiveness. In Hawaiian there is a term called “ho’oponopono” which loosely translated means ‘I am sorry, please forgive me, I love you’. In Sierra Leone people use “fambul tok” (literally, “family talk” in Krio, one of the local languages) to offer forgiveness. The word “ubuntu” in the Zulu language is more of a philosophy of forgiveness and reconciliation based on a shared humanity.

Credit: BBC/Getty Images

Ubuntu really blew my mind as it takes forgiveness to a whole new level. It is obviously very difficult to practice and embrace, especially when you are hurting. In a state of non-forgiveness, we close our hearts in order to protect ourselves from any more hurt or pain. In this state we’re cut off from feeling love, not only for the person who hurt us, but for ourselves as well. We cannot truly be the person we are called to be for all those around us.

Forgiveness is a recognition of our ubuntu nature, which is the truth of who we are. Ubuntu tells a story about humanity that allows us to see the bigger picture.

As I walked out the door toward my freedom I knew that if I did not leave all the anger, hatred and bitterness behind I would still be in prison.

Nelson Mandela

When I think of forgiveness and ubuntu, Nelson Mandela comes to mind. For him to forgive those who imprisoned him for 27 years, he had to know and believe something that most of the world has failed to grasp. He emerged from prison and stated: “As I walked out the door toward my freedom I knew that if I did not leave all the anger,
hatred and bitterness behind I would still be in prison.”

Here is Barack Obama talking about Ubuntu at Mandela’s memorial, a spirit that Nelson Mandela embodied

When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel.  Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.

Catherine Ponder

Dissolve the link and unleash your ubuntu nature! It’s not easy, but definitely not impossible!

Whoever has the Son, has it all

A wealthy man and his son loved to collect rare works of art. They had everything in their collection, from Picasso to Raphael. They would often sit together and admire the great works of art..

When the Vietnam conflict broke out, the son went to war. He was very courageous and died in battle while rescuing another soldier. The father was notified and grieved deeply for his only son.

About a month later, just before Christmas,

There was a knock at the door. A young man stood at the door with a large package in his hands..

He said, ‘Sir, you don’t know me, but I am the soldier for whom your son gave his life. He saved many lives that day, and he was carrying me to safety when a bullet struck him in the heart and he died instantly… He often talked about you, and your love for art.’ The young man held out this package. ‘I know this isn’t much. I’m not really a great artist, but I think your son would have wanted you to have this.’

The father

Opened the package. It was a portrait of his son, painted by the young man. He stared in awe at the way the soldier had captured the personality of his son in the painting. The father was so drawn to the eyes that his own eyes welled up with tears. He thanked the young man and offered to pay him for the picture.. ‘Oh, no sir, I could never repay what your son did for me. It’s a gift.’

The father hung the portrait over his mantle. Every time visitors came to his home he took them to see the portrait of his son before he showed them any of the other great works he had collected.

The man died a few months later. There was to be a great auction of his paintings. Many influential people gathered, excited over seeing the great paintings and having an opportunity to purchase one for their collection.

On the platform sat the painting of the son. The auctioneer pounded his gavel. ‘We will start the bidding with this picture of the son. Who will bid for this picture?’

There was silence…

Then a voice in the back of the room shouted, ‘We want to see the famous paintings. Skip this one.’

But the auctioneer persisted ‘Will somebody bid for this painting? Who will start the bidding? $100, $200?’
Another voice angrily. ‘We didn’t come to see this painting. We came to see the Van Gogh’s, the Rembrandts. Get on with the Real bids!’

But still the auctioneer continued. ‘The son! The son! Who’ll take the son?’
Finally, a voice came from the very back of the room. It was the longtime gardener of the man and his son. ‘I’ll give $10 for the painting…’ Being a poor man, it was all he could afford.

‘We have $10, who will bid $20?’
‘Give it to him for $10. Let’s see the masters.’

The crowd was becoming angry They didn’t want the picture of the son.

They wanted the more worthy investments for their collections.

The auctioneer pounded the gavel.. ‘Going once, twice, SOLD for $10!’

A man sitting on the second row shouted, ‘Now let’s get on with the collection!’

The auctioneer laid down his gavel. ‘I’m sorry, the auction is over.’

‘What about the paintings?’

‘I am sorry. When I was called to conduct this auction, I was told of a secret stipulation in the will… I was not allowed to reveal that stipulation until this time. Only the painting of the son would be auctioned. Whoever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate, including the paintings.

The man who took the son gets everything!’

God gave His son over 2,000 years ago to die on the Cross. Much like the auctioneer, His message today is: ‘The Son, the Son, who’ll take the Son?’

Because, you see, whoever takes the Son gets everything!

FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, WHO SO EVER BELIEVETH, SHALL HAVE ETERNAL LIFE…THAT’S LOVE!

Start New Habits That Actually Stick!

Where you are in your life today is in essence a sum of your habits. What you repeatedly do (i.e. what you spend time thinking about and doing each day) ultimately forms the person you are, the things you believe, and the personality that you portray. A simple example we can take is if we are in shape of out of shape – a result of our habits.

There is a lot of information available on how to build new habits. I will share a few points that have helped me.

Start Small

Make it so easy you can’t say no

Leo Babauta

Our motivation and willpower go through ups and down during the day and even over a period of time. BJ Fogg, a Standford professor, calls this the “motivation wave”

So rather than attempting to start something new with a big bang, start easy so that even when you are running low on motivation, you can’t say no. For example, instead of starting with with exercising for an hour, start with 10-15 minutes.

Start small and gradually improve. One percent improvements add up surprisingly fast. So do one percent declines.

Break It Down

As you keep making one percent improvements everyday, you will figure out that maintaining momentum is then a challenge. This is where we then break it down to smaller chunks which then makes it easier to accomplish.

Instead of exercising for an hour, break it down into two sets of thirty minutes each.

When you slip, get back on track quickly

We all tend to slip up at some point, make mistakes and go off track. Change can be hard. In the beginning, your habits might take two steps forward and one step back.

Anticipating those backwards steps can make all the difference in the world. Develop a plan for getting back on track and recommit to your routine as quickly as possible.

When the lockdown started last year, I got into the habit of regular exercise and lost a decent amount of weight. It also helped me cope with all that came with adjusting to the lockdown. However around Christmas time, I got sidetracked and it took me a lot of time to get back to my pre-Christmas schedule.

The Compounding Effect

In Atomic Habits, James Clear gives us the example of an ice cube melting.

Until the temperature hits 32 degrees it won’t. Even at 31 degrees nothing will happen but as soon as it’s 32 degrees the ice starts to melt.

This is how it is with habits.

The effects of your habit multiply as you repeat them

James Clear

We have a moment where we plateau and nothing happens for the longest time. But once we compound enough momentum eventually we hit “32 degrees” and things start to shift.

People often call this overnight success.

It’s the moment things blow up and other people start to notice. Yet what others didn’t see were the habits that built the momentum years before. Habits which did nothing until this very moment.

Habits take months, sometimes years, until you start seeing explosive growth.

Progress isn’t linear and most of the time isn’t quick.

Your work isn’t wasted, it’s being stored for the moment when you’re ready to shoot up to that next level.

Hope the points above help you! Give it a try and let me know! :)

Respect

There is nothing inherently wrong with being nice. Our world is a better place with more kind hearted and generous people. At the same it is important to understand when it is time to say no, when we are being taken advantage of, when we are being used. You might love the acceptance and approval you get by making them happy or always being there for someone. However, what about your own needs? What about your respect? Most importantly, what about your own happiness? 

The difference is too nice – Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.

Alexander Pope

There’s a big difference between being nice because you want to, versus being nice because you have to. The first comes from your heart, while the second feels like a burden. “Nice” people often associate not doing something for someone with erroneous negative thoughts and emotions. For example, you feel guilty because you think I’m selfish if I don’t help my friends all the time. Or you feel afraid of rejection if I don’t agree with my friends or go along with what they want.

I used to say “yes” a lot in the past. I still do it today, but it’s much less than before. One thing I realised is that it’s important to know that no one should be expected to be nice all the time. It’s neither reasonable nor real. At the end of the day, it all comes down to how much you respect yourself. When you accept yourself as a whole person, with both flaws and strengths, it changes how others perceive you. 

When you know who you are and how much you’re worth, you will not let anyone, and not even your spouse/partner, treat you as a doormat.

No matter how much time has passed since the song’s release in 2011, the message remains the same:
Everyone is beautiful in their own way and anyone who says otherwise is wrong.

If you are feeling out of control then it’s time to do some work on you. Nothing will change until you do. The good news is that developing self-respect is within your power. A friend or a mentor can assist you, however, self-respect is the gift you have to give yourself.

Here is a healthy ‘self-respect’ checklist that helps me:

  • You know your strengths and are confident in what you can do well
  • You accept your weaknesses and know how to work around them
  • You have firm values and live true to them
  • You make and consistently keep appointments with yourself
  • You take pride in being well-presented 
  • Your “yes” means yes, and your “no” means no
  • You expect others to respect you and they usually do.

Insignificance

We live in a materialistic world where showing-off is considered cool and being the best at whatever we do is the ultimate goal. Most would think that humility is a lost quality in our times. Humility has its origin in the Latin word humilis, meaning “low.” However, it doesn’t mean putting yourself down or seeing yourself in poor light.

I see humility as an accurate understanding of our strengths and weaknesses along with a modest portrayal of self. From my experience I strongly believe that it is also directly related to our ability and willingness to learn. Humble people are better learners and problem solvers. Only if you are humble enough to say there is something for me to learn, can you be genuinely open to feedback. Paradoxically, a stubbornly low opinion of ourselves is also in contradiction to a humble view of ourselves as it is not an accurate image or perception of ourselves.

In college, a lecturer once shared that humility is an accurate perception of our place in the world. They say that our universe is so big we can’t really measure it. The part we can see has a radius of 47 billion light years. Of the at least 100 million galaxies we live in one, the Milky Way. And even in this galaxy, our constellation, our sun, is just one speck inside the huge dust of it all. In fact, there are 300 billion other stars in our tiny corner of space.

Our solar system is so tiny compared to the Milky Way, I can’t help but realize that our earth is just a tiny speck in relation even to that sun, which is just a speck in the galaxy, which is just a speck in the universe.

Isn’t it amazing to see that we are just a tiny tiny tiny speck in our known universe? We are definitely not the centre of the universe. My heart is filled with gratitude when I just think of where I am and all the blessings I’ve received so far in my life.

I came across this beautiful “Love Song to the World” which is pertinent to this topic

Being humble, with a heart filled with gratitude, is our key to peace of mind and tranquility in our chaotic world. Without these, we are doomed to a miserable life of constant anguish, endlessly clamouring for greater and better things, the end of which, we will never reach.

Defying Gravity

Have you done or experienced anything of significance that did not emanate from a courageous decision? Pretty sure the chances are no!

If you look back over the changes you’ve gone through over the last few years, the starting point would be a courageous decision. I’ll share two of my experiences that took a lot of courage!

I started my professional career with a startup. After 7 fantastic years, it took a lot of discernment to accept an offer to move on to another challenge. I was very apprehensive about moving from a startup to a much larger organisation. After careful consideration, I decided to move on and it was indeed a good move for me! There have been plenty of challenges and difficulties that constantly come my way. But through it all, I’ve grown tremendously and truly enjoyed my time here.

Within a year, I was offered an opportunity to move to Chennai. The role was very exciting, however it would mean Ana, my wife, would have to stop her music school. Again we were in a dilemma. One thing led to another, we found a lovely flat on rent, Ana got a job with an IB school and soon we packed our bags and drove down to Chennai. Looking back, the time we spent in Chennai helped us grow immensely. It is probably the best year of our married life so far. And we made amazing friends along the way.

Through both these big decisions, one thing that helped me is the faith and strong belief that things will work out for the best. And also the faith of all others in me. There is a lot of fear, uncertainty, pressure. But if you’ve done your homework, weighed the pros and cons, if you know exactly what you want, then it’s time to listen to your heart, trust your instincts and leap. And I’m sure you won’t be disappointed!

I’ll leave you with Beau Dermott singing Defying Gravity. Apart from a powerful vocal performance, the words of the song touch me a lot every time I hear it 😊

Choices & Consequences

We are constantly making choices, voluntarily or involuntarily. Most of us sometimes are not even aware of half the choices we make on a daily basis. Here are some of the choices we make

  • We can choose if we’ll reflect our environment, or if we affect our environment.
  • We can choose to be happy, or not.
  • We can choose how we react to hard times in our life, with positivity or negativity.
  • We can choose to take responsibility for our actions, or blame others for our failures.
  • We can choose to be a victor or take on the role of a victim.

One thing that most of us don’t pay attention to is how we let others change the way we behave and act. Just because others say or do things doesn’t mean we need to be the same or even choose to respond or react in the way they do. As my loving mother used to say “At the pearly gates, God isn’t going to ask you about what others said or did to you, but what you’ve done and said!”

There are some things that we can control in life, and that’s how we react and communicate. When it comes to others, we cannot control what they do, but we can control how we respond.

By practicing self-love, reflective, acceptance, and gratitude, we can work towards feeling confident and taking responsibility for our own life and relationships.