Life – Page 2 – NEERA MAHAJAN

The Art of Noticing

May 31, 2021May 31, 2021 Neera

I was in the public library, where, near the entrance, where they put new books on display, was Helen Garner’s face on a book cover, looking at me intently. She seemed to be wondering whether I was worthy enough to read her superbly written prose.

I picked up the book. It was titled “Yellow Notebook Diaries Volume I 1978–1987.” I was in my early twenties during those years, still trying to figure out who I was and Helen had already written her first novel, “Monkey Grip.”

I opened it and read the first line…

“Maybe it’d be a good idea to start another diary, just to cream it off. I bought this yellow book today.”
— Helen Garner

It would be a good idea for me too, to start another diary too, where I can practice writing like Helen Garner. Where I can learn to notice little things, insights and idiosyncrasies of being human. It will be good if I could write a page a day. Maybe that’s too much of an ask. I know I will not be able to keep up the promise. I will take that pressure off right now. I will write whenever I can.

A writer’s job is to record what is happening around her. I need to pay attention to my things around me.

Pay Attention to What You Care About.

Rob Walker, writer of the wonderful book “The Art of Noticing,” wrote in his newsletter:.

Pay attention to what you care about; care about what you pay attention to.

There is a connection between noticing and attention and caring and observations.

We often end up “noticing” or paying attention to things we really care about.

Austin Kleon wrote about Amy Meissner is a textile artist, who used to run the mending and clothes repair workshops. All her workshops had the same caption: “Mend a thing.”

Because she believes, once you’ve mended something, if you didn’t have sentimental value attached to it before, then you certainly do once you’ve taken the time to care for it.

That might me the reason why I am so attached to the tapestries I have made. I can still remember what I was thinking when I embroidered a particular part of the tapestry. As if my thoughts got woven with the threads and became a part of the tapestry.

Rob Walker, talked about a student who made a planter for the cactus he cared for. He’d done that, on the theory that “by nurturing or caring for something, you pay more attention to it.”

Rob drew a diagram of care/notice cycle.

He says it is helpful to ask yourself:

Is this thing I am paying attention to, do I actually care about?
This (other) things I do really care about, am I giving it the attention I should?
Am I noticing what I want to notice?

A Lone Shoe

One of Rob’s readers wrote:

For decades I’ve walked and hiked trails and sidewalks and driven country roads. Sometime… more often than seems plausible I come across a shoe. One shoe. Never a pair of shoe. I make up a story about how each one must have ended up this way or about the person who has the other shoe. I don’t remember all the shoes or all the stories. But I always remember to take time to ponder. — Phyllis

Practicing the Art of Noticing.

I am so surprised how all these stories are blending with Helen Garner’s way writing which is based on noticing.

Helen writes in her diary:

A man in metro, a 1950s relic but real, not an affectation — untidy, perfectly period clothes — lumber jacket, tight trousers, big worn, non-descript shoes. He was playing and exuisite basic rock-and-roll guitar and singing ‘Corinna’ through a little amp that looked like a white Daisy Duck radio.”

While driving to the veggie market I decide to notice something. Just to test my noticing skills. But what? I settled upon noticing shades of green.

A few days’ rain has turned every bit of vegetation into different shades of green. I noticed a tree with fresh big leaves. It’s a light green. The leafy kind of light green with a tinge of yellow at the edges. The grass on the ground has different shades too — deeper green, pastel green and eucalyptus green. The green on the shrubs has more red tone even orange at places. That is strange, I had never noticed before that each green has a tinge of some other colour at the edges. Sometimes yellow, sometimes red, sometimes purple.

I came home, rather pleased with myself. While putting the vegies away I heard a fly trapped somewhere in the kitchen. I couldn’t see it. I tuned myself to the sound, deciding to continue practicing the Art of Noticing.

Her buzzing is getting more desperate with time. Seems like it is trapped in the overhead exhaust fan above the stove. I open one screen of the canopy to let it out. I can’t even see it. That’s all I can do. It will have to find its own way out. No one can help you when you are trapped, more than opening the door. You have to find your own way out. I go to the bedroom to chane, by the time I come back the buzzing had stopped. I put the screen back. I might have saved a life today.

Conclusion

It wasn’t hard to notice things once you consciously make an effort.

Rob Walker’s book, The Art of Noticing — 131 Way To Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration and Discover Joy in the Every Day, could give you a good start.

Photo by Bookblock on Unsplash

How To Look Death In the Eye And Live Intensely

May 25, 2021May 25, 2021 Neera 1 Comment

Today I met two of my ex-students for coffee. Last year they did a Life Story Blogging course I was leading. They both wrote stories from their lives and put them up on blogs for their children and grandchildren to read.

When you put together three women and give them a cup of coffee each, there is no shortage of topics to talk about.

We talked non-stop, without catching our breaths, and still only scratched the surface of our lives. Maybe that is was why women, are so keen to write our life stories because we are custodians of stories.

Each of us has gone through so much, and much of it is ‘untalkable’ when we are going through it, it is no wonder that we take refuge in writing.

Although I got their permission to write this article based on our conversation; I won’t reveal their names and call them S and M instead.

When S started writing her life story, she churned out 1000 plus words every day for six months. She still has two decades of her life to write about. Having worked as a nurse, teacher, and at UNO in her younger days, she has a lot to write about. Besides, she has cycled through the world and later on walked more than twenty countries.

No doubt she has a lot to write about.

M was different. At first, she was hesitant and had less faith in her ability to tell her story. She needed a little help to start her blog. But once she started writing, we were all enthralled with her ability to tell a story. She is a natural storyteller.

With the curiosity of a child, she would listen to each one of us patiently, asking innocent questions. She then would come up with a scintillating story with a remarkable insight that would leave us gasping.

“You know my status has changed since we met last,” beamed M, radiating with an inner glow, “I am a great-grandmother now. My twenty-three years old grandson and his partner had a baby boy. They brought him over to show me. When I saw him, I gasped. He is the spitting image of his grandfather, my son Andrew.”

“Really!” Both S and I exclaimed together. We knew M had lost her son in a road accident at a very young age.

We saw baby photos and of beaming merely seventy-years old grandmother when I asked matter-of-factly, “How are you doing, M? Have you recovered from the operation earlier in the year. You look good, I must say.”

“Well, the news is not so good.”

I stopped in my tracks.

“I was telling S before you arrived. They have removed one lung, as you know. Now Cancer has gone to my other lung as well. And they have found metastasis in my left breast. They can’t tell me how long I have.”

I looked at her as if I am looking at a ghost. I feel so stupid as I am writing this. We are all going to die one day, but when we hear about writing on the wall for someone, we can’t believe it.

“They want to put me on chemo and radiation etc., but having gone through all that with my ovarian cancer, I don’t want to go through it.”

“Fair enough,” we said. In our sixties and seventies, every year we live is a year to enjoy life, not to put it through hell with the hope to extend it.

“But there is so much I want to do,” cried M. “I want to learn how to draw cartoons. I want to study anthropology. I want to finish writing my life stories. But I don’t have any time left.”

On the one hand, we agreed with her. But, on the other hand, when you know you have only a limited time left, how can you fit so much in that little time. But as soon as you give up, you are inviting death to come even sooner.

“Why don’t you make a list of all the things you want to do. Then pick one and do that.” I suggested.

“That is what my therapist suggested too. She said to pick one or two things. And I like how you are doing a thing for 100 days and then moving on to the next one. But I don’t know if I have 100 days.” M said.

She was so accepting of the inevitable that I wanted to get up and hug her.

“Why don’t you do it for 30 days instead. In fact, each month, pick up one thing from your list and do it for 30 days. Give it your full attention, enjoy it while you are doing it, and then move on to the next thing on the list.”

“That is such a great idea.” M beamed. “I don’t know how much I will be able to cover in a month.”

“A lot,” I said, “if you do a little bit every single day. If you want to study anthropology, study a few pages each day. Read some blogs. Make some notes. Write down your insights in a notebook. You might leave behind a diary full of your understanding and learnings from the study you did in a subject you always wanted to study. That will be more than people who had a degree in the subject would have done.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” said M. That is something I love so much about M. She always accepts things wholeheartedly.

“It takes me a week to write a story. I write it, then I edit it and edit it. I will only be able to write four stories in a month.”

“Maybe you should record your stories rather than type. There are so many free apps available that can transcribe. There is one that types as you speak.” I took out my mobile phone and demonstrated Otter.ai.

An hour later, I drove home, and while driving through the wide, sunny Canberra streets, I thought about the limited time I too have left on the beautiful planet earth and my ever-growing list of things I want to do.

I, too, will make a list of things I want to do and do them one at a time for 100 days each, giving them my full attention while I am doing them. And then I will let them go. There is no point in clinging to them because it will mean you won’t be able to give your full attention to the next one.

And I am going to make sure that list never ends. It is the desires that keep us alive. As long as we have a purpose and desires, life has meaning.

“You know what, my doctor is saying that my cancer is not spreading as fast as they were expecting. Maybe I will be able to cross quite a few things off my list.” I remembered M’s remark as we parted, promising each other to meet again soon.

Photo by Gradikaa Aggi on Unsplash

So You Made A Mistake, now what?

April 14, 2021April 14, 2021 Neera

In mid-1990, Amy Edmondson, a doctoral student, had a hypothesis — the good and effective teams of doctors and nurses make fewer medication-related mistakes.

Her research was a part of a bigger project that aimed to reduce medicine-related errors in hospitals.

To prove her point, she created a diagnostic survey. Over the next six months, she and many other medical researchers interviewed several hospital departments and logged their medical errors.

After six months, when she ran her analysis, she found that her hypothesis was torn to shreds. The data showed that better teams made more errors.

Frustrated and second-guessing herself, she hired another researcher to dig in deeper.

Do you know what they found?

They found that better teams were not making more errors, they were just more open and unafraid to share their errors.

While ineffective teams were hiding their errors, better teams felt safe to share their errors. By sharing and learning from their errors, they were becoming even more effective.

Edmondson spent the next couple of decades researching the concept of psychological safety where organizations should create safe zones where employees could speak up without fear.

The same is true for people.

The people who do well, whether it is in sports, work, business, profession, entrepreneurship, or life itself, are the people who acknowledge their mistakes, learn from them and become better as a consequence.

Successful people are not afraid of making mistakes. They realize mistakes are part of the learning process.

Thomas Watson built IBM into a behemoth. Once, a subordinate of Watson had made a huge mistake. The mistake cost IBM $600,000. Watson was asked by the board if he would fire this person. And Watson famously replied: “Fire him? I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want anyone else to hire his experience?”

Life’s greatest lessons are usually learned from the worst mistakes.

I had a similar experience with an employee. Once during an interview, a candidate told me that when he just started his career he transferred thousands of dollars into various accounts thinking he was practicing in a test environment. Some of the money was never found. Since then he is very careful while working in the production environment.

The panel was horrified at his carelessness. Later, when we reflected on it, we realized two things. One, he owed his mistake and learned from it. Two, he was courageous enough to bring out in an interview, which meant he was honest, truthful, and not afraid of making mistakes. I hired him. He was one of my best employees.

Our mistakes make us the person we become. Hide your mistakes or be afraid of the consequences, you will never become the person you can.

Keeping a log of mistakes.

Ray Dalio, a hedge fund manager, philanthropist, and author, created a mistake log at Bridgewater Associates. Every employee is required to log their mistakes so that other people can learn from them.

Making a mistake is not a fireable offense at Bridgewater Associates. But failing to log your mistakes is.

Creating a culture where everyone shares their mistakes accelerates the learning of the entire team. It’s one of the reasons why Bridgewater Associates is the biggest hedge fund in the world today.

Why are we reluctant to admit our mistakes?

Mistakes often put us in a disadvantageous position. They might lead us to physical or psychological danger. Many mistakes hurt our ego. How could I be so stupid to do this?

We are afraid of the consequences. If I say I did it, they might fire me. Or I will never win the promotion.

Throughout human history, our errors have often been treated as dangerous for a variety of reasons. They expose society to real danger. Many societies punish those who do not conform to the prevailing doctrine. Some communities and families are the same. From an early age, people learn to hide their mistakes.

Humans have a history of handling mistakes and failure unpleasantly. Since each of us carries unpleasant memories of whole human history with us, it can be challenging to overcome the fear of sharing mistakes.

If we can embrace the reality of mistakes, we can free ourselves to be more creative in our lives and dig up some interesting insights.

How to get over our mistakes?

The biggest problem with overcoming mistakes is the feeling of self-loathing.

Think back to the last mistake you made at work, even if it was a minor one, like showing up late at an important meeting or messing up a presentation or making a wrong assessment based on incomplete facts.

Once we realize our mistake, the disgust and contempt we feel break us into pieces. We can’t seem to overcome the fact how we could ever do that.

The thing to remember in situations like these is — we are human after all. We can’t act all the time perfectly. We are bound to make mistakes. Admit you made a mistake. Think about what lesson it had for you. Make a note of that and then stop dwelling on it.

Mistakes are not the same thing as failure. A failure results from doing a wrong action, whereas a mistake usually is just a wrong action. So, when you make a mistake, you can learn from it and fix it.

What to do when you make a mistake.

“When you make a mistake, there are only three things you should ever do about it: admit it, learn from it, and don’t repeat it.” — Paul Bear Bryant.

Admit it.

Don’t hide it, ever.

Don’t be scared of the consequences. If you hide your mistake, you will miss learning from them and make bigger mistakes while covering them.

If you own your mistake, chances are your superiors will regard you highly for your truthfulness and courage.

Learn from it.

When we refuse to learn from our mistakes, we inflict unnecessary stress on ourselves and others. Mistakes are the best teachers in the world.

If you want to make the learning process faster, go ahead and make mistakes. Then make sure to learn from them.

The greatest mistake you can ever make is not to make mistakes.

Maria Hill lists 40 invaluable lessons to harness your mistakes for your benefit.

Point us to something we did not know.
Reveal a nuance we missed.
Deepen our knowledge.
Tell us something about our skill levels.
Help us see what matters and what does not.
Inform us more about our values.
Teach us more about others.
Let us recognize changing circumstances.
Show us when someone else has changed.
Keep us connected to what works and what doesn’t work.
Remind us of our humanity.
Spur us to want to better work which helps us all.
Promote compassion for ourselves and others.
Teach us to value forgiveness.
Help us to pace ourselves better.
Invite us to better choices.
Can teach us how to experiment.
Can reveal new insight.
Can suggest new options we had not considered.
Can serve as a warning.
Show us hidden fault lines in our lives, which can lead us to more productive arrangements.
Point out structural problems in our lives.
Prompt us to learn more about ourselves.
Remind us how we are like others.
Make us more humble.
Help us rectify injustices in our lives.
Show us where to create more balance in our lives.
Tell us when the time to move on has occurred.
Reveal where our passion is and where it is not.
Expose our true feelings.
Bring out problems in a relationship.
Can be a red flag for our misjudgments.
Point us in a more creative direction.
Show us when we are not listening.
Wake us up to our authentic selves.
Can create distance with someone else.
Slow us down when we need to.
Can hasten change.
Reveal our blind spots.
Make invisible visible.

Don’t repeat it.

The last thing you need to do is make sure you don’t make the same mistake again. If you repeat the same mistake, it is no longer a mistake; it is a choice.

Conclusion

We will continue to make mistakes. At work, in life, with parenting, with relationships—no need to be afraid of them.

When you realize your mistake, figure out what lesson it had for you. Was it the lack of knowledge, skills, or something else? What led you to make that mistake? What were the emotions behind them?

Learning from mistakes is painful, but there is no other way.

If you are not making mistakes, that means you are not doing enough.

Take chances, make mistakes. This is how you grow.

Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash

How To Create Happiness

March 24, 2021March 24, 2021 Neera

Aristippus, an ancient Greek philosopher of 4th century BC, was the first person who put forth the idea of living a life of happiness. The pursuit of pleasure. He advocated that the goal in life should be to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. As long as you’re not hurting anyone, maximize your gain.

Aristippus never understood the notion that you could be in pain and yet be happy.

How can there be happiness in pain and misery? A woman who has just given birth. A struggling writer working on a minimum wage during the day to feed his family and his book at night to fulfill his dream. Imagine their pain and misery. And yet, they are the happiest they’ll ever be.

Many people think that chasing pleasure is happiness. They’ll chase better widgets, luxurious experiences, and comfortable life thinking it will provide them the happiness they are seeking. But there is no connection between pleasure and happiness. Like there is no connection between misery and happiness.

Pleasure doesn’t always make you happy. And pain doesn’t always make you unhappy.

There is a difference between pleasure and happiness.

Pleasure is a fleeting feeling. Happiness is longer lasting.

Pleasure is a reaction. Happiness is a state of being. It comes from within you.

Pleasure can be pursued, whereas happiness ensues. You need to have a reason to which happiness can be anchored.

The evidence behind anchoring happiness

Eva Telzer and her colleagues from the psychology department of the University of Illinois conducted an experiment on teenagers.

They posed hypothetical situations to the teenagers while they were under an fMRI scanner. The participants were said to imagine that they were given money. In some instances, they could splurge the money on themselves. While in other instances, they had to give it away to someone else. Then they tracked their brain responses.

The teenagers who had a greater brain response when they imagined splurging the money on themselves were more likely to face the risk of depression than those whose brains fired more when they imagined giving the money away.

How To Ensue Happiness?

Let me tell you the story of Jaden Hades.

Six-year-old Jaden Hades went through a kid’s worst nightmare.

Not just once but twice.

He lost his dad when he was just four years old.

Two years later, his mom died too.

Jaden was heartbroken. His grief is unimaginable.

Yet Jaden let that grief pull him into depths of despair like most of us do. Instead, he told his aunt, now his guardian, that he was sick and tired of seeing everyone sad all the time, and he had a plan to fix it.

Jaden asked his aunt to buy a bunch of little toys — rubber duckies, dinosaurs, spinning wheel, etc. He then took them downtown Savannah, Georgia, near where he lives, and started handing them to random people. He said he was trying to make people smile.

Jaden targeted people who weren’t smiling and turned their day around. Everyone burst into a smile. Some even hugged him.

For some people, all this was so overwhelming that they burst into crying — a six-year-old orphan, giving them a toy, expecting nothing in return, except a smile.

Jaden created his happiness from his misery.

His aunt said the whole thing had done wonders for him. “I have seen shear joy come out of this child. The more people he makes smile, the more this light shows on his face.”

Jaden said he still felt sad that his mom passed away, but he has made nearly 500 people smile. He is counting on it to be 33,000.

Jaden was not chasing pleasure; he wanted to bring a smile to other people’s faces. In the process, he created happiness for himself.

Giving leads to happiness

Maria Pagano from Case Western Reserve University was curious about why Alcoholics Anonymous gives so much emphasis to “service.” So she started tracking them and found something astounding.

40% of alcoholics who helped other alcoholics during their recovery were successful in remaining sober for a whole year.

In contrast, the number fell to almost half when people were not helpful. Only 22% of people who did not help other alcoholics managed to remain sober for a whole year.

The study also found that 94% of alcoholics who helped others experienced lower levels of depression.

Even if they fell off the wagon, they were generally happier.

Most people believe that being selfish and hedonistic will lead to happiness. But the opposite is true.

Selflessness and being helpful make you happy.

The science behind selflessness

Charles Darwin suggested that our evolution of emotions is an adaptive response. Emotions have changed over time to help us survive better in our surroundings.

Being helpful increases our chances of survival as a group. And to reinforce this trait that improves our survival, our brains make us feel fulfilled and content when we help others.

Neurotransmitters in the brain

Here is a simplified and incomplete snapshot of different neurotransmitters in our brains:

Endorphins: This is a neurotransmitter that is released to hide the pain. It leaves you feeling high.
Dopamine: It’s released in response to anything surprising. It acts as a reward system.
Serotonin: Contributes to the feeling of wellbeing and happiness.
Oxytocin: Builds bonds of trust and makes you feel loved.

Can you guess which neurotransmitters are released when you are feeling pleasure vs. when you are feeling happiness?

Dopamine is released when you help yourself. Oxytocin is released when you help someone else. Dopamine lasts for mere milliseconds. Oxytocin lasts much longer in your system!

But because dopamine makes us feel rewarded at the moment, we crave it. And that’s why, by default, we spend our time in the pursuit of pleasure!

“Giving back is as good for you as it is for those you are helping because giving gives you purpose. When you have a purpose-driven life, you’re a happier person.” — Goldie Hawn.

Create happiness instead

In his book “Being Mortal” Atul Gawande shares the story of a nursing home in New York. They arranged for kindergarten kids to come and visit the elderly residents regularly. They also got in 2 dogs and 4 cats, and 100 birds that the residents could help take care of.

It created magic. The elderly got a new sense of meaning from interacting with kids and animals. They were generally a lot more happier. But that’s not the surprising part. The surprising part is that the number of drugs prescribed to them reduced by 50%! And deaths fell by 15% annually!

In Summary

Pleasure and happiness are two distinct things. While both are good to have, pleasure is fleeting while happiness is longer lasting.
Unlike pleasure, happiness cannot be directly pursued. It ensues from the act of doing something meaningful.
You gain pleasure by helping yourself. You gain happiness by helping others. So be of service to others.

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PS: Heartfelt thanks to Ankesh Kothari and his newsletter ZenStrategies.com for all the research mentioned in this article.

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Want to build a career in writing but don’t know how? Subscribe to my newsletter, A Whimsical Writer, and take tiny little steps each week to get started. And have some fun along the way too. Here, have a peek before you subscribe.

Photo by Sharath Kumar Hari on Unsplash

How To Invite Inner Calm In 2021

December 3, 2020December 3, 2020 Neera

I stood in the middle of my living room and looked around me. The benchtop was full of dishes to be put away. The empty shopping bags from yesterday were still lying around. The placemats were still at the meals table, needing a wipe since dinner last night.

The washing basket was waiting patiently for my attention.

The center table was cluttered with newspapers, books, notebooks, and laptop. The kitchen cupboards were bursting, and the fridge needed a good clean. The same was the story with every other room in the house.

I sank in a chair with despair.

How did that happen?

I am a crowned “Neat Queen,” when did I let disorder creep into my home?

There was a time, even when I was working full time, my house was tidy and spotless. I spent hours putting things in their place and wiping clean every surface multiple times. Even no one was home during the day, I still kept it tidy as if people were coming for dinner.

I would start cleaning as soon as I woke up each Saturday morning and didn’t rest until I was done. Cleaning was the highlight of my weekends.

But then quit the job and started work working from home. I didn’t have to spend weekends cleaning because I could do it at any time. Right?

Wrong.

Being at home meant I had no designated time to clean.

It also meant that I saw the mess all the time and stopped noticing it after a while. But my subconscious kept seeing it and got irritated by it.

The outer disorder had started to creep in.

I had allowed the outer disorder to creep in my house.

2020 had been a tumultuous year. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. Except for the first two months, the whole year, we all dealt with the bad news. Our coping mechanism to bad news is, lie low. Let it pass. That is exactly what I did.

Couple that with a long winter in Australia, I just hibernated. Most of the days, I stayed in my pajamas all day. I cooked when I absolutely had to and cleaned when I had no choice. As a result, the disorder piled up.

Research shows clutter affects our anxiety levels, sleep, and ability to focus.

It impacts coping and avoidance strategies and makes us less productive.

We might think that we are not noticing the bursting cupboards and piles of paper stacked around the house, but research shows disorganization and clutter have a cumulative effect on our brains.

Our brains like order. Constant visual reminders of disorganization drain our cognitive resources, reducing our ability to focus.

The visual distraction of clutter increases cognitive overload and can reduce our working memory.

In 2011, neuroscience researchers using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) and other physiological measurements found clearing clutter from home and work environment resulted in a better ability to focus and process information and increased productivity.

Outer order leads to inner calm.

I perhaps needed that reminder when I picked up Gretchen Rubin’s book Outer Order Inner Calm from the public library.

Outer order make us feel good. It gives us a sense of spaciousness, positivity, and creative energy.

Organized surroundings make us feel in control. It gives the sense we have conquered the chaos not only in our surroundings but also in our lives. It makes us feel less guilty, less irritated, and less resentful towards others.

When I am surrounded by mess, I feel restless and unsettled. When I clean up that mess, I’m always surprised by the disproportionate energy and cheer I gain.

– Gretchen Rubin

Outer order help us keep an atmosphere of clarity. We are able to keep our attention focused.

There is another more mysterious reason that outer order contributes to inner calm.

The association between outer calm and inner calm runs deep.

It is true that “I am not my possessions,” but “my possessions are mine.” They somehow define me and make me complete.

Ever thought of the question — if you are to go to an island for six months and can only take five things with you, what will you take?

I find it very hard to limit myself to five things. Whenever I pack for holidays, however small, I take several things that I may or may not use but having them with me gives me a sense of security.

We extend ourselves into the things around us. They become our cocoons, the comfortable space to be in. We carry them with us everywhere we go, just as a snail carries its shell with it.

With our possessions, we leave a mark on the world. And whether that mark is grand or modest, whether this mark is made with possessions many or few, we want to create an environment that truly suits us. — Gretchen Rubin.

The irony is that just like outer order contributes to inner calm, inner calm contributes to outer order.

When we are calm, in control, and focused, keeping our surroundings in good order is easier.

Whenever we are struggling, chaotic, and overwhelmed, we let our surroundings go disorderly.

“Order is Heaven’s first law.” — Alexander Pope

We cherish our possessions, but we also want to feel free of them.

I want to keep every object with a memory associated with it, but I also want plenty of space in my house.

Decluttering is not easy.

Clearing clutter is exhausting because it requires us to make choices, and making choices is hard. It takes emotional energy.

Often we need to choose, which leads to confronting why we have accumulated in the first place.

For some people owning a minimal amount of possessions make them feel free and happier. But it is not true for everyone. I am one of them.

But decluttering makes everyone happy. Rather than striving for minimal possessions, it is helpful to think about getting rid of superfluous.

How to start to bring order to our surroundings.

As I get older, I am finding decluttering overwhelming.

It takes a lot of physical energy, time, taxing decision-making, and is emotionally draining.

It helps to have someone to help.

By getting rid of the thing I don’t use, don’t need, or don’t love, as well as the things that don’t work, don’t fit, or don’t suit, I free my mind — and my shelves — for what I truly value.

Having someone to help me make decisions and deal with the grunt work of sorting, moving, packing and tossing make the task bearable.

Doing it a little by little.

I start with little things, perhaps a little area. I clean my desk and organize my papers before starting a new project. If I am having guests over, I start with cleaning the pantry and fridge before cooking.

I do several “five-minute-sprint-cleaning” during the day where I tidy up while having a break from writing. These few minutes each day are paramount to impose some order in my surroundings.

I have found once I start, it is easier to keep going. December is my big decluttering month when I sort and discard unwanted items either by category (Marie Kondo’s way) or by area.

Oh! Old rubbish! Old letters, old clothes, old objects that one does not want to throw away. How well nature has understood that every year, she must change her leaves, her flowers, her fruit, and her vegetables, and make manure out of the mementos of her year! — Jules Renard

Hiring a regular cleaner.

For some reason, having a regular cleaner is a stigma in western society. It leads to false beliefs and social judgments such as “she is lazy,” “she has money to burn,” “she doesn’t love her home to spend time cleaning it.”

I have worked on my mindset regarding hiring a cleaner.

Rather than thinking that I am wasting money, I think I am helping someone earn a living.

Rather than thinking that I don’t love my home to spend time cleaning it, I have started thinking I value my hobbies and interests to make time for them.

Rather than thinking, I am lazy, I think I deserve time to unwind and relax, and outsourcing cleaning is one way to get that.

I only have a finite amount of energy, which I can use to do the things I “have to do” or do the things I “want to do.” Cleaning is no longer in the “have to do” category. I am now calling my cleaner, a charming hardworking lady, more often.

My decluttering strategy.

As I have moved to the second half of my life, I am reducing the number of things I own. I didn’t add to clutter in the house this year — I didn’t buy any clothes, nor did I buy any toiletries. I am on a mission to use the existing ones.

I am following the “half the stuff” principle — half the number of clothes, half the number of books, half the number of decoration pieces, half the number of email subscriptions…

By managing my possessions, I have learned that I have improved my stress level, physical health, intellectual vigor, and even my relationships. I now have more time for others and to pursue my interests.

In Summary — My Top Ten Tips For Creating Outer Order

When feeling down, start cleaning.
Don’t put things down; put them away.
Don’t buy anything that you are not going to use straight away.
Follow the “five-minute-rule,” anything you can clean in five minutes, clean it. Do it as a break from writing or whatever your core activity is.
Assign each day its own tasks. Mine is Monday kitchen, Tuesday bathrooms; Wednesday bedrooms; Thursday living area; Friday outdoor; Saturday washing; Sunday Ironing.
Make cleaning a fun or learningexperience. Listen to a podcast or put on a YouTube video while cleaning.
Have a clean surface in every room. An empty shelf, or a desk, or even an empty bedside table gives the feeling of luxury of space. In this age of excess, emptiness has its own beauty.
Move the things I can’t bring myself to throw away into the garage first and then into the car’s boot (trunk) to donate. This sequential parting makes it easy to let go.
Digital clutter is equally stressful. Clear away all the visual clutter for your smartphone. Regularly delete the apps you don’t use. I keep only the essential apps on the first screen and move the rest to the subsequent screens. All my writing and reading apps are on the second screen, and all the scrolling apps are pushed to the third screen so that they are out of sight. I have muted the sound of notifications. Preferably and cut back on them as much as possible.
Regularly delete documents and folders you don’t need from your laptop/computer. I have two kinds of folders based on topics (such as Books, Articles, Course material)and based on the calendar year. At the end of each year, I do the final filing. Any documents I don’t need gets deleted.

Photo by Norbert Levajsics on Unsplash

How I Created A Vision For Next Three Years

October 21, 2020October 21, 2020 Neera 1 Comment

Last week I stumbled upon Cameron Herold’s work by quite an accident. I listened to a YouTube video just before going to sleep (listening because I turn my phone upside down and don’t watch). Chase Jarvis was interviewing Life coach Marie Forleo on CreativeLive. I must have dozed off, but when I got up, Marie Forleo was referring to use A Painted Picture to choose which passion, out of several, you really want to pursue.

I was intrigued.

For some time, I have been struggling with my focus. I think I have spread myself too thin, and I wanted to cut down on a few things so that I can actually finish a few projects.

I wanted to know what A Painted Picture was and how to create it.

For the next three days, I could do nothing else but read all I could find on The Painted Picture. What I found was gold. And I want to share it with you here.

What is A Painted Picture?

Many of us have participated in planning days at work, where a group of us sit together and come up with a jumble of words to create a vision and mission statement for the organizations we worked for.

That is a completely wrong way to do it. Most of the time, those vision and mission statements sit there for years without inspiring anyone.

Cameron Herold, in his book Double Double, described a technique for CEOs to create a clear vision for their companies. He called it A Painted Picture.

A painted picture is not a picture. It is a written description that every CEO should write to describe where he wants to take his company. It is written in plain English rather than meaningless, obscure, and heave words we are so used to in the corporate world. Once the thoughts are on paper, it is much easier to communicate with the conduit to materialize them.

It is like building your dream home.

When you want to build your home, you know what you want your home to look like. You have a vision for your home, but the people who will build your home don’t. You describe your vision to an architect and he creates a blueprint based on it. Then you take that blueprint and give it to your builder. It is effortless to explain what you want to be done and very easy for the builder to explain to his subcontractors. They build the house exactly as per plan.

Imagine if you don’t have a vision for your dream house.

Will your dream house get built?

Probably not.

A vision lies behind every manifestation. Everything around us— the computer, the mobile phone, the book, the desk, the ergonomic chair began as an idea in someone’s head.

A vision is a mental picture of a future outcome, inspiring definite and sustained action towards its realization.

First say to yourself what you want to be, and then do what you have to do.
— Epictetus.

If vision is that important, then why don’t we create a vision for our life?

First, Most of the time, we are too scared to plan our future. We want to avoid the disappointment of it not coming true.

Second, whatever vision we do have, it is limited to our current capability. We don’t want to dream big. Because we know we don’t have the “know-how’ to make, it comes true.

Our problem is we think too small. Small visions are not inspiring. They have the opposite effects. They limit us.

When it comes to our lives, our problem is not that hardly spend any time creating a vision.

We spend more time planning our holidays than planning our life. That is why our holidays materialize while our life doesn’t.

How to create a vision for your future?

We think in pictures.

An idea is a mental image. Thinking is an activity of forming mental images. Though all ideas are mental images, all ideas are not visions.

To create a vision, you need to touch with your inner self and find out what you want your dream life to look like. Just like your dream home, you need to think of different aspects of it.

I used Cameron Herold’s A Painted Picture to create a vision for myself. Here are the steps I used.

1. I got out of the box.

If you want to create a vision of your future, you need to get out of the box. Go out. Somewhere in nature. Somewhere where you can connect with your inner self. I sat on the lawn in my backyard.

Take with you just a notepad and a pen. No laptop, no iPad, no smartphone. Just a notepad. And write. Write in long-form. Say everything you want your life to be. Things you want to do. The places you want to visit. The person you want to become. (I filled three pages in two hours with lots of breaks for thinking and imagining.)

2. I created a vivid vision.

A Vivid Vision is a three-dimensional world that you can step into and explore.

Imagine something you want but don’t have. It could be a car you’ve loved your whole life. It could be like a bike, a piece of furniture, or even a relationship. Pretend you have it now. Imagine yourself inside of it, using it, touching it. Describe what it looks like, how it feels. What stands out? What are you noticing? Describe the features, the lighting, the flow, the energy, the feel of it.

That’s a pretty clear vision. This is what you need to do for your life.

I described the books I wanted to write. I gave them titles. I imagined how their covers would look like. I pictured myself signing my books. I imagined myself speaking at the literary events, on Ted Talks, being interviewed on TV and radio.

3. I went for big dreams

If we want our future to look bright, we need to think big. We need to dream big.

All my life, I was trained to set small achievable goals. I looked back in the past three years of my life and found so many things that had happened were not small by any means. There was no danger in thinking big. In fact, if I dream of big things, I am more likely to direct my attention to them and make them come true.

4. I went for three years rather than five.

A five-year vision is no good. Five years is a long time. Things are changing too quickly around us. I can’t see what will happen in five years of my life. One and two years are too close. I can’t achieve big dreams in one or two years. Three years is just right. It is not too close and not too far away. It is Goldielocks, right.

5. I didn’t worry about ‘how,’ and concentrated on ‘what.’

If you can release from the “how” part, you can grow really quickly. ‘How will I make your vision come true’ is very limiting. If I had worried about ‘how’ I wouldn’t have been able to build my dream home. I just like my dream home. I concentrated on ‘what’ I wanted in my life. Once I figured out ‘What’ I will look for who can help me materialize those things.

What Next?

Once I wrote my vision in long-form, I boiled it down to a few dot points. Something I can clearly relate to. Then starting drawing a one-page image from it. It took me two days to create that, and it is still a work in progress, but it has most of the elements on it. I am going to use it in three ways.

I will stay in front of me. It has gone on my pin board, in my diary, and on my computer. I intend to see it every day. It reminds me of where I want to be in three years and what I need to do to get there. I will reverse engineer and will plan the action I need to take to make that happen.
I will be using visualization to realize it. Visualization is as important a tool as a vision itself. Have you ever seen an Olympic athlete in action? They are calm, confident, and in-the-zone. As if they have run the race, they are about to run thousands of times before. They indeed have in their minds. Soviet athletes have been reported to dedicate 75 percent of their training time to mental preparation techniques, including visualization. Jack Nicklaus has been quoted as saying that he never took a shot, not even in practice, without having a sharp, clearly focused image in his mind.
I will be sharing my vision with others. This is the most important part. When you start sharing with others, you tap into the universal energy that helps you materialize your vision. Others start helping you. They start giving you links and introduce you to people who have been on the same journey. Now you are not the only one working on your vision but the whole world.

A few things about plans.

Plans are worthless, but planning is priceless. Plans may not happen. So many things can go wrong. Markets can crash, a pandemic can occur, and health might deteriorate. But the planning process gives you an advantage and foresight to tackle any of unforeseeable mishaps and still achieve success.
Leave enough room in your plans to move your goals or to abandon them completely. As things change or change as a person, feel free to make new plans, and set new deadlines.
Plans, if not written, don’t exist.
If you don’t have milestones, they are not plans but wishful thinking.

Your Turn

Take an afternoon off from your routine. Go somewhere where you can be by yourself. Write your vision for the next three years. Figure out what you want to be and what you want to achieve by 2024.

Photo by Andy Art on Unsplash