Happiness for free?

Please see the picture of the kids who are enjoying their slider ride.

These children are enjoying the free fall on the slider when they are coming down from the top of the slider

.

They are smiling and having fun.

However, this is not the complete picture of the slider because part of it is hidden in this picture.

The complete picture of a slider is as following.

You can easily see in this picture that on the opposite side of the slider, there is a ladder.

You have to first ride the ladder to reach to the top of the slider and then only you can enjoy the free fall on the slider.

If you are not willing to take the pain of riding the ladder, you can’t enjoy the joy of the slider.

In the same way, all our happiness are the result of our pain.

If there is no pain, there is also no gain.

• A player practices for years before he wins a medal in the field.
• A students studies for decades before he gets his dream job.
• An entrepreneurs suffers for years before he gets success and wealth.
• A leader suffers years of humiliation and failure before he succeeds and gets adulation of people.

Nothing worthwhile can ever be achieved in this world free of cost.

How can you hope to achieve happiness, the greatest and the most valued desire of human being, without paying the due price for it?

 -Awdhesh Singh

Computer Science or Electrical Engineering?

Don’t be silly. There is no such thing as the “best” major or field!

At most, there is a “best” field/major for you, meaning a field/major that most closely matches your interests, your experience, your ambitions, your goals, your environment, your opportunities, your costs, and your personality.

But there may not even be a “best” field/major for you. More likely, EE would be better for you in some respects, and CS would be better for you in others.

     - Jeff Erickson

This Generation...

Here is the list of things which make our generation unhappy:

1. Generation is unhappy because there is no optimism in society overall.
2. More peace but division in politics makes it worse and animosity in air.
3. Social media is setting unrealistic living standard which we don't get in real life and get unhappy.
4. Pornography, same way sets completely different sex standard which makes this generation sexually frustrated in lives.
5. People have so many followers and subscribers but no real friends who could be there for person as a person.
6. This generation is trying to meet their emotional needs through the social medias.
7. This generation's source of happiness has changed from real things to likes, upvotes and retweets.
8. This generation has started seeking false ego through numbers e.g. likes and retweets
9. This generations have lost the purpose of living; it has nothing to be motivated by.
10. This generation is going from being religious to atheism. I don't say god exists or not but I must say God gives hope.
11. This generation has found new cheap thrills like porn, Netflix, YouTube and drugs but not real happiness.
12. This generation is raised with high expectations.
13. The Internet.
14. Crippling students’ loans, which forces students to do jobs which they don't like but do because of huge loans.
15. Food is another reason; this generation is eating crap in the name of food.
16. Lack of sleep of this generation is another cause of unhappiness.
17. Indecisiveness gives unhappy feelings. We make tones of small decisions e.g. where to park, getting out of bed, what to eat etc.
18. This generation has this habit of holding unnecessarily long grudges.
19. we, Humans has this need to be by all ourselves, alone. But this generation is with someone even when sitting all alone because of smart phones.
20. This generation is so advanced that we can't afford mistakes so afraid of making mistakes make us unhappy.
21. because of high competition, we are all jealous inside.
22. Just to maintain a living standard we get ourselves with a wrong person due to wrong decisions.
23. Because of technology the gratification has lost its meaning and value because we want everything instant.
24. This generation's another cause of unhappiness is choosing the wrong movie, book, song or game to play. There are certain non-branded games with low installs that give you something real.
25. We are born with debts, govt debts, students’ loans, house, and many more.
26. Whenever you feel unhappy without reason play any mind engaging game for few minutes. Don’t know how but it works.
27. ProcrastiNATION is one another cause of unhappiness. Pile of worries.
28. We have this weird attitude of focusing on what we don't have instead of focusing on what we do have.
29. Again, lack of spirituality and religious touch. I don't say you must follow some religion. But it gives you hope, happiness and reason to do things which give you real happiness.
30. This generation has started to mix their laziness for boredom.
31. This generation's competition is against the robots and technology so we have become perfectionist. So,things don't go our way and we get anxious                                                                                                                                            -Emily Clark                                        

10 Things not worth....

1. Forcing Your Help - You cannot force anyone to get help or to take the help you offer. Don’t bother helping people who do not want to be helped.                                                                                                       
2.  Not Forgiving - The anger you keep around will only bring you down. It will not change the other person.                                       
3. Lost Relationships - If you feel no love, no connection and no happiness with your partner it may be time to let the relationship go. Some relationships are not worth saving.
4. Road Rage - I mean, when was it ever worth your time to be mad at someone on the road? What has that ever done for you?
5. Keeping Toxic People Around - No, they do not change. No, it will not be like before. No, you cannot help them out. Move on and find people that improve your life.
6. Anger on Social Media - It’s interesting how many curse words are used online simply when people disagree with someone’s opinion.
7. People Pleasing - No matter what you do the person will remain unhappy not because of what you did, but because their outside world is not what is causing them to be unhappy; it’s what’s going on inside.
8. Obsessive TV watching - The immediate gratification you get right now is absolutely outclassed by what you could have done instead with that time. But you already know that looking back.
9. Worrying over something that hasn’t happened yet - It rarely turns out the way you expect it to and if it does you couldn’t change it anyway, so why bother worrying about it before the moment comes to pass?
10. Worrying over something that is already long passed - The situation is gone, it’s done, you can’t change it anymore. Let it go! Use your time for better things than fantasizing about what you would do differently; it only wastes your time in the moment.                                              -Lukas Schwekendiek, 

Change.....

Stop looking so much for a magical event to change it all!

You are alive now, you can choose whatever you want to do right now, you have it all in your hands.

Nothing will happen for you on it’s own, you must will it, act on it and create it.

You’ve waited long enough for a sign, for something to magically change and for some miracle to happen.

This is your sign! This is it.

Act Now

-Lukas Schwekendiek,

#1 Life_Experience

I let go of my 7 years relationship. He was my first boyfriend and my first love. I was young, innocent and passive. I gave him everything and I was always there for him. 

I accepted him and understood everything about him, his weakness, ego, dislikes and beliefs. He broke up with me many times , he was always angry at me and everytime we had an argument, I was always the first person to apologize. 

I loved him with all of me but I was dumb to hold on to the relationship that only caused me pain and tears for seven years.

On January 2016, I went to Japan and lived there for several months and for a few months we were exchanging messages, we were fine until one day, he never messaged me back. He was not answering my calls for a week and I thought maybe he was just busy with his work so I waited and waited for a few months but there was not a single message from him.

On October 2016, I flew back to Manila from Tokyo and I knew then that something was wrong. While I was planning to visit him, my best friend told me that he has a new relationship with another woman. My heart was broken to tiny pieces, I couldn't move and everything reminded me of him. I was depressed, lonely and many times thought about ending my life. In my dreams he was always there. I was angry at him, I hated him.

Then a year later, on 2017, I met a kind and loving man. He's a psychotherapist and one of the reasons that I am still here. He’s my counselor, my family and home. He told me to be brave, to not dwell on the past, to move on and never regret anything. He took care of me, he inspired me to write again, he gave me hope and new direction. We fell in love and got married last year, we now have a baby girl.

On our wedding day, I looked back and told myself , “things didn't work out with my ex because a better man is on the way, a greater love is about to happen.”

Without my ex and my brokenhearted , I wouldn't meet my husband. My past and best mistakes led me to the love of my life: my family.

             -Meghan Luce

Emotions

When you are in a emotional state, you lose the ability to analyse things logically and rationally.

Hence, an emotional person often takes the decisions or utter the words that causes him long term harm for which he has to repent for life.

• People in love often fail to see the negative side of their beloved and end up choosing wrong mates
• People in hate often fail to see the good side of the people and harm self and other
• People in anger often shout at their loved ones and spoil relationships

While emotions are not bad per se since you can’t enjoy life and connect with people without emotions, it becomes a curse when emotions dominate your rational mind frequently and leads to wrong actions.

The right approach is to balance your emotions with your rational mind.

If you can use your rational mind to guide all your emotions, you get the best of both worlds and you can be considered to be truly a wise person.

Let the following quote of Aristotle guide you for using your emotions to lead a happy and successful life.

Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.

                                   -Awdhesh Singh

“Jhak aaj maaro ya kal, maarni toh padegi hi.”

“Jhak aaj maaro ya kal, maarni toh padegi hi.”

June 2006,


Pune, India.

I had just finished my 12th grade board exams and my engineering entrance exams. Throughout the year I had enjoyed myself, spent time with my friends, did things I loved and overall remained pretty happy. I had studied well for the subjects I enjoyed, namely Computer Science, Math and Physics and for rest I did enough to get by with average grades. I had no grand illusions of making it to any of the IITs or BITS or other fancy colleges. It was going to be too much work, a lot of struggle to get there and I told myself it wasn’t worth it.
 

When it was time for admissions, I made it to a tiny unheard of college by the side of the highway. Some of my friends ended up in better colleges, others in elite universities. Once again, I told myself that it didn’t matter; what mattered was that I was having fun in life and was happy.
 

Over the next couple year, one thing became evident to me; I was a moron.I saw the bar that folks set for themselves in the higher ranked universities; I was envious. People in my college were only there for that degree which would be worth nothing because nobody ever wanted to learn anything;
everyone would cheat their way through exams and that was it. I realized what a fool I had been. I realized why the Googles and Microsofts of the world would only recruit from the top schools while we were left for the pickings of the “mass recruiters”.

 I saw the different lives that engineers led in these different companies, the kind of work they did, the kind of lives they had; one thing became crystal clear to me that day; fun time was over.

From that moment on, I spent every waking hour adding value to myself. I didn’t go out for parties with friends, I didn’t travel or take long vacations, I didn’t spend my weekends trying to be cool and fit in with my friends who would go drinking and clubbing; instead I spent that time with a few close friends learning and growing.
 

In the next 3 years, my team and I built dozens of robots, participated and won national and international competitions and made a name for ourselves. Robotics and AI were brand new back in the day and there was very little mentoring and guidance available; we learned some incredibly useful life and professional skills during those three years. We also started our own company which was again a huge learning experience.
 

Fast forward to grad school. Again, while many friends would spend time really enjoying themselves and making the most of their college life, I spent most of my time heads down trying to learn and grow. Part of this was because I couldn’t afford the party lifestyle and part of it was because I was nowhere near the same league as my peers who mostly came from elite schools; so I felt I had to put in a lot more effort to meet the bar.
 

Today, many of my friends and acquaintances who spent most of their college days living the wild party lifestyle are either struggling for stability or have slipped into the complacency of mediocrity. They lack the drive for excellence and ambition. They spend most of their time complaining to one another about how life is unfair; but nobody actually wants to do what it takes to remedy the situation. Sometimes when I meet them or talk to them, I feel sad when they say things like “Oh your life is so easy, you have everything come so easily to you.” I can feel the condescension; I see the judgement being passed; it hurts sometimes when people who were once close to you say such things. How easily people discount the years of hard work that have gone into getting to where you are today; how easily people forget all the sacrifices, all the taunts endured, all the hardships surmounted.

What advice would you like to give to a teenager?

“Jhak aaj maaro ya kal, maarni toh padegi hi.”

(You either slog your butt today or tomorrow, one way or the other you will need to slog it out)

It is up to you to decide; you can either put in concentrated hard work up front and spend the rest of your life in relative ease; or you can go with the flow and spend your early years enjoying yourself silly and spend the rest of your life paying for it

       Life is exactly like compound interest; the more you invest early on, the higher your benefits to reap in the long run.

At every phase in your life, you have a choice; you can either strive for excellence, or cruise at mediocrity. The more you strive early on, the more it becomes a part of who you are; you learn to always push yourself to be better; you are always willing to learn and grow; you become the master of your own fate.
 

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“The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.” :Norman Schwarzkopf

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                                                           -Rohan Kamath.

Persistence?

A skill that I find to be very hard for people to truly understand is Persistence.

Persisting to reach your goals sounds nice on paper but it’s not something many people actually implement.

Not because they do not persist through a lot of things but because they do not persist through the important things.

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Many people get this idea that persisting means things will be tough and then they are home free!

That it’s just one hard push, one problem or one negative event they have to make it through to get to their success, but it’s so much more than that!

Persistence is not something that is shown every once in a while, it’s something you have to commit to against all reason!

There will be days you feel you deserve to slow down, days where it’s much more enticing to give up and days where the pain of continuing is so grand that it would be not only easier but also relieving to finally drop it.

It’s those days that truly mark your persistence!
 

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 Many people stop persisting once things get reasonable.

They accept the reasonable sounding excuses, stop when things get dangerous, scary or when they seem not worth it anymore and get stuck because of that.

Their minds form their perspective in such a way that the things seem reasonable to drop.
  

People do not stop on their journey because of one big negative event but because of the consistent, reasonable sounding excuses that slowly, but surely, diffuse them out!
  

Persistence is unreasonable.

Those that persist do not stop when others tell them to.

They do not quit when they should, when it seems bad or when everybody else would give up.

They persist through their reasons!

And I know this sounds crazy but it’s true.

Think about the last time you quit your workout routine:

There was no big event, no broken bone and no life-altering situation that caused you to quit.

You were tired one day and did a little less than you committed to, but still enough, or you skipped one day because you were stressed on time to do some other thing that was happening, or simply counted something as a workout that wasn’t truly your workout.

And it was totally reasonable!

But then the next time you did a little less again, skipped another day or counted something else entirely.

Slowly but surely you did less and less and less until you eventually dropped it entirely.

 That is what being reasonable gets you; that is what persistence fights!

 And of course you still have to have some sense of reason about you, but make it a higher standard.

Only do not workout when you are physically unable to, only quit when other people create an intervention to stop you, and only give up when you’ve gone against your reason a couple times at least!

 Your mind uses your reasons to keep you down and you will not persist if you listen to it.

Make your journey unreasonable, learn to fight your initial justifications and persist against all odds.

“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

                                       -Lukas Schwekendiek

Are You Missing out?

“The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.”
-Norman Schwarzkopf

Age 20:

I participated in 6 robotics competitions, national and international, along with my team and podium-ed all of them. For this to happen, it meant that instead of going out for parties on weekends, we would be locked up in the workshop building and developing new tech.
We had no resources or financial support for any of this; the only money and investment we had was the prize money that came from each competition.

I suppose I missed out on the parties and the alcohol, the wild crazy experiences you’re supposed to have at 20 and the “cool” status that comes with it. Somehow though, it just never felt like sacrifice; I genuinely enjoyed what I was doing and learning and didn’t really feel like i was missing out on much.

Age 21:

My team and I retired from competition robotics and founded our own company to teach college students the fundamentals of Robotics. We had built a brand and reputation for ourselves over the previous three years and so were able to acquire paying customers and turn a profit right from month 1.
 

In addition to this, I also decided to take the non-conventional route and for my Final Year project, I decided to actually do something that matters. Most kids in my college would re-use the readily available project kits that you could just pay for and buy; the kits would literally come complete with a thesis and report already typed up and all you had to do was sign it and turn it in. This seemed like a wasted opportunity.

 Instead, I spent my school time that year developing and prototyping a system for autonomous traffic control in Pune. I worked with the Police Department and the local government and was reporting directly to the Deputy Commissioner of Police. It not only gave me a chance to design and build a low cost solution to as existing real-world problem, but also gave me an insight into the realities of government.

I suppose I missed out on some road trips but honestly it didn’t really feel like sacrifice.

Age 22:

I decided to not take up a job in tech via campus placements and instead took a year off to apply for my MS as well as to do the one thing I loved above all else; birding. I traveled extensively across India, some solo trips, some with other ornithologists and most leading groups of students with the company I had worked with since I was a kid. This helped pay the bills as well as gave me two VERY important life lessons.

1. I learned that while I was very passionate about birding and wildlife, it was not a career option for me; I knew that it was not going to afford me the life I aspired to have.                                           
2. This year also taught me a great deal about what relationships truly matter in life. The amount of gossip behind why I took a year off, the taunts to my parents, the colossal judgement imposed by friends, family and acquaintances alike cemented in my head the lack of value of these relationships.

I suppose I missed out on that “work experience” everyone wanted me to get; honestly though it didn’t feel like sacrifice because in the tradeoff I got some invaluable “life experience” that has added more value to me over the years and a year in IT ever would.

Age 23:

I spent the year at Grad school sleeping an average of 3 hours a night for the whole year. I was not a very bright student and I knew that I would have to work extra hard just even keep up with some of the most brilliant people I ever met.
 I didn’t really feel jealous or envious of any of them; quite the opposite in fact. My roommates and close friends in grad school for example were already very accomplished; they had all topped their respective universities, had impressive resumes and work experience and overall were just ridiculously smart.
They served as an inspiration and help set a much higher bar for me. I will forever be grateful to them for not leaving me behind and hauling me up with them as they rose; it was not easy, it was probably the hardest year of my life and every morning at when I finally collapsed onto my bed, I felt like I wanted to give up and just make it all stop.
 It was hard, there was literal blood, sweat and tears that went into this journey; it did not come easy and it did not come cheap; as a grad student in the US coming from a very average middle class family half way across the world, you’re almost always broke, you’re almost always lonely, you’re almost always fighting the odds.

I supposed I missed out on socializing with peers at parties and events this year because I never had the time, I missed out on traveling across the country with friends and making that a part of my college experience because I never had the money. It somehow in retrospect doesn’t feel like sacrifice; my goals and objective going in were different and that was what I worked towards and eventually accomplished.

Age 24:

I got married to the girl I had been dating since high school. We moved to Seattle to start our new life together and I took up a job at Amazon. Most of my friends bought fancy sports cars and started taking lavish vacations. We decided to use the bus that first year and save every last dime for the wife’s higher education. Life at Amazon was not a walk in the park, it demands time and a lot of effort if you want to succeed at it. But somehow this never felt like sacrifice, it was by now a norm and the value in it was very evident.

Was sacrificing your early 20s for your career worth it?

If it feels like sacrifice, you’re doing it wrong. We often feel we’re giving up something while in reality we’re merely trading it off for something else. I’ve said this a bunch of times in the past but would like to repeat it here, everything in life is a function of prioritization. It is up to us to decide what we prioritize in what stages of our lives.

The tradeoffs I made in my early twenties today mean that I have a stable job that I absolutely love; Monday mornings are my favorite part of the week. I’m married to the girl I’ve loved ever since I first knew what that word meant. I can afford a lifestyle that not only pays for my needs but also all my wants and desires.

 I have circles of friends who I genuinely trust and who are like family to me; they are not just the people I hang out with during the fun times but also the people who have my back when things get tough; we collectively derive value from each other and help each other grow.

Today I can take risks and explore opportunities, I can choose to do or not do something without the fear of failure and the repercussions that come with it. Today I am HAPPY.

One thing however is for certain,
“Jhak aaj maaro ya kal, maarni toh padegi hi.”

(You either slog your butt today or tomorrow, one way or the other you will need to slog it out)

It is up to you to decide; you can either put in concentrated hard work up front and spend the rest of your life in relative ease; or you can go with the flow and spend your early years enjoying yourself silly and spend the rest of your life paying for it. Life is exactly like compound interest; the more you invest early on, the higher your benefits to reap in the long run.

At every phase in your life, you have a choice; you can either strive for excellence, or cruise at mediocrity. The more you strive early on, the more it becomes a part of who you are; you learn to always push yourself to be better; you are always willing to learn and grow; you become the master of your own fate.

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-Rohan Kamath

One Rule............

The one rule amongst the many rules that I live by, has completely changed my life.

If you have a problem and a solution, there’s no reason to stress or worry.

If you have a problem but don’t have a solution, it’s out of your control, hence there’s no reason to stress or worry.

When I started incorporating this rule or habit in my life, it drastically changed my perception of things. I’ll be honest, I don’t implement this rule as much as I should, but the times that I do, I’ve seen a drastic change. I don’t crib, complain, whine, or cry about my problems as much as I used to.

I’ve seen a drastic change in my happiness and overall life. 

The problems or situations that aren’t in my control, seem to resolve themselves in a couple of days. At the very least, my head is calm and clear, and I’m able to come up with practical solutions to the problems that I have.

I’ve realized that worrying about things that are out of our control is the biggest reason to stress, tension headaches, and other health related issues.

In conclusion, chill the hell out and stop worrying about things you cannot control! Live life and enjoy the ups and downs!                       -Virali Modi