When Your Highest Desire Rules Your Lesser Desires

“Self-discipline is when your highest desire rules your lesser desires, not through resistance, but through loving action grounded in understanding and compassion.”

― David Deida

The Power of Discipline

Discipline is one of the most important attributes that stands between success and failure. It allows you to do things you may not enjoy at the moment but will reward benefits in the future. This means investing your time doing things such as exercising, getting better with women, or building a business without any immediate return.

These activities might suck at the moment, but you’ll be grateful for them in the future.

Exercising will allow you to have a higher level of physical health with more muscle, increased cardiovascular strength, and mental capacity to deal with stress.

Getting better with women will allow you to bring more women into your life. And eventually crossing paths with a compatible high-quality woman, you’re ready to do all the right things to attract and keep her.

Lastly, building a business that doesn’t have an immediate return on investment will allow you to appreciate the returns when you start generating revenue.

Rarely do businesses have immediate returns, even if it does, you won’t learn to appreciate its true value because you haven’t dedicated enough time to build it.

You must put in the work to deserve the fruition of your labor.

Despite not having a successful business, you’ll learn from your mistakes and turn them into powerful lessons. This will cause you to be a wiser entrepreneur in your future endeavors.

As a result, you will have learned to fail successfully.

How to Cultivate Discipline

Discipline, like any other skill, can be learned. It’s a muscle that requires frequent training to be strong.

Similar to willpower, your discipline will be the strongest when you first wake up. However, you can maintain a strong level of it throughout the day by doing things you know you must do.

In effect, you’re causing a chain reaction to stack and build on existing willpower. As a result, your level of discipline will actually increase throughout the day.

You can start your day off with a solid morning routine that puts you in a positive state.

Then let that momentum catapult you for the rest of the day.

Sometimes, even when you’re doing all the right things, you will still feel resistance and the urge to be undisciplined. A simple question you can ask yourself is:

“Is what I’m doing aligned with my values?”

For example, if at the end of a tiring day, I’m tempted to watch a mindless television show that will decrease the quality of my sleep because of the blue light exposure. Then I ask myself:

“Is watching television before bedtime aligned with my value of health?”

The answer is an obvious “no.”

Guided by my answer, I choose to prepare for sleep with light yoga stretches or foam-rolling movements while listening to relaxing meditation music. By asking myself this simple yet powerful question, I can create more discipline in my life.

Instead of choosing for the instant gratification of watching television, I choose delayed gratification of preparing myself for sleep because the benefits I will experience in the morning. They include waking up with more energy, zest, and vitality after a high-quality night of sleep.

Closing Thoughts

Discipline is an attribute you can learn to cultivate more of.

Because your surrounding environment has many forms of instant gratification, you must make a conscious effort to fight for delayed gratification.

The main determining factor that will help you prevail is your “why.” It all comes to how bad you want it.

What are you willing to sacrifice? If you want it enough, you will put in the necessary time and work to achieve it.

It’s simple as that. But just because it’s straightforward doesn’t mean it’s easy.

• Where are you holding back in life?
• What is it deep down you want to do but are too afraid to do it?
• What would you do if you knew you wouldn't fail?

Let discipline help you get there. Show up and do the work even when no one is watching.

Do it for your own sake. Radiate your true character and do more of what's most important to you.

I hope this helps.

-Perry Liao

How Hard IISc Hit Me....

Hard to the power infinity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me give you little background. I did my M. Tech from IIT Kanpur, SMD. The first month was like hell. Things were going above my head. I was not able to cross single digit in any of the quizzes. Somehow things became manageable close to mid-sem and by end sem I was confident that I am not going to at least fail in any subject. However I manged to do well in end term. Now things looked pretty enjoyable and I decided to take the toughest courses in the department. It felt like now I can crack anything.

I did my M. Tech project with Dr. Bhaskar Dasgupta and Dr. Bishakh Battacharya. Both of them did their PhD from IISc. Dasgupta Sir had a habit of coming to lab post dinner and use to stay in lab till 3/4 am. Most of us use to join him for tea/coffee around 11.30 or 12. We use to chat a lot, a lot mean a lot. Most of the time about IISc or about Math. He use to motivate all of to join for PhD, in India or abroad. In the mean time I got a job in Ashok Leyland. I decided to join the job and take time for preparing GRE.

In the very first month I learned that I can not continue in the job and only option available are either go back to IITK for PhD or IISc. I decided to try my luck with IISc. I thought if I have survived IITK then what worst can happen? (read this carefully) I will finish PhD from IISc in 3 years and then will go for 2nd PhD outside India. I was targeting double doctorate. I did not knew what I am getting into.

When I started attending classes at IISc initially it did not felt difficult, everything seemed calm and peaceful like the institute climate. But who knew there is a strong and powerful current beneath this? The basic difference in courses in any IIT and IISc is, mostly in IITs the course has a syllabus which needs to be covered wheres as in IISc you are trained to be a researcher so though courses had syllabus the teaching style of professors was more open ended. We were more involved in the class, we discussed things which were not in any book, sometimes a research article or notes from a Russian author.

Slowly, it became clear that even after IITK I have just scratched the surface, there is a lot, a lot to learn. I do not know when and how 6 years went by. I do not exactly remember when I forgot about my double doctorate. What I do remember is two exams

a) Dr. Chaterji mailed us the final term question, yes mailed us, and gave 7 days to solve the paper,

b) Dr. Harursampath took an exam with open time. We started around 5pm and there were students who were siting till 10 am next day. Some of us went to hostel, slept for 2 hours and came back to write the exam

IISc is one of a kind institute in India. None of the IIT can come close to that level. Most of the IISc graduates are professor in IITs so you can imagine.

- Srikant Sekhar

UPSC CSE Group A Job

With The Chief of Naval Staff !!

With the Air Chief Marshal

With the Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat

Addressing the Defence secretary

This is my first answer on Quora!!! So I took the chance to write about two topics close to my heart. Women and a respectful career!!!

I ( though lucky enough to have a few awesome supportive family members and friends) am from a very conservative and patriarchal surrounding ( like most women in India). They strongly believe that

1)The workplace of women is in the kitchen.

2)The work of women is only to take care of family members

3) A women working in a family will lead to family discords

4) The four walls of the house be her restricted boundary

5)Women going to work is a disrespect to the family and shows the incapacity of men to earn.

6)Adjusting to any domestic abuse is the ‘way of life’ for every women.

A women in such a surrounding is

1)Being judged for whatever she does

2)Constantly working to please everyone .

3)Made to believe that to dream big is a crime.

4)Never given opportunity to take any big decision regarding life or family.

5) Forced to believe that being independent is a bane to the family .

Many of you who are reading this might probably think whether these problems still exist in 21 st century?! Yes!! And if you ask any girl grown up in such a surrounding she will be definitely be able to relate to it!!!

Now what does all this have to do with life like after getting a government job?

From my childhood I never wanted to confine my aspirations! I always wanted to live a more meaningful life , contribute in some way to the society, a life with high goals and purpose! Thanks to my family,I graduated in engineering and joined a leading Private Company( sadly many girls in India don’t get to do higher education even)! Though my Parents supported my decision, they were blamed for sending a girl out of town, that too to earn! And as a daughter I never wanted my parents to put their heads down!!

Soon , I realised that I will be made to resign the job, get married and forced to live the life as I mentioned above! As most of the girls succumb to!

So I decided I should reach a position with high societal respect where they hesitate to question me for working Or my parents for raising an independent girl!! I decided to pursue civil services as a career( though I knew no civil Servant personally before that)!With so much of difficulty, failures, demotivations and societal pressure (which most of them appearing for UPSC civil services will face), but with the support of my family and friends , I managed to clear civil services and landed in Indian Defence Accounts Service!

Though I know I haven’t achieved something very great ! But it was this government job that gave me an opportunity to

1)Prove that Women are capable of paving their own way and achieving more than just what the narrow-minded society wants them to do.

2) Travel nearly 20 states and Union Territories as a part of my job.

3) To go to U.S.A for a Foreign Study Attachment

4)Officially visit the World Bank

5) Attend a three days attachment in the Indian Parliament.

6)Visit the US congress.

7) Meet the Defence minister, minister of state for defence and all the service chiefs.

8)Bring a change in the minds of the people with a patriarchal view!!

9) Give a hope to girls to fly high

10) Bring out that a job means more to a women , rather than measuring it in only monetary value.

11) Show that women are Assets to the family, not liability. Women are a Pride,a boon !!!

Thus the life after a government job has given me confidence as a woman, a zeal to atleast be a tiny ray of hope for more women to shatter the blockades!! The job has made people who looked down upon women for dreaming big to respect such women!!!

The work culture of my job is such that

1. ‘Ladies First' is strictly followed as a Protocol even in dining!
2. I have experienced that in many gatherings the Army officers stand up when a women enters or leaves a hall ( as a mark of respect) .
3. In the Navy,whenever any girl/woman( even be it a 3 year old) enters a ship she is saluted.

It is so humbling to see the way the women are treated!! And I can definitely feel the stark difference!! The happiness in being recognised as equals knows no bounds!!!

The job has given me wings to Fly!!! Hope many girls earn their wings to fly too!!

To all the women

1)Follow your their dreams, however big or small it might be!

2)overcome the hurdles with positivity!

3)Find solace in people who support you( there are many such people) and ignore the rest!

4)Answer the criticisers with your success!!

5)Break the gender stereotypes with your strength!

6)support other women

To all men,

If at all you can

Try to lessen the difficulties in their( may be your mother, sister, wife, girlfriend, or friend) earnest Efforts to live their own lives!

Be different from those around you !Set an example for other men.

To the society,

I really hope that change will come , that women will no more have to fight for support and encouragement to unleash their potential .

Our time will come 😀अपना टाइम आएगा 💪🏻எங்களுக்கும் காலம் வரும்😀

Best wishes to every one to have a contented and purposeful life😊


-Aarthi Chandrasekar, IDAS at Government of India (2018-present)

Wasting Time?

Imagine you are given a Lamborghini for 2 hours.

Source: Google

What would you do ?

Would you feel lazy to take it out ?

If you are feeling sick, will you use that as an excuse ?

Will you say, nah I will sleep for an hour and take it out an hour later ?

Obviously not.

You will probably make the most of those two hours to enjoy this beast.

Now one question:

Is a Lamborghini more valuable than your life?

Definitely no.

Then why you wouldn’t treat your life as important as a lambo?

Life is ultimately nothing but time, when you waste an hour of your time you waste a percentage of your life.

How you spend an hour determines how you spend a day determines how you spend a year determines how you spend your life.

Lets go back in the past:

Lets go back 5 years later, imagine the amount of time you wasted. What if you would have put it to a better use?

Would your life had been any better if you had utilised the time properly?

Now lets go 5 years ahead in the future, what you do today will determine where you would be 5 years ahead.

People who value time and spend it wisely have everything in life, success , money, happiness, satisfaction etc while the one who wastes time just spend their entire life wondering how time went by and how they didn’t achieve anything substantial.

We all know that life is precious however we forget that time is life and wasting time is ultimately wasting life.

When you understand this you will never waste a second of your life.

How to practically stop wasting time:

Have a plan for every hour:

Even if you are not working and are taking a day off, just plan everything you would do in a day hour by hour

Stop procrastinating:

If you know that something important needs to be done then do it now without giving it a second thought.

Stop spending time on dumb things:

Tv series, novels, youtube videos are not made for us. They are made for by the creators to mint money off you. I don’t mean you should completely stop watching series or reading novels but limit the amount of time you spend on it.

Conquer your hour and hence the day and hence your life:

If you spend every hour of the day productively you will spend your life in the same way. Start by making the most of the current hour and you wont have to worry about the rest.

Set priorities:

Set priorities for tasks you have, what matters the most to you? health or career?

You should plan your activities according to the priorities you have. Top priority tasks should be done earlier in the day.

-Saurav Sharma

Punishing the Child for getting C's or B's

I have a PhD. That's an absolutely amazing academic accomplishment, no? A lot of people have doctorates. Yet, I'm part of the ~2.5% of Americans with one. That means that over 97% of the US population doesn't have one.
 

I wasn't the valedictorian of my high school class. I got B's. Hell, I even got C's (mostly in history though). My senior year of high school, my hardest class, Advanced Placement Physics was a 2 year AP class crammed into 1 year. It was hard. I spent hours daily studying and going over my materials. The grade I got in return for my hard work? C. For the life of me, I just couldn't remember everything.
 

Does that somehow invalidate my academic accomplishments? No. In fact, it's because I worked hard and still only got a C in a class that I knew I had what it takes to keep going.
 

Kids who never fail are robbed of crucial life lessons. Additionally, research has shown that the kids who outperform their peers academically in school do NOT go on to be more successful as adults. In fact, they have a more difficult time as adults when things are not easy or require effort and time to learn and master. They are more likely to give up, suffer from anxiety and depression, and have greater issues with relationships because they never learned how to handle rejection and failure properly.
 

Don't teach them to be perfect; you're not even perfect. Teach them to work hard and do what they need to do to be successful. If they've tried their best, and worked their tail off, then they should be happy with whatever their grade is, even if it's a 70. Would you rather a kid who never pushes themself to take challenging coursework for the fear of getting a B, so they take all easy courses? I could have easily not taken physics at all in high school. It wouldn't have hurt me not to. I didn't need the class. I took it to challenge myself. What would I have learned about myself? That I refuse to try if I don't think I'll be perfect? That's a horrible lesson to teach your child.
 

My oldest is in an AP class right now that he's struggling in. His grade last term was a 70. This is a kid who skipped a year of math. He's smart. He challenged himself, and he's struggling. I'm proud that he is working hard to learn it. If the 70 is the best he can do, why punish that? I know he's working hard on it, he's going for extra help, he's using multiple resources to try and learn it.

The more important lesson he's learning is to not give up even when it's hard. Now, THAT'S a lesson to teach your child. Punish them if the effort isn't there. If he wasn't even trying and failing, I'd be really mad. But he's doing what he can. I'm proud of him.

 

 
Carol Danvers, PhD Psychology from Grand Canyon University

Five Very Basic Tips That Have Helped Me Immensely in Staying Happier & Stress Free

Five very basic tips that have helped me immensely in staying happier & stress free:

1.     Stop overthinking. Most of our stress is internally generated due to our habit of overthinking. If your friend or boss does not reply to your message, it does not mean he hates you. It might just mean he is occupied at the moment. If a presentation did not go well, that does not mean it is the end of your career. Everyone has bad days. It just means you need to focus on your next presentation, instead of spending the next few hours overthinking.
2. 
       Stay positive. Never allow negative thoughts to stay in your mind. Do not fight with anyone or shout at anyone unnecessarily, as that takes away your own energy as well. Do not feel hurt if someone does not invite you to a party. Anger, ego, disappointment, impatience - all these are negative energies that you need to avoid as much as possible.
3. 
       Stay occupied. As they say, the empty mind is the devil’s workshop. Keep yourself occupied all the time. If you have free time, learn some new skill. Develop a hobby that you really like, and that will keep you occupied during your free time.
4. 
       Stop caring about what others think. Stop adhering to the norms of society if you don’t want to. People will always judge you, no matter what you do. Stop getting affected by the expectations others have from you. At the same time, stop expecting anything from others as well. Focus on your own work and interests instead.
5. 
      Embrace solitude. Sometimes, all you need is some quiet time with yourself to release all your negative thoughts and fill your mind with contentment. Being with others all the time will not give you the chance to free your mind of stress. Go out for an evening walk alone, spend some time alone listening to soothing music, spend some time reading a book, or just spend some time travelling alone. Do whatever appeals you, but embrace solitude.

If you wish to get in touch with me, feel free to contact me on Instagram: Rohan Jain (@jainrohanrj) 

-Rohan Jain,IIM(PGDM),IIT(B.Tech)

Let me tell you a small story

Let me tell you a small story.

It is about RBI Assistant 2015 batch recruitment.

General seats: 15.

Applicants? Just imagine.

A guy I know wanted to appear for this examination. His academic qualifications:

• Class IX: 45%. 37/100 in Mathematics.
• Schooling: Saraswati Vidya Mandir (Hindi Medium).
• Tried Kota (Rajasthan), failed miserably.
• College: Lovely Professional University.
• First job: ICICI PO Programme. He left that in 2014.
• 2014 IBPS PO interview reject.
• 2015 SBI PO mains failure.

This guy looked average, he didn't have any contacts (I am not saying looking good and having contacts makes a difference, but then people generally tend to assume that, so just to clarify). He wasn’t a prodigy. Heck! He wasn't even comparable to the people appearing for banking examinations. He never achieved anything significant which caused his confidence to be on the ground zero level. January 2015, he suffered a heartbreak, as he was cheated on by someone who he almost planned to marry, just after he had left his job in December 2014 and was under tremendous pressure to find employment. Only thing positive he had was resources. A laptop, good internet connection and decent stationery.

He had just one thing in his mind, to make his mother proud. He followed just one mantra. Prepare hard and go all-in. For a period of 6–8 months, this guy prepared almost 12–14 hours on daily basis without fail. He knew he is far, far behind everyone appearing for this exam, so he gave his everything.

Result: He got Rank 2 in the final merit list. He cried so hard that he left a scream. It may seem a small achievement when you compare it to others who crack IAS, IPS coming from a humble background, but it was the biggest breakthrough for him in the worst phase of his life.

Why this story?

• He had probably the worst academic record among all serious aspirants.
• Seats were 15.
• He was a Hindi medium student.
• He was terrible in Mathematics.
• He was in worst phase of his life mentally.
• He was under pressure of unemployment.

If this guy can crack the exam, why can't you? You just need one seat at the end, right? You might be better equipped, more intelligent, more mentally stable than him. Just prepare wholeheartedly and go all-in.

Itna tough nahi hai, ho jayega! (It isn't that tough, you'll crack it)

-Utkarsh Awasthi

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Blogger's Note: The writer is talking about himself.

} 

Failing a Course at IIT

I had failed a first semester course at IITK, albeit temporarily, and the whole ordeal was pretty frustrating.

I was at home for the winter break, and had asked my roommate to check my grades. He called me and told me that I had a 10 and I was so happy. When I returned to IITK and checked my grades myself, I found that I did indeed have an A in all credit courses, but had got a fail grade in the wonderful Morning Exercise (PE101) course.

For those who don't know much about how stuff works at IITK, PE101 and PE102 (the even semester Evening exercise counterpart) are the two most useless courses at IITK. Twice a week, you are supposed to go for sports stuff for an hour or so in the evening (though the course is named morning exercise). If you are good enough to be selected for the institute sports team, you have to go for practice for that. Rest of the public are slotted into the dreaded NCC. There are no credits for this course, but you fail it if you don't have 75% attendance. There were stories of high CPI students who had to stay after their expected graduation time simply because they couldn't clear one of the PE courses.

So I had failed this silly course for lack of attendance, and the reason was that I was on leave for more than two weeks to represent India at IOI 2007. I had done most of the stuff to ensure that the weeks of leave did not affect me. I had talked to every course instructor and had taken care of labs and quizzes and stuff. The NCC people were the biggest pain. I tried to tell them that I had the institute leave letter and that I was going to represent India at an international event, but they kept repeating "Less than 75% attendance, you will fail". I gave up on them since I worked out that I could manage the 75% attendance If I did not miss a single NCC parade day while I was on campus.

What I had counted wrong was the number of evening exercise days. Apparently, there was an extra evening exercise day while I was away that I wasn't aware of, and that meant that I was one day short of managing the 75%.

I spent a lot of time screaming silently and pulling my hair out. I was now the quintessential muggu guy that people made stories out of : The ten pointer who couldn't pass the PE course. The jokes were already starting, and the reception from home wasn't too positive either. I had never failed a course in my life, and this course definitely didn't deserve to be the first.

What really worried me was the possibility of losing my scholarship due to  this mess. I had been the recipient of KVPY fellowship since XI standard. 50K+ per year was not a small amount of money to pay for fees, and the scholarship helped ensure that I didn't have to bother my parents for the same. Every year, the scholarship is renewed on the condition that academic performance is satisfactory and some research activity is done. If the fail grade wasn't changed by August when I was supposed to send the renewal request, I would probably lose my scholarship.

I decided to take my chance and talk to the dean of students affairs (DOSA), who was also the official instructor for this course. Prof. Prawal Sinha was really nice to me, though he did take the opportunity to tell me how it was was stupid of me not to take care of this earlier. He assured me that he will take care of the grade.

But boy, did it take long. I had to run from office to office in the old and scary Faculty building for weeks and months. I had talked to DOSA in early January. End of Jan, Feb, there was no change. I got progressively more and more restless. Kept meeting DOSA and the UG section in-charge every week or so. I even wrote a mail to the director, which the DOSA didn't like much. I probably ran around the campus more to get my grade changed than most students did during the PE sessions.

Eventually, somewhere around March-April, the grade was changed and I got the modified transcript. This was more relieving than anything that happened to me at IITK. The computer system that takes care of grades and stuff claimed that I had both passed the course and had a backlog in it. Got that bit fixed in my third year or something, but that took merely three or four visits to the UG office.

-Raziman T.V.

Emotionally Damaged

You feel numb, find it hard to connect, want to over-connect, find it hard to spend time apart, struggle with trust, inherently don’t believe others, have a hard time regulating your emotional state, consistently over-respond to minor situations, under-respond to major situations, fear being loved, fear your own anger, have too much anger, have self-hatred….the list goes on and on.

Being emotionally damaged can take endless forms.

Despite it all, what it shows is that - for better or worse - you *experience* emotions….and that’s a beautiful thing. You want that.

Your emotions are just not working in your best interest right now.

Emotional damage happens when a part of you is stuck in survival mode.

Maybe it’s from childhood, a former relationship, abuse that’s happened to you, an experience that was beyond your control, a loss, or the many things that can stop us in our tracks and change the way we see the world.

But wherever you are, just know that emotional damage is something you can come back from.

There is hope, and there is a great life waiting for you ahead. Please take the chance, reach out, and find the help you need to move forward.

You don’t need to live like this.

-Julie Gurner,I'm a doc of psychology

One Trait to Maximize Your Potential

I know a guy, who was rejected by 7 companies, even by TCS.

Then, something happened……….

He ended up with the highest package in his college.

He is my younger brother.

---

I know a guy who couldn't qualify JEE.

Then, something happened……….

He ended up with a package of 22 LPA, more than most of the IITians

He is my room mate's friend.

---

I know a girl who suffered from extreme under confidence. She would stammer even in mock interviews.

Then, something happened……….

She perfectly nailed her IIM A interview. She even managed to make the interviewer laugh, very rare.

She is my friend’s sister.

---

I know a guy who would struggle to even understand English, being from a hindi medium school.

Even after scoring 99.5 percentile in Quants in CAT. He couldn’t clear CAT, because of English.

Then, something happened……….

In a recent Exam he took, he scored almost a perfect score in English.

He is my room mate.

---

I know a guy, whose teacher said that if he sits for JEE Advance, it will be a joke on him and his parents.

Then, something happened………..

That guy ended up clearing JEE, that very year.

That guy is me.

---

Now, let’s try to understand what exactly happened in

“Then, something happened……….”

This is what happened:

1. They felt devastated, broken and lost.
2. They wanted to give up but DIDN’T.
3. Toiled hard, very hard in the face of difficulties.
4. Gave it their all.

and finally achieved what they wanted.

Most people just give up after STEP 1. They will distract themselves by watching YouTube videos, movies, gossiping with friends and what not.

But there is another set of people, who have it in themselves to work hard in the face of rejections and these are the people who get what they aspire for.

To not give up and to keep working in the face of difficulties is not only underrated but rare and precious trait somebody can have.

-Shubham Singh Chauhan

B.tech from Indian Institute of Technology Varanasi (IIT BHU) (Graduated 2018)

The Psychology of Self-Sabotage