It was Sunday, October 1st and that evening I was trying to write a blog and it seemed to be becoming very difficult to put my thoughts and ideas together. This is happening after a lot of attempts…
I tried to write with a pen, typed on my laptop, then finally I took out my big klickety-klack keyboard. Neither the pen nor other keyboards could help me with the flow state I wanted. I even tried things that had worked for me in the past. Playing music and then getting my ideas organized. But this time not sure what was blocking. I had made notes on paper. I directly made notes on WordPress. Jotted down on my iPhone and still I was staring up and not getting the lead threads to write. The moment I got into Google and started typing- after I captured some quotes, my mind wandered to the next tabs and I went down the rabbit hole or as I learned in a book I am reading “Making Time” where he put this as “ Infinity pool”. So here I am finally locked in a chair at 6:15 PM on a Sunday evening trying to draft a blog. There is one thing I had done which was to go through my daily journal and put down some points for me to get a sense to write. It started getting jarring and uncomfortable.
My last blog was on Sept 5th. I was wondering what to write and then it came to my mind “Why not reflect on September?”. In a podcast session that I regularly hear, I heard Marshall Goldsmith asking this question, ” What does it take to have a great life?”. Sounds philosophical. By the way, I also learned the meaning of the word Philosophy in September.
Philo means love and Sophy means knowledge. So in this blog, I thought of capturing some of my learnings and views which I encountered in the month of September.
It was September 29th and I was having a call with my boss and we were discussing our next year’s plans. As a company, our financial year is from October to September. At the end of the conversation, he told me ” Take a break.” That moment made me think about how hectic September had been.
I noticed that my younger daughter can make cookies now and I was unnecessarily making a fuss out of it when I saw her along with her friend next to the hot oven and I alerted my wife to oversee. I tasted a couple of cookies and was literally after my daughter to share that last piece of cookie.
I got an opportunity to get some spiritual insights thanks to my friend who held two sessions this September and one was an extempore one. I was happy to read a Rumi quote that was very pertinent as I felt that my friend brought all his knowledge together and every fortnight prepares to share it with us and it is up to us to live it and make it a reality.
If there is one scene apart from the last scene of Pursuit of Happyness ( this part of my life is called happiness) that I love to see again and again then I would add this one to that playlist: When Matt Damon says, “A shoe is just a shoe until somebody steps into it“. There are dialogues that give you goosebumps and as I like speeches I keep looking for those kinds of movies and speeches. Apart from this movie, I am not sure If I was impressed with anything else. But there were 7 things that impressed me this September…
- Amit Tandon’s entire Masala Sandwich series of episodes was a treat to watch. It was great to see my wife explaining to me some of the colloquial usage of Hindi. I am sure my Hindi usage is getting better which is feedback I have been working on for some time now.
- Books I am reading: ” Make Time”, ” What all things to Learn from Military”, ” PARA” and ” Song of Significance”. I will share my insights and takeaways in my future blogs.
- The podcasts that impressed me were the Knowledge podcast( Shane Parish) with Naval Ravikant and Ryan Holiday with Impact Theory.
- One thing I must be proud of this September was that I introduced flash cards to my daughter and I have seen her using them to a good extent and hopefully, it would reap the dividends. In fact, she came to me one day and said that it was working for her.
- I was engrossed in one conversation between Ryan Holiday and Tom Bilyeu (Impact Theory) where they spoke about Alexander and Diogenes. I liked how Diogenes responded to Alexander when he mentioned “ I have conquered the need to conquer the world.”
- Xeno’s inputs on doing hard things every day to keep yourself on track. I was thinking of making a list of things which is to push myself to do hard things. We treat the body rigorously so that it is not disobedient to the mind.
- Learned a new word called ennui, a feeling of little sense and dissatisfaction arising from the lack of occupation and excitement. French word that combines tiredness and boredom.
Marshall Goldsmith’s response to Shane Parrish’s “ What is the definition of a good life?” was very interesting. He mentioned Health, Middle Income, and Relationships and then went on to describe Aspiration ( why), Ambition (Achievement), and Day to Day activities. I thought of all these elements and felt that sometimes I am too focused and miss the woods for the trees… One day, my wife had bought a stand and she had unpacked it, assembled it, and kept it in the balcony with the pots of plants. I would regularly go to the balcony and spread my towel. I failed to see that stand after several trips to the balcony! She pointed it out to me- you are so focused on one thing that you missed seeing what was happening around you! Gandhi ji came to my mind…
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