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Start your Day with a Positive Intention :)

January 23, 2013 By 2 Comments

Positive Intention

Your Intention can be your most powerful Tool.

When you use it to set positivity. To set a Positive Intention. To be with that Intention. To actually believe in it. You create positivity within yourself. You may not know exactly how things will manifest, but if you can truly believe in that Intention: You should make it. You should set it. You should believe it.

So start every morning off with a Positive Intention.

I got this from my great friend Akshay. I thought it was a brilliant way to integrate this into your life practically.

It starts with something so simple. Park your car in reverse in your garage. Back in instead of pulling in. Now when you drive out in the morning. When you start your day. When you go to work. When you go to wherever it is you’re going today. You start off going forward. You start off going into that Intention. You don’t go backward. You don’t look at the past. The past is just but a memory. When we are sitting there in our cars, and going forth in our day. It will begin with that Positive Intention that we set. We will see the garage door open up in front of us. The light slowly peer in. In some ways our own personal Sunrise.

We wake up sometimes and we don’t even get a chance to see it. Maybe it’s been too late, maybe it’s been too early. But if the Sun is there, we can allow it to be ours.

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As that garage door pulls open over your car, you see the open space out in front of you. That free space is for your Intention to fill as you move forward out into the world. That’s how you’ve decided to start this day. Forward. With your Positive Intention.

Don’t forget to Smile :)



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Reflections on WDS Two Weeks Later and 5 Lessons I Learned

July 20, 2012 By 4 Comments

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The WDS conference was held a couple weeks ago. It was one of the few events I had pre-planned this year over 6 months in advance. If you haven’t heard about it, you can read more about it here: World Domination Summit.

It’s a gathering of passionate individuals with big ideas that want to make an impact on their own lives or the lives of others.

It’s a gathering of change-makers, innovators, do-ers, the ones who don’t see life as simply something that is happening to them, but something we are deliberately creating with our every breath and want to grab hold of it and start truly living.

I had a hard time describing what the event was to people who would ask me. “What do you do at the World Domination Summit?” they would say. Chris humorously pointed out at the beginning of the conference our standard response should be, “well, isn’t it obvious?”. He went on to describe what it was truly all about. It’s about 3 main things:

1. Community

2. Adventure

3. Service

This was the core philosophy and I took it to mean: Community because this was a gathering of people from all parts of the world that are together because of a single idea — we can do better in this world with our lives. Adventure because you can’t truly feel Joy in what you’re wanting to do unless you absolutely love it and everything you do seems like an adventure. Service because you can’t live a fulfilling life if you do not give back to others.

There were five main things I learned from this unique experience.

1. MAKE YOUR LIFE A STORY WORTH LIVING

I kept describing the scene at WDS like a Sea of Inspiration we were all swimming together in. The Sea was our Stories. The stories that define who we really are, not the one that society tends to define us by. No matter how old you were, or what you were doing currently in your life, you were treated as simply another human being with something to share with the world through your own story. If you had a great story, you were going to get quite a bit of your very own 30-seconds of fame over that weekend.

WDS was not really a conference as it was a gathering where you could meet and connect with those who were on a similar path of living a life truly worth living. Some were on the path, others were trying to find theirs… but it didn’t matter. It was a large Sea of Inspiration and you could gain or give value any way you wished.

It’s the stories we created that will live on inside of us past the next few weeks when the buzz of inspiration has begun to settle down from WDS.

There were so many great moments at WDS.

I met so many great people I can now call friends:

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I attended impromptu Meditation sessions organized in the mornings by Nathan Agin, on his own world wide adventures here: Nonestop Awesomeness:

Later that afternoon, I joined an Unconventional Fitness – Yoga in the Park session where the theme was of course related to manifesting Joy.

Later that day I attended a session by Jonathan Fields who I had only heard briefly who mentioned “achieving Joy can be a zillion-sum game: I win, you win, and someone I don’t even know wins.” I found out later that night only that Jonathan’s story included opening a Yoga studio in NY over 10 years ago when he was on his own path from leaving his job as a lawyer behind.

That whole day it seemed like the universe was coalescing to give me brief insights into Joy as many times as possible even as I caught the movie that premiered that night: I’m Fine Thanks.

2. LIVE BY YOUR INNER PURPOSE AND BE PROUD OF IT

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I went to SXSW earlier this year and it seemed to be all about personal/business accomplishments over someone’s individual human story.

When you walked around WDS, any interaction you had would typically start with, “What’s your story?”. “What are you passionate about?”. “What makes you truly happy and joyful in this world?”. “What inspired you to be here?”. “To travel thousands of miles to a conference titled ‘The World Domination Summit’?”

This was quite a shift from SXSW where typical interactions were, “Check us out online! We’re awesome! I’m awesome! Here’s some swag! Woooooo!”

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, because it’s all in good fun, but on a personal level, I think there was more to gain on a human level with the interactions that took place at WDS if you were open to them.

It reminds me greatly of Simon Sinek’s brilliant TED talk on living from your Why: “How Great Leaders Inspire Action“. He explains it in terms of business, but it applies to each of us as humans.

3. EMBRACE VULNERABILITY. LIVE WITH JOY. AND DON’T STOP BELIEVING!

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I had been anticipating the opening talk by Brené Brown for some months before the event as I had heard a great deal about her and my Yoga teacher had quoted her quite often in her classes. What I ended up experiencing was eye-opening.

If you haven’t heard of her, do yourself a favor and at the very least watch her TED talk: “The power of vulnerability.“.

She focused her talk on Joy and having the gratitude to cultivate it within your life. It was truly about living what she referred to as a Wholehearted life; a life worth living in other words. She’s done years of research on the topic and through her own personal journey has been sharing her insights.

She began with an eye opening demonstration that explains it plainly. She asked everyone to stand up and start laughing as hard as they could. Make whatever they felt like was their signature over-the-top laughter. Many of us fell over laughing and were very expressive in showing this emotion. Then she said, “okay now act cool”. Most of us stayed still. Standing in some pose that signified “being cool”. It was fascinating. As a society, she pointed out, being cool was actually the opposite of what it meant to be Joyful. She said we needed to be uncool and not afraid to let it all out. You need to embrace being vulnerable enough to act the way you truly feel inside. The willingness to maybe laugh uncontrollably in public for instance.

A quote from her talk speaking on Vulnerability- “the only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you’re saying to someone when you’re being uncool”

By the end of her talk, it was fitting she would have everyone get up and dance their hearts out to Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing! Because we shouldn’t stop believing in those things which make us feel absolutely pure Joy inside.

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4. THOSE WHO YOU ADMIRE ARE MORE APPROACHABLE / ACCESSIBLE THAN YOU THINK

I had followed another author and blogger, Pamela Slim, for quite a while as well after reading her ‘Escape from Cubicle Nation‘. She’s done talks at corporate offices including Google to help inspire more collaborative and meaningful work environments as well as just helping people who want to start living more fulfilling lives for themselves.

I walked up to her, nervous about introducing myself because I felt weird knowing her but she having no idea who I was. If it wasn’t for Brene Brown’s fiery opening session on being vulnerable I may not have said anything. I’m so glad I did, because Pamela is one of the most down to earth people I met for being an author and well-known figure in the community. She immediately asked me with a warm smile, ‘So what’s your story?’. I told her briefly my story over the past two years and the Joyful Breath Yoga project I’ve been working on the past 5 months; a project closely aligned with higher passions of mine. She ended up being very inspired by the journey I was on and was grateful I approached her to tell her it. This filled me with Joy, knowing that someone I looked up to could find even a small bit to admire in myself. She thanked me for sharing the story and took a picture of us with my Japanese headband to instagram!:
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There’s a big life lesson to learn here. What we admire in others, is truly a reflection within ourselves. We see it in others because it’s something we value in ourselves enough to notice. We wouldn’t notice or recognize this trait or source of inspiration if a part of the desire didn’t exist already in us. Truly value yourself… Because you never know what you have inside which can inspire even those who you admire.

5. ACTION

The main take away from WDS though was Action. Among all the inspirational stories, the connections and new friendships, and all the buzz from activity of the weekend, without any action afterwards, any ideas or motivation from the event would simply fade away. I came away with a firm intention of action after that event. I wanted to truly begin living from that place of Joy that Brené Brown spoke about on the first morning of the event. “There is no harder feeling to feel that Joy” she said. That resonated throughout my being, and it likely could be because I’ve been very involved with a project that I feel so passionately about that has the potentially to truly change people’s lives called Joyful Breath Yoga.

The reason I write this is because I could not have imagined I would be able to do this over 2 years ago today. The truth is, it’s never as easy as it seems. It’s easy to see someone like myself able to have the freedom to live and work from anywhere with an internet connection, but beyond the glory of that, you miss the sleepless nights, the uncertainty, the questioning of following the ‘right path’ (whatever that means), and the many hours a week spent non-stop working and weekends that are given up in pursuit of fiercely living a life with purpose.

The WDS conference holds a special place in my heart. It was two years ago I read Chris Guillebeau’s book ‘The Art of Non-Conformity’. I read it at a time when I was seeking what was possible outside the confines of a cubicle life that was slowly sucking my soul away every day. Chris went on an Unconventional Book Tour that year which passed through Cheyenne, WY. I remember there being 6 of us around the table at a small Starbucks there inside a Borders. It was an intimate opportunity for all of us to share our stories with Chris; a change from the larger crowd he drew in Denver on his way over where he had give a short speech in the book store.

I remember telling him briefly my story and feelings on work. I told him my friend Kunjan and I had been running our company Quark Studios on the side of our jobs for many months now and starting to grow some pretty consistent revenue from it but the idea of leaving a very stable and high paying full-time job seemed crazy. Especially when many people would have killed for the job I had, given that the economic crash had just happened a little over a year earlier. But he told me something profound that afternoon that has stuck with me ever since: “many people ask for advice, but it’s not advice you’re looking for. You’re looking for permission. For someone to push you, to light that fire that would get you started and youI already know what to do.” He was right. I did. Less than a month and a half later I put in my two week notice.

I was surprised when I talked with Chris again briefly at the after party that he remembered that afternoon in the little coffee shop in Cheyenne.

Based on Chris’s 3 main points behind the philosophy of WDS, I felt I had covered Community pretty well in 2010, when I became very involved with the Coworking movement that helped me leave my job. I’ve had quite the Adventure growing a company last year at it’s peak to 12 people working together with us and we continue to keep it going this year with around 7.

This year I feel drawn to the third aspect Chris talks about which is Service. He even ended the conference by doing one of the most compassionate things at a conference this size: Investing $100 into each of the 1000 attendees:

So as we all try to find where we fit in or continue on our own journeys, my takeaway has been to remember the three things based on the Core Philosophy of WDS: Stay Inspired through Community. Make your Life an Adventure worth Living. Take Action and don’t forget to be of Service to others.

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The Sun Rose This Morning as it did Ten Thousand Years Ago

July 3, 2012 By 1 Comment

The sun rising at 5am in Tuticorin, a city in South Tamil Nadu.

 

The sun rose this morning as it did ten thousand years ago. The only difference is that it is us, together, who get to set the intention and breathe life into experiences on this planet on the shoulders of our ancestors.

I set an intention the Summer of 2010 that I didn’t fit into a corporate lifestyle and I was willing to do anything to get out. Intentions followed by actions allow each and every one of us to manifest lives of our own making and choosing. I did everything to Break out of the 9-5 (read: The Drive to Break out of the 9-5), grew friendships with passionate like-minded individuals (read: Ashok Amaran Remembers his first day Coworking…), and by December of that year left that life behind(read: I Quit).

2011 was the year of rapid growth with our Mobile App and Web Development company Kunjan and I co-founded at Quark Studios. At our peak we had up to 12 people working with us. We don’t like to call anyone who works with us contractors, employees, developers, etc… We call everyone team members because while they are with us and choose to be with us, they are part of our team.

While we grew more freedom in our own lives, working 70-80 hours a week to more reasonable 30-50 hours this year, I set a personal intention earlier this year that I hope to follow through with in this year and years to come.

It was a very personal intention while looking out into the ocean on the shores of Goa, India.

I had just woken up and had a vegetarian breakfast at the Guest Inn I was staying at. The birds were singing, a slight breeze was in the air with a warm heat in mid-January. I attended a morning Hatha Yoga class next door at the studio beside the Inn. The teacher led with an intention she said she was told during a recent teacher training (all the teachers there were students themselves getting trained) which was finding pure stillness to give the mind peace and the body health.

She described a previous evening during one class were many of them were gathered there in front of the Yoga Master expecting to do some advanced postures and were all ready to out-do those standing next to them. Showing off how they were ‘better’ or more ‘far along’ with Yoga because they knew they could do a pose not many others could pretzel themselves into. But what happened was he made everyone stand with their arms stretched out to their sides as if in Goddess pose, and simply hold and Breathe. For 2 hours. Together they all danced with breath in the silence. It was one of the most difficult Yoga classes many of them had ever had and many of them were unable to fully maintain present throughout it. Afterwards he said, ‘There is always room for growth. The one thing that doesn’t ever change is change itself.’

After class, I was on the shore, thinking over what it truly meant to live a happy, fulfilled life. What does it truly mean to be happy? What makes a person love life? What makes them get up every morning and want to live every moment to their fullest?

I got the answer. My answer. It was gratitude. Gratitude for life, for your body, for your health. Not just being healthy, but treating yourself like an actual living temple in this world. Something that even Buddha, Jesus and many others who were ‘Enlightened’ had also said.

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you” – Jesus
“Every man is the builder of a Temple called his body, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead.” -Henry David Thoreau
“To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.” -Buddha

They were saying to not look at them though; they were saying to look at yourself. Use them as an example, but look inward at yourself because the ability to find peace, love, happiness, strength, good health, and anything you could possibly want is within all of us and has always been. Even if you are unhealthy this moment, illnesses are only a part of our experience. It’s more our intention and how we apply our actions that make a difference in our lives. Why are there so many inspirational stories of cancer survivors like Lance Armstrong? They decide the moment they know of mortality they want to choose life instead. It doesn’t always work out, and can be a tragedy, but it doesn’t mean it was never true. The answer was to be alive. Be absolutely grateful for the breath of air you are taking at this very moment to even read these words.

My intention was then to live a life full of health and happiness for myself and others. No one is perfect, and I’m no where near where I want to be. But I’ve realized this is the intention I want. And I know just like when I set that intention the Summer of 2010, it will come with the following of actions in this journey we call Life.

I’ve been practicing Yoga regularly for almost 9 months now. And one thing you quickly learn in a regular practice if you’re open to it, is Yoga is more than physical poses and postures. It’s more than toning your core and recovering from injury. It is all of these things and many more actually. But underlining it all is that it’s a practice of life itself. A place and time set aside on a mat to return to that stillness I felt on the coastline of Goa. You flow through poses, connecting deeply with your breath, and when you do this regularly for 90 minute classes, you connect with yourself. At the end of every class no matter which you take, you will end in Shavasana. The most important pose in my opinion. It is also known as Corpse pose. You lie in absolute stillness flat on your mat for 5-10 minutes, or longer if you wish. The idea is to return to that place of reflection, and calm yourself down before rushing back out into the busy world again. Do you realize you do this every night though? Every one of us? We have our own personal Shavasanas each night in our beds for 8 hours… We arise from this state renewed each morning allowing us to set a new intention for the day. That’s what a Yoga class gives you. That sense of renewal when you’re able to escape the busy-ness for only 90 minutes and set that new intention for your day. No matter how big or small. This is what I do now each and every morning before I even allow my feet to touch the ground. When they do, I ground myself in intention because it gives us the focus and clarity to stay on track in our ADD fueled world with distractions all around us. Just this past weekend I was so happy to enjoy this state of renewal as I was working on an upcoming project:

Even as I had traveled these past two weeks through Phoenix, San Diego, LA, San Francisco, Seattle and waking up this morning in Vancouver. One thing never changed: I returned to find my own stillness, my own peace, health and clarity each and every morning. My hope is through this new project I’m working on, we can all hope to find it on our own schedules as well by learning to reconnect with our breath.

Today is my birthday. I turned 25 today. It was funny because in the busy-ness of projects I’ve been working on, I had only remembered a day before. The truth is, the sun rose this morning as it did ten thousand years ago. It will rise again tomorrow. I love that it’s my birthday today. People will recognize it, no doubt post on my Facebook, and attempt to contact me throughout the day, but this day is grateful to me because it contains life. Life is a gift. And we should treat everyday like it’s our birthday because it truly is.



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Loving Life between our Goals and Accomplishments

May 10, 2012 By 2 Comments

Image from: http://moneysavingmom.com/2012/05/10-goals-for-this-week-13.html

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about goals and achievements lately. As an entrepreneur, one of the many challenges in running a business is keeping yourself grounded enough to see the immense value in everything you do and how you’re making a difference when the goals are much more rigid and ever-changing than when you’re simply working at a job and climbing a very visible ladder.

Goals and achievements are the pinnacle of societies across the world and rooted in our human condition of wanting to succeed. We want to be successful, recognized, and accomplish something meaningful. It’s what keeps us sane and able to continue what we do. We set up structures of achievements throughout our life: graduating high school, acceptance into colleges, getting hired for a new job, being recognized with a promotion, marrying, having children, and allowing this cycle to continue. While these are all amazing moments, they are simply that: moments. They are moments in time coupled with many other million moments in time we experience throughout our lives. We have more moments in our life that we don’t remember than the ones we do because we choose to only remember the high and low points. We live on a moving curve of ups and downs which map the stories of our life like a performance of acts in a play. We all dance together in this beautiful journey we call life.

Life is fragile though. So very fragile. It can bring us to tears when we remember this. Sometimes it’s in moments of our own pain and suffering and other times during a tragic or untimely death. Death shows us in plain sight the existential problem to human existence. While we are amazingly creative and infinitely capable of anything within our imagination, we are limited by these bodies of flesh that make up who we are. We can dream up rockets and planes that extend our literal human capabilities, but we all suffer the same fate at some moment: death. It changes us, forever. When we know of our mortality or when we remember it, we become better people. We put aside the petty drama of our lives and look at our higher purpose. We understand we are not merely here to exist, but to thrive. Our goals and accomplishments are not just milestones, they’re sign posts that show us a direction to take. Life happens in experiences between these posts so the goals and accomplishments are not the most important moments in our lives. It’s as if the cover of a book is our present moment and the back is the goal; the real story is told through the many pages in-between. We only truly ever exist in the present moment. The moment you’re existing in right now, inhaling each breathe of air, is your life. We should never forget that as we continue the path to our goals. The human condition is surreal– we can create any life for ourselves, a river of possibility from our imagination and desires, and yet at the same time we experience every little moment that leads there. That’s the purpose of goals and accomplishments. Giving us a start and end point on which to steer ourselves through the experiences of life. We can choose a life worth living by setting the start and end points that we want to see for ourselves and then experiencing the magic of life in the middle.

We must start with the now and fill ourselves with everything we love; our best self. When you live life from your best self, you are always giving this to others. That is the most valuable gift you could ever give this world.

**
A friend of mine recently sent me a letter saying they were upset at negativity directed at them from a wall post on Facebook. A blunt insult and a pure form of bullying that caused real pain when it was read. Bullying is actually a sign of insecurity within the bully that is being made up for by bringing someone else down. But this friend is a yoga teacher who recently finished training in India and I felt compelled to reflect back some wisdom that I probably gained from her to begin with. After sending it, I realized how much I needed the reminder as well. Life has a funny way of manifesting exactly what you need at the right moment if you take the time to “stop and smell the roses”:

From the depths of the darkness and fire, we rise more resilient and stronger as a Phoenix from ashes. The negativity, scattered throughout our experiences, is present to highlight the contrast to those aware so we may clearly see the positivity, the bliss. Revealing the north star toward the light, away from our shadow.

Remember in Yoga we return to our mats with a goal, an intention. But it is not the intention that is the purpose of the practice. It’s the direction the present moment takes due to that intention. Therefor, it’s not about ever reaching a goal, but following the path and being present. The paths we never would have considered or taken if we hadn’t returned to the mat, hadn’t given time to contemplation. That journey is the practice.

“What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end” -Nietzsche

**

Like a plant, we grow to a certain point in our lives when we’re able to start creating seeds and putting them out into the world to let new plants grow and thrive. All past generations give us their creations in order for us to create in their shadow when they no longer can. As if we keep passing the torch of life on to the children of every new generation. Our entire lives are rooted in the lives of millions of others who have come and gone and we are all connected like the branches of a single tree.

So what is at the heart of our goals and accomplishments? I believe it is love.

Not a romantic love, although that is a powerful force which can help us learn about true love. True love is limitless, unconditional love for everything in existence. It is the releasing of all negativity, jealousy, pain, suffering and fear within ourselves that all we have left is pure love.

The force that binds all life together by a silver thread. This thread weaves itself between our present moment and all our goals. When we look for the silver lining in any moment, we are finding this. That blissful experience you find in even the most difficult of times that fills you with an immense joy reminding you that you are still alive and grateful for every breathe you take. That is love.

Love is the binding force between all things in this universe. The unexplainable outpouring of love that overwhelms us when we first see our children born. The feelings between two star crossed lovers as if the world melts between their arms. The compassion and kindness we all feel during a heartwarming story and which we call “pulling on our heart strings”. The emotions that are felt so profoundly that they are so deeply personal like how an Adele song vibrates through us and we hear it in our hearts. When we reach far within ourselves, we begin to hear each-other’s soul, softly between the beats of our heart and the rhythm of every breath. The heart has the second most nerve endings in our body after our brain so we can not only metaphorically, but literally “think” from our hearts. From empathy and understanding as opposed to the ego of mind. This is the pure state of love.

The heart only knows how to love. It pumps the blood throughout our bodies rejuvenating every cell with fresh nutrients and oxygen without any questions. Whether our minds choose to be an angry or kind person to the world, the heart never judges and continues to pump away this life giving energy until it no longer can. There’s universal wisdom in the power of our heart and ability to love.

One of my favorite movies of all time which depicts love in the most authentic way is Before Sunrise. The story is of romantic love between two travelers, but the underlining theme is of literal timeless love by the end when Ethan Hawke looks up at the clocks in Vienna. I absolutely loved a video I found by a filmmaker, Jason Silva, who talks about this. He created short bursts of what he calls “philosophical espresso” and uses the topic of love in one of them. What resonated profoundly when I first saw it was his recollection of the brilliance behind Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise:

What Jason comes to by the end is the beauty of life: “Love is the answer to human existence but it does not solve the problem of human existence”.

Spread love into the world any way you can. Many ripples make vast changes in the ocean of life.



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30 Days of Gratitude Challenge

April 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Tax day is upon us and while many of us are feeling upset or resentful, I think it’s important we continue to look at the bigger picture.

I went to a great talk over the weekend by Max Strom. I was intrigued to see him because I had read his book A Life Worth Breathing while traveling around the shores of Goa, India this past January. It was held on the Plaza in KC and entitled “The Healing Power of Forgiveness”. The primary thesis of his talk was the releasing of Anger in our bodies. He believes that by simply not forgiving others or ourselves, we unknowingly harbor anger and resentment inside of us which causes us (and those around us) to feel pain mentally, emotionally, and will later manifest physically.

One solution was to be thankful before anything else. Gratitude is the highest virtue. The virtue where all other virtues come from. In any moment of anger, despair, or state of unhappiness, the virtue of gratitude can change everything.

He recalled a story of a man who seemed grumbly and annoyed at the beginning of a Yoga class. He was just upset and wanting to do some Yoga to help get over it. The theme of the class was Gratitude and the simple reminder of the gratitude he felt towards his 3 year old daughter brought him instantaneously to tears. The emotions from anger to sadness in an instant. It triggers something deep within us. A sort of catharsis from the trials and struggles of the world, a moment of gratitude centers us and brings us back to our meaning and purpose in life. Our accomplishments and greatness. Our goodness and compassion which resides in all of us, no matter how much it is covered by the baggage we carry around from our interactions in the world.

Anger was a primary topic in Max’s talk because he felt without forgiveness, some form of anger is always present. Sometimes we don’t even realize how our anger affects ourselves or those around us. A simple act of anger directed at one person could affects thousands.

He mentioned a story about a Yoga studio he was teaching at with a class of about 50 people and it was one of those peaceful classes you just got a sense of calmness after it was over; everyone was relaxing in the final corpse pose, letting all their worries melt away. Suddenly through the LA traffic outside the window, a man honks his horn, the loud kind, where he leans on it. And he leans on it 3 times and it sounds like someone yelling with a horn. At that moment, he noticed 50 people in the studio get jolted for a moment. 50 nervous systems that were in peace, suddenly in shock with a slight rise in blood pressure. Next to the studio, there were at least 2 other rooms with at least 20-30 people, and along that street, many restaurants where that sudden noise could have been heard. Above these restaurants were residential lofts with potential tenants and more families that may have been temporarily shocked for a moment. One man, stuck in traffic, venting frustration over a person in front of him; possibly the light had turned green, and the person in front was a second too slow in moving. This sudden burst of anger directed at this one person had the power to affect the bodies of others, without the driver likely even realizing it. We sometimes forget we live in a collective world experiencing our realities together. Our actions, thoughts, and even feelings have tangible effects on others even if we aren’t consciously aware of it. He made this point sink in especially to those who were mothers and fathers because this can have implications when considering your state of mind around your own kids. Are you unintentionally directing anger towards them? Can they hear you screaming/yelling at each other? Kids are also more sensitive to subtle feelings of negativity that we tend to lose as we get older.

In order to achieve true forgiveness in any situation, Max said you must release the anger within yourself towards that which you are attempting to forgive. By not forgiving you can only be holding some level of anger. Allowing it to reside in this state becomes a self-imposed prison. A prison of resentment and contempt. It’s akin he mentioned to swallowing poison and hoping another will die. You can only hurt yourself if you harbor that resentment against another. Continually brooding on the past in this way creates patterns in your mind of negativity. This negativity continues in a vicious cycle which soon spreads through your body in certain ways (high blood pressure, high stress, fear, etc.). We tend to focus on these negative moments, the drama, the gossip, rather than playing back our most precious and joyful moments. We for some reason choose to play back upsetting moments in our minds thousands of times in comparison to only a few times the moments that made us cry in pure happiness. He made the analogy that it was almost like everyday we would have 2 options of movies to play within our minds: a horror movie of events from our past or a movie about our greatest accomplishments or happiest times. We choose to place this horror movie in our minds and press play over and over again and the effects are simply reflected in ourselves. The people we resent or feel anger towards don’t feel this when you’re thinking about them. They could be living their own life of gratitude and maybe in a moment of regret they hurt you in some way which left you to hold that grudge. Even if they hadn’t, in the end you have no way of knowing and are literally hurting yourself.

He gave the analogy that it is almost like keeping a hot coal in your body, burning a hole inside of you slowly. This analogy he gave was the simplest way to explain it. Imagine your friend seeing you swallow a hot coal. He tells you “No! No! Don’t swallow it! You’re only hurting yourself!”. But you do it anyways; you tell him it’s not right and you shouldn’t have to forgive this act and so you will hold on to the coal. Without spitting the coal out, in the end, you simple continue to hurt yourself. No matter how terrible the act was.

He made it very clear however that while you forgive, you don’t give up your choices you make afterwards, your boundaries, or even your ethics or morals. You can always forgive a person but never condone an action that was committed. You can forgive the person and release your own anger while continuing to condemn the acts of the perpetrator.

He gave some examples of people who live their lives in this way. The Dalai Lama is a household name and is known for his jovial presence wherever he is. Throughout his life, he has much to be hateful for, to be angry towards; all the atrocities committed in Tibet which led to his exile. He could even hold resentment towards China today, but he doesn’t. He forgives China, but is an activist and speaks about the change he wants to see. He practices a religion of kindness because to feel any other way would be internally counter-productive to his well being.

Nelson mandala was known for saying he forgave his captors when leaving prison because he felt he would still be in a prison if he couldn’t do so.

Max then told a touching story of a father of a teenage girl who was raped and murdered by a serial killer who cried and forgave the killer at the trial. When the media asked him afterwards how he could forgive such a man, he said he couldn’t imagine the father he’d be to his other children if he held a deep seated hatred towards the killer. He did not want there to be any barriers for him to give pure love to his children. And so he cried and forgave a man that did the unspeakable because he wanted to release the anger from himself while never condoning the act itself.


Without even really thinking about it, I’ve had the above picture as my wallpaper on my computer since last Thanksgiving and coincidentally around the time I even wrote a post entitled “Gratitude”. I did it to remind myself to be grateful for even a moment every time I opened my laptop. One exercise Max mentioned during his talk was the practice of gratitude at the end of each day. I want to adapt this for myself and so am challenging not only myself but anyone else who wants to join in to do so. The task is simple.

For the next 30 days, in a small journal or notebook, write down 5 things you are grateful for before going to bed. They can be as simple as the air you are breathing right now. Just feel in your heart what makes you so thankful at the present moment and write it down. You will now be thinking for at least a moment every night about the happy and wonderful things in your life you take for granted every day. A small change can make a big impact. It takes 30 days to form a habit. I will be posting my daily entries the next 30 days to Twitter and Facebook with the hashtags “#30days of #gratitude”. Join me in this challenge either publicly or privately on your own and just objectively see the change it has on your life. I hope we can collectively become more grateful together.



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Give a smile, Get a smile

March 5, 2012 By 2 Comments

This Chai Wallah in India was smiling inside... I'm sure of it.

 

I was at a Chipotle last week and the cashier seemed very stressed and hurried. It was during the lunch hour so she was constantly swiping cards, packing bags and finishing orders. She had a very pained look on her face like she was hoping to get a break. When I saw this, I just smiled at her when it was my turn to give my card and slowly handed it over. I didn’t think much of it as I was only smiling because I happened to be in a good mood at the time, but I saw this large smile erupt from her face like watching a time lapse of a flower blooming within an instant. It was the kind of reaction that caused just enough surprise for me to take notice. It reminded me that we’re all connected whether we realize it or not. That simple smile I gave reflected into her life, causing her to feel, even for a moment, the positive mood I was already in.

***

Our internal state affects our external state. If we’re unhappy inside, we’ll be unhappy on the outside. If we’re angry, stubborn, closed on the inside, the same will manifest on the outside.

If we instead choose to be kind and compassionate, knowing these feelings will be reflected back at us, we can start cultivating these experiences in our own life.

“If you build it, they will come.” – Field of Dreams.

If you build a culture of positive energy, positive energy will be drawn to it. People can’t help but feel good about themselves, even for a moment, when they are around others who are happy.

In the physical world: when we give a gift, we recieve thanks from the receiver. When you give someone a positive experience — recommending a great movie, show or book, you receive positive feedback. When you brighten someone’s day, their new feelings brighten your day. This is because we’re all connected; individual parts swimming in the same stream. We all want to feel accepted and appreciated in our own way.

All major religions spoke of this, otherwise known as “The Golden Rule”:

“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” – Matthew 22:39

“Woe to those… who, when they have to receive by measure from men, they demand exact full measure, but when they have to give by measure or weight to men, give less than due” — Qur’an (Surah 83, “The Dealers in Fraud,” vv. 1–4)

“You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your kinsfolk.” -Leviticus 19:18

“One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own self. This, in brief, is the rule of dharma.”
—Brihaspati, Mahabharata ( Anusasana Parva, Section CXIII, Verse 8 )

“Just as pain is not agreeable to you, it is so with others. Knowing this principle of equality treat other with respect and compassion.” —Suman Suttam , verse 150

“The sage has no interest of his own, but takes the interests of the people as his own. He is kind to the kind; he is also kind to the unkind: for Virtue is kind. ” —Tao Teh Ching, Chapter 49

 

We reflect the world back from ourselves.

***

We live our lives through the lens of our own experiences, sometimes we tend to forget that others see and experience the world differently. This shouldn’t change or limit us from always striving to live from our inner truth.

Seth Godin’s recent book is titled “We Are All Weird”, about embracing your inner eccentricity and ‘otherness’ because it brings out the REAL you. In today’s world of business suits and superficial engagements, it is those who break the mold and buck old trends that garner the most attention and currently dominate the marketing world. Conventional wisdom makes this seem obvious — if you’re acting like everyone else, you will never stand out, you will just be part of the mold. Maybe that’s okay if you want to be there, but to do exceptional things you need to tap into that child-like wonderlust of excitement in your life and express it loudly and proudly. Gravitate people to your vision, your idea, your unique perspective because ‘We are all Weird’ and not all of us are ready to accept it yet.

When we live from our inner truth, success is not defined externally, but internally. Don’t be ashamed to live your inner truth. Sometimes just a simple smile can change someone’s day and in turn will change yours. 



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Creating our Dreams and Imaginations

February 10, 2012 By 2 Comments

Imagination of a Little Boy by Juliana Coutinho on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ngmmemuda/4769872226/in/photostream/

 

Our dreams and imaginations, through our actions, can allow us to build the life we want to live.

Two years ago I remember sitting on the couch of my cousin’s home in California wondering why so many people had jobs and I was struggling to find one a month after graduating college. What was wrong with me I thought. No one wanted me? No one wanted to use me as their human resource?

Less than a month later I found a job doing exactly what I wanted to work on — mobile apps. The realization of what I was expecting couldn’t be more distant from reality: I was employed and at the start of what most people would consider a great career with a great salary in a tough economic time (given this was shortly after the 2008 crash), but I noticed I felt just as lost sitting on that couch in California as I was now working at this new job. People seemed happy with me, so I must be doing something right I thought, but why wasn’t I able to feel the same way inside? Why was I more inspired by the creations of others including innovative mobile app services? Why was I more passionate about working on my own Apps in my free time than I was about the ones for a company that was giving me money?

By settling for what others believe is your potential, you sacrifice your true capabilities, your passions, your dreams. You allow other people’s ideas of where you should be dictate future possibilities. Granted, I didn’t necessarily dislike my manager or the people around me; I disliked how being in that office environment impacted my capabilities and where I could see myself being.

Change is scary, but change is also always happening. It’s not a single moment, an event. It’s a slow process that involves many forces acting upon other forces to put us where we are.

When we graduate high school, the sudden change of college or the need to support ourselves in the real world seems vastly different. Like a puppet hand from above carrying us from one reality into an entirely new one. All that we must realize though is that the future possibilities for ourselves under any circumstance is of our own making. We can change it. No matter in how little of a way, our energy can enact change on our exterior world, our current circumstances.

Henry David Thoreau wrote:
“As a single footstep will not make a path on earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”

The more we keep moving our futures to match our dreams, the more the dreams will slowly began to become our reality. We literally imprint our dreams and imaginations on the fabric of reality, pushing it further and further down until it aligns with our vision.

It’s why anyone with a clear mission or a purpose can see rapid changes and progress in the pursuit of their goal.

This leads to an important implication — it’s possible to become what we consume. It’s possible to live your life simply by what you see happening to others. All your ideas of what’s possible or achievable can be determined by what someone else was able to do and be shown to you.

What we need to realize is this is a fallacy. You are not what you consume unless you allow yourself to be. How many people became the characters on the TV show Jersey Shore after seeing it? Adopted their personalities, their mannerisms, their swagger? It’s possible and it happens… But as humans we have our own imagination and ability to manifest our own vision. We sometimes forget that because it can be easier to passively take in other people’s creations while not producing our own. When you’ve allowed yourself to fall off this path of creating, even in small amounts, it becomes harder and harder to create again. I wrote last year about an Ignite talk my friend Jochen Wolters gave that included an anecdote about Benjamin Franklin’s daily ritual of spending 4 hours to simply ‘Play & Reflect’. While many of us can’t do that, we can at least create for 15 minutes each day: We are Born to Create.

Don’t allow others to create your reality. At the very least, realize your inner potential and begin creating your path, slowly aligning it with where you want to be.

***

Steven Johnson talks about the adjacent possible in our lives in his Wall Street Journal essay, “The Genius of the Tinkerer”. He mentions it as:

“The adjacent possible is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself.”

And the best part?

“The strange and beautiful truth about the adjacent possible is that its boundaries grow as you explore them. Each new combination opens up the possibility of other new combinations. Think of it as a house that magically expands with each door you open. You begin in a room with four doors, each leading to a new room that you haven’t visited yet. Once you open one of those doors and stroll into that room, three new doors appear, each leading to a brand-new room that you couldn’t have reached from your original starting point. Keep opening new doors and eventually you’ll have built a palace.”

Adjacent possibilities are the shadows of our own lives. Like in the Matrix, when Neo is faced with the choice of the Red Pill or the Blue Pill, this choice and action impacts his future possibilities. We control our adjacent possibilities. By the energy we place in every action, every moment in our lives, we push ourselves through these adjacent possibilities, creating new realities for ourselves and new possibilities along the way. The sad truth is if we don’t have the energy or don’t use it to create change, changes around us continue on without our input by the input of others. It will soon depend on who you’re surrounding yourself with that dictates your adjacent possibilities, your possible futures. If it’s a positive group, a supportive family, an inspiring atmosphere, you may find strength and be able to find a path for yourself; your place to make a mark in this world. If it’s in a negative environment, an unsupportive group, and around people who are not passionate about making the most of their lives with what they have, you may find yourself adopting those views and settling for what you see as limited opportunities for yourself.

When I was at my job, I was surrounded by workers who simply lived for the weekend. Some were resigned to the idea that this was the only way to make a living and support a family. Passions, dreams and ambitions were for those who were lucky, entitled, and different. Monday became a dreaded day, Wednesday was half-way to the weekend, and Friday meant leaving early for happy hour. In environments like this you can lose that sense of wonder and excitement that comes from seeing new ways of doing things. I remember by the Fall, I would arrive at work when the Sun hadn’t risen yet and leave after the Sun had already set. It was very poignant at that time how much of life you miss out on when you are forced to be inside during all hours of the day while the Sun is out. I remember telling people at this time it felt like a part of my soul was being sucked away by slowly remaining in that cubicle while I kept looking outside wanting to simply enjoy the warmth of the Sun. It was confusing to me at the time because I loved what I was doing, I respected my manager, and I didn’t even feel like I was in that terrible of a situation as most people are who struggle with work arrangements.

We don’t have to be born into certain circumstances to have this ability to change our situation; we’re all born with that same gift of being able to use our energies to enact change onto our lives and the world around us. It simply starts with the belief that we can. I ended up finding inspiration that year at the Cohere Coworking Facility in Colorado. The simple connection between people who saw life through a different perspective — one where many things were possible, passion and perseverance trumped stability, and that it was possible to cultivate a life worth living through collaboration and sharing. Sharing of ideas, stories, and hardships fueled a collective desire to want to become something bigger than ourselves; to grow ourselves into the people we actually wanted to be, not the ones that upper management saw us to be.

What I realized is collaboration, not competition, is the way to truly create something of value not only in a business but in the world. It was the collaboration between my business partner Kunjan and I throughout that year that led us to forming our Mobile App Development Studio; something neither of us could have built up on our own. It was collaboration that led to us partnering with other creative individuals and change makers that helped us produce bigger and better projects for our clients and will continue to do so in the future. It was collaboration that helped us understand the administrative tasks of businesses that typically bog down many of us that attempt to make this path with our craft.

In the long run, for industries, businesses and individuals, it makes more sense to collaboratively grow a pie for everyone and take your slices than to fight like savages for the existing pie until it’s gone for no one to consume .

***

Have you ever wondered if we are born with talents or that it may be possible to grow into them? Are singers who we see with impeccable voices given these talents while the rest of us are simply unlucky?

I asked this question on Google+ last year over here and was referred to an interesting book about research done on this very idea for the past 20 years. Dr. Carol Dweck found something else fascinating in her research: the way you answered that above question in your mind — either yes you are born will natural talents or no you are not will actually determine the kind of mindset you have and capacity for success. She says we can be placed into one of two mindsets (and possibly have more and less of one at any given time):

“In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort. They’re wrong.

In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. Virtually all great people have had these qualities.” We can have more or less of a fixed or growth mindset at any point in time, but the amount to which you have defines how much you are able to enact change on your own life and the world.

If you truly believe within your heart you are not capable of increasing your talent or skills at something, you’ve already eliminated the adjacent possibilities in front of you before you even had a chance.

What we don’t realize is even if we simply believe… If we have faith… If we strive for something so much simply out of the that feeling that comes from the heart, we begin pulling future possibilities within our grasp. Sure, it may not look exactly like our dreams, or what we had expected when we began imagining, but that’s because there are many other competing forces in the world, not just our own that are making an impact. It doesn’t change the fact that you will be closer to the reality you dreamt up than you were in the past. What you’ll find is that it’s more about the journey to get to your dream than the dream itself.

Remember: we create so others may continue to create.

We, as humans, created the technology of language so that we may have Shakespeare. We created the technology of pianos and musical instruments so we may have Beethoven and Mozart. We created the technology of microprocessors so companies like Apple and Google can give us smartphones that enable us to interact with our world in so many unique ways.

We stand on the shoulders of previous creators in all industries and walks of life.

Our human bodies and minds may not be here to continue on this world when we pass, but our creations can be timeless.



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Inspiration is an Amazing Thing

January 30, 2012 By 2 Comments

A Wall of Inspiration outside of a Yoga Studio in Goa.

 

I’ve realized recently that I can maintain a positive attitude and high energy level during the day simply by staying inspired. Even the smallest thing will inspire me.

I’m incredibly inspired by people who are passionate about something in their life and fiercely do whatever it takes to make their dreams a reality.

I’m inspired by people who want to do more than sit in a cubicle and become a cog in a dying system of doing business just because it’s safe.

I’m inspired by people who are not living for the weekend and are actively changing and growing themselves.

I’m inspired by developers younger than me who have created amazing things and can see a world of infinite possibilities for their generation.

I’m inspired by people who are living simply but purposefully.

I’m inspired by people who have given up much of their life to benefit the lives of others.

I’m inspired by the growth of technology and it’s ability to network so many people together who are like-minded to share thoughts with people who may be a world apart and grow niche communities that otherwise may never have formed due to geographical limitations; essentially allowing for instantaneous communication across the globe.

I’m inspired by change-makers and trouble-makers and everyone in-between who bucks authority and against all odds attempts to forge their own paths in life.

I’m inspired by people in-tune with their internal energy and make it a point to spread positive energy to others out of pure kindness and compassion.

***

We are all carriers of information. Whether that information is simply knowing the answer to a question or describing a life-altering experience, we carry with us information that we use to make decisions in the world around us. Some of us consume a lot of information and we become data banks and experts on a certain topic. Some of us discover new information that can be shared to others. In many ways, these are just messages. Messages we constantly send via our body language, presence, speech, and other mediums like text/email/IM.

Gandhi wrote: “My life is my message”.


Information is very fluid, it flows like a river and creates currents and waves depending on the importance of it. Information can be power if it provides understanding to those that receive it. Information can be strength to those that it enlightens. Information can simply be a sign that says where you are and where you need to be.

Information flows to all of us in some way or the other like the water of a tree. We are all roots and branches of the same tree — literally. Family trees map out our close ancestors, but if you followed it far enough, you’d find we are all connected deeply down this tree. Science has shown this as well — our DNA is a genetic footprint of this fact.

The most noble thing you can do in this world is live by the truth you know deep in your heart. We all know it because we are all connected to it on some level. It’s that tug you feel inside when you hear about a friend who has cancer. It’s that void you feel in your chest when someone close to you suddenly passes away and a veil is lifted on the world and you realize certain things just don’t matter in the grand scheme of things — our homes, our cars, our status, our job, and even money.

We realize money can only get us so far, but love can get us farther. Love for ourselves, for others and the world.

“Forsake not truth even unto death.” – Gandhi


We must make our lives our message. Live from the inside of our beings out into the external world, not the other way around. Not be defined by the media — that we’re not good enough, that we’re not pretty enough, that we need that promotion to be respected. Our best selves are always within us, we just have to choose to realize that and live by it.

Life can take many turns. It can go over roadblocks, be met with uncertainty, provide unexpected outcomes, but like a ripple in an ocean, our lives continue to move with the current.

***

I’m inspired by the smile of a little girl I met on the streets of Ahmedabad who may not have much in life, but exudes happiness that seems to evade the most successful of us in the western world. There’s something we can all learn from her.

 
What has inspired you recently?

 



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Forget 2012 Resolutions, Live Your Life Now and Always

December 30, 2011 By 5 Comments

The Eiffel Tower a few hours ago

 

I was just walking by the Eiffel Tower a few hours ago. It was very beautifully lit up, with crews preparing for the lighting event tomorrow at midnight on New Years Eve. Apparently Paris doesn’t do fireworks anymore due to a recent legislation banning them, so there will just be a special lighting show on the tower as midnight approaches. I was standing on the sidewalk in front of the tower, next to many tourists from all over the world capturing pictures and memories of themselves in this moment, and I couldn’t help but reflect on this past year.

2011 was a year of rapid growth and understanding for me. I’m in awe looking back at where I was just a year ago, even in my posting about 2010 in reflection here on my blog last December. Since then I’ve done so many things including growing a business, traveling over 7 weeks this year including a 5 day hike to Machu Picchu (crossing off an item from my bucket list), and finding more clarity in everything I do.

Earlier this year I became an extrovert in an introvert’s body — networking and attending more events than I ever thought I would have the courage to (mostly out of necessity of being alone in a new city). I gave an Ignite talk to over 300 people about Chai, the largest public speaking event I had ever done after my 20 person Communications course in college. I pushed my comfort zone farther than I ever have in the past and started truly experiencing life.

While staring at the tower still in front of me, as rain drops pour overhead, a few epiphanies cross my mind as they seem to be doing these last few weeks.

We are experiencing an amazing time in human history. Where we are able to transcend limitations of geographical boundaries and connect with each other instantaneously over the internet. It changes everything we do, everything we know, and how we grow as human beings. We can share knowledge with anyone, anywhere, and be heard. Like Seth Godin wrote earlier this year, we are basically in control of our own production facilities with our laptops, the way the industrial revolution kicked off in the early 1900s with factories. We each control our own factory. We can build, publish and extend our knowledge and wisdom out into the world at lightening fast speed.

The implications of this are phenomenal. I feel as if we’re in a period similar to that of the Enlightenment period — rapid intellectual growth which lead to many new ideas that shaped the way we understand ourselves, the world, and the future. Was it obvious to those philosophers, thinkers, painters, and artists that they were in such a transformative period while it was happening? It must have been hard to imagine the impact at the time. Just before the emergence of the philosophers, the printing press was invented which allowed knowledge to be spread farther and wider than ever before. Stephen Johnson wrote in “Where do Good Ideas Come From” that a boom in Coffee shops gave rise to another phenomenon — the gathering of minds in a central spot to mix ideas together and evolve them to a point where they could be tangibly created in the physical world. Crowd-sourcing initiatives like Kiva and Kickstarter are showing the power of the internet now to bring together many individuals together for a common idea and produce something tangible in the world. We get inspired now by people who we’ve never met, but who we feel like we know completely. We tweet with people who we would never normally communicate with and create connections that were never possible even half a decade ago. Have you ever thought how magical it is to create a voice chat with another person over your phone? You are in essence creating a digital bridge across space and communicating on a face to face level with another human being (i.e being able to pick up on additional facial language cues) which creates a much more personal connection.

So what does this all mean?

It means our futures are chosen by us. We decide it. And now more than ever we can act on it and see results faster than ever before. If there was ever a passion in your life you felt you wanted to pursue more than anything else in the world, now is the time to act. Your message can touch millions of people at the click of a button if it resonates and the opportunity to make a life worth living for yourself is suddenly not a dream anymore. In return, you would not only gain freedom to enjoy life as you wish, but you would be contributing your own valuable gifts to the world and that’s the most beautiful thing — the epiphany that I had. It always seemed like a selfish thing — quit your job and enjoy a fun lifestyle outside of the corporate world while everyone else suffers… but that’s not the case at all. Each and every one of us has our own special talent, wisdom, or art to give to the world, but it’s being held back by societal bindings. Whether that be a job, a mortgage, loans — we all have societal baggage we carry around in our minds that cloud our ability to focus on what’s most important to us. Instead, you should reach inside towards that which touches your heart and soul and makes you feel alive; the core of your being that wants to make an impact in some way for your family, your community, your city, or the world. These will be the things that give your life meaning, purpose, and in pursuing them, lead you to happiness.

So rather than making 2012 resolutions, I say we acknowledge this great period of time we’re living in and make the most of our lives now and share our passions with others. Life is meant to be lived, not followed. Live your life now and always, never needing to make a resolution. Happy New Years everyone!



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Sing Your Song

December 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Note: I’m currently in Paris on my way to India for my business partner, Kunjan’s, wedding. I’ll be traveling until after his wedding, working almost every night, and returning to the US during the first week of February. Wondering how this is possible or how I could keep up with work? Check out my next post about how Kunjan and I are able to do what we love and keep productive no matter where we are in this world! Hint: It starts with having a passion you live for every day. 

——————–

An interesting visual of my travels this year from geotagged pictures I’ve taken on my iPhone. The arrow is the rough spot where I wrote this post from.

 

Dec 14th, 2011

30,000 ft in the air above the Atlantic

10:42pm EST

Flying over the Atlantic. It seems so calm the vast ocean below. The slow wave of the current seems motionless from above. It seems extraordinary, as massive an expanse that an ocean is, that we as humans have crafted a way to traverse this body of water with ease. Building large metal birds to carry us that now create migration patterns if you look at popular flight paths over different seasons:

Flight routes across the world any given day. Photo Attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/97373666@N00/3264396897/

 

A lot of small ideas, discoveries, and inventions over time coalesced to reach the reality we are at today where we can jump on a plane and be anywhere in the world within a day or two.

It begins with a single seed; someone looking up at the birds flying overhead and imagining the impossible: “how can I fly?”.

Our ideas, our visions, our creations allow the most unbelievable possibilities in this world. If you imagine, just 100 years ago, the commercial flight I’m taking to Paris was unheard of.

Now we live in a world where collaboration can happen between talented individuals from all over the world, all coming together for one idea, one vision, one belief. The internet is allowing for the mom and pop clothing store around the corner to reach a global audience by connecting with those interested not just in the local neighborhood, but across the world. Customers are now only limited by their access to a computer with the internet rather than geographic location — and the definition of computer with the internet is slowly becoming all our mobile devices we carry in our pockets and purses.

What software engineers have seen since the very first computers programs were being written was that this gap of geography meant endless possibilities in the digital space. A developer working in the Europe can produce something just as valuable as someone in San Francisco because the raw materials(code) and tools(text editors) are digital. As computer programmers, we’re literally shaping the foundations of this digital world. We plant our seeds, our applications and humans across the world interact with them, growing with them, and changing the initial application based on their needs. For instance, looking at the history of the web browser (wikipedia), we can see how it has evolved from the early 90s to where it is now as a great example of how a simple idea and creation can flourish and grow based on the needs(inputs) of those who interact with it.

Anything is truly possible in the digital space.

I can put out a seed, a thought into this little blog of mine and it can potentially reach people all across the world at the click of a button. Think about the value you could be sharing. Think about what invention or creation you could be making. Each one of us is like a vessel. We hold thoughts, ideas, experiences in it and throughout our life we pour them into other people’s vessels when we interact. Sometimes we keep our vessels tightly guarded because we don’t want others peeking in and our vessel leaves this world without watering others.

What the digital world has shown us is what has always been true in the physical world — we make this world we live in. We do. All of us. Together. As individuals we deliberately can choose how we contribute, how we interact with each-other, and how we go about our daily lives. As human beings we have free will under any circumstance as long as we have the courage to use it.

We are here for reasons. Live it. Believe it. Do it. And then share your inner wisdom the way only YOU can.

It can be in the smallest or largest of ways. As small as a simple affirmation of truth or acceptance you decide to show your co-workers, or as large as a vision you want others to adopt to change the world, it all starts from one little dent you try and make. That little dent can grow from others who want to also make little dents with you until it becomes a larger, more visible dent.

Henry David Thoreau famously said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them”.

As we approach this festive christmas weekend and closing days of 2011, sing your song to the world. Sing it loud and proud and don’t let it die within you.



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