When "MORE" Makes Life Better !

 

Doesn't it sound ironical to talk about "more" as a means of bettering our lives especially when so many of us seem obsessed with incorporating "less" in our lives for the purpose. Whether it's implementing the concept/ philosophy of de-cluttering, minimalism or essentialism, the quest to "live with less" never seems to end. Many of us are always on a spree to do away with our possessions in a bid to "live better and more meaningfully" through surviving with bare, minimum life essentials.

To many of us, talking about "more" as a means of achieving a better life (in many ways) may sound contrary to the above and we may start to wonder about the possibility of it ! The catch here is the context we put for "MORE" - as long as we perceive "more" in terms of "extra" or "add-on", we may always be in astonishment, but the moment we change the frame of reference to "incorporating the essential" in our life, "More" starts to make better sense and things become much clear. Here, in this post i share about five such ways when "more" brings fulfillment and success and makes our lives much better vis-a-vis "less". Let's look at them 

Living more REAL and Less Digital 

The amount of life we live in the virtual world is so much more than in actual. The social media, social networks has permeated our lives so much that it has blurred the distinction between real and fake. We always seem to be living our "alter ego" in the digital world and have almost forgotten what it is to live our "real" self. The time calls for being more real than digital to remain the "homo sapiens", the species that we, humans, belong to. The biggest danger of living "digital" is the eroding away of basic elements like emotions, feelings and rationality that sets us apart from the rest of the species. Living more REAL will not only help rekindle the lost spirit of brotherhood, but also prevent the pretense of superiority or parity which is not required and help us be more respectful of others' identity and needs. The moment we drift away from the "real" is when we start to see a dip in our esteem, efficacy and confidence. So, let's not compromise on living a fulfilling life and start live Real.     

  

Living more in PRESENT than in Future

We live in a fast paced competitive world and majority of the time we are focused on securing our future. We go all out to accumulate as much as we can, thinking that this will make our lives better in future (a myth, though !). We do not give sufficient importance to the existing moments and let go of all the beauty and pleasures contained in the current moments by allowing the life go by us. All this happens, primarily, because we tend to view life in limited dimensions (like wealth and professional growth) and so keep working towards improving these specific dimensions of our life at the cost of the rest of the dimensions like self, family, health, etc. This ultimately leads to a state of imbalance and our hopes of a better life in future get quashed in no time. When we start giving importance to the present, we, not only, start noticing and feeling the little pleasures of life but also start living life lot better. So, let's live in the Present and bring balance in our life.   

Saying more NO and less Yes

However positive and affirming "Yes" may sound but making it a philosophy of life leads to lot of dissatisfaction in life. We need to realise that every "Yes" eats into our resources of time, effort, attention, money, etc. For reasons obvious and not-so obvious, we may say yes to things, people and situations but that doesn't guarantee success always and later we may regret saying yes to so much. If we can remember that everything is not worth our time, attention and effort then we can start saying NO more comfortably. The best thing about saying NO is that we take a positive and progressive step towards a better life by avoiding taking too much, which most of the times is beyond our capacity and interest. So, let's get judicious in our choices/ decisions and say NO when doing so make our lives clutter-free and better.     

Doing more MONO and less Multi

When "Survival of the Fittest" becomes the sole mantra to live by and busyness takes preference over productivity; when being competitive is not good enough and one starts to outdo others by way of becoming better, smarter and/ or faster than multi-tasking seems to become the norm. Engaging ourselves in plenty, much more than we can handle, gives the feeling of doing more. We try to ape the supercomputer which has in-built capability for parallel processing, but forget that as humans, we possess only single processing capability. For us to focus on multiple tasks together is impossible and how much we may say we are multi-tasking, it's actually mono-tasking that we still do. The reason being, that at any point, humans can just focus on a single thing. The biggest advantage of mono-tasking is that we can focus well and pay undivided attention to the task at hand. On the other hand, in multi-tasking, not only we become more unproductive as a result of many unfinished tasks, but we also tend to spend more time shifting among the multiple tasks and taking longer to restart on the previous tasks (proven by research). So, let's make our lives better by doing things one at a time.  

(Related Article: BUSYNESS - The Utopian Paradox )

Connecting more INTERNALLY and less Externally

With all the attractions and distractions contained in the world around us, it's easy to get swayed by what strike our senses and fall prey to the "pull factor" syndrome, where we just get led by things. This results in ending up operate our lives with an "outside-in" approach, where the control of our life gets passed onto things external and we lose grip on our life. This tendency of going along with the flow of  VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) environment is not conducive to our growth and development and can be addressed by altering the orientation of our approach to life by making it an "inside-out" approach. During these times, when we are struggling to be authentic and credible, connecting more within gives us access to that inner wisdom that equips us with powers of creativity and intuition, that helps us stand tall during times of adversity. So, if we keep visiting our inner guide, we will end up discovering our best ally.  

(Related Article : Playing Buddha At Work)

Here's ending with a wonderful quote that nicely sums up the entire post 

"Aspire not to have more, but to be more" 

                                                - Oscar Romero

Note : the images in the above post have been sourced from the internet

Winning the Game of Life !

Courtesy: Google Search

When life hands us disappointment, failure, downturn and like, It's an indication that the time is ripe for some self-reflection and to ask ourself - How well are we playing the game of life and whether we are adequately equipped to play and win in this tricky GAME of life ?

With its uncanny nature and all the idiosyncracies, life always leaves us guessing about what's coming next. The unpredictable and uncertain nature of life never allow us to gain a grip over things and we tend to lack proactivity in addressing the challenges that life throws at us. Amidst all this, life still rolls on and leave us gasping to catch up with its' speed and pace. Though we can never be hundred percent prepared and equipped to deal with the twists and turns in life, but we can still manage to beat life at its' own game if we develop an effective strategy.

The strategy to win is plain and simple - incorporate in our repertoire of daily living, the elements of clarity, purpose and action which can effectively negotiate the after effects of unpredictability and uncertainty that life regularly poke us with.

Decode the acronym GAME, and voila, we arrive at 4 key elements for our survival kit in this VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) impacted world. Let's find out what these 4 elements are :

• G for GOALS - Who wants to keep moving in life without reaching anywhere ? With the exception of a rocking chair (pun intended), I am sure none us wants to live like that - living in a haze of confusion and be lost in our life, achieving and accomplishing nothing. This is where GOALS play the saviour for us by providing the much needed clarity, both in terms of where we are headed and where we intend to reach. Goals bring purpose to our life and act as a springboard to propel us to greater heights of success. Establishing goals are mandatory for us if we want to succeed and accomplish our dreams in life. Goals work as milestones and checkposts, keeping us focused on the way forward. A life without goals is like a meaningless meandering that we engage in but with goals, it becomes a purposeful quest for bringing meaning to our life.

• A for ATTITUDE - To win the GAME of life, it's important to understand how we approach it - either we can see opportunity in every challenge and make the most of life or see challenge in every opportunity and forever be stuck in life. To win the game of life, it's essential to carry an attitude of optimism, possibility and action because dark days outnumber the bright ones in life and if we can keep our spirit up during tough times then life is a song and then there's no stopping us. So, let's build an attitude that provides us altitude.
  

• M for MOTIVATION - Consistency is the hallmark of a winner. When we talk about the  game of life then progress, even if it is small, holds the key to success. This in turn depends on our type and level of motivation. Motivation is that inner urge which keeps us going towards our goal and more big and distant the goal is, the more the need to build sustained motivation in us. The main aspect of motivation that we need to work upon is not whether we are  motivated or not, because we are always motivated for something but rather about whether we are appropriately motivated, in alignment with our life's purpose and goals. So, if we plan to win the game of life, then we need to develop and sustain motivation that's directed towards our goals in life and not away from them.
  

• E for EMOTIONS - Talking about the hyper connected world that we live in today, it is our social identity that's defining our success so building a strong and sustainable relationship with our social connections, networks and groups becomes very crucial. Emotions play a major role in building a long lasting relationship, both with self and others and winning the game of life becomes much easier. Emotions is perhaps the most less understood among the 4 elements being discussed and if we have to thrive on relationships/ connections then we need to start building on our emotional skills. A highly developed emotional skill is all about a better awareness, understanding and application of emotions, in self and others. Once developed, this skill renders us more balanced, in better control and in a better frame of mind to take logical decisions.