Learning and Planning

Planning ahead….due to sudden shifts, new phase of life had begun. Planning ahead… not really! Just going with the flow. I know that I cannot control time and most things are outside my control.

However, despite that I can still plan ahead in small ways. Looking forward to starting new adventures. It may take me some time to get there but that’s what I am planning for. Riding motorbikes for me is thrilling and adventurous. So, the first adventure that I am planning on is setting out on a motorbike tour.

Why am I sharing it? When I  am not even close to it yet? Do I believe in law of attraction? Write down your goals and recite them before sleeping each night and as you wake up every morning. They shall soon come to pass!

Not really!

I do know that goals written down have much more meaning and for some reason I am a little more determined to fulfill them.

Just like my endless thirst for seeking out knowledge. I write down goals and work towards them. But let me tell you, I have encountered more failures so far than successes. You may wonder what those might be, as an example, learning languages for me is exciting, stimulating and fun. Yet, I am still a beginner after many years spending time to learn German, Persian and Arabic. The truth is my effort has never been deliberate and focused enough to learn one of them and get good at it. Yet I am fascinated by people when I hear different languages. If I could fluently speak in a different language, the conversations could help me explore different cultures and ideas too.

There are so many things that I would like to learn but if prioritise them appropriately, the skills and knowledge gained will be of future benefit both in building career and life. My current focus is building on these valuable skills while keeping up with other hobbies at a minimum to remain consistent and not losing those skills. 5 mins of German a day, 5 mins of Arabic a day. Persian??? I will go back to it when I start reading Rumi and Iqbal again.

I have been neglecting the practice of martial arts. I have been hiking a lot lately, but not enough exercise and sweat doing that on its own. Yesterday, I ran, the plan was to jog 4 miles. I only managed to jog 2 miles, and even that alternating between jogging and walking each mile. It’s easy to lose skills too if they are not kept honed. Martial arts may be one example, excel or a programming language maybe another.

The point is, it is important to make time to sharpen one’s skills and keep up with them. Martial arts and teaching it is part of that planning ahead. So, while I wait on things to materialise, I got to keep practising so my movements remain fluent.

I have never walked a linear path. If I were a molecule in a beaker full of liquid. The brownian motion would pretty much describe my path so far, despite such haphazard path, I am still contained in a beaker so I am able to maintain my goals in sight. Maybe not the best way to describe it but this is how I have been able to keep sight of my goals. If I were to lose myself in an ocean, I might just lose myself. The ocean is vast, full of sharks and creatures of the deep sea. Navigating through all of that might be even tougher, but I believe planning, practice, and sticking to my game plan will be crucial when it’s finally time to immerse my being in the depths of oceans.

I am going to stop the rambling now, it’s been a a whole month since I last wrote anything on here. It feels even longer. It’s not that I don’t enjoy writing, I just have to get better at managing my time. This weekend it has all been about creating a routine that will help me be more productive and writing it down so I can start following it.

Paths we walk

While walking along the river bank earlier, a thought occurred to me. Not the first time I have thought about it, but still reflecting again in that moment provided a good analogy.

Just like how the path along the river is meandering, so too does the path we walk in our lives. Our sights are restricted, we can’t see beyond the next bend. The view ahead is revealed as we walk forward.

Most of the times, we don’t know what lies ahead. Just like walking along the river bank, in life too, there are known unknowns & unknown unknowns.

Upon meeting people- Law of Attraction

We choose not randomly each other. We meet only those who already exist in our subconscious. -Sigmund Freud.

Another perspective that I know and believe in is this. ‘Before being born into this world, all the souls reside in the realm of souls. It is there, they take the Covenant. Thereafter, they freely meet other souls. They get along with some and not get along with others.’

It is said that the souls that get along in the realm of souls, if they happen to meet in this world, get on with each other.

When I read the above mentioned quote by Freud, this perspective came to my mind. I have no idea if this can be linked in any way to the subconscious. Some things do not necessarily need rationale.

However, I also think that Freud most likely was thinking through the psychological perspective. 88% of our mind being subconscious, we attract those people towards us, that our subconscious dictates in silence. When I look back and the many faces that I have personally come across, some good, others not so good. I can definitely see a correlation of some sort as to why I came across those people.

It is difficult to change our nature and beliefs that are embedded from a young age. However, we can nurture our subconscious. We can consciously create and replace old neural pathways. Well, if you don’t believe me, there is scientific evidence. The Power of Habit, Atomic Habits, The Chimp Paradox are excellent books that deal and explain it with scientific evidence.

So, why am I writing this? Subconscious mind! The unconscious mind! The conscious mind!

Thinking in relation to what Frued has said, we attract people that exist in our subconscious. Alter your subconscious, and you attract people accordingly. I can say that there is a lot of truth in this. If you believe everyone around you is acting in your favour, it will be so, because you will attract more people that do act in your favour. If you think the world is your enemy, you will come across more ill-intent people.

Why do we learn these lessons the hard way? That’s human nature perhaps 😅

I am grateful to the many people that I have come across. I am also grateful to the ones who were not so good, they taught me to alter my subconscious, to attract more kind and compassionate people towards myself.