“Fate leads the willing and drags along the reluctant.”
As the clock strikes 12 and another year passes by, we wake up to the potential of new beginnings that we had been putting off! Say hitting the gym, finishing an article, learning a new skill, losing some weight, making more friends and NOT wasting more time doing useless stuff.
The past few months for me have been a journey in self discovery. From recurring situations that I kept finding myself in to a few blunders I would always commit regardless of what I did, a lot of life that was nonsense started making sense.
In 2017 I made a few choices that some might consider questionable or risky, but here I am.
The most radical part of 2017 however was the journey I took inside. Understanding yourself is a hard job, and one that you may perceive to be painful as well. But trust me, it is worth it.
A few things that were shocking as I dwelled inside are:
- I do not listen.- I did not listen to people, whether it be family or friends or strangers or anyone. I was in a hurry to impose my point on the other person because I had to be right.
- I like doing the opposite because it is the opposite.- I used to be proud of my abilities to spot short sell opportunities in a rising market. I would brag about it, because in my head, I could claim some sort of intellectual superiority. I would actively avoid looking for profitable trades on the long side, because I had to be short and brag about it.
- I was comfortable being average.- A common statement on my report card back till the 8th grade was “A lot of potential, could do better”. I perhaps took that to heart and my life till now somewhat reflects that. I could be doing much better, and I did let a few people down, people who had faith in me.
And the above is simply the tip of the iceberg. There were a million such programs running inside me, each with a different agenda, each well meaning in its own right, and yet conflicting amongst each other, landing me in soups.
Such insights require absolute willingness to change with some faith. I looked for answers in despair, but being preemptive could help you turn your life around, before you enter the despair stage. (Highly recommended).
Either way you take, there is one step that you’d take on the path and that is one choice that would seem hard, but it was the best decision I’ve taken. Choose to die.
I do not mean death in a physical manner, but every belief, thought, memory and expectation, let them all go. Whether it be the dream of becoming a market wizard or the fairy tale romance you thought you had. Let it all go.
Does it mean renouncing the world and becoming a saint? If that is what the path leads you to, then that is your path. You’d be guided.
Understand this, you cannot force yourself to change with “I will & I must”. That creates resistance that you will rarely be able to overcome. That is why you stop going to the gym after a month and guitars lie unused.
Answers to all issues come from absolute silence of the mind, whether it be a creative endeavour or a problem that needs solving. Cultivate radical responsibility, that is understand that whether an incident be good or bad, realise that it could not have happened to you without you accepting it on some level.
How do you begin? Well I had something about it previously, but the gist is-take some issue in your life that is recurring, ask yourself, with all genuineness you can muster “Why?”, silence the mind and wait for the answer.
As you overcome these issues, you realise that every moment in itself is fresh, every moment is 11:59 PM on 31 December 20XX and you will be just as enthused. Try it!
Fund Managing Monk 