12 Simple Reminders For A Fuller, Loving And Drama-Free Life
By Avnika Gupta
1. You’re a work of art, methodically accumulating different tastes, smells and sounds.
And the only thing that you can do for yourself in this moment is try to know how much you don’t know yet, and keep going for nothing, but for the taste of the unknown.
2. If you wish to hold your identity when everything around you is moving, in different lands, with people who don’t speak like you do, who don’t smell like you do, who don’t eat what you do, make sure your identity is connected to an internal guiding apparatus.
To something intrinsic, lying at the fundamental core of your existence, that has to do with you as a person, and not with your profession/background/family/food choices etc.
3. Always give yourself time to think, to process, to document.
We often have numerous overwhelming experiences with different things all at once, but unless we make a strategic attempt to place it in the scheme of our history, and see how it’s affecting the present moment, and how it can have an impact on our personalised vision of the future; we might not be able to derive the essence of the moment in its entirety.
4. No amount of fame or money or success, can surpass the pure joy of little moments.
If you’re living only for the big moments when everything is larger than your fantasy world, you might lose out on the little joys of breathing, of looking at the sun, of having a lemonade in the scorching heat, of sharing a walk with your sister.
Or you might just end up getting so frustrated in chasing the bigger things that you lose patience with the process and try to rush things up, eventually ruining what your were chasing or not being able to appreciate it when it arrives, for your heart and mind learn to never settle for anything and derive the rush out of the chase, eventually making you move in circles of nothingness, with nothing being able to fill you up as much as they consume out of you.
5. Never take little things for granted. Your health is supremely important no matter how perpetually reckless and thriving you consider yourself to be.
Drink enough water. Take care of your skin and hair. Exercise often. Consume less sugar and avoid processed foods. And watching your skin, hair and food, often has more to do with how it makes you feel than how it makes you look. So no don’t worry, you aren’t being superficial or shallow if you’re concerned about that extra chocolate topping on your ice-cream and if you find yourself wanting to unabashedly sizzle in that body hugging little black dress.
6. Educate yourself about little things. Know where your garbage goes. Know how that pizza and Pepsi affect your digestive tract.
Know about how artificial intelligence is dramatically altering all experiential and factual knowledge. Know the world map. Know how tectonic plates move every once in a while, splitting & converging & diverging well established land areas, and how all geographic division is a myth, reinforcing cultural bias and appropriation. Know how we were created out of stardust, and how we decay. Know how cooking is a process requiring the finesse and prowess of giving birth to a new life. Know yourself. Know your world. Start with the basics. Start now.
7. Your creativity and instinct is supremely powerful, but waiting for inspiration to strike at your door, or postponing your creativity, is just playing with yourself in circles.
Establish routines. Think of causes that have always intrigued you and you know little about. Ask people around for their insights and experiences with reality. Discipline yourself. Creative endeavours are as much hard work as anything else. You will eventually be inspired during the stages of information gathering and sharing, to create out of this process, and be able to share something worthwhile with the world.
8. Take help when you need it. Do not hesitate to ask the most simple, bizarre and basic questions.
What is assumed for someone else, might be surprisingly new for you. Have no shame in exposing your vulnerabilities and the lack of your factual knowledge, instead go to people and things with a willingness to know them and understand them with an open heart, and you will see how their initial disappointment at the lack of your knowledge fades away and transforms into a desire to educate you, to nourish you, to change you.
9. You won’t be able to make it on your own. And if you do, chances are that you are going to make it harder for yourself than it needs to be, and you are going to make yourself stronger than you need to be at this moment.
Trust me, I’ve been obsessed with making myself bigger, better, stronger; the hard path isn’t always the right path. You can choose to make it easy and simple as well.
10. If you’re going to be a giving person who loves and lives unapologetically instead of living categorically, know that you will have to cut some people and things off ruthlessly and maybe even unreasonably, if they display signs of ruining your belief in the power of compassion and unconditional love.
You will need to fiercely protect your world from all potentially distasteful experiences to ensure that your mind and heart can love without continuous cynicism and hopelessness. Do not feel guilty for protecting your capacity to love.
11. Know that you can live without most of the things and most of the accomplishments and most of the people, who are unflinchingly mandatory to your existence right now.
But also know that you don’t have to let go of them just because you can, for you can choose to live them and experience them and enjoy them for how they are, for their most fundamental characteristics and absurdities, and not just because you wish to derive the basis of your existence (comfort, fame, money, appreciation) out of those things and people. Life isn’t an exchange. Life isn’t a lesson. At times, holding onto what you have is as important as letting go of what you can live without.
12. Know that lists don’t have to be a perfect 10.
Know that you don’t have to be a perfect 10. Just find a way of making your imperfections work, and you’ll be just fine.