How does reaching a meditative state change our perspective on goals like wealth, or relationships?

You learn to take things lightly:

Minoo Jha

 · 4y

How do you cope with family members that make you feel awful?

There are going to be some relatives in everyone’s life who make them feel awful. In fact, being a hypersensitive person, anyone could make me feel awful very easily. Until I worked on myself and learned to “carry things lightly”. I wrote this piece about it. The Art of Carrying Things Lightly We have so much to worry about in life. Our possessions, our finances, our jobs, our health, our children, our parents, our spouses, our siblings, our investments, the economy– things big and small – keep us constantly worried. A mine can be waiting for us anywhere…in the next relationship, in the next spate of inclement weather, or on the next newscast. Our world can change in a moment. And sometimes it does. But when you think about it, our responses to events and triggers are just habits. We have not been pre-programmed from birth to respond the way we currently do. When we were babies, we yelled at the top of our lungs and till we were blue in the face, if we were in discomfort, or if we needed something. But we grew out of that pretty quickly, didn't we? If we could do it as a child, what is to stop us now, when we are grown people, and have the capacity to reason? If we respond in set ways to triggers and events, it’s because we have made it a habit to respond in set ways to triggers and events. We just have to make up our minds to quit responding in those set ways. We can re-program our responses at any age, and in any circumstances, and in any area. Once upon a time, I used to be a rageaholic, getting crazily angry when my buttons were pushed. But I successfully re-programmed myself. I discovered rage was a habit and I quit it. Once upon a time, I used to be hyper hyper-sensitive. But I successfully re-programmed myself. I discovered being hyper-sensitive was a habit. And I quit it. Once upon a time, I was a slave to some foods (such as rice) and I had to eat them every day. But I discovered specific foods were just a habit. And I quit them. I successfully reprogrammed myself. Once upon a time, I was unable to be anything but a helicopter mom or a tiger mom. But I discovered being a helicopter mom and a tiger mom were a habit. And I quit being either of them. I successfully re-programmed myself. Part of successfully re-programming ourselves is learning to carry things lightly. When you learn to carry things lightly, your responses automatically change. You stop freaking out. You stop having over-the-top responses to things. After all, few things call for a strong response. An emergency may require a strong response. An injustice may require a strong response. It's hard to think of anything else. Reprogram yourself to carry everything in your life lightly. Reprogram yourself to carry your success lightly. You should be able to fly coach, and to stand at a bus stop waiting for a bus. You should be able to wipe down your car, or even your child’s car. Reprogram yourself to carry your professional status lightly. You should be able to roll up your sleeves and do anything. Help your admin assistant clean up after an office lunch, for instance. Reprogram yourself to carry your job security and job satisfaction lightly. Conditions can change even in the most attractive of jobs or businesses. Your status and responsibilities can get reduced. A new manager might start cracking down. Because of the economy or competitive forces, a job or business, which once seemed secure, can become shaky; a layoff or unexpected circumstances can leave you adrift. Everyone should read the book, The Alliance, by Reid Hoffman to toughen up. It will help you carry your job security and job satisfaction lightly. The book was written to help you understand that even if your job came with an offer letter and benefits, it really is only a contract without an end-date. Anytime, this contract can end. Reprogram yourself to carry your relatively lower professional or economic status lightly. If you have not done as well as others and watched people go ahead of you, even though you started out with a clear advantage, be the big person. You should be able to support the success of those more successful than you. The true test of you being able to carry the situation lightly is doing so, without expecting anything in return. With luck, you could get to be the Roy Disney to Walt Disney, the Charlie Munger to Warren Buffett. It's possible. Reprogram yourself to carry your abilities lightly. An ability can lose its value. It can lose its relevance or charm. It can get upstaged. It can be lost as a result of a mishap, or as a result of getting older. If your carry your abilities lightly, you will be able to adapt to any new reality, even one that comes at the cost of your professional and financial status. Carrying your abilities lightly means you will be able to be productive, no matter what. Likewise, reprogram yourself to carry your disabilities lightly. Some of us are born with a disability; some of us will experience a disability as a result of a mishap, or a series of mishaps. For some of us, a habit can turn into a problem, eventually wreaking havoc with our ability. And growing older by itself, can strip us of the ability to do certain things. Whatever the case, we have to learn to carry our disabilities lightly. Which means we have to live life without becoming bitter, grumpy, irritable and cantankerous. Reprogram yourself to carry your knowledge and education lightly. Just because you are smart and capable doesn't mean you will be given the best opportunities. 'Taken opportunities' are sometimes "taken opportunities"; no point hankering for a seat at that table. You may be relegated to work that is below your knowledge and skill level. The only ‘sure’ way out of this is to keep changing jobs until you find your sweet spot. Or else, become an entrepreneur and call the shots. Otherwise, it’s best to carry your knowledge and skills lightly. As a consultant, I strive to be maximally useful to my managers, and sometimes it means doing what no one else on the team wants to do. If the greatest need on a particular day is for a gopher, I volunteer myself. But Minoo, how will I keep up with my skills and knowledge, if I get stuck doing the low-value stuff. Yes, if you are stuck doing low value stuff, and you feel you are ready for something more challenging, by all means look for a better opportunity and move on. In my case, all my assignments are temporary, so I have the confidence that if I don’t get to use my higher level skills at one assignment, I will definitely get to use them at another. So I never worry about what's happening in the present moment. It's one of the advantages of being a consultant. If a work situation has you frustrated, I recommend you take a step back and reflect. If you don't see any value, or future, in what you are doing, bow out and find something more suited to your knowledge and skill level. Reprogram yourself to carry your ideas and opinions lightly. Remember everyone has ideas and opinions, not just you. And their ideas and opinions are just as legitimate to them, as your opinions and ideas are to you. You shouldn't forever be trying to make a point, or to win converts to your way of thinking. You should try to see the other side. You should try to look at the big picture. For instance, I have observed we are unable to appreciate any social or political changes which benefit the marginalized; except of course, when we are the marginalized ones. To me the mark of civilization is how a country or society treats its most marginalized citizens. This is what I mean by seeing the bigger picture. Reprogram yourself to carry your crises lightly. You should not go “oh my god, oh my god, what am I going to do?” in response to every crisis. Crises have a way of sorting themselves out. A year or two later, the memory of the crisis might serve as a lesson, if that. Recently my car got towed, and I said to my daughter, "Oh my god, I made the worst mistake of my life. I parked in the visitor parking in front of the apartments and I got towed”. My daughter answered "Mom, don't be so dramatic. How could that be the worst mistake of your life?" It brought me down to earth. Reprogram yourself to carry your losses lightly. I know this is a tough one. You could lose everything because of an unfortunate event, or sequence of events. Still you can choose how to respond to that. You could either wallow in self-pity, inaction, or self-destruction. Or you could make a pact with yourself to put the past behind you, and build your life on what you have left. It comes down to a choice. Reprogram yourself to carry your possessions lightly, even if they are expensive possessions such as your house, your valuables, or your car, all of which can be lost, damaged, repossessed or claimed by someone else. When people get into accidents, they get into a rage. Don’t let this be you. Carry the fact of owning a car lightly. You should understand that being out on the road and driven, your car is ever at risk. If driving stresses you out, find solutions. Also even though you have a car, you should be able to walk, sometimes; you should be able to walk like a mother walks her baby. Just because you have a car, doesn't mean you have to drive everywhere, and all the time; you can walk, you can take public transport. A baby or child is going to enjoy a walk with their parents, much more than being strapped in a car seat, and they are also ill-equipped to deal with their parents' driving stress. When my daughter was a baby, and I was still a new driver in the US, I once drove from Oakland to San Jose in a car I was test-driving. During the 50 mile journey, my daughter’s blanky fell, and she started yelling for her blanky. My response was to yell back, because I was stressed. Several miles passed with both her and me yelling. Had we been walking and she been in her stroller, I would have just picked up her blanky and said "here you go". We should carry things lightly because we were meant to “thrive”, not just to survive. We eat to survive. We eat right to thrive. We wear clothes to survive. We look after our bodies and dress right to thrive. We go to bed at night to survive. We relax to thrive. It is important to recognize whether we are doing things just to survive, or doing things to thrive. Try to introduce more of the “thrive” activities in your life. It is a sure way to carry things lightly. Meditation, exercise, involving yourself in a worthwhile cause, and lightening up your schedule are all ways to reprogram yourself in the art of carrying things lightly. Get busy thriving, rather than just surviving. I sincerely hope you will take the message of this post - which is to carry things lightly -to heart. I believe if each of us does that, we can make life better, not just for ourselves, but for everyone around us.

You stop trying to change everybody:

Minoo Jha

 · 6y

Do you believe in the statement "Different strokes for different folks" or "live and let live" and do you apply it to your life?

Yes, and I feel so strongly about this, I wrote a post dedicated to it on my blog: The Element of Understanding We All Make Different Choices and Its Hope for Becoming More Accepting of Each Other We are all unique beings. 2 people can be born to the same parents, be raised in the same household, yet be completely different from each other. One will be religious, one won’t, one will follow traditions, one won’t; one will be a go-getter, another shy and reserved, one will be impulsive, one will be more cautious. Even though we think we know our siblings well, they often will surprise us by their decisions. At an early age, I started surprising my siblings by my decisions. At 12, I stopped going to church on Sundays and declared myself an atheist. One of my older sisters who respected religious traditions challenged me. She said I needed to continue to go to Sunday mass with her. Another sister who respected individual choice, rallied to my cause and defended my decision. She argued the other sister down... “If Minoo has decided religion is not for her, we should respect that”, she said. Thinking back, I am grateful I was allowed to make that choice. Every human being should be able to make their own choices, and discover the truth or falsity of their choices, the wisdom or idiocy of their choices. This is how we learn, this is how we grow. We have to make our own choices. Alternatively, we have to internalize the choices we have made based on other people’s desires, or choices we have made because of circumstances. Ultimately, we have to make all our choices our own – this is essential to being an integrated human being. Non-integrated human beings will do things and have no idea why they did it. After we make our own choices, we have to live with the consequences. One of the consequences of my turning atheist, was everything was up to me. There was no higher power looking out for me. I had to fend for myself. Also, I had to be sure of my convictions and be prepared to defend my position. Once, a priest from our parish church came to bless our house. He sat down a while with us, and one of the things he said was, “I do not see you in church often – why is that? You should attend Sunday mass every week. It is good for your soul.” “Oh,” I said nonchalantly, “it’s because I don’t believe in God.” He was not expecting that. He asked why, and I said, “If there was a God, he wouldn’t let all these bad things happen to people.” The priest tried to reason with me, but eventually he gave up. But not before he asked me one last question: “Aren’t you afraid you may go to Hell when you die?” “Surely, if there is a God, he wouldn’t punish me just for not believing in him” was my pat reply. Our family was on the outside looking in. We had our problems. We were not a “model family”, a Leave It To Beaver kind of family. Our family was the family about which, people might have said, “There but for the grace of God, go us.” I am grateful for this family. It was a family in which each of us was allowed to make our own choices. In our family, there was unconditional love, and acceptance of everyone’s uniqueness. We have nothing to fear but fear itself, is something I learned early. By the time I was a teenager, as a result of my thinking being unconstrained by both religious beliefs and social taboos, I made several unconventional decisions. I decided I would not marry (this would change later on). I decided I still wanted to experience romance. I decided I was not interested in college. I made decisions in accordance with my thoughts. I met someone and we lived together. I dropped out of college. But while I took some risks, I didn’t take others. I knew I would have to get on my feet. So I started giving ESL tuition to foreign students, and I started writing articles for the newspaper. Both of these brought me money. When I got my first copywriting job, I was careful with the money I earned. But Ayn Rand was playing in full stereo in my mind in those days. And I could not bear disappointment. After completing a year at my first job, I did not get a raise, one of the reasons being I was already earning two-thirds more than the other junior copywriter. My Howard Roark reaction was to walk out of the job. I literally did just that. I came out of the GM’s office after hearing her say she wouldn’t be able to give me a raise because of blah blah and blah blah, and I stood next to her admin Geeta, staring thoughtfully out of the window. A few minutes later, I turned to Geeta and said, “Please type my resignation letter.” When I made this decision, I did not know how many ad agencies there were in my city and if there were any openings. All I had was a strong sense of self. I left that agency, confident I would get another job. It took 3 whole months, but I did get myself another job. Meanwhile, while applying to jobs (to every ad agency in the city, big and small), I decided to study the dictionary. I set myself a goal of learning 20 new words a day – the bigger, the better. There’s nothing more insufferable than a person who has fallen in love with big words. Suddenly people were hearing or reading sentences from me, such as, “My sobriquet is Minoo, instead of “My pet name is Minoo”. If you want to know what happened next, read my post The Element of Simplicity. Deciding to study the dictionary was another quirky choice! Anyway, I got myself another copywriting job, then another, then another. I was unafraid of change, and ready to move at the drop of a hat. I was quite different from my siblings in this respect. I moved around a lot. I even went back to ad agencies where I had worked before, to do a second term. I did two terms at MAA (the agency you learned about from Ajay Sachdev’s wonderful read, A Short Stint in Advertising), and two terms at Hindustan Thompson. “Oh, so that’s why she has no problem being a Commissions Consultant today, going from assignment to assignment.” Yes, that’s why I have no problem being a Commissions Consultant, going from assignment to assignment. Moving jobs is in my DNA. To my credit, I took each of my jobs very seriously. I applied myself. I was responsible and dependable. I was passionately interested in delivering a good product. In advertising, you get industry awards for a good product. Like any self-respecting copywriter, I hankered after those awards. Then came a time when I wanted to be my own boss. I heeded that yearning. Once again, there were people who supported my choice, and people who didn’t. The dissuaders said, “You are too new in this city, you do not have the contacts”, “you will not be able to collect payments, you are too soft” and so on and so forth. The encouragers, of which my husband was one, just gave me the help I needed to set myself up. And so I set up Purple Patch, my own creative hot shop, and soon proved the dissuaders wrong. Purple Patch survived and thrived. When we make our own choices, if our choice is not a safe choice, or it is off the beaten path, we have to be prepared for dissuaders. We have to stay strong, have faith in ourselves. Being my own boss at Purple Patch gave me the freedom to make my own choices like never before. I made the choice to take on one or two retainers, and do freelance work on the side. I made the choice to teach the copywriting component of the Mass Communication program at Loyola College, a Jesuit college in Chennai. And I made the choice to hire one of my Loyola students to assist me part-time at Purple Patch. Except that I ended up hiring 4. Here’s what happened…. I invited 4 of my best Loyola students to interview for a part-time position at Purple Patch. What I didn’t expect is for all of them to show up at my place for the interview together. This being the case, I seated them in my living room, and took them one by one into my office (a converted bedroom in my apartment) to interview them. When I had finished with the interviews, I had them return to their seats in the living room until I was ready to come out and give them my decision. Meanwhile, I was having a tough time deciding. I liked each of these 4 students for different reasons, and I couldn’t decide which one of them would be the best fit. Then, I had a crazy idea. What if I hired all 4 of them? I had originally planned to hire one of them and pay X. Now I thought I could maybe hire all 4 of them, and pay them each, one-fourth of X. It would give me more flexibility, and it would take the pressure off. I would be able to test all of them in the work environment and see who performed best. I did not know how this would go down, but I said to them, “I have decided to take you all on, and pay each of you X.” They jumped and shouted yippy and high-fived. I hadn’t expected the amount of money I was paying them to produce such delight. I was happy and relieved. Hiring those 4 students was one of the best decisions I could make. I had fun giving my four copy cubs real world on the job copywriting experience. I enjoyed being “employer” and “Mother Goose”. I enjoyed spoiling them. One of the benefits I gave them was to make sure they had plenty of food. Mid afternoon, I would send one of them down with money to Gandhi Brothers, the convenience store in our apartments, to pick up snacks for everyone. If they came in on a Saturday, I paid for their lunch. There was a vegetarian restaurant near my house called Guru Hotel, so they could make a quick lunch stop there and be back. And I kept the work atmosphere relaxed. Purple Patch made money for me, for my 4 Loyola students, for a typist, for a driver, and for a moving caravan of copywriters, art directors, and other advertising talents, who did piece work for me. Some of our personal and professional choices will be organic, some not. I was an old hand at copywriting and understood the ad business well. So starting Purple Patch was a natural and organic development. But not all our choices in life will be organic. In fact, some of our best decisions will be non-organic, often brought about by miraculous promptings and strange coincidences. I remember when a miraculous prompting brought about a desire in my heart to become a vegetarian. If you read my review of Anita Saran’s book On Becoming a Vegetarian – One Woman’s Experience, you will learn what that miraculous prompting was. If after reading the book review, it seems strange to you that those words could create such a powerful desire in me, think about how strange and miraculous the prompting that made St. Augustine turn his life around, and how strange and miraculous the prompting that led Diogenes of Sinopes to change his life. I was a vegetarian for 3 years in all after my miraculous prompting. Though I couldn’t keep at it, it remains one of the proudest accomplishments in my life. The yearning to be a vegetarian has never gone away. If we are reborn, as is believed in some traditions, such as the Buddhist tradition and the Hindu tradition, I would like to be reborn as a vegetarian. (By the way, if you are a vegetarian and you are in the SFO Bay Area, do try out Merit Vegan Cuisine, which is a great vegetarian and vegan restaurant. Don't forget to order Golden Era if you make a visit.) Yes words we hear, words we read, and experiences we have, can all impact our lives, and lead to new choices and decisions. Our lives may be going one way. In an instant, we may be inspired to take our lives in a completely different direction. Sometimes we will make choices because we get caught up in a wave. Not all waves are good waves, but it happens. In the early to mid 2000s, everyone was caught up in the wave of buying additional houses. My friend Becky was told by more than one friend, “Aren’t you going to take out a second mortgage and buy another home?” That’s what all her friends were doing - taking out loans against their existing homes to buy new homes. When the housing market collapsed, some of Becky’s friends lost both their old homes and their new homes. We are human. Being human, we are not predictable. We are not like water, or like cookie dough. If you dig a canal near a water source, the water will flow into the canal. If you pour cookie dough into a star shaped mold, your cookie, when baked, will be star shaped. Humans are not like water or cookie dough. We have desires and thoughts and wills and volitional power. If water had desires and a will and volitional power, it might jump out of the canal. It might think, “I don’t want to flow in a canal. I want to be a waterfall off a cliff.” If cookie dough had desires and a will and volitional power, it might say, “I don’t want to be a star, I want to be a flower,” and jump out of the star-shaped mold in search of a flower-shaped mold. As humans we can decide we want something and take steps to make it happen. Several years ago, I decided I didn’t want to be a high-maintenance person. So I worked on becoming a low maintenance person. We each can decide to work on ourselves in different ways. We can decide to work on our health, or on our skills, or on our habits, or on our attitude. Our ideas and our thinking are behind the choices we make. This is why we should improve our thinking processes, if we want to make better choices. Some of our past choices might have gotten us into trouble. But we can start making new choices. My post The Element of Finding Our Feet tells of Weldon Long, who after spending his early adult life in the prison system, started making new choices and completely changed his life. If we want to start making better choices, we should think about the victories of our past (read this post to help you get going), then think about our talents and gifts, then think about what we truly desire. This will help us focus. This will help us make the right choices. This will help us stick to our plan. This will help us ignore any waves that may sway us from our chosen path. This will help us ignore criticism, or discouragement from others. What I have wanted most of all in my life is peace. This is what motivated me to start meditating. I knew that what stood between me and peace were my anger issues, anxiety issues and ego issues. Since becoming a meditator, I have been so much more at peace. I have lived in the same apartment for over 15 years. My reasons for renting are as follows: I don’t like moving. I like stability. I am realistic about income instability in the US. It is so easy to get caught with your pants down. I also don’t like the idea of a large amount of debt. In other words, I rent because renting brings me peace. Being a Commissions Consultant also brings me peace. I like the freedom of being “just a consultant”. I like the fact I have to prove myself on every assignment. I like the fact I am hired only when there’s a very real need. It makes me feel valuable. Feeling valuable packs a huge psychic reward. If you are valuable to even one person, you will feel fulfilled. Commissions Administration encompasses different functions and tasks in different companies. I have to humble myself to take on the work I am tasked with in some companies. There also might be inconveniences, and lack of privileges, related to my contractor status. I can hear you going, “Are you a masochist, Minoo? How does this bring you peace?” Work is therapeutic, work gives us a purpose to live for. When we humble ourselves by our own choice, we are victors, not victims. Better to be humble than not to eat. Better to be humble than not to work. Besides humility is one of my goals. It’s a very big and tough goal, but it’s a worthwhile goal. I’ve shared some of my choices with you, and my decision-making process. We will make different choices at different stages of our life. The trick is not to get burned by our scars. Burned by my losses in the Harshad Mehta scam, I avoided the stock market for the next 10 years. We have to accept that where people are, and the choices they currently make, does not mean they are going to hell in a hand basket. You can imagine how worried everyone in my family was by the decisions I made as a teenager and young adult. Not going to college, going off to live with a boyfriend, walking out of a job I had been lucky to get. Unconditional love requires us to accept the choices other people make, and to trust that they will figure things out and make things work, stumbling along the way, but getting up. We are all different, and it’s important for us to be more accepting of each other. Besides, people can have a change of heart. Like St. Augustine. Like Diogenes of Sinopes. We should cut everyone a little more slack. If you’ve been keeping up with my posts, you will know about all my changes of heart, and some of the choices I have jettisoned. Don’t be afraid to make your own choices, and then grow into them, or grow out of them, don't be afraid to make them, just because someone or the other will not like your choices, or accept your choices. Sooner or later, those around you will accept your choices - as we all march towards unconditional love for each other.

You become low maintenance:

Minoo Jha

 · 6y

What's one thing you don't mind?

Hi Zunese, You asked, What's one thing you don't mind? I started meditating in 2010 and since then, my focus has been on becoming as low maintenance as possible. Examples of things I do not wish to mind are in my post titled How To Become A Low Maintenance Person. Reprinting it below so you can see what I mean. How To Become a Low Maintenance Person Be Prepared to Accept Substitutes. Even Do Without You normally drink your coffee with creamer and Splenda. Typically when you have your cuppa, both are available. What happens when one of them is out? Do you have a someone took my purple pens melt-down? That’s high maintenance. The low maintenance response… Accept a substitute. Perhaps, even do without. Life’s better when you are low maintenance. Understand That Stuff Happens Someone loses something. Or breaks something. Or accidentally causes a mess –spills a glass of soda on an expensive sofa or carpet, for instance. Do you fly into a rage? Deliver a choice lecture complete with threats and ultimatums. If it’s a child, impose a punishment. That’s high maintenance. Only on Planet Lack of Imagination, do these things NEVERRRRR EVERRRRRR happen. The low maintenance response…. Say “It’s okay” and make the person feel less bad about the incident. Especially if they didn’t mean to do it. Or if they are too young to know what they have done. (Confession – I was horrible about things like this until I underwent a change starting with my mother’s death. I am so grateful for all the low-maintenance people who showed me there was a better way.) Life’s better when you are low maintenance. A True Story From the Past… The Wine Glasses Some friends of a friend of mine were over at his place for wine, and one of them accidentally dropped an expensive wine glass of his and broke it. My friend, famous for his graciousness, immediately declared “the party’s a success, the party’s a success”. But the person who broke the glass wouldn’t be consoled, and went on and on about how bad she felt about the broken glass and how the set of wine-glasses would now be incomplete as a result of the broken wine glass. When no amount of placation worked, my friend shut her up by saying “I don’t care about these wine glasses. Here, see…. “. And saying that, he emptied his own glass and dropped it on the floor where it broke. Plonk! Before the other friends could react, he instructed them to drop and break their glasses as well. Plonk! Be Prepared to Overlook, Excuse and Forgive Do the people in your life say the wrong things? Do the wrong things? Interrupt you? Make jokes about you that you don’t like (how dare you suggest I am not from New York)? Backbite about you? Spill your secrets? Undercut you? Neglect or overlook you? Leave you out? Misrepresent you? Welcome to the world. An emotional outburst of angry words and gestures, tears, threatening to sue, in response to any of this, is high maintenance. Secretly hoarding grudges and resentments, only to vent at a later time, is high maintenance, too. Switch to a low maintenance response. Understand that people are human. Accept that they have their own priorities. And will goof up and make mistakes. Overlook. Talk things out. Excuse. Forgive. Move on. Life is better when you are low maintenance. Stop Being Suspicious About Other People It’s easy to imagine that everything anyone says and does has something to do with us. And there are diabolical schemes going on behind our backs. It is related to the fact that information is asymmetrical. We can never know all the facts applying to other people’s decisions and actions. We can never know all the light and dark in their souls. Therefore there is a temptation to suspect people and look for clues to support the deception. People are too suspicious of each other in general. And it’s all so high maintenance. Everyone second-guessing each other all the time. We need to make a pledge to stop ourselves when the germ of mistrust begins. To be upfront and address our suspicions with whomever it is we are suspecting, wherever possible. Besides, even with all the facts, we may never know the truth. Life's like that. We've got to take it as it is. Life is better when we are low-maintenance. A Tale From the Past Once when I moved advertising jobs, the company I moved to asked me to join them without a pay hike. They informed me I was earning more than what their copywriters at a comparable level were earning. I accepted, because the agency was a bigger better agency with more opportunities for creative advancement. When I told this to the folks at the company I was leaving, I thought they would take this at face value; I later learned they thought I was lying, because “what person would move to a new job without an increase in salary??????!” An example of asymmetric information leading to mistrust of a person’s words. Give up My Way or The Highway Do you get mad when people don’t do things the way you told them to? Or think they ought to? My way or the highway. That’s high maintenance. Road rage and other forms of “you bozo” thinking are big marker of high maintenance. It comes from thinking you are better than everyone else. When in fact, you just have different priorities from other people. If you understand that everyone has their own fears, their own physical state and their own comfort level... Everyone has their own priorities; Everyone has their own levels of motivations, skills, energy... you will be able to give up the ‘my way or the highway’ attitude to life. Which, in any case, usually turns out to be foolishly florid. How many times have you overtaken a slow car and flipped the bird at the driver - only to find that he/she is only a car or two behind you 10 miles later for all your show of bravado? Sheesh. Been there, done that. So pointless. Life is much better when you are low maintenance. Become Less Neurotic It’s easy to blame someone else for whatever we feel and do. That’s high-maintenance. Try relaxing a bit. And focusing on non-blame. And looking at things with a little perspective. Knock down those neurotic walls with or without professional help. Life is better when you are low maintenance. Give Up Your Hot Buttons If people have to say to each other, “don’t talk about this or that when he’s around”, if people have to hide things from you because of your predictable negative reactions, you are high maintenance. Give up your hot buttons. People should be able to talk to you about anything. Challenge yourself not to get worked up when someone attacks your “sacred cows” or worships at altars you feel strongly opposed to. As long as there is a “truth gap” between you and someone else, it means they are afraid of your hot buttons. Become more open to other viewpoints. Life is better when you are low maintenance. Learn To Be Patient Patience is the hallmark of a low maintenance person. Learning to wait. At the end of a telephone line. For someone to pick us up. For someone to come out of a store. For someone to come home. For something to be fixed. For someone to finish using a phone (thank heavens for cellphones!) For an office meeting to take place. In traffic. At a checkout line. Negotiating waiting time with patience is an art. But the more we learn to do it, the better our lives will be. Because almost every day, we are going to be made to wait. Life is better when we learn to do it. Life is better when we are low maintenance. Quick summary of how to become low maintenance: * Give up my way or the highway * Be less suspicious of everyone’s intentions * Understand that different people have different priorities * Stop being neurotic * Be more open * Learn to be patient

You value the lessons learned from every mistake:

Minoo Jha

 · Oct 7

What is the best learning method you have about money?

Minimalism: Passive Income: Long-term focus: Avoidance of debt: Learning from mistakes: Avoiding some of the 7 deadly sins:

It's never too early, or too late, to try to reach a meditative state.

Other advantages of reaching a meditative state:

You become a better listener.

You get over negative words and events faster.

You increase your capacity to "accept the things you cannot change", "change the things you can", and increasingly develop the wisdom to "know the difference."

So here's to more people reaching a meditative state.