What have I learned about the things I cannot change?

Here are some of the things....

To not talk about it incessantly.

Perhaps, as a guide, to talk about it only once to each new person (though this is easier said than done).

What’s on our mind plays on our tongue, again and again.

To think of it as a cross I have to bear.

We will get the same criticisms.

The same people will insult us in the same ways.

The same people will get angry with us in the same ways.

The same people will have disagreements with us in the same ways.

The same losses will replay in our minds, again and again.

We will respond to these situations in the same ways.

To think of it as a puzzle to be solved...

We can also think of our challenges as puzzles to be solved.

If it’s something mechanical, biological, or technical, we can keep searching for solutions.

We might be able to solve the puzzle - sooner or later.

Or the puzzle may be solved for us.

A solution may emerge.

But if it’s something persistent and pervasive, or something there’s no turning the clock back on, then we may have to turn to prayer, meditation and therapy..

If peace and serenity is a challenge, we can, for instance, say the Serenity Prayer, regularly.

The Serenity Prayer is prayed by recovering alcoholics all over the world.

If it works for recovering alcoholics, it may also work for us.

You probably know the Serenity Prayer.

It is as universal as the song Amazing Grace.

It is as powerful as the song Hallelujah.

If you do not know it, here’s how it goes…

God give me the strength to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

It definitely helps to develop acceptance.

It definitely helps to develop courage.

It definitely helps to develop discernment.

The combination of the three is a triple power to deal with sufferings and challenges, to escape the prison of our behaviors and feelings, and move towards positive thought, behavior, and action.

We are not condemned to live a miserable life.

To stay hopeful, in circumstances, dire and tragic, is what each of us will, at one point or another, be called upon to do.

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.

In some circumstances, we may have to go beyond prayer, meditation, and therapy.

We may have to step out of our self-centeredness, and reach out to others.

We may have to use our time and resources, in the service of a greater cause.

For many of us, this is the point at which we renew ourselves.

This is the point our life truly takes a turn for the better.

As many know, from first hand experience, good things often follow some of the worst experiences in our lives.

The triumphant side of us emerges.

The persevering side of us emerges.

The resilient side of us emerges.

The solution-oriented side of us emerges.

Bad experiences can serve a purpose in our lives, greater than anything we expected.

Making heroes out of us.

Unlikely and surprising heroes.

One person's bad experiences can change the trajectory of history.

Think of Gandhi getting thrown out of that train compartment in South Africa.

And there are examples closer home.

As I said in my post, 10 Lessons You Can Learn From My Life..."how you react to the good things in your life, is not as important as how you react to the bad things in your life".

Imagination can also help us.

Imagination can help us escape torment.

Imagination can bring us hope.

Imagination can bring us healing insights.

Imagination can infuse us with transcendent thought and spirit.

If we give our imagination enough time to work, the solution that comes to us, is usually not a run of the mill imperfect solution, but a perfect solution.

Quiet time may be necessary for this.

Minoo Jha

 · 6y

How has thinking big improved your life?

Thinking creatively has improved my life more than thinking big. I have used creativity to solve problems, find the best use for things, and to reframe situations. Here’s one example where my imagination helped me, when my brain child was cast aside on an assignment. The entire post, if you want to read it, is called The Element of Imagination and Its Hope for Helping Us Develop Toughness With Compassion and Artful Flair, and is available on my Minoo Jha Life Strategies blog. Here is the excerpt regarding my brain child being cast aside, and how I used my imagination to shake myself out of my negative thoughts and feelings, and to be a bigger person. Using our imagination to reframe a situation… Any situation can be reframed with the help of our imagination. On one assignment, I pulled out all the stops to design new commission statements, and develop a new Excel model to do commissions. However, when I was passing control of my job to the commissions analyst who was to take my place, he and the new company controller decided to abandon my model and create their own model. It was a blow to my self-esteem, and hard to stomach. We want it to be hard for anyone to fill our shoes. We want our absence to cause pain. We want our brain children to be cherished. So my initial thoughts and feelings were all negative. But then, I started meditating, and it helped me transcend these negative thoughts. 3 Deer at a Stream I suddenly had this vision of self-esteem being a stream of water, and the new analyst, new controller, and myself all as deer drinking from the stream. I had had my turn at the stream. Now it was theirs. When I had to prove myself, the stream of self-esteem was there for me. Now it was someone else’s time to shine. Later on, it would be someone else’s time, still. From the moment this image entered my mind – my mindset was different. It was hard to say if I held this image - of the 3 deer drinking from a stream - or the image held me. But during my last weeks at the company, I cheerfully finished up my assignment, and continuously encouraged, praised and supported the new analyst and the Controller. Now years later, I feel a warm glow towards them. Tuli Kupferberg says: “When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge. When I was able to escape the normal way of thinking it was almost that I saw all the characters in the scenario in a different alternate world” This is what happened to me. I entered an alternate world. And my imagination helped me get there. I now realize situations can exist in many different spheres, and our imagination can take us to a different sphere. So if you find yourself needing to be a bigger person, try to use your imagination to reframe the situation, and to elevate your thoughts and feelings to a different sphere. It worked for me. No reason why you shouldn’t give it a try. It could work for you.

And finally, we must continue to have faith, that a break in the clouds, is just around the corner…

Minoo Jha

 · 3y

What made you stronger at the lowest point of your life?

The lowest point in my life was when I suffered my depression. The thing that saved me is that I continued to work, exercise, and do all the things I did socially, with the hope that I would come out of it eventually. Here is a poem I recently wrote about how I felt then and what I wish to say to those going through the same thing: Just When The Sun Shone So Bright Just when the sun shone so bright It slipped behind a cloud I wondered where the light had gone And I began to cry soft, not loud Where are you light? Where are you light? Gloom enveloped me It seemed like I would never be myself again I was looking at a darkness as endless as the sea. __ The gloom persisted The clouds persisted In vain, I hoped the sun would shine again The gloom persisted The clouds persisted The beads of darkness were a never ending chain. __ I said my prayers and I worked, played, and ate I applied myself to the business of my days The gloom persisted The clouds persisted The darkness was a never-ending maze. __ And then one day the clouds parted Breaking the spell the darkness had cast on me And I hesitantly took a step forward into the light Into a new hope and a new destiny I was filled again with the inner uncorrupted child's sense of wonder Which the darkness had all but tried to take away from me Now the cloak of darkness was torn asunder And my spirit was once again light and free. __ The gloom had lifted The darkness had lifted The sun had again begun to shine I wrapped myself in my shawl of promise, hope, faith, and purpose And told myself, "Minoo, you will be fine". __ Yes, the gloom had lifted The darkness had lifted And I could say and believe the thought, "Minoo you will be fine" And it taught me that promise, hope, faith, and purpose awaits those who goes through a dark night of the soul When the journey is complete and the dark night of the soul has been left behind. __ Dear Reader - On the other side of an experience of the dark night of the soul is a light of a thousand lamps. Even though right now, you may not be able to see the flicker of even one of those thousand lamps, hold the image in your mind of the warmth and light of those thousand lamps - because it's what awaits you at the end of your journey through the dark night of the soul. Look after yourself, put one foot in front of the other, and believe with your heart, soul and mind that you will be completely restored once the journey of the dark night of the soul is complete.

In all these ways, I have learned to cope with the things I cannot change.