Getting AMAZED

I have a child like curiosity and get amazed with so many different and unrelated things. If you follow my blog you would notice how I made it a point to go and visit the space museum near Dulles airport near Washington DC, to go and see the space shuttle in reality because I was amazed at the human engineering to send something in space and then bring it back.

Similarly I have had the curiosity to physically go and visit the place where the Tropic of Cancer crosses (its a place near Bhopal the capital of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh) in our country.

How did the Tropic of Cancer come into my mind today. Its actually because today in India we celebrate the festival of Makar Shankranti which showcases the crossing of the Sun on the Tropic of Capricorn in its Northward journey when the tilt of the earth is slowly changing direction to move towards summer in the Northern hemisphere.

Nothing amazing about this….except that there’s a mention of this event even in our texts which are more than 8000 years old. Can you imagine that without satellite imagery, without telescopes, people so long back had perfected the science of astronomy to describe this movement of the earth. I came to know about this and other facts, about couple of weeks back, when I was reading books by Nilesh Oak who is a professor in the US and has mathematically back traced the events of Mahabharata and Ramayan. He was able to do this because of the specific positions of the stars and constellations mentioned in these texts some of which are more than even 15000 years old.

Human engineering and knowledge amaze me the most so I have specifically gone to see things like the Eiffel Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Taj Mahal because I wonder how people would have carried the stones or iron frames when there were no lifts or cranes and then put them together such that they are still standing tall.

My problem however is that, like a child, I don’t go deep to find the details, because there’s another amazing thing waiting for my attention.

Till next time then…stay amazed

Carpe Diem!!!

Financial Freedom – gain the experiences

charity, experiences, Financial Independence, investment, Karma, travel

I have written multiple times in different posts about how my father had an agenda to make us get different experiences to make us better human beings. Today is his birth anniversary and I thought of visiting his philosophy again.

My father wanted to ensure that both my brother and I had a more than our share of areas to excel. He was a self made man. Our grandfather had lost his job during India’s fight for freedom from the British rule. Being the eldest in the family he had the responsibility to ensure that the family stayed afloat and prospered. Eventually all the brothers and sisters actually turned out to be very good in their individual professions and retired and eventually left behind a great legacy.

My father always had this idea of “giving” in whatever form to help others. His view was that when you give, the world conspires to give you back multiple times over. If you have been following my blog then, my thoughts on the Karmic cycle come from there. Always do good in whatever way you can.

The other one, which I didn’t understand till much later in life was taking us to different parts of the world after he had finished showing us most of India. Each time you go to a new place and you see the historical sites, the way people move, the marvels of different cultures your mind tends to expand. All these experiences helped me get a much wider appreciation of different cultures in the world, which I found missing in most of my peers. That was one of the reasons, I could relate and do business with people in countries across all continents except maybe Latin America ( Visiting places especially to see the ruins of the Mayan and Aztec and other ancient civilisations in that continent is on my bucket list incidentally)

I have written a lot of times why you need to get financial freedom, so that you are no longer a slave of money. Money starts to work for you. This does not mean that you need to become a miser and only try to scrimp every piece to save. What is life if you don’t get the experiences that money can buy. You have to enjoy the journey, otherwise you will end up living an unfulfilled life.

Learn to put some money into investments that can periodically help you get to enjoy your life. For my father and me it has been travel to different places. If you like to go hiking, do that. If you like to go surfing, do that.

The money that works for you, should help you get experiences, which will make you happier, live longer with less disease.

Till next time then….target the experiences, not the outcomes.

Carpe Diem!!!

Novelties

Energy, Flow, Focus, Happiness, Human Brain, travel

I love wide open spaces, I love man-made unique architectures and I love to watch scenic places with wild life.

So going to Interlaken in Switzerland and watching the snow clad mountains or going to the Niagara falls and watch the water fall while drinking hot coffee from Tim Hortons or taking a cruise on the Seine River or watching the aeroplanes land and take off from Delhi Airport, are things which fascinate me and make me feel happy and enlightened. After a visit to these kind of places I feel rejuvenated and more in flow with life and better focused.

Some of these kind of sights I have not had an opportunity to go and see for myself , especially since the last 18 months. So I watch videos on YouTube. I still get a similar pleasure.

So why should you bother about it.

I used to think that the pleasure of seeing these kind of sights is my personal taste.

However it seems the brain has a special network which is tuned to pick up novelty and unpredictable situations. Its called the salience network. While the definition of novelty could vary between person to person, the fact that this network exists -as per Steven Kotler- and is the cause of the rush of dopamine, is good news. If you read his book The Art of Impossible, you will realize dopamine is one of the most potent neuro chemicals.

It means that when you are feeling low or the whole world seems to be sitting on your shoulders, you can change your mood by looking for things which are novel to you.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

How experiences change our thinking

experiences, Human Brain, Thinking, travel

Most of us like the idea of going on holidays. Some of us to explore new places, some to just relax and get out of the rat race. Some go with our families, some with friends and family and some alone.

The idea for taking a holiday is to get a change from our regular setup. If I have time at my disposal I prefer to go to a new place (along with some old ones as well) with my family, so that we can get some new experiences.

Since childhood my father had made it a point to show us many places around India as well as around the world. His view was that by showing us the world it would help expand our horizons and our ability to think.

As a kid it never occurred to me that by seeing new places and meeting new people, I could actually be improving my ability to interact with people and think at a different level.

But research on the brain has shown that experiences have an ability to think, see and observe things differently. Depending on what you have experienced, especially the good experiences, you tend to observe things accordingly.

While my father was an aircraft engineer and did read quite a lot, not sure if he knew about this research on the brain. But he did have experiential data and therefore took our whole family to different destinations across the world.

I initially was following in his footsteps, but now I also have research data to prove that experiences can change our whole ability to think and work.

Till next time then….go get yourself some amazing experiences.

Carpe Diem!!!