Est. 1978
Life is in living NOW.
It’s all about the choices we make now, the habits we form now, the actions we take now, and the enlightenment we receive now.
Regretting about the past is like wasting time and energy on the impossible. And worrying about the future is like having no belief in your capabilities.
However, we don’t appreciate the living present because our ‘monkey minds,’ as Buddhists call them, vault from thought to thought like monkeys swinging from tree to tree.
Welcome to the first episode of The One Percent Show with Vishal Khandelwal.
Stay safe.
With respect,
— Vishal
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” ~ Rumi
At 7 a.m. on April 8, 2014 Elle Luna clicked the publish button for an essay titled The Crossroads of Should and Must. Little did she know that her words were going to touch a chord with millions of people worldwide. Over few short weeks Elle’s article was shared over 5 million times on the internet.
Goes without saying that I was one among those readers who drew boatload of inspiration from Elle’s post.
I recently came across this thought-provoking paragraph from the English actor, comedian, and writer Stephen Fry, while browsing a notebook I had scribbled thoughts in some years ago –
Oscar Wilde said that if you know what you want to be, then you inevitably become it. That is your punishment. But if you never know, then you can be anything. There is a truth to that. We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing — an actor, a writer — I am a person who does things — I write, I act — and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.
~ Stephen Fry
Nassim Taleb is one of my favourite authors, and his book Antifragile is one of the best books I have read.
One of the book’s chapters that interests me particularly is titled ‘Via Negativa.’ Here, Taleb argues that the solution to many problems in life is by removing things, not adding things. Like, avoiding the doctor for minor illnesses or removing certain food from one’s diet to improve health. Taleb writes –
I would add that, in my own experience, a considerable jump in my personal health has been achieved by removing offensive irritants: the morning newspapers, the boss, the daily commute, air-conditioning, television, emails from documentary filmmakers, economic forecasts, news about the stock market, gym “strength training” machines, and many more.
He then adds –
If true wealth consists in worriless sleeping, clear conscience, reciprocal gratitude, absence of envy, good appetite, muscle strength, physical energy, frequent laughs, no meals alone, no gym class, some physical labor (or hobby), good bowel movements, no meeting rooms, and periodic surprises, then it is largely subtractive.