Life Lessons

I try to follow certain principles. While writing this piece, some of these came to mind, and I’m sharing them with you:

One. Sleep no more than six hours a day on average. It’s not about sleeping longer, but sleeping well. Always put your phone on silent and keep your laptop away when you sleep.

Two. Keep a record in your phone’s drafts or in a notebook of the good thoughts and ideas that come to your mind at various moments. Usually, beautiful thoughts don’t visit the mind twice.

Three. Read a motivational book or listen to a lecture for thirty minutes every day without fail. During this time, keep your ego at bay.

Four. When your mind becomes deeply restless and nothing seems to calm it, walk for ten minutes and count your steps as you walk. There’s another thing you can do: empty your mind of all thoughts completely and sit quietly for ten minutes gazing at the sky. You could read Vivekananda’s letters or Rabindranath’s Chhinnapatra, listen to Rabindrasangeet, or soft melodic instrumentals. Your mind will find peace.

Five. Every morning upon waking, write down on paper what you plan to accomplish that day—do this in ten minutes. Keep the paper with you. Make sure to write at least one more task than you did the previous day. Before going to bed at night, check whether you’ve completed everything.

Six. Avoid the company of fools, or inspire those around you toward something better. The work habits and success patterns of your friends can influence you. The more foolish your spouse, the greater the likelihood that your future generation will be foolish. A foolish husband is more dangerous to a family than a foolish wife. I’ve watched my father since childhood—he remains happy only as long as he’s working. From then, I developed the belief that staying busy with work brings happiness. What you learn from your family isn’t easy to escape. So don’t do anything in your family that will teach your next generation to think that way.

Seven. Be stubborn about the work that needs to be done. Don’t give up until you see it through to completion.

Eight. Break the bad habit of considering someone indispensable to your life when they don’t consider you indispensable to theirs. There’s no point in suffocating yourself for someone who breathes perfectly well without you. The more you feel for them, the more they’ll enjoy a kind of sick triumph. Learning to forget the wrong person is a great art. How long you were with them doesn’t matter; what matters is how completely you can delete them from your life now and in the future.

Nine. Develop the habit of reading very quickly. Learn how to skim through unnecessary sections while reading. Mark and reread the essential parts repeatedly, keeping a photocopy of them in your mind. This will reduce the time needed for reading, and you’ll easily be able to do additional work with the saved time.

Ten. Look at your current situation. You’ll see that in many matters, by the Creator’s grace, you’ve escaped numerous dangers or misfortunes and are doing well. Don’t go to sleep without expressing gratitude before bed each night. Gratitude brings respect, mental strength, and peace.

Eleven. Read various motivational books like The Secret, Outliers, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, The Power of Now, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, You Can Win. Read biographies of great people extensively. Read The Prophet, Gitabitan, and various religious texts with feeling and understanding. You must read these books with belief. If you judge everything in the world through logic alone, living in this world might become difficult for you. However, from all that these books contain, adopt only what you need.

Twelve. Fast at least two days a month. This increases mental strength and teaches tolerance and humility.

Thirteen. Keep at least one good book in your bag and read whenever you get the chance. You can also keep books as PDFs on your phone.

Fourteen. Help or forgive at least one person every day. This will increase your self-respect. Respect yourself above all.

Fifteen. Once a week, stand on your balcony and watch the dawn break. This will help beautify your thoughts.

Sixteen. Here’s a simple piece of wisdom: definitely avoid the company of people who don’t respect others. There’s nothing much to learn from arrogant people.

Seventeen. Build a wall around yourself. Give yourself plenty of time to do your own work in your own way within that walled space. This way, you’ll be able to accomplish more work than others in the same time. If you give time to everyone, you won’t be able to do your own work properly.

Eighteen. Don’t go to sleep without reading at least thirty pages of a good book each day. Save time from Facebook scrolling and read books instead. Mix with people who read books. There’s nothing to gain from loving a boy or girl who doesn’t read books. And if you do fall in love, teach them to read books.

Nineteen. Spend less time with people who have less intelligence and wisdom than you. But never hurt them with harsh words. Twenty minutes of conversation with a wise person equals reading twenty books. Being alone is much better than spending time with the wrong people.

Twenty. Every day, do a little extra work beyond what you can normally accomplish. If you can do the extra work well, buy yourself some gifts or do something you enjoy.

Twenty-one. Once a week, turn off your watch and mobile phone and spend time completely as you wish. That day, disconnect yourself from the entire outside world and do all the things you enjoy but can’t do because of busyness.

Twenty-two. If any chaotic or negative thoughts come to mind, don’t try to push them out; rather, step away from them yourself.

Twenty-three. Your mobile phone was bought for you, not for others. Sometimes selectively receive calls. Usually, most of our calls aren’t important and just waste time. If you know or sense in advance that a call will upset your mind or mood, don’t receive it unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Twenty-four. Write down ten good qualities of someone you respect or like on paper. Then believe that these qualities exist within you too, and no matter how difficult it may be, keep practicing those qualities. Act like they do. Work in the same style they work. Do this for two weeks and you’ll see a change in yourself.

Twenty-five. Sometimes listen to soft melodic Oriental or Western instrumentals—with headphones or sitting alone in a room. Watch some good movies. Look at some masterpiece paintings. And write down on paper what you felt after listening to good music or watching movies and paintings. Share this on Facebook with your friends.

Twenty-six. Before others do, occasionally joke publicly about your own bad aspects. This will increase your self-control.

Twenty-seven. Every day, do two things you don’t like to do. Even if you feel annoyed while doing them, don’t stop. For example, start reading a book you should read but don’t feel like reading. Or call someone you need to call but haven’t gotten around to calling. Or clean your bathroom. This will increase your ability to work quickly. If you can persist for at least twenty-two minutes at a task that makes others think of quitting after just thirty seconds of annoyance, you’ll definitely stay ahead of others.

Twenty-eight. Mix more with people who are like what you want to become. You can’t lose weight by mixing with people who love to eat.

Twenty-nine. Once a day, remain silent for thirty minutes straight. Don’t speak to anyone during this time. It’s very good if you can close your eyes and reminisce about some old success or happy memory. This helps increase mental strength.

Thirty. Often think about who would cry for you if you died right now, besides your family. Think about and do what you can to increase the number of such people.

Thirty-one. You have only two options: either go to sleep late at night, or wake up before dawn. If you truly can’t be alone at night, the second option is better, because most people stay up at night chatting and wasting time. If you can wake up before dawn, no one will be there to bother you, so you’ll have no choice but to study.

Thirty-two. Whatever we do, if it’s something truly remarkable, it’s surely the result of at least ten thousand hours of effort over ten years. No one in the world can achieve anything overnight.

Thirty-three. Don’t just suddenly start working hard at a task. First understand what you need to do and what you don’t need to do. Then work not just hard, but truly hard.

Thirty-four. No one in the world goes from zero to hero overnight. You have to decide what you want to be a hero in. Spending time on something you’re not interested in or don’t value is simply wasting time. What you’re investing your time in will one day distinguish you from others. Pour all your effort, sincerity, and time into that work.

Thirty-five. The relationship between intelligence and achievement isn’t very strong. It’s not always true that the more intelligent someone is, the further ahead they get. Only about twenty percent of students who achieve the best results in school, college, and university manage to get their names on the list of greats. The remaining eighty percent come from among those about whom no one ever dreamed. So keep fighting with yourself until your last drop of blood.

Happy Living!!