“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an
ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
“The difference between what we do and what we are
capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problem.”
“If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have
committed suicide.”
Mahatma
Gandhi needs no long Introduction. Everyone knows about the man who lead the
Indian people to independence from British rule in 1947.
1. Change yourself:
“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in
being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in
being able to remake ourselves.”
If you change yourself
you will change your world. If you change how you think then you will change
how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around you will
change. Not only because you are now viewing your environment through new lenses
of thoughts and emotions but also because the change within can allow you to
take action in ways you wouldn’t have – or maybe even have thought about –
while stuck in your old thought patterns.
And the problem with
changing your outer world without changing yourself is that you will still be you when you reach that change you have strived for. You
will still have your flaws, anger, negativity, self-sabotaging tendencies etc.
intact.
And so in this new
situation you will still not find what you hoped for since your mind is still
seeping with that negative stuff. And if you get more without having some
insight into and distance from your ego it may grow more powerful. Since your
ego loves to divide things, to find enemies and to create separation it may
start to try to create even more problems and conflicts in your life and world.
2. You are in control:
“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
What
you feel and how you react to something is always up to you. There may be a
“normal” or a common way to react to different things. But that’s mostly just
all it is.
You
can choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions to pretty much everything.
You don’t have to freak out, overreact of even react in a negative way. Perhaps
not every time or instantly. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction just goes off. Or
an old thought habit kicks in.
And
as you realize that no-one outside of yourself can actually control how you
feel you can start to incorporate this thinking into your daily life and
develop it as a thought habit. A habit that you can grow stronger and stronger
over time. Doing this makes life a whole lot easier and more
pleasurable.
3. Forgive and let it go:
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the
attribute of the strong.”
“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world
blind.”
Fighting evil with
evil won’t help anyone. And as said in the previous tip, you always choose how
to react to something. When you can incorporate such a thought habit more and
more into your life then you can react in a way that is more useful to you and
others.
You realize that
forgiving and letting go of the past will do you and the people in your world a
great service. And spending your time in some negative memory won’t help you
after you have learned the lessons you can learn from that experience. You’ll
probably just cause yourself more suffering and paralyze yourself from taking
action in this present moment.
If you don’t forgive
then you let the past and another person to control how you feel. By forgiving
you release yourself from those bonds. And then you can focus totally on, for
instance, the next point.
“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of
preaching.”
Without
taking action very little will be done. However, taking action can be hard and
difficult. There can be much inner resistance.
And
so you may resort to preaching, as Gandhi says. Or reading and studying
endlessly. And feeling like you are moving forward. But getting little or no
practical results in real life.
So,
to really get where you want to go and to really understand yourself and your
world you need to practice. Books can mostly just bring you knowledge. You have
to take action and translate that knowledge into results and understanding.
5. Take care of this moment:
“I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned
with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment
following.”
The
best way that I have found to overcome the inner resistance that often stops us
from taking action is to stay in the present as much as possible and to be
accepting.
Why?
Well, when you are in the present moment you don’t worry about the next moment
that you can’t control anyway. And the resistance to action that comes from you
imagining negative future consequences – or reflecting on past failures – of
your actions loses its power. And so it becomes easier to both take action and
to keep your focus on this moment and perform better.
6. Everyone is human:
“I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like
any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess
my errors and to retrace my steps.”
“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It
is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might
err.”
When
you start to make myths out of people – even though they may have produced
extraordinary results – you run the risk of becoming disconnected from them.
You can start to feel like you could never achieve similar things that they did
because they are so very different. So it’s important to keep in mind that
everyone is just a human being no matter who they are.
And
I think it’s important to remember that we are all human and prone to make mistakes.
Holding people to unreasonable standards will only create more unnecessary
conflicts in your world and negativity within you.
It’s
also important to remember this to avoid falling into the pretty useless habit
of beating yourself up over mistakes that you have made. And instead be able to
see with clarity where you went wrong and what you can learn from your mistake.
And then try again.
7. Persist:
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then
they fight you, then you win.”
Be
persistent. In time the opposition around you will fade and fall away. And your
inner resistance and self-sabotaging tendencies that want to hold you back and
keep you like you have always been will grow weaker.
One
reason Gandhi was so successful with his method of non-violence was because he
and his followers were so persistent. They just didn’t give up.
Success
or victory will seldom come as quickly as you would have liked it to. I think
one of the reasons people don’t get what they want is simply because they give
up too soon. The time they think an achievement will require isn’t the same
amount of time it usually takes to achieve that goal.
“I look only to the good
qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the
faults of others.”
“Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he
works for the welfare of his fellow-men.”
“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but
today it means getting along with people.”
There
is pretty much always something good in people. And things that may not be so
good. But you can choose what things to focus on. And if you want improvement
then focusing on the good in people is a useful choice. It also makes life
easier for you as your world and relationships become more pleasant and
positive.
And
when you see the good in people it becomes easier to motivate yourself to be of
service to them. By being of service to other people, by giving them value you not
only make their lives better. Over time you tend to get what you give. And the
people you help may feel more inclined to help other people. And so you,
together, create an upward spiral of positive change that grows and becomes
stronger.
9. Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self:
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and
what you do are in harmony.”
“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word
and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”
I
think that one of the best tips for improving your social skills is to behave
in a congruent manner and communicate in an authentic way. People seem to
really like authentic communication. And there is much inner enjoyment to be
found when your thoughts, words and actions are aligned. You feel powerful and
good about yourself.
When
words and thoughts are aligned then that shows through in your communication.
Because now you have your voice tonality and body language – some say they are
over 90 percent of communication – in alignment with your words.
With
these channels in alignment people tend to really listen to what you’re saying.
You are communicating without incongruency, mixed messages or perhaps a sort of
phoniness.
Also,
if your actions aren’t in alignment with what you’re communicating then you
start to hurt your own belief in what you can do. And other people’s belief in
you too.
10. Continue to grow and evolve:
”Constant development is the law of life, and a man
who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives
himself into a false position.”
You
can pretty much always improve your skills, habits or re-evaluate your
evaluations. You can gain deeper understanding of yourself and the world.
Sure,
you may look inconsistent or like you don’t know what you are doing from time
to time. You may have trouble to act congruently or to communicate authentically.
But if you don’t then you will, as Gandhi says, drive yourself into a false
position. A place where you try to uphold or cling to your old views to appear
consistent while you realise within that something is wrong. It’s not a fun
place to be. To choose to grow and evolve is a happier and more useful path to
take.
I HOPE YOU'LL ENJOY THE READ.
Anything else if you wanna ask then ask me i'll reply with an answer soon
Ask harsh or Ask HARSH on anything. . .
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