A lot of times we get too consumed with what will happen in the future that we tend to ignore the fact that there is no such time as ‘now’. Little things in life that we keep looking forward to, something that will happen in the future that will make life so much better. A simple event like meeting someone in the near future, watching a movie, a fun activity; all seem to have impacts on our present. Will they actually happen? Will they really make things any better than they are right now? Maybe, Maybe not. But that doesn’t stop us from thinking about them. That doesn’t divert our attention to the present where things may already be so great. We repeatedly put faith in the certainty of events that we don’t necessarily know will actually happen. We let the promise of a better future impact our present in only the way we want it to. We condition our brain to believe certain things that are going to happen will be good for us. That becomes the thing to look forward; something to live for in the ‘present’. We forget how we lack any real ability to predict the future. We remind ourselves of our knowledge of probability and chance and how we can quantify the likelihood of an event happening. We make ‘educated’ guesses but in reality all we’re thinking about is the good, and not so much the bad. Probability and certainty, usually don’t go well together; A fact we mostly tend to ignore.

So does that make humans optimists by nature? Not really. It just makes them hopeful. It is with hope every day that they continue their lives. They look forward to the good times or a ‘hope’ them ahead, and keep going! In reality, they just don’t have a choice to think otherwise.

Every time we look around, we see cycles. Nothing in this world stays stagnant. Everything is fighting its own battle, getting through its own challenges. The floating cloud, keeps floating till it can float no more. Where is it going? Do we know? Why does it move. Winds !! says the scientist with a derogatory tone. But he is right. The wind is making the cloud move, but who is making the wind move? Why does the wind find the need to push the poor little cloud? What did the cloud ever do to make the wind do such a thing? It’s the air temperature ! exclaims the man with the geology book in his hand. So, why is the temperature changing? The earths revolution, changing of the seasons the list goes on and on. One scientific phenomena explaining the other. Nature is full of cause and effects, but what came first. The cause or the effect? Where did this all begin? What was the trigger point?

Curious human nature goes beyond all boundaries to find answers. Some find them in religion, some in science. But isn’t the ultimate question unanswerable? Religion associates things with faith, science with reason. Religions answer becomes simple, it’s all about faith. Do you believe that God started all of this? If yes, then the quest for answers ends. The human mind though, doesn’t really rest now does it! So we go beyond what religion seems to explain to us. Let’s explore the why! That is where the cycle begins. The human mind cleverly re-engineers all effects to their causes, but this cycle never ends!

Ever since we are born, we start learning the art of survival. A baby learns it needs food in order to survive, and does all it can to get it. You will hear a lot of new parents complaining about how their baby cries when hungry. It is nothing but the baby’s need for survival. The biggest tool available to the baby at the time is a voice, and thats it exercises to achieve the eventual goal for survival.

The human body is a simple machine. It knows what it needs to survive. Its part of the human DNA to survive, and as we grow older and (hopefully) smarter, we find better ways to survive. The cave man learned to hunt, as his means for survival. He then discovered fire, as a means of scaring away wild animals and consequently not get eaten by them.

The human mind, arguably the most sophisticated part of the body also tends to evolve. It finds more efficient ways to survive with every generation. The cave man’s descendants had swords and spears, and the descendants of his descendants eventually built guns.

Even though we claim to have ‘evolved’ to a more refine being over the years, the law of survival still applies. As the human race learned to survive, it kept getting better at it. It got so good at it that its survival eventually became the desire to destroy a fellow human or worse an entire fellow human race. It was no longer just about survival, it was about thriving. The human race had now passed the test of survival and moved on to the battle within them.

In the animal kingdom, which humans regardless of how it can be claimed are a superior part of, has simple principles. It’s about survival to begin with. Once the race of survival has been won, the next one begins. This is a  far more sophisticated and a more complex battle. Here it’s not about just surviving, it’s about thriving. Humans quickly learned that not all of them can survive AND thrive. there will always be the survivors and the thrive-ers.

The thriving class has passed the test of survival, or just had an environment where survival was inevitable. The only challenge was to thrive. But does this mean that those humans that thrived, will never learn to survive? Will they, once exposed to a hostile environment not be able to survive?

Did the baby not learn how to get its food? It was human after all.

Life, by its very nature is a continuous evolution process. Everyday we evolve into somethign that we were not yesterday. But often times we forget what yesterday was like. Today seems so refreshingly new, that we dont realize where it all started. Why did we get to where we are. A lot of times it is just convinient to forget. Today is so much better than yesterday, why bother thinking about it?

But what happens if today is worse ? wasnt yesterday better off? If only I hadnt made that one decision that got me here. If only there was a way I could turn this around. If only there was a way to go back in time, talk to myself and convince myself out of this. If only..

If looking back is the first thing we do when we arrive to a negative outcome, why isnt it also the first thing we do when we end up in a good place? Why is forgetting where we came from the first thing we do?

Human motivation comes from incentives. Our incentive to look forward becomes the success that we see today. If today is worse than yesterday, you have lost incentives to live in today. The past is more attractive and you’d rather live in the past. But the past is always like that book, that you may have loved reading, but that story will never change.

A lot of times in our lives we wonder how much we can do to make things better for ourselves and people around us. We try hard to earn a living, to make a name for ourself, to fulfill all our dreams. Everyone’s goals and ambitions may be different at the surface. But the eventual goal is the same. Happiness, fulfillment, achievement.

How we go about it, may be different for different people. People who make it,  feel like they have achieved all they ever wanted. But is this really something they got to, or just stumbled upon? Was is just a random turn of events that led them there? The pat on their shoulder that they gave themselves, was that for nothing?

This leads you to wonder, how capable you yourself are? Was the smallest achievement that you thought you had, a matter of pure coincidence? Luck they say! How far can luck take you? Apparently in some people’s case too far!

Brilliance you then see, is pure luck. A dumb guy sitting in a casino all day, saying ‘hit me’ and making a killing, is not brilliant. But luck is his favor. All the other players are merely spectators and wondering, is the guy counting cards? He must have really done his homework! He’s really good at this.

Isn’t life the same way? We look at people everyday who are admired as being the most brilliant people on the face of this earth, but in reality, lady luck smiled on them a little more than she did on the rest of us.

The question then is, was the fact that they got to where they are pure luck? Or did they have control over the circumstances they created that led them there? The answer is something we will forever wonder about.

Life for the most part is a road on a mountain. It goes in twists and turns till you reach the top. You will find some beautiful locations that you would want to stand at and take pictures. Some places you wouldn’t want to move on from. But none of those places you can stay at for long. You need to move on because the end goal is the peak.

Just like the beautiful places, there will be places where which will be scary. You will feel like you will fall off the cliff. In moments like those faith is your best friend. You need to know that wherever this road goes, it is meant to take you forward. And that standing still on a place like that, will never really get you anything. At that point life is telling you to move on, with the faith that the step forward is a step away from the cliff. Its a step that takes you closer to a place on the mountain where you want that photo taken.

Just like any mountain, the higher you go, the more beautiful it gets. The more memories you accumulate and when you’re on that cliff, where you see the edge of the mountain and that deep pit. Remember that the curve ahead could be the most beautiful place on the mountain. And the only way to experience that, is to keep moving forward!

Most of our lives, we are looking for happiness. Sometimes consciously and most other times we have just developed an instinct over the years that leads us to try to become happier than we are.

Happiness comes in all shapes and forms. Sometimes seeing others happy can make you happy. Happiness is contagious, in those cases. In others increasing your worldly belongings does the trick. Every human in the world comes with their set of desires. Achieving desires will make you happy.

Sometimes it’s the company you’re with. A partner. So what is it about that partner that makes you so happy? Is it the way they look after you or is it the way they look at you and smile? Like you just made their day by merely existing in it. Great feeling. This kind of happiness is also contagious and by far the best happiness around.

But then again, a grouchy person would say otherwise. Maybe seeing others happy doesn’t really do it for them. Yes, people like those do exist.

It’s almost like every person has that side to them. You will only be happy by seeing a group of people happy. Seeing another set of people happy wont necessarily do that for you. Why not? Because humans develop preferences as they age. The good people and not the not so good people. Seeing both of them happy, doesn’t really cut it for us.

Is it how we make friends? maybe. We pick the people we like. Seeing them happy makes us happy. Being with them makes us happy. A man(or woman) is known by their company, and it stems from knowing whats making them happy. If the wrong kind of people are making you happy, then that does make a statement about you.

Pick your people wisely, it is something that will stay with you, influence you and possibly change you in ways which you wont see coming.

Everything in life is subjective, and wining, like everything else isn’t any different. A win for you means that you ‘think’ you actually won something. Someone can easily interpret that to be a loss. It’s a case that can be argued either way. This is where an objective in life is important. What were you really going for? How much of that did you achieve? And from there, you determine if it’s a win for you.

It’s easier when the rules are set before hand. Like sport. You know what you need to do to win. It’s a playbook. So if you know the ‘how’ you can eventually get there. Life’s small wins are also like that. If you follow a playbook, you will ‘know’ the ‘how’.

So where does the playbook come from? It comes from you; You decide whats the win. It’s YOUR game and no one out there can tell you otherwise. You are the player, so play hard !

Someone looking at your situation will tell you that you in fact loss. The only thing that they are doing is trying to convince you that your objectives / playbook in life is wrong. That things important to you don’t really mean anything. Dont let anyone tell you that! The sick nature of humans always pushes them to prove themselves right. And in order to do that, they will try to convince others that they are wrong.

Always stick to your goals. Having goals is important, they may be the wrong goals, but a winner only comes from having clear goals. If you don’t know your goals, you can’t win. You will always chase a moving target where someone in your circle is telling you what a win is, and guess what, there’s always that other someone who is telling you otherwise. Don’t chase something on a hamster wheel, you will never catch it.

Success is achieved by people who know what they want. Once you know for certain, you can’t lose. You will win, eventually.

Of all the man-made worldly things, money possibly stands out as the single most powerful one. In a matter of seconds money can make your world turn around. It’s hard to quantify its impact. Ironic how the impact of a quantity cannot be quantified. What humans have created among themselves are social classes in their societies all stemming from the quantity of money.

A philosopher will tell you all he can about how there are bigger things in life than money. There are emotions that supersede everything. That’s quite frankly his way of selling his ideas. There is no such things. At the end of the day, to get fed, you need to get paid.

Ever since you come to this world, your life has been revolving around the existence (or non-existence) of money. If you have it life is supposedly great, if not, well sucks for you. The worse part is you don’t really care where it comes from. As long as its coming from somewhere, it works.

Very quickly you start putting price tags on happiness, on love on pretty much everything out there. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you are materialistic and an insensitive person. This only implies that your circumstances have led you to quantify things around you.

This leads you to understand that nothing in life is free. There is a cost associated with every single thing you will encounter in life. And most of this price equates to money. A cold hard fact in life is that to have a decent living standard, you always need money. And when you work your ass off to get it, you want to know what is the cost of things in your life.

Very often money leads to conflicts. The basic human instinct of wanting to be ahead of the other will lead them to do silly things. Given money brings power a dirty human instinct is aroused by the presence of money.

Maybe the world would be a better place without its existence. But perhaps humans would come up with other ways to put a price tag on things. Money is just a mere instrument of human greed and thirst for power. The daemon inside needs to be tamed. And the only instrument of taming it, is money. Throw some money at it, and sanity prevails.

Growing up is over rated. As a kid you are mostly made to feel that life starts when you are an adult, and right now your life revolves around what your parents/elders pick for you. The biggest lie you are ever told is when you grow up life will be easier. It’s not. The best life you could have is when you’re 5 and mummy is taking care of all you will ever need in life.

As you grow up, a weird sense of responsibility is added on your shoulders. You are expected to conform to a social norm. Some things all of a sudden go off limits. Why should you need to dress in a particular way? A kid dressed in an odd way is adored where as an adult doing the same thing is probably going to be frowned upon.

It slowly gets worse every year till you’re a fully grown adult. That’s when you are not only responsible for yourself, but also for people around you. This is when you realize this is a trap.

To make themselves feel better, adults will tell themselves that ‘you are as old as you feel’. This is only when they have come to the realization that happiness is really a state of mind. Train your brain to feel happy and it will tell the rest of you, that you are indeed very happy. This only lasts till your body retaliates and tells you that although you feel 16, but you can’t eat / sleep / drink like a 16 year old any more. That’s when the philosophy of brain training starts falling apart.

The next step is distractions. Distract the brain so much, that it ignores the bodies cry of saying ‘you are now 30 and not 16’. A lot of adults will find this to be very effective. In fact in most cases, this will lead to very desirable results. This only leads to the next issue of the brain being too pre occupied in keeping itself distracted that you start falling behind other things in life.

This is when you realize the brain is slowing down. A lot of adults interpret that as laziness but in reality its just a tired old brain that just needs more rest. Like older model of a car, that needs more tune ups. This is when adults reach a stage and look back at their energetic times and come to the realization that they did have it better in the past. It is a beginning towards an end, but isn’t that what life really is?