Thou shall not get comfortable.

He is a straight A student, his family was probably not the richest but they can afford a luxurious lifestyle. What could else could he need? He has the ultimate life 'it' life you would call it, or not. Dont be surprised to find that he is the most hardworking person in the batch, and so we think he is crazy. A number of history legends fit into the shoes of this description, Isaac Newton, Bill Gates, you name them, look around and the list might overflow. These people are not crazy, they just know a little better than incubating in the comfort zone. 

Comfort zone is literally that place of comfort, where everything is pretty much where it needs to be.  We all love this zone, and our ultimate goal is probably to get comfortable. We pursue goals, when we succeed we get comfortable and when we fail we lower our expectations to get comfortable. The comfort zone is safe, its' warm, and cozy, which is not a bad thing in itself. We need that warm place to reenergise. The only downside to this zone is that it is marked by absolute zero life.

People measure success by how much they have, or appear to have. Successful people measure success by the rate at which they are moving. You don't need calculus to understand the difference between the two. What you have isn't good enough if it is currently depreciating or not growing at all. Stepping out of your comfort zone implies growing with every second, learning something new and facing each day with passion and enthusiasm.  Assets and material rewards are important but what really counts is what happens subconsciously as you acquire those rewards.

A Chinese proverb goes, "a man grows most tired while standing still" further pointing that the comfort zone is comfortable, but not in any way fun. I have a simple algorithm that has pushed me to places I never imagined, pursue goals, if you succeed, move on to new challenges; funny thing is even when you don't succeed you'll have to do the same. Life is too dynamic to settle for anything. Point is keep moving, life is most amazing out of the comfort zone.

The world needs you!

There is a common saying that goes, Be yourself, others are taken'.  It is true, only that it is not necessary. Scientifically speaking, we are made of over 20,000 genes. Different permutations of these genes produces an astronomical humans number of humans. That is from natural factors alone. Factoring in the influence of environment and culture on personality then we have an infinitely diverse pool. There shouldn't be a possibility that two people are the same. As Galileo put , we are indeed in between infinitesimals and indivisibles.

That being said, what exactly is being yourself? I'll tell you exactly what it is. It means fighting against your human nature. We naturally love to compare anything to anything, which is a good thing when it comes to products and objects as its the only way to know what's best. When it comes to humans, emotions tend to complicate things a bit. Being yourself means muting all that noise and looking inside you. It means competing with nobody but yourself and doing the best you can. When you think about it, its a bit scary, well, it is for me. No one else has had the combination of experiences and talents you have and no one else will. You are history in the making.

Think of the mathematician Leonhard Euler, in 1735 , after suffering from a fever, his eyesight began deteriorating towards total blindness. His story is funny cause Leonhard became even more productive thereafter, publishing more papers than before. Instead of whining about the illness, he compensated for it with his mental calculation skills. Stephen Hawking is another living proof that life is amazing. According to his physician's report 51 years ago he should have be dead now. He's not, he's actually considering a vacation in space and I do hope he will have it. We can name a lot of people who had to undergo a major transformation in their lives and turned it to something amazing. How did they do that?

We scientists love formulas and equations, we just throw in variables and an answer magically appears. Well, life is a bit more complicated, there are no formulas and there are no answers. Life is literally what we make of it. We can choose to stand on the shoulders of giants or whine after comparing ourselves to them. We can choose to panic at the circumstances we have or embrace them and make the most out of them. We can choose to be afraid or work on our fears instead. There is no formula to life, but if you learn from the giants, make a couple of mistakes and have a little bit of hope, you should be fine.

As you get to experience life you then realise you should be yourself not because its wiser or the right thing to do but because it is easier. Its easier to learn from people than envying them, its easier to appreciate than complain. So, yeah, others are actually taken, live your life, bring out the best in you because that is what the world needs. Have a you-some week!!

The clock is always ticking..

You know you have the ability, you also know that nothing is impossible under the sun, you have the passion, drive, determination to overcome an obstacle. There is always a but somewhere along those lines. Yes, but time is not enough, in fact its never enough to do all that we want to do. Statistics reveal that time rather than lack of confidence is the major reason people back out of challenges.It is a major challenge to fit everything into 24 hours.

Deadlines, there is a reason they are called so because they are truly killers. Living in the 21st century you can't really avoid deadlines. Truth be told, we live for deadlines. As much as we don't like them, deadlines are actually good. With our lazy human nature, deadlines can perhaps be the only way to get things done. The bad in deadlines comes when we live for them; studying under pressure to hand in an assignment is bad , studying to learn and apply something new not only lifts the fear of a deadline but also leads to a rewarding experience.

We all have 24 hours in a day. Guess what? so did Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison, Plato, Albert Einstein, Mother Theresa and everyone else you know. Leonardo da Vinci is a living proof that time can actually be enough to practice any profession you may want. He mastered all skills from painting to engineering in just 67 years. Their secret? Its simple, on reading their biographies I have learnt a pattern among these legends; One step at a time. They prefer to focus on one problem rather than scattering attention to whatever everyone is doing. There is a lot happening, a lot you have to do but at this time you can only do one thing so stick with it.  If a problem takes more time than expected, forget the deadline and stick with it. Castles are not built in one day!

We use time to solve problems but time is an even bigger one, it keeps popping up and the clock just never stops ticking, once lost time will never regained. Well, its a good thing because it makes us focus on what really matters. This world's biggest challenge is solved by three words, 'One step at a time', make a poster out of them, paint them on your wall if you can. Plan ahead, take the one step you can take right now and if it gets too overwhelming, relax, be grateful you are alive. Life is indeed amazing, have an amazing week ahead!

Life's basic algorithm

We don't need the second law of thermodynamics to know that the universe lacks order, we don't need the M-theory to realize  that life is not straight and that things happens at random. Fact is, no matter how much we try some things are just out of our control. Some things will just happen whether or not it is what we want. The amazing part is that life comes with a simple algorithm to ensure we are not as helpless.

Scientists have a lot to tell us, not only form their theories but also from their personal lives. Stephen Hawking, the smartest man alive is one of my huge role models.  At 21,when he was diagnosed with ALS, a deadly motor neuron disease and  was given 2 years to live . Like any other human he almost gave up on his studies and life in general, I know I would. But he learned for a to value every second of life, living everyday like it was the last day.
Today he stands at 72, physically weak but mentally strong, probably stronger than any other person alive,  a living testimony of mind over matter power . He couldn't control the fact that he got the disease but he could control how he dealt with it.

Magical isn't it. We have the ability to defy the laws of nature and it all lies in our minds. It all starts with accepting the situation and then doing something about it no matter how small. Soon enough your mind will take charge and you will be well on your way to regaining your control.

No path is ever clear as we might expect it to be. As amazing as it is, life gives us an algorithm that should sort everything out. It is simple as this: Something happened, is there anything you can do about it? If yes then do it already!! if no, don't waste your time and energy, adjust to the wind and you wont break. There is no point in fighting what you can't control. With this simple algorithm you should be well on your way to a productive week, have an amazing one!