Lessons from the movie “Peaceful Warrior”

Peaceful Warrior is one of the most simple movie with a lot of deep lessons in it. It is based on the book “The way of the Peaceful Warrior” (buy from Flipkart or Amazon) by Dan Millman and recollects his story as an athlete. Nick Nolte gives one of his best performance ever in the movie. After watching this movie, you will get the feeling of wanting to enjoy every moment, something which we don’t feel very often. This movie will leave you thinking about how you run your lives, and if you are open to these lessons, you will get a lot more than just inspiration from this movie. Some of the most important lessons I learned from this movie are listed below –

No Ordinary Moments

There are no ordinary moments in life. Every moment is special, and it is your choice to make the best of it or let it go. The movie also has a quote that “There is never nothing going on“, which signifies the fact that there is always a lot going on around you, and in each moment actually lies our life. Moment after moment, that is how life passes by, and the only moment we have is this one, and this one, and so on. So it tells you to experience every moment by being fully engaged in that moment.

A Warrior Acts, Only a Fool Reacts

Life presents us with many different people and situations, and there is only thing we can control about it – our response. Work on mastering your response to different situations. Don’t let other people and situations decide how you react and feel. Be aware of your emotions, of love, hatred, frustration when they come, but rise over them, and respond in a way you want to, rather than reacting in impulse at that moment and regretting later on.

Where are you? Here, What time is it? Now, What are you? This moment

Where are you? Here, What time is it? Now, What are you? This moment

Take out the Trash

We all need to take out the trash which is in our mind. Trash refers to everything which you don’t need or which is not in the current moment. It might be doubt about your abilities, fear from your past failures, worries about the future, and so on. All this trash keeps you from doing the only thing that matters which is focussing on the current moment. The current moment is the only moment you have, and all past and future thoughts in our mind are trash.

You will Never be Better, Neither be any Less

You will never be better than anybody else, and in the same way you will never be any less. Irrespective of the kind of lives you live, practices you follow, or whatever you do or don’t do, there is no higher ground where you stand compared to others. Treating every other human being with respect and compassion shows more about you than the other person. The same way you are also not less than anybody else, not based on money, resources, thought or anything else.

Service is the Highest Purpose

Service to others is the highest purpose in life. There is no greater thing to do in life than to serve or help others. Service means unselfish kindness without expecting anything in return. We all have various talents and skills, and it is our obligation to use them to teach others and serve them. Service to others gives meaning to your life. Everybody’s life has a purpose, and you will find your purpose in service. Service to something bigger than yourselves.

This is one of the best movies I have watched, and I watch it often when I feel confused or I know I am not living in the present. And believe me, every time I get something new out of watching it. There are a lot of important lessons to be learnt from this movie, and I will be writing another post soon to cover those.

My weekly tweets archive for the week ending 2011-07-04

  • Let's unite to create a new culture of giving and helping…: http://lnkd.in/tQrWTr #
  • uys make girls believe they like them even if they don't. Girls make guys think they don't like them even if they do. #DamnItsTrue #
  • I invite everybody to PickaFight to make a difference not only in other's lives, but in your life too!! http://fb.me/155o6X7Up #
  • PickaFight has been covered by BangaloreMirror today… page 4 … http://bit.ly/bgmirpaf #
  • How can you sleep peacefully at night knowing this is happening in a house near you? How? http://fb.me/13ik8aym6 #
  • Wonderful read http://fb.me/10yg6w1QJ #
  • Test matches bring out the best.. Last match it was The Wall.. This time it was the turn of the crisis man!! http://fb.me/17nR72fFL #
  • When nothing is sure, everything is possible.
    ~Margaret Drabble #
  • It is sometimes annoying to see the misuse of the word "literally". For instance, I came across a book review on… http://fb.me/IjxdpUeI #
  • The whole collage now uploaded… Relish those days!! http://fb.me/zG4tU4qa #
  • Carboplatin and Paclitaxel – two words I am familiar with but I hope I was not!!
    Wonderful but very long article!! http://fb.me/DXD2tDbb #
  • All my cricket collages collection.. watch and relish those days!! http://bit.ly/cktcoll @prempanicker @bhogleharsha @cricketwallah #
  • I realized a few years ago that the key to bringing great ideas to life was to hire great people, create structure… http://fb.me/DHNuCyVz #
  • "I love the man who can smile in trouble, gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection." – Thomas Paine #
  • Energy saved from recycling one ton of aluminum is equal to the amount of electricity the average home uses over 10 years! #
  • Very nice read http://fb.me/IiFbUWDe #

What was the need for Pick a Fight?

As many of you know, I am working on my latest initiative, which we have named “Pick a Fight“. The aim is to become a one stop destination to connect anyone who is fighting for a cause and looking for help with anyone who is willing to contribute in terms of money, time or resources. But why? Why have we started this? What was the need for such an initiative? In this article I will dwell on this question in detail.

George Bernard Shaw once said –

“The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity”

Today, as we live in a 21st century India which is economically progressing at a brisk pace, the question we need to ask ourselves is, “Do we care about our fellow countrymen who have been deprived of this growth?”, “Does it hurt us when we see news of crime against women and elderly?”, “Do we care about our society in the same way as we care about our family?” You might answer yes or no to these questions, but nobody can deny the fact that real (inclusive) and sustainable growth cannot happen if there is no social and economic equality and a large number of our people are still hungry and unemployed. A society cannot be called prosperous unless it takes good care of its weak and underprivileged populace.

Creating a Culture of Giving

I have always been proud of how much we Indians care for our family members, how much we sacrifice and give for the happiness of our family. But outside of family, our giving is very limited. Being very religious people, most of our giving outside our family is confined to religion. But unfortunately, all that has not made its way to the needy and for development purposes. We give money and gold in huge amounts to Gods and temples, but surprisingly, we don’t give for the values and teachings that these Gods stand for. Pick a Fight aims to create giving as a culture to promote values and ideals preached in all major religions.

See Giving as an Investment in Social Change

We need to see giving as an investment in social change rather than just an outgo of time and money. Giving for social change is like an investment which will come back to benefit us and our future generations. It is not for someone else’s benefit, it is for everybody’s, including ours, benefit. With Pick A Fight, we aim to provide options for people willing to give so that they are aware of the difference and social impact they are making.

Giving for Social Change

Giving for Social Change

Giving for Development Assistance rather than Charity

Giving can take two forms. One option is giving for charity, like feeding a hungry person or giving medicines to those who can’t afford them. Another form of giving is to give for a development process, like for an employment program or for education, which enables the receiver to empower him/herself and improve his/her living standards so that he/she doesn’t need the donor from the next time. A perfect proverb to highlight this point is – “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. We need to move our giving to the second form which builds long term sustainable growth for the recipient.

No Common Platform

India has over 3 million NGOs working on a myriad of issues. But there is no extensive repository or listing directory available for donors to search based on their state, area of interest, etc. (There are few like NGOPost, GiveIndia, but they are limited in their operations and reach) We intend to fill that gap with Pick a Fight as we grow. Apart from that, a common platform can also be used for communication between different stakeholders. NGOs can share their best practices from different causes they are working on, and people can share stories of hope and courage to encourage and inspire others. Sharing resources and knowledge on a common platform will be instrumental in shaping the future of India.

We are the Privileged, and have the Responsibility

We are the privileged section of the population to grow up in the last 20 years when India has seen economic progress. We are also the ones who have been directly benefited by this growth and the reforms after 1991 have made a considerable impact in our lifestyles. But there is still a large part of our population who have missed it. It is our responsibility to take the decisive steps required to make them a part of this growth so that they also contribute to the economy for the next phase of growth.

So this was the reasoning behind starting Pick a Fight. After all, we export our software all over the word and are known for it. It is time we use our software and technical skills to help our own people and country. And Pick a Fight is still in its infancy, we would need a lot of support from all parts of the country to make it a success. We would also need a lot more initiatives by privileged people like me and you to ignite the next wave of growth and send a ripple of hope across the nation.

My Cricket Collages Collection

As I mentioned before, I started cutting out the photos, scorecards and statistics from newspapers and magazines and sticking them in a file in the form of picture collages. Very soon, the pages started to pile up, and I decided to put them in binders. I still have 3 such big binders with my collages at home, although the pages have turned yellow after almost 13-14 years.

Due to this collection, I have images and records of that era which are sometimes difficult to find online even today. I am glad today I spend so much time doing all this, which if is so much fun seeing them now, imagine how much fun it would be to create them! I am also glad that my mom didn’t threw them away during the 4 years I was in Jaipur after school and in the last 6 years of my professional career, when I was mostly in Noida and Bangalore.

You can see the full screen slideshow here..

Put the glass down

Found this story somewhere and I am putting it down followed by my views on it –

Put the glass down

Put the glass down

Once a professor began his class by holding up a glass with some water in it. He held it up for all to see and asked the students, ‘now, my question is: What would happen if I held it up like this for a few minutes?’

‘Nothing’ the students said.

“OK what would happen if I held it up like this for an hour?” the professor asked.

“Your arm would begin to ache” said one of the students.

“You’re right, now what would happen if I held it for a day?”

“Your arm could go numb; you might have severe muscle stress & paralysis; have to go to hospital for sure!” Ventured another student, all the students laughed.

“Very good. But during all this, did the weight of the glass change?” Asked the professor.

“No” was the reply of all the students.

“Then what caused the arm to ache; the muscle to stress?” After a pause the professor asked “Before my arm ache, what should I do?”

The students were puzzled.

“Put the glass down!” said one of the students.

“Exactly!” said the professor, “Life’s problems are exactly like this. Hold it for a few minutes in your head; they seem OK. Think of them for a long time; they begin to ache. Hold it even longer; they begin to paralyze you. You will not be able to do anything.”

The above story conveys a wonderful message in a very simple way. All our problems, in themselves, are not any trouble. They become so when we are not able to let them go, and hold on to them. We all know that worrying about a problem (person or situation) will not do any good to the output which we are expecting. But still, many times, we can’t stop thinking and worrying about that problem. This not only makes the problem look bigger than it is, it also effects other people and situations around us.

Putting the glass down is a very important task which we need to do regularly in our daily lives. Whether it is a problem at the workplace or at home, it is very important to regularly let it go so as we are really able to enjoy life and all what it has to offer. Holding on is what only makes the problem bigger and bigger all the time. By letting go, we will not get unnecessary tension and instead feel relaxed and ready to take on other areas of your life which need your attention.

So, remember to put those glasses down today which you have been holding on for long, and keep doing it regularly.