I was attending a yoga camp for a week at Lonavala. I met a co participant wearing a t shirt which read ” Inhale the present & Exhale the past”. I was very touched by this quote. It was indeed insightful.

We spend almost our entire life time either worrying about our past or wondering about our future. In this process we forget to enjoy the present. I am not sure why we spend so much time thinking about the past.

The past is history and the future is a mystery. All of us know that but still we are keen to look back or gaze forward rather than enjoy today. I have always believed in living life in the present. This may be easier said than done. All of us including myself drift into the past or worry about our future.

However, if we consciously try to live in the present, life is indeed fun. Every day and every moment is a discovery of life. Every day you learn new things and meet new people. It is like the colours of the sky. Have we ever seen the same cloud formation of sky colours every day ?

Life is no different. Nature teaches us in many ways to live life in the present. Children around us teach us every day to live in the moment. But as we grow into adults we forget the lessons of our childhood. We think wondering about the past or gleaming into the future is our sign of maturity.

Even if we look at the animals around us we may learn good lessons. The birds sing different tunes every morning. They do not seem to be worrying about the past nor the future. They seem to be flying in the sky as if today is the best day of their lives. We do not know their mind but at least their external behaviour urges us to enjoy every moment as if tomorrow does not exist.

One more reason why we should live in the present is that life changes in moments. A terrorist attack, a cloud burst or an an accident may bring our life to a tragic end within moments. Why not enjoy every moment as if today is the last day in our lives. Life would be fun and enjoyable that way.

We need to realise that we can neither re write our past nor predict our future. What we can possibly enjoy is the present. So, it is better to focus all our energies in enjoying today rather than brooding over yesterday or reflecting over tomorrow.

Life is fun when live in the present. Every moment brings new energy and new thoughts to our minds. Every new person we meet brings new perspectives into our lives. Every new experience teaches us lessons every day. Every day is a discovery of life and it is enjoyable that way.

As the kids in the photo show us how to live in the present.

Let us resolve today that we will inhale the present and exhale the past. I would go one step further. Apart from inhaling the present and exhaling the past, we should also not breathe into the future. We need to live in the present always.

Let’s learn to live in the present in every way.

S Ramesh Shankar

18th October 2018

If you are surrounded by green all round you and it is serene inside, then what can you complain about in life ? I was enjoying the greenery of the environs around my home and serenity inside. Nature has its unique ways of cooling your senses and I felt it that way today.

This led me to think and reflect more on life and living. I realised that if we live a life of being “green” in every aspect of our lives and being “content” with what we have, will it not be wonderful. I realised it would be but wondered why is it so difficult.

If we have to lead a green life, we need to be sustainable in every action of ours. We should give back to environment a little more than what we take from nature. This would seem a tough challenge. Imagine the paper, water, fuel, power and other valuable resources we waste every day. We kill trees, ensuring drying up of rivers, power cuts and degradation of nature by use of fossil fuels in every way.

Imagine a life where we could have our own well for water needs, generate our own power using the sun, recycle and reuse resources thus creating no waste, how would life be. There would be no pollution. There would be no climate change and no shortage of water, power or any other resources needed by human kind. We will leave behind more for our future generations than we have inherited from our fore fathers.

Similarly I was wondering how life would be if all of us were content with what we have. Contentment is a state of mind more than a balance between wants and needs. When want exceeds needs, it becomes greed. This is possibly again easier said than practised.

Why do we get greedy even when most of our needs to live a happy life is fulfilled ? This may be because we live a life of comparisons. We accumulate wealth more for establishing or proving our status in society as compared to others than what we need to be happy. The day we live for our own happiness, we may live a life of contentment.

I may appear philosophical in my hypothesis. But, to be honest this is what most of us spend our life doing. We want to buy a second bigger car because our neighbour has one. We want to buy a second house since that’s a style statement we may want to make in social circles. We use more than one phone because we want to be seen with latest phone in the market as that it determines our social worth.

None of the above are impacting our daily needs in life. We can live only in one house. We can drive only one car at a time. We cannot improve our communication with others by having more than one mobile phone. By the time we realise that we are chasing an illusion, our health is impacted and we do not have the time to enjoy life anymore. So, the cycle continues.

One can experience both the green and the serene in the photo above.

It is time to pause and reflect. It is time to sit back and take stock. It is time to fulfil our needs and not our greed. It is time to live a sustainable life. Let us learn to contribute to the greenery around us by giving back to life more than we take from it. It is time to change our attitude to life and living.

Time to change is now.

S Ramesh Shankar

16th September 2018

Today morning I was meeting a guest at work in a common meeting room. I had booked it from 830 to 0900 hrs only. My meeting spilled over and the receptionist at our office promptly and politely reminded me to vacate the room as the participants for the next meeting were waiting.

I realised that I had over stepped my time and apologised for the same and vacated the room as requested. As we came out and sat in the lobby to conclude our meeting, the receptionist told us that we can continue and conclude our meeting in the same room. When I enquired what happened to the other meeting, she told me that she had arranged an alternate discussion room for them.

I wondered why it happened . On reflection, I realised that every day when I pass through the reception I wish them and return back their gleaming smile. I try to be polite to them always. So, today I realised that if I am nice to people around me, they always try to be nice to me.

It may appear a simple thing in life but difficult to practise. All of us want to be good to others all the time but the circumstances make us vulnerable many a time. Imagine you have parked your car in a no parking zone and on your return you see a cop placing a fine on you. What do we do – we say we were not aware that it was a no parking zone. We go further and justify stating we had parked only for a few minutes. In the end when fined, we lose our patience. Was it our fault of parking in a banned zone or the cop’s mistake of rightly fining us.

At work, we behave no different. We keep rescheduling meetings as per our convenience and changing priorities. When someone does not attend a meeting on a rescheduled date and time, we express our displeasure. We forget that we had rescheduled, postponed and advanced the same meeting five times to suit our convenience without checking on the convenience of our team members. We were not nice to our team members’ convenience but we expect them to be nice and adjust to our convenience all the time.

We expect our bosses to adjust when we fall sick all of a sudden. But when a similar things happens to any of our team members we preach the importance of maintaining good health and the criticality of work on those days when our colleague is sick.

We are equally belligerent at home. We do not bother to wish the security guards in our homes when we pass by them every day. On the contrary, we expect them to salute us and wish us every single time we pass through the main gate of our campus. Is this fair ? If we do not have the courtesy to treat security guards and our maids as human beings, can we expect them to treat us humanly ?

One of the drivers at my workplace who is a diabetic told me that one day his lunch break was delayed and he requested his boss for a 15 minutes break so that he could quickly have a bite. His boss not only denied him the break but also made him feel small by asking how he could ask for a break when he was so busy at work that day. His boss was possibly not even aware that his driver was a diabetic.

My learning in life is that if we expect our family, friends or colleagues to be nice to us, we need to learn to be nice to them. If we treat our servants, drivers, security guards etc humanely, they will reciprocate humanness with equal measure.

As in the photo above, our security staff took care of us 24×7 even beyond their call of duty since we treated them with respect.

Lets learn to be nice, if we want others to be nice to us.

S Ramesh Shankar

5th September 2018