Someone sent me a nice quote today morning, which read as “The past is in our head and the future is in our hands.” I felt this quote was very insightful. We spend most of our life worrying about the past, rather than working for our future.

Let us reflect on our school and college life. We spend most of the time regretting about not doing well in a particular subject or grade, rather than preparing for the next one.

Similarly in organisations, both individuals and teams spend more time discussing about opportunities missed rather than the possibilities ahead. We need to remember that the past is not going to gift us the future. The past is history but the future is a mystery, which we need to resolve ,by our hard work and commitment to our goals.

Life is no different. We tend to spend more time worrying about about past conflicts or misunderstandings in family, community or society. We do not take the leap into the future. This requires courage to forget the past and craft our future.

I am not stating in any way ,that history is not important or that, we do not learn from failures. But, what I am trying to convey is that, time spent to look behind should definitely be less than the time invested in planning the future.

We can learn from our mistakes as individuals or teams. But, our ability to make the future fool proof ,will drive us to our dreams and goals . Past can at best be like a mirror, to learn the best lessons from our life gone by. But if we continue to look at the mirror, we may not look at the world ahead of us and people who will make it happen for us.

Let the past continue to be history and we learn from it. But let us learn to create a future through our actions today ,so that history does not repeat itself. Past can be a guide for the future and not a benchmark.

The best examples in this space is from the field of sports. Have we ever seen a sportsperson spending too much time regretting the loss in a game or missing a medal in a tournament. The best of sportspersons may learn lessons from their past but will focus on the future from the very next day.

Even if we look at team sports, teams may learn lessons from the past but will focus more on future strategies. The past can at best be a guide but the future is definitely in our hands.

We waste a lot of time regretting our past and thereby demotivating ourselves ,more than anyone else. If we spend more time time in planning and working for the future, the past may fade away in our memory and future will beckon us like sunshine in our lives.

Let us create a future of our choice since it’s in our hands.

S Ramesh Shankar

12th Jan 2024

Many of us keep wondering “what” we are doing in life ? We keep asking “Why” we are doing “What we are doing at every stage of our lives. The question before us is which should come first – “Why” or “What” ? This is the million dollar question of our lives.

In my view, it does not matter. We could do “ what” we enjoy in life. Sometimes “what” we do ,may not necessarily answer a “why” ? On the other hand, we may end up doing other things ,since we have specific reasons to do those things.

I would personally spend more time to understand ,what gives me joy in life. Yes sometimes the things which give us joy, may not have any answers to why we do them. But does it matter, as long as we enjoy it.

We need to ask ourselves if we are living first for ourselves, then for others or the other way around. I am not recommending that we lead a selfish life. What I am trying to suggest is that ,we need to live life our way first ,before we live for others.

Many of us spend most of our life time living for others and subsuming ourselves and our own needs, in the process. We may realise this, a bit late in our lives. But it is ok to realise it at any stage and make the mid course corrections.

I would say that we may have some duties, roles and responsibilities in life. This could be for our personal lives ,as well as our work lives. While discharging those roles, we need to do things ,since we know why we need to do those things.

On the other hand, there are many things in life, that we may feel like doing, which may not answer a “why” we do them. In my view, it is perfectly fine ,to do both.

Let me illustrate with some examples. We know why we tutor our kids when they are young, as that is part of our role as parents. However, if we take a long drive to an unknown destination, we may not even know why we are doing it. We do it ,because we enjoy it.

With respect to our roles and responsibilities, we have little choice, but to do them. However, with respect to other things in life, we are answerable only to our own conscience and our hearts. So, it may be worthwhile to listen to our hearts and do what we enjoy most in life.

Many may wonder, if I have had the perfect balance between “what” and “why” in life, so far. The answer is an emphatic “no”. All of us evolve in life and so am I ,trying to evolve. However, one thing I am clear is that life is imperfect for all of us and the joy is to enjoy the imperfections in our lives.

What we do in life and why we do something ,is less important in my book ,to how much we enjoy ,whatever we do in life. This may look impractical but not so. If we are willing to tread our own path ,without worrying about what the world thinks of us, this is possible.

Both “What” and “Why” are incidental and circumstantial. So let us do what we love ,from today. We may sometimes have to do things, which we may not like but those may be our duties and responsibilities in life, which in any case ,we cannot avoid.

Let us learn to weave our lives with all things we enjoy ,without worrying ,what or why about them. Of course, we have to ensure that we do not hurt or harm anyone around us ,while we do them.

Let us do what we enjoy from today.

S Ramesh Shankar

3rd Jan 2024

A friend of mine called the other day and said she got an insight while spending time with herself. She is an accomplished professional whose spouse is a professional in the same field and she has two beautiful children – a daughter and a son.

When I asked her what the insight was ? She said that ,today after so many years of marriage and professional working in a company “ she realised that she needs to live for herself first ,before she serves others in her life ,including family and friends.

I thought ,this was quite insightful. Many of us spend our whole life time ,living for others and in the process forget that we also have our individualistic needs. Our health may be fading and we may never have spent time ,on things we enjoy in life.

I am not for one saying ,that we need not serve others. Even this friend of mine did not mean, that you need not help others. She is a working professional and takes care of her family including spouse, children and parents from both the sides.

What she meant is that ,sometimes ,in our quest to excel at work or taking care of family and friends, we forget our own individual needs. Self care is as important as caring for others ,she said. I more than agree ,to this concept.

If we do not take care of ourselves, nobody else will. Our health is in our hands and so are our other interests and hobbies. If we cannot spend time for our own selves, nobody else will. We may realise that health is impacted after we are down with some disease or handicap, since we neglected our own health ,all the while.

If we do not discover our own passions in life ,by spending quality time on them, nobody else can invest that time ,for us. Even if somebody is willing to spend some time with us, it may not kindle joy in us.

I walk every day and also practise yoga and play badminton whenever time permits. I recall many years back ,when I used to skip my walk on some silly pretext ,my wife used to remind me that diabetes is mine and not hers. This was a very timely reminder to me that if I don’t take care of my own health, others can do nothing about it.

Life is also that way. We need to find time for ourselves every day. We may call it “me time” or whatever one wants to call it. We need to discover and re-discover ourself, as a human being, every day of our lives. We need to maintain our health and be physically, mentally and emotionally fit . It is then , that we can take care of others better.

I am grateful to my friend for sharing this insight with me. It has not only reminded me of this important aspect of life but also may be a good reminder for many of my readers.

Let us pause, look at the mirror and discover ourself all over again today.

S Ramesh Shankar

3rd Dec 2023