Not just consume, but Create!

Rajan Balana on May 6, 2023, Category: Reflections

We spend a major portion of our time on internet. It could be for various reasons, but one thing that everyone does is ‘consume content’. It could be in the form of watching a video, reading an article, or something else.

There is no harm in consuming content as such. Imagine what you just consumed (watched a video, read an article), you share it with others. It opens a door of unlimited possibilities. Someone might benefit from what you shared which they might not have discovered on their own.

Moreover, if you share your perspective or your opinion on something you read, there’s a possibility that your take brings a new dimension to the topic. Your perspective has the potential to bring a change in someone’s life.

Next time you come across a video or you read something interesting, don’t just close the tab and move to next thing. Instead, share it in your network, even better share your opinion.

Someone out there might just be waiting to watch / read your opinion of something they are consuming! So don’t just consume, create.

Asking the Right Questions

Rajan Balana on October 11, 2022, Category: Reflections

It’s a common belief that whoever knows all the answers is a genius. No one talks about the art of asking questions, well, the right questions. If you don’t ask the right questions, no matter if a genius answered them, they would still be wrong answers.

That’s what makes it so important to learn the art of asking the right questions. Asking questions doesn’t just show your desire, curiosity and intention to learn more about something but also your own intellectuality. You can only ask well-thoughtful questions on a specific topic if you understand it well.

I happen to be in an interview today. The candidate was very apt in answering most of the questions I asked. He was impressive and super fun to talk with. However, when the time came for him to ask questions that he had for me in general, or around the problems that were asked to solve in the interview. There were only a few. It was hard for me to tell if that was due to the candidate’s disinterest or if he lacked the skill.

The conversation could have turned out to be more meaningful and interactive otherwise. Doesn’t matter the premise, asking questions, especially, thoughtful questions is a great way to spark some creative thoughts and ideas.

Life is Fragile

Rajan Balana on September 28, 2022, Category: Reflections

Whenever I hear about someone passing away at a very young age or unexpectedly, it acts as a reminder to not forget the fact that ‘life is fragile’. I don’t think any of us here ignore this fact deliberately. It’s just that sometimes we get so much caught up in the grinding of our day-to-day lives that we completely forget about it.

In my opinion, people are split into two extreme ideologies when it comes to how they shape their lives around this fact. On one side, people live by so the called quote “Live every day like it’s your last” and hustle day in and day out trying to squeeze as much juice as they can out of their lives as if it’s some kind of fruit. On the other end, people take their life for granted and endlessly push things to the future thinking they will get to it someday. And we all know what happens in this case, we have been there.

You might be thinking, what’s the point? The point is to find a balance. If you are thinking that I’m going to share some magical solutions/frameworks on how to find balance, I’m sorry, but you would be disappointed. Because there is no one size fits all kind of answer to this question. It is highly subjective and driven by a person’s moral values and priorities.

I wrote this piece not to find a perfect answer, but to remind myself (and maybe you) about the fragility of life.

Cross your Limit

Rajan Balana on September 26, 2022, Category: Reflections

Have you ever wondered how little we know about ourselves? I get amazed and at the same time laugh at myself when I realize how crazily wrong notions I had about what I thought to be my limits/capacities. I never paid much attention to the mess I created in my mind until I had to.

Lately, I have been maintaining a relatively active lifestyle. I have been trying to get to this for a very long time. I don’t know why, but my procrastination and laziness always won the fight in my head. But finally, I got over it and began my fitness journey with cycling.

I used to do a lot of cycling in 2016. At that time, the longest ride I did on my bike was 72 km. This number kind of became a mental limit for my capability. Until recently, I broke this record and set a new personal record of 100km and that too with around 800m of elevation gain. This experience made me realize how little I know about myself. It would be unfair, to say the least, that I completely underestimated myself. It seems our mind is always looking to define boundaries for itself, no matter the activity. These boundaries easily become barriers that are difficult to break through.

Every moment of our lives is shaping the boundaries of our minds. Since it is hard to differentiate if something is an actual limitation or mental barrier, the only way to find out is to try to break out it. You never know what’s on the other side until you get to the other side.

So what boundaries do you have in your mind that are acting like barriers? Think for yourself!

What do you fear the most?

Rajan Balana on September 18, 2022, Category: Reflections

Fear. An emotion we are born with and live most of our life with. We all have our fair shares of things we are fearful about. Whenever someone is asked for the list of things they fear from, you would get answers like, fear of death, cockroaches, height, water, etc.

The responses to this question follows a common theme. We almost always talk about our fears in terms of something ”external”, which makes me feel that the answer is either incomplete or deceptive. And there is more to it.

There is a troubling real answer buried under the cover of so called common answer. I believe, for most people, the thing that would top the fear list is ”themselves”. Yes, believe it or not, people fear the most from their own true inner self.

Find it hard to believe? Let’s do an exercise. Try sitting for an hour with yourself, doing absolutely nothing. When I say nothing, I literally mean it. Just sit with your thoughts. No books, TV, or any type of activity is allowed.

Once you’ve done it, let me know how long were you able to do this exercise. Was it super comfortable or extremely hard?

Comparing Yourself With Others? – How & Why We Do It?

Rajan Balana on June 8, 2022, Category: Reflections

From the time we are born, we find ourselves being compared with others. Mothers compare their baby’s complexion, weight, and whatnot with other babies around. Whenever a kid does something upsetting, parents don’t hesitate to use comparisons to stop the act. Your poor (or sometimes even 99.5%) grades bring the wrath of comparisons upon you. Over the course of our childhood and teenage life, we go through countless comparisons. Especially, at such a tender age, these experiences shape our brains in an unexpected way so much so that we think it is our innate nature to compare ourselves with others.

Social media sites have exacerbated the problem on an almost irreversible scale. The problem is not that on social media people only post the moments that would catch the most eyeballs, bringing likes and comments. But the fact is people are seeing a lot more of what’s happening in other people’s lives than they are supposed to and care about. As humans, for most of our comparisons, we compare our good moments with others’ best (at least from the look of it) moments, social media has made it a more common and unnoticeable behavior.

I would admit that I have been both a victim and a perpetrator. I don’t know who is to blame here. It has been passed down from generation to generation without any thought and will continue to be. But there is hope. We may not ever be able to eliminate this behavior altogether, but we can put conscious effort and thinking to bring it under control and pass a bit less of it to the next generation.

It took me a lot of time to notice this behavior and put in deliberate thought and effort to do something about it. My complete perspective changed when I read a Twitter thread from Naval Ravikant on comparison. I couldn’t find the exact tweet, but I can explain it in my own words. He said, when we compare ourselves with others, deep inside we only compare those selective aspects of an individual that we desire. For example, I wish I had such great communication skills as him/her. I wish I could have such a prestigious title/job like his. It’s an unfair and incomplete approach to desire and comparison. If we really want to compare (though we shouldn’t), then we should desire to take everything that person has both good and bad. When desiring to have muscles like someone, desire to do as much hard work and grinding as they had put into building it.

You want to own a business like someone else. Don’t just desire to have the outcome or the good part of the business. But also desire to take on the sleepless nights, worries, and stress that comes along with running a business.

I would call this a “full and fair comparison”. It’s hard to get away from comparison habit. However, the least you can do is change your approach to it. Whenever you find yourself being compared or are comparing, switching your approach would make you realize how biased we are in our comparison.