I've been obsessed with writing in the past few days and now I recognise that I have to do other things like cooking, cleaning the kitchen and just some chores. I was not very good at the chores but recently, I got this epiphany that it's not always about producing creative work. Sometimes doing the important chores of life is also equally important. During my pause in writing, I came across a song called, Hukum from Jailer 2. I loved the song and everything that it brought. The song had life and certainly a swag to it, like Rajnikanth himself has. Being from Bombay, I never recognised why Rajnikanth was rajnikanth and what was the hype surrounding him. But looking at the song, looking at some performances in award shows made me recognise why he is what he is. I am sure he has honed his craft since years and still does stupendous work even with all the lost hair. He has to be looking young through vfx but he still is a super star. A couple of quotes from him actually inspired me. One of them said, when desire ends, peace begins.
Notice how well it's put together. Almost like it's crafted rather than said. It's in congruence with my philosophy, that anger, greed and lust will destroy a man's life. But here he says, desire has to end for peace to begin. That's a beautiful quote put together. He also has another quote saying that greed will never end. Need can be met. For example, if you have a phone, whether it's Samsung or whether that's Apple, the people calling you and the people you call are the same. Similarly, if you take a business class ticket or an economy class ticket, the place you reach is still the same. The point is that the greed never ends but needs can still be met. He talks about how we all want more and more. There were some other quotes of his, but that did not really relate well to me because they were about politics.
It's very easy in this world to get distracted and say I don't have this and I don't have that but rather focus on what we have. One of my friend, named Ayush in my UF would tell me how what we focus on grows. If you focus on good things in life, it will grow. If you focus on your lack and what you don't have, that will grow too. So well, that's something Ayush would tell me. But by this I don't mean that we don't recognise our limitations and work to improve them, but rather recognise your limitations, but don't forget about your strengths. Focus on them. Find what we have and grow from that point on. The truth is we will always have something which we want more of. For example, we have X amount of money, we will want more of that. It's all good. There's nothing wrong with the ambition of having that.
Here's a small exercise I recommend doing. When you wake up in the morning think about 5 things you have. That's it, five things. For example, it can be as simple as knowing that you have a bed. Knowing that you have a room to stay. Knowing that you have a job. Knowing that you have books to read. Knowing you have the knowledge to operate well in the world. Well, that's all. 5 things. I might have listed more or less, but well, you get the point. When you do this mental exercise daily, you will recognise that we have so many things but we still want more and more. This takes our mind to the future at times and sometimes to the past. It makes us compare with our friends and families and makes us loose the joy. We should know how to enjoy what we have.
I mean, he was from a different generation. He also has another quote called, "Greedy men and angry women can never live prosperously." Interesting. He takes the gender dynamics right here. I do not understand the dynamics of an angry women, but well, that's something to take into account as well. Lust anger and greed back again ! :D But well, angry women. I am sure we might have seen angry women at times. There would be a few around you as well. However, I am not super sure why they are angry? Maybe something bothers them. If there's something that bothers them they should express rather than hold on to. I am going to the solution direction now. Since I am a man, and I need to understand our greedy tendencies. I know sometimes we want more and more. Even if you earn a million dollars, we would want more. And in the quest of wanting more, we will become less stable. So stability is certainly affected when we are too greedy. Rather people who love doing good work, will be able to do fantastic work at any place that they like. If the focus is on the work, the greed will go away. I have seen people always fighting with the manager that they want more and more. However, this creates more resistance for the manager to give them more. I personally have a rule that, I never ask for more. I think it creates instability. I do get more automatically. I remember Shahrukh never asks for money for making films. But he does produce the film or something like that and earns. But well, Srk is one actor who never talks about money for doing the films. He earns money through other sources. That is Shahrukh for you. Moreover, he also calls himself an entertainer rather than an actor.
So one method is that for earning money, Srk has many different channels of investment. You should invest money in the right place. That money will automatically grow and you wouldn't have to do a lot for that.
10 ways to be less greedy:
1. Don't judge people by a title/money: No matter if he's Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai or Elon Musk, don't judge them by title. Sometimes the title gets so big that we forget that they are humans. But rather judge by the value they provide to the society and the company. This will allow you to change your perspective and have a view point that's based on equanimity rather than a title. Treat every individual the same. Whether the individual is good looking, or bad looking, whether that individual is rich or poor, fit or fat, I am sure, it's easier said than done, but try to view people by the same lens. If you talk about this from a Bhagavad Gita lens, it means, that every individual has Krishna in him/her. So see Krishna in everyone and treat everyone like Krishna.
2. Remember Money was only a value exchange: Back when there was no concept of coins, there was something called as the barter system. If I wanted to repair my shoes, I would go to the shoe repair guy and offer him what I have. Suppose I had apples, I would offer him 4 apples and get my shoe repaired. But the system failed because what if the skill of repairing the shoe was very rare but apples were abundant. Everyone would have an apple. So the shoe repairing guy would not need an apple. What happens now? That's why there was a centralised system. So what we are saying here is, in exchange of your skill in shoe repairing, I am offering you 10 coins. You can do anything with these 10 coins. So the money is actually an exchange of the value produced by the skill of repairing the shoe. Now if your skill is even more rare, I would have to offer more coins because not many people in the market can repair the shoe in the same quality as yours. So don't be greedy about getting more coins, the market will automatically force you to get more coins depending on how rare and valuable your skill is.
3. Contribute: Many a times we always think about promotion, if I do this, I will get promoted, if I do that, I will get promoted. In wanting all of that, we stop thinking about contribution. How do we contribute more and more to the world. That should be your goal. Not wanting.
4. Define need vs greed: Like how Rajni said, need is different and greed is different. Wanting a Samsung phone might be your need, but wanting an apple phone is a greed. Assuming your purpose is just to call and pick up calls. If your need is genuinely where you really need certain feature from iPhone that would be different. I have Microsoft Authenticator that I need on my phone for my work, so I do need a certain type of OS and a certain version of the OS for my work. That's my need.
5. Keep your feet on the ground in success and failure: This is important. Many a times due to the climate, we start losing our feet from the ground. We start trying to be hyper active and start messaging people back and forth, loose track of the big picture. We need to be extremely grounded in success and in failure. That's what it means to be equanimous during that moment. You can earn or loose money, but always keep your feet on the ground.
6. Whatever belongs to you will be yours. Have zero insecurities: Sometimes, we start having insecurities with other people. Whether they are other people in our team, or whether they are some random other people. Insecurities are very normal. It happens more when you are seeking attention and validation for your work. However, know that whatever belongs to you will be yours and the more you try to chase success, the further it will go from you. So be stable and do your work.
7. Focus on the controllable: Think about your controllable's. When we really think about it, we cannot control the weather but we can get an umbrella. That's what I mean by controllable. You cannot control your manager's mood. But you can control how you respond to it. You cannot control whether people will like your product if you are in business, but you can control the quality of the product and market it the best possible way you can. The idea is to give your best and leave the rest. I used to think about this during exams especially, I cannot control the marks but control my preparation.
8. Remember Man proposes and God disposes: A famous saying in English goes by Man proposes, and God disposes. Many a times in life, we will have days where we worked extremely hard but we did not get the desired results. When you are doing the work, do the work and leave the result to God. You don't have to try and control the results. In fact the more you try and control the result, the more problems you will start to have. Talking in Bhagavad Gita perspective, Krishna will give you the fruits of the results. Your job is to do the work and leave the fruits of the results to Krishna.
9. Process over results: Greed comes when we are obsessed over the results that we forget the process is takes to get there. If you are wanting a promotion, you got to spend 45 minutes everyday learning something that's mentally challenging and stimulating. I am not saying do the easy things. Everyone can do them. But spend time obsessing over the process. I was reading the book called Atomic Habits and there was an example about the British cycling team, about how they made 1% improvement to each and everything and that brought them consecutive gold medals in Tour de France for 7 years. It was about the little small adjustments, nothing major. I strongly believe in the book till date. I have personally used Atomic Habits to get more control in my life. I used to wake up and do leetcode first thing in the morning, because I had stacked up the habit with something that I had in control, like brushing and taking a bath.
10. Random acts of kindness: I personally believe that we should have random acts of kindness at random times in our life. If you see someone needs help, help them. If you see someone needs some sort of money, maybe 2% of your salary can go to charity. It will firstly help the world through the work that you do and secondly, it will allow you to go deeper into your purpose. With random acts of kindness, you will know that you are in the position of giving, then give to the world. After all, giving 2% of your pay check is quite a small amount. Srk does it too. But well, that's a personal thing. I wouldn't want you to give 2% if your salary is a mere 100$. It's still 2$ only but well, we never know right.
That's all I have for today, make sure you implement these ideas and get less greedy in life.
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