Man Cub Diaries

I should have thought a bit more before choosing sciences over arts in college. I should have continued to pursue sports (I could have earned as much in a day as I now would in two decades). I should never have trusted my 4-year old with my expensive Kotobukiya Wolverine statue. I shouldn’t have walked into that ‘baby food launch’ meeting in diapers and a pacifier in my mouth. I should never have asked that girl out (Now we’ve been married for 15 years). I never should have invested in the Amazon Echo (Now no one talks to me except when they need money). I should’ve thought twice before using the example of my boss’ exemplary skills on fool’s day. I should have shut that hatch in the private jet only after my mother-in-law would have flown out of the plane.

We constantly mull over the decisions we have taken over the course of our life and beat ourselves over all the events that went south. Some of them are small silly occurrences that make us cringe in embarrassment (like yanking hair out of our nose while obliviously looking into a two-way mirror), while others could be life-altering events. However, there is a reason we are not provided with reset and rewind buttons. We are meant to make mistakes, learn from them, improve, and grow into more mature, resilient, and wise individuals. To err is human.

While we can’t bring back the past and make amends, life often gives us opportunities to guide younger people that might be at a delicate stage of life where we once stood. Sometimes we see ourselves in them. If I was given a chance to mentor my younger self, here is some advice I would offer.

1. Santa Claus exists. Sure he doesn’t always dress in red, sport a meter-long beard, ride on a sled pulled by horned herbivores, or even look like someone that started eating on Thanksgiving and didn’t stop until after Christmas. In fact, it’s not even the same person all the time but different people that come into your life and gift you with happiness, wisdom, strength, courage, support, and opportunities. They may be permanent members in your life or fleeting ones who leave once they have empowered you. It’s important to keep your senses open, recognize these gems, and appreciate the value they add to your life (Because we tend to take people like this for granted for the most part).
2. Age no bar. Sure age is a constriction at an actual bar, but it isn’t always a deterrent to acquiring knowledge and skill, possessing wisdom, and making an impact far larger than your shoe size would lend people to believe. Growing up in the 80s and 90s we were given a mandate about what we could do and not do, based on how old we were. Sure certain disciplines had to be rightly followed, but we were wiser and more capable even at that tender age than what we were given credit for. The freedom to express without the egos of grown-ups being challenged is important for developing confidence, courage, and independence. You’re ten? No problem. Express fearlessly.
3. Follow your passion. Sure, at some point in your life you may feel compelled to jump into the rat race (and we’re prepared for this from a young age starting with potato sack races in kindergarten), but it’s criminal to lose sight of your true passions. Hone the associated skills and live your life in the realm of your passions. You will make money following a career path you may not be crazy about, but you won’t smile as much. However, the joy of a passion oriented career will engulf your life in joy and laughter, and pay the bills comfortably.
4. Be gutsy, take risks. Fear is real and is probably the oldest human sentiment (considering the prehistoric man was constantly trying to survive harsh conditions). It is perfectly alright to be scared. But, capitulating to your fears will only leave you with an onslaught of events to repent. Acknowledge your fears but also embrace them and learn to conquer them with time. When you address every one of your fears, you take a step towards becoming a stronger and wiser person.
5. Don’t get bullied. If you’re going to be a pushover, you may as well become a skydiver. And I don’t necessarily mean being terrorized by the school jerk, but I mean getting overshadowed by more dominating personalities around you. A lot of these people will mean well and therefore try to impose their ideologies on you because they will believe it is good for you. Sure, it’s important to acknowledge these people and their intentions, to learn from them, take advice, but not at the cost of subduing your own personality. You have a powerful character to contribute to this world and it’s best done by being you.
6. Watch your health: eat right and exercise regularly. Sure you can eat twelve pancakes in one sitting and wash it down with a gallon of milk when you’re nineteen, because no matter how much you eat or what you eat, you will be skinny for a while, even if you spend 23 hours a day on the couch (Assuming you do go the bathroom a few times to take up that last hour). The damage is invisible to the eye because it’s happening inside of you. The manifestation of all your bad health habits will be a colossal giant to overcome when you’re older.
7. Don’t be in blind awe of people. As youngsters if we aren’t the boldest personalities in the neighborhood we tend to follow the ‘coolest’ people blindly. There are a lot of things you may want to do differently but you may find it hard to go against the ‘gang leader’ and will end up doing things on their agenda. Appreciate people for what they are good at, but chart out your own path and follow your own heart.
8. The guy with the bigger muscles is not tougher than you. Whether you take this literally or figuratively, don’t let the appearance of a person or event scare you.
9. I don’t care what anyone says, the Hawaiian pizza is awesome.
10. Problems and pain arising from these problems are real. Don’t spend your time trying to avoid pain but rather accept it, embrace it, and practice how to master it. Pain leads to strength.
11. Don’t judge your present and future on your past. Whether its heartbreaks or tough times, don’t judge people and situations based on your past experiences. Your past experiences teach you how to deal with these situations, not avoid them. Trust your instinct and give everyone and everything a fair shot.
12. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it could be Loki in disguise.
13. Love yourself and believe in yourself. Life’s experiences can make us bitter inwards. Remember to nurture and love yourself through these experiences. Your confidence will take a hit every now and again through the course of life but you need your own backing the most.
14. Recognize, respect, and reciprocate genuine love and care you receive. Family, friends, and true well-wishers are important. They are rock solid by your side when you hit rock bottom.
15. Eat your dessert first. Superman is Superman because he wears his pants before his underwear.
16. Stop trying to please people. I can bet your money that you will annoy, upset or repel someone at any given point, no matter who you are, what you do, or say. Be yourself and let people appreciate you for who you are. These are the people that matter.
17. Sport adds a lot of perspective to life. Sport teaches us the values of individualism, teamwork, and everything in between. It teaches us how to value not just ourselves, but our comrade in arms, the ethics, and principals that define us, and the entity we represent. Let one sport be a passion.
18. See the world for what it is and not what you think it is.
19. Respect time. Time is our most valuable resource and you must put it to the best possible use to ensure that you live a life of purpose and impact.
20. Do it now. The best time to embark on something is now. Not tomorrow or any other day.
21. Coolness comes from your personality and character. Doing things to look and feel cool is just insecurity.
22. Cut yourself some slack. Beating yourself up over all your mistakes and shortcomings will only have a negative effect in the long run. Making mistakes and being inefficient is part of life. Give everything your best effort, pick yourself up if you fail, pat your back for having tried, learn from your limitations and strengths, and try again.
23. One selfie is enough.
24. Save consistently. I can’t emphasize this enough.
25. Bad things can happen to good people. You may believe that you’ve been fair and honest and respectful of people and events in your life. Yet life will take a dump on you. It’s part of the process.
26. Love your toys and pets. They give you all the joy and no grief for the entire duration of their lives.
27. Be grateful. While you may think you don’t have what you really yearn or work towards, you’re alive and kicking and an opportunity is about to present itself to you as much as the next person. Thank your stars for what you have, the positive people in your life, the strength, the passion, the compassion, and the desire to make an impact.
28. Spend a majority of your life outside Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and any other social media application that’s luring you into its deceptive web.
29. Laugh at yourself. There is nothing more helpful in dealing with life’s tantrums than a sense of humor. And when this humor is directed inward, you’re a mighty titan (who may choose to just snap his fingers to get stuff done.
30. Think beyond yourself. Have a vision that includes more than just yourself. Make a positive impact on the world around you. Give.

I have 14,000,606 more points to dole out, one more than the number of futures Dr. Strange saw in ‘The Avengers: Infinity War’. Just like he saw only one victorious future, we too have just one life to fulfill our destiny. Go make the best of it.

‘I’ Specialists

It’s amazing how often I come across people that seem to have all the answers. More accurately, they seem to think they have the answers to any question or situation they encounter, ranging from how to cook Baked Alaska (or even a Heston Blumenthal masterpiece) and which player would be the perfect signing for the New York Yankees (and also wonder why they never get called to serve as the rightful general manager), to what the next big financial investment should be (until it crashes, because the fund manager didn’t follow their strategy) and how to solve traffic problems in large metros (and yet they seem to be stuck in it all the time). My father calls them ‘I’ specialists.

More worryingly, how often do we fall prey to this ‘I know it all’ attitude? How often do we consciously and willingly adopt this mannerism? Whether we’re sitting in a conference and listening to experts in our fields (we seethe quietly at having to sit in the audience while someone with seemingly less knowledge speaks on the dais at that conference), helping our daughter with her studies (we truly believe that the people that designed the education system at her school didn’t have an education themselves), working on a team project at college (we emphasize that if our plan was accepted for the college presentation, our team would soar to success, and if it didn’t, despite our plan being implemented, it wasn’t done in all earnestness by our teammates), discussing maters on anything from movies to politics (we are certain that if we wore the director’s cap, we would produce Oscar winning movies every year, and also have the perfect response to all political matters, even if it was devoid of factual information or reason), and even in our daily demeanor (from how to arrange the crockery to how to deal with the housemaid), we tend to close our minds to suggestions because we feel we are equipped with more knowledge than others, are smarter, and therefore know best.

A know-it-all is a person who knows everything except for how annoying he is – Demetri Martin

We feel we know better than our kids, our parents, our spouse, our friends, our co-workers, our teachers, doctors, the prime minister, the national cricket selection committee, and even our building security personnel (about who is going in and out of the building daily).

Yet, somehow the bitter turn of events along the way seem to baffle us. Despite, having all the possible knowledge (at least the illusion of knowledge that we consider to be Gospel) at our disposal, we fall short on various fronts. Some of us barely notice and for those of us that do, we shirk it off as shortcomings of our environment and the people in it.

Those who think they know it all have no way of finding out they don’t – Leo Buscaglia

If indeed we did know it all, why is that we need external courses to improve our professional skills to meet the evolving nature of our work and industry? Why are we able to convert only a small percentage of prospects into clients? Why do we not always score well in examinations (Let alone obtaining a perfect score)? Why do we not win every sports fantasy tournament we participate in considering we have the best team selection process? Why do we need Google maps to help us get to locations in a city where we have lived our entire lives? How come we don’t know what our father does for a living? Why is it that we fail to understand our children (Although we tend to believe it’s them that fails to understand us, where in reality the failure to understand is likely on both sides)? Why do we often annoy or upset people (this isn’t our intention now, is it?) around us if we always know the right things to say? How come we don’t curtail our alcohol and cigarette consumption despite the health warnings on the packaging (What do the manufacturers know?)? Why is that our spouse wears a quiet forlorn look if we really know how to keep him/her happy?

We feel like scholars on every subject, but if we were to put ourselves to the test we would fail tasks we perform daily. Do we really know the correct way to hang toilet paper in the bathroom? Or how to brush our teeth with the right technique? Or how to change the gears in our car in the most optimum manner? Or even that Santa Claus isn’t real (If you’re under ten years of age, you didn’t read this here)? Do we even know ourselves well? We may be aware of trivial things like our choices in food, entertainment, technology, travel and so on, but do we understand ourselves well enough to know what drives our happiness? Do we truly understand how to use our gifts to fulfill our destiny and help others around us?

In our quest to massage our egos, and prove ourselves to be one up over others, we close ourselves to new information and lose out on the opportunity to actually assimilate knowledge. I believe we can learn from anyone and any situation. We must learn to be humble students our entire lives. It may be a clichéd statement, but it was born out of necessity, wasn’t it? An open mind leads to knowledge, knowledge leads to wisdom, and wisdom leads to common sense, benevolence, fulfillment, and happiness. Kaching!!