Conventional vs unconventional part 2

Suppose you went to a restaurant with your spouse, usually you order a particular favorite dish that you both like. But today your attention goes to an unknown dish in the menu card. You order it, and it turns out to be a little bad. Then everyone must have guessed it right that it would result in a heated argument that why you chose this dish and ruined our date?

But what if you have ordered the regular dish and somehow it was not having the usual taste, rather it tasted bad?

Then your spouse would not have blamed you. So the second option has no downside in this case. And the first one has little upside (there are chances of one of you or both of you like the dish) but huge downside of a heated argument.

But logically speaking, is the second option really that good?

Well it's certainly a safer one, but would you eat the same dish on every date? It will be boaring. But choosing something different each time just for the sake of trying to be different is also a bad strategy, because you will not be able to explore anything deeply, and everything will be just superficial.

What people do conventionally is try to choose the safer option, and what unconventional people do is analyse different options in front of them and choose wisely.

In the above case, if one finds a good dish, one may continue ordering it on every date till it feels good, but once it starts to become boaring, one can try a different one, till one finds another great dish to continue again.

It's that easy.

Now one can apply the same logic to other areas of life, instead of sticking to the conventional safer choice.

If one is not getting desired results then tweak the strategy, till one gets the desired results. Don't just keep blaming the luck. Try what is in your hands.

For example, if you are having huge loans and no savings, try decreasing your expenses, search for cheaper alternative, start saving more, try to increase your income, try creating passive income sources.

Not happy in your relationship with your spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend? Try searching what's going bad, Confront the obvious, don't delay an open talk, try listening more, don't be controlling, reconsider your thoughts, put yourself in the other person's shoes, say sorry if needed, put your ego aside, accept the reality, rather embrace the reality, prioritize what's important to you. It's not that hard. Rather continuing a bad relationship the way it is, is a hard thing to do.

Change is the only constant thing in the world.

The more one gets it, the more content one be.

This one thought have a great potential to make a difference.

Have a nice day..

Sumit,

The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

Conventional vs unconventional

This blog post is inspired by people around me and my reading habit. Also this blog post is related to all three pillars of life i.e. health, wealth and happiness.

I like reading or listening to the interviews of great achievers, I like reading their autobiographies. So naturally whenever our brain sees 2 things of similar nature, it starts comparing them. Here in this case, extraordinary men (great achievers) in autobiographies or interviews and the common people with common or average achievements.

What I notice is that, world is full of random occurrences. Even if we try to do something good, we take care of every possible glitch, every imaginable problem, but still something unexpected can happen and ruin everything (like we are driving in the road cautiously, obeying traffic rules but a drunk driver comes out of nowhere, breaking all traffic rules and hits us). Or sometimes, we don't do anything but things gets matched on their own and we get a great results(like we see a lottery ticket lying on the street, we pick it up and it turns out to be a winning ticket).

We get following 4 relationships between effort and results-

1) No (or very little) effort -> Poor result

2) No (or very little) effort -> Great result

3) Great effort -> Poor result

4) Great effort -> Great result

 We get fascinated by stories matching with relationship number 2 & 3. That is almost no effort can bring great results and great effort can give poor results. All human beings are suckers for stories. Remember our childhood days when we used to nag our grand parents to tell us stories??

Even grown ups watch TV serials and movie because they tell a story. This fascination about stories brings us to believe that great efforts does not guarantee great results and without any efforts or with very little effort we can get great results. So most of us don't bother putting any efforts even with the things which matters to us and hope that one day everything will align itself and we will get great results. Or some even believe in destiny, they think, if it's in their destiny, they will get it or otherwise no matter how much they try, they won't get it.

Now keep aside the thoughts about the destiny and fascinating stories and think about the following cause and effect relationship in a mathematical, logical way-

1) No (or very little) effort -> Poor result

2) No (or very little) effort -> Great result

3) Great effort -> Poor result

4) Great effort -> Great result

Now logically speaking, here in our world, everything is interlinked, ever heard about butterfly effect?

A thing as small as the flutter of a butterfly can cause a typhoon half way round the world.

In plain English, if conditions favor, a small trigger can cause massive results.

So a cause of devastation caused by a typhoon can be a harmless looking little flutter of the wings of a butterfly.

So no effort resulting in great results and great effort resulting in poor results are bound to happen time to time. 

But what about other conditions? That is, no effort gives poor results and great efforts give great results. Well they are bound to happen when external things don't intervene in negative way.

Probabilistically speaking even if 10% is in our hands and 90% depends on external factors and we put in all our efforts then the possibility of favorable outcome happening will increase by 10%. And generally in my observation, more than 50% of the influence is in our hands and rest are the external factors. But external factors are also 50-50% in nature, that is 50% time they are positive and 50% times they are negative. If we consider only the positive things, that is we are doing our 50% part, and out of the remaining 50% there is 50% chance of positive i.e. 50% of 50% is 25% so, this 25% positive plus 50% by our efforts gives the success rate of 75%.

Isn't it great!! In the contrary if we don't do our part then the success rate is around 25%.

(These are assumptions, but I think I made my point that if we put in our efforts, the possibility of good results increases.)

In real world when such things-

1) No (or very little) effort -> Poor result

2) No (or very little) effort -> Great result

3) Great effort -> Poor result

4) Great effort -> Great result

happens, ordinary people exhibit following attitude-

When I am right I am genius, when I am wrong, it's due to bad luck.

Almost all Ordinary people believe in it, this is the conventional wisdom. Someone have said that,

In financial world people are famous for being right once in a row.

When you read the interviews or autobiographies of unconventional people, you will quickly find out that, they can separate the luck part and effort part of any achievement. If they encounter a failure, they try to analyse the root cause. They don't just blame it on luck, they find it out if they have done their part properly, if they are missing something. In this way they keep on improving themselves, keep evolving. They keep on becoming better version of themselves, day after day, they never stop learning.

Actually we already do this thing, and we have to. Any guesses where??

At our job. We try to stay relevant. We keep on updating our knowledge, updating our skills, we don't say I encountered failure because of bad luck and I can't do anything about it. We find the root cause until we get the success.

Then why not in our personal life?

Have a nice day..

Sumit,

The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

Setting your frame of reference right..

This article is inspired by a friend of mine, who earns a lot, but still don't have a clue why he can't save anything.. I know many people, who are in the same condition.

I suggested him to keep a log of every expense he is doing however minor or obvious it may be. So as to get an idea about where his money is going. Me too did the same when I was in the same situation, and got a headstart in living a frugal, happy, healthy life with lots of investments earning money for me.

Mostly the ideal savings rate is 80% of the income. The more, the better. It has nothing to do with the amount of income. Most people have savings rate of almost 0%.(some also manage to have negative saving rate, that is they spend more than they earn. Obviously they land in to debit trap.)

People give reasons like- my income is small, when it will increase, I will start saving, or this year the expenses are more, once the expenses reduces I will start saving. And savings never happen.

People are not dumb to not understand the benefits of savings and investing. But still they don't save much.

Now why this happens?

The reason lies in our psychology.

Our brains don't have the capacity to judge anything of it's own. We compare anything with something similar, like we judge the temperature of anything with respect to our body temperature, we describe the temperature as hot or cold (with respect to our body temperature), we cannot tell the temperature in degree Celsius or degree Fahrenheit. Or if we see a picture, our brain subconsciously searches for known things and then interprets the unknown things in the picture by comparing with the known things in the picture. For example if we see a picture of a building we can't judge the height of the building (because building can be of any height), but if we see a man standing in the picture then our subconscious knows that a man is generally 5 to 6 feet tall, and we can quickly get an idea about the height of the building with respect to the man.

But what if we have fever? If the man standing in the picture is dwarf (only 3 feet tall)?

Then our judgements will be wrong. If we have fever and our body temperature is 40 degree Celsius instead of 37 degree Celsius. Then we will find things colder by 3 degree Celsius than usual, that's why we feel cold when we catch fever.

Or if the man standing in the picture is only 3 feet tall instead of usual 6 feet tall then we will judge the building twice the size of it's original. But soon we will find other anomalies in our judgement, like we will find something else in the picture which is of normal size and recognize our mistake. That is if we see a Toyota Corolla (a very well known car) in the picture. Then we will quickly think there is something wrong in our judgement, either the car is twice the size of usual (which is quite impossible) or the man may be dwarf (some possibility). So we will come to the conclusion that the man here in the picture is dwarf. And also we will get an idea about the real size of the building.

But if the man in the picture is 5 feet tall instead of 6?

Then there will be a minor error in the judgement of the height of the building. Which will go unnoticed. (around 20% error will go unnoticed.)

Coming back to our topic about savings and expenses. We judge our expenses in a similar way. We compare our expenses with similar expenses of ours or our friends or colleagues. And a 20% increase in the expenses can easily goes unnoticed. And this is how our expenses can easily skyrocket.

But are the reference points right in all above examples?

In engineering drawings it graphical maps or even in the Google maps, a scale is given, that is, this much distance corresponds this much kilometers. This standardized system prevents most of the errors of comprehension.

Now what is the proper reference point to judge our expenses?

I think our expenses must be correlated to our income and not with other expenses, because we just saw how our expenses can skyrocket if we compare with similar expenses but our income has nothing to do with our skyrocketing expenses. It grows with it's own pace.

A simple reference point we can set is how much I earn in a particular time? That is if I am earning Rs. 1000 per 10 hour work day then I am earning Rs. 100 per hour. Then I can think like if I am buying something for Rs. 100 then I would have to work 1 hr. at my job in return. Is the thing I am purchasing worth my spending 1hr at my job?

Suppose I am going to change the engine oil of my bike and the mechanic there is asking for a Rs.100 as service charges for just 15 minutes of work then is it ok for me to spend an hour at my work to change the oil of my motorbike? Of course not... The mechanic is earning Rs.400 an hour, you should rather quit your white collared job and become a mechanic instead. :P

But practically it is very easy to change the engine oil of a motorbike or a car, instead of paying huge service charges and waiting for them to finish the work, you can do it yourself with the satisfaction that I did the right thing, saved money, time, expenses to travel to garage, avoided the headache of taking an appointment, I did it with love and care for my machine, I did it properly.

And trust me the tools and spanners needed are one time expense and you will recover the money in the first time itself. And they mostly last more than a decade.

It is just an example of setting the frame of reference right. It will align your expenses with your income. You have to practice this for 2-3 months and then it will become automatic. Afterwards you will automatically think about any expenses with respect to how much time you have to spend at your job to earn that much money.

So incorporate this habit and start saving your own money. That's the homework..

In the second part of this blog post we will learn about setting the frame of reference right in investing.

See you soon.. Till then have a nice day..

Sumit,

The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

Doing the right thing & Prioritizing the work..

There are two rules to achieve great results in our life-

1) Doing the right thing is doing the thing which is necessary to get required results.

2) Prioritizing the work is giving the highest priority to the work which produces the most important results.

Both these rules sounds like pretty basic, trivial, anyone will understand, everyone knows, every human being must be following it.

Yet in our day today life I see most, including me ignoring these basic rules.

Mostly we are doing what we feel like doing instead of doing what is necessary. For example many of my colleagues have home loans on their head, they feel the pressure, the burden of the loan plus interest costs on their head, they hate paying the monthly EMI of the loan but still they feel I must have a car (in Indian metro City motorcycle is the best way to commute to the workplace because of traffic congestion, and car is only used for some once in a month family outings, using a car everyday is not at all practical even if you have extra money) and they get one (on the loan of course) though they know that the value of the car starts decreasing, the moment it leaves the car showroom. Just because they feel buying a car is the right thing to do.

I have seen even high ranking officers in various organizations doing the same, I have found them concentrating more on the results, trying the tweak the results instead of working on the system which is giving the results. 

Investment legend Warren Buffet have described this condition as fixing all your attention on the scoreboard, when you should be concentrating on your game, which is actually producing the score.

When it comes to prioritizing the work, people also don't give much deliberation and arrange the things in proper order. People just start doing the things which they like to do first or which appears in front of them first.

For example, as most of the people are not doing the right thing, they are not getting the required results, and as they are not getting the required results they are working still harder, resulting in working overtime, bringing office work to home, not having enough time for lunch break, so skipping lunch altogether. But we join a job to ensure enough food for us and our families, what if the job is consuming so much time that you are not even getting time to eat or for your family. Anyone in this situation needs to pause and think about it, whether you are doing job for you and your family or your existence is for the job?

And when an high level managerial person does it, his/her subordinates also have to follow for obvious reasons. Resulting in too much of an indirect damage to many families because of the bad decisions of a single person.

All this can be avoided with doing the right thing and prioritizing the work.

It is not only related to offices or organizations, it is also related to our daily lives, we have to take decisions like, what to purchase, when to marry, whom to marry, which job to join, when to change the job, purchasing a house, making investments, family get togethers etc.

If one is only chasing his/her career and ignoring the family aspect of life i.e. getting married and having children then there remains a void in the life of that person, even if he/she becomes really successful in the career.

Remember this blog is to strengthen the three pillars of life- health, wealth and happiness.

So we have to learn to do the right thing and prioritizing the work. So as to achieve the maximum output in minimum input. (Improving the efficiency of our life.)

Find out what you want and which system is producing those results, sort out the bottlenecks, don't be afraid of failures, change the system if you are not getting the required results, think which is the most important thing to be done, also what is to be avoided. 

That's your homework.

See you soon. Till then, have a nice day.

Sumit,

The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

Early retirement- is it really necessary??

Hello friends,

As you know, samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com is the place to use the common sense (which is not so common :-P) to grow health, wealth & happiness.

Health, wealth and happiness are the the pillars that support a meaningful life. These pillars depend on each other to support the human life. If one is weak, others can not support a healthy life.

Today I am thinking about the wealth side of our life.

Wealth can be defined as anything that is needed by someone..

For example, insect also have wealth, a spiderweb is needed for a spider to catch it's pray. Birds build nest for their little ones. Honeybees make and store honey in the honeycombs. All the things mentioned are needed by someone so can be considered as wealth. These examples also states that wealth can be created.

As far as human beings are concerned, there are many times of wealth a human being can create.

Mostly until our formal education is completed, we consume the wealth created by our parents (we consume our parent's time, food, money, space etc.). After completion of the formal education we start working for some organisation, may it be someone else's or we make our own by consuming more wealth to form the organisation (entrepreneurship), it it can be a self employment. Then we start using our human capital to creat wealth for the organisation. Now after more than 20 years of consuming wealth (only input), For the first time in life we start giving some output.

So our human capital is itself a wealth for the organisation we are working and also to ourselves as we are getting a part of wealth created by us back by the organisation in the form of money.

Money is not actually wealth, it is a medium to move wealth.

So with money we get power to purchase what we need, that is we purchase wealth, so money itself becomes synonymous with wealth.

Now coming back to the human capital, suppose we join a job at the age 20 and the retirement age is 60 (we can work more but considering the health, I think it is a reasonable estimate to retire at 60, which is also the official age of retirement for government servants in India). Well, you can choose whatever age you would like. But considering the above scenario, we have 40 years of working human capital at the time of joining an organisation. As the years pass the remaining human capital goes on decreasing, that is at the age of 40, only 20 years of human capital is remains. But in exchange of your working and wealth creation for the organisation, you are getting paid. So the cumulative (that is total till now) payment you received is goes on increasing and the human capital remaining goes on decreasing with time.

If we don't want to retire, and keep working, we can't do that because the human capital we possess is limited. We can't work till we die, because of health issues, aging etc.

So the inevitable fact is we have to retire at some time.

What if we spend all the money we receive in exchange of our human capital? Simple answer is, we will retire broke. Or we can't even retire, we have to search another job, even for low pay.

But mostly people invest some amount of their salary in some pension scheme, to get the pension after retirement. If your retirement fund is big enough then you can have a good retirement life.

Thus saving for our retirement is necessary or compulsory. Our retirement age is fixed by someone else, that is the organisation we are employed in. And we have accepted it and making planning for building retirement corpus before the retirement date.

This retirement is an unavoidable phenomenon. For most, the retirement date is fixed by someone else.

So why not choose our own retirement date and plan for it? We already know how to make provisions for life after retirement..

Think about it for yourself..

See you later.. till then have a nice day..

Sumit,

The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

Who am I talking with??

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to my blog samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com where we try to simplify our life with common sense.

So I was just thinking on thinking, as I see most people are afraid of quiet time for thinking. They constantly want some kind of indulgence, like talking with someone, listening songs, watching TV, eating (yes many people eat just for time pass) and if they don't get something like this then they become restless until they find something.

But I like quiet time, I like thinking a lot. Whenever I get time, my mind starts thinking on various subjects. Encient Hindu scriptures have told the importance of mediation.

So I was just thinking on thinking, how do we think?

Though we don't like thinking, everyone thinks without knowing he or she is thinking. So everyone has experienced what we do which is called thinking is actually we talk in our head. Generally in our mother-tounge.

The question arises is WHO I AM TALKING WITH? Because there is no one talking back.

This, the entity we are talking with, the observer to our talk is actually our subconscious mind. When we think, we are actually feeding our subconscious mind. It is where our true personality lies, it is where most of our decisions are made, it is where 80% of our brain's processing power lies, it is what keeps us alive, it is what controls our bodily functions like heart beats, breathing, it is where our instincts lies, it is where our emotions generate, it is where most of our memories lies including associated sensory perceptions, it is where our self image lies, it is always on, even in sleep, the dreams we see while sleeping are the glimpses of what goes on in our subconscious mind.

Don't you think this silent observer to our thought is so amazing!! So powerful !! It can make wonders happen !!

What if we can use it's amazing power??

Well it is not that inaccessible to us. This silent observer is always in ON state, even while sleeping, so whatever happens around us, whatever we think, how we react to things, all is observed by this observer, it generates emotions depending on what it has observed in the past. It tries to correlate our past with the present. That is why if we burnt our fingers by touching a pan on a stove, we will always be vigilant about a pan or anything on a stove even if the stove is OFF. It is where our instincts generates.

We can't control what the observer has observed in the past but we surely control what the observer observes in the present. Always remember that the observer is watching your every conscious thought, every sensory stimulus, every emotional stimulus, every conversation etc. So do feed in advantageous material to the observer. To feed it we must first think it, feel it. Though first it feels a little different (only different, not hard). But over times the good observations of the observer starts bearing fruits and by the time you also develop the habit of feeding good material to the observer. The good things keep on compounding, good things leads to good things, it becomes a positive feedback loop.

The advantages-

I have trained myself in thinking over problems hard and then when time is over I shut it off, for example, if I encounter a problem in the office, I think over it hard, how to solve the problem? How can I prevent it from arising again? Is there any opportunity for improvement? If I don't get any answer in office hours then I shut it off as soon as I leave the office. Next time when I visit the office again I usually find a solution is already ready in my brain even if I have consciously shut down the thoughts related to the problem. It is where after I consciously stopped dwelling over the problem, the observer took over it without my conscious knowledge, and solved the problem for me.(remember it has 80% of the brain's processing power at it's disposal).

This observer is the subconscious mind can easily solve any problem rather it needs a problem or a task to properly function. That's why the saying-

EMPTY MIND IS DEVIL'S HOME.

So, in a sense I gave you a superpower.

Do remember Peter Parker's (Spiderman's) Uncle Ben have said-

WITH GREAT POWERS, COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY.

So do use your superpower responsibly..;-)

See you again,

Till then have a great time..

Sumit,

The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

Life hack - Ego problem

The definition of EGO is the drive to maintain and enhance favourable views of one-self.

Almost everyone has some sort of ego. Ego is on e of the characteristics of the human being. Ego is good for the construction of our personality and living in the society. As a person tries to maintain and enhance favourable views of one-self his/her bond with other members of the society becomes strong.

Trust is the main component that binds the society together. Human being has long ago understood the benefits of living in the society. So to maintain the trust human beings have developed the ego. Ego doesn't let a human being deviate from his behaviour. The problem starts when his behaviour is not good for him or someone else or in short against the total good.

Let me give you my own example of how I got in to trouble because of my ego, got out of the trouble and used my ego as an advantage. (Remember my tagline?? – The power is when- you use ODDS to get EVEN.)

So here is my story- I started investing in share market since I was in college. I was getting good returns. So I decided to not join a job and continue investing full-time. After about 1 year my parents were thinking as I am investing in share market full time, I must be earning a lot. So they started to ask me to bear more and more part of household expenses.

But my earnings were just enough to bear the expenses and there was nothing left to reinvest. In investing you need more money to get more income. (I was getting respectable returns over my investment at that time in percentage terms.) I got frustrated. One day a good friend of mine asked me what's the problem? I told her the above story. She casually said, "Why don't you join a job then? You are an engineer and you would definitely get the same amount of salary as much as your expenses. No need to draw money from your investments and you can grow your investments side by side. And by the way, soon or later you have to marry, so you can't escape the household expenses."

I was dumbstruck. I thought why I didn't thought about it? (I am one of those 99% people who think they have above average common sense.. :P ) Her logic was impeccable. On thinking I found out that, I was subconsciously thinking that people will perceive my joining a job as failure of my share market investing. It was my ego, which was preventing me from doing a logical thing. It was just to prevent misunderstanding of the people. But in the long run this ego is going to do more harm than good.

So I refocused the attention of my ego from the road, to the destination. I thought it is not important which road you are travelling as long as the road is ethical, but the destination is important. There are some roads which we think are going to the destination but we later on come to know that the road takes us to somewhere else, or the road is blocked, then it is the time to change the road. No need to attach your ego to the road, but attach it to the destination you want to reach.

This also creates the same favourable views in the society we live. As I changed my road at the right time I am now at a much more comfortable financial position. My goal of early retirement is in my sight.

This solution of shifting the ego from road to destination is useful in every aspect where ego is involved, for example if you want to improve the relations with someone then don't stick your ego to I'm not going to say I am sorry to him/her, instead think- I am going to do whatever it takes to improve relations with that person. Changing a road is not as bad as we think it is. Also don't make early opinions about those who change their roads.

Your comments on this subject are welcome.

You can use your common sense to enhance your experience of life. Spreading this awareness is the goal of samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com .

See you later.. Until then have a great time...

Sumit,

The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.

Story of my pimples.. :P

Hello friends, it's been a long time I am writing a blog post for samanyabuddhi.blogspot.com . Many might have thought that I have lost the interest and there would be no more posts. But it is not the case. I write the posts on my smartphone. My last phone was 'Microsoft Lumia 540'. It has Windows operating system. As everyone knows Microsoft stopped developing apps for Windows based smartphone. So the blogger app on that phone slowly slowly stopped working. I have also lost some posts while creating/posting. And finally on one day, it stopped working totally. So I got discouraged because the phone was a really great gadget. Though the blogger was not working, the Windows operating system was very user friendly to use. The quality of the hardware and software matching was simply exquisite.

But then my banking and share trading apps were also got discontinued. Then I thought it's time to get a new phone. So I purchased this 'Panasonic Eluga Ray 700' with latest Android operating system. And boy it is a great value for money phone, though I still miss the user-friendlyness of the Windows operating system. But to cut long story short, I AM BACK.

The persuit of health, wealth and happiness will never stop and the use of 'samanyabuddhi' (common sense) is the key.

So let's start with the topic.

Everyone hates pimples right?? Everyone struggles to get rid of them or was once doing everything at their disposal to get rid of them. But what if I tell you this is not a post to get rid of pimples but to bring them back..

If still interested, read on.

I got my first pimple when I was 14. I still remember the development of odd blister on my left cheek. Then after a week came another one and another one and then there was an onslough of pimples. I tried every medicine that was advertised on the media, a couple of doctors too.(My friends were doing the same thing.) But nothing worked beyond few days. Then many many years later, at the age of 25 I realised, I am not having pimples anymore. I was very happy. And with the passing time, I forgot the incident.

Now fast forward by 6 years, I was almost 32 and while undergoing yearly health check-up I observed a pattern that every year my 'Blood Pressure' and 'Pulse Rate' are rising. In my youth days, that is when I was below 25 years old, I used to exercise a lot, I had an unstoppable stamina, we used to trek all day without food, little water and very little sleep/rest, sometimes even 2 days straight. My Blood pressure was below normal at that time(70 & 105), my pulse rate used to be 45-50 in normal condition. I used to donate blood every 3 months sometimes even before 3 months. So, though the difference was minute on yearly basis and below what the doctor would call hypertension, the difference was drastic when compared with youth days.

I recognized, the aging process is getting hold of my body.

Remember the article about aging??

Ageing and Anti-Ageing - 2 of the most popular words in cosmetics advertising.

If not then read following articles in conjunction with this post, to understand this post better.

No. 1 Misconception about great health

So I thought I must do something otherwise soon I shall be a victim of hypertension and will have to start taking blood pressure reducing tablets all the rest of my life. This thought was the motivator. I hate visiting doctors very much, and taking medicine is the worst option for me. Because many times I see that medicine is more harmful than the disease itself in the long run. (I am talking about allopathic medicine. And this is my personal opinion. It may be wrong.)

Well to improve productivity I generally think about solutions which solve more than one problem simultaneously.

So I kept thinking about it for a 3-4 days and came to conclusion that if I purchase a bicycle and use it to commute to office it will give following benefits-

1) Exercise-

My office was 2km away from my company quarters at that time. I used to come back for lunch in the afternoon. So total 8km commuting in a day. And further I was planning to shift my dwelling to a distant place 35km away for my son's education.

I thought if I start cycling now I may build up stamina to cover that 70km to and fro distance in one day while commuting, once per week.

Cycling is a great exercise, if you pedal with all your strength all the while and go as fast as you could, it becomes both cardio+strength exercise.

2) Time saving-

I do not have to spend separate time for commuting and exercise. So though one may think that I shall need more time to commute on bicycle than the motorbike. He is right but when you add the time for exercise it is a different story.

3) Money saving-

I don't need to fill the fuel tank of my motorbike. Plus there are periodical servicing to be done, plus capital cost of the motorbike, plus the depreciation in the price of the motorcycle due to build up of milage.

4) No pollution-

It is almost non polluting. No sound, no tail pipe emission.

Now to the real experience-

So I quickly surveyed various online websites for types and prices, visited a nearest dealer and bought a Dirt Terrain Bike (DTB) of Hero Cycles with shock absorbers at both ends and 6x3 gear combination. I had one of the same type in the college days. DTB is the practical option on Indian roads.

That day I didn't get chance to ride but the next day I went to office twice as per my routine with excitement. I rode it like I was doing when I was in college, pedaling with all the strength. That day was good. But when I woke up the next morning my thighs were in pain. I couldn't even imagine walking for a while, forget about riding the bicycle.

For two days I was in pain. Then I decided to take it easy first. So I took rest for the 3rd day too. In 4th day I went to office in lower gears, at slow pace for one trip, for the second trip I used my motorbike.

Next day was fine. So again repeated the procedure so as to sustain the effort. In the next week did the same, that is going at slower pace in lower gears, total 4 km per day. On Saturday I tried riding a little hard because Sunday was rest day. But again thigh muscles were damaged too much and I have to take Monday, Tuesday off for cycling. Again I started with slow pace on Wednesday for once a day.

To cut long story short, I kept on pushing and there were these little improvements in my strength but there was a lot of pain. I have seen a lot of people (not personally, some are athletes, actors we see on TV). And I just thought if they can do it, so can I.

After 6 months the rate of progress started improving and finally after around 7 months I was riding my bicycle with all my strength, with maximum possible speed. And I still had more juice to do other things.

And hey, in the 7th month, pimples came back again.

Now after about 1 year I live in my new home and ride to office 35km away once in a week. My record timing is 35km in one and half hour straight, including halts for drinking water. Those 35km have 13 pair of slopes(downhill + uphill). Some are as short as 300m and the longest one is 2.5km. That 2.5km (only the uphill side) one is the hardest to climb.

Note- I was also doing exercises for the rest of my body in the same period.

Now let's compare the before and after condition-

Before starting the bicycle riding-

1) I used to exercise a little like pushups, pullups, situps, back-situps, squats etc. But still my health was deteriorating.

2) My food intake was less than half of what it used to be when I was below 25.

3) My pulse rate was 90.

4) Though my stamina was better than my colleagues, it was much less than what it used to be.

Truly speaking, there were just the rising pulse rate and blood pressure was the motivator. I didn't see any other benefits at the start but others came to me as bonus.

Current health condition-

1) I do triple the exercises than what I previously thought the upper limit of my body.

2) My food intake is now restored to it's maximum level.

3) Presently my pulse rate is 55. Blood pressure is not measured yet.

4) I have almost never ending stamina.

5) Pimples are back, my skin is oily again, I do not need to apply body lotion in winter. :-P

6) My body is in better shape now.

7) My damaged muscles heal up much faster now.

8) Much improved lovemaking.

9) Psychologically I am again having the feeling of invincibility.(remember your childhood days??)

I think the exercise caused by bicycle riding has caused increase in testosterone (male sex hormone) and growth hormone production in my body which is making me younger again.

But it needed 6 months of constant efforts and enduring pain to kickstart the production of testosterone and growth hormone.

There are some bad side effects too-

(Apart from oily skin & pimples)

1) Increased aggressiveness.

2) Increased mood swings.

In short child like emotional condition.

3) My love for machines has exploded(childhood days are back).

4) My mind has became sharper (more logical).

5) Tendency towards rash driving on road has increased. (Remember the bratty kids on road??)

These psychological side effects (mood swings and aggressiveness) are bad for my investments as it may result in to emotional decisions. Also in my workplace, I am working with adults, so I can't act childish.

The countermeasures-

1) Knowledge of your psychological condition is itself a cure. 50% problem is solved because of the knowledge only.

2) Most of the remaining 50% is solved by reminding yourself to practice patience all the while.

3) Remind yourself not to be too much happy or too much sad.

4) Implement 'Take it easy policy'.

Finally is it worth the trouble??

Of course.. I can't explain the feeling exactly. You have to experience yourself. It is also necessary to maintain health. And health is one of the pillars without which one cannot enjoy the life.

One more thing is that, I was 32 when I started it, if you are younger you may need less than 6 months to get on track or if you are older you may need to be more persistent but I can assure one thing, the prise of good health in waiting for you.

A wise man has said,

NO PAIN, NO GAIN.

Just keep the pain bearable. This is the case of DELAYED GRATIFICATION.

One more thing I would like to say is- it is not the end, it(exercise) is the way of life.

That's it for now. See you again.

Have a healthy, wealthy and happy life.

Sumit,

The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.