Mental Exercise 9 : Surrender to Your Universe

"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference."
- The Serenity Prayer

Use a tape recorder and record down a few conversations you have with friends without making any effort to be different from how you'll normally talk. At the end of the day, play it back and count the number of times certain words like "I", "me", "my", etc appears.

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Surrendering to the universe doesn't mean giving up on your responsibilities, and just taking "whatever that comes". It doesn't mean that you have lost. It is recognizing that the world doesn't revolve around you, that while you can take charge of your actions, you cannot possibly control the outcomes. It is acknowledging the outcome in an objective and detached way. Things are not meant to be going your way all the time. People are not meant to be "fixed" by you. But while there are so many ways where the universe doesn't align with your expectations, the outcome is similar. You become frustrated. You punish yourself by being uptight, anxious, irritable and depressed. You also punish the people around you by losing your temper, withdrawing from them physically and emotionally, unappreciative and generally just being unhappy.

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(Excerpt from pages 119, 120)

The process of surrender has four steps. It is important that you do them all:
1. Take all actions with a clear understanding of what you would like to have happen. Be unambiguous about what it is that you would like to accomplish as a result of them.

2. Consciously wish all outcomes be beneficial for all parties concerned. This is important. Our competitive society trains us in terms of "winning" at the expense of others. It does not have to be so. Instead, actively and sincerely wish that there are no losers.

3. Recognize that your actions are simply one possible way of achieving the outcome you want. Remember that you have a limited understanding if all the forces at play and from that limited viewpoint have selected your course of actions as the "best".

4. Detach yourself frm the outcome. Accept whatever outcome the Universe provides. Surrender to the Universe. It's better for you if you cheerfully accept whatever comes your way. If you actually welcome the results wholeheartedly, your perspective on them will be transformed.

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"The true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with every day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but his last fruits also." -- Thoreau, Chapter 7 of Walden, "The Bean-Field"

Mental Exercise 8 : Change Your Universe

Remember that the world you live in.
It is not the reality, but simply one that you've constructed.

Some people try all their lives to change the universe. But it doesn't work that way. Each time you take control and change one of your mental models at a very deep level, you become a different person. And when you become a different person, the Universe has to change to the new person you have become as well.

This means that many times, you are far more effective when you deal with the "internal work" than the "external work". For example, when searching for a job, you have to free your mind from the desperate thoughts and fears in frantic searching. Concentrate on being clear on what you would like. Be able to visualize your ideal job, and the values that you will uphold, and what the job would allow you to express. Write down how you can benefit the society as a whole. When you do this, it becomes clear on what you truly want, and this job will flow into your life with minimal effort on your part.

If you are seeking a significant other, you can stop the pointless search and instead concentrate on becoming the person with the qualities of the one you would like to find. Realize that the search is within yourself.

Don't stop doing the things that you do to make things happen. Continue at them , but do recognize that there is a better and more powerful way of bringing about the change to your life you are seeking. Try to use frantic doing and calm being in tandem. Experience will tell you which proportions would be the best.

Learning how to use "being calm" reliably is pretty much like a Jedi padawan learning to use "the force". It is a powerful concept which you have to trust for it to work. Initially it seems that it does not work, that it is so difficult and contradictory to the way we are used to seeing things that we doubt ourselves sometimes. These reservations are often picked up by the Universe, and are thrown back at us. Can you master the force?

A Story About the Universe

(Excerpt taken from pages 102, 103)

It was lunchtime when I finished my sales call and I was feeling pleased with myself. I had just closed a big deal and the clients had given me a very warm referral and promised to call s well. As I waited for he elevator, two female executives came through the swing doors. I knew both from innumerable meetings:

Elanor was a good-looking rehead with an irrepressible smile. She had deep laugh dimples in both cheeks and seemed to have just emerged from a screening of a really funny movie. She was neatly dressed but, as usual, her clothes were rumpled. Joan was smiling now but, below that, frown lines were permanently etched on her face. As usual she was dressed impeccably.

They nodded pleasantly to me and the elevator arrived just at that moment. As we entered, Eleanor turned to Joan and remarked, "It's just past noon and I've already created my third miracle."

"What miracle?" asked Joan, puzzled.

"I'm in a rush today and have to get backk to finish the new pitch book. So I made the elevator come right on time. Now Ican just get to my favourite place and back, rather than having to settle for a sandwich from the horrible deli." Eleanor was grinning and gushing. I ensed that she was egging Joan on.

"That's no miracle," snapped Joan. The smile vanished and a look of exasperation appeared. "have yo forgotten what happened two weeks ago?"

"Yes, I have. What happened two weeks ago?" queried Eleanor.

"We were supposed to have lunch together. You were in a rush again. Some moron was holding the elevator open on the floor above. These are smart elevators and the programming led them to believe that the nearby elevator would come for us, so all the other ones bypassed us. It was five minutes before the idiot released it, and when it came down, it was too full for us to get on. That's what happened," said Joan vengefully.

"I remember," agreed Eleanor. "It got so late that I had to skip lunch and go back to my office."

"yes," said Joan, and her anger seemed to be building. "Where was your miracle-mongering the? There are eight elevators in this bank. This gentleman had already pressed the down button, so it was just chance that it came as we arrived." She nodded at me as she said this.

Eleanor nodded pensively.

"It's coincidence. Got that? Coincidence," said Joan emphatically. "Repeat after me: C-O-I-N-C-I-D-E-N-C-E. And by the way, I'd be very careful what I say in front of otheres. Keep doing this and men in white suits will come to take you away."

The elevator reached the lobby and Joan strode away, her high heels click-clacking with emotion. Eleanor and I looked at each other and burst out laughing simultaneously. We understood each other perfectly.

"It must be terrible being Joan," I ventured.

"Yes," agreed Eleanor. "I wouldn't want to inhabit the world she lives in."

"But she did have a point," I prodded. "It wasn't a miracle any more than what happened two weeks ago was." I was curious to hear what she would say.

"Two weeks ago WAS a miracle," Eleanor responded. "It was an even bigger one. When I got back to my office, my phone was ringing. It was a headhunter I had known for years and he would not have left a message. One of his clients was about to make an offer to someone he thought was unsuitable. It was a completely different industry and he didn't think I would be interested, but he called me anyway, on a whim."

"And then?" I queried.

"We got along famously and I accepted the offer this week," Eleanor said, smilin. "I'm handing in my notice on Monday. there are too many toxic people in this place."

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You do have a choice.
You can be Eleanor or you can be Joan.
Decide wisely.

Mental Exercise 7 : Gratitude

(Exercise taken from page 94, 95, 96)

For every night this week, for a short 10 minutes before you sleep, clear your mind and do a simple exercise.

Think of something that happened today that you are thankful for. Think of the many ways in which you are fortunate. Indeed you have a lot to be thankful for -- health, security, friends, your mental control and other riches of life. Let a deep feeling of gratitude well up in you. Allow the feeling to surface, and permit it to take hold of you. Broadcast a silent statement of who you are.

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After you incorporate this exercise every night, try expanding it to the different times of the day. Let these feelings of gratitude flow through you many times every day. Introduce it gently and let to overwhelm you if it can. Observe what it does to your emotional tenor during the day.

You might find it is easier to hold on to these feelings of gratitude if you use your body. Try walking with a spring in your step -- even if you are rushing to the restroom. Smile, smile, smile. Don't smile from the face. Smile from the heart. Let laughter begin in the pit of your stomach, engulf you and spread across your face.

Notice the changes to your emotions?
Do your feelings about people and the nature of your interactions change?
Do you perceive that others' feelings and interaction patterns have changed?

Do you realize that slowly, you are taking control back from your mental chatter, and making a positive difference in your life? Do you see that you have just changed part of your reality, by changing how you view things and interact with people?

Mental Exercise 6 : Focus

(Excerpt from page 81, 82)

Pick one day and commit to doing all your activities deliberately and unhurriedly. Focus intently on whatever you are doing. No multitaking allowed. For most of us, life has become one huge, frantic rush. Slow it down. Firmly and deliberately. Do it one step at a time. Not slowly, but unhurriedly. Concentrate on each stage and be methodical. Be aware when your mental chatter custs in with distracting thoughts of how much you have to do, the consequences riding on what you are doing, or how the world is going to end if you don't get your work done perfectly and on time.

Try to let go of your mental model of how you should be and the results that should follow from your actions. Let it all go. Each time your mental chatter carries you away, just gently detach yourself and come back to the task at hand. Breathe slowly, deeply, and evenly. Try to get to twelve breaths a minute or slower. Just being aware of your slow breathing will largely stymie your mental chatter.

This is especially important when you are speaking with someone. Do not get involved in your mental chatter, with the wonderful reply you are going to make, with the image of yourself you are trying to project, and so on. Focus on the other person and what he/she is saying. Observe the expression on his/her fac. Really notice the other person. Really listen to what he/she is saying. Remove yourself from the picture.

Imagine vividly that your life is like an hourglass The sand above represents all the things you have to do, all the things that are pressing on your and clamoring for your attention. No matter how much you shake and agitate the hourglass, only one grain at a time goes through the narrow neck.

That grain is the task at hand. Focus on it.

Mental Exercise 5 : Awareness

Mental chatter is real, and that is the basis which we form our mental modes, and then our reality. Not the reality, but always our reality as we perceive it. Like it or not, we have built a reality using what we are conditioned to think.

However, the answer to all this isn't simply stopping your mental chatter.

Although it seems to be the root of the problem, you will find that mental chatter cannot be simply suppressed or quelled all at once. You cannot dam the river in flood. You cannot stop your mental chatter. That's the bad news. The good news is you can do that bit by bit as you become more and more conscious of it.

Imagine your have a fertile plot of land. Say something happens and you have to be away for a couple of years. When you return, you'll find a mess of weeds in your field, almost totally impenetrable. If you take your mind as this field, can you imagine how much weeds there are already after years of neglect?

Your mind is like this fertile plot. It will nurture growth. But whether it will be vegetation or weeds is up to you. If you take care in planting the crops in rows and do weeding frequently, keep out stray animals and tend to the plants every day, you will find yourself with a plentiful harvest, so much that you can freely give away to relatives and friends as well.

It all starts with disciplining the mind.

You haven't been tending to your farm for years, so it shouldn't be a surprise to you that your mind has produced a dense overgrowth of useless weeds. Acknowledge this problem, and be grateful for whatever useful plants there are. Then you can start to clear the cluster of weeds slowly.

How do we clear this field? These weeds are deeply rooted indeed. They cannot be pulled out just like that. But their growth can be checked by exposure to sunlight. With enough sunlight, these weeds will wither and die off.

This sunlight is awareness. Just simply by being aware of your disruptive mental chatter, checks the growth of the unwanted weeds.

Mental Exercise 4: Mental Chatter

If you observe your mind, there is always a monologue going on. It begins the moment you open your eyes in the morning and carries on every single second till you close your eyes at night. More often than you'd like, this chatter prevents you from drifting off to sleep. And when you do finally doze off, it may well make that rest fitful.

Have you ever felt dissatisfied with your physical appearance? And then do you start to feel depressed or mildly unhappy? Is there a toxic person in your life? Perhaps a boss, maybe a relative, or even a "friend"? Does this person have the uncanny ability to leave you in a quivering emotional wreck for hours or days or weeks? Why do you hand over your emotional well-being to this person? Have you ever looked at someone and felt a stab of envy? Did you want, desperately desire, what you think that person has? Money, power, fame, prestige, cars, houses, boats, or planes? Are you best by fears? Do you obess about losing your spouse, your children, your friends or your job?

All these fears are all a result of your conditioning. You picked up this conditioning when you were still young, from your parents and teachers and your role models. You saw them all around you in society and they still broadcast to you from the media that surrounds you.

The problem is that this conditioning not only restricts you, it also restricts you from exploring pathways that could lead you to freedom. That is why you feel boxed in and enervated.

(Excerpt from "Are You Ready to Succeed" page 54, 61, 62)
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Do you recognise the small voice in your mind telling you things all the time? Emotionally charged voices, like "I always screw up.", "I'm going to fail my exams again. I'm just too stupid!", "How did you ever mange to pass your college?", "More work again! Why can't he just see I'm to busy?", "He didn't flush the toilet again! I've told him a million times.. He must be doing it on purpose to complain about my cooking!", "Look at the girl there! She's so pretty.. Not like me. Ugly. Fat. Unwanted.", "Darn! I'll be late again! This happens all the time! I bet the bus driver knew I was in a rush and deliberately drove slowly. Why do they always have to do that?!"...

Anything familiar?

Now that you know you shape your reality, what do you propose to do about it?

The first step is to recognise your mental chatter. Make a list of as many of your mental chatter as you can throughout your day. As you do this, try to be aware of your attached emotions -- common ones are negative feelings of being overwhelmed, fear, frustration and dissatisfaction, but they could be positive ones like peace and confidence as well.

Also, make it a point to notice when external stimuli hijack your mental state to something else. Does a news broadcast lead you to consider the very bad state of the world? Does seeing people on the streets remind you of your recent relationship breakup and lead you into despondency? Do you feel fear? Or depression? Or powerless? Or perhaps did a call from your family remind you of the upcoming dinner reunion this Saturday and made you light up immediately?

You might be surprised at the number of times you actually put yourself down, and how often we make snap judgment on everything, from serious matters to trivial ones like the color of the wall. That's normal. Most people have this devil inside themselves.

Notice that the consciousness of the mental chatter and its attached emotion changes your mental chatter already? Persist in this exercise, catch yourself more often in your destructive thoughts, and you'll realize that increasingly you have greater control of your thoughts.

This is the disciplining of the mind.
It's not easy, but it's mighty worth the effort. =)

Mental Exercise 3 : Alternative Realities

Following on the previous mental exercise, you realise that how every person views the world is very different. And often times, based on these interpretations, eavh person actually builds their own reality. Do you choose to live in a reality that is toxic to your health?

When there are 99 things of 100 which are wrong, do you see the 99 bad ones, or do you see the 1 good thing? And of the 99 bad things you see, how many are really as bad as you imagine?

Do you live in a world where you are powerless to these problems, or one where you have the power to take charge of the problem? Do you see despair, or do you see hope?

Pick a situation where you are unhappy with the scenario you are in. Be it an difficult boss, or a failed application. Try to think of an alternative reality in which you can interpret the situation, such that it is
(1) better than the one you are experiencing now
(2) one which you can plausibly accept
For the next week, live as if this "alternative reality" is true.

In this alternate reality, pay close attention to the details. Focus on the small pieces of evidence that that it is actually working and possible. Learn to ignore even mountain loads of evidence, as if you're in a make-believe play...

Try that and see what happens? Try it again?
Change your mind, change your world.

Mental Exercise 2 : My Mental Modes

People have limited abilities to obtain and process all information perfectly. Hence, for efficiency and convenience (or some say laziness), we have developed shortcut ways of perceiving information based on our experiences. These are our automatic thoughts.

Automatic thoughts are important to us, as they have been ingrained into us, somewhat like a reflex action. Like when we see that the sky has turned dark, we will automatically seek shelter.

However, automatic thoughts are dangerous as well, as they lead us to jump to conclusions. When we see the world through our automatic thoughts, it is as if we are viewing the world through sets of glasses, which are different from person to person, since these glasses are based on our experiences. For example, you see leaves on the trees falling and you decide that it is autumn. You see the sun rise and decide it's time to wake up...

How about... you were walking on the streets on a bright sunny day. As you look up to admire the blue sky, a big blop of bird shit falls on your forehead. How many people can smile and be grateful that cows don't fly?

And for your own life. How have you been interpreting your life? Do you have thoughts like "my boss criticizes me all the time", "I'm not as good as her", "people just hate me"? Are they real and accurate, or just how you're making yourself perceive the people around you?

Do you think you can change them?
Do you want to change them?
Are they real?

Perhaps sometimes we should think about what we think?

Mental Exercise 1 : The Vision

(Excerpt from "Are You Ready to Succeed" page 23, 34)

Consider this vision:

You wake up in the morning suffused with an ineffable feeling of joy, a deep sense of well-being. You go to work, to a job you love so much that you would pay for the privilege of doing it. You labor intently but are so focused that time flies by unnoticed. At the end of the day, you are invigorated, brimming with more energy than when you started. You have a penetrating awareness of the course you are charting, a clear knowledge of your place in the scheme of the universe. Your work feeds this, is congruent with it, and brings great contentment and peace.

You face obstacles, big ones, small ones, perhaps more than your fair share of them. You understand very clearly their purpose is to test your mettle, to bring out the best in you even as the abrasive whetstone serves to finely hone the knife. So you plow on indomitably, sure of what you want to achieve and yet unconcerned about results. At times it seems as if you are riding the crest of a powerful tidal wave, as if the universe itself is helping you, working with you and through you.

Locked doors open mysteriously. Incredibly fortuitous coincidences occur. You accomplish prodigious feats, feats you would never have imagined yourself capable of. Yet it would have been perfectly okay if you had not accomplished them. you accept accolades gracefully but are not swayed by them because you march to the beat of your own drummer.

Your personal life is intensely fulfilling. You are active in a variety of civic, charitable, and political causes and successful in all of them. Your spouse is perfectly compatible with you, a true helpmate in every sense of the word. You beget progeny and your offspring bring great satisfaction. You have a sense of trusteeship toward them. You know that they will chart their own paths and that much of these paths will be forever veiled from your eyes. You are the springboard from which they are launched, and you are glad to bend and provide the greatest thrust that you can. And then you watch with a full heart as they wend their own ways.

So it goes on year after year, each day more perfect than the one before. Your gratitude is so intense that at times it is like a physical ache. Your heart bursts as you thank the universe. What have you done to deserve such good fortune? And when the time comes for you to depart, you do so joyfully and in peace, achieving identification with the Cosmic Primciple. that incredible merging that has been called many things by many people but is ultimately indescribable, far beyond the feeble capabilities of language.

A life such as described above is your birthright. You have to reach out and claim it. Will you succeed? I do not know. I do know that the firt step toward getting there is recognising that you want to get there...

"Are You Ready to Succeed?"

Sometimes, you just manage to find a book that totally blows you away. I guess this is one of the books.

Are You Ready to Succeed? --
Unconventional strategies for achieving personal mastery in business and life
by Srikumar S. Rao, 2006

The ideas brought up in the book are simply intriguing. Using a simple choice of words, he guides us slowly through a logical thought process to bring across his point, which we might find absurd if we were to be presented with it initially.

This book is not a motivational book. Those books talk about the same things about how you can push yourself to action. This book goes a step further to challenge the basic beliefs and automatic thoughts we have, and shows us that the world as we know it, is actually a world that we have constructed by ourselves...

Notes:
1. Vision
2. My Mental Modes
3. Alternative Realities
4. Mental Chatter
5. Awareness
6. Focus
7. Gratitude
->A Story About the Universe
8. Change Your Universe
9. Surrender to Your Universe

These notes have been inspired after reading the book as a short reminder to myself in the future. Though there are some notes which have been taken from the book directly, many of the notes above have been written by me on hindsight. =) Do feel free to take a look.

23 Years So Far

3rd October 2007.
23 years ago, I came to this world not knowing anything but perhaps the basic survival instincts. 23 long years have passed since... And looking back, I'm thankful that I have grown up through the years. Through these 23 years, it is apparent that it can be separated into several stages.

The first stage: The Student 1984 - 2002
Through the first 18 years of my life, I have devoted myself to studies, and have always prided myself on being able to catch on to new ideas and concepts taught in most subjects. Hardworking and studious, I was eager and excited to try out all kinds of knowledge. Then, I believe in truth and logic -- that for everything, there must be a purpose and truth. I was quite a nerd frankly, and I didn't see socialising and forming friends as important as studies. Studies was pretty much my top and only priority. It was what I loved to do. It was what I'll rather do then go out with friends most of the time.

The second stage: The Skeptic (2003 - 2005)
After my compulsory education in the top schools in Singapore, I was enlisted into the army, where I am suddenly thrown into a world where your brains need not work. With so much excess time on my hands in the evenings, I started to read quite a lot. Especially on self-improvement and philosophy. This was also the time where I started to wonder about the "serious issues of life" like the meaning of life. As I thought a bit too much, coupled with the monotonous life in the army, I somewhat grew into a skeptic, doubting many things in life and not believing in many things. Pessimism and minor depression slowly crept into my life, as I started to be convinced that there is really little meaning to life. It was a tiring time for my soul, where I seemed to live a purposeless life. Such dejection struck me rather hard, and I found many of my previous agility in thinking and learning to have deteriorated significantly.

The third stage: The Child (2005 - now)
As I stepped into NUS, I started to meet all sorts of astounding people in the University Scholars Programme (USP). This was really where I started to mentally grow out of my old thinking. However, I was quiet during my first year, still content with living my own quiet life with just a small circle of friends and classmates. Fortunately for me, I managed to convince myself to give USC Freshmen Orientation Camp a shot as an OGL. I have heard how interesting and memorable it'll be. It did more than that. It changed my life.

Through the camp and dance, I managed to make a lot of new amazing friends from USC. Joining activity after activity after the camp, I got to know more people and build stronger bonds with quite a few people. Taking a leap of faith to join the USC Management Committee as the Honorary Financial Secretary, I threw myself headfirst into the unknowns, knowing (and hoping) that I would be in good company. And I was.

As the treasurer, I was involved in many of the activities organised. In fact, I wanted to be part of many of the activities myself, not only as the treasurer... From interactions with many people, I have been further intrigued by their beliefs, drive and motivation that pushes them to live their dreams. I decided that perhaps I can do the same. And I started to read again, and this time, the revelations inspired by the books are quite different. One of the most important paradigm shifts for me, was that sometimes, it really doesn't matter.

And here I am. I have realised the many mistakes I've made in my decisions and mindsets, and I'm now just an immature child playing around in this field of teenagers. I have a lot to learn. Personal skills. Interpersonal skills. Discipline... In a way, you can say I'm lagging behind most people in terms of skills development by a couple of years at least.

There is a lot for me to catch up indeed. I have fallen behind many of my peers. But at least, this time I'm rather sure that I'm on the right track. =) All I need now is the intelligence to know what steps to take, and the strength to follow through the steps through the darkest hours. I have wasted perhaps 10 years of life. But I'm not going to lose any more time. =)

Thanks! =)

12 Midnight. A quiet night at PGP, and I was on my laptop, relishing a moment on the coming of age... It's really been quite a journey so far. And there was a sudden knock on my hostel door. Opening the door, I was greeted by the sight of a cake with lighted candles, and a whole group of 15 of my friends along the corridor singing a birthday song for me. And I stood there stunned for quite a while.

This entire gang of 15 people came, despite the mountain load of school work they have, despite the revisions they have to do for their tests, despite the numerous project deadlines they have to meet.. It was a simple gesture, but it means a lot to me. =)

Thanks to all of you who came: Biying, Charis, Geck Woon, Huipang, Lynnette, Aik Heng, Brandon, Choon Meng, Chun Kiak, Edwin, Joel, Kishan, Kelvin, Ken, Kevin, Yingtat... (and anyone else I accidentally might have missed? =P ). And for my other friends who don't happen to stay in PGP, thanks for your birthday wishes on MSN and through SMS too!

Thanks for sharing my 23rd birthday.
Thanks a lot for everything! =)
I'm sure with your wishes, it's going to be a great 23rd year for me. =)