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Daily Journal of Life 11.05.23

Embrace discomfort for a great life

Today I heard of a story of a King who feared a threat to his life from a rival kingdom. His father had been killed by the rivals by poisoning him through insiders. The King naturally feared for his life too.

He ordered for setting up of a garden that housed all poisonous plants from around the world. He would take a concoction each day made from these poisonous plants. He wanted to have immunity from poison and any threats to his life through poisoning. He did grow a strong immunity to poisons.

Ultimately his kingdom was attacked by the rival kingdom and he tried to commit suicide by having a lethal dose of poison but failed. He had to order his bodyguard to use a sword to kill him.

The learning from the story if we overlook the ending is that what we persevere every day becomes our strength. Vaccinations against various diseases are a way of inducing immunity through exposure to a small number of live organisms causing the very disease. Similarly, it is repeated exposure to the challenging elements that makes us stronger to face them.

If we take the example of old age problems, it is a known fact that older people tend to have mobility problems. The issue is that in old age joints and bones lose strength and the muscles fail to support the frame due to weakness. Now, to avoid this situation people have to start early to work on this issue. To avoid greater discomfort in later life, one has to face little discomfort daily. It is through regular straining of the body daily, that you can grow a body that can face the challenges of old age.

In mountaineering, you acclimatize yourself to higher altitudes increasingly and do not try to summit in one go. Acclimatization is a way of making your body used to the atmosphere of high altitude. You go up to a certain level and come back and sleep lower. The incremental exposure to altitude prepares you for the final summit.

Moving on to social confidence, people face a lot of fear in public speaking, speaking to strangers, or talking to members of the opposite sex. The undercurrent to such anxiety is the fear of rejection- a feeling that makes you feel that you are not worth it in the face of rejection. There is no antidote to remove this fear.

The only way is to face the fear of rejection by putting yourself in such situations. Once you face it, you realize that it was not what you initially thought. However, it is with incremental attempts that you gain confidence in such social situations and not through a magic potion of self-improvement programs. It is through increased exposure to the discomfort of facing the social reality that you gain control over the situation.

It is by going to the field and dirtying your hands that you gain expertise. So, become immune to your threats and fears by exposing yourself to tough situations. What does not kill you, makes you stronger.

Learnings of the Day

Dangers of Authority

I am currently reading “Influence” by Robert Cialdini and continuing the concept of Authority written yesterday.

Titles play a large role in confirmation to the Authority. The author says that it is not just the actual position of authority of a person that matters, even assigning a title to a person who does not occupy any position can wield similar results from subjects.

In an experiment involving nurses and a directive given over the phone by a person with the title of a Doctor who directs the nurse to administer 20 mg of Astrogen which was unauthorized and the prescribed limit being just 10 mg. 95% of nurses complied unhesitatingly to the command from a person they had never met and went to the medicine room to pick up the dosage and administer to the patient. They were stopped midway by a secret observer of the ongoing experiment and told about the experiment. It is blind obedience to not even a legitimate authority they know but to a title whom they had never met.

The pitfalls of title become clearer when a researcher who was a Professor found that the behaviour of strangers around him changed when he disclosed that he was a professor. The openness and interest with which these strangers initially talked suddenly transition into a respectful and accommodative stance. Studies show that figures of authority are perceived as taller than they actually are.

Desire- a Contract for Unhappiness

Vishal Khandelwal’s podcast with William Greene on Charlie Munger, Good Parenting and Secrets of a Happy and abundant life.

The key takeaway for today was the idea of Benchmarking rationally. If you are living a life above your means or you aspire to a fancy, absurdly wealthy life in contrast to your current average life, you are probably benchmarking yourself to the rich. That way you may not be able to live happily in the long run. The gap between where you are and where you want to be will always leave a taste of scarcity in your life. You will feel a sense of relative deprivation looking upwards. This does not mean that one should not aspire to become rich and abundant. It just means that constant benchmarking to a place up will leave you distraught and unhappy with your current life situation. You may already have enough from someone else’s perspective. Without this realization, consistent pursuit of a desired life will make you miserable.

I am reminded of a quote from the book “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant” that having a desire for a thing is a signing of a contract of unhappiness till that thing is achieved. You may eventually achieve the thing and feel happy but the pursuit of having it will keep you unhappy for the period. The idea is eye-opening. It makes you realize that desires have a trade-off. It is great to be ambitious but we must be ambitious cautiously. Having dreams that have a negligible chance of success will keep you frustrated.

One should optimize their dreams to their objective capabilities and then pursue them. Being the richest man in the world is neither an achievable dream for the masses nor practical. At any point in time, there is someone earning more than the other. There is no permanence in the list of top wealthiest people. Same way becoming a top athlete in a sport is decided by practice and the physical capabilities of a person. A person below 170 cm in height cannot outdo a 196 cm player in Basketball at the elite level. So, one should assess what their circle of competence is and then have dreams of doing well.

Exercise

Strength: Legs Day.

4 sets of Barbell Front Squats with moderate weight. 2 sets of Leg Press Machine with moderate weight. 3 sets of Leg Extension Machine with light weight. 4 sets of Seated Calf Machine with weight alternated with Tibialis Raises. Pull-ups

Rehab: McGill Big 3. (1 set each) for Core stability. Foam Rolling pre and post-workout.

Cardio:  Running

Zone 2-3 Training: 0 mins. For the week 61 mins. Last week 95 mins. Target 180 mins for the week.

 

Homework for Life

A colleague (P.B.) today stated his worry about his daughter having marital problems. Factors beyond your control decide how well you feel in your life. I could feel his pain for the suffering of his daughter.

In India, alliances through arranged marriages are the norm. It is even tougher to find a suitable match than to have a love marriage. Compatibility is the major challenge in arrangements. Women sacrifice a lot for getting into such alliances. Often, they have to quit jobs as demanded by the groom’s family taking away their independence.

One should be wary of such families who believe in curtailing the freedom of women. A family that wants to take away a woman’s chance to be independent is the first red flag it shows of what lies ahead in the alliance. They have rigid, orthodox, and parochial mindsets intended to suppress women to justify the patriarchal family order. Avoid such families for alliances.

Anything I like to share/ Habit Tracker

Clean for 119 days.

Weight today: 87.45 Kg. Target weight 85.40 Kg by 31.05.23. 

Pic of the Day

HMI Base Camp at Chaurikhang, KNP


 

 

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