My Guiding Principles

I have learnt and adopted few guiding principles that have helped make things better for me and may be helpful to others as well:

• Live life on your own terms.

• Look for something you love to do and you do well. Go for it. It may or may not give you money and/or recognition, but certainly will give you satisfaction in life.

• We should know what we are doing on daily basis, and out of which how much is useful in our progress. Analyse and cut all unproductive work and focus on real issues and take actions: for self, family, relatives, friends and society. At the end of the day find out how much you contributed to them. We do many activities in a day like talking, chit-chat, reading books, social media, entertainment, travel, socialising, participate in various events, attend discourses, and many other things. It is important to know how much is useful from each one of these activities for yourself and others in terms of its application and making positive impact. Try to understand and slowly stop all those activities which you find do not serve any purpose, or produce any positive outcome.

• What all you do should be meaningful and purposeful. If you read some book you should gain something, learn something, derive some meaningful info and implement, because you are reading it intentionally and spending your valuable time, nobody forced you to do it. If you don’t gain anything, it is wasteful exercise. It should not be done just for time pass.

• Keep good relations with your relatives, maintaining some distance and avoid interfering in their internal affairs. Visit them whenever possible, and invite them to visit as well.

• Spend more time with grandchildren, teach them good things, your legacy that could help them building their life and correct them for what mistakes you have done.

• Do not involve much in your children’s affairs, let them lead their own life, you may guide them occasionally, whether they follow it or not, don’t bother. Try adding value to their work/activities, facilitate them for what they are interested in to build them strong in life and grow ethically.

• No comparison with anyone, Never have guilt feeling for not having what others have, not to feel jealous, take things normal as you look at others, do not copy, it may not fit into your lifestyle. It is not important what others do. Do what best you are at and your interest is.

• Sometimes we get perturbed looking at others as they have everything and living good life, and do nothing to improve our lives. What we see in others from outside and perceive may not be true internally. Live your own life you love, not to pay attention to others life and get upset or frustrated, let people have their own way of living life, let them have whatever they want/need/like, it is their priority not yours. If someone has big house – no problem, let them have it, not to feel bad that you don’t have one like that. If it is your need, work for it.

• Have a network of good friends (most important) and people whom you trust and have freedom to interact. Have company of positive, motivating, encouraging, supportive knowledgeable, forward looking, progressive, accomplished, socially recognised & reputed, achievers, spiritual, creative, active, hardworking, sincere, educated, cultured and believing in value system, soft-spoken, honest, trustworthy, dependable, reliable, having all attributes of good people.

• Keep writing your experiences and what all you liked in your life, and topics of your interest. Write about self, past memorable moments/events, parents and your brought up, education, professional life, family, children and their brought up, struggles, experiences, important events, social services and charity, achievements, good times / bad times, people who supported you and made a difference in your life, key mantras of your success, failures/ mistakes you made, problems you faced and overcome, your friends, relatives, life changing experiences. Write on your travel experiences with tips for others.