Because I don’t talk much about it, I am often asked “Hey, How are you? What have you been up to?”. My answer “I am fine. I am working on some things”.
If you were one of those guys hearing that answer from me, sorry, I lied. Then, I was weak to be honest. Truth is I wasn’t fine (some of you noticed). I wasn’t fine because I have not been up to anything. Even though I have been working on this lean venture with my friend for few months now but that has not taken a lot out of my time. All along I have been blaming the venture-not-working-out-yet to be the reason for my disappointment, instead I was feeling guilty. Guilty of procrastinating, guilty of waiting for something to happen, guilty of wasting it.
It has been 6 months now since I quit my job. And every now and then some genuinely concerned people remind me how unproductive I am. Add to that my disappointment of the time I have whiled away – a dangerous mixture it becomes.
It would have scared the hell out of me to write this if I wasn’t out of the vicious circle of feeling guilty. To hell with guilty. Whatever guilt was left I wrote it out, thus cleaning my soul.
I am feeling great right now like I have found some truth or something. And the realization that pulled me out of that well of guilt is this: Life is all about doing. Doing your work, your art, your adventure with all your heart and soul. That is all it has to it. What more?
I am more sure than ever that I will have more stories to share in the coming months. Thanks for hanging around 
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On another note I have committed myself to teaching yoga online. Small session of 15 minutes daily. Learn a new pose everyday. Interested? – you can sign up here or subscribe to the youtube channel.
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Beautifully written.
Everyone feels guilty at times. So, it must have been a trait spread by natural selection. If you are in a dangerous zone (say, tigers roam around), you decide to get the hell out of there. But, a day has passed, you are still there. If you start feeling guilty, you may take action now to leave and if you do that will save your life. If you don’t feel guilty, you may just continue to hang around and eventually eaten by a tiger.
So, it looks like guilt is a good trait, right? Also, there is a conception that if it a trait selected by nature, it must be a good one. Wrong. Nature doesn’t produce traits. Traits happen randomly caused by genetic mutations. Nature just acts to weed out the weaker and select the stronger among them.
Suppose we had developed instead of guilt a new different trait – let us call it “newgem” – that forced us in the morning as soon as we wake up to take stock of where we are at that moment and then chalk out the action for just that day and start carrying it out. This, in my opinion, would have been an ideal trait.
The beauty of Newgem is, it doesn’t care about the past nor does it worry about too far in the future, just today.
Newgem could be improved to include modifications during the day as events unfold. This will allow managing unexpected emergencies. The trait actually starts a mininewgem that evaluates the current situation and comes up with a quick solution. Without mininewgem, we would panic and do nothing or do wrong things.
But, alas, the fact of the matter is, there is no trait called newgem or mininewgem. That shouldn’t stop us from exploiting the benefit of the concept of newgem or mininewgem.
Buy a little notebook that you can carry in your hip pocket.
Start the first entry tomorrow morning AS SOON AS YOU WAKE UP, “newgem today’s date.” If you can think of somethings that you should try to do (not necessarily complete, just start) write them down. For the rest of the day, occasionally glance at the newgem to remind yourself of the next step. If an unexpected event happens, stop, write down “mininewgem today’s date, time” and then your to do for the emergency. If the nature of the emergency is such that you don’t have the luxury of writing, just “mininewgem today’s date, time” in your mind and carry it out.
NEVER look at newgem entries for the past, not even yesterday. If you want, after the day is over, tear it and throw it away.
The foundation of newgem is to THINK ABOUT ONLY TODAY, not yesterday, not tomorrow.
Today, only today, Ma’am!
Soma – This is such a brilliant strategy
Very much appreciate you sharing this insight. Probably just what I needed. Thanks!
well, those of us, the ‘honest’ kind, have the conditioned wiring to reduce everything to ‘productivity’ or guilt is the degenerative response! Which is pretty dangerous actually. Because it ties us into a sort of self imposed ‘jeeta’ system, kannada term for life long bonded labor :O
This is a huge topic in itself (socialism). For another day!
For now, let me bring out that, the greatest of achievers,artists, uncommon folk who have done uncommon work because they took time to learn. never underestimate the time invested for learning thus. And since knowledge (wisdom) is elusive
tis gonna need one heck of a time. Who knows what answers, new ideas can come out of those long silences 
Sure idleness is a problem sometimes, cos anything has a tendency to form into a habit. you have to learn how to learn from it (not get affected by worklessness?!), make use of it :p
Journaling has huge advantages,yes! Have a look at what Robin Sharma has to say & more! here-
http://www.robinsharma.com/yabyy/the-4-habits-to-make-2013-awesome/?utm_source=FB-4habitsPR&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=yabyy