My Virtual Reality

I can never forget my maths teacher. I don’t know what she taught, but she is the one who instilled a passion for mathematics and numbers deep within me.  In fact, I don’t even know when that happened but it had happened. When I go down the memory lane, I was a little boy of 8 years in my 3^rd grade at School. That was a new school for me and the madam was appearing magnanimous in front of me.

She was kind by nature, at the same time stern in her approach. I was very fearful in front of her, but deep within me I was admiring her in respect. I don’t know how this happened but it had happened. There are certain relationships are like this where there is no explanation is possible. It grew in leaps and bounds along with me. I developed a passion for numbers as I was growing in my studies and I knew that my madam is there for me. She was the foundation for me and she was a class teacher only till the primary grade. However, I started identifying her in my subsequent maths teachers as well in my future grades at School and then at my college. This one element helped me to continue and complete my profession as a Commerce graduate, Chartered Accountant and Cost Accountant where passion for maths and numbers is a must.

Let’s keep this aside for a moment. When I contemplate on so many other aspects of me viz. Fitness, Food habits, Decision making, Relationships, Business and so on, I recognize that I am basing myself with some experience of me in the past as my foundation to relate with these aspects. More often than not, it was triggered by a single individual or one such experience. In that sense, I draw inspiration momentarily and hold on to it when I am pursuing towards any of these aspects. When I hold on to it for long enough, excellence in me is born. I nurture it, I relate with it, I grow with it and I become part of it. It goes on to the extent that I become the definition for that inspiration itself. This is the ultimate status in excellence.

When I understand this to the next level of maturity, I live in a reality of life with an inspiration drawn from the past. In every experience of me right now, I relate with an inspiration of the past memory. In that sense, my present experience is super imposed by the inspiration of the past. At the same, the inspiration fuels me to enhance my present experience.

When I am doing my jogging in the mornings as part of my fitness workouts, I get so much of energy when I think of Carl Lewis running along with me. I have never met Carl Lewis and in fact I don’t even know how he looks but I know that he is a legendary runner. The mere thought of him as an inspiration gives me the energy to feel so good and run faster. This experience is very similar to my inspiration that I draw from my maths teacher even though she is not here next to me. But the fact of the matter is, in those moments I am with them. In that sense, it is My Virtual Reality that is beyond what I can perceive visually or through other senses right then. After all, reality is purely my personal experience which I alone can experience. My version alone holds good – no matters what others can think or perceive. Reality is my personal view.

This Virtual Reality can work against me as well when I relate with something negative. Does it mean that there is a reality which is working against me? Nooooo... not at all... It is only the Virtual Reality that I am trying to build all the time for myself which is influenced by an inspiration or otherwise. The beauty of this Virtual Reality is that it is upto my imagination and my ability to identify myself with such inspiration. When I start feeling that my job is not interesting, it only means that somewhere I am not able to visualize or drawn inspiration that gives the energy to my job. No matter what the job can be, it is only association with My Virtual Reality that helps me to perform with excellence. The beauty is such Virtual Reality not just repeats the excellence of the inspiration that I am drawing from, it can even surpass the excellence of inspiration and create new inroads to a path that no one entered. In essence, My Virtual Reality determines and defines the uniqueness of me. This Virtual Reality can be played like a game through which I can associate myself with all the time.

As I am writing this article, I am visualizing that my guru is sitting next to me and he is just admiring the way I am able to think and articulate. Just the thought of this situation gives me goose pimples and allow the energy of my guru flow through me and get the best out of me. When I am at work, I think of the best businessman and thought leaders of the world whom I revere to draw inspiration. When I am looking at my reality from their eyes, My Virtual Reality looks so much possible and promising. Leaders are those who derive their vision from their Virtual Reality and covert them to Reality.

In a spiritual sense, in My Virtual Reality I am surrendering my intelligence by embracing the higher intelligence. My Virtual Reality is determined by my ability to get connected to my inspiration. My inspiration can be from anyone or any experience. The highest level of my inspiration is to get connected to the source itself (i.e. the existence or god or creator or whatever the name we want to call it!). When I am able to relate with the highest order, my reality becomes the mirror reflection of my Virtual Reality. This is my mantra in order to live every moment with such heightened awareness and associate myself to the highest order. What more can I ask for, I am thankful to all those forces inspiring me to get connected all the time. My Virtual Reality = My Experience + My Inspiration. This is the winning combination for human excellence.

Winning Instinct!

Summer holidays have begun and it is the season to pull out all the unused stuff got hidden in the house. Whatever we kept as we will do in leisure are now up for use. After several months, I and my 9 year old Son have decided to venture into some sports activities. This is something we had not done enough, as I myself not a very sports enthusiast. Just to participate in the whole thing and keep him busy during the summer holidays, I decided to start playing some indoor and outdoor sports activities with him.

On day 1, we decided to play Table Tennis (TT) in our apartment TT room. I was a bit nervous because I am going to play TT after several years and I have been an amateur player myself. I knew a little bit on the basics of TT game and I have put a brave face in front of my Son to play the game. Incidentally my Son also not played TT before, which made my job easy in teaching him some basics and start playing.

We started the game and I had served few balls to him and he was attempting to hit back. First few times we both felt a bit difficult to play the game. We slowly started getting comfortable to play the game. Nevertheless, we couldn’t play continuously for more than couple of rounds. When it was the turn of my Son to serve the ball, somehow he could not do the serving. The ball was either flying away from the table or it just not meets the racket at all. First few attempts, he was patiently trying to make the serving, but very soon he was getting frustrated that he is not able to get it.

Slowly it had become anger and he started screaming why he is not getting it. I taught him in as many ways as I can yet he was still not getting it. In a matter of first 15 minutes, he concluded that he does not get it and decided to stop playing the game. I persisted and encouraged to continue for few more shots but the frustration prevailed all through. In about 30 minutes, we decided to end the game abruptly and go back home.

The next day we decided to play Badminton. This is again something we have not played together and it was almost the first time for my Son.  I have been an amateur Badminton player as well. The same story repeats even in Badminton wherein my Son was getting frustrated and angry that he doesn’t know how to serve. I persisted and told him that this is just a practice session and not even a big game.  We are just learning and it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t get right the first time. Moreover, this is just the first attempt and we have played only for less than half hour. This doesn’t call for frustration and anger, as it doesn’t serve the purpose of learning the game. Right now the focus should not be on winning, the focus should be on learning and practicing. Get the basics right, be familiar with the fundamentals and then focus on playing well and winning the game.

Winning instinct is inevitable as it is very natural to ourselves, but we should know when to use it. Applying this winning instinct in everything we do, it may not yield any result. There will be times we have to learn, there will be times to let go, there will be occasions we just need to wait. Winning instinct per se is a good thing, but expecting the results to my favor in every attempt and especially from the first attempt is a bit too ambitious. Life prefers to give the results only to the prepared soul. My preparation does call for learning, training, few slips here and there, few bruises and so on. But the fact of the matter is all of these are required to prepare myself for eventually winning the game – the big game. If I am not ready to invest my time to learn and persist the slip ups, then I give up. When I give up, I am not in the game at all. Then where is the question of winning?

I tried my best to explain all of these and it did work for him eventually, as he slowly removed the winning instinct while he was still practicing. Persistence prevailed over the winning instinct. He started seeing the results and there was a smile in his face at last. He now started enjoying the game like never before.

We came back from the game and as I sat down with a cup of coffee in my hand, I was trying to understand the experience and the learning from the game. Yes, it is indeed applicable to me as well. There have been several situations when I start a new project and I get very worked up and frustrated when I don’t get the desired results as per my expectations in the initial stages. This had in turn caused anxiety and frustration among the people around me as well. I know the project is important and it is very critical it becomes successful. As a team member in the project, my focus was always on the results in the initial stages (winning instinct was playing on me!) rather than focusing on getting the basics right be familiar with the fundamentals and then focus on playing well and winning the game. How true it is!!! what I am going through on a daily basis is no different from what my Son was going through.

Winning instinct is in the core nature of human-being. We all want to win and this cannot be ignored and it should not be ignored. After all, the evolution of human being happened only through this winning instinct. In spite of this, not everyone is a winner. One of the main reason for this is we have given too much focus on winning instinct instead of focusing on getting the basics right. We want to win very quickly without even investing the time and effort it requires to prepare myself to win. Winning is possible only if I am prepared enough. When I am prepared for the big game, winning is a question of time. When I am not prepared or quit the big game, winning is not possible. The choice is on me to focus on the right thing at the right time. Life is a game in itself and I am constantly preparing myself to win this Big Game. When I know that I am playing with Him as my opponent, I need to have the persistence to learn and get my fundamentals on the game right. Eventually if as a mortal father I allow my Son to win, won’t the immortal father He allow me to win?

Winning instinct + Persistence = Success