I follow many blogs related to photography, life experiences, and travel stories. Each blog is unique in its own way. Most of them are pretty consistent and engaging, but one blog that stands out is View from over the hill
I always loved her content, her humorous views on life, and the simplicity of her writing. For some time now, looks like she took a break and not writing actively.
That happened to me as well. After my kid was born in 2022, I didn’t get enough time to write. Now that he is around 4 years old, I have created a daily routine of writing prompts.
Now I repent; how could I not have understood the power of daily prompts, and why didn’t I utilize them before? But better late than never.
What’s a lesson you’ve learned recently that shifted your perspective?
A lesson I recently learned will help me for the rest of my life. I learned that “health is wealth”. Most of us already know this, but not in the literal sense.
Being healthy and not on any medication is like a blessing these days. Those are fortunate who are not on pills, and I don’t know how many of us are like this. I myself am in good health, but I still take daily medicine for epilepsy.
My dad is a stage 4 cancer patient, and with time, he has lost his personality, memory, and power to think. He is 70 years old, so age plays a role, but many people of that age live normal lives.
Throughout my childhood, I have seen him working hard for our family without taking a break, and he never cared about his health. He never had good eating habits and used to be a smoker. When he quit smoking, he started using tobacco. The reason we work is to have food on the table, and he ignored the same food.
When your body and mind are beyond your control, you start to lose yourself. That’s what’s happening to him. The brain is the powerhouse; without it working, we are nothing. It’s the CPU(control processing unit) of our system. The body follows our brain; both should be in sync for the proper functioning of this system.
Money is important for living a comfortable life, but what’s the use of that money if our body is not cooperating or our senses are not up to the mark to enjoy it? So without health, wealth is useless.
A few things I made sure to incorporate in my daily routine to maintain good brain health and physical health are:-
Nutrition (less outside food, less sugar and salt intake)
Proper hydration
The kind of lifestyle we have now is more prone to diseases and problems. With driverless cars, home delivery services, and digital assistants like Alexa, we are making ourselves lazy. This generation is tech-savvy, modern, and advanced, but is heading towards declining health. Now, cancer, diabetes, and BP are common and an integral part of society.
We need to overcome this big hurdle. Taking care of our health will also make our society healthy. Otherwise, we will be buying land on the moon, but won’t be alive to go and live there.
For perfect health, there are a few factors to maintain, and sleep is one of them.
Nutrition
Exercise
Water intake
Weight management
Sleep
If all 5 are taken care of, you will not have any health-related problems. In today’s social media era, with so many ways to keep us distracted and the kind of lifestyle this generation is living, it’s very hard to maintain a perfect sleep cycle.
The rule of thumb is to get 7-8 hours of sleep daily, but it varies from person to person. For some people, 6 hours is enough, and for some, 9 hours will do the trick. There is good material available to understand the importance of quality sleep and cycles.
I came across this book a few years back, which gives great insight into sleep deprivation, sleep banking, and different sleep cycles. If you don’t know, our bodies take a very long time to recover from lost sleep; it’s not as simple as sleeping more to compensate. Check this out:-
I try to be in bed with my kid at 9 PM, and I am asleep till 10 PM. My wake-up time varies from 5AM to 6AM (not last that). This gives me roughly 7-8 hours of sleep. It’s more than enough for me.
I don’t drink water too close to my sleep time so as not to disrupt my sleep.
I stop using the cellphone 1 to 1.5 hours before I sleep. I still haven’t perfected this step, but I am working on it.
I love reading, and bedtime is the best time to read. Most of my days end with reading the hardcovers. I own a Kindle, but I love reading physical books.
My last meal is around 6PM, when I get home from the office. I take tea and my last meal of the day. Sometimes I feel hungry before bed, but I try to avoid a late-night meal. This is the new routine I adapted, and it’s working so well.
Lastly, I keep my room very dark, with no light or lamps.
This is my sleep score over 6 months. I use an iWatch, and most of the time, my sleep score is above 90.
In the era we are living in, late-night work and parties are very common; we need discipline to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
What’s the best way to deal with negative thoughts?
We can’t live without having negative thoughts. They are an integral part of human brain. When we feel low, when things are not going according to what we planned, when we are not able to achieve our goals, or when someone close to our heart is suffering, there is no way negative thoughts will not cross our minds.
Now, having positivity in life is very important; the idea is to acknowledge those negative thoughts and then convert them into positive ones. How to do that is the most challenging part; it’s very easy to talk about being a positive person, but putting it into practice is not.
I read lots of self-help books to encounter negativity and subscribed to many channels on WhatsApp and Instagram that provide positive quotes each day.
Daily Motivation channel on WhatsApp
Strongmindsetelite on Instagram
The_deep_thinker on Instagram
These are the external sources that keep me motivated. Also, I make sure to be around positive-minded people; I try my best to avoid pessimists. The reason is that the kind of person you are surrounded by makes you.
The last and most effective way to handle negative thoughts is to consider the worst-case scenario in that particular situation. Trust me, when you think that, you will realize it’s not that bad and can be overcome. That gives lots of positivity.
For example, given the market situation in the USA, driven by advances in AI, economic impacts, and government policies, the job market is weak, and layoffs are becoming common each day. Now it’s very common to have negative thoughts about job security. Now I think about the worst that can happen to me: job loss. I know that if I lose my job, it will also create an opportunity for me to move to a new organization that could prove instrumental to my career. It might take some time to get a new job, but it can never be the case that I will be jobless for the rest of my life. Even if it happens, I can do something else; one thing is sure, I will get something.
I always believe that everything happens for a reason, and that it is always for good. At that time, we felt bad about the situation, but later, once we moved on, we realized whatever happened was for the best.
What are your thoughts on it? Do you agree with what I shared?
The month is ending today, and it has been a bittersweet one overall. Harmit got a new job and had to move to Oklahoma City, which is a 7-hour drive from Omaha. On her birthday, she was not with me, so I had to travel to OKC with my kid to celebrate. We are grateful for this job, but it also means taking our test, as we are living apart. But that’s how life is: you get something, you lose something. The idea is to embrace everything with positivity.
Most of you know I love traveling, and this month is all about travel. I drove to OKC 3 times, and we also took a boys’ trip to Telluride that took 14 hours.
My dad, who is a cancer patient, is unwell. So we had to travel to India unplanned. First, I had to drive 7 hours to reach OKC, and then the next day, a 3-hour drive to Dallas International Airport. The trip to India itself was a 26-hour journey through a 7-hour layover in Helsinki, Finland. It’s our longest travel ever; thankfully, Aayansh didn’t trouble us and was cooperative.
Things are OK and in control. Throughout all these trips, I captured various shots. My favorite ones are the following:-
Which of these pictures is your favorite? what it reminds you?
