Peeling back to the truth and essence
#62 - Santa Claus has a family, apparently 🎅 🤶
Hi there,
Happy New Year 2023! As humanity, the past 3 years have been fraught with misery, chaos and challenges. Here’s to 2023 providing us with more to smile about, in our personal lives as well as for the world.
My week was split into 2 halves. Monday to Wednesday was full of me putting in the hard yards, trying to crank out as much work as I could out of my holiday-mode self before spending the next 3 days away at a family friend’s in Reading, with visits to a fun winter fair and a Hindu temple.
Highlight of the week ⭐ : watching the Christmas TV show ‘The Santa Clauses’ on Disney+. Trying to portray Santa as more than the large harbinger of joy and presents and more as a man with his own family and life, it was an optimal length of 6 30-minute-long episodes; loved the dazzling colours and decoration along with a pretty good plotline
I. Hinduism is known for having tens, if not hundreds, of gods, all specialising in different purposes and worshipped in a variety of ways.
The Navagraha is a group of nine (nava) heavenly bodies (graha), mainly planets, that are present at most large-sized temples. It is common practice to walk around the sculpture of the nine gods at the end of every temple visit, in a denomination of either 1, 3 or 9 loops.
Interestingly enough, the middle one is called ‘Aditya’, representing the ‘Sun’ ☀️
When we went to a London temple on Saturday, I decided I’ll go around the statues 9 times. Like I do every time, I wanted to avoid obsessing over the count of which round I’m on and instead be mindful and present, thinking and praying to the gods. Nevertheless and alas1, I ended up focusing on counting which spin I was on and wholly failed to pray to the gods.
I walk to my mum who’s sat down and say “I’ve got my idea for this week’s blog post”, which is met with an indifferent face. I can only assume it was an 🙄.
II. In case you didn’t know already, my ambition is to study Maths at the University of Cambridge. It’s an especially tough course to get onto, before you even take into account the global competition. A dream for 4 years now, this is the year when it can turn into reality.
When I was chatting with a friend who left my current school now for Sixth Form, we got talking about our first terms of Sixth Form. His reply to me mentioning “starting to think about Oxbridge properly” was “and that’s got to be exciting, thinking about Oxbridge”.
That made me pause.
“That comment made me realise just how narrow-minded my focus had become”, stressing too much about personal statements and admissions tests and the interview and attending potential coaching and the global competition and doubts as to whether I’ll get in and… (runs out of breath)
His response reminded me to focus on the real reasons why I want to Cambridge. What about going to Cambridge excited me in the first place? What made me set my heart on it? Intrinsically, why is it a goal worth pursuing (and with sufficient hard work, achieving)? I’ve asked myself these questions in my plan for the new year.
These 2 incidents in the past week have highlighted the need to focus on the true reasons and right reasons behind all our actions, small and large. Whether it’s a ‘pull factor’ to be of service, to make the world a better place, to develop yourself into a better human being or a ‘push factor’ like worrying about not being relevant, not having enough money to have self-esteem or worrying what others will think of you, knowing exactly what is driving us is crucial.
Without a solid understanding of the genuine intention, since motivation can’t be the only thing that sustains us through pain and struggle, achieving things with high costs can be made more difficult. Achieving our dearest dreams and biggest goals is never going to be easy and without a compelling reason, there’s no way we’ll be able to get through the tough time - willpower isn’t enough. Digging down to the deepest why enables us to understand our values, truths, beliefs and what matters to us most, pillars of self-awareness, an attribute we should all strive to improve, in an attempt to discover who we truly are and why we aspire to the things we work towards.
Along the way, we may encounter some uncomfortable truths about what truly gets us out of bed. For example, someone might be saving up money for AirPods. Whilst they may think (and say) it is to have the convenience and sound quality of Apple earphones, there might a part of their ego that feels “All my friends at school have AirPods. Why shouldn’t I have one? I’m no more poor than any of my other friends. I want to feel like I belong there, amongst them, not like an odd one out”.
2 quotes here to accompany the message
“I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.” Charles Horton Cooley, sociologist
“When you see someone driving a nice car, you rarely think, “Wow, the guy driving that car is cool.” Instead, you think, “Wow, if I had that car people would think I’m cool.” Subconscious or not, this is how people think…what we really want in reality is wealth to signal to others that we should be liked and admired” Morgan Housel, in his book, The Psychology of Money
I thought I’d flick through Jay Shetty’s excellent book ‘Think Like A Monk’ to find some wisdom around this. Here are a few useful highlights.
There are four fundamental motivations that drive everything we do: fear, desire, duty or love.
Fear is not sustainable - we become too worried about getting the wrong result.
Desire and personal gratification of material goals isn’t true success; this happiness is merely an illusion.
Fear limits us, success doesn’t satisfy us. It is joy and meaning that we are all looking for in a good life. We want to feel like our actions have purpose and lead to a worthwhile outcome and positive imprint, ultimately leading us to true fulfilment and contentment.
It is very easy to get stuck in the weeds of life, fixating on constantly removing them. This translates as micro-tasks and challenges we do and complete as a means to an end. But along with zooming out on the enormity and reality of our lives, remember to reflect on why you are working hard every day. Remind yourself of the goal you're working towards, what it means to you and what the raw reasons behind you investing your time, energy and attention are2. Don’t get stuck in the weeds, remember to care for, admire and think about the flowers and the roots as well.
That analogy breaks down there, unfortunately. You get what I mean - find your real why.
Book of the week 📖
This section is back. It’s going to be a form of accountability for me, trying to populate this section with a book every week. You may not think worse of me for not reading a book in the slightest, but this public accountability seems to work pretty well for me.
Anyways, I decided to start reading Music of the Primes, a book about prime numbers, a maths phenomenon which is increasingly turning out to be fascinating.
Podcast of the week🎙️
Money Talks from The Economist: Is Christmas becoming more efficient?
A deep dive into the science behind gift-giving, gift cards vs presents and whether Christmas is actually a market failure.
Article of the week📰
What went right in 2022: the top 25 good news stories of the year
With topics including the planet, medical advances and human rights, amidst the dark days of 2022, there was some light for us all to enjoy.
Quote of the week💬
“Eat well, read books, study yourself, expand your mind, do better and get better. Last but not least, remember you are your greatest investments.” - Warren Buffett
Wishing you a wonderful 2023; it’s a clean blank slate - and you get to draw whatever you want in it. How exciting.
Adi
I’m feeling very fancy-words today, I sincerely apologise
Behind most desires and actions, there is a small aim and a larger aim. In Shetty’s book, he gives the example of wanting wealth so you don’t worry about money, not worrying about money because you want a vacation from your dreams. Why? Wants to go on adventurous trips like these on social media, because they have more fun than you at weekends.
From ‘I want to be rich’, asking ‘Why?’ multiple times has derived the true reason - wanting life to be more exciting.