You need to have

that stubbornness to solve a problem at any given cost. This just can raise your level of thinking a lot - both emotionally and logically.

Vision

What do you want? Happiness. What keeps you happy? What makes you happy? My vision is pursuit of happiness. Short term happiness can be had, but not at the cost of long term happiness.

• A strong and healthy body makes me happy.
• Myself doing some research and hence contributing to the field of knowledge makes me happy.
• Playing a musical instrument makes me happy. Preferably saxophone or flute.
• Being a pucca engineer makes me happy. I strongly believe that engineering gives us a lot of values, skills and attitudes that help us a lot in leading our lives properly, efficiently and happily.
• Being a good critical thinker and be able to tackle complexity makes me happy.
• Being frank makes me happy.
• Being helping in nature to people makes me happy.
• Being emotionally stable makes me happy.
• Being fit(physically and mentally) enough to get a beautiful spouse makes me happy.
• Listening to some good songs makes me happy.
• Being able to make my mum happy makes me happy - to some extent.
• Being able to concentrate for long times makes me happy.
• Being able to read quite a few books makes me happy.
• Not getting addicted to Internet makes me happy.
• Being able to drive properly makes me happy.
• Exercising an open mind makes me happy in the long term - even though it results in stress/low esteem in the very short term.
• Getting things surrounding me organized makes me happy.
• Having a solid plan for execution makes me happy.
• Executing a solid plan with little deviations makes me happy - this is further testimonial for the engineering skills that gets developed in me.
• Eating healthy food and eating in a controlled fashion makes me happy.
• Not entertaining futile gestures and thoughts makes me happy afterwards.
• Working hard makes me happy in the long term, but definitely makes me sad in the short/immediate term.
• Being able to resist my temptations, through reasoning, from doing things that give short term happiness at the cost of long term happiness makes me happy.
• Being S.active makes me happier. :)
• Not getting afraid at the sight of new/challenging things makes me happy.
• Being a patient listener always makes me happy.

No Stupid Thoughts

No bullshit thoughts. Only vision oriented, goal oriented thoughts that to courageous and happy, humorous ones.

Just keep on rejecting futile gestures and futile thoughts from you and your mind will automatically become empty.

Bad Habits

I am slowly starting to sense how difficult it is to get rid of bad habits. Today, I dropped my relatives at the railway station and was returning home. While I was in the railway station, a thought occured to me that I could go to crossword and have a look at the new books. Two things here - I could not resist myself from entering crossword and once I was in, I was feeling bad to come out without buying any book. Without much thought, I spontaneously asked for a book, bought it, came out and sat in an rick. This is bad. This is really bad. I need to improve self control.

The other thing is that. I woke up and forcefully did it. It has become a compulsion for me. Clearly this is addiction. I need to get myself out of it. I will get out of it.

I am currently reading As A Man Thinketh and it repeats again and again that we are what we think. But, I kinda disagree with that. The actual thing is - we are what we thought and we will be what we think.

So, think good thoughts. Imagine yourself talking to yourself about getting rid of bad habits and seeing yourself not doing such things. Imagine yourself of doing problem solving, thinking about a vision, being a friendly guy with everybody, doing programming extensively, doing exercises etc. Then it will automatically become a reality.

Imagine what you want to be and believe that you are it. The habits won't let you do it, but you have to overcome them. It is through active thinking and imagining that old habits gradually fade away. To get some confidence, you can think about some of the past old habits that were ridden of. That way there is some positive outlook.

If I am to get any better, if I am to get any use of my reading the book, then I have to think new thoughts.

You see

It is just practice. Whether a chess grand master recognize a configuration in a flash of a second, whether somebody types fast, whether somebody codes a lot, whether somebody thinks some thoughts that others might not be able to, whether a cricketer throws a ball straight onto stumps, whether Federer incesstantly pours aces on his opponent, whether somebody is able to talk fluently, whether somebody is pretty disciplined, whether somebody is a master in the art of living...it is all just practice.

That is it, it is just practice. Only by doing practice will we become perfect. Otherwise we are effectively concentrating on the end instead of focusing on the means. Keep practicing..whatever it is..keep practicing.

My mind

is completely confused and utterly directionless. I have written about this before. But I am doing it again. I want to get hold of everything. I dont want to specialize in a particular thing because I seem to have insecurity. I am inherently insecure. I should do something to get out of this insecure feeling. I dont know this is the cause for zero state or the zero state is the main reason why I am insecure. I am not able to figure out.

Also, I need to have a solid vision. I need to get my past right. I mean whatever is haunting me, I need to fix it up. Otherwise, it seems like it will continue to haunt me forever. How am I going to do that? How am I going to fix it up? I dont know. But I have to do it.

I need peace of mind. I should not be disturbed by fellow beings. I should be inherently peaceful. That is the first and foremost thing that I should strive for. Next, I need to have a vision. A vision as to what my ultimate goal in life is, how am I going to achieve it. This is not just in professional case, but also in all other aspects like personal, financial, mental etc. But it looks like professional is the most significant things that needs to be achieved. I need to get peace of mind. May be it is not that difficult to have a peaceful vision and solid committment. I can do it. I believe strongly that I can achieve such a state of utopia. It is a positively reinforcing state of me. How good will it be if I have it. That world consists of just me and nobody else. Serenity is of atmost importance.

Addictive Thinking

I found a couple of documents that talk about addictive thinking. The author says that the key feature of addictive thinking is denial. That is, we deny whatever we don't want to consider. Another reason for addictive thinking is a feel good factor. It feels good to get into patterns of addictive thinking - and addictive behavior thereof. Just for that feel good factor, we deny the rationality, we deny the reality. In the end, we just become addicts.

There are some addictive thinking patterns:
Self-pity stance: We pity ourselves and wait for others to come and pity us - this is just wanting a reinforcing behavior externally, so that we can continue to keep ourselves in that stance.
Good person stance: We just focus on the good things that we do and ignore the bad things that we affect either directly or indirectly.
Unique person stance: A stance where one thinks that s/he is unique in facing such circumstances and so whatever s/he does is right or OK.
Fear of exposure: It is fear of self knowledge, excessive or inappropriate trust, addict pride or zero trust. I seem to have this zero state problem. Zero state is one that consists of the beliefs that - a) one cannot change, b) everyone also believes that s/he is worthless and c) the worthlessness will last forever and cannot change.
Lack of time perspective: This is a state where we neither learn from past mistakes or plan for the future. We want big success with little or no effort. We make choices based on what we want to be true rather than what is true. This is another pattern that seems to be the most common in me.

Other addicitive thinking patterns include - selective effort, use of deceit to control, seek pleasure first (the one that I can see in me), ownership stance. I don't seem to have the second and the last patterns. Will have to carefully observe how the first one manifests in me.

In short, I see that I have succumbed to my thinking patterns. I need to raise above them. Whenever I get at these things, I need to think and feel differently. I had, in the past, captured this particular thought in my remember notes:

When you feel inferior, when you feel dejected, when you feel disillusioned, when you feel anxious, that's when you have to feel different. That's when you have to gather courage and move forward. Thats when you grow, thats when you learn, thats when you mature.