Grateful Being Young

I came back from work late because of another busy day. It doesn't happen all the time, but when something goes wrong I want to take 100% responsibility. Now I am in my apartment, finishing my shake, lying down on my couch, and contemplating about life. I was thinking that one day I grow old and thinking about my young days in life in my favorite past time, I would smile at myself. I hope there will still be blue sky, green trees, and noisy birds outside the window may be 30 more years from now. :)

Cool Day!

It was one of the busiest day of the month because I had to fix few defects on my project I completed few weeks ago. I had an interesting finding about myself - There are things I could find unfair, unjust, completely miserable, and will cause overload. But I do have a choice to see this in different light by practicing being more cool, relaxed, and objective during those situations. Without a calm state of mind, I am going to lose for sure. No matter how much I suck, how big the problem I have, or how messy my life is - I have choice to be cool, centered, and relaxed. So it is important to ask positive questions, and take frequent break even in the busy schedule. I am not doing myself any favor if I try to get something done by bare brute force and will power.

Today, I solved problems being intelligent, calm, positive, and using empowering questions that pointed me to the right directions. I also did all the right things I was supposed to do to prepare myself for the day - good workout routine, clean diet, and good self-talks. I would score myself at least 95/100 today even though some people would interpret it as stressful if they were in my shoes.

Be A Nobody

There are somedays at work and personal life I feel like a complete idiot, but there are days I definitely feel like a rockstar software developer, cool guy, more attractive and confident. Today is one of those days I felt like a fucking idiot. I was not in the right emotional state of mind because I didn't get enough rest previous night, and I overworked myself in the gym this morning by doing too many dead lifts and squats. I felt so sleepy at 8 AM (just when I got to work), I couldn't think clearly enough. I was spending too much time figuring out tiny details, and didn't spend time on the big picture. I asked questions that won't matter, and focused too much time on irrelevant details. During the end of the day, I felt like I haven't done enough work and that made me feel guilty. But I did realize this is part of the problem solving process - I get stuck with a problem, I spend too much time gathering informations, and I figure out a solution eventually. I know that but I still felt bad about myself. I couldn't communicate clearly to the team either.

I kind of felt so crappy that I started to ask myself whether I was always an idiot? I was never late to meet my project deadlines, and I always delivered excellent quality products. It hurt my ego to be stupid and I felt like nobody. Then I realized that it's nice to be nobody somedays. When I feel like an idiot, it hurts my ego. If I am completely okay with myself regardless of ego getting hurt, that would make me stronger. That was a good realization because eventually I will lose everything - my ego, my possessions, and my ambitions. All will be gone at some point of my life; may be the moment of my death.

Asshole!

I was driving back to my apartment after buying my lunch on Sunday afternoon.  I had a make a U-Turn at some point with my car to go to a different directions, and the guy in the car behind me started tapping his horns, and yelled, "You Asshole!". I looked back, and was 90% sure it might be me he was trying to yell at, but I continued driving. I wasn't sure why making a U-turn in the intersection when green light was clearly there make someone mad, so was confused what I did wrong.

While I was on my way, I realized this was the first time a stranger ever called me an asshole. The guy was clearly very impolite, and chances are he does that to his friends and family. However, I live such a boring and straightforward hard that it's hard to make someone mad at me. I also know this is going to destroy the relaxed and peaceful state of mind I was having on Sunday!

So, I decide to apply the "Right Actions Over Emotions" rules. What are the right actions I can take to make myself feel better? The first thing that came in my mind is to be relaxed. So I took few deep slow breaths to keep my body chemistry under control, and not go to a fight-or-flight response. It helped a little bit, but my ego still hurts. Then, what could be next best thing I could do to let it go? I realized whenever I get mad, I tend to think about the problem too many times, and asked questions like, "How he is..?", "How can I kick his ass?", "May be that guy is an idiot?" etc. That never helped. So I decided not to overanalyze this time.

I still felt little bit bad, and it was still ruining my Sunday afternoon.  So, I thought about the technique I learned from Tony Robbins to get rid of additions/fear, and wanted to apply it. The technique is to visualize the images that cause bad emotions, and come up with ridiculous images to scratch the image enough times so that my brain couldn't recreate the bad emotions. It's kind scratching a record played for gramophone. I thought of something incredibly disgusting while repeating that scenario couple dozen times. After doing that, I found out I don't miraculously feel bad anymore. Somehow my visualization scratched out that bad experiences & emotions.

I did it within 20-30 minutes, and was able to enjoy my sandwich at my apartment in peace of mind. But now, I become more aware that whenever I feel bad, then it's just my ego and body chemistry messing with me. I clearly did something wrong to get someone cussing at me, but probably will never know why. But I understood that I should never involve a hurt ego or make things very personal when figuring something out. My mentor once told me that if I can't get myself let go of bad emotions caused by confronting someone, then I am more of a pussy. He also told me that it involves a lot of practice to be a master of managing my emotions, and it can't be done overnight. Now, I think about it, I do need more practice - I need more people to call me an "Asshole"! :)

Regina

I met a interesting lady today while I was writing up my journals in the coffee shop nearby. We sat close to each other and we ended up having the most interesting conversation I ever had in this week. I suddenly realized she has all qualities I want for someone to be long-term lover, or just close friend. She is an intellectual type, enjoys challenge, have goals, gets my sarcastic joke, and stands for certain ideals which meet mine. She is also gorgeous and similar look like women I usually like to go out with. It was a long enjoyable conversation  even though she mentioned she has kids and I saw no ring.  We got each others names, so that we could at least say hi next time we meet. When I asked hers, she replied, "Regina". I said like "Regina Spektor"?. She smiled, and advised me to learn how to bike because I don't. But she was so into this conversation that she forgot to take her purse, remote starter, a text book from college when she left. I ended up putting her stuff in the lost & found section of coffee shop. I felt kind of guilty of distracting her to forget her stuffs. I am afraid she is going to freak out when she will arrive home and regret talking with me!

I realized something interesting from this conversation. I met at least 10 new women this week through various situations (i.e. office, groceries, bar, coffee). All of them were pretty, and have decent conversational skills. I only found this one woman most intriguing of all. I also realized I would rather have one quality interaction that grows into me than 10 interactions that don't mean much. However, it's still a numbers game. In order to get one quality woman in life, I would need to go through 10 crappy interactions. I am wondering how many interactions will it take to meet the next girl I find a good match. All in all, these are interesting findings! :)