Month: May 2026

Between Struggle and Stillness

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While sitting alone in my room, I try to bring meditation into my daily life. Life is truly difficult. Challenges keep appearing one after another — my motorcycle engine oil is leaking even after spending money to fix it, the expenses of raising a teenage son, his lack of focus on studies, people ignoring you, and situations that make you feel small and worthless. Yet somehow, I am still surviving.

Financial struggles are another heavy burden. But even then, I keep moving forward. I struggle, focus on what I can control, set goals, and put effort into the next action in front of me. Again and again, I remind myself of Amor Fati and what the Gita teaches: detach yourself from the outcome and focus only on your actions. These ideas help me keep going.

There is a book called The Practicing Mind. It explains that no one can master a musical instrument by practicing only a few times. A musician may repeat the same tune fifty times a day before being able to perform it beautifully on stage. During practice, the mind keeps making noise — telling us to stop, to do something else, to escape discomfort. Many times, we become bored, restless, and frustrated, yet we continue practicing anyway.

Maybe that is the real lesson of life: stay with the present moment, focus on what needs to be done, and keep practicing your path, no matter how noisy the mind becomes.

Focus on whats matter.

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One of the simplest yet most powerful ideas I learned from Stoicism is this: focus on what you can control.

Interestingly, this idea was always around me. In Buddhism too, there are teachings about detachment, acceptance, and awareness. But over time, many traditions became more religious and complex in their expression. Stoicism presented the same wisdom in a much simpler and more practical way.

I also came across a similar idea in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. He explains it through the concept of the “Circle of Influence” and the “Circle of Concern.”

The Circle of Influence contains the things we can change, improve, or directly impact. The Circle of Concern includes the things we worry about but cannot truly control.

Most people waste their energy in the Circle of Concern — politics, other people’s opinions, the past, or the uncertain future. But growth begins when we focus our attention on the Circle of Influence.

I often wonder whether Covey’s idea was also influenced, directly or indirectly, by Stoic philosophy. The similarity is striking. Thinkers like Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius repeatedly emphasized the same principle: some things are within our control, and some are not. Wisdom lies in knowing the difference.

Be hopeful

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If you want to move forward in life, the first thing you need is hope.
Life will always bring challenges, adversity, and uncertainty. When we go through difficult times, we often become overly realistic, and that realism slowly turns into negativity. We begin to expect the worst before it even happens.

Many people believe that our thoughts shape the direction of our lives. In simple words, what we constantly think about begins to influence us. What we seek, in some way, also seeks us.

In Desi culture, this idea is close to the law of karma:
“Kar bhala ho bhala.”
Do good, and good eventually returns to you.

The best way to move forward is to first accept life as it is, and then continue hoping for the best. Acceptance does not mean giving up. It means understanding reality without losing faith in tomorrow.

There is a beautiful idea often repeated in philosophy:

“If you take care of today, the future will take care of itself.”

Most of our fear about the future comes from imagining problems that have not even happened yet. Instead of living in the present moment, we suffer inside our minds.

As Seneca said:

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

Hope does not mean sitting idle and waiting for life to change on its own. Hope means staying positive while continuing to take action. It means moving forward even when the path is unclear.

Marcus Aurelius expressed this beautifully:

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

Many times, we do not suffer because of reality itself. We suffer because of the fear of what might happen. The mind creates storms long before life does.

That is why the antidote to fear is hope.

Be hopeful.
Take action.
Focus on today.
And trust that small steps forward eventually create a better future.

Secret to unstuck any problem in life

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There are moments in life when I feel completely stuck—unable to solve the problem right in front of me. No matter how much I think about it, nothing moves. I feel tired, even a sense of quiet frustration, almost like betrayal by my own mind.

In those moments, I remember a simple but powerful idea: rewrite the problem.

At first, it feels strange. How can writing the same problem again help? But when I actually do it—when I slow down and define the problem in my own words—something begins to shift.

My mind starts gathering scattered thoughts. Pieces that were disconnected begin to come together. I start seeing patterns, relationships… the dots begin to connect.

Once the problem becomes clear, I take the next step: I write down step one.

That first step is always the hardest. But after that, something interesting happens—the rest of the steps start to unfold more easily.

It’s as if clarity creates momentum. And momentum makes the path forward visible.