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Consistency is the key

COVID-19 lockdown substantiated my belief that physical activity immensely helps physically as well as mentally.

I took inspiration from my uncle and started 100 day running challenge on 11th July 2020. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to continue the routine even for a week. 

But I managed to clock 214 consecutive days of workout until I thought of taking a break.  

During this period, I had to deal with illness, injury, anxiety, failure, and many ups & downs.

Biggest takeaway for me has been to train the mind that no matter what happens, keep moving. 

There is no substitute for hardwork and consistency. 

So, pick up yourself out of bed every single day and go for a run my friend. 

You will be amazed by the difference running can bring to your life. 

Consistency is the key to unlock your immense potential.

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Fear and Friendship

I started writing in 2008. I wrote regularly (2-3 times in a week) for almost 6 months.

Thoughts are like waves in an ocean. They come and go. Writing gave me an access to capture those waves of thoughts in words.

At some point I started developing fear whether I would be able to write good stuff regularly. Which meant if the waves in the ocean would be big enough to inspire me to write. The fear got so stronger that I stopped writing completely.

Since then, 10 years passed with blink of an eye.

Now a days when I write, same fear comes back. But this time I found an answer for that fear. Whatever we do in our day today lives, that shapes our thoughts. Those help generating ideas and finally some of those ideas and experiences take shape in the form of writing.

To answer my fear that I may not be able to write good stuff consistently, my response goes like this.

“I wish to live my life with purpose and abundant energy. As long as I am able to do it, there would be no dearth of ideas to write.”

Every time I think of the above lines, fear vanishes instantly. But it comes back from time to time. Now I have taken my fear as a companion that intends to remind me of living life fully.

Thank you all the readers for reading, liking and sharing your comments about my writing.

That inspires me to work even harder.

Have a lovely weekend.

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COVID-19 and Climate Change

Few years back scientists warned that world is not ready to deal with next Pandemic. But very few people believed them. You can very well see COVID-19 situation as on today. We still don’t have a perfect answer for this virus even after more than a year.

Similarly, scientists have been warning us about Climate Change for last two decades. Yet, we are living our lives as if Climate Change is a hoax or it may not happen in our lifetime. We don’t have much time left before climate change will bring devastating and irreparable damage to the world.

Current Covid19 situation has shown that we must believe science and the scientists.

If you are an EHS Consultant, consider you have a very serious task in hand. It’s no longer only about what gradual changes (e.g. enable IT System) to do to improve customer’s existing EHS processes.

Some questions you need to ask:

  • – Whether your customer’s business is ready to deal with impact of climate change?
  • – Does customer’s long-term vision & strategy encompass sustainable development?

Management guru Peter Drucker, who once was asked, “What is the worst mistake you could make?”

His answer was, “To be prematurely right.”

Picture: youmatter.world

Can change your past?

I went from Odia Medium School to one of the best colleges for my 11th and 12th grade. But those two years at BJB College in Bhubaneswar were probably the toughest in my entire education.

I found it particularly difficult to understand the topics as the medium of communication was English. I was shy which meant I had very few friends to ask for help to gain momentum in the studies. I really struggled with Physics, but I couldn’t find a teacher for extra coaching classes. It went on for more than 6 months and with each passing day, my confidence was heading south.

Finally, I found a teacher who I thought would bring my struggle to a standstill.

There were only two students including me in the coaching class. Sajan Moharana was the other guy who was on the same boat as mine. The teacher would come to teach the subject for 10-15 min and soon, he would leave for his personal work. He would expect us to finish some tasks by the time he returned after an hour or more. Our job was to write/copy the exact information from the engineering physics book into our own notebook. Probably he thought that was a fantastic way to teach physics to someone who was seriously struggling with the subject.

This went on for several months. By the time I decided to put an end to my misery, I had serious doubts about my ability to even score passing marks in the final exam.

After that episode, whenever I recollected about physics, it only gave me pain and regret.

In Oct 2019, I started writing as a hobby. Soon I started enjoying the process and focused mostly on penning down my running experiences. I was still not comfortable looking back at those agonizing two years of college.

Few months into the writing and I found more opportunities to look back on my life. Slowly and steadily, writing improved. What came up as a big revelation to me was that although I wrote in a plain notebook, the spacing between the lines and the font size were perfect as if I was writing in a ruled notebook.

It reminded me of my physics class where I used to spend hours each day just copying the text into my notebook. And for the first time, I didn’t feel any regret about my physics class. Probably the time I spent writing had helped to improve my handwriting.

Writing gave a whole next context to my past and freed me from the agony of 20 years. In fact, the most difficult experience helped to improve my writing and I couldn’t be happier.

So, pick up a pen my friends.

“You can’t change your past, but you can use the past to write a whole new future.” – Sambit Kumar Routray

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Find your Rhythm

We all get lost in the race of life. There are so many priorities, dreams, responsibilities that we chase day in and day out and in the process lose connect with ourselves.

Running is no different. As we gather before the starting line, there are thousands of participants. Some are athletic, many are well build, few are lean and remaining are overweight . We like it or not, but we start comparing our abilities with those well build people and think whether we need to have similar body to run better.

As the opening flag waves to mark start of the run, faster runners march ahead rapidly. Some people fall behind. It’s easy to lose your rhythm in this race. It may impact the outcome of your run adversely.

Those initial moments of the run are crucial. Hold your nerve and go easy. You will find your rhythm even before you realize.

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Act of Random Kindness

Can you leave a lasting impression in just 5 seconds?

Let me share a story with you.

It was the year 2014.

I was on my way to buy some groceries when someone standing by the roadside asked for a lift. I slowed down my bike and asked the person where he wanted to go. He wanted to be dropped at the nearby bus stop which was approximately 1.5 km from that place.

As I was going in the same direction, I told him to sit on the back seat. Within few minutes, we reached the bus stop. He got down and thanked for the help. I wished him a good day.

Then I took a U-turn as the grocery shop where I wanted to go was on the way back.

The person was surprised to realize that I came 100 m ahead of my destination to drop him at the bus stop. But for me, it was just a matter of few seconds on the bike. He asked me to stop the bike and thanked me enough for the help. For me, it wasn’t a big deal, but for him, it was really special.

That experience made me realize that we can leave a lasting impression in a matter of few seconds.

This Act of Random Kindness (ARK) can also be applied to the field of running.

When you participate in any running event, you will find some runners towards the finish line struggling to finish the run. They are usually exhausted both physically and mentally. You may choose to slow down, motivate them to stay strong and finish the run. Believe me, your few encouraging words have the power to fill those tired souls with fresh energy and enthusiasm.

Consider, someone is running in an event for the first time. He or she has already given up as the remaining distance looks back-breaking. That person is clear in his or her mind that in no way that distance can be covered. But you choose to encourage him or her to keep trying. When that person finishes the run, what is that he or she is going to experience?

The person will be transformed. His or her perception of self would change forever.

Only you can make that difference by adding the wind (of inspiring words) beneath the wings of that person when he or she has abandoned hope.

It’s lovely, isn’t it?

If you have experienced ARK anytime in your life, share your thoughts in the comments below.

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