Smoking Kills!

In your twenties, you encounter a number of different things, habits, addictions, hobbies, etc. You are introduced to a whole new community, where you find a number of people. Some offer you books and food and some introduce you to cigarettes and alcohol. 

These days smoking and drinking alcohol is kinda a cool trend. If you smoke and drink, then you are a stud and if not then you are a damn loser, which makes no sense, right?

Today, I met someone who was smoking. I asked him, why you smoke buddy? the answer he had given was ''Stress Relief''. This kind of shocked me, how someone considers this bad habit as a relief instrument for stress, well aware of the fact, how this stress-relieving event of few minutes will be affecting his body organs, psychology, mentality, etc. Now, the irony was, even after knowing everything, he was doing it.

These days, the very common reason to start smoking is stress relief. Everyone is just blindly believing in the idea of smoking for stress relief and then keep on doing the same for years and finally realize that it was a part of their self-destruction and not any stress relief. It was not acting as a stress buster, instead was planting a seed of depression, anxiety, cancers, and various other health hazards. Now let's try to understand this absurd mentality of people and bust this false notion of stress relief by cigarettes.

Curiosity kills;

God has created a great and wonderful thing termed humans. God has blessed man with a precious gift of life and look at the absurdity of man that he is ending up his precious life being inebriated and a damn chain smoker. 

I personally feel, being curious about something is a mark of intelligence but that is applicable only if we are considering the whole thing for educational purposes and for something that literally can help society in a beneficial and constructive way. You can learn about cigarettes and feed your curiosity of knowing about it but letting that curiosity override your mind and end up making you a cigarette addict is highly destructive. By doing this, you are literally drowning the name of curiosity.

  

Does the friend circle matter?

Now, a number of people believe that the major cause of smoking is peer pressure and a bad friend circle. This statement can be true but you can't deny the fact that you fall into the trap of smoking only because at some part even you wanted to taste it or try it just because you believed everyone is doing then why shouldn't you. So blaming the friend circle completely is not a good idea. You need to admit that you are responsible equally and hence playing a victim card and throwing blame over the friend circle don't really justify your side.

Dopamine Release;

Now the very basic reason for the smoking addiction is the released dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter released by our brain as a response to emotions like happiness, pleasure, etc. This hormone acts upon and your body demands more of it. Nicotine in cigarettes leads to the release of dopamine and hence provides you a feeling of pleasure. You feel like you have achieved something extreme and hence this pleasure overrides your education and knowledge about the bad effects of nicotine and finally, you end up becoming addicted to cigarettes. 

Smoking and health hazards;

While reading an article, I realized how often people smoke and how largely this smoking problem is affecting the population. Millions of people die from the habit of chronic smoking every year. Smoking is the main cause for giving rise to different health hazards like  chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), coronary heart diseases, cancer of the oral cavity, lung cancer, cancer of the trachea and larynx, etc

What To Think!

Now, how a thing that is giving rise to numerous harmful problems is so freely available and is consumable at such a high scale. The pack of cigarettes has a special mention for health hazards, still, people are buying and consuming the same disastrously. 

We need to create awareness among people and help the people to end up this bad habit of smoking.

We all can jointly work together to make the people aware of the cons of smoking and only then we will be able to make the world tobacco and cigarettes free.

 

My Perspective;

I personally believe I'm no one to pressurize anybody to end up your bad habit of smoking but the only thing I can do is to make you aware of the real effects of this cigarette smoking habit and let you realize that any reason influencing you to smoke is not justifiable because your smoking habit needs no justification. Smoking is wrong and you can't debate over it. 

At last, I request everyone to end up with this bad habit of smoking. This life worth more than few packets of cigarettes.

Peace!!

Victory and Defeat - Part of life.

 Suppose you take part in some competition. What's the very first thing that comes to your mind? I'm assured that the thing would definitely be the prize or the winner or the view after you win the competition. You just can't deny this fact to act smart that you don't care about winning or some other shit because we all know the human mentality and the way we act in any situation. So, we both know, the only thing that hits our mind is the winning situation.

Now, it's not your fault that you focus on the victory only. You work to taste the victory. You are raised the way like life is a race and you have to win the race at any cost. No matter, what cost you have to pay for the victory but you have to be a winner always. On one side, we can't consider this whole mentality as foolishness but we also can't deny that always getting the first rank in the race doesn't mean you are the winner especially when it's about life. Life is not something that demands and favors the winners only. You can be a loser and still enjoy life better than the winner. And that's the main characteristic i.e your perception of accepting reality. You have to realize that happiness is not something that only relies on your victories but it can be achieved even after a defeat as well.

The important lesson that we can learn here is to accept victory as well as defeat peacefully without any kind of regret. If you are a winner that doesn't mean you gonna win always. This is the law of nature that you get everything equally. If you are facing defeat always that doesn't mean you'll face defeat in the future as well and vice versa. So, try to consider both the victory as well as the defeat as a part of the journey. 

I very well understand the emotions and the way one feels when he hits the defeat and the failure. Defeat usually shook the person fully or partially and ultimately leaves a scar mark. This scar mark now can act either as a supporter and reminder of the defeat, making you more serious and help you hustle more for the future, or this scar mark can produce a wave of rage and anger as well. Both choices are in your own hand and you can choose wisely.

LEARNINGS FROM CHILDHOOD;

Now, you can't deny the fact that you are told by your parents, elders, etc since your childhood that you have to win only. Nobody ever told you that defeat is also a part of life. Noone helps you realizing how defeat plays a crucial role in understanding the point of failure, the true meaning of success, the lessons to learn from defeat, etc. As a result, your mind never focussed on the defeat and has no idea how failure tastes like. Hence, when you hit failure for the first time, you get broken. It becomes difficult for you to handle failures and you perceive your defeat as pain and sorrow. 

WINNINGS AND FEARS;

If someone is getting everything he wanted in his first go, then he had no experience of loss and failures, but this is life, my friend. At some point in life, you will be hitting failure and that would be the time you will realize the whole perspective of failure. 

A series of winning, one way or the other affects your mentality and you start playing a safe game. You start getting afraid of trying something new and risky, which ultimately stops your growth in life. In short, your fears and pessimism start increasing proportionately as your winnings increase.

SHORT TIME PLEASURE;

People don't understand that victory and defeat, both are part of life. You can feel pleasure after victory, which is good but this pleasure is for short time. Noone will be remembering your victory even after the event. You have to work for long term satisfaction and for long term satisfaction, you need to make a balance between winning and losing. You have to start taking your defeats in the same way you treat your victory and see the magic of life.

Conclusion:

Life is A beautiful experience, a wonderful journey, and an awesome event. God has blessed man with this amazing phase to enjoy, hustle, learn, help, and live peacefully. You need to accept that if life is cruel at some phase, then it is compassionate at another equally. So you have to learn how to take it in a progressive and constructive way without being demotivated and hopeless. Both win and lose are important for the development of humans, so start accepting both as a part of your life.

Keep Growing!

The Power of Compounding || Investment Lesson

Talking about the compounding without considering the most powerful statement by Albert Einstein would be an injustice to the compounding itself. According to him, “Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world. He who understands it earns it; he who doesn’t pay it.” 

Now imagine if such a great personality has considered the compounding or the compound interest that valuable then how important compounding in our life really is. Considering compound interest as the eighth wonder of the world depicts the value of compound interest. 

Compound interest has the efficiency to make you financially independent and help you live your dream life so how can we ignore the power of compound interest.

Compound interest is simply the add on of the interests over the deposits or the loans.

When an investment is left for years, it keeps on increasing its value by the addition of the interests over the deposited amount and the interest already given.

Magic of Compound Interest;

Let's understand this by an example;

Suppose A and B started investment by investing 100 rupees per year. 'A' invested in some bank and the bank provided him a simple interest of 10% annually. On the other hand, 'B' was aware of compounding and he invested 100 rupees in Equity, where he got a compound interest of 10% annually. Now, after one year, both of them will get an interest of ten rupees and both will be having a total amount of 110 rupees. 

Again one year later, 'A' will get an interest of 10% over his invested money of hundred rupees, which means after two years of his investment, 'A' is now having 100(first investment) + 100(second investment) + 10(interest by the first year) + 10(interest by the 2nd year)… Now after investing for two years, A will be having 220 rupees. He got an interest but the interest was 10% Simple interest, which was on the money he invested.

Now, let's talk about the investment of 'B'. As 'B' was smart enough, he invested in the compounding field. Now, after two years, B will be having 221 rupees. One rupee more, do you know why? Because of compounding. B got 10% interest by the end of 1st year i.e 10 rupees on investment of 100 rupees. Now after another year, he got interest of 10% on rupees 110, which includes his initial investment plus the interest money. As a result, he got one rupee more than 'A'.

Now, you may think what will this one rupee difference do. Wait a second pal, everything takes time and the whole process of compounding is based upon time. Now if you will keep on investing for a longer time, say 35 or 40 years, you will end up creating something that is too big to imagine.

By simple investments of 100 or 1000 rupees per month, you can end up creating crores after 30-40 years. This is the power of compounding.

India and Financial Education;

I know, a number of people in India are considered intelligent only because of their marks card, the majority of people are considered successful only if they are earning a six-figure salary.

We Indians mostly grew up in a middle-class background, where right from childhood, we are told to score good, get a good job, a car, etc and then you're considered successful as well as financially stable. Maybe for our older generation, this would be financial freedom but in today's world, financial freedom is something, where you let your money work for you and you keep on enjoying life. And to achieve this kind of financial freedom, you need to know about the power of compounding and investment.

In the words of Robert Kiyosaki, "In the real world outside of academics, something more than just grades is required. I have heard it called "guts," "chutzpah," "balls,""audacity," "bravado," "cunning," "daring," "tenacity" and"brilliance." This factor, whatever it is labeled, ultimately decide one's future much more than school grades.”

Books I suggest;

I personally recommend you to read "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham, if you want to learn about investments and "Rich Dad Poor Dad" if you want to learn about financial freedom.

Apart from these, you can also read books like "Richest Man in Babylon", "Think and Grow Rich", etc.

My Opinion:

It won't be wrong if I say we are too illiterate in terms of financial education. The majority of us are earning huge amounts of salaries but when it comes to financial stability even big salary holders are under credits and are financially completely unstable. I am not talking about one or two persons or a group of persons, instead, I'm considering the majority, because a majority of us end up with the same. So, don't you think there is a big bubble that is not letting us be financially stable? Hence, there is a great need for financial education to be financially stable, and also, one way or the other, it'd help the economy of our country to grow as well. At last, just a small message from my side, Start Investing and try to understand the magic of Compounding.

Experience with books!

After surviving the pandemic of 2020, we are finally in the year 2021and sharing my personal experience with books is important because it's because of books I was able to defeat boredom during the lockdown. I'm sharing my own experience related to book reading and its importance in real life. Now without any further delay, let's jump into it.

Two years ago, I took a new year resolution of improving my reading habit and I decided to end the year 2019 by reading at least 5 books. I know 5 books are such a small number but believe me for a non-reader person like me, it was a difficult job. I still remember how difficult it was for me to stick to the reading process for just 5-6 pages. I was so bad at book reading that I hardly read more than 4pages in one sitting. Though I loved listening to the Audiobooks I also wanted to improve my reading skills, so I decided to improve it, without caring for the steps i.e smaller or larger, I started with 1page and then 2, 4, and so on. It took me 2-3 months to complete my first book. Btw the first book I ever read completely was "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki. In the year 2019, I finally succeeded in completing 3 books. Trust me, 3 books were a good number for any nonreader person. On the other hand, I had listened to more than 8 audiobooks as well. This difference clearly shows my lacking performance with respect to reading. 

Similarly in the year 2020, I promised myself to stick to that reading habit for the whole year, and finally, in the year 2020, I read 7-8 books and listened to more than 12 audiobooks. A special thanks to the lockdown here. 

With all these efforts, I realized how valuable and important reading books is. Books are more than just a piece of printed paper. I was fond of audiobooks and they are good as well but the satisfaction that I got by reading the book myself was unexplainable. 

I love reading books for self-improvement, life learning, financial freedom, etc. And the kind of fun and pleasure I found after reading these books myself, I wasn't getting the same by audiobooks. Now, book reading is one of my regular activities. I use to read at least 4-6 pages daily, sometimes I even read more than 4-5 chapters, and this had become a very important part of my daily schedule. 

Reading and Vocabulary;

The best way to improve your grammar and vocabulary is by reading. The more you'll read, the better you'll be in your vocabulary. Both of these things are not only associated with English literature but any subject, language, etc. No doubt you can learn these from movies, drama series, podcasts, etc, but according to researches, the best source is a book always. Even I believe the same, so, I suggest book reading as a priority.

Knowledge;

Books are the source of knowledge. So, there is no loss in reading books. Your knowledge gonna increase only after reading books, so, start reading. From being a left out person in a conversation to a person who literally has knowledge about numerous things is truly a real feeling of satisfaction and the way, how it improves your self-confidence, you can't even imagine the same.

Self-esteem and Self-development

Both self-esteem and self-development form the major components in order to shaping your life and live peacefully. You realize your very own importance by these and books form the utmost important source to raise these characters inside you.

Priorities first

By reading books about successful people, you'd be able to encounter a vision of differentiating your priorities and acting accordingly. Once you understand your priorities, your life would become quite sorted.

Feeding self Respect

There's a difference between self-respect and an egoistic attitude and you need to understand it well and the best way to learn this skill is by reading books on self-development. Different authors, psychologists, and other successful people share their experiences over the years. It takes years and years to learn something on its own but if you're getting the same written in a book, why not grasp it efficiently instead of wasting time?