30 Life Hacks to Serendipity

I came across Zat Rana’s write-up captioned “Everything I Have Learned in 500 Words) on Medium.com[1] though Twitter (@Zat_Rana).

Sunset at Sukhna Lake, Chandigarh, India: Photo, Author

Life can be as simple as you may make it

I came across Zat Rana’s write-up captioned “Everything I Have Learned in 500 Words) on Medium.com[1] though Twitter (@Zat_Rana). I found those “30 Lessons of Life” embodied in his article very valuable and also succinctly expressed. I, however, had my own views, sometimes divergent but mostly elucidatory and I have ventured to put them here, in brackets below each postulate. Do let me know what your thoughts are.

1. Much of what we treat as real is a figment of our collective imagination.(This figment of collective imagination is as palpable a reality as any other. It’s often regarded as an axiomatic truth, based on faith and belief. Eg. Hell or Heaven)

2. Beyond scientific and societal laws, rules are as firm as you make them.(Such rules are flexible, not firm. An individual can stretch them. Also, the impact of each rule in implementation can be different for different similarly placed people. I’d day, “There are no rules; only rulings.”)

3. There is nobody you can’t empathize with once you’ve heard their story.(People want empathy, not sympathy)

4. You have to be lucky to be successful, but luck can be engineered.

(It’s a matter of probability and statistics. But no one can predict the outcome of an individual event, or life.)

5. It all starts and ends in the mind. The most crucial skill is how you think.

(As important of how you think is also what you think. Focus on the positive.)

6. What you say “no” to better predicts a result than what you say “yes” to.(“Yes” and “No” are really complementary; when you say yes to something, you are also saying no to something else and vice versa. Your life is shaped not only by your conscious decisions but also by random events that impact you.)

7. Happiness isn’t about a state of constant elation. It’s about being content.(Happiness is not a destination; happiness lies in the pursuit of your truly meaningful goals.)

8. Outside of physics, chemistry, and biology, most science is very uncertain. (Agree, Even Physics, Chemistry and Biology rely heavily on random outcomes, even if these are stated to be following statistical distribution patterns. It’s very difficult to predict the outcome of a particular experiment.)

9. Those who engage in cynicism often do so to show how “smart” they are.(Cynicism flows out of an innate trait; there are simpler ways to show how smart you are. Cynical people are, even unbeknown to themselves, jealous of the beauty in everything.)

10. Everyone is a hypocrite, and it often doesn’t matter. Life isn’t a formula.(Hypocrisy has two strands: a bid to live up to the societal norms and an attempt to amplify your self-importance. Either way they fail to fool anybody except themselves.)

11. People suck. But if you’re kind, you’ll get the best out of even the worst.(Emotional vampyres are the worst among those that “suck” — stay away from them. Nothing repays you like a random act of kindness.)

12. People are inspiring. The lengths many of us go to for others is baffling.(Yes, but there are no guarantees in this. Your best friends may let you down at the most critical juncture and strangers may also not rise to the occasion. Nothing like self-reliance but never hesitate to ask.)

13. Perfection only exists in the mind. It’s not real. Imagine, create, improve.(Perfection is the prerogative of God, not of men. We can go up the asymptotic curve of excellence, while we strive for perfection. Also, remember, the “perfect” is the worst enemy of the “very good”.)

14. Reading is telepathy. A book is the most powerful technology invented.(Reading re-engineers, refreshes and rewires your brain and thoughts. Also, do try and read the mind of others……)

15. Planning is useful, but returns tend to diminish. Start before you’re ready.(Plan your work; work your plan but learn to improvise as you get along and use small, actionable feedback signals.)

16. The less you care about trivial things, the more likable you generally are. (Retain your sense of proportion and balance: “What mighty conflicts from trivial causes spring….”)

17. Diversity in experience fuels diversity in thought. Live experimentally.(Live experimentally and experientially.)

18. The better you adjust your internal expectations, the happier you’ll be.(Most of us are not unhappy because our expectations are high but rather because the threshold of our disappointments is very low.)

19. Growth is what keeps life interesting, and it comes from doing hard stuff.(If you are not growing, you are decaying; there is no such thing as stagnation in life.)

20. Nostalgia is selective. On scale, things are as good as they’ve ever been.(Correct. It’s not bad to be nostalgic about the past but better to be optimistic about the future.)

21. Outside rare exceptions, “experts” get far more credit than they deserve.(Experts are endorsed only by their peers peers and competition. No one knows better than the wearer where the shoe pinches.)

22. Over time, the greatest risk you can take is to take no risks at all.

(Correct. Don’t try to hedge risks too much; the price you pay is disproportionate to the risk that you are trying to cover. You may spend more time and energy in creating a safety-net than in taking that leap of faith, based on a calculated risk.)

23. Who you let into your life is a vital decision. Don’t leave it up to chance.(Negativity in your life cannot be neutralized or diluted with positivity; it’s a poison that will go out of the system very slowly, causing you a lot of harm in the meantime.)

24. If you worship money, possessions, or prestige, you’ll never have enough.(Remember, there are many good things in life that money cannot buy. Plus, when you depart, nothing that you leave behind matters more than your goodwill and memories in the hearts and minds of people.)

25. Rationality is one of the most valuable life tools, but it has its limitations.(In life, there is a trade-off between rationality and intuition. Remember, one man’s rationality is other man’s irrationality.)

26. The fact that life is finite should accompany every long-term decision.(Yes: a life-long guarantee is a very fragile thing. Remember, some decisions will have an impact, positive or negative, even after you die….but it’s very limited.)

27. You don’t need permission to lead, build, create, or to think differently.(We constantly seek approval, permission and encouragement from others to act. These are just proxies for our laziness and lack of self-confidence.)

28. Everything is approximate. Don’t aim to be right. Aim to be less wrong.(It’s better to be approximately correct than to be precisely wrong.)

29. It’s better to not have an opinion than to blindly follow someone else’s.(An opinion is not worth it if you do not express it appropriately, through the right medium at the optimal time.)

30. For most of us, life is quite long. It only feels short if we start to waste it.(Have a proper mix of tactics and strategy; carpe diem.)

Summing Up

As we traverse through life's labyrinth, Rana's lessons, interwoven with personal reflections, serve as beacons guiding us towards a richer understanding of our existence. While each insight sparks a flame of thought, it is the melding of diverse perspectives that kindles the fire of wisdom. In sharing these reflections, I invite you to ponder, debate, and perhaps find solace in the complexity that is life. Let us continue to seek out the threads that connect us, weaving them into a tapestry of shared human experience.

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[1] Published on 6th June, 2017.