Author: ANSHUMAN PATRA

I think this is one of the most popular questions that has been asked mostly by students. Most of the students say that they sit for studying but after 10–20 minutes they get tired and they don’t feel like studying.

But why is it happening with most of the students? It is because of the reduced attention span. The internet and social media, in general, is reducing our attention span. Consider it yourself, in the past when people started reading books, it used to take a few days to complete reading the book. So then movies came, it takes a few hours to watch the whole movie. Then came youtube where it takes around 10–15 minutes to complete the whole video. Then different social media networks came like Facebook and Instagram where you spend a minute on a topic. Then TikTok took it to an extreme level, where it usually takes a few seconds to watch a video.

Now you might be understanding how our attention span is slowly and gradually reducing. Nowadays our attention span has reduced to such an extent that we need something new every 10 seconds to entertain ourselves. Our patience level has reduced so much that when you go to a cinema hall to watch a movie and when there is a boring scene, people switch on their mobile phones and start to browse something. They don’t have enough patience to even watch a two-hour video without using their phone. They need something entertaining every second.

Now due to such short attention span, many problems arrive because you cannot teach something in such a short span of time, you cannot learn anything in such a span of time. Due to such a short attention span, it will become very difficult for any person to concentrate or focus on something because their mind wants something entertaining every 10–15 seconds.

I hope you got clarity about why you weren’t able to concentrate for a long period of time. So the first step you need to take is to try to do work which involves more attention span and do such work regularly so that you can increase your natural attention span.

But what can we do now so that we work for long hours? Now usually what people do is that when people are motivated they work for many hours at a stretch then they get exhausted and they are unable to do anything for the rest of the day. So don’t do that. Take breaks every 45 minutes. Keep a clock nearby you and start working when you get tired see the clock if you have worked for 45 minutes. If you have worked for 45 minutes take a 10 minutes break. But when I say 10 minutes I mean only 10 minutes not more than that, nor less than that.

Now don’t open your mobile phone in this break because you will be exhausting your eyes due to light of the phone then the break won’t make any sense. Rather sit or lie down and close your eyes. You can think of anything or talk to yourself but don’t do anything else. Or alternate is that you keep your clock in front of you and wait till 10 minutes is over but the twist is that you must only focus on the watch for 10 minutes. Why? Because remember in your school days when a boring period used to come and you used to watch the clock continuously to see how much time was left. Even if 10 minutes were left we used to feel like an hour because the period was like never-ending.

You might even relate it to the days when you used to write exams. While writing our focus is on the clock and sometimes we feel that time is suddenly running very fast and we might not be able to complete the exam.

So why taking breaks between working is important? Because imagine you are driving a car and your petrol tank is full. So you keep on driving for a while then you observe that your petrol is half empty but you don’t stop rather you still keep on driving and after a while, your petrol is almost over but still you don’t stop and you keep on driving. Now you know what will happen next. Your car will stop midway and there won’t be any petrol pump nearby to fill your tank. So what mistake did you do here? You should have had filled your petrol when it was half empty.

So, in the same way, don’t work continuously until you exhaust yourself because then you won’t be able to work after that. Rather you should take frequent breaks of 10 minutes so that you can work continuously throughout the day.

Firstly,if you have started reading already make sure you read till the end,

Okay? I won’t straight away come to a conclusion but I want you to decide for yourselves about it and also don’t worry I will tell you my perspective as well. Honestly you won’t be able find out by reading few lines of my blog so make sure you read completely because there might be some twist and turns in between. I can’t force you to agree or disagree with me its upto you. So, with that said lets start and let me be clear before you read my blog that I want you to visualise as you read ,please! I always want my blogs to be as interactive and helpful as possible.

So, what comes to your mind when I say the word “Competition”? Some of you might be in school and some might be in college while some doing work . Irrespective of at which stage of life you are, when you listen to this word you think of many people who are working very hard to defeat you. Right? Atleast, if not yours, it comes to few people whom I have asked.

Most of you will agree that in modern day society competition is increasing day by day in every field of life and so if you are going to be a part of the competition then definitely there will be a fear or a kind of worry in your head.

So whats the reason of your stress? The most common reason I can think of is high expectations from others it may be your family or it may be you yourself. These high expectations creates a unknown pressure in mind.

So we will go deeper and deeper into this topic and we will try to understand it totally upto our capacity.

A mind which is already filled with so much pressure and tension how can it think or how can it concentrate on a thing which he has to focus on . Some say that competition brings the best out of them. Yes, it might be true but understand the context when they say that because some might misunderstand it. So, for better understanding let me give you an example.

Imagine you are going to write an entrance test for getting admission into the best colleges. So what will be your preparation be like? Actually, to be honest it totally depends on number of students writing this exam. And number of seats available. If students are less and the seats available are more, than I doubt if everyone are going preparing properly, most of them will not even like to prepare as they might think its not needed because even if they don’t prepare they will enter the college and so they wont even try to prepare for the test. So, it means you are not giving your best as you are not doing anything.

Lets look at another case where the seats are less but students writing the exam are more ,than? Then definitely you have to work much harder then others to outperform them if you really want to join the best college. Then in this situation , you are going to try and work as hard as possible and give your best shot. Right?

So , that’s what they actually mean when they say that competitions brings the best out of them so I hope you understood.

So, in this way competition is good. But everything has its own downside and over here its stress which has become very common among the people nowadays . Why does it stresses us out and how does it effect us? How can we overcome it is main question. So, lets go one by one understand properly and deeply.

First question is why does competitions stresses us out? So if you remember that earlier I said about peer pressure , I said how the high expectations from others and you yourself stresses you out . Here, there are two things to understand, one is understanding your capacity by this I mean that no one can control how the things will turn out in future and its not in our hands. we cannot determine the result(future) but as a human what we can really focus on is the process(present).

Secondly, you yourself understanding the situation clearly. And second point is totally related to the first one. If you totally understand what you can do and what you cannot then things will start to look much clearer . What can you do? You can work and hard and try your level best to prepare as much as you can so that later on you don’t regret that you could have done better. What you cannot do? You cannot control how others think, the hopes and expectations of others. Again what you can do ? you can make them understand, if that’s not possible then again you know the reality so you can ignore that without actually hurting them.

Because remember what others think about us doesn’t really matter that much what matters is what you think about yourselves. If you really worked hard and you are positive then anything is possible. Most important thing is that you have to be honest to yourselves because you can lie to others but not yourselves. If you haven’t work hard then being hopeful is not right.

So woooh!!! I am tired writing ……but don’t worry I wont stop because I am not done yet.

So, how does high expectations impact you ? So, thinking about negative points, it makes you depressed,it gives you time to time anxiety attacks , it makes you feel stressed but to be honest the word depressed says it all.

Thinking about positive points then I think it motivates you to work and helps you prioritize your work and also it tells you about how much hopes do they have from you.

So how can we overcome the stress that competitions brings out with it?

*Be honest with yourselves about your preparation

*Don’t have fake hopes without working hard

*Don’t much rely on your luck , just believe in your hardwork

*Focus on the process and forget about the result. If you do the process right then result will come in your favour.

*Don’t overexpect and underexpect just be positive

*Respect your competitors and their hardwork

And learn to accept things the way they are,if you failed then that’s fine just accept it and move on. If things didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to be in the past doesn’t mean your future cant be better. Just believe in yourself and your work.

Someone once said that if you are incompetent and you are in competition then you will feel the stress but if you are competent enough then you wont feel the stress and you will rather enjoy it.

Why do people discriminate ?

Do these people whom they discriminate have a control of how they want to be born or where they want to be born?

Is it totally their choice?

Is it in their control?

No, right?

Nothing is in their control ,they are just living the life which was given to them and we can’t question their existence.

God has created us. If you are questioning the person it means you are questioning the creation of God.

Imagine if everyone was color blind would there be discrimination on the basis of skin color? No, not at all, Right?

So, if god has given us these beautiful eyes with the ability to see different colors it is because he wants us to see the his beautiful creativity and wants us to enjoy and appreciate the nature and its uniqueness but unfortunately we are misusing it.

Not only eyes humans are misusing everything god has gifted them. Just because people don’t feel pain while cutting their hair, people are cutting their hair and experimenting with different hair styles.

Just imagine if we didn’t feel pain while cutting our body, what styles and experiment would people do with it?

But unfortunately discrimination exists in every form.

And maximum mental health problems in people have started due to this.

For example we can observe that nowadays people worry about how they look a lot because they fear that other person might discriminate or judge him if they don’t look in a certain manner.

People want perfection in everything but they don’t understand that perfection doesn’t exist. Perfection is a myth. There are always some imperfections which makes it more beautiful and unique which people are unable to identify and understand.

In today’s generation, these problem started when people started using filters in their photos and started uploading on their social media platforms.

The other people who see it they feel that it is real and then they feel low about how they look and they start keeping unrealistic hopes and expectations from themselves which doesn’t let them be happy.

Today we lack real people I think that’s the reason why reality show exists because we can’t find it in real world at least we can watch it on TV.

But everything is scripted and nothing is real on TV as well.

So you might question that, then what is real?

Let me tell you, Your existence in this world is real, so make it count and stop aiming for perfection rather enjoy the imperfections you have then I assure you that you will be much more happier than you are now.

Discrimination needs to be stopped in every form

As we all know that now the whole world is dealing with Coronavirus and all the scientist over the world are finding vaccines for it.

I think we need to treat discrimination also like a virus and we need to find a good vaccine for it as soon as possible because if we don’t find a proper vaccine for it then the future doesn’t seem bright.

I don’t want my future generation to face any kind of discrimination and if we want to stop it then we need to stop it from now. We need to take severe steps to stop discrimination against people. We can’t wait for one person to stand against everyone and fight alone. It is a collective effort and the world needs to play as one team and fight against such people who discriminate others.

Think about life of a blind person, who can’t see things, they just feel.

Think about life of deaf and dumb person, they just convey their message through their actions and not by speech.

You should feel privileged that you are able to see, hear and speak. If god has given it you then use it wisely, don’t misuse it.

What hurts me the most is when there is discrimination on the things which we don’t have control off , like skin color, height, voice, face, body, place of birth and everything you can ever think of.

People need to understand that we cannot control what skin color we want or what family we want to be in. We aren’t playing any kind of video game where you can decide your characteristics before starting the game. This is real life.

We don’t have the option of restart like video games. So we need to learn to accept people the way they are. Only this way we can have a bright future ahead.

So let us be the change we want to see in the world.

I have met so many passionate people whom I saw and I felt like this guy is going to make it big in his life but in the end, they don’t and I think one of the reasons is that — most people lacked “Self-belief”. These people always doubted their capabilities, they underestimated themselves and overestimated others. That’s where I feel the other people who are confident took the advantage and became successful.

Even I was hesitant while choosing law as a career because I felt that there were already so many big established lawyers in our country so I thought that how can I make my name. Then I realized that I was just self-doubting myself and nothing else. I just wasn’t confident enough about myself and my strengths rather I was more worried about my weaknesses. Then I made up my mind, trusted my capabilities, and finally chose law as a career.

If you think that you have the potential to make it big in life then Stop thinking,” How am I gonna compete with so many established people around me? I don’t think I will be able to do it. I am not good enough.”You should stop thinking like this because once you start thinking like this over and over again then your thoughts will become your beliefs and then eventually that it will turn out to be a reality . That’s why people say that what you think is what you become.

Just remember that You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win. Yes, things might not always go as you planned but that’s how you learn and improve. When things go wrong Change your route, not your destination.

When you think that you aren’t good enough then you will feel like — “let it go”. And the moment you start having the feeling of “let it go” that’s the moment you have to say to yourself that,” No! I am good enough. I am gonna try because someone who has made a big name was once nobody. They also had to start somewhere. Because they didn’t become legends overnight.” So the belief is something you cannot afford to “Let go”.

The people who had the belief are the ones who went on to make it big in life. I think belief is something that distinguishes the best from the rest. The only difference between an “extra-ordinary” and an “ordinary” is that “extra”.

I always say it to people when they feel demotivated that Just because the past didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to be, doesn’t mean the future can’t be better than you ever imagined. Many people who quit midway don’t realize how close they were towards their goal.

If you want to be successful be ready to fail as well and also don’t shy away from asking help from others because you might not be able to do it alone. So Ask for help, not because you are weak but because you want to remain strong

Have you ever written a message to someone by mistake?

Have you said someone something which you never actually intended to?

I know what might have happened next(No I am not any kind of baba or fortune teller)

First, you regretted then you started overthinking about the incident, Right?.

You start thinking what the other persons is thinking. You start thinking about how he must be cursing you in his mind..

You start thinking how now the other person is making plans to spoil your career, Nah! Just joking!! Don’t think too much!! Secret — It mostly just happens in movies.

But You know what? I am okay with the mistakes I do and I feel even you shouldn’t be worried too much about your mistake. Why?

BECAUSE

Normally what we do when we did a mistake?

We first regret

Then we start overthinking about what the other person might be thinking, Right?

We start assuming that the other person might be very angry or might be cursing us in their mind. Which might not be true.

And then we become worried.

We are worried about what the other person might be thinking rather than thinking about rectifying the mistake we did.

We need to learn to move on. Because if you already done a mistake there is no point taking too much burden for it because you cannot go back and change the past.

No one can go back and make a brand new start, but anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.

We should not be much worried about what the other person is thinking or whether he is angry with us or not.

Because the mistake has already happen and we can’t do much about it because time is not in our control(we cannot roll back the time).

We should always focus on the things we can control and not focus on things we can’t control as we cannot control either time or someone’s mind about how they think.

So what can we do?

We should give that person a sincere apology for the mistake we did instead of assuming stuff that might not even be true.

Instead of focussing on the person or the mistake, we should focus on rectifying the mistake we did so that we don’t repeat the same in the future.

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently

Remember- “NEVER EXPECT, NEVER ASSUME, NEVER ASK, AND NEVER DEMAND. JUST LET IT BE. BECAUSE IF IT’S MEANT TO BE, IT WILL BE”

I think in everybody’s life a time comes when we go into deep thoughts and do self-introspection…

We feel that we have lost our track.

We feel very lonely .

We feel that We have too many thoughts in our mind but we don’t have anyone to share with.

We end up questioning ourselves that what are we doing in life and where are we heading.

Because a time comes when your future seems little blurry and you don’t know what to do next.

We feel that others are so happy and they are using their day so productively and we keep regretting about the time wasted

We feel that we were very unlucky and we didn’t get enough chance to prove ourselves .

We feel that people are underestimating us.

We feel that there are many things we could have done better…

WE.. The list goes on….. SO HOLD ON…. TAKE A DEEP BREATH…. YOU ARE NOT ALONE GOING THROUGH IT… THINGS WILL GET BETTER …

JUST RELAX

In the past, there were many days when I wasn’t really happy about the ways things were going in my life.

Most of the time the reason for sadness was me. I wasn’t happy with myself.

I always thought that I wish I could go back in the past and change a few things. But with time I realized that there was no point in regretting what had happened in the past.

But I couldn’t control my thoughts, somehow negative thoughts used to come and my whole day used to go with regret due to which I was never able to focus on things that I should have.

Our society is such that it doesn’t matter you might have done 100 good things and 1 bad thing, the focus is always on that 1 bad thing due to which I started creating unknown pressure on myself and stressed myself.

So to ease out myself from the stress I started going to my house’s balcony just to observe the nature and people.

When I saw nature, the insects, the birds I don’t know for some reason I felt so much relief.

Then I observed the people who were busy — a few driving cars, few driving bikes, a few riding cycles and few were walking.

But none of them were happy, few were rushing to their work with stress of that day and few coming back home with the stress of the next day.

But no one was content which made me ask myself, “What are we doing?”. Because A person who is earning too little isn’t happy neither the person who is earning so much is happy.

With so much negativity around which made me sad again. But afterward, I realized that even I am doing the same thing as others. I am also seeing that 1 bad thing and ignoring the 100 good things.

After which I decided to see the positive side of everything. This actually started making me happier and more content even though there are so many problems.

So I again went to the balcony this time with a positive attitude. So what made me happy was seeing most of the people working selflessly not for themselves but for their family.

Sometimes I question myself that my mom and dad are working day in and day out selflessly for me so that I have a secure future, but what am I doing? This sometimes makes me more motivated that I should do something which makes them proud and happy, it has become the aim of my life.

JUST REMEMBER EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON. You might not understand it now but later in life when you look back then you will see that those were the connecting dots of your life which has helped you in shaping as a human.