Are you a People Pleaser?

Let me confess, a lot of people I see around are people pleasers. They do things that are liked by others instead of themselves. But If I write about them, this little article will only increase hatred around me. So I think I should write about my journey in this post instead of pointing towards someone to change someone. With all the little experience I have, I believe that it is easy as well as wise to change our own attitude instead of roaming around to change other’s attitudes.

When I was in school, I had a habit of cooking up stories that used to interest others and they started believing that I’m one of them. I used to talk about cricket because all the cricketers I had in my class were popular among girls and always used to be a hot topic in our class. And it was undoubtedly a sense of achievement for me to be the part of that group.

I used to share funny incidences, which were a product of my imagination, to entertain others so that they consider me a part of their group. I was happy being one of those cool guys, but trust me, that happiness was transitory. The more I was progressing in those activities, the more I was losing my own identity. Today, If I look back, I don’t recognize that guy at all. He was just wasting his time and energy in pleasing those people who started believing in a fake identity that was far away from my true self.

The question arises here is, why the hell I was forging a fake identity? The only answer I found after spending countless nights of solitude is, I was seeking acceptance from people around me. I’m not saying that I had a traumatic or hard childhood, but I was seeking love and acceptance from people around me. It’s hard to find the answer that why I was so busy in seeking acceptance at that age. I’m still seeking its answer.

But what is the problem of being a people pleaser?

If I may answer this by bifurcating the impact of being a people pleaser in the short term and long term, I can simply say this.

In the short term, being a people pleaser will help you in gaining promotions, give you a sense of accomplishment and confidence beyond a limit.

In the long term, It will give you pain, depression, and hatred towards yourself.

And that’s what exactly happened to me. After spending many years forging a fictitious identity, I was trapped inside my mind, trying to differentiate between what’s real and what’s a product of my imagination. And on the journey of finding your talents, your passions, yourself, it gives you a very hard time.

Also, on a very practical note, no one will finance the clothes, the accessories which you use to please people around you. It will only disturb your psyche and will give you a hard time in finding your true self.

I would like to write more about it, but for now-

I arrest my case here :-)

Love, Laughter, and Peace

Himanshu R Nagpal

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Minimalism and Greed

From a couple of weeks, we are talking about De-Cluttering and managing your shelf, taking care of your social media accounts by unfollowing unrequired pages, and so on. But till now we haven't talked about why is this magical word "De-cluttering" entered our dictionary as well as in our lives? The answer is extremely simple – Greed. Yes, this five-letter word is running innumerable economies, giving billions and billions of dollars of revenue to many organizations and ruling the world.
Have you ever gone to some supermarket to buy a single product, Let's say you went to buy a jar of peanut butter? While looking for peanut butter, you came across innumerable products displayed on various shelves, classified beautifully. Now you just realized that there is an offer of on a pack of soft drinks – an attractive offer of 'Buy two, get one free'. You picked up a basket and attractively put the pack of soft drinks into it.
Now walking towards the shelf where peanut butter is displayed, a young man smiled at you and come up with an unbeatable scheme on room freshener. You suddenly realized that last time there was no such scheme on room fresheners. You quickly poured a couple of sprays down the throat of your basket.
After buying ten-odd products you finally reach in front of the shelf of Peanut Butter and then walk to the billing kiosk. You smartly take out your credit card and paid for all that stuff.
The question that arises here is, do we require these many products?
Greed has conquered our whole system. The more we accumulate the more we feel safe, happy as well as presentable. The prices ending with lots and lots of number 9 are taking its toll on us for so long. The word 'Sale' gives us unmatchable happiness.
And then when our home is filled with lots and lots of unwanted material, we read hell lot of articles regarding de-cluttering your home and watch videos regarding arranging the stuff properly in our homes.
The source of all problem is greed. It makes us do all that accumulating stuff unconsciously which avoided by you consciously. So, my dear friends, let's wrap up this article with little quick tips to conquer greed and makes us stay stick to our minimalism journey.

1)Don't run behind the conspiracy of the number 9. When the price of something ends with 9, there's a lot of psychology hidden behind it. That's the reason it's called psychological pricing.
2) The word 'Sale' gives you a sense of hurry to buy this or buy that whether required or not. We need o to understand that it is a way of converting one's dead stock into cash.
3) Make a genuine list of what's required and what's not. Don't try to skip that list no matter how much that product cost.

Om Shanti:
Love, Laughter, and Peace
Himanshu R Nagpal
Edited by:- Geetika Nagpal

Cleaning the mess out of your life.

A few days back, I had more than 2500 friends on my Facebook account. Not only that, but I was also getting innumerable notifications related to pages which I had liked or followed somewhat eight to ten years back. You might be thinking that I’m highly social who keeps himself updated about everyone’s life.
Honestly speaking, I don’t even know what my neighbor does for his living or how many members are there in his family. I don’t even know what most of the people who used to be my schoolmates, class fellows, and colleagues doing presently or where are they.
If I talk about my Email Inbox, I had over three thousand unread emails, which were useless as most of them containing free subscriptions which I don’t read anymore or promotional offers from various companies and people.
The good news is, now I have less than eight hundred Facebook friends, a few hundred-page followings, and almost no unread emails in my inbox.
But why I did that? Let me try to explain this to you.
My dear friend, our mind creates an illusion that quantity gives security. We start feeling that sharing our personal life with millions of people will make us famous or the hot topic of discussion among your Facebook friends or Instagram followers. Not only that, but we also feel that more friend request means more people like you. Is that really true? I doubt.
If I can be honest enough, it is the most common illusion the human mind strongly believes in.
Before this social media era, friendship used to be a special relationship with someone with whom you can and sit and talk about your thoughts, your problems, what’s really going on in their life, and so on. That definition of friendship hardly fits with the people residing in our friend list. They just like your picture or comment under that and expect the same from you. They are always ready for heated political debates or their comments upon various hot topics and so on.
The reason I took that step is, I started losing my sanity. I was totally done with those people and pages whose ideologies are completely different from mine. I was done with the friends who weren’t there when I badly needed someone and the ones who never approached me in the time of their emotional or physical turmoil. I wished them good luck and released them from my Facebook account. I unfollowed the pages and groups who don’t serve their purpose anymore.
It took me more than a week to delete most of the emails and unsubscribing myself from various email lists.
How do I feel?
Ah, I feel very light.
I’m not saying that you should do what I have done. You are smart enough to judge that. My motive for writing this is just to guide you to stay conscious of the data which you are absorbing unconsciously because most of it is disturbing your psyche and wasting your time.
So consider this another step of de-cluttering or minimalism. Though you'll see no physical changes in your surroundings, But mentally it will make things great.
See you next week.
Om Shanti:
Love, Laughter, and peace
Himanshu R Nagpal
Edited by:- Geetika Nagpal

Who Am I ?

This post is not regarding any spiritual or psychological stuff. No matter how much I blabber about the universe and its origin, the truth is I'm a guy who has to figure out a hell lot of practical stuff. So let’s talk practically. I see many and many people who are identified with their cars or hairstyles or shoes they wear. When a person starts getting compliments or complaints about their looks, they start believing that that’s their identity. That’s a kind of identity we strongly believe in.

The other type of identity which I want to denote here is when people are known for their ideologies, for their support to a particular person, a group, or a religion. For example, people are talking a lot about categories according to people’s political ideology – left-wing or right-wing ideology.

The other kind of identity which is extremely common is diversification according to physical features like the color- fair or dark, height- tall or short, and many others.

Now let me tell you why the hell I’m talking about all this stuff. We have to discuss simple living/minimalism right? So let me put it like this.

The goal of this whole process of minimalism is nothing but actually knowing who actually you are. It’s all about knowing what is your actual identity? When you start your journey towards knowing your real self, you start realizing how less you need to live a happy, prosperous, and meaningful life. When you reach a little closer to your true self, you will start questioning yourself that what is the need to put your car in the ignition mode, when you can travel via bicycle?

Oh! But man, I have a six-figure salary, why the hell should I ride a bicycle? This question might appear in your mind. But who has created that norm that if you are successful, you can’t ride a bike?

When one gets a little closer to oneself these societal norms and pressure start dissolving. These questions also start dissolving. We are born in a free nation and I think everyone here has a right to live themselves as per their will. There is no harm in traveling through public transport instead of traveling alone in your personal car. You’ll be saving a Kilogram of carbon emission with your simple act like this.

The whole thing I want to explain here is when you’ll understand that you and your car are two different things. It might be known by your name, but you, my friend, can never be known by your Audi or BMW or any other car. These are just for your convenience and cannot be merged with your identity.

Same with the ideologies, when you start believing yourself as a right-wing guy, no matter how correct is the other person you’ll be always applying the same norms and rules to every situation.

And whether your tall or Short, dark or fair, that’s totally none of the people’s concern. It’s how society is trained to characterize people. But the problem starts when you start believing yourself as the one that people call you. They are just transferring their corrupt files in your system. And I promise I’ll talk about this in a specific post.

I talked above about one’s true personality. The thing is, knowing one’s true self is a life-long process. And I’m extremely far away from knowing that. But one thing which I have discovered in this process -One who starts seeking himself, starts thinking about the world before himself.

Om Shanti:

Love, Laughter, and Peace

Himanshu R Nagpal

Edited by : Geetika Nagpal