Posted on by Gotamist

The power of renunciation

Successful leaders in India have lived in poverty (Gandhi) or are bachelors (Modi).  Others have been wealthy and given it up. Millions of people have followed these leaders in spiritual life or even in political life. No one can be well off and still be a great spiritual leader.  

This is in contrast to the West where leaders are not renunciates.  It might even be a disqualification.  Consider that politicians often have to show a spouse and child to even be electable.  A bachelor has a smaller chance of getting elected and someone who’s celibate is just….strange.

Political leaders can be wealthy in the West and many saints of the church were kings – no such case in India.  No historical king is revered as a saint.  All saints were penniless.

This could be some fundamental difference in world views of the East and the West. 

Posted on by Gotamist

Exercise is a lonely endeavor

Those of you who are young adults perhaps don’t relate to this.  After all, for many who do fitness activities or sports, that is self-reported as their main social group (sports club, crossfit class etc). However, as one gets older, is more advanced in their careers, is not single, has children, exercise gets increasingly hard.

It is my finding that there is minimal support from other close stakeholders in your life as you have to find time to exercise from one of three things – work, family or sleep.  The last of these works directly against the gains of exercise. As to the other, your workplace is primarily interested in your work product delivered today and not so much in what you need to do today to ensure that work can continue to be delivered later.  Likewise, every member of your family (if they like you), would rather have you spend time and effort directly on family activities and serving family members directly than on investing in being able to do so in the future.  So, I find that on almost any given day, I, and I alone, am advocating for exercise and everyone else close to me is begrudgingly putting up with it (or complaining in some way).

Everybody appreciates a healthy partner, a healthy family member, a healthy friend, a healthy employee or colleague.  Yet, nobody is willing to cut you some slack from the time they think they are owed to let you put in the sweat for it.  It could be just the usual shortsightedness applied to their own benefit (cake now is better than health in 3 weeks – same idea applied to another’s health) or it could just be blindness to the fact that they are also beneficiaries and seeing the exercise as sheer selfish gain for you.

I remember, as a teenager or a young man, hearing the word “willpower” used in the context of exercise – as in, getting through a physically taxing exercise needs willpower.

Now, of course, I am desperate for exercise and relish every opportunity I have for it.  The exercise of willpower is in only two things – a. Setting aside other things (and the inevitable scathing criticism because of that) to get exercise and b.  Using judgment to make sure I am not getting carried away in making too much time for exercise.