[book] Who Will Cry When You Die, Robin Sharma (10/10)

[Key Elements]

This book offers very practical but profound advices. It could get more profound as you go along on your journey. When you read a passage from this book once, and you come back to it after let's say a year, the meaning will be deeper. It will sound different to the person with more experience. 

Here's an example from the book:

Practice the Action Habit 

"Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it," observed David Starr Jordan. Most of us know what we need to do in order to live happier, healthier and more fulfilling lives. The real problem is that we don't do what we know. I have heard many motivational speakers say, "Knowledge is power." I disagree. Knowledge is not power. Knowledge is only potential power. It transforms itself into actual power the moment you decisively act on it....

All too often, we spend our days waiting for the ideal path to appear in front of us. We forget that paths are made by walking, not waiting. Dreaming is great. But thinking big thoughts alone will not build a business, pay your bills or make you into the person you know in your heart you can be. In the words of Thomas Carlyle, "The end of man is an action and not a thought, though it were the noblest." The smallest of actions is always better than the boldest of intentions. 

[Loreena]

@Key Elements Thank you for sharing. Wonderful review. 

[Key Elements]

I'm at a turning point in my life where I have to relocate. So, lots of things are going on with me now. I would like to share two more passages from this book because I want to make these two passages part of my "morning prayer" when I wake up in the morning followed by a brief meditation of maybe 10 minutes. This will help me stay focused during my day. You may also do the same if you like, but it doesn’t have to be the same two passages. I may even decide to change the passages later to something else depending on my situation. 

Here they are:

Have a Living Funeral 

When I was doing research for 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari', I came across the story of an Indian maharaja who would engage in a bizarre morning ritual: everyday, immediately after waking up, he would celebrate his own funeral, complete with music and flowers. All the while, he would chant, "I have lived fully; I have lived fully; I have lived fully."

When I first read this, I could not understand the purpose of this man's ritual. So I asked my father for some guidance. His reply was this: "Son, what this maharaja is doing is connecting to his mortality everyday of his life so he will live each day as if it were his last. His ritual is a very wise one and reminds him of the fact that time slips through our hands like grains of sand and the time to live life greatly is not tomorrow but today." One's sense of mortality is a great source of wisdom.

While on his deathbed, Plato was asked by a friend to summarize his great life's work, 'The Dialogues.' After much reflection, he replied in only two words: "Practice dying." The ancient thinkers had a saying that captured the point Plato made in other terms: 'Death ought to be right there before the eyes of those who are young just as much as before the eyes of those who are very old. Every day, therefore, should be regulated as if it were the one that brings up the rear, the one that rounds out and completes our lives.' Having a living funeral will reconnect you to the fact that time is a priceless commodity and the best time to live a richer, wiser and more fulfilling life is now.

Stop Complaining and Start Living 

Stop complaining about having no time for yourself and get up an hour earlier. You have the option, why not exercise it? Stop complaining about not being able to exercise given all that is on your plate these days. If you sleep seven hours a night and work eight hours everyday, you still have more than sixty-three hours of free time every week to do all the things you want to do. This amounts to 252 hours every month and 3,024 hours every single year to spend on life's pursuits. There has never been a more exciting time to be alive in the history of the world and you have the choice to seize the boundless possibilities that everyday presents.

If you are not as fulfilled or as happy or as prosperous or as peaceful as you know you could be, stop blaming your parents or the economy or your boss and take full responsibility for your circumstances. This will be the first step to a completely new way of looking at your life and the starting point of a better way to live. As George Bernard Shaw said, "The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them."

Make wiser choices about the thoughts you will allow to enter your mind, as well as the attitude you will bring to your days and the way you will spend the hours of your time. Stop complaining and start living. In the words of the poet Rudyard Kipling, "If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run, yours is the earth and everything that's in it."

After reading these two passages, I may also add the following before the morning meditation:

[Erlend K]

Thank you for posting this. I will check out the book. 

[Anirban657]

This is my first motivation book I read at the at of 12.

[Key Elements]

@Anirban657 Was it deep/meaningful for you at that age? Adults will see it differently. 

I used to listen to Thich Nhat Hanh around the age of 12 - 14. He puts things simply and easy to understand in his work. It was beautiful, but I couldn't fully grasp things like mindfulness, ego, 'we are from stars,' etc.

[Anirban657]

@Key Elements This book opened a new possibility for me. It showed me was what's possible. That I could also live a successful life everyday. 

I will read it again. I am sure I will understand it more when I read it now.