When I was in 10th standard, I witnessed one hell of an amusing act by one of my teachers. He wrote on the board two different sentences with two hands simultaneously. What the heck! I thought if only I could do that!

This involved two things. Ambidexterity and parallel processing. Although I don’t know if conscious human brain can operate as multiple cores (subconscious + conscious as different cores does not count!), but it’s certainly possible to deceive people just like uniprocessor computer does. By reducing the switching time quantum between two concurrent processes so much that they appear to be running in parallel. Well, that’s what my teacher did. Why can’t I do the same then?

I tried. I failed. Although acquiring parallel processing skill is more difficult task than ambidexterity, I decided to be at least ambidextrous before I try the next level. Although I practice this every now and then, it’s time to launch this with well directed efforts. Few days back I started playing table tennis with left hand and I could beat my office friends quite easily! Well, it’s not as difficult as it may look!

Here’s what I am going to practice with left hand so as to move forward, and even you can if you want to do the same.

1. Eating.
2. Brushing teeth is most challenging.
3. Writing. This will certainly take 6 months at least to become good at.
4. Cooking.

Apart form this, doing every small activity throughout the day with non dominant hand.

How’s this connected to meditative state? If you do things with right hand, you do them sub-consciously while allowing conscious mind to think about something else. Now, if you start doing them with left hand, you have to focus completely on the task, thus being in present moment. Is meditation something different?

Try this and your brain will be happy as it gets chance to do some new exercises every day! 😀

 

I intend to get to run 10 Kms comfortably at the end of my summer break. So I started running a week back with a target of running at least 3 Kms daily.

Some days I ran alone. On some, I ran with different people. The result is astonishing. Whenever I ran alone, I ran for around 3 Kms. Whenever I ran with others, I ran more than 6 Kms.

Why is it so? Does that mean I am lazy? Certainly not. I achieved my target of 3 Kms anyway. But I thought 6 Kms was too much in first week. But it was not. Today I ran 8 Kms. My legs did hurt and I had to take a break due to pain in my rib cage mid run. But it was worth starting running again.

Pains not necessarily mean something’s wrong. Pains are deceiving. They open a store of interpretations for us to interpret. But beware! It’s important to interpret them correctly. You succeed, you push yourself. You fail, a new problem awaits you.

I saw my friend running and pushing himself. He had his own targets. A little walk to grasp the breath and subdue the pain and I was up running again.

In life, it’s very important to find people who inspire you, who run faster and longer than you. Not because they will make you run faster. Only so that you don’t stop. Speed is not important. Continuity is. The one who continues wins. Sprinters fail after some period.