Until you have mastered and tamed the waves of this ocean called life, the book Don't Forget Your Floaters that you hold in your hands can serve as a manual to the young and an eye opener for the mature. Every page, every chapter is an entry point to a new happy life that you are about to begin. And if you think, you are a great swimmer who has managed to swim to the horizon every time – share with us your secret/your floater.
Read it NOW – to improve your understanding of life and more importantly, of yourself. REMEMBER, YOU ARE THE MEDIUM AND YOU ARE THE MESSAGE OF YOUR LIFE. Allow yourself happy floating, perhaps sailing through a very wonderful, exciting, passionate and meaning life.
"K.B.Trehan, a mining engineer, never quite set out to be a writer. He became a writer by chance" –Suburb Magazine.
Life and tragedy had a lot to do with it. Emerging from the dark mines, resolves to show us the light at the end of the tunnel. His books, whether the sensitive semi-fiction Dancing on the notes of Life or the story of balance and resolution Illusions of Love, have been highly absorbing and a great motivation to live happily and completely.
K.B.Trehan, a mining engineer, KB as he is fondly called, has an impeccable record of four decades of unique heavy industry leadership experience. All in all, he has the rare admirable experience in operation management and project accomplishment that synchronously meshes the industry gears of Mining, Steel and Power.
A socially conscious KB has looked after Dhanbad Relief Society for many years and also responsible for eradicating leprosy from some interior areas of Jharkhand. For his dedication and social work, he was presented with Smt Bala Tandon Award for upgrading the quality of life of workers.
KB’s fecund mind is the source of numerous papers on management & technical subjects. Besides, he has also chosen to harness his personal abilities and delve deeper into the realms of human behaviour, motivation, life and is a sensitive writer of books.
Acknowledgements 5
Editor’s Note 6
Author’s Note 7
When I looked Within: Know thyself 9
Learning to Unlearn 25
God Makes You.
You Make Your Attitude 41
Never give up 51
This too Shall Pass 61
Mind Over Matter 67
Focus Your Energy 87
He who enjoys his Work,
never works a day in his Life 99
Ego & Me 109
The Art of Giving 123
Fume-mitigation
Managing Anger 141
Forgiveness 153
It comes back 167
Reshape … Remake Yourself 177
Accept Life as it Comes 189
Ultimate Relationship 201
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Never give up
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”
– Dale Carnegie
It was a beautiful spring morning a few years ago when I stepped on to my balcony with a cup of tea in my hand. As I sipped the brew, the peace of the morning was suddenly shattered by the shrill chirping of some birds. I turned in that direction and saw two sparrows wildly flying around another balcony. My happy heart sank as I saw the reason for their agitation. In the balcony, stood a maid with a long broom, with her mistress by her side, loudly giving instructions.
“Get it all out!” she cried.
The broom brushed over a ledge above the balcony door and down came crashing a mass of straws, dry grass and leaves. The birds had just lost their newly built nest! An hour later, I happened to look out of the window and was surprised by what I saw. The birds were at it again, bringing straw and grass and rebuilding their nest at the very same place!
Over the next few weeks, it became a daily ritual. The maid would sweep away the bundle of straw and next morning, it would be there again! She did not seem to tire of the task and neither did the birds. They seemed to be born with a never-say-die spirit!
It set me thinking.
How often do set-backs propel our inner engines?
What do we do when we suffer a set back? What we do when disaster strikes? Do we have the courage to start all over again? Or, we get disheartened and leave it.
How often we hear people say,“That’s enough.”The effort is just not worth it!” “I am tired of it all.” “It’s all too much.”
Don’t we easily give up, sit and curse fate or circumstances for our failures?
The two untiring birds epitomize patience and the spirit of never giving up. They just continue to chirp, sing and go on with their work, patiently building and rebuilding, till their nest is ready again; and never giving up. They instill into a person the ability to move forward and ultimately emerge successful.
Are you being fooled by your circumstances?
More often than not, we give up efforts during the course of a struggle because our circumstances appear so overwhelming. The mind gets fooled into thinking that there is no way out and trying would just be a waste of time and resources.
The mind accepts only what is logical. It gathers data from what is going on around and then comes to a conclusion. In itself, the mind is not capable of seeing beyond logic. It is very much limited in its perception by what it perceives in the present. And so it can get fooled. Fooled, because no one really knows what could happen tomorrow or even the next moment.
You might be ready to abandon your efforts because circumstances do not favour you. But what if things improve in the future?
Your mind might say that there is no way that you can win and you in turn, may prepare yourself to give up the struggle. But what if there is another way out which is not obvious to you today but could become clear sometime later?
There is bound to be some way! Only the mind may not perceive it at that point in time. The mind is a tool of rational thinking but not always is it reliable. If you find it hard to believe then just think – how come a tortoise entered into a race with a hare… and won! Fine, one might say that it is just a fable! But it is a fable with a powerful message. It not only conveys that‘slow and steady wins the race’, it brings through the idea that our mind can be easily fooled.
So, if your mind tells you that you are in a no-win situation, then learn to say shut-up to it once in a while, for there are thousands of real life incidents that tell us how people came out as winners, even in situations where the mind told them that they could never succeed.
When Henry Ford put forward his idea to manufacture a motor car for the masses, none other than the great scientist Thomas Alva Edison told him to give up his idea as he believed it to be worthless. But Ford did not abandon his dream and went on to establish a company that manufactured cars for the masses! The never-give-up spirit also came in handy for the great 19th century Italian violin player Niccolo Paganini. Once when he was giving a performance, a string of his violin snapped. But without even a pause, he continued to play.
Just a few seconds later, another string snapped, and then a third. Just one string remained on the violin, but so well did he improvise that the audience were left spellbound by his mastery. Where another violinist might have apologized and stopped, he went on, and that particular performance of his is rated amongst his best. The incident if anything tells us that hurdles are bound to appear in life, but do not let the mind be
‘fooled’ into believing that one cannot proceed any further. Do not give up, come what may and you will surely find a way to win! But if you think, you have lost it then you will lose.
Success might just be round the corner
Many of us give up at the last minute, when just another step could take us to victory, to the trophy, to the goal! It could be because of two reasons – discouragement from others or self defeat/ lack or exhaustion of self-motivation. In every such situation, although difficult, one should try to remember that whether it was flying in the air or diving deep into the ocean or even setting foot on the moon; all has been achieved through man’s determination to succeed even after repeated failures.
You might have heard that every failure is a step in the direction of your goal. But how? Encountering failure is an elimination process. It is through failure alone that you can eliminate a wrong way of doing a thing until you find the right way. The devilish forces in life are determined to strike us down at times. But it is just to test our strength. If in trying times one gets impatient, it only breeds fear, stress, disillusionment and unhappiness. It is patience and patience alone, before which difficulties and obstacles disappear and you can then conquer destiny.
So, get rid of impatience, persevere harder in times of pressure and just when it seems
like it is the end. Persevere with patience and calmness of the mind. At the same time, visualise success and think how great it would be to get there.
The key is to always push yourself, keep chugging with single minded focus, no matter what happens. Even if you lose once, build more momentum. Strive to be stronger. Do not shrink back. It is persistence and persistence alone, which will win the day. Wherever you are headed, you will definitely reach there if you just keep going, patiently.
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