“The wing of clear seeing is often described in Buddhist practice as mindfulness. This quality of awareness recognises exactly what is happening in our moment-to-moment experience. When we are mindful of fear, for instance, we are aware that our thoughts are racing, that our body feels tight and shaky, that we feel compelled to flee—and we recognise all this without trying to manage our experience in any way, without pulling away. Because we are not tampering with our experience, mindfulness allows us to see life ‘as it is.’ “

This means that I need to question the underlying transformation I desire. To look at it from the big ‘Why’ perspective. Using James Clear’s terminology, the change I seek is not only about changing my outcomes and systems but also my identity, beliefs and worldview.

I realise that my days are filled with ordinary moments that make my day extraordinary. Things like drinking an expresso lungo in the early morning while journalling and listening to Max Richter’s wonderful tunes. Reading Tolstoy and/or his Russian friends. Having deep and vulnerable conversations with friends after a few glasses of ‘Malbec’ Red wine.

Here’s a better question: “How can we learn to tame the ego and begin our journeys to authenticity?” We should accept and honour the ego as a gift; it pushes us to go out and play, explore, experience, and test our limits. It leads us to mistakes, failure, and pain, but that’s where the greatest lessons lie. We need to be in darkness before we can recognise and shed light.

From the bottom of the order upwards, the needs are physiological (food and clothing), safety (job security), love and belonging needs (friendship), esteem, and self-actualisation. Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to higher ideals.

As the TedX day grew nearer, my sleep got more erratic. I would remind myself every morning that I had decided on it, was committed to it, and would give it my best. I practised my talk as if my life depended on it. I repeated it five or six times. I made my family listen to me practice, and then I went to work and forced my employees to hear me out as well. The more I practised, the less fear I held.

Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is often associated with the concept of the midlife crisis. Jung believed that as people move through the different stages of life, they experience a series of psychological transformations that he called Individuation.

Others are not so lucky and have very low self-worth, no doubt broken childhoods and bad parents being the cause. Again a person I know comes to mind; he had achieved great wealth and yet allowed his wife to trample all over him until she left him with most of his money.

By midlife, on a whim, I started to write. I enjoyed the self-expression, the solitude and how writing helped me grow in self-awareness. The deeper I got into the writing world, the more I desired that life. Who wouldn’t want to be Hemingway?

In marketing, there is a concept known as TOMA, or “top-of-mind awareness”, which refers to a brand or specific product being first in customers’ minds when thinking of a particular industry or category. So, for example, when I think of cars, BMW stands out for me. Or when I think of chocolate, I can’t but envision myself opening and unwrapping a ‘Toblerone’ bar.

I left contemplating the actual value of friendships. From numerous scientific research, we know the benefits of having deep connections. For example, psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, the director of an 81-year-old study on adult development, states in his famous TED talk that people with healthy relationships live much happier and longer lives. The study focuses on having fewer but deeper longstanding relationships.

“Individuation is the lifelong project of becoming more nearly the whole person we were meant to be — what the gods intended, not the parents, or the tribe, or, especially, the easily intimidated or inflated ego. While revering the mystery of others, our Individuation summons each of us to stand in the presence of our own mystery and become more fully responsible for who we are in this journey we call our life.”

Many, many years ago, when I was in college, I was stuck in a toxic relationship. It was clear to my friends that I should walk away, but I didn’t. The relationship ended after she unceremoniously dumped me. I didn’t have the strength to leave, and I suffered accordingly.

In a passage appearing in the Pali Canon, one of the oldest remaining Buddhist texts, the Buddha’s loyal attendant, Ananda, approaches the Buddha and asks, “Venerable sir, this is half of the spiritual life, that is, good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship.” The Buddha replies enthusiastically yet sternly: “Not so, Ananda! Not so! This is the entire spiritual life, that is good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship.”

Over the last month, several events have conspired together to leave me feeling helpless and lacking control. These included a mini cash flow crisis at my company and being disappointed by a friend. At first, I was left dejected and reacted badly in both instances.

We have two separate minds — The conscious and the unconscious minds. The conscious mind, which represents only 5% of our mind, is the thinking mind, where we think freely and accept or reject any idea. It gets information from our five senses and is rooted in the present, e.g., when we hear a car approaching as we cross the road, we immediately stop.

Jonathan David Haidt is a world-renowned social psychologist. He found that gut feelings(like disgust in his experiment) influence our reason much more than the other way around for his dissertation. He would later come up with the now-famous analogy of the Elephant and the Rider.

I start up my computer to write, but I can’t seem to focus. My mind is all over the place. So I look for the slightest distraction. I see a fly in the room. Yes, a fly and I stop what I’m doing and start chasing it. But, of course, it flies off, leaving me frustrated.

Mother Teresa is well-known as the Catholic nun who devoted her life to caring for the destitute and dying in the slums of Calcutta, India. However, she didn’t speak in front of thousands or write a book about how important it was to help the poor. Instead, she went about doing her humanitarian work in a quiet and unassuming manner, dedicating every minute of her life to that cause, winning a Nobel peace prize in 1979 for her efforts.

All these questions quickly bring on a sense of overwhelm, and anxiety starts to creep up my body, finally resting on my throat, where I can’t speak, write or think about it anymore. So I quickly abandoned my thoughts and let my dream sleep in a far-away place.