I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the differences.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the differences. - Robert frost

Last one week I was exhausted with all my assignments submissions and my mid- term test. I did not get enough sleep. Although it was group assignment I had to contribute my part there. A big hug from my mentor would always cherish me. Whenever I feel tired and exhausted I will text him. He is a successful entrepreneur. His name is Elango Thiyagu. So do check this page to know more of what he is doing. 
( https://www.facebook.com/ETIdeasGroup/?fref=ts ) Here is another link to his blog. Do read his interesting experiences and a different dimension of life. (http://elangothiyagu.com/ ) 

The reason I am talking about him is not to promote his business but to share how my life has changed after meeting him. The reason I don't mind travelling to college for 2 hours every single day, and why I do my things happily even after all the tiredness is because I followed my heart. Well we all are unique in our own way,but what I felt was rebelling. I knew life had something extraordinary in store for me. Whoever you are, you have to trust your uniqueness. There is something about you that makes you, yourself, and it takes courage to bring it out.

To admit to yourself that it exists and to have the courage to release it and let it breathe and grow. Society seems to suppress being different. Not in every part of the world, but still, expectations from society can squash your uniqueness. A few months ago, when I was about to make a big decision in my life, was when I met him. At that time, I was trapped into the system of following the norm of society. 

    I entered science stream after my Form Three exams. At that time, I did not know whether I liked science stream or arts. Just because I got a good result, I was told and maybe encouraged to get into that. To be honest, I did not follow my heart. Because during those times I did not even know how to listen to my heart. To put it bluntly I followed the crowd where all highest scoring students are meant to enter science stream. Similar things happened when I finished my form five examination. 

My parents wanted me to continue to form 6 and that was also in science stream. I had the slight interest to enter arts stream in form 6. But again all I did was, listen to my mother. And also my own thoughts went like " What would others think if I suddenly jumped into arts stream? " I understood this situation after I met my mentor. Nature tried its best to bring me into arts stream but in a way I ignored it. 

After I finished my form 6, while waiting for my results, that was when I met my mentor. Here I would like to thank my tuition teacher and also the founder of Sanma Concepts Solutions, Mr Ganesan and Ms Rani who have been a part of ET ideas for a very long time. ( https://www.facebook.com/ETIdeasGroup/?fref=ts ) Believe it or not I did not take his invite seriously to attend ET Youth for few months.   (https://www.facebook.com/ETYouth/?fref=ts ) It is a talk organized by the team. 

This clearly shows how my old programming tried to prevent me from going into a new environment. After attending a few of his talk, I got the opportunity to talk to him. After metting him for few times, he really gave me knocks on my head about how I was so not following my heart. 

Mr Ganesan and Ms Rani during ET Youth. 

Discussion during weekly ET ideas meeting.

 He waited for a few weeks for me to open up and told him what I really liked and wanted to do. I really need to thank him for the patience he had when dealing with me, and even now. Then, I decided to do what I liked and that I was not going to follow the society norm anymore. Previously I was so shy to tell people that this is actually what I liked to do. I was afraid that I would be judged by society. 

Because I thought that " What would other people think if a science stream student has all this kind of likes? " At first it was hard for me to tell people that I have made my mind up and I did not want to do or be into the science stream anymore. I had the fortune of being with my mentor who supported the " out of ordinary" and this is what gave me courage to dare to be different. 

Everyone will look at you as though you have done something wrong for yourself, including your parents. They would make fun of you. They asked me questions like " What is wrong with you " , " Why you did you not study medicine? " and it went on and on. Having a dad who saved my contact as 'Dr Thiviya' on his phone and mom who tells everyone that I am going to study medicine, it was really hard for me to take the path that I actually wanted. I made people feel inferior simply because I had the courage they did not. Because I am alive while they just live. They want you to fail and then tell you that they "told you so". These are the same people that will pat you on the back once you succeed and tell you they believed in you from start.But at the same time I would like to thank my parents for supporting me all this while. Although they are still not happy with my decision, somehow they agreed. They have supported me throughout my life and still.   

The people that will encourage you are the people that are on your team, who took the road less traveled by too. Do not worry if you don't have the full support of your loved one's, they are just worried. We all want stability, security and safety. This is normal. When you get closer to your destination people will have more and more confidence in you. Do not second guess yourself when things don't go that well. You made the right choice. Well these are the things that I was taught to follow by my mentor. 

 ".... and I took the one less traveled by..." you go on a road that is less traveled, you see things others can't. You experience what others don't. This brings you confidence because you survived. You start trusting your decisions, and once you do, others will start to trust you too. You have different stories to tell, you have another outlook on life. And this is all because of your initial choice to take that different road.  "....and that has made all the difference "

Does Money Control you ?

     Recently, I experienced a situation. I saw how people react when they realized there is not enough money. Most of us have this "never enough" policy. The more we accumulate money, the more it brings us into the "never enough" world. The meaning of "never enough" is you are never satisfied with what you have. Having millions or billions would not satisfy the “never enough” policy.

     Well think about the fact that the currency we have exchange is nothing more than a printed paper. It does not really have any value except the value that had been assigned to it. Why would we want to measure our personal worth against printed paper that has no value ?      

         "Having lots of money equals being well respected" – that is the mind-set that millions of people have adopted. To some degree, our sense of self growth and security tends to rise and fall with the rise and fall of our income. And regardless of how we reason on it out intellectually, the truth is most of us have an emotional connection with money because the feeling is always better when finances are not an issue. Obviously we need some financial security in our lives. But apart from this we have a life to live. Life where we take more responsibilities to make it happier not richer.   

  

     

        So coming back to the situation I was talking about earlier. Fortunately, at that point of time I was aware what was happening. The words that come out from a person's mouth when he or she is very emotional. I was stunned. I do not know what to say when the person’s emotions are high. I kept quiet and went off from that place. 

       When I spoke to my mentor about it, he actually said that I have something to learn from the situation - . because whatever situation Nature puts us in, it is for us to learn something from there. So he asked me to learn how money control people’s emotion. As human beings, we are also emotional beings and most of the times, we are in situations where we make emotional decisions about our money. 

        When we are dealing with negative emotions that have potential for creating emotional spending, realize that its OK to engage in that emotion some time. We could allow ourselves to feel the emotion for a short time, and then move on, and find a productive way to change things for the better instead. We can commit ourselves to productive action and come up with some small things we can do to control the situation we are dealing with. Allow ourselves to worry about it for a few minutes, and then take some concrete steps towards fixing the problem. That is how it has to be. 

The power of my subconscious mind !!

So I'm here to share some of the things I have learned about the subconscious mind. I have been facing so many obstacles and it is really funny how it always drags me to follow my old habit patterns every time my willpower reduces.

The picture above really explains how our mind is structured. The difference between the conscious and subconscious mind. It shows how deep our subconscious mind is. It contains things that we have done or our regular habit patterns. So when I met Elango Thiyagu, He is an Entrepreneur. Do check this page to know more about what he does:  ( http://www.et-ideas.com/) he taught me to view life in a different perspective. He teaches me how my mind works. At times I really feel like it is a trap to learn how our mind works because it is hard to do anything about it.


I understood that  we cannot allow our subconscious mind to dominate our thinking, otherwise, our subconscious mind would constantly be in the battle with our conscious mind.  It took few months for me to figure out how it really works. Those days I met him very often and I learnt about mind, life and heart. A few months later I realised that I was not meeting him as often as I used to and not texting him as regularly. My mind just clouded with thoughts that he is busy, he has other people to teach. he is on holidays, and it is better I do not disturb him. Whenever I had the feeling of something is not right, I would always told myself that " Everything is okay and do not worry "


It easily brought me to my old habit patterns. I started doing my daily activities as I used to do before I met him. My subconscious pulled me into communicating with people who would have high chances of distracting me from my goals. Most importantly, my mind followed my senses. I have always wanted to discover how does it feels to have a relationship because I was surrounded by people who are in a relationship. I almost went into a relationship that was not good for me. I found myself looking for relationships. I tend to ignore  the things around me. 

I was no more doing the practical thinking that I am supposed to. I was entertaining things not related to my goals. To put it bluntly I followed my senses without critical thinking. It also attracted people who has the tendency to entertain my old programming which are seeking for help and talking about my problems. I met my old friends and talked nonsense.     



Well few weeks later I really felt something was not right. Continuously for two days, I had conversations with him on why it happened and what has happened. It was really surprising to know how my subconscious mind took over for these few weeks and how it just manipulated my conscious mind to think that everything was alright. I was speechless. I came to know how it tried to bring my old habit patterns. Which was so obvious yet I did not realize it 



Our subconscious mind can sabotage the way we think by pulling us back into old thinking patterns. We must remain aware of our subconscious state of mind. Our subconscious mind can take control of our thoughts at any time. We must build a strong gatekeeper to separate us from intentions of our subconscious mind or else it will manipulate our thoughts. 

We have the power and will to take control of our thoughts. We have the power to  take over and defeat our subconscious mind's intentions. Anyone who is able to accept defeat and enter into reasoning, will understand that the only thing that separates us from successful people, is our perception towards reality.