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Writer's pictureAnaadi Foundation

Yuva Spot: Transcending Limitations

Many of us are extreme­ly bored with the monot­o­ny of rou­tine of every­day life. We might won­der why our life seems dull and bor­ing. We are bored with the rou­tine of col­lege life, the lec­tures, the assign­ments, the food and the environment.This bore­dom leads to frus­tra­tion, and, not know­ing how to bring about a change in the way we func­tion, many of us sink into lethar­gy and idle­ness. How­ev­er, instead of set­tling into a state of stag­na­tion, the frus­tra­tion we feel, can be used to fuel our moti­va­tion to grow and expand the bound­aries of who we are.

Great achieve­ments in the world took place when peo­ple ques­tioned the lim­i­ta­tions set by human­i­ty for itself. Every­body thought that Mount Ever­est was insur­mount­able. Along came Edmund Hillary and Ten­z­ing Nor­gay who strove to scale it, and suc­ceed­ed in break­ing the bound­ary set by Mankind.

When we chal­lenge our­selves and strive to break our own lim­i­ta­tions, we grow in capa­bil­i­ty and expand in vision. One must start from where one is, at the present time,and set one­self chal­lenges to over­come one’s phys­i­cal and men­tal lim­i­ta­tions.

For exam­ple, a sim­ple chal­lenge would be to wake up in the morn­ing at 5.00 am and exer­cise .Wak­ing up ear­ly might be dif­fi­cult for many. Hence, this is a chal­lenge for the body. By doing this, one over­comes one’s phys­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions. Like­wise, one can work towards expand­ing one’s phys­i­cal capa­bil­i­ties.

We all want to feel ener­getic and vibrant.The food that we eat is plays a vital role in deter­min­ing our ener­gy lev­els. Food that is exces­sive­ly spicy, pun­gent, con­tain­ing too much oil and masala and espe­cial­ly non-veg­e­tar­i­an food, are heavy on the stom­ach and much ener­gy goes into diges­tion. Hence,our ener­gy lev­els go down and we are not able to stay alert. Con­sum­ing fresh fruits, veg­eta­bles and sattvic ahaara, which are light on our stom­ach, helps us remain fresh and alert, with the brain func­tion­ing at its best. Set­ting our­selves a chal­lenge, to avoid eat­ing those foods and turn­ing to a sattvic diet would go a long way in enhanc­ing the qual­i­ty of our gen­er­al health and well-being.

Many peo­ple get togeth­er to gos­sip about oth­ers, or speak ill of the things and per­sons around them. This breeds neg­a­tiv­i­ty in the mind and makes one’s per­spec­tive of the world and the peo­ple neg­a­tive. Hence, one can set one­self an inter­est­ing chal­lenge. One could main­tain a pig­gy bank exclu­sive­ly for this, and each time one gos­sips about or slan­ders anoth­er, one must remain true to one­self and drop Rs 10 into the bank. This helps to put a check to gos­sip and slan­der. Anoth­er very pow­er­ful chal­lenge is that of mau­na, silence. One could abstain from all speech for a day and remain silent whilst going through the day’s activ­i­ties.

Trekking is an awe­some way of break­ing lim­i­ta­tions that we have set for our body and mind. Most peo­ple do not take up trekking because they are not com­fort­able with the pain they feel in the body dur­ing and after the trek. If your leg aches..it is just a leg ache! If your head aches, it is just a headache and noth­ing dras­tic hap­pens. Your body takes some­time to adapt to the new set­ting. Def­i­nite­ly things are not going to be the same on the plains and the moun­tains. Do not pan­ic if you feel dif­fer­ent. Just enjoy the trek. In most treks, the last few kilo­me­ters are the tough­est. First­ly because you are tired, sec­ond­ly because you may be get­ting clos­er to the peak. That’s when most peo­ple give up. But believe me, it’s going to be awe­some once you reach there. So chal­lenge your body a lit­tle bit. That’s the only way to break the lim­i­ta­tions that you have set for your­self and that’s the only way to under­stand your true capa­bil­i­ties.

In the Indi­an yog­ic sys­tem, it has been advised that any form of prac­tice be done for one Man­dala i.e 48 days. Just as the embryo needs to spend enough time in the womb to become a ful­ly formed child, a yog­ic prac­tice needs it’s time to mature with­in our sys­tem. It takes some time for our food to digest and give us ener­gy. Sim­i­lar­ly, it will take some time for the prac­tices to inte­grate with our sys­tem and offer us ben­e­fits. While cre­at­ing a new habit, like an exer­cise rou­tine, we cre­ate a space in our mind for it. We also make the nec­es­sary adjust­ments in our envi­ron­ment to accom­mo­date the new habit, say an adjust­ment in our time sched­ule. It takes time for the mind and body to be tuned to this. Hence don’t be quick to judge, keep prac­tic­ing for a Man­dala and then beyond.

Set­ting chal­lenges such as these, over­com­ing them and push­ing our own phys­i­cal and men­tal bar­ri­ers not only gives us a sense of achieve­ment, but also moti­vates us to set big­ger and greater chal­lenges to keep grow­ing and expand­ing in abil­i­ty and vision.

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