STOP SLEEPING TOO MUCH PLEASE!

Robin Sharma, the author of the best seller, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is one contemporary writer i admire and follow closely for his uplifting and transformational ideas and thoughts on life and leadership. Below is his article on SLEEPING!...hmmm those who know me will certainly feel that this is one area i should not be talking about here or let alone of advocating it.. but after reading this article... i have to....

Robin Sharma


I know I'm unpopular on this point. But I owe you my truth: most people sleep more than they need to. They fall into the trap of spending some of the best hours of their lives on a mattress. They squander their potentially breathtaking gifts under the covers. They lose The Battle of The Bed. They trade their greatness for a snooze button.

Here's an insight I invite you to consider: sleep begets sleep. The more sleep you take, the more you need. Ever noticed that as you sleep more, you feel sleepier? Strange isn't it.
But it's true.

Yes, I get that sleep is essential to keep us bright and renewed and healthy. My fear is too much sleep. The kind that keeps great people small. The kind that minimizes high-potential lives. The kind that sucks the living out of human beings destined to shine (and you know who you are). Happens to a lot of us. Because we fall in love with a pillow.

Too much to do and too many great places to explore and too many Big Hairy Audacious Goals (thanks Jim Collins) to get to sleep too much. Life is for the living. I need to repeat that again: “life is for the living.” You and I have been given a gift today: to have the opportunity to make a difference and exercise our talents and have a brilliantly fun time doing it. And we need to seize (and respect) that gift.

So sleep less. Live more. And as Benjamin Franklin observed: “there will be plenty of time to sleep when you're dead.” (I've always liked that guy)

My Recent Home Trip!

This is where i belong. HOME. This is where i began and as far as i know, it's going to end here... HOME. As someone said, home is where your heart is no matter where you are at any point in time on this planet. Earth. This time this came so sudden at my face. out of the blue. And you know what, emergency is going to be one word henceforth that i would abhor to pronounce even. You might have heard a lot of people uttering this word, like emergency case. Well, until it came face to face, i never knew the depth of it. you never know how long the tunnel is going to be until you see the light the other end of the tunnel. It's like kicking a ball in a dark playing field. You don't have time to plan out things ahead, which i usually do. you are blank in head. But i accepted under the circumstances which i would not want to disclose...

I accepted. I am a guy who believes destiny is made by shelf. but sometimes destiny is written by fate. There are times in life wherein you have no control of things in life. It's like driving a car whose brake's just got failed.

i landed home safely 27th August, amidst the ongoing protests against the Khwairamband killings where a reformed militant and pregnant woman were killed leaving five others injured. I sensed an atmosphere quite different from my december trip. As i and my younger brother drove out of the airport, i was shocked to see the whole tiddim road was blank. empty. no buses, no vehicles... except military vehicles... assam rifles i guess so. It feels awkward to see an important road in the capital city of a state empty, if u happen to come from a city like mumbai. So i asked my bro, 'what's going on? Is there a ban today?' he explained, it wasn't a ban. it's just that people don't want to come out of their houses... there's curfew after only a few hours from now.' Suddenly I realized... CURFEW.

There most depressing part of the trip was the whole Imphal city had a deserted look. though people were seen smiling, i saw the fear on their faces, what's going to happen next?. Reading news about manipur on the net when you're away from the state is starkly different from reading the state face to face. It's depressing. it's melancholy. it's sad.



Another thing i was very concerned of was the Manipur's drought situation where i heard fairly about it in news. honestly speaking i am a farmer at heart. the first thing i did was i went to our fields [labuk]. I was caught by surprise to see paddy siblings grow fairly well. I told my father, 'i never expected this... i mean all i heard was that Manipur was facing a severe drought like situation.'



My father explained, 'just two weeks back [second week of August], the floodgates of heaven flung wide open. so we got quite a good rainfall. so we could plant these siblings. just the day before it just stopped.' hmmm maybe raingods might have known that i was coming home...