In Defence of Ten

 

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Ever since I heard the story of crabs in a bucket — that no crab can escape because the others pull it back — I’ve been intrigued by how much we humans resemble them. Why do we do the same? Why pull others down when they try to climb up?

For years, I couldn’t find a satisfying answer. Not until today. Now I know that both crabs and humans are tied by the same number — the less of magic and more of tragic number — Ten. Crabs have ten claws, and humans have ten fingers, both occasionally used for bringing others down.

If you’re sympathetic to today’s school kids and agree they have justifiable reasons to hold a grudge against Ten, think about the early Romans! Their punishment for mutiny or cowardice was called decimation — where one in every ten soldiers was executed. Talk about giving a number a bad reputation.

Yet, paradoxically, Ten also represents perfection — the first double-digit number, a flawless score. The complete set of fingers that help us build, create, and type out complaints about the unfairness of life.

Maybe that’s the real irony — Ten gives us everything we need to lift each other up… and everything we use to pull each other down.

And fittingly, here we are in the tenth month of the year, with this little musing on Ten written in response to a prompt by Poets and Storytellers United.

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Read Reflect Rejoice

Territories

 

Today, while driving to work, I saw a small bird chasing another along the road verge.
It was a brief, almost comic scene — wings fluttering, sharp calls echoing, one bird fiercely defending a patch of grass no larger than a few square meters.

It’s a familiar sight. We’ve all seen such encounters in gardens, on terraces, balconies, and those little spaces we like to call ours — or at least believe to be under our care. Birds staking claim to air and branches, drawing invisible borders only they recognize.

If one pauses to watch closely, these tiny territorial battles raise a curious question.
While I technically own the garden — having paid for the land, tended the plants, and built the fence that marks its edge — the birds are merely visitors.
And yet, within that same space, they draw their own lines, chase away rivals, and claim rights to crumbs and insects — by virtue of arriving first, or simply by strength and persistence.

It makes me wonder — isn’t it all an illusion for the birds?

And somewhere out there, across that tattered line, if there truly is a Creator watching this grand spectacle we call the universe, I can’t help but wonder what passes through that mind.
When they see us mark territories with deeds, boundaries, and borders; fight, grab, and even destroy in the name of land, faith, or power — claiming what we believe is ours more fiercely than any other species.

Because much like the birds, our ownership exists only within the stories we tell ourselves — stories that shift with time, circumstance, and power.

Perhaps, in the end, we too are merely unaware guests in a garden that was never really ours to begin with.

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Read Reflect Rejoice

11 Things That Make Me Happy

 

Every now and then, it’s good to slow down and ask ourselves a simple question — what truly makes me happy? Not the big milestones or the grand achievements, but the small, quiet moments that make ordinary days beautiful.
Here are eleven such moments that never fail to lift my spirits.

1. The Aroma of Freshly Brewed Tea

There’s something deeply comforting about the smell of tea brewing — a sense of calm even before the first sip. It’s not just a beverage; it’s a ritual that grounds the day.

2. The Sound of Rainfall When I’m Indoors

Few things can match the rhythm of raindrops on windows. That sound — soft, steady, timeless — makes the world outside seem to pause for a while.

3. Finding Money in Unexpected Places

That sudden discovery of a forgotten note in a jacket pocket feels like the universe’s small way of saying, “Here, take a little joy.”

4. Laughing So Hard It Hurts

Laughter that takes over completely — where you can’t breathe, can’t speak, and end up wiping away tears — that’s pure happiness.

5. Reunions with School and College Friends

There’s a warmth in picking up right where you left off. The inside jokes, shared memories, and easy laughter make time irrelevant.

6. Chocolate Melting in the Mouth

The slow, rich sweetness of chocolate melting — a small indulgence that delights the senses and feels like childhood all over again.

7. Watching the Rainbows After a Storm

They appear without warning, like reminders that beauty often follows chaos. I never stop feeling wonder when I see one.

8. Singing in the Shower

It’s the one stage where I can perform fearlessly. The acoustics are great, the audience forgiving, and the mood always light.

9. The Smell of New Books

The faint woody scent of a freshly printed book — it’s more than paper and ink; it’s the promise of new ideas and uncharted worlds.

10. Driving for Ice Cream with My Daughter After Dinner

It’s one of those unplanned traditions — small, sweet adventures where conversations flow and time slows down.

11. Doing Something for Others

Helping someone — even in the smallest way — creates a quiet joy that lingers far longer than anything bought or achieved.

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Happiness doesn’t always announce itself. Sometimes, it hides in rain sounds, familiar faces, or the first sip of morning tea. The more we notice these little things, the richer life feels.

I’d love to know what makes you happy. Share your list, or even one small thing that brings you joy. You never know — your moment might remind someone else of their own forgotten smile. 🌿

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Read Reflect Rejoice

Life is not fair

 

“Life is not fair.”
It was a thought she felt crossed her mind more often than anyone else in the world.

That familiar sting had followed her since childhood — it always came back when things went against her wishes. Yet, in the face of every hardship, her mother, a single parent, had remained the epitome of positivity. She had this quiet, stubborn grace that turned every setback into a lesson.

That was twenty-four years ago. Back then, she was just a little girl of ten — too young to truly grasp what fairness meant.

“I am born out of wedlock and have never seen my father,” she would complain.
As a teenager, she found little comfort in her mother’s soft assurance that she was a love child — born of deep affection between two people who could not be together. It was too much philosophy for a young mind to hold — the idea that two people could love deeply, and yet be bound by constraints that love alone could not conquer.

Her mother used to say, “Sometimes love teaches us to let go — not because it is weak, but because it is wise.”

This morning, that same phrase came back to her — along with that old familiar thought: Life’s not fair.
She could feel it even before she opened her eyes — he was gone.

Soon, this house, this room, the furniture, even the garden they had built together, would lose their meaning. The hibiscus, the rose, the marigold — all would fade into dullness, drained of color but memory.

They both knew this relationship lived on borrowed time, a season stolen from reality. They had chosen to take what they could — a handful of beautiful, impossible moments — instead of a lifetime of compromise.

And now that it was over, she felt something strange.
Not just loss — but recognition.

Maybe it was destiny.
Maybe she was simply re-living a chapter from her mother’s life.
Or perhaps, somewhere deep in her being, it had always been coded into her genes.

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Read Reflect Rejoice

Why Less Negative Thinking Can Be the Most Positive Move

 

Let’s start with a thought-provoking question:
Which matters more — thinking more positively or thinking less negatively?

Most people instinctively reach for positive thinking. It sounds uplifting, energetic, empowering. But if you truly want to move forward faster and feel lighter, the answer isn’t more positive thinking — it’s less negative thinking.

Positive thinking has its place. Hope, optimism, and vision are essential to growth.
But what weighs us down isn’t usually the lack of positivity — it’s the quiet undercurrent of negativity we allow to run unchecked.

It creeps in silently.
The inner voice that criticizes, complains, or worries slips into our day before we even take our first sip of coffee.

Leadership and performance coach Price Pritchett described how our engagement with negativity often takes shape through what he called “the attack of the five C’s”:

• Complaining – focusing on the problem more than the possibility.

• Criticizing – seeing flaws instead of effort or progress.

• Concern – worrying excessively about things we can’t control.

• Commiserating – bonding over shared negativity instead of shared solutions.

• Catastrophizing – inflating one setback into a full-blown disaster.

Each of these drains focus, creativity, and confidence. The good news? The moment we start recognizing them, we begin to regain control over them.

So the next time you notice one of these patterns sneaking in, pause.
Take a breath.
Ask yourself: Is this thought helping me move forward — or holding me back?

“Less negative thinking” doesn’t mean ignoring reality or pretending everything is fine.
It means noticing negativity — and choosing not to feed it.

Sometimes the fastest way to bring more light into your life isn’t by adding brightness — it’s by removing the shadows that have been dimming it.

Take a moment to reflect:
Which of the five C’s — complaining, criticizing, concern, commiserating, or catastrophizing — tends to show up most in your thoughts?
And how might your day feel lighter if you simply released your hold on one of them?

🌿 Read. Reflect. Rejoice.

The Practice of Presence: Relearning the Joy of Deep Work

 

Yesterday, we asked a simple but profound question:
What deserves my full attention today — and am I willing to give it that gift?

If you still doubt the reach of intermittent attention, try a small experiment — one I’ve done myself.

Go to a coffee shop with time on your hands.
Take a seat at the back, where you can quietly observe most of the guests.

Notice the tables — people sitting alone, those with partners, and groups of friends.
Try to observe them all.

Watch how often their activity breaks — whether in the middle of a sentence, a thought, or a shared laugh.
And pay attention to the triggers. You’ll be surprised how easily people are distracted, even by strangers walking in, even by the ping of a phone that isn’t theirs.

That question lingers, doesn’t it?
It’s not easy to practice that wisdom, even when the answer is clear — the choice is to be here, not everywhere.

We often imagine focus as a discipline of the mind, but at its heart, it’s an act of care.
When we give something — a task, a conversation, a person — our undivided attention, we’re saying:

“You matter.”

Presence is love in its most practical form.

But every action has two sides.
If giving undivided attention says “you matter,” withholding it quietly says the opposite.
And when we act that way toward those who do matter, we begin our descent down a slippery slope — the path of unhappiness.

As we close this series, it’s worth remembering:
We hold the key to our peace and happiness in our own hands.

But relearning presence is not about withdrawing from the world — it’s about returning to it more fully.
It’s not about rigid control; it’s about regaining agency over where our mind rests.

Deep work, in this sense, is not only professional — it’s spiritual.
It’s the practice of immersion, of being wholly absorbed in what we do, until distraction loses its grip.

Our challenge is to build environments — and inner habits — where depth can thrive again.
Because while distraction is easy, depth is rare.

So before we rush back into our noise-filled routines, let’s pause for a simple — yet life-changing — promise:
To be fully present in the moment.

There may be many ways to achieve this, but I leave you with a simple routine to start practicing every day, starting today.

Notice where your mind drifts.
Each time it wanders, pause.
Take a breath.
Return to the task, the conversation, or the moment in front of you.

This simple practice, repeated over days and weeks, is how attention rebuilds itself — quietly, persistently, like a muscle regaining strength.

  Intermittent attention is not a personal flaw — today, it’s a cultural symptom.
The future will belong to those who can connect deeply to one thing at a time.

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🌿 Read. Reflect. Rejoice.

Link to Part 2 

           Link to Part 1 

The Epidemic of Intermittent Attention: How Constant Distraction Is Reshaping Our Minds

 

Today, we start from where we left off yesterday — where we shared wisdom from great minds on the importance of concentration and focus.

Now, let’s go a step deeper and explore how to rebuild attention as a habit, not merely resist distraction — how to move toward a philosophy of focus and presence.

We are living in a time when information comes at us with the quantity and force of a fire hose. We can no longer easily decide what is important and what is not. In that constant quest to stay updated, we live on alert — forever scanning for what comes next, and in the process, we lose hold of the present.
Consequently, attention has become a rare commodity.

This state has reached epidemic proportions, so much so that it now has a name — intermittent attention: a fragmented mental state where focus keeps leaping between a dozen competing demands.
Each tiny interruption steals a fraction of our mental energy. Over time, we end up scattered — busy, but rarely absorbed; informed, but seldom thoughtful.

Unlike true multitasking, where we attempt to do several things at once, intermittent attention is a kind of rapid toggling where we accomplish almost nothing.
It feels productive, but it isn’t.
This constant switching breaks the continuity of thought, disrupts memory, and slowly erodes creativity.

Our minds were never designed to refresh like a screen. Research shows that it takes 10–15 minutes for the brain to return to its pre-distraction focus state.

Students: The Most Affected

Students are the most vulnerable — precisely because they have the highest capacity to learn. Their minds are open, curious, and capable of deep absorption, but their environment constantly pulls them outward. Surrounded by devices engineered to capture attention, they live in a trap that is hard to escape.

Over time, the ability to read, reflect, and understand deeply begins to fade.
It’s not a lack of intelligence or motivation — it’s the environment itself working against focus.

Beyond the Classroom

This struggle extends far beyond students. Professionals, creators, and leaders — anyone whose work depends on sustained thought — face the same challenge.
When attention fragments, strategic thinking, problem-solving, and innovation all suffer.

We end up producing more activity than achievement — a generation constantly engaged, but seldom present. The cost of lost productivity is alarmingly high. Beyond economics, this restlessness drives organizations to turn toward non-humans — bots and AI — not only for efficiency, but because human focus has become unreliable.

Reclaiming Control: A Path Forward

To reclaim our attention, we need both personal discipline and collective awareness. For both, we can adopt a simple mantra:
Resist distraction. Build attention.

Here are a few starting points:

• Single-tasking: Set dedicated blocks of time for one task only — no tabs, no toggles.

• Digital hygiene: Turn off non-essential notifications. Keep your phone out of sight while working.

• Scheduled disconnection: Spend part of each day offline — read, walk, or simply be still.

• Mindfulness: Simple breathing or meditation practices retrain the brain to resist constant stimulus.

• Learning reform: Encourage depth over speed. Slow reading and reflection build lasting understanding.

The Way Ahead

Intermittent attention isn’t a personal flaw — it’s a cultural symptom. The systems around us are designed to reward distraction. But the future will not belong to those connected to everything — it will belong to those capable of connecting deeply to one thing at a time.

Focus, then, becomes an act of quiet rebellion.
In a world that thrives on speed, the one who pauses, reflects, and stays present will not only think better — they will live better.

So, as we move forward, let’s carry one question with us:

What deserves my full attention today — and am I willing to give it that gift?

Link to Part 1

Link to Part 3