Are your priorities right in life?

“Discipline simply means that you identify with what is important to you in life.”

A time for everything, everything in its time. Discipline simply means a time for everything, everything in its time. Not that you don’t have, Sarvanan Meenakshi when they come you know time, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni when it comes you know time, Arnab Goswami, what time he’ll come, you know the time, everything has a time. Everything which is a time pass, you do it by time and everything that is important, we don’t have time for it. Have you exercised? You don’t have time for it.

To repair this heart, depending on where you go, costs a few lakh of rupees. Stolen kidney, stolen goods, it’s worth several lakhs. The creator has given you this immaculate body and has only one request to you, can you take care of it? You don’t have time for that. You’re so busy. Few minutes of silence every day; people don’t have time to meditate, they’re very busy. If I tell you, I can get you an appointment with the President of India, will you say I don’t have the time? If I tell you, I will get you an appointment with A R Rahman and you can have a one to one sitting with him, will you say you don’t have the time? Meditation is your appointment with God and you don’t have time for God, is it?

You all have become so busy that you don’t have time to be with God.

All your disappointments in life is because you no more have an appointment with God.

We don’t have time to pray. We don’t have time to worship. We don’t have time for silence. For everything that is not important, we have time slots, for everything that is important we are saying we don’t have the time. What is discipline? Discipline simply means I identify what is important for me in life. What is this thing called parenting when children say till 11 o’clock I don’t get to see my parents at all? Schools are focusing on academics. You’re focusing on your success. So who is going to parent our children?

Who is going to parent our children? I know it’s a very sad thing to say, but… a child came to the dad and asked dad, “Dad, can you give me two thousand rupees?” And he was busy with his laptop, so where’s the time? So he just snatched a 2000 rupee note and gave to him, gave it to the child and said, “It’s OK, have it.” From below the pillow, the child drew another 2000 rupee note. Now, the childhood had 4000 rupees and the child gave it back to the dad and said, “Dad, I heard your consultation charges are 4000 rupees. Can you invest time with me, please?” For a client who is willing to give you a 3000 rupee profit, you have the time; for a patient who’ll give you 500 rupees, you have the time; and our children, in spite of having parents, have become moral orphans because there’s nobody to tell them what is right and what is wrong. We are not having meaningful communication with them anymore.

And if as family, we don’t have time, and the only thing we call as family time is when all of us sit in front of television, that’s called TV time, it’s not called family time.

Some of what I say won’t even be pleasant. It will even make you guilty. But the purpose is not to make you guilty, but the purpose is to wake you up. You’re a decision away from transformation. You just have to say, I don’t care how I’ve have lived up to now, from here this is how I’m going to live; quality time in relationship.

Go to a restaurant, family of four is sitting and all the four are looking at their mobile. Nobody is looking at each other’s eyes.

How will we build relationships? Suppose right now we are sitting here and you’re checking your mobile when I’m speaking, transformation is not going to happen to you.

And suddenly when this child at 16, either needs psychiatric help or has taken to drugs or won’t listen to you any more, or practicing something which does not suit your family values and you have no say because you were not there for your children when they needed you, so today they don’t listen to you.

There are two ways to get transformed in life. As a country, as a society, as an individual, there are two ways to get transformed in life.

One, when life is still going comfortable, get transformed. There is no price to pay, or life will transform you by giving you a slap.

Life will change you. A social unrest will happen and a country will get transformed. A social revolt will happen and the country will get transformed.

Today, when I’m telling you exercise and you’re still breathing and vertical, and you’re okay, if you exercise you take care of it. In the comfort of your life you don’t exercise, then you ignore and push and ignore and push, one day you’ll sweat, one day there’ll be slight pain and you’ll go… Doctor will do certain checkup and tell you embroidery has to be done. Then after embroidery is done from the next day with Sorbitrate in one hand and your heart in the other, you will go for morning walk.

But right now you’re exercising to delay death. Right now you can exercise to become healthy. If you wait till then, then you will only exercise to delay. This is about everything. If as parents, we do not start taking certain moral choices of… every adult sitting here have to ask this question; forget about scripture, forget about religion, forget about infinitheism, forget about Mahatria and forget about constitution, forget about everything, but ask yourself this one question; whatever I am practicing, am I okay if my children also emulate it?

Whatever I’m practicing, whether it’s cutting a signal or drinking or habits or extramarital relationship; you have to ask yourself this question “Whatever I’m practicing, is it okay if my children also pick it up? If the answer is no, then the transformation has to start with you. You have to be the role model otherwise nothing is going to happen. Somewhere it has to begin with you.

The moment I bring in this discipline into my life, a time for everything, everything in its time, this is my time for health, this is my time for spirituality, this is my time for intellectual development…

Why should we be scared? America slowdown is happening and because there is an America slowdown that is happening, and of course, this country has gone through demonetization and GST; certain transitional changes. We are not discussing whether it’s right or wrong. It’s a transition that we have to go through.

Every IT employee is nervous. Oh these people have sent away thousand people, those people are sending away two thousand people.

Why should you be nervous? There is only one reason any one of you professionally should be nervous.

You have not upgraded your competency.

You have not been upskilling yourself. The demands of our role are growing faster than ourselves. Lot of you know or have the competence which you had five years ago, seven years ago, and because you still live with the competence you developed, you are becoming irrelevant in the industry right now. If you’d continued to keep developing yourself, employment security may not be there, job security will be there. If it’s not this organization, some other organization. If you have the skills to deliver, enough people want you. Look around and ask enough people, how many of them are still looking for capable leaders?

Lot of them are looking for. Am I skilled enough for the position is the question.

So how am I upgrading myself? A time for everything. Everything in its time.

One hour every day for developing my skill sets.

Half an hour every day for my spiritual practices. One hour every day to take care of my health. At least an hour of quality time with relationships that matters to me the most. And quality time is time when technology is not intervening to the time we have with each other. If technology is on, that is not called quality time. It’s called technology time.

And small-small initiatives here, a give up here and go up there. You know what a life all of us can live.