The Earth is Flat | Lifting Mental Barriers
The earth is flat.
There is no doubt about it.
I also have proof that the earth is flat.
For example, if the earth is round, why is the water not slipping away from the ocean?
Before the flat earth theorists get happy and the rest get angry at my conclusion, I want to point out that this article is not about proving the earth is flat or round.
It is about lifting the mental barriers that stop us from achieving our goals.
The barriers we are unaware of, or the barriers we don’t want to lift.
The Story of Roy and his UPSC preparation.
Roy wants to crack one of the toughest entrance exams in the world, UPSC.
He wants to become an IAS officer.
But, there was one minor problem, according to Roy.
The number of candidates who appear for UPSC is ten lakhs approx every year, and only 180 seats are available for IAS.
Again, If you belong to the general category, you will only have 72 seats because the 102 seats belong to the reserved category.
So, your chances to become an IAS is 1 out of a million.
Roy decided he would work hard, quit social media for a year, even thinking of quitting his phone, but the phone is important for news and updates.
So, he will keep it.
He has perseverance, determination, and strong will.
He has everything that he needs to crack this exam.
Moreover, he doesn’t want to be in a relationship for a year. That’s a distraction, and he can’t afford distractions now.
Also, he planned to study 15-16 hours everyday.
He just needs to work hard for a year, and the rest of his life will be beneficial.
This is a one-time opportunity; he can’t lose it.
When he failed to crack his first attempt, he decided his willpower was weak.
If only he could strengthen his willpower, he can crack the exam just like that.
So, he started meditation, taking cold showers, yoga, and also became vegetarian for some reason.
But, despite all this, he couldn’t crack the mains in his fifth year.
In the sixth year, the last attempt, anyone would have surrendered and left for something else.
But that was not Roy.
In the sixth year, he was more determined, had a stronger will, and even ready to sacrifice even more.
He used to tell me he knew he could do it, only if he could give his 100%.
He knows he has potential and could crack the exams, but every day, something distracts him.
Sometimes, it’s bad news, or the electricity is not there, or he needs to cook.
All these things are wasting his time.
He couldn’t even study for 4 hours in a day; 15-16 hours was a dream.
And there is no consistency, someday he will work 12 hours, and in the next three days, he will watch television.
The mental barriers
Why did Roy fail, despite all the hard work and sacrifices?
Why was there no consistency in his studies?
Roy never smoked, nor did he take any drugs, but he still failed to achieve his goal for the fifth time. Why?
His friends were there, all the time, supported him along with his parents, but still, he couldn’t do it.
Roy never wasted his time going to a movie with his friends, Roy never went on a vacation, Roy even avoided group chats.
He only talked about UPSC with his fellow candidates.
As time passed, Roy lost most of his friends, but it didn’t affect him either.
He just wants to crack the exam.
Because Roy believed if he becomes crazy about something, he will have it in the end.
That’s what everybody says in society, and nobody questions it.
Roy couldn’t crack the exams because he was not preparing for the exams; he was preparing to restrict his mind.
He was not sacrificing; he was just putting barriers around his wishes.
The mind wanted to go for a movie, the mind wanted to talk with his friends, have a good laugh, or the mind wanted to smoke a cigarette.
The mind wanted many things that could make it happy, but Roy never allowed his mind to do so.
Roy put barriers after barriers so that the mind can flow only in one direction.
The direction he wants it to travel.
The mind doesn’t want to wake up in the morning; the mind doesn’t want to take cold showers; the mind doesn’t want to stop playing video games.
But, the things Roy’s mind wanted were stopped immediately because Roy has a strong will and determination.
According to Roy, this is the path to success.
The more self-discipline you become, the more successful you will be.
But, you need self-discipline. You need to remain focused and work consistently. You cannot waste time by chatting with people or surfing social media. You have to work hard to crack UPSC because the competition is too high.
To explain this, let me tell you another case of Roy.
Roy and his cigarette
Roy has the coolest parents.
They never put any stress on their children or say something that can affect their mental health.
They even go to the movies together, talk about their daily issues, and are very open to each other on various facts.
Roy’s parents were like his best friends, with whom he can share anything.
There was no restriction from their end.
Despite any restriction, Roy never was into smoking or drinking.
One day, Roy saw his friends smoking a cigarette.
So, Roy also wanted to smoke the same.
That day he went home and told his father that he wanted to smoke.
Instead of scolding his son, his father opened his packet of cigarettes and offered one to his son.
Roy took it and looked at it for some time.
Of course, he knows there is nothing to gain from smoking.
There is also nothing to lose from smoking once.
So, Roy took the cigarette and went to his room, and he did something amazing that still perplexes me to this day.
He kept the cigarette by the window and decided to smoke it later.
He never did.
On the other hand, my friend Joy has been smoking for the last ten years.
His father obviously doesn’t know about it.
If he knows, he will beat the crap out of him.
It is amazing how our brain works.
The more we try to restrict our minds, the more we do it in the long run.
Once you lift the restriction, it stops on its own.
It seemed like Roy was preparing for his entrance; it seemed like he was planning to crack UPSC.
But, all he was doing was restricting himself.
Why do mental barriers or restrictions cause failure?
When you restrict a child from doing what he wants, either he becomes sad or becomes a rebel.
In this case, a rebel is better than becoming sad because once the light of a child goes off, he hardly achieves anything in life.
Once you let a child do whatever he wants, he does things according to his free will and becomes a better person than we expect.
If you try to stop a child from drinking without explaining why he will obviously drink more.
Again, if you let him choose and only explain the effects of drinking, he will choose in his best interest.
Our mind is like a child.
If you restrict it, put barriers around it, it becomes unhappy and causes disturbance in your life.
You become miserable over time.
Once you can’t find the cause of your failure, you start blaming it on your friends, situations, parents, and circumstances.
An unhappy mind can never achieve success in life because happiness is the ultimate success for anyone.
We put dates like after a year I will be happy, after a month I will go on vacation, and after a decade I will be rich.
To cope with the present unhappy self, we create future images of ourselves.
A future where we are doing wonderful things, where we are wealthy, happy, and successful.
Everyone is a wonderful person in the future.
But, often, we forget that the future is just a representation of the past.
If we don’t change our personalities today, we can never change the possible future.
The first way to change our personality or character is to let our minds free.
No more barriers, no more restrictions, and no more cages.
You can never be happy if someone controls your life, tells you what to do and what not to do.
How come you can be happy when that someone is you.
The mind always knows what is good or bad for you.
It always wants to thrive. It’s biological.
Keep your mind happy; it will take you places.
Three unknown mental barriers.
Planning
How come planning can be a mental barrier? To succeed in life, we need to plan.
Yes, planning is important. Without plans, you may not know which direction is the best direction to achieve our goals.
But, most of us plan to follow the plan at any cost, as if it is a liability.
No matter what, we have to study at 7 pm, we have to practice at 8 pm and have to wake up early in the morning before sunrise.
Whenever there is ‘have to, must have, must do,’ in the context, you should be aware that this is a trap.
When 7 pm arises, you may not even want to study at that time.
Maybe you want to play games at 7 pm.
If that’s the case, we force our will and start focusing on studying.
This creates a disturbance inside you, which leads to anger and frustration in the long run.
You may study for that day, or maybe for a month, but the more you force your will on your mind, the joy for studying that you once had will start to disappear.
So, plan, but keep the plans flexible.
If you don’t want to study and want to play games, allow your mind to play games. Don’t put any restrictions.
Let your mind decide what it wants to do.
Give it a choice.
You may study more than you can think of.
Goals
You ‘have to’ think clearly of your goals. You ‘have to’ visualize your goals as if you have achieved them.
The more you think about your goals, the better chance you will have of achieving them.
This is an old and good strategy to be successful in your life.
Thinking about your goals gives external motivation to pursue them.
The more you visualize, the more obsessed you become.
But, once you fail to achieve your goals, despair, unhappiness, and depression occur.
Besides, pursuing the goal is not that fun either.
This is how most people try to pursue their goals, which is why the majority of us fail.
Because external motivation is short-term.
This is nothing but another mental barrier to your mind.
Through this process, if you do achieve your goals, your happiness will still linger in the distant future.
I will be happy after this and that.
If you are a goal-oriented or result-oriented person, you will perform an action only to achieve that goal.
If you are a process-oriented person, you perform an action because your mind loves it.
We already know where we want to go in life, but we already have this moment to take action to reach there.
Once you stop thinking about the future and the past, which is again nothing but just an illusion of the mind, you become present.
At this moment, everything is already perfect.
There are no flaws, no sadness, no stress, worries, or pain.
There is only joy and peace.
Once you are in this moment, you already know what you want to do in life.
You can take steps to achieve your goals because joy and peace are the most powerful energy you have to advance in life.
If you want to read more about becoming present, read the below articles:
Worry and Stress | An Article on Happiness
This is one of the biggest mental barriers that cause pain, stress, worry, depression, anger, and fear in our life.
Once you break this barrier, you are enlightened.
Self-compassion
We don’t treat ourselves very nicely.
If we do mistakes, if we fail to achieve what we want, if we succumb to our bad habits or addiction, if we do not meet our expectations, we always directly or indirectly condemn ourselves.
We do it because this is how we grew up.
We believe if we don’t become hard on ourselves, we will become lazy and cannot achieve anything in our life.
The truth is, the more you condemn, the less self-respect you will have.
Without self-respect, there is no happiness and self-discipline.
This is a huge mental barrier that people find difficult to lift.
They don’t want to take breaks; they don’t feel good when they waste time, feel guilty when they make mistakes, etc.
You are a human being, and there is no one in this world who doesn’t make mistakes.
The fact is, the more mistake you make, the more you will know which are the ways that don’t work.
Mistakes are essential to success.
If you don’t feel like working today, take a rest, watch movies, or speak to someone.
You are not going to do any good by forcing yourself to complete your task.
It will cause more harm than good.
Keep your mind happy; the mind will keep you happier.
The source of mental barriers.
We restrict our minds to achieve success comes from the mindset of having life’s security.
Everybody wants security in their life.
We plan, we organize to have security in our life.
Wealth, health, relationships are the good signs of stronger security in life.
So, we chase them every day, every minute, and each second of our life.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to be free from harm and threats.
The problem arises when we put restrictions to achieve those securities.
We become so busy with future security; we tend to forget that we live in the present.
We put restrictions after restrictions so that we can be focused and achieve our goals.
Because this is what the movies, stories, and environment teach us.
Sacrifice your sleep, sacrifice your enjoyment, sacrifices your friends, love, emotions, and only focus on the one thing you want to achieve.
Sacrifices are important.
Sacrifices are valuable when it is voluntary.
Most of us sacrifice by forcing our minds.
This makes us even more unsuccessful.
Because this is the cause of our suffering.
You don’t even know what you are going to have this afternoon until the afternoon comes.
How come you know what the future is holding for you until that future moment comes.
Whatever comes, that will be the result of ‘Now’.
If you try to work ‘now’ because you want to secure your future, you are already living in the future.
Future will be taken care of its own, because all you have is ‘now’.
Conclusion
No matter how hard you try to convince a flat earther that the earth is not flat, it will be a waste of time.
Because they are not open to facts.
After reading this, many will disregard the idea of this article.
To become successful, we need to focus, have discipline, and restrict ourselves that waste our time.
Of course, focus, discipline is essential for success.
But, this article has nothing to do with focus and discipline.
If you didn’t get what is written in the article, read it once again and again and again until you get that keeping our mind happy is the ultimate goal of this article.
Once you let your mind free, it will always choose the best path for you.
So, become open to facts and try it on your own.
Best
Ahbab
