En route to the world of 4-hour everything

Yesterday, I started reading the book "The 4-Hour Work week” by Timothy Ferris. My husband has been following his books and blogs for 3 plus years.  He, Best Friend and sis in law frequently used to discuss his techniques to reduce work pressure.  I often used to have negative thoughts about their discussions; as for me less work means laziness and slothfulness. They were applying his methods to our startup “TOW”.

Two of his books became bible in our family. They were reading it, trying to comprehend it and then applying it on their lives. One of these books was always in the bathroom, which is a reading sanctuary for my husband, so on and so forth.

 Obviously, I had the urge to read this particular book but always thought about it as a tedious book of laws and regulations. I have been an avid book reader or I thought I was. I was never fascinated to read any non-fiction, as my heart and mind never raced reading them or skipped a beat. Yes, I am a hopeless romantic person, who loves to dream and dream big J I fancy romantic walks along the shore with sun rising; I am guilty to fantasize the beguiling, enchanting, romantic, magical tour of Venice in a gondola and on and on.

My first exposure to Tim Ferris was through his podcast. Three words “ I hated him.” My first thoughts were he is a 30 some over achiever hyper dynamo, who is bragging about his life to the rest of the world. I was unable to understand what actually he was saying as he seemed high or something. Well that was a buzz kill for me. To my utter surprise the first book I had to read among the 300 books(I have to read 300 plus books to be something according to my husband) is “T4HWW.”

I have read 50 pages up till now and my thoughts are still somewhat same about the author. Although, I must say that I am agreeing to most of his rules or commandments, as my husband would say.

Tim for sure achieved a lot of things in a very young age: may be he got lucky, or he didn’t have pressure from his parents to have a stable job. He is privileged to have a chance to be a vagabond; master of his wishes. He didn’t have to look after for his wife and kids or support his whole family. I am pretty sure that he must have spent 10 thousand hours to master his techniques but similar situations are not accessible for everyone.

Lets talk about what rules or points I like so far. Among the many points form page 33, I totally agree with “The Timing is never right.” ; many times the reason for me to lag behind is that I always think the same point. I am always waiting for the RIGHT time. I guess there is no right time for anything. If you have to do something, just do it (copy right NIKE J) Waiting for the right time is actually giving your self more time to laze around and pushing yourself a step backward. In this world of hustle bustle, nobody waits for you. You have to ride the bus and have to ride it as my son says; RIGHT NOW!

“Emphasis strengths, Don’t fix weaknesses.” This sounds so genuine and true. I wish I knew this rule earlier. All my life I have been trying to fix my weaknesses, totally neglecting my strengths. God has made humans in a certain way, not everybody can be a singer ;or a priest ;or an IT consultant or a computer programmer. We all humans are blessed with our own specialty. All my life I have been competing to be like somebody else, ignoring the fact that it’s his/her specialty not mine. I could work hard to be like them, but in return I am wasting my energy in searching to be what I am not, and neglecting what I have been blessed with .I should rather spend time on my strengths and be on the zenith of it.

 I am trying my best to overlook my son’s weaknesses and focusing on hiss strengths. God is the Ingenious Alchemist and he has made everybody and everything different; we need to embrace this fact. We need to add in the positive energy in our lives as the positives vibes around us pushes away all the negativity.

I also agree to “ Retirement as a goal or final redemption is flawed.”

People kill their selves working hard all their supreme years just to save tons of money for their last days. Don’t they trust God?  And how could they think that they will live that long. I am not against the cliché adverb, "saving for the rainy day" but I am for moderation in everything even saving. Today, I see people running after money like zombies. They build gigantic houses, have the most comfortable furniture, biggest possible boob tubes and their refrigerators are cornucopias of worldly foods. And so unfortunate are these zombies who are always out in the race and cannot even enjoy the so-called pleasures they have acquired for themselves. I hate to live such an uncontended life.  If you see history, even in modern times, the most satisfied and contented person are the ones who have few simple things for their comfort. They try to live in present, and worry about present only. They leave the future to God. They live life fully and in moderation and don’t go crazy in spending their fortunes.

"Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera, sera
What will be, will be" (Doris Day)