Life is not a race, its a Fun Ride, it’s – “Lifunride”

Why this Article?

This article is written for simple reason that we have forgotten to learn from simple events in life, though they are simple events but the lessons that may be learnt from them can be so profound that it can prove to be life changing. Sometimes, it needs only one thought which can change the course of your life and maybe consequently, it may change the course of history. You never know the ultimate impact. 

This article contains a list of lessons learnt during my participation in a Cyclothon event organized by my college. It’s a collection of lessons I found on my way while enjoying the ride and the journey. Are you ready to join the Fun ride? Then, let’s go. 

First lesson I learnt was that “Most of the time we underestimate our abilities, but when we actually pursue something with our heart and soul and with enthusiasm, we will definitely achieve it”

 

Initially I thought I never did cycling in last six years, so cycling for 13 Kms won’t be easy, but when I enthusiastically registered for the event, things started falling in place. It simply means that our capabilities expand as per the size of our dreams. Very profound lesson, which will help me dream for more in life. Life will offer you the answers for your questions; what is important is to ask for the right things and right questions. Life will provide you all the resources you want for accomplishment of your purpose.  The only requirement is to have a purpose worth living for.

Second lesson I was presented is that “Life is a Fun Ride, it’s not a race. The more you take it as race, the more you feel bored of it. The more you take it as fun ride, the more you want to live it”.

When I had registered, I was under the impression that it will be a race and the winner will get a prize or recognition or photograph with a celebrity or photo in a newspaper. As per my expectations, I started practicing for winning the race. But one day before the actual event, we got instructions in our hand which said “Please don’t Race, it’s a Fun Ride”. My perception suddenly changed and I focused on enjoying the ride. What a sudden change in attitude.  Throughout my actual ride of 13 Kms, I thoroughly enjoyed it, because I knew it was a fun ride and not a race. Had I focused on racing and winning, the picture could have been different. I wouldn’t have enjoyed it at all.

Third lesson I savored “In life, a time will come when you will start feeling that I can’t complete this, but we never know how much we are capable of doing unless we push ourselves beyond our self-imposed limitations.”

There came a moment when I felt a little tired and thought why it is so long journey. I thought that in life, we will face many such situations when we are tired but when we push through our limits we realize how much capabilities we have and how much we can accomplish. It makes sense and it will be a fun to challenge yourself when a voice inside you says “You can’t do it”. You will feel what is a triumph over your weaknesses.

Forth lesson I learnt on the way “When you see someone going ahead of you, you will be tempted to change your gears and race up, but if you do that you will loose on an important part of your life, i.e. Enjoying the ride.”

When the race started, I was fully determined that I want to enjoy the ride, but when I observed people racing and overtaking me and leaving me behind, an inner voice popped up and said “Race up buddy, race up”. But I managed to ignore that voice and I focused on enjoying the ride. The lesson: Circumstances and other racers in life will prompt you to race up but please don’t listen to those voices. Focus on the joy ride. Enjoy the life. If you take life as a competition, you won’t be able to enjoy it fully.

Fifth lesson I learnt was “When somebody falls down, it makes perfect sense to stop and help, make them rise again, to help a person in need, no matter even if it results in a break on your ride .”

If you will be focusing on the race and want to come first, you won’t be bothered about what happens to others. I barely had travelled 2 kms, and seen somebody fall down on the road; I immediately stopped and gave him a hand to get up, took him aside and asked about whether he needs help? I learnt that it makes perfect sense to help others when they are in need no matter how much delay it may cause to your ride to the end. We are human beings and not robots. How does it matter if your ride finishes five minutes late, at least you will be able to win one heart by delaying your ride and stopping to help them. In the game of life, it’s my duty to care for others, think of others’ progress as well. This gives us pure joy and happiness.

Sixth Lesson I learn was “Smiling and greeting people (even if you don’t know them personally) has its own magical powers, the powers to spread and multiply happiness in this world. When you smile at them, they smile back”

We were told that present students of the college who are volunteering for today will stand on both sides of the road to guide you all on the way. I made it a point to be happy and smilingly waive hand at everyone I seen, say “hi”, say “thank you” and then only move ahead. This gave me a good insight into people management skills. A leadership Lesson here - If you are leading an organization, many people would be working for you, for progress of your business. Occasionally, you should take time to go and meet them personally. It makes perfect sense to invest your time on meeting your workforce, in person.   

Lesson Seven “When focused on enjoying the ride(life), you will feel the ride should never end, but when you are busy in racing, you won’t enjoy anything and you will want the life to end as soon as possible” I was enjoying each moment of the journey and the moment my legs started to push for speed, I managed to calm down my mind and slow down my legs because I wished the ride should never end as I was enjoying each of its moment by meeting new people on the way and by making them smile, making them happier, helping those whom I can. When you are focused on racing, you will soon get tired and start feeling that when this race will finish? When I will get rid of this? This is the reason why people commit suicide. They don’t focus on what life offered to them, they focus on racing and getting those things that they don’t actually need.

Lesson Eight “Say thanks and be grateful to those who are selflessly 

serving the humanity, those who are not expecting anything to gain from you. Be grateful and show your gratefulness by helping them achieve their motto.” When I see the volunteers on the way, I expressed my gratitude to them by saying thank you. The moment I said thank you, I realized that in our life, there are so many people working selflessly to make our life better and the only desirable response expected from us is to be grateful to them. Ensuring that you lend your smile to them. Ensuring that you help them in achieving their motto.

Lesson Number Nine “You will not be able to enjoy the beauty of nature if you focused only on winning, you will not be able to spare time for your own happiness if you are very busy racing throughout your life”. There was a sea-face on the way to our cycling route and I was focused on enjoying the ride, so I could take out some moments for myself, rejuvenating myself by standing in front of the sea and praising the nature’s greatness. Simple but so true, we sometimes are so engrossed in race of life that we forget the important aspects of life, may be willingly or unwillingly we are ignoring them and that ideally should not be done. Ignoring our own self, own happiness is the biggest sin we can ever commit on this earth. Killing our soul every moment to achieve something which is not even visible.

Lesson Number Ten “Those who are focusing only on winning the race are actually losing the real race, the happiness race”

At the end of the ride, I realized what I would have really lost or missed if I would have focused only on winning and coming first or coming in first five riders list. I would have lost all the joy and fun, I wouldn’t have helped anybody who had fallen down, I wouldn’t have shown gratitude to those who are selflessly serving in order to make my ride better, I wouldn’t have made them smile, I wouldn’t have spread happiness, I wouldn’t have made a difference in this world.

To conclude, I must say today that I realized “Life is not a race, it’s a fun ride and those who are focusing only on winning are actually losing.

Written By CA Rajesh Pabari. Have something to say about this article? Email on carajeshpabari@gmail.com or WhatsApp on +919022780919

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What tax professionals should know to take care of themselves

Why proper sleep is required? (Science behind its answers)

Introduction: Have you ever tried to think about Human Anatomy and its functioning? You know each organ of the body needs a specialist to deal with the ailments pertaining to each of the organ. We have eye doctor, Ear-Nose-Throat Specialists, heart specialists, bone specialist, child specialist, gynecologist, and the list goes on. No surprise and exaggeration, if I say that the brain which controls all the functions of the body is as complex as the universe. The functioning and mysteries in the subject of brain science is as mystifying as the universe. The subject of science is continuously under exploration and to everyone’s amusement, we get to hear some or the other new research about brain science and neuroscience. (Thanks to the scientists working on it day and night tirelessly. Grateful to them for helping the humanity discover its true potential). 

Anyways, lets start the journey.

Disclaimer: As all Chartered Accountants generally starts their reports, I will start by saying that the contents of the chapter are created and presented based on Various scientific researches carried out by various psychologists, brain scientists and neurologists. I have tried to correlate the principles I have learned from the research reports to the situations of Students.

(especially CA students, lol, because I have gone through the pain and learned many of these lessons the hard way, I don’t want you to waste important time of your life to learn those lessons the hard way. I will make that time available to you to make better mistakes. Lol.) Am 99% sure, these lessons will be of immense help in all walks of life. But currently, these lessons are presented in such a way that it suits the immediate requirements of CA students. (most of them will be useful for all the professional exams).

Lets start with first topic:

Why adequate sleep is important:

Summary from the TED talk of Mr. Russell Grant Foster, a British professor of neuroscience, currently based at Brasenose College at the University of Oxford. He studies the sleep cycles of the brain. And he asks: What do we know about sleep? Not a lot, for something we do with one-third of our lives. In this talk, Foster shares three popular theories about why we sleep, busts some myths about how much sleep we need at different ages -- and hints at some bold new uses of sleep as a predictor of mental health.

What is adequate sleep?

Many scientists agrees that 8 hours is quite sufficient and varies from 6.5 hours to 8 hours from person to person. He also mentioned that teenagers needs 9 hours of sleep. Normally, an average person spends 36% of time sleeping. If you are 90 in age, 32 years will have been spent entirely asleep.

Why study of Sleep is Important?

We spend approx. 36% of our life sleeping, so naturally, it makes perfect sense to study what happens during sleep and how it really affects our life, i.e. the other 64% of our life when we actually perform our daily duties and work.

Why do we sleep?

There are dozens of different ideas about why we sleep. We are discussing only the three major concepts.

1. Restoration Process – During the hours when we are awake, we burn up energy, cell and much more. Many kinds of genes are observed to be turned on only during the sleep and those genes are associated with restoration and metabolic pathways. (Meaning of metabolic process: This includes processes for cell growth, reproduction, response to environment, survival mechanisms, sustenance, and maintenance of cell structure and integrity. It is made up of two categories: catabolism and anabolism.) So, scientifically proved that there are evidences of the concept of restoration.

2. Energy Conservation – As per the latest researches, it has been discovered that we save 135 calories while asleep. (On an average we require around 2200 to 2700 calories.) So, to conclude, only a little energy is saved because of sleep. And the concept doesn’t stand true as expected.

3.  Brain processing and memory consolidation: After experiments, a conclusion was arrived that if you deprive someone of sleep when that person is trying to learn new tasks, the ability to learn that task is weakened greatly. Memory consolidation means that whatever we have learned is properly organized in the brain during sleep. So sleep plays vital role in retention of learning and memory consolidation. (This means that while studying variety of subjects and variety of new things in CA curriculum, we desperately require adequate sleep, and for better retention of learning and better memory functioning, adequate sleep is of prime importance).  It’s not just about learning and memory. What's turned out to be really exciting is that our ability to come up with novel solutions to complex problems is hugely enhanced by a night of sleep. In fact, it's been estimated to give us a threefold advantage. (1) Sleeping at night enhances our creativity. (2) And the brain cells and neural connections that has been established during the day time is enhanced, linked and strengthened during the sleep. At the same time, the less important neural connections we had during the day time fades away, so that other parts can function optimally. The most important thing is that brain doesn’t stop functioning while we are asleep. In fact, some areas of the brain are more active during the sleep state than the wake state.

Is sleepiness an illness?

No, He says feeling sleepiness during the day is not illness. It just says that your body clock is asking for sleep for some vital functions to happen in your body. If you don’t allow, it will result in microsleeps (3-5 seconds sleep). That’s not illness. Sleep is a natural process inevitable for the body. Unknowingly by treating sleep as our enemy, we are endangering ourselves in greater problems. This needs mention here because most of the people think of sleep and oversleep problems as illness that needs cure (of course, if you are unable to sleep, that is a big problem that needs cure).

Why people think of Sleep as Illness or waste of time?

Because, we think that we don’t do any activities in that particular time of sleep. But actually speaking, sleep is incredible part of our biology.

What about current situations in the world?

Normally, a human being needs at least eight hours of sleep, while we take on an average 6 to 7 hours of sleep, which is not sufficient for human body and its vital functions. For teenagers, the scenario is worse, they require at least 9 hours of sleep for full brain performance, but most of the times teenagers sleeps even lesser than 6 hours most of the time. It’s simply not enough. 

What about Aged people?

It is a myth to assume that aged people requires lesser sleep. That’s a complete myth. Its true that aged people cannot sleep at a stretch for longer period of time. For this reason, people start assuming that aged people require less sleep.

What are the results of taking lesser sleep than required?

The brain indulges itself into microsleeps, this involuntarily falling asleep and you have no control over it. Its not just embarrassing but can be deadly. It's been estimated that 31 percent of drivers will fall asleep while driving at least once in their life. In U.S., the statistics are pretty astonishing, 100,000 accidents each year on the freeway have been associated with tiredness, loss of vigilance, and falling asleep. Investigations behind Chernobyl blast and mishap of Challenger Space Shuttle show that they were caused by poor judgment as a result of extended shift work and loss of vigilance and tiredness. So when you're tired, and you lack sleep, you have poor memory, you have poor creativity, you have increased impulsiveness, and you have overall poor judgment. So, to conclude, we should take proper sleep.

Lack of Sleep and Addictions:

If you are a tired brain, the brain will need things to wake it up. So it can ask for drugs, stimulants, etc. Caffeine represents the stimulant of choice across much of the Western world (Now in most of the part of Asian world also). Most of the time, the day time is fueled by caffeine, and if you're a really naughty tired brain, you may even resort to hazardous drugs and narcotic substances.

And the really exciting news is that mental illness and sleep are not simply associated but they are physically linked within the brain. The neural networks that prompt you to normal sleep, give you normal sleep, and those that give you normal mental health are overlapping.

Conclusion Remarks:

Jim Butcher, the fantasy writer, said, "Sleep is God. Go worship." And I can only recommend that you do the same. 

 - CA RAJESH PABARI

carajeshpabari@gmail.com 
09022780919

Simple Memory Techniques for students to remember Sections

Memory Technique to Remember section Number

Our brain cannot remember useless and meaningless stuffs. (Normal human brains).

Hence, the technique of converting numbers into meaningful words is important to learn.

Step 1: Lets assign letters to all the numbers from 0 to 9

Number	Letters Assigned	Reasons of assigning the Letter
1	S, D	Maximum spelling starts with S and D and maximum number of sections will have 1 used in the section number
2	N, V	These letters are made of two pointers pointing down or up
3	M, W	These letters are made of three pointers pointing down or up
4	R	Spelling of 4 consist of R in it
5	L	Roman letter for the number 50
6	C, J	C is somewhat similar in shape with 6, J is sort of mirror image of C
7	F, T	Similarity of shapes
8	B, G	Similarity of shapes . G is small letters looks like g (8)
9	P, q	Similarity of shapes. P is mirror image of 9 and q looks like 9
0	Z, X	Spelling Zero and Roman ten (X)

Step 2: Convert a number into words by using above letters and filling up any of vowels (a, e, i, o, u, y, h). H and Y are used as joiners because many spellings become complete by using them. Hence they are not assigned to any digit in the above table.

Step 3: Connection between the section and the word created out of section number. Please remember to form a funny association and make the connection as weird as possible. Wherever possible, create a picture of your own imagination.

Now take some examples of using the above technique.

Ex. No.	Section Number and Matter involved	Creation of Word	Connection of Word and the Matter under consideration	How to Get what you Want in Exams.
1.	Section 185 of Companies act 2013 pertains to Provisions relating to Loans to directors.	1 = D, S 8 = B, G 5 = L	The word double has to be connected with the matter of the section, i.e. Loans to Directors. A simple association can be said as “When you give loan to director, it will result in DouBLe penalty”	The moment you come across the phrase Loan to Directors under Companies Act, 2013, you will remember the word ‘Double’, the word when reconverted into digits gives you 185. You will write, as per section 185.
2.	Section 73 of Companies Act, 2013 – Acceptance of Deposits	7 = F, T          3 = M, W	I could think of FM. Connection – Acceptance of Deposit by company they are giving advertisement in radio mirchi (which is FM Radio)	The connection between deposit, radio mirchi, FM will remind you of reverse of FM i.e. 7, 3 = 73. Section 73.
3.	Annual General Meeting Section 96	9 = P, Q 6 = C, J	I could think of the word PJ, you will create a picture of annual general meeting where people are cracking PJs (PJ is popular short form of Poor Jokes). People are laughing loudly.	The connection of AGM and PJ is set. Now, when you think of AGM, you will remember the scene and you will remember PJ. You know what P and J stands for. 9 and 6. Section 96
4.	Register of Members Section 88	8 = B, G 88 = BB or GG or BG or GB	What I could think of is as follows. In register of member, company has entered names of their BBs also. (BB = Wife)	The funny association of register of members, their names and their BB name connects u to the number 88.

While preparing the words out of sections, please make sure that as far as possible, make a word which can be pictured. Mind remembers in pictures. That’s why you remember movies easily, while you forget the economic theories.

In example no. 1 above, I gave very simple connection of giving the loans resulting in double penalty. But, the moment you start imagining in weird pictures, you are likely to remember easily. For example, if I would have said that if you give loan to Director or his related party, Shareholder comes and Slaps you on both of your cheeks. (DOUBLE SLAP). In this example, likeliness of remembering is more. Whenever you see cow on the streets, you don’t notice or don’t remember, but if some day you see a PINK color cow, you will remember the whole day or probably whole life that you had seen a PINK cow. Same is the case with the brain, it remembers the extra ordinary matter easily. 

CA Rajesh Pabari

919022780919

carajeshpabari@gmail.com