Fundamental practices of a Human Endeavour

From the beginning of human history , rise of civilizations, through the ups and downs of times to the modern world of rapid changes, advanced technologies, globally interdependent economies, overnight stardoms and collapses, a lot has happened , is happening and we really don’t know what the future may bring.

With the changing world, have changed our lifestyles, strategies we deploy and preparations that we do in order to survive, prosper and pursue success in our own individual way. As “Change is the only constant”, the skills and strategies and things that hold great value at one time are known to be of lesser or no value at a later time. So how one can prepare oneself for his/her own journey of life, what would it take to take on your individual ambitions and many more challenges and riddles that life has to offer in addition to the fun and party times. There are many guidelines that offer light on how to pursue you goals many are specific to a profession and other are more generalized. What I would like to emphasize on is in fact “Fundamental” like air. Since these are fundamental these are often forgotten or not emphasized upon enough. These are important now , were required at any time of history and will be equally applicable in all the time to come. I like to call the as the “Fundamental Practices of a Human Endeavour”  and these are :

Knowledge         Courage              Gratefulness

I prefer to call these “practices” as just like to get in good body shape you need to exercise, to pursue ones life one needs to practice these to get in better mental shape. Consciously or not all of us do practice these with more focus on one than rest, yet sooner or later one understands the importance of practicing all of these.

Practice of Knowledge

In today’s world on an average, human individuals spend 15-20 years of their early life to get a formal education in order to be productive or to be able to survive. Which emphasizes the need of gathering knowledge and the amount of it required in today’s world. However gaining knowledge is neither bound to formal training process and nor is sufficient. There have been many smart, wise and knowledgeable people without formal education and there is no shortage of us who have had formal education yet struggle if we stop learning afterwards.

The bottom line is that understanding things and enhancing knowledge or gaining information is important for us and we should make conscious effort to learn, to create, to invent. Whatever one is doing or has plans to do must be keen to learn how to do things and how do them even better. Other than the knowledge that one is obligated to know for his profession, one should try to learn stuff in general.  Practicing knowledge needs to go beyond your profession. You can try learning a new language, how to take care of your car or bike, you can choose to travel and learn about the places and people or how to cook a good meal. Be sure you put learning tax laws in that list, money does matter. Once you prepare this mindset of being keen and curious about learning in general, even the obligated knowledge doesn’t seem to be a burden as you know learning is, now,  your hobby.



Practice of Courage

What brought monkeys living in trees to the ground then navigated them through ice-ages , centuries of wars, calamities and many difficulties to the current world where we have unprecedented lifestyles and life expectancies. It can be debated if it was just and evolutionary process or Ancient Aliens. However what I prefer to believe is that along with knowledge the most important factor was “Courage”. It is still today and always will be.

Lot of small courageous steps by mankind over a long time.

We all have heard stories of heroes or at least watched movies of courageous acts and brave sacrifices. These often give you rush and goosebumps sometimes .These are there for us to remember that situations are not always favorable and we need to learn to face them.  However courage is not limited to war and extreme situations in fact the practice of courage is more subtle and profound. Its more about defeating your own fears and hesitations rather than being just violent.  It’s a practice not only for soldiers but for everyone and all should understand the importance of it. Life will always bring challenges, tough decision, difficult survival situations and failures that will push you down and make you feel miserable. Knowing things alone might not be enough or in that time you might not be knowing enough. Sometimes in such difficult situations your inner survival instinct kicks in and you will find courage and in some other times or for someone else it may not. Many times not finding courage can be because although one was trained to learn stuff but never taught how to handle challenges or failures or an imminent failure. Fear is not a happy place and it fills one with misery and to come over it you need to develop courage.

Its not that we don’t practice courage in general but its mostly associated with only extreme acts in movies. Practicing courage can be breaking up your hesitation of speaking publicly, managing you day job targets, raising your children, asking question to your teacher when you didn’t understand , facing bullies or to handling the fact that you didn’t get selected in some entrance exam or your dream job and continue your efforts. Consciously practicing small acts of courage and acknowledging these is what going to prepare one for facing even bigger challenges and difficulties. We need to remember that courage is not just a virtue of a superhero but a necessary practice for everyone.


Practice of Gratefulness

Third and equally important practice is that of being grateful. Any human being living anywhere in the world even if they prefer solitude or love to socialize,  is actually not existing in solitude. There are million factors form past and present that impact our lives over which we have no control. Its like being a drop of water or being a wave in an ocean. A wave however big or small does not exist in solitude but its events or factors near or far that impact what a wave would be. The knowledge or information that you have or learnt or the sense of courage that you feel or many other advantages that you have, actually has arrived at you through a lot of efforts through the times by many people known or unknown to you and some random happening of the universe.

Most of us today don’t have to hunt down our food or grow it ourselves, have clothes to wear, have a shelter and many of us have facilities like smartphones and capability to interact with people and family from over the globe which were not even possible for kings and queens in recent history. At the same time some people even don’t have the basic life necessities.

The practice of gratefulness is about acknowledging the fact of being part of ocean, of being thankful for the things that went right for you, for all those unknown efforts that had brought value to your journey. One’s own efforts are undeniably most important aspect of one’s journey but being grateful brings completeness to the effort. It holds you on ground and keeps you polite in success and compliments your courage in failure. Just like knowledge and courage one needs to practice being grateful to really feel the impact of it.



Although these three may seem completely different from each other but are actually complimentary. Anyone practicing any one of these will sooner or later feels the need of practicing the other two as well. All of these though are not taught at school but these are often told by our parents, friends, family, or by life itself. However a conscious effort to emphasize the importance of these practices should lay down a firm foundations for any ones endeavor of life.

And when a young child asks you how he/she would face the challenges of life and pursue his/her ambitions and goals , you can say :

“ Begin with practicing Knowledge, Courage and Gratefulness. “