Rondurance

In yet another attempt to keep myself fit and the process fun,i am doing a lot of cycling these days.
Infact over the weekend i rode for around 100 kms.

There are a few things for which i am doing this..
1)Lance Armstrong is my hero and you generally idolise your heroes.
2)I want to get fit.
3)I want to win over my mind.I want to fool it and keep enduring in situations where it tries to give up.

The first two are self explanatory,they are obvious and i won't detail them for you.

It's the third one that is quite interesting....

Last Saturday
Morning -5 am
Destination - India gate ,16kms (one side)
I started at 5 in the morning and was doing quite well for the first 10-12 kms.I had checked the google map and was knowing almost all of the path.when i was just 2-3 kms away from the India Gate...i started getting tired and i wanted to reach the Destination as soon as possible.My mind was racing ahead of me and it wanted to be there before we were actually there. I was  feeling like stopping and resting for a while but as Lance says "Pain is temporary,Quitting lasts forever"..i stuck it out.I reached india gate...enjoyed the view there and started back to my place.

So the first day i tired around the 12-13 km mark on a journey of 16 kms.

This Saturday
Destination - Noida (31 kms one side)
I again started at 5 in the morning..and this time i knew it's going to be a long journey.This time i started getting tired near the Akshardham mandir(almost 25-26 km mark).I stuck it out..reached noida and back to Delhi.
So i could analyse that mind is behaving relatively..it gets tired relative to the job at hand.
It is the same me and first day i get tired at 12-kms .
On the second day i know it's going to be 64 kms(both ways) and i can not afford to be tired at 12 kms..so i get tired around 25 km mark.

This Sunday
Destination -Again India Gate,(16 kms)
I started at 5:30am ....I was again doing well for the first 10-12 kms and then i started my legs getting heavy.Mind had again started it's game..but this time i told it to shut up as i knew yesterday it had covered 64 kms.I knew it can't tire today as 16 km was just the 1/4th of what it had covered yesterday.

The moment i said this ,i stood up on my cycle..pumped in pedal after pedal for the next 3 kms.With my head down ..i was going at speeds almost 3/4th of the speed of autos.

I think ,the funda worked and it will never ever allow my mind to tire at a journey less then that of Noida.
Any thing more then noida will get to me the first time but then we can always raise the bar.

I think i 'll name this funda
Let's call it "Enduring the Roads"  or
hmmmm... may be we can call it -- Road Endurance
or may be a portmanteau  -- Rondurance. :)

BUT AND

I like you a lot BUT.....
I think you are really hardworking BUT....
I think we played really well BUT...
He is intelligent,smart,handsome BUT .....

If you see all the sentences written above they start positively but "BUT" spoils them all.
But has a unique capability of nullifying the former part of the string.
Recently i read two books which just hated the word "BUT".
They were so against "BUT" that they implored the readers to never use the word in their conversations.

You are debating a person and in the counter argument say that ...
"I totally agree to what you said BUT....."

The moment you say BUT the earlier person's point of view is finshed and now it's all you.

"BUT" increases the friction,it is resistance to an opinion.

Now just replace the BUT with the word AND....

I like you a lot and.....
I think you are really hardworking and....
I think we played really well and...
He is intelligent,smart,handsome and.....


Just by replacing the BUT with AND we have changed resistance to acceptance.
Now we are not opposing a view but we are providing an extension to the earlier view.
You are in a discussion and in the counter argument you say that...

I totally agree to what you said AND .....

Try and use AND in your daily conversation ...and see your point's acceptance level going up.
You'll also feel that people now seem to listen to your point as they feel it to be a natural extension to there point.

This state leaves you in a state where you have the leverage to  get your point across ...better.
The chances are much more higher than they would have been after a BUT.


PS: I have added a few examples in the comments section and i would love it if you could come up with some real innovative ones.

Solution 2

There must be ways to get things done your way...
It's a subtle and nuanced art where Artist makes you see what he wants you to see.

I have witnessed three instances where one type of command didn't get the desired result
but tweaking the command a little got you the anticipated results.

Instance 1

Goal--Delhi Metro authorities want only the old and the handicapped to use the lifts.
Problem -Young people are using the lifts and that too very often.
Solution 1 - A notice was put outside the lifts which said "Only for Old and physically handicapped".

Now the solution was authoritarian and that's one reason it was not obeyed,we ignored the notice time and again .
Lifts were still being used by the young people blatantly.

Solution 2 - Another notice which said "If you are young don't use lift...or even if you feel young don't use lift".
Me and my father were about to take the lift,i read the notice.
I was obviously young and hence told my father that he could take the lift and i would be meeting him on the platform.
Watching me leave ..he probably read the second line and stopped me.He said "Beta i feel young...i'll also not use it"

Solution 2 rocked...

Instance 2...

Goal - I wanted my family members to stop the Masala Gossips and discuss something worthy of a discussion.
Problem - How do i tell the seniors of the family that their discussion is worthless crap?

Solution 1- I told them to discuss ideas..new ideas .how we can make a better society.I told them to take initiative and improve the facilities in the society etc.

They just didn't listen.They nodded in agreement when i was lecturing them but very soon they  resorted to the juicy gossips.

Solution 2 - I read them a quote
"Small minds -discuss people
 average minds - discuss events
 great minds - discuss ideas"

After i told them this quote..a self correction mechanism was set into place.No body would talk about the juicy gossip as that would make him/her a small mind.
Just because every one wanted to be a great mind,they started coming up with weird ideas.

"One of my uncles came up with an idea that why don't we make roads that move.
We'll just put a car on the moving road and the road will take us to the destination."

Anyways no matter how weird the ideas were..they were ideas and gossips had stopped.
Solution 2 worked again..


Instance 3..

Goal -To prevent people from peeing on the walls.
Problem - Peeing on the walls.
 
Solution 1--Authorities wrote several messages for the person urinating in open ."Yahan peshaab karna mana hai "-Khosla Ka Ghosla fame
None worked.Our chatur lingams  cursed the authorities for not providing enough urinals..and kept on irrigating the walls.Solution 1 failed badly.
No message could help the person control his pressures.

Solution 2 - In New Delhi  i have seen those weird messages being rubbed and instead..the authorities are putting TILES on the walls with GODS on them at evey 3 metres.

Ganesha-3 mtrs-Lakshmi-Another 3 mtrs-Vishnu-3 mtrs -Rama.This pattern is repeated for 100-200 mtrs.

However lousy we may be in our public ettiquetes but we respect our GODS.
We can't be urinating in front of them.
After so many years walls have realised "The joy of being DRY".

Solution 2 proved effective yet again and this makes me believes that things do work out...

Next time i'll not stop if the plans don't work out in Solution 1....

...there has to be a Solution 2.