Brushing & chess!

This should not probably come as a complete surprise but it does for most people including me that we do gazillions of things daily but rarely do we think of improving doing any of those! I am talking about everything we do from the very mundane things like brushing your teeth, taking bath, etc. to much bigger ones like our work at office, travel, etc.

Improvement could be looked at from many different angles and the first thing to come to mind is speed of execution. For example, if I could bathe in 3 minutes with same efficiency as I do in 10 minutes, that would be a fantastic improvement for me, isn't it!? Another angle to look at is how much more efficiently can it be done? Any dentist would tell you that rotatory strokes are the more efficient in cleaning your teeth. Yet how many of us know and practice rotation strokes during brushing.

If it is 10 or 15 people who are in the negligence cadre, I can understand. But it is the overwhelming majority of humanity that we are talking about here that does not think in lines of getting better at doing their daily tasks!

The first thing I did was a little introspection on why I am so and realized that I do most things to the point of convenience only. So, it seems that even if inefficient, if something satisfies us or lets us enjoy the process or in other words gets us to the point of convenience, we rarely tend to get beyond that. If we do, there is probably an overwhelming urge to do so for some reason.

Taking a real example from my own life, I decided to play better chess than I used to two years back reading about Bobby Fischer and beign intrigued by all of the hype about the game. So, it is the curiosity factor in this case. I am sure most people have their own reasons or inspirations for the activities in which they excel.

If only we get that inspiration into all walks of our life, could you imagine how life would be? We would simply be curious, just like kids, to find out everything about different things in life and enjoy life a lot more! I am not talking about 1 person or 2 people doing it, although that is also wonderful. Am talking about the vast majority of humanity thinking along those lines. I have seen it happen in a couple of places like the Isha Yoga ashram in Coimbatore, but mostly in individuals belonging to different spheres of life.

Some mysteries keep us wondering the magnificence of life ... :)