Saturday-Pentacle – Week 38 – 2019

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Saturday-Pentacle – Week 38 – 2019

A recent episode of my Podcast

Episode 13 – Kuntal Joisher

Episode 13 – Kuntal Joisher (First vegan to climb Mt. Everest from both the sides) – Living a life of compassion and Summiting the highest mountains!

In this episode, I’m talking to Kuntal Joisher who became the World’s first Vegan to scale Everest in 2016 and now in 2019, he has summited Everest again from the North Side becoming the only vegan on earth climb Mt. Everest from both the sides. Kuntal’s expeditions are driven by compassion as a Vegan and he also spreads awareness on Dementia. He has also been on the cover of multiple international Vegan magazines. Apart from his mountain expeditions, he works as a technology professional and also speaks at various events throughout the globe as a public speaker.

In this conversation, we talk about his story, how the early exposure to the idea that “it’s ok to do crazy things” seeded his life with the sense of adventure. How his journey as a mountaineer started and the moments when he was first awestruck with the magnificence of Mt. Everest. His training regime and advice for people who are aspiring to summit Mt. Everest. It’s all in this episode.


My most popular Instagram post recently

Sunsets are proof that endings can be beautiful too.
.
…Click the photo below to read the entire story.


An article I’ve been pondering on —

Forget About Setting Goals. Focus on This Instead – This article changed my perspective about goal setting to achieve success in areas you desire. Instead of goal setting, James Clear suggests a different strategy – Fall In Love With Systems.

This change the way I approach any problem or something I want to achieve. Now following the suggested purview, I started designing good systems and implementing them in my life which could take care of the goals automatically.

Great Read.


A song I loved –

Nipsey Hussle ft. Steve Jobs – Who Detached Us – This American rapper was assassinated (this year) on March 31, 2019. That’s when I first stumbled upon his music and found a somewhat weird kind of energy in his music. This particular song which has a short “stay hungry stay foolish” blurb from Steve Jobs, is filled up with lyrics of everyday life and yet is so deep.

Check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiVspFcwzx0

Quote I’m pondering on lately – 

When you feel homesick,’ he said, ‘just look up. Because the moon is the same wherever you go.

Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

A couple of things I could use your help with:

  1. Have a relevant topic, which I should be covering? Write to me directly or fill out this form and let me know.
  2. Join my reader’s list – It helps us a lot when you become a subscriber, it smoothens you experience on Lifestyle Architecture Lab. Being on the email list provides you additional benefits like some exclusive content, webinar’s, free goodies and all of it will be FREE. Please click the link above to join now or put your email address in the below box and hit subscribe.


No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle – Week 38 – 2019

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Looking back (An annual review – 2017)

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From past four years, I’m doing an annual review of my life. It’s the time when every year I take a pause and reflect back on my successes and failures in the past year. I publish it here in this Blog which keeps me publicly accountable for the goals for the coming year. Here is it for this year –

Photo by Tim Bogdanov on Unsplash

This is my fifth annual review, you can access my previous reviews for 2016, 2015 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), 2014 and 2013. This year also I’ll answer three questions, same as past 3 years:

  1. What went well this year?
  2. What didn’t go so well year?
  3. What’s am I working toward?

Hope it will be insightful and interesting for some of you. Lets cut to the chase.

Looking back (An annual review – 2017)

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Saturday-Pentacle – Week 5 – 2018

Saturday-Pentacle, Week 5 Issue


“Saturday-Pentacle”

Saturday-Pentacle - Week 21 - 2017


A cause I’m supporting and want you to join hands 

Talawe Wetlands

Through my cycling group, I recently came to know about a devastating plan of the govt in Navi Mumbai. They want to build a golf course where there is a huge wetland (Talawe Wetland in Seawoods area).

A wetland is a land area that is saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally, such that it takes on the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem. It saves us in many capacities from the floods as well. As Mangrove trees play a major part in regulating the flooding.

In this particular wetland, many birds arrive through their yearly migrations. More than 80 types of birds have been seen in this wetland and around including Flamingoes, Kingfisher, Swift, Purple Sunbird, Jungle Crow, Bulbul, Coel and many more.

When I visited it recently while the Save Talawe Wetland movement, I myself saw this amazing trail which is right beside this wetland. I could see bio-diversified life and an amazing natural habitat for these birds.

Destroying the wetland to make a golf course seems like a very absurd idea when there is already a golf course in Kharghar which is less than 10kms away from this place and I think not many golfers are there to ask for two golf courses in a small area.

So we did protest by spreading awareness through running/cycling events and making a human chain. The main team who started this movement has started a Change.org petition for this movement and asking govt. to change there minds and also providing permanent protection to this area by marking it protected natural site.

Please support this movement and save our Talawe wetland. Follow the Facebook page for more updates.

Here is a video compilation of our 4th Feb wetland day event –


My most popular Instagram post recently

Photo no. 6
.
The bustling street of Jaipur.

Click the photo below to read the entire story.


Article I’m pondering —

The Principles Of Life That Everyone Knows, But Only A Few Follow – A great read from Darius Foroux. If anytime in your life you have felt existential crisis. This post may be helpful and if you are going through that crisis right now, may help you in navigating through it as well.

So open your mind and read this post.


What am I watching —

The last days of Osama Bin Laden – I recently watched this documentary on National Geographic where acclaimed journalist Peter Bergen, who is one of a small handful people to have met Osama, heads to Pakistan for answers on the ground. This multifaceted investigation reconstructs The Last Days of Osama Bin Laden.

This US operation to get Osama alive or dead was called the Operation Neptune Spear and was executed by a special Ops team made up of US Navy SEALs.

Click the title link for official page of Nat Geo and here is the unofficial YouTube link to this documentary –


Quote I’m pondering on lately –

“You need life to save you from what you want sometimes to give you what you really need.”

— Tim Ferriss (10th Anniversary review of The Four Hour Work Week Book)


Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

A couple of things I could use your help with:

  1. Have a relevant topic, which I should be covering? Write to me directly or fill out this form and let me know.
  2. Join my reader’s list – It helps us a lot when you become a subscriber, it smoothens you experience on Lifestyle Architecture Lab. Being on email list provides you additional benefits like some exclusive content, webinar’s, free goodies and all of it will be FREE. Please click the link above to join now or put your email address in the below box and hit subscribe.


No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

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New year resolutions – 2018

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Making new year resolutions has now become a habit, which I want to keep on cultivating because it helps me move in the right direction throughout the year. I tend to go back each month to this resolution list and see my progress. It is an interesting and forward-moving process.

2017 is over and a new year (2018) is here. For this year’s new year resolutions list, I’m putting in a few fresh resolutions and keeping a few from the last year. Why carry on with the old ones you say? It is because now I’ve started to know myself better than before and what keeps me happy and content.

For some people, new year resolutions are some things from which they want to break out, like a bad habit. For some, it is something new which they want to learn or do. For me it has all three, break out of something which I don’t actually like, learn something new and do something which I’m carrying forward from last year’s resolution list and haven’t yet completed.

Here you go.

New year resolutions – 2018

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26 Things About Life I Wish I Had Known When I Was 20 Years Old

Photo by Caleb George on Unsplash

As Ludwig famously said –

Less is More.

We are always running behind something and someone. When we don’t really know the meaning of this philosophy, we may want everything we see.

In the past 10 years of my life, I’ve slowly started to comprehend this fact. That less is more and this eventually became a fundamental value of whatever I do.

There are many other learnings like this which shaped me as a person in past 10 years. I thought to share these with you, as some of you might be in your twenties and find them helpful. So I jotted down these 26 learnings from past 10 years of my life as A to Z below.

How did I learn them you ask? I have learned these from various books, people and experiences.

I wish I had known these 26 things when I was 20 years old but here they are for you. The 26 reminders –

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Looking back (An annual review – 2016)

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From past three years, I’m doing an annual review of my life. Cause I want to pause and reflect back on my successes and failures of the previous year and publishing it here in this Blog keeps me accountable for the next year.

Looking back (An annual review - 2016)

 

This is my fourth annual review, you can access my previous reviews for 2015 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), 2014 and 2013. This year also I’ll answer three questions, same as past 3 years:

  1. What went well this year?
  2. What didn’t go so well year?
  3. What’s am I working toward?

So this is gonna sound cliché but I’m the man of making resolutions and working on them, every year. So this year also I created a list of new year resolutions like last year. Coincidently I’m posting this annual review almost at the end of second quarter of the year like last year.

I think I’m liking this schedule as it gives me some more visibility on the new year’s resolutions and I can add some more context to the happenings of the year. If that doesn’t make sense, just read it as I was feeling lazy!

Just kidding.

After the successful year of 2015, last year was not that successful overall but it was no less satisfying. I also experienced various sort of serendipities.

serendipity
sɛr(ə)nˈdɪpɪti

noun
the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

Ok! That was not an editorial mistake I knowingly put that word definition above. Why? Because I’ve fallen in love with this word “Serendipity”.

Serendipity in my own definition is a state when we fall in love with the universe and start accepting and loving the present moment, then the universe starts loving you back in the strangest of ways.

There happened many serendipitous events in the year of 2016. Through which I felt strange new feelings derived from wandering, wondering and affection.

I’m keeping this post as a single post, unlike last year’s 3 part post which took so much time and complexity to get published. Hope it will be insightful and interesting for some of you.

Lets cut to the chase.

Looking back (An annual review – 2016)

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New year resolutions – 2017

New Year Resolutions

Last year I first published a list of my top 10 new year resolutions for the year of 2016. So I’m continuing the tradition, cause it helped me move in the right direction in the last year throughout. I would go back each month to this resolution list and see my progress. It was a fun and productive process.

It’s the new year day today. New hopes, New resolutions and a report of last year’s resolutions. Here you go.

New year resolutions – 2017

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Resistance

'Resistance' - Picture courtesy — The coffeelicious post — http://bitly.com/2bvtCVt
‘Resistance’ – Picture courtesy — The coffeelicious post — http://bitly.com/2bvtCVt

 

She was standing on the edge of the cliff.

The gray blind still on her eyes, covering the blind of her hair on her face. She was ready to give in. But why?

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