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Have there been times when someone has said or done something and you could predict it? Alternatively, have there been times when you said or did something you wanted to change but it happened again? Human beings are creatures of habit. And these habits aren’t just about what we do, it is also about the way we think and feel in certain scenarios. These emotional habits are frequently recurring patterns and reactions. 

‘Recognizing patterns’ is one of the core competencies of self-awareness. It means knowing our frequently occurring emotional experiences, reactions, and go-to behavioral patterns.

Now you may be wondering why we need to know our patterns. Aren't reactions and behaviors natural? Aren’t we just supposed to go with the flow? Well, we always have the choice to ignore thinking about our emotional and behavioral patterns. But a problem with doing so is that all of our actions can become automatic and not necessarily healthy ones. Without paying due attention to our recurring patterns, we are likely to make automated and generalized responses that may not be the best for us in a given situation.

A lack of awareness about our patterns can impact the people around us negatively as well. For example, let’s say I have a habit of talking in a loud voice when I am with my family because that is how I think they will listen. If I am unaware that this pattern may not be natural or acceptable in contexts outside of the home, I may end up talking to my friends and colleagues in a loud voice as well, thinking that it's normal, but they might not appreciate it.

Only when we recognize our actions and reactions better do we know how to manage them. A good tool for us to understand our recurring patterns can be the ‘Think-Feel-Act’ cycle. Let’s look at an example. For a moment, I invite you to assume that you have a recurring pattern of putting off doing your tasks.

Think: What sorts of thoughts might you have in this situation? 

Let’s say some of them are: “Not again!” “I can come back to this later.” “I’ll watch some Netflix for 30 minutes first." "I have plenty of time."

Feel: How might you feel?

You might feel relaxed initially that you don’t have to do your tasks immediately.

Act: How might you act in this situation?

When you realize you still have time in your hands, you might start binging on some Netflix show.

But, oh, there are still some tasks pending. So what happens next? The cycle will start again. So, let's say you watched some Netflix show (obviously for more than half an hour).

 Think: What sorts of thoughts will you have now?

 “I shouldn’t have put off doing my tasks.” “I just have two hours to the deadline.” “Man, I am late again!”

Feel: How would you feel now?

You would probably feel guilty, regretful, or even frustrated for being late to submit your task again.

Act: What will you do?

 You might rush through the tasks and manage to submit them just in time or miss the deadline—yet again.

Given that you barely managed to submit your tasks on time, you might again have thoughts like, "I can never complete my work on time." "I'm a loser." "The assignments aren't so long anyway, so why should I spend more time reading or researching?" And, the cycle goes on.

But, when you become aware of this cycle, you can inform yourself that it's not helpful to start doing your assignments one or two hours before the deadline. You might need to buy more time, perhaps break down the work into several days throughout the week, so that you don't feel anxious and rushed at the last moment.

Whether or not we are aware of them, our everyday reactions are turning into habits that might or might not be helpful for us. Turning a blind eye toward them would mean living automatic and helpless lives. Knowing those patterns would mean understanding what we're doing well and what we aren't and taking steps to managing ourselves better. As the saying goes, “If you are aware of your pattern, you can change the pattern. Or else, you become the pattern.”

The author is Linchpin at My Emotions Matter, an education initiative that helps individuals and teams learn the mindset and skills of Emotional Intelligence. Learn more at myemotionsmatter.com

A year ago, I was on one of my lockdown escapades on my mountain bike with a friend. We rode south of Sitapaila to Ramkot. 

Heading west from the Sitapaila Chowk, we pedaled past a jumble of roadside houses, shops, teahouses, and housing complexes—the quotidian urban chaos. It surprised us to see the Sitapaila shrine with an appealing facade. We stopped to take some pictures. 

A few years back, Sitapaila (‘Sita’s footprints’), a massive boulder embedded with Goddess Sita’s footmarks, rested under a roadside tree—nondescript and unnoticed by passersby. It looked like Ma Sita got herself a befitting abode as a spacious compound bounded it, lined up with other deities.

As the last leg of the monsoon had dragged out a bit, the dirt road was boggy with endless puddles—nothing like we expected. We often got stuck in the mud, dismounted, and walked our bikes. We did not take a fall, though.

The traffic on the road receded. So did civilization. After Danda Pauwa bazaar, we found ourselves amidst dwindling habitation and farmland with young greens of rice and vegetables. The towering lush Nagarjun Raniban hills rose to a glorious height to our right—a sight for sore eyes.

After some half-hour, we arrived at Ramkot. Larger than Danda Pauwa, the town bore the trappings of a burgeoning city, advancing towards rapid urbanization; but at a high cost of greenery. I realized the village-town had lost massive virgin foliage and woods, which my eyes met a decade ago during a ride there. 

We stopped to rest at an intersection to regain our heaving breaths and sip water from our bottles. I spotted a tea shop, and we felt like having a cup. Next, I approached two gentlemen seated on a bench before us. 

“Namaste, we are a little confused regarding the two roads. Can you help us out?” I asked the older guy. He pointed towards the south and said, “That way due south goes to Switzerland Park, the other goes to Bhim Dunga.” Curious, he asked us how far we planned to go. Then followed a chat that proved fruitful.

As we sipped tea, the guy shed light on the folklore about Ramkot and Bhim Dunga. Ramkot, he said, got its name when Lord Ram, Sita, and Laxman, during their 12-year exile, spent some time there. During his sojourn, the legend goes, Ram built an armory there; thus the by-name Ramkot—kot for weapon store. 

As for Bhim Dunga, the gentleman explained, everyone misnames it as Bhim Dhunga (Bhim’s rock). “The actual name is Bhim Dunga, Dunga for a boat,” he said and recounted the ancient folklore.

“Myth has it one of the Pandav brothers, Bhimsen of Mahabharat fame in the days of Dwapara Yuga, once visited the Bhim Dunga ridge, which served as a ledge overhead a colossal lake, said to be the present Kathmandu Valley.”

Bhimsen, spellbound, wished to explore the waters. He sent for a boat and took a ride. The ridge that day on got the new name, Bhim Dunga—it’s not Dhunga, he summed up again. 

Ancient history too says Kathmandu was once a lake. Manjushri, a revered Bodhisattva endowed with tantric (occult) powers, struck with his scimitar between two hills at Chobhar to cause a breach to drain the water out; eventually, the lake turned into a verdant valley. We are familiar with the site today as Chobhar gorge. 

Bhim Dunga seemed to take our fancy as the elevation would allow us a bird's-eye view of the Kathmandu basin, once a lake. We thanked the gentlemen and headed uphill.

The ridge bore a large stone altar with three gajurs (pinnacles), giving the impression of a midget temple. The stonework included two deities. One was Ganesh, but I failed to place the other chiseled form, a little disfigured; it stood with one arm holding what looked like a Gada (mace). Well, that must be Bhimsen, I figured.

Wow! The elevation offered a 360-degree view of Kathmandu. Instinctively, it made us marvel at what a magnificent lake it must have been. Incredible. 

The grueling ride to Bhim Dunga turned out well worth our while. We struck home—happy and wiser.

We must understand the reasons Nepal could, for ages, maintain a relatively stable economy, be free from colonization or occupation by foreign invaders, and provide home to one of the happiest people on earth. Throughout history, we Nepali have been strongly driven by the concepts of karma and afterlife (though both seem less of a priority today). Survival assured, people are willing to live on half of what they deserve. We are afraid of a poor public image, readily embrace austerity and try to save fortunes for the future. We are highly driven by cultural values.

Nepali are nature worshipers. We worship almost all things in nature: living and nonliving, terrestrial and heavenly, visible and invisible, plants, animals and humans, soil, water, air, fire and space, relatives and strangers. We consider anything that disturbs nature as problems: climate change, global warming, biodiversity loss, pollution of soil, water and air, radiation hazards, ozone layer depletion, and nuclear threat. In the face of terrorism and ongoing regional and global conflicts, not surprisingly Nepal had proposed itself a Zone of Peace!

Nepal needs both economic and infrastructure build-up to start from inside, from grassroots. Large-scale and high-sounding projects are not our priority. We do not want to inundate our millennia-old river-bank settlements to erect reservoirs for hydroelectricity plants. Instead, an average Nepali would prefer covering barren mountains with solar plates or wind fans.

The major part of Nepali agriculture is still organic. Ironically, we advocate productivity at any cost and teach farmers to use chemical fertilizers, pesticides, green houses, as well as exotic, hybrid and genetically modified (GM) and suicide seeds. Each of these steps makes the locals lose their independence and resilience to adversity. They inflict devastating harms on the locals, their livelihood, ecosystem and traditional wisdom. Overuse and inappropriate application of chemical fertilizers has upset soil composition and degraded its productivity.

Pesticides have not only indiscriminately killed insects, weeds, fungi, pests and other useful natural enemies of the harmful ones, they also have become serious threats to human health. They are now associated with various types of cancers, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, organ failure and even sudden death. Seemingly attractive greenhouses have further damaged the environment. Imprudent adoption of exotic, hybrid and GM seeds has threatened our seed banks.

Throughout history, attached toilets were not our dream. Excreta was not tolerated in homes, or nearby water bodies or sacred places. However, the waste was commonly used as organic manure in the fields. After natural organic decomposition, the excreta mix and disappear into fertile soil. This fact was well understood by our ancestors. Human feces and urine formed a part of the healthy ecosystem. People benefitted from active toilet habits. Now we are encouraged to build modern, attached toilets, wasting our already scarce resources. The result is sedentary population, conflicts over dumping sites, as well as various other health and environmental hazards associated with improper waste disposal.

Rapid population growth has put extra pressure on arable land, housing, forest, open space, water and other natural resources. Population planning and maintenance of demographic balance should be a priority. However, our slogan ‘small family, happy family’ has been misinterpreted by many as ‘no to joint family’! The result is adults splitting up from their aging parents and aged grandparents, thus leaving the elderly at the mercy of the state and elderly-care centers.

Some people pay no heed to elderly in their families and localities but found or fund elderly care organizations elsewhere for publicity. Society needs to begin ridiculing such figures.

Our newly adopted education system that promotes materialist views oblivious of the spiritual, religious and moral aspects of development is no less responsible for social disintegration. Now each adult speaks of ‘I’ as ‘a free person’ with rights to choose a life ‘as I like’. With such stubborn views and attitudes, ‘we educated people’ have become feeling-less mechanistic living units, without any concern for the larger society. This has to change.

The biggest reason for our economic poverty is wrong land use. Nepal needs to learn from its own experience. Holding land as a fortune has many downsides. I do not propose snatching private land. But I do propose banning trade of land. Let us own no more land than what we can cultivate without hiring laborers or using mass production tools. Let us not own land or houses for rentals. Let us ensure skyscrapers are not blocking sunlight, or posing threat to bordering lands, houses or waters in case of fires or earthquakes. Such structures harm people both physically and mentally.

Let us begin anew. Let agricultural and settlement lands be fixed first. Let all rivers, streams and lakes and selected forests be declared sovereign—no government, no community, no person can remove them, destroy them, pollute them, cover them, or harm them. This will ensure clean air and environment. For industrial or other activities needing larger pieces of land, let the state or community rent land, hills, rivers, lakes or forests.

Let us fix land prices. Let the state buy all the land being sold, and sell it at the same price to those who need it, on a priority basis fixed by the local community. To the squatters, provide it for free but make it non-transferable and non-sellable, which the state can give to other people if the former tenants are no longer poor or cease to use land as required by the contract.

We also have other development needs. The above-mentioned steps will not only make our land more inhabitable and ensure better and healthy food supply. They will also save our precious resources and enable us work on other priority projects.

The author is a professor of pharmacy at Tribhuvan University

Becoming better versions of ourselves requires self-awareness. It asks of us to think about our daily choices and how those choices are compounding—either for better or for worse. Being purposeful means connecting our daily choices with our long-term vision of who we wish to be as individuals. So let’s say in the long run we want to be a person who cares for the environment. But if we’re using plastic bags daily, wasting water while brushing teeth in the morning or showering, using non-degradable products, are we being purposeful? 

Practicing being a person who cares for the environment would mean we would use cloth bags instead of plastic ones, use water mindfully, and choose biodegradable or eco-friendly products. Yes, we’d like others to follow our lead and live more eco-friendly lifestyles. But we also don’t want to be the kind of person who doesn’t want to understand other people’s choices and reasons for doing as they do.

We would like to grow into individuals who can listen and empathize and inspire others to become better. Being purposeful helps us take actions now, which will add value to the person we want to be in the long-term future while also enabling us to understand other people's long-term vision. Clarity around three concepts—goals, meaning and purpose—can help us be self-aware:

Goals are what we either do or wish to do in the days ahead. They include what we want to achieve in the short-term or long-term future. We create goals to get better in one or more areas in life like health, time management, academic performance, relationships, or professional development. Goals are specific, measurable, and attainable. An example of a ‘goal’ can be to become physically fit, which might require us to exercise every day for 30 minutes, eat home-cooked food three times a day, and sleep every day for eight hours.

Meaning is the reason behind our goals. It explains why we do what we do and why our ‘goals’ are important to us. Meaning gives the motivation to continue making choices that help us achieve our goals and shape us into the individuals we want to be. So let’s say if our goal is to be physically fit, ‘meaning’ can help us figure out ‘why’ we want to become so. It could either be that we want to build strong immunity, feel confident through physical fitness, become active, fight a medical condition, or lead a healthy lifestyle.

Purpose is the impact we wish to have on the people and world around us. Purpose means the bigger picture that we have in mind when making our day-to-day choices and connecting with the people in our lives. When we’re purposeful, it becomes a constant reminder for us to keep doing what we do and helps us connect with people who could benefit from our help. What can be the purpose if our goal is to become physically fit? Maybe it is to lead by example so that people around us also care about maintaining their physical health and benefit from leading healthy lifestyles.

While goals are more actionable, meaning and purpose guide us in terms of our thought process. Most of the time, we create goals, but we don’t know why (we can’t figure out the meaning behind our goals) or the impact we wish to have in the world (the purpose of our actions and choices). If we don’t think through the meaning and purpose of our daily choices, goals can’t be sustainable.

Goals, meaning and purpose also create a cycle. Our purpose guides us in creating goals. Our goals further help us become better in life areas that are meaningful to us. Together goals, meaning, and purpose can help us put our long-term vision in action.

The author is Linchpin at My Emotions Matter, an education initiative that helps individuals and teams learn the mindset and skills of Emotional Intelligence. Learn more at myemotionsmatter.com