Motivation | Raam Dev

Posts Tagged: Motivation

Escaping Cages

Photo: Squirrel Trapped in a Cage

The cage rattled and the creature inside gnawed and pulled at the metal bars. It was a Grey Squirrel, one of several that had chewed a nest into the side of my parents house. My dad was catching and releasing them several miles away with the hope that they would find another place to nest. The trap was designed to cage, not harm, so thankfully the creature inside wasn’t hurt.

Due to the design of the trap, tipping the cage over would cause the doors to unlock and open. The squirrel was definitely big enough to tip the cage over, but instead he paced back and forth and occasionally stopped to gnaw and pull on the metal enclosure.

That’s when I found myself wondering what a human would do if placed in the same situation. Despite there being no indication that tipping the cage over would open the doors, a human would surely try that anyway.

I realized that’s what makes us unique: When the outcome seems hopeless, we test the impossible.

Continue reading →

Taking Initiative and Instigating Change

After reading my last blog post, Pemala, a Nepali friend and a regular reader, left the following note on my Facebook Wall:

Reading “The Revolution Starts Here” was very insightful. It gave me the moral support that is lacking in our community.

I have had enough with the Nepali community leaders in Boston who were fighting among each other for position. I took a stand and voiced my opinion in front of everybody. I thought, I could go home and talk about it or I could take a stand and let everybody in the community know what was happening.

I am planning to gather [the] younger generation for suggestions to improve the organization and have more youth involvement. And, I am going to propose that they help organizations like Nepal FREED who is doing something worthwhile for Nepal.

It was incredible to see how writing a blog post could help someone feel motivated to take action and possibly translate into things that would help the children I visited in a remote part of the world several months earlier.

Pemala’s message caused me to really dig deep and consider the far reaching effects of our actions. It made me analyze the reasons for my own inaction and gave me the missing piece to the puzzle of why I’ve been feeling stagnation in my life since returning from my trip overseas.

Her message allowed me to see the role initiative plays in instigating change. Continue reading →

The Revolution Starts Here

“He had an Afro and he was wearing big pink sunglasses… he said he was a Vietnam vet and that he had been stocking up on canned food in his trailer-park home for the past two years.”

“I have no idea why you would be talking to a drunk guy with pink sunglasses at the bar, but anyway what was he afraid of? What was he planning for?”

“He just came up to me and started talking. He said there’s a revolution coming and the whole world is going to change. He’s getting ready and planning for the worst. I wasn’t really taking this guy seriously, but I’ve heard a lot of people talking about a revolution. Rumors mostly, but lots of people seem to think something is going to happen.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot of messed up stuff going on and something needs to change. I don’t know. A revolution might happen but I don’t think people are going to be on the streets with guns shooting and robbing each other.” Continue reading →

Raindrops of Change

Monsoon rain shower in Hile, Nepal

Imagine a city where every resident was someone who had changed the world in a big way — Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Alexander the Great, Mother Theresa, The Wright Brothers, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, and any other famous person who has ever changed the course of history.

Now imagine you’re strolling around that city and watching all those great people walk around, except that none of them know who they are; none of them realize the impact they’re going to have on the future of the planet.

Right now this world is full of people like that. People who are powerhouses of potential. People with an incredible capacity for greatness but who walk around seemingly unaware of that fact, unaware that they have the power to become passionate leaders, creative innovators, magical healers, and moving motivators.

People like you and me. Continue reading →

Starting the Journey to Ithaca

Boat on the Beach in Gokarna, India

In the past six months I have lived in four countries and called more than twenty-six places home. I’ve traveled more than twenty-five thousand miles using cars, buses, jeeps, trains, airplanes, rickshaws, taxis, motorcycles, and my own two feet.

I’ve gotten lost walking at night in Bombay. I’ve watched thousands of giant bats descend on the great city of Udaipur. I’ve walked through clouds, surrounded by fields of corn and I’ve climbed ten-thousand feet into the Himalayan mountains, covered in sweat, sand, and sunburns.

Sitting down to write a summary of the most incredible six months of my life, I found myself faced with the task of telling a story of epic proportions, one that felt on par with the Lord of the Rings and The Odyssey. I considered limiting it to the story of my inner journey, but then I realized that was even more grand than the physical one.

As I reminisced and pondered what to write, my journey reminded me of these words by the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy, written almost exactly one-hundred years ago: Continue reading →

Posts Tagged: Motivation

Escaping Cages

Taking Initiative and Instigating Change

The Revolution Starts Here

Raindrops of Change

Starting the Journey to Ithaca

Where in the world is Raam?

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