Long Walks On Leafy Streets

12/6/2015 Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC
As I wrote in the last post this has been a very busy few weeks. To the hectic activity was added a layer of stress last week. Nicole came down with a mild case of the flu and so I had to take care of Prashant most of the time on a few days. Final exams are coming up soon and some students are coming out of a semester long hibernation realizing that they need to catch up on the class and improve their standing. And finally, barely a few weeks after recovering from the horror in Paris we are confronted with the shooting in San Bernardino that has made people in America genuinely fearful and woken up the ugly face of hate. What is most discouraging to me about this tragedy is the role of the woman, mother of a six-month-old baby. Being the father of a six-month-old son, I cannot understand how someone could simply abandon her child like that. As I mentioned last time, to live as long as possible to take care of Prashant is my greatest desire as well as cause for worry these days.

So it is with a tired body, an anxious mind and a heavy heart that I have been going around with my daily activities the past few days. At times I felt irritable, far from my usual self. I found it hard to deal patiently with students making unreasonable demands or acting irresponsibly. What have helped me a lot are running, meditation and mindfulness, in that order. I managed to go on my usual thrice a week runs. The weather has been seasonably cold, sometimes even mild, probably because of global warming. So the running was not very uncomfortable. Couple of days when it got too dark I ran on a new route, almost all on sidewalks. I ran through downtown Takoma Park almost up to New Hampshire Avenue, enjoying the sights and sounds along the way. In colder weather the first mile is always difficult but after that you enjoy it even more than in warmer weather because you feel good about being to escape getting confined to your home. My running also has gotten better. I am getting to the stage where I can overcome the initial sluggishness and resistance to hardship and it becomes almost pleasurable. The key to success, to go from surviving to succeeding, from plodding on to leaping forward, is to be able to apply one’s will and develop the mental strength to keep thinking positively and focus on the goals and task at hand. One has to be able to generate happiness from within, and that comes from a certain confidence that is really about practicing to stay positive. One learns to constantly remind oneself that it is going to be okay, that I will prevail. This is also the secret to American success (and for the British before them) or any successful person or group, for that matter. I am realizing that all the weaknesses within me form and rise up when I stop reminding myself that I will succeed. In fact weakness is nothing but the absence of positive thinking.

Last week was not without some good developments, though. Our solar installation is now complete and all we have to do is to wait for Pepco to install the net meters. The net meters measure the amount of electricity in surplus, after deducting the electricity generated by the solar panels. Our electric car battery, in a bit of perverse good news, fell below 75% capacity. This means that Nissan will have to replace or otherwise refurbish the battery to full capacity, according to the terms of the warranty. I had good conversations about the electric car and the solar panels with a neighbor as well as a family that we met in a mall parking lot. We had stopped there to charge our car at one of the high powered charging stations NRG energy have set up, on the way to the Feezer farm where we cut and bought our Christmas tree for this year. They grow their trees organically. Nicole loves this season a lot, and it brings her much joy to make this trip to get the Christmas tree and to decorate it. We took lots of pictures at the beautiful farm and enjoyed driving through quiet exurban and rural areas of Howard county. I was worried all the time about being able to make the trip with our car, due to its ailing battery. But once we charged the car and got the tree I felt more peaceful and less anxious. This trip really made us all feel a little more peaceful and joyful. Prashant also enjoyed being at the farm.

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