When I arrived at Stanford and kicked-off my global launch, I really
did not know what to expect. I did not know what kind of mind set I
should have. I did not know how socializing with a group of strangers
would be like, nor did I know what to make of the eight months of time
in Ecuador. I had a vague idea that I wanted to try my best to learn
from this brand new experience and open myself to new possibilities.
All of this unknown gave me a fair amount of stress.
Then came the overwhelmingly inspiring talks by all the guest speakers
GCY invited to talk to us. All of them challenged my views on
different topics. They left me in awe and with a lot of food for
thought. So much so that at times I felt like I did not have enough
time or energy to process all the information that was being fed to
me. This resulted in me getting progressively more and more tired as
the week went on. There were times when I would get so tired during
the day and feel like my brain would not function anymore. Then I
would force myself to regain focus. Slowly, I realized that I had been
imposing a certain pressure on myself. I had an expectation on myself
to take in as much new information as possible. Half way through the
week, I started to reflect on it and realized that the expectation I
had of myself was really unnecessary. The more I thought about it the
more I came to the realization that life really only operates in its
own time and any attempt to rush anything only results on stress and
misery.
Towards the end of the week, I stared to adopt mindfulness practices
more. Mindfulness works in different ways for different people. For
me, I focused on taking deep breaths and listening to music when I
feel stressed or overwhelmed. It really helped me to unwind and in
turns helped me to be more at peace with my environment as well as all
the thoughts in my mind. So, to summarized what I have learned through
out this week of global launch, I would say that I have rediscovered
the importance of having a peace of mind. It is when we are truly at
peace with where we are at and who we are at this exact moment can I
truly relax and be content with life. In other terms, this is the only
way for anyone to feel joy. I hope everyone who reads this as well as
myself could begin to and continue to have a peace of mind.
