When I was young, a daughter of a very rich businessman said yes to marrying me, from that moment onwards my entire thinking was wrapped around her. I was not at all keen to pursue any type of self-development such as education or career etc. I thought so as I believed that my future was certain due to the wealth I was going to inherit from her. Instead of working toward my future, I was entirely dependent on her like a slave. I was like a foolish man who never thought that it was necessary to have a spare wheel in the vehicle, as I was having very high confidence in the four running tires. I was living a fake life with her, I was already wasted and I was further deteriorating rapidly.

I was living in a dream world with no spare tire for my vehicle when one day I fell from high up in the sky to the ground. She simply left me and never even spoke to me from that day onwards. By that time, I was not harvesting any crops from my garden of life. My interest was not cultivated in my garden, rather I was depending on someone else’s garden who had promised to share the land with me. I was struck by a thundering mental blow which was so unexpected that I fell flat on the ground. I had no spare tire to bounce back, as I never thought I would need one. If I had a plan B and strategies running parallel, I would have been able to pursue my education or secure a job. If so that blow would not have been as hard as it is, as I would have landed on a roof and not on the floor.

Since I had not equipped myself with the necessary armory to fight the battle, I fell into a deep dark pit and lost all hope like a foolish person with a flat tire in the desert without a spare tire to replace. Life is full of surprises, there will always be unexpected blows that appear from nowhere. Therefore, it is vital that we train our minds to be well-equipped with a few backup strategies in order to fight back, in case the original plan fails. If you have trained your brain to accept that the original plan will certainly work and in case it fails, you will be blank and clueless. My wife once owned a beautiful racing car.

One day we met with an unorthodox road bump at a route in Ja Ela which made a reasonable dent underneath. Until that day, we had never experienced such a big road bump. Similarly, if your mind is not prepared to face such a sudden mind bump, you or your children might even collapse into depression. One of the key reasons that youngsters suicide today is losing their lover, their minds are incapacitated to face such situations. That is the reason I constantly shout out loud to the government to make life education a mandatory subject in the student syllabus. Academic qualifications will not equip your child with life-battling skills. The minds of the children must be trained systematically with proper correction, direction, and development.

Whenever the original plan fails, we must always program our brain with spare plans that could be implemented in a short time span. In today’s highly challenging environment there is always the possibility that your original plan may fail or it may be gigantically challenged. Every bottle has its own capacity. A 50ml bottle cannot hold the same capacity as a 200ml bottle. Similarly, a 10L bottle could certainly hold much more than a 200ml bottle. However, our brain is not the same as a plastic bottle. The training you provide to it will decide the capacity that it could hold. Even though some may suicide when they lose their girlfriends, others will move forward with a “So What?” smile on their faces until they are highly victorious in life.

Backup plans will help you to reduce the shock that may be created whenever the original plan fails. Just as the road bump was too severe for my wife’s racing car, sometimes the mind bumps you face may be too much for you to bear. That is the reason why I keep harping that each one of us must have 2 (two) calculated strategies to face the sudden deviations. Making a backup plan for “what if not” is not negative. It is exactly as though you are carrying an umbrella on a gloomy day when it is not raining at that moment time. Strong mind bumps can leave you isolated in misery just like a soldier who is shot and seriously wounded and left in a jungle with no help at all.

Just as you may become more fat when you eat more, the more you worry the more your brain becomes worried. Similarly, the more you practice being calm and focused, the more your brain becomes accustomed to being calm and focused during the situations. Backup plans will train your brain to be more alert and prepared. The readiness aspect of your brain will be stronger. Some people may stagnate in the state they are currently in because their readiness factor to bounce back is weak. Therefore, train your mind by constantly implementing a backup plan, that will certainly make you stronger.

Even though people think that humans have control over their brains, it is not the case. Your subconscious has about 90% of control over your feelings, thinking, and behavior which is developed over time based on your experiences, learnings, approaches, and outcomes. What our conscious mind could process is limited to what our unconscious mind could influence. If you have plenty of worries because you had no backup plan to fight back, then your brain will become a “worrier brain”. Yet, if you constantly keep on fighting back without giving up, your brain will become a “warrior brain”.

The level of success and happiness we enjoy in our life will be decided based on if your brain is a “worrier” meaning a worrying brain or if it is a “warrior” meaning that it is a brain that escalates forward. From the time you wake up in the morning, you will face mind bumps from disappointment, rejection, hurtful feelings, fear about your day, and many other aspects. Unless you have trained your brain with the strategies of fighting back, a part of your old brain known as the amygdala will release hormones and chemicals such as cortisol and adrenaline, which enhance stress and anxiety.

A strong mind that can fight back reduces the strength of the amygdala. Why would you want to go through all these painful situations when you possess the opportunity to prepare yourself for the situations in life with a few backup strategies alongside the original plan so that you could manage these mind bumps better and achieve mindfulness? When you possess a calm and quiet mind you will have more capacity for productivity. A clean and well-organized store will allow the owner to store more valuable assets as well as to manage the inbound and outbound functions more effectively.

A disorganized store will create chaos in the operations hence it will not allow the owner to achieve what he intends to achieve, and ultimately it will drown him in stress and anxiety. It was indeed sad to see a highly talented Sri Lankan cricketer lose his career. I believe that his mind was not full, clear, calm, and focused. That is the reason I always mention that the children, especially the youth of this country, need proper life coaching, which will assist them to achieve mindfulness. So that they will be able to manage the process of the new and old brains, as and when life throws various challenges at them that none of us have control over.

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