Monthly Wrap! (April)

Monthly Wraps are blogs that are up on the last Sunday of the month which include:

1. Blogs of the month
2. Book recommendations 
3. What did I curate? Resources I’m binging on – of course, I’ll be choosing the major ones. Just a brim of how much I curate!
4. Reflection to ponder – Of various of my reflections of the month, I’ll choose one or a few.
5. Apps I tried this month
6. My writing journey/ my book updates 

Here’s April”s “Monthly Wrap!”

Blogs I wrote this month:

1. Blog 49: What is Collaboration & When it not!
2. Blog 50: Are you a cog in the machine?
3. Blog 51: Not thinking is a crime too!
4. Blog 52: Monthly Wrap! (April)

Book Recommendations:

This month I could read 4 books:

1. The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho was a good read, but not as great as his famous book The Alchemist. Probably due to two to 2 reasons, one being, The Pilgrimage is a real story whereas The Alchemist is a fictional one. The second reason is, that The Pilgrimage is the author’s first book. It’s not like a must-read book. The exercises mentioned in it are helpful, but again, most of those exercises are not new/unknown.
2. Quiet by Susan Cain is really a great book! At first, I thought how could she possibly fill in that book about introverts and extroverts so much as to fill almost 300 pages. But then, I could notice how incredible she has presented the book to us. I really liked her style of writing. Casual, yet not boring. And what the author is trying to do is just connect the dots of various case studies, researches, and situations particular people have dealt with. However, she puts that in a unique way. This book is insightful as well as entertaining.
3. The Seven Spiritual Laws Of Success by Deepak Chopra is a very short book. “One hour of wisdom” as mentioned by the publisher on the cover page itself. Actually, that was a surprise to me, I thought that book was lengthy, at least, not short. However, it is a great book! Provides you with simple, basic insights everyone must be aware of. And probably you know many of them or all of them, but it’s still a great book to read. It can even be read as a reminder every once in a while, when you’re feeling you’re lost, it fills faith and hope in you. And for me, I saw congruency with the principles I’ve written in my book.
4. The Obstacle is the way by Ryan Holiday is a good book. This is the first book of his trilogy. I’ve read the other two – Ego is The Enemy and Stillness is the Key (My favorite). The book is divided into 3 sections, Perspective, Action, and Will. How using those three you can turn your obstacles upside down. The very good thing about Ryan Holiday books is that they are easy to read. Not just simple words, but mainly, the chapters are very short. Before you get bored of that topic, there comes the next chapter. But I feel that’s a limiting feature of the book. It feels like reading short blogs on related topics. It does not feel encapsulating work that’s connecting various dots. The author probably has chosen the task of connecting the dots to the readers.

What I curated:

Movies:

1. Jalsa
2. Tom & Jerry
3. Good Luck Sakhi
4. Moonshot
5. The Aeronauts
6. Old Monk
7. Self/Less
8. Zindagi Na Milegi Dubara
9. COMA
10. Radhe Shyam
11. King Richard

Trailers:

1. Light Year | Trailer 2
2. Avatar 2

Ted Talks:

1. Elon Musk: A Future worth getting excited about
2. Elon Musk talks about Twitter, Tesla, and how his brain works
3. How to get your brain to focus | Chris Bailey
4. Want to learn better? Start mind mapping | Hazel Wagner
5. Master your mindset | Shade Zahrai

Following along the journey:

1. Pete’s Pirate Life
2. Jesse Driftwood – Building a shipping container studio
3. Becki and Chris | The Home Reno Series
4. Wintergatan | The Machine Week Summaries
5. String | Agent of destruction series

Reflections to ponder:

1. Balancing the spectrum of yoga is very essential!
2. When thinking seems and becomes unproductive, the most productive thing to do is to involve in any activity that will force you to stop thinking or that takes control of what you’re thinking.
3. The ability to make changes or adapt to them decreases as you age. However, if you can still make changes in your life and within yourself even when you are old, you stop aging!
4. Containing the power of knowledge is not an easy task. It’s very hard and risky.
5. We are like the directors of the “so obvious” movie, estimating how the universe will pan out our lives. Reality is far from it. Reality is not at all obvious! Shouldn’t be either!

Apps I tried this month:

1. Roam Research launched their android app! However, it’s not that practical to use Roam as a mobile app. And it’s in its early stages, needs a lot of improvements.
2. Being: Just wanted to try out and see how’s work going on in the fields related to helping mental health. The app has a good number of courses. However, chatting with a real person would be delayed or even a probability. And I think that is more important than any courses. Because a depressed person will seek to resolve his conflicts through real-life talk with a real person instead of a course or chat with a chatbot.
3. Minimalist Phone: It is a launcher that simplifies your home screen with just a blank screen and makes your app’s menu boring so that you’re not distracted. 

I’ve uninstalled all of these apps. I may use them in the future.

My Book Update:

• I think I’ve got the first glimpse of the story outline for my second book.
• Character building, specifics, and details are yet to be worked on.
• And the core of the book is expanding and moreover, intensifying in value.

Thank You,

Yours Loving,

Sanath Kumar Naibhi