December 15, 2021

Recently I read about an Australian nurse publishing a book about the five main regrets of life from her experience with dying persons. Not sure whether she mentioned the familiar sadness we almost hear daily from many people saying, ‘if I had known this fact before, if I had done this before ... my life would have been far better than the present’. The list of regret is quite significant. If we search for the roots of these regrets, we end up with only one culprit, the initiative.

This is not a common regret. Its impact is huge. Many things we come to know in our later stages of life. A few things we achieve during our late adulthood. Many pieces of advice we neglect due to the lack of understanding of the seriousness of the direction we receive end up regretting at the fag end of the career.

Understand that everyone can make money and progress in life. Prosperity and richness is not a patented property of some countable people. Please don’t say no to money and have it in the young days of life through proper means to enjoy and see the various versions of life. For all our dreams to come true, the primary weapon we need is initiative. The initiative should be in the right direction and at the right time. We need to initiate actions that bring us prosperity in every domain of life.

In my speeches and NLP seminars, I don’t forget to mention AIDS of the brain/mind/cognition/thoughts. We all know what AIDS is in virology caused by the HIV- Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Similarly, there is one more acquired immunodeficiency virus, and the mind virus called the Initiative deficiency virus. Both types of AIDS are fatal, physical as well as mental. Both are acquired. One causes physical death, and the other causes death to the career and dreams.

Name any societal problem or individual level like poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, job loss, less salary, late diagnosis, behavior deviation, addictions, etc. All these problems are directly associated with our lack of initiating remedial actions in time. What brings more sadness is that most educated people don’t start any activities even when there is total clarity about what they should do and lead a troublesome life for no reason.

Understand that the steady and peaceful phase of life is not to keep quiet. That is the phase to prepare for the impending storm to face. It is the time to initiate more activities in life. Initiatives may be in any segment like psychological to open up your mind for new possibilities (fixed mindset to growth mindset), financial to stabilize your income (to add a source for second income), to correct a behavior deviation, to develop more reasoning power than banking on memory or a social goal to achieve more standing to name a few.

Many people working in Gulf countries are under severe stress due to the situation brought by the pandemic. Many people have lost jobs, and salary has been cut. Dreams have shattered. It is not easy to rebuild from here. If they had prepared with more job skills and studied additional job-oriented courses during the steady phase of life, this situation would not have arisen.

The regret I have mentioned above(‘if I had known this fact before, if I had done this before ... my life would have been far better than the present’)that causes careers to fail, slow growth, stagnation, etc., is a direct result of mental AIDS – Acquired ‘Initiative’ Deficiency Syndrome, caused by the virus CIV-Cognition Immunodeficiency Virus. This virus stops developing excellent and positive thoughts push us to possess negative mindset, ultimately causing the death of our dreams, holding us from growing to our actual potential. That is how most people we witness around us are ordinary in status. Maybe it is the social, psychological, and financial domain.

What causes the CIV-Cognition Immunodeficiency Virus to activate mental AIDS – Acquired Initiative deficiency Syndrome and destroy careers? A few points are 1. Lack of quality reading 2. Lack of traveling.3. Lack of psychologically simulative environment 4. Lack of resourceful and influencing parents, peers and friends.

Quality reading provides our choices and options in any situation, whereas the habit of traveling allows us to experience the actual impact of what we read in quality articles/books and any other reading instrument. Reading and traveling has a more significant influence on the quality of initiative we take at any stage in our life. When our observation and inference drawing abilities are strong, we get the medicine required to combat mental AIDS.

The environment influences a few other reasons we are brought up and live. Poverty-ridden children, children who have experienced childhood abuse or other social injustice, are also a significant contributor to the lack of initiating nature in many people around us. In a school setting, teachers should provide special counseling to these students to identify their potential to outgrow the abuse they brought up.

The other significant barrier is focusing mainly on what we are losing since it is visible and unable to visualize what we are gaining since it is invisible now. Our vision makes a difference. Most of us are fixed mindset people with a Fixed Deposit mentality. Trying to overprotect money, many of us lose our dream careers.

Quality reading and traveling combined with resourceful companions provides us the right environment to grow good and quality initiatives.

We are all born equal. Only the CIV- Cognition immunodeficiency Virus makes the difference between success and failure. Even successful people have encountered this virus. They kill it once they detect it in their system, whereas most of us sleep over it and regret later.

The regret I have mentioned above (‘if I had known this fact before, if I had done this before ... my life would have been far better than the present’) is the direct result of not acting against the CIV –Cognition immunodiffienecy virus. All knowledge, advice, and the right people to help you achieve success are available, provided we take the initiative at least once to reach them. The moment you break this barrier, your dreams are fulfilled, and your career has blossomed. The foundation of the initiative is quality reading, from where you will pick up options, choices, and directions. If we fail to read, there is no way we can succeed. Look at all those prospers in their domain. All of them are avid readers being extremely busy with their schedules. This explains the necessity of reading habits to understand all types of initiative. Therefore, if we can initiate one essential practice, reading, the CIV – Cognition immunodeficiency Virus starts dying. Reading is the first dose. The other best option is copying and initiating actions those successful persons do.

The Terminology I used in this article is 1. AIDS Of the mind – Acquired ‘Initiative’ Deficiency syndrome and CIV- Cognition immunodeficiency Virus causing AIDS of the brain/mind is my own imagination to paint the reason for failures which leads to the regret on death bed for the lack of achievements in life otherwise we would have achieved being born equal.