NEL MINDSET 10: LIFE IS EASY, WHY DO WE YOUR PRODUCTIVITY AT WORK
SUB:
There is one phrase that I have always wanted to say to everyone in my life. That phrase is “Life is easy.” It’s so easy and fun. Before that I did I never think like that
When I was in Bangkok, I felt like life is very hard, very complicated. I was born in a poor village on the Northeastern of Thailand. And when I was a kid, everything was fun and easy, but when the TV came, many people came to the village, they said: “You are poor, you need to follow success for your life. You need to go to Bangkok to pursue success in your life.” So I felt bad, I felt poor. So I need to go to Bangkok.
When I went to Bangkok, it’s not very fun. I said: You need to learn, study a lot and work very hard, and then you can get success. I worked very hard, eight hours per day at least, but all I could eat is just a bowl of noodles per meal or some Tama dish of fried rice or something like that. And where I stayed was very bad, a small room where a lot of people sleep. It was very hot. I start to question a lot. When I work hard, why is my life so hard? It must be something wrong because I produce a lot of things, but I cannot get enough. And I tried to learn, I tried to study. I tried to study in the university. It’s very hard to learn in university because it’s very boring.
(Laughter)
And when I start to look at subjects in the university, every faculty, most of them are destructive knowledge. It’s no productive knowledge in university for me. When I look at something life if you learn to be an architect or engineer, that means you ruinmore. The more these people work, the mountain will be destroyed more. And a good land in Chao Praya Basin will be covered with concrete more and more. We destroy more. If you learn agriculture faculty or something like that, that means you learn how to poison, to toxic the land, the water, and learn to destroy everything. I feel like everything we do is so complicated, so hard and everything we just make it hard. Life is so hard and I feel disappointed. I started to think about, why did I have to be in Bangkok? I think about when I was a kid, nobody worked eight hours per day, everybody worked two hours, two months a year, planting rice one month and harvesting the rice another month. The rest is free time, ten months of free time. That’s why people have so many festivals in Thailand, every month they have festival.
(Laughter)
Because they have so much free time. And then in the daytime, everyone even takes a nap. Even now in Laos, everybody goes to Laos, you can see people take a nap after lunch. And after they wake up, they just gossip, how’s your son-in-law, how’s your wife, daughter-in-law. People have a lot of time, but because they have a lot of time, they have time to be with themselves. And when they have time to be with themselves, they have time to understand themselves. When they understand themselves, they can see what they want in their life. So, many people see that they want happiness, they want to love, they want to enjoy their life. So, people see a lot of beauty in their life, so they express that beauty in many ways. Some people are just having the handle of their knife, very beautiful, they weave the baskets very nicely. But, now, nobody uses that. Nobody can do something like that. People use plastic everywhere. So, I feel like it’s something wrong in there, I cannot live this way I’m living. So, I decided to quit University and went back home.
When I went back home, I started to live like I remember, like when I was a kid. I started to work two months a year. I got four tons of rice. And the whole family, six people, we eat less than half a ton per year. So we can sell some rice. I dig two ponds, two fish ponds. We have fish to eat all year round. And I started a small garden. Less than half an acre. And I spend 15 minutes per day to take care of the garden. I have more than 30 varietiesof vegetables in the garden. So, six people cannot eat all of it. We have a surplus to sell in the market. We can make some income, too. So, I feel like, it’s easy, why did I have to be in Bangkok for seven years, working hard and they don’t have enough to eat, but here, only two months a year and 15 minutes per day I can feed six people. That’s easy. And after that, before I thought that stupid people like me who never got a good grade at school, cannot have a house. Because people who are cleverer than me, who are number one in the class every year, they get a good job, but they need to work more than 30 years to have a house. But for me, who cannot finish university, how could I have a house? Hopeless for people who have low education, like me. But, then I started to do earthly building, it’s so easy. I spend two hours per day, from 5 o’clock in the morning, until 7 o’clock in the morning, two hours per day. And in three months, I got a house. And another friend who’s the most clever in the class, he spent three months to build his house, too. But, he had to be in debt. He had to pay for his debt for 30 years. So, compared to him, I have 29 years and 10 months of free time.
(Laughter)
So, I feel that life is so easy. I never think I could build a house as easy as that. And I keep building a house every year, at least one house every year. Now, I have no money, but I have many houses. My problem is tonight in which house I will sleep.
(Laughter)
So, house is not a problem, anybody can build a house. The kids, 13 years old, at the school, they make bricks together, make a house. After one month, they have a library. The kids can make a house, a very old nun can build a hut for herself. Many people can build a house. So, it’s easy. If you don’t believe me, try it. If somebody wants to have a house. And then, the next thing is clothing. I felt like I’m poor, I feel like I’m not handsome. I tried to dress like somebody else, like a movie star. To make myself look good, look better. I spent one month to save money to buy a pair of jeans. When I wear it, I turned left, I turned right, looked in the mirror. Every time I look, I am the same person. The most expensive pants cannot change my life. I felt like I’m so crazy, why did I have to buy them? Spend one month to have a pair of pants. It doesn’t change me. I started to think more about that. Why do we need to follow fashion? Because, when we follow fashion, we never catch up with it, because we follow it. So, don’t follow it, just stay here. Do what, use what you have. So, after that, until now, 20 years, I have never buy any clothes. All the clothes I have are leftovers from people. When people come to visit me, and when they left, they left a lot of clothes there. So, I have tons of clothes now.
(Laughter)
And when people see me wear very old clothes, they give me more clothes.
(Laughter)
So, my problem is, I need to give clothes to people very often.
(Laughter)
So, it’s so easy. And when I stopped buying clothes, I felt like, it’s not only clothes, it’s about something else in my life, What I learned is that when I buy something, and I think about, I buy it because I like it, or I buy it because I need it. So, if I buy it because I like it, that means I’m wrong. So, I feel more free when I think like this.
And the last thing is, when I get sick, what will I do? I really worried in the beginning, because then I had no money. But, I started to contemplate more. Normally, sickness is a normal thing, it’s not a bad thing. Sickness is something to remind us that we did something wrong in our lives, that’s why we get sick. So, when I get sick, I need to stop and come back to myself. And think about it, what I did was wrong. So, I learned how to use water to heal myself, how to use earth to heal myself, I learned how to use basic knowledge to heal myself. So, after I rely on myself in these four things,I feel like life is very easy, I feel something like freedom or something that I feel free. I feel like I don’t worry about anything much, I have less fear, I can do whatever I want in my life. Before, I had a lot of fear, I can not do anything. But, now I feel very free, like I’m a unique person on this Earth, nobody like me, I don’t need to make myself like anybody else.I’m the number one. So, things like this make it easy, very light. And, after that, I start to think about that when I was in Bangkok, I felt very dark in my life. I start to think that many people maybe think like me at that time. So, we start a place called “Pun Pun” in Chiang Mai. The main aim is just saving seed. To collect seed, because seed is food, food is life. If there is no seed, no life. No seed, no freedom. No seed, no happiness. Because your life depends on somebody else. Because you have no food. So, it’s very important to save seed. That’s why we focus on saving seed. That’s the main thing in Pun-Pun. And the second thing is it is the learning center. We want to have a center for ourselves to learn, learn how to make life easy. Because we were taught to make life complicated and hard all the time. How can we make it easy? It’s easy, but we don’t know how to make it easy anymore. Because we always make it complicated and now, we start to learn, and learn to be together. Because, we were taught to disconnect ourselves from everything else, to be independent, so we can rely on the money only. We don’t need to rely on each other. But now, to be happy, we need to come back, to connect to ourselves again, to connect to other people, to connect our mind and body together again. So, we can be happy. Life is easy. And from beginning until now, what I learned is the four basic needs: food, house, clothes and medicine must be cheap and easy for everybody, that’s the civilization. But, if you make these four things hard and very hard for many people to get, that’s uncivilized. So, now when we look at everywhere around us, everything is so hard to get. I feel like now is the most uncivilized era of humans on this Earth. We have so many people who finish university, have so many universities on the Earth, have so many clever people on this Earth. But, life is harder and harder. We make it hard for whom? We work hard for whom right now? I feel like it’s wrong, it’s not normal. So, I just want to come back to normal. To be a normal person, to be equal to animals. The birds make a nest in one or two days. The rats dig a hole in one night. But, the clever humans like us spend 30 years to have a house, and many people can’t believe that they can have a house in this life. So, that’s wrong. Why do we destroy our spirit, why do we destroy our ability that much? So, I feel like it’s enough for me, to live in the normal way, in the unnormal way. So, now I try to be normal. But, people look at me as the abnormal people.
(Laughter)
A crazy person. But, I don’t care, because it’s not my fault. It’s their fault, because they think like that. So, my life is easy and light now. That’s enough for me. People can think whatever they want. I cannot manage anything outside myself. What I can do is change my mind, manage my mind. Now, my mind is light and easy, that’s enough. If anybody wants to have a choice, you can have a choice, to be easy or to be hard, it depends on you.
Thank you.
DAY 1
There is one phrase that I have always wanted to say to everyone in my life. That phrase is “Life is easy.” It’s so easy and fun. Before that I did I never think like that
When I was in Bangkok, I felt like life is very hard, very complicated. I was born in a poor village on the Northeastern of Thailand. And when I was a kid, everything was fun and easy, but when the TV came, many people came to the village, they said: “You are poor, you need to follow success for your life. You need to go to Bangkok to pursue success in your life.” So I felt bad, I felt poor. So I need to go to Bangkok.
When I went to Bangkok, it’s not very fun. I said: You need to learn, study a lot and work very hard, and then you can get success. I worked very hard, eight hours per day at least, but all I could eat is just a bowl of noodles per meal or some Tama dish of fried rice or something like that. And where I stayed was very bad, a small room where a lot of people sleep. It was very hot. I start to question a lot. When I work hard, why is my life so hard? It must be something wrong because I produce a lot of things, but I cannot get enough. And I tried to learn, I tried to study. I tried to study in the university. It’s very hard to learn in university because it’s very boring.
(Laughter)
- Do the popcorn game (pronunciation)
- Do you think life is so hard, so complicated?
- Where was the speaker born?
- Do you think university student can have a job after graduation?
And when I start to look at subjects in the university, every faculty, most of them are destructive knowledge. It’s no productive knowledge in university for me. When I look at something life if you learn to be an architect or engineer, that means you ruinmore. The more these people work, the mountain will be destroyed more. And a good land in Chao Praya Basin will be covered with concrete more and more. We destroy more. If you learn agriculture faculty or something like that, that means you learn how to poison, to toxic the land, the water, and learn to destroy everything. I feel like everything we do is so complicated, so hard and everything we just make it hard. Life is so hard and I feel disappointed. I started to think about, why did I have to be in Bangkok? I think about when I was a kid, nobody worked eight hours per day, everybody worked two hours, two months a year, planting rice one month and harvesting the rice another month. The rest is free time, ten months of free time. That’s why people have so many festivals in Thailand, every month they have festival.
(Laughter)
- Do the popcorn game (pronunciation)
- What faculty did you study in university?
- How do you understand the word “poison”?
- How many hours do you work per day?
- What about your free time? How many hours do you spend for yourself?
- Tell me some famous festival in your hometown, your country?
Because they have so much free time. And then in the daytime, everyone even takes a nap. Even now in Laos, everybody goes to Laos, you can see people take a nap after lunch. And after they wake up, they just gossip, how’s your son-in-law, how’s your wife, daughter-in-law. People have a lot of time, but because they have a lot of time, they have time to be with themselves. And when they have time to be with themselves, they have time to understand themselves. When they understand themselves, they can see what they want in their life. So, many people see that they want happiness, they want love, they want to enjoy their life. So, people see a lot of beauty in their life, so they express that beauty in many ways. Some people are just having the handle of their knife, very beautiful, they weave the baskets very nicely. But, now, nobody uses that. Nobody can do something like that. People use plastic everywhere. So, I feel like it’s something wrong in there, I cannot live this way I’m living. So, I decided to quit University and went back home.
- Do the popcorn game (pronunciation)
- Do you spend time t understand yourself?
- What do you really want to do in your life?
- Do you use plastic bag or paper bag?
Homework 1: Teacher gives homework to student
- Listen to the video at least 5 times.
- Practice pronunciation and prepare part 2
————————————————*****———————————————–
DAY 2
When I went back home, I started to live like I remember, like when I was a kid. I started to work two months a year. I got four tons of rice. And the whole family, six people, we eat less than half a ton per year. So we can sell some rice. I dig two ponds, two fish ponds. We have fish to eat all year round. And I started a small garden. Less than half an acre. And I spend 15 minutes per day to take care of the garden. I have more than 30 varietiesof vegetables in the garden. So, six people cannot eat all of it. We have a surplus to sell in the market. We can make some income, too. So, I feel like, it’s easy, why did I have to be in Bangkok for seven years, working hard and they don’t have enough to eat, but here, only two months a year and 15 minutes per day I can feed six people. That’s easy. And after that, before I thought that stupid people like me who never got a good grade at school, cannot have a house. Because people who are cleverer than me, who are number one in the class every year, they get a good job, but they need to work more than 30 years to have a house. But for me, who cannot finish university, how could I have a house? Hopeless for people who have low education, like me. But, then I started to do earthly building, it’s so easy. I spend two hours per day, from 5 o’clock in the morning, until 7 o’clock in the morning, two hours per day. And in three months, I got a house. And another friend who’s the most clever in the class, he spent three months to build his house, too. But, he had to be in debt. He had to pay for his debt for 30 years. So, compared to him, I have 29 years and 10 months of free time.
(Laughter)
- Do the popcorn game (pronunciation)
- Do you grow fresh vegetable in your house?
- How much money do you spend buying a house?
- Do you need to save money in case of emergency? How do you save it?
- Are you in debt?
So, I feel that life is so easy. I never think I could build a house as easy as that. And I keep building a house every year, at least one house every year. Now, I have no money, but I have many houses. My problem is tonight in which house I will sleep.
(Laughter)
So, house is not a problem, anybody can build a house. The kids, 13 years old, at the school, they make bricks together, make a house. After one month, they have a library. The kids can make a house, a very old nun can build a hut for herself. Many people can build a house. So, it’s easy. If you don’t believe me, try it. If somebody wants to have a house. And then, the next thing is clothing. I felt like I’m poor, I feel like I’m not handsome. I tried to dress like somebody else, like a movie star. To make myself look good, look better. I spent one month to save money to buy a pair of jeans. When I wear it, I turned left, I turned right, looked in the mirror. Every time I look, I am the same person. The most expensive pants cannot change my life. I felt like I’m so crazy, why did I have to buy them? Spend one month to have a pair of pants. It doesn’t change me. I started to think more about that. Why do we need to follow fashion? Because, when we follow fashion, we never catch up with it, because we follow it. So, don’t follow it, just stay here. Do what, use what you have. So, after that, until now, 20 years, I have never buy any clothes. All the clothes I have are leftovers from people. When people come to visit me, and when they left, they left a lot of clothes there. So, I have tons of clothes now.
(Laughter)
And when people see me wear very old clothes, they give me more clothes.
(Laughter)
So, my problem is, I need to give clothes to people very often.
So, it’s so easy. And when I stopped buying clothes, I felt like, it’s not only clothes, it’s about something else in my life, What I learned is that when I buy something, and I think about, I buy it because I like it, or I buy it because I need it. So, if I buy it because I like it, that means I’m wrong. So, I feel freer when I think like this.
- Do the popcorn game (pronunciation)
- Don’t you follow fashion?
- How much money do you spend buying clothes?
- What do you think about second-hand clothes? Will you wear it if it’s necessary?
- Clothes change the way people look at you, yes or no?
Homework 2:
- Listen to the video at least 5 times.
- Practice pronunciation and prepare part 3
————————————————*****———————————————–
DAY 3
And the last thing is, when I get sick, what will I do? I really worried in the beginning, because then I had no money. But, I started to contemplate more. Normally, sickness is a normal thing, it’s not a bad thing. Sickness is something to remind us that we did something wrong in our lives, that’s why we get sick. So, when I get sick, I need to stop and come back to myself. And think about it, what I did was wrong. So, I learned how to use water to heal myself, how to use earth to heal myself, I learned how to use basic knowledge to heal myself. So, after I rely on myself in these four things,I feel like life is very easy, I feel something like freedom or something that I feel free. I feel like I don’t worry about anything much, I have less fear, I can do whatever I want in my life. Before, I had a lot of fear, I can not do anything. But, now I feel very free, like I’m a unique person on this Earth, nobody like me, I don’t need to make myself like anybody else.I’m the number one. So, things like this make it easy, very light.
- Do the popcorn game (pronunciation)
- Can you heal your sickness by Vietnamese traditional medicine?
- How do you understand “freedom” ?
- What is your bigggest fear? How can you come over it?
And, after that, I start to think about that when I was in Bangkok, I felt very dark in my life. I start to think that many people maybe think like me at that time. So, we start a place called “Pun Pun” in Chiang Mai. The main aim is just saving seed. To collect seed, because seed is food, food is life. If there is no seed, no life. No seed, no freedom. No seed, no happiness. Because your life depends on somebody else. Because you have no food. So, it’s very important to save seed. That’s why we focus on saving seed. That’s the main thing in Pun Pun. And the second thing is it is the learning center. We want to have a center for ourselves to learn, learn how to make life easy. Because we were taught to make life complicated and hard all the time. How can we make it easy? It’s easy, but we don’t know how to make it easy anymore. Because we always make it complicated and now, we start to learn, and learn to be together. Because, we were taught to disconnect ourselves from everything else, to be independent, so we can rely on the money only. We don’t need to rely on each other. But now, to be happy, we need to come back, to connect to ourselves again, to connect to other people, to connect our mind and body together again. So, we can be happy. Life is easy. And from beginning until now, what I learned is the four basic needs: food, house, clothes and medicine must be cheap and easy for everybody, that’s the civilization. But, if you make these four things hard and very hard for many people to get, that’s uncivilized. So, now when we look at everywhere around us, everything is so hard to get. I feel like now is the most uncivilized era of humans on this Earth. We have so many people who finish university, have so many universities on the Earth, have so many clever people on this Earth. But, life is harder and harder. We make it hard for whom? We work hard for whom right now? I feel like it’s wrong, it’s not normal. So, I just want to come back to normal. To be a normal person, to be equal to animals. The birds make a nest in one or two days. The rats dig a hole in one night. But, the clever humans like us spend 30 years to have a house, and many people can’t believe that they can have a house in this life. So, that’s wrong. Why do we destroy our spirit, why do we destroy our ability that much? So, I feel like it’s enough for me, to live in the normal way, in the unnormal way. So, now I try to be normal. But, people look at me as the abnormal people.
(Laughter)
- Do the popcorn game (pronunciation)
- Who do your life depend on now?
- What is four basic needs in life based on the speaker?
- What need do you think is the most important in life?
- Choose to be a normal person or choose to be an unnormal person, which kind do you prefer?
A crazy person. But, I don’t care, because it’s not my fault. It’s their fault, because they think like that. So, my life is easy and light now. That’s enough for me. People can think whatever they want. I cannot manage anything outside myself. What I can do is change my mind, manage my mind. Now, my mind is light and easy, that’s enough. If anybody wants to have a choice, you can have a choice, to be easy or to be hard, it depends on you.
Thank you.
Homework 3: Teacher gives homework to student
- Listen to the video at least 5 times.
- Practice pronunciation and prepare next lesson
————————————————*****———————————————