While watching YouTube videos, we often come across the pesky little ads seeing which our instinct is to press the skip ad button. A similar thing happened to me last weekend. I was watching a documentary on YouTube and my reflex action  impulse was to hit the skip ad button. But that didn't happen until the tune of the ad got stuck in my head. There is always a gap between stimulus and response. And as Viktor E. Frankl would say, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

The tune having gotten stuck in my head, I clicked back button but in vain - The ad was nowhere to be seen. I spent the next few days trying to search which ad it was. After much search, I only managed to find the song whose lyrics the ad incorporated - Que Sera Sera. You may listen to it here. While searching for the ad I was looking for, I came across a very drenching Thai ad based on this lyrics which featured differently abled school children. Later, I found out this song was adopted by Bollywood too in the movie Pukaar - Kay Sera Sera. Finally, after seeking help from various friends, I was able to zero down this ad to Samsung - Will I be pretty, will I be rich?

I pondered why do humans want to be rich and pretty from as young age as when they are "Just a little girl". Seems like humans are predestined to be attracted to six qualities. Two of which are mentioned in this song - Beauty and Wealth. The other four are Strength, Renunciation, Knowledge and Fame. Anyone who is even mildly above the average in any of these six traits instantaneously becomes attractive to us.

Beauty – Helen “The face that launched a thousand ships”

Wealth - Bill Gates “If Bill Gates dropped a dollar, would he pick it up?”

Strength - Mariusz Zbigniew Pudzianowski “Won the world’s strongest man title five times”

Knowledge – Einstein “Considered one of the greatest scientists of all time”

Renunciation - Buddha “The prince who renounced a kingdom, wife and son at the age of 29”

Fame - Shah Rukh Khan “The world’s most famous actor. 3.2 billion people know him”

Not only we are attracted to these six traits, we also aspire to achieve them. So, how many of these traits can one have? Can you be "everything at once" like Lenka Kripac wants to be in her song - which was used by Samsung's rival Windows for Windows 8 promotion in 2012? As much as we would desire to be everything at once, we can never be everything at once! It is important to identify what is that one (or at best two) trait that we can excel at and aim towards being the best in. We are all naturally gifted to be better at some of these traits. Some of us are bestowed with higher intellectual abilities, others are born pretty and yet others have great physical strength. Some go on to get Nobel prize, some get Miss Universe titles and some win medals at Olympics. But I don’t know of anyone who had won the Nobel, is Miss Universe and got an Olympics gold too.

The 1% rule

Whatever we practice, we get better at it. If we practice anger everyday then we will get better at it. If we practice compassion everyday then we will get better at it. If we pursue higher knowledge in physics every day we will become better at it. If we practice classical music everyday then we will get better at it.

Let's assume we get better at what we do by just 1% each day. By the end of a year we will be 38 times better than what we started with! That is the power of compounding – [1 + 1%]^365 days = 37.78.

If we have been practicing anger every day, then in merely a year's time we will reach a point where even slightest things will start to rage us. If we have been practicing compassion each day, we will become kinder. If we pursue physics each day then secrets of the universe will unfold to us. If we practice classical music, melody with ooze out of us. So what will you practice?

Conclusion

Choose what you practice carefully!