Two Ways of Living Life: Active VS Passive

“Life doesn’t happen to you; it happens for you” – Jim Carrey

Have you ever wondered why the things that happen in your life do follow a certain pattern where more often than not the plans we make, tend to not work for us? Have you ever given a thought to the events occurring in your life and the sheer helplessness you felt while trying to control them? Well, this is what a passive lifestyle does to you. Passivity or the act of living a passive lifestyle is not having control over the choices you make in your life and an inherent disinclination towards living a life you dream of.

We all have goals and ambitions in our life for which we are ready to do anything. We believe that these goals will give us happiness and all that is presently missing from our lives. Our goals are sometimes based on our passion and sometimes it is shaped by our surroundings. In order to pursue our dreams and live a comfortable and easy life, some of us take a route that is different from what anyone has ever taken. While some of us completely forget ourselves and try to imitate someone else. We forget that becoming successful is not a talent or attitude that one has to adopt from someone else, but it is your personality and your zeal that make you a successful person.

In this modern era of artificial intelligence, we are losing self-control upon our lives and are getting acquainted to the patterns defined by society and our culture. All this might sound vague to you but even the students preparing for examinations like ESE/ IES and GATE are getting affected by this kind of passive living. Students tend to follow advice from anyone and everyone. They make their choices, right from their career options to the right preparation strategies to choose, based on the opinions served to them on a platter called the internet.

Today, we will talk about the entire concept of passive lifestyle. We will tell you about the symptoms to check if you too are leading a passive lifestyle. We will also help you and guide you in making a transition from this energy-draining passive lifestyle to a more productive active lifestyle.

 

What is a passive lifestyle?

Before we check out the symptoms associated with a passive lifestyle, it is important to understand the real meaning of the passive lifestyle. A passive lifestyle is a way of living life without taking action and being okay with whatever is happening with the respective individual. This kind of lifestyle also includes individuals having a lazy and sedentary lifestyle with/without being affected by any disorders. The individuals who choose such a lifestyle are at risk of attracting lifestyle disorders such as obesity, high cholesterol, heart diseases, stroke, and type-2 diabetes, thus negatively influencing their way of living life. Therefore, individuals, especially students with such a lifestyle, usually find themselves in a pessimistic state of mind and unhealthy lifestyle habits.

So, now let us discuss the various symptoms and characteristics of a passive lifestyle.

 

Symptoms of a Passive Lifestyle:

1. Unconditional Acceptance

We all have been trained, right from our childhood, to accept whatever life throws at us. Well, the only problem with this attitude of acceptance is that with time we lose our basic instinct of examining things before letting them enter our lives. Many students are not happy with the kind of company they keep around them which does not let them focus on studies and distracts them from their goals.

However, we have programmed ourselves in such a way that we just can’t say no to anyone. This one year of preparation for ESE/IES and GATE requires a high level of dedication and discipline. Hence, you need to shed away this attitude of acceptance and start choosing the things that happen with you. The kind of place you stay and study at and the kind of people that you hang out with will play a critical role in keeping yourself engaged in the preparation throughout the year.

2. Feeling of Helplessness

This is one feeling we all have experienced but we all ignore and don’t choose to accept. Everyone feel helpless about the number of hours that they sleep. People feel helpless about the junk food that they crave for and want to leave. Feeling helpless about the bad habits that we all want to quit and so on.

This helplessness is bred by this passive lifestyle that we have inculcated in our lives. We always have a choice to do whatever we want to do and we always end up choosing the wrong path because that’s easy and doesn’t require an active or assertive lifestyle.

While preparing for ESE/IES or GATE, we have to take up an active lifestyle if we want to avoid this helplessness in life. We should be the masters of our lives and not the slaves of our habits. Start exercising and assertiveness in your life and leading an active lifestyle.

3. Giving Up Easily

How long have you followed your passion or your dreams? Students, who start preparing for ESE/IES and GATE with big dreams in their eyes, tend to quit their preparation in between due to demotivation. Why are you letting yourself get demotivated? Because you don’t want to exercise the choice of rising up again and giving one more shot at it.

You are too comfortable with whatever life throws at you. The willingness to fight wears down with passive lifestyle. The ones who go down as toppers and legends are the ones who took control of their lives and choose to fight the odds with their active lifestyle.

So, these were some of the symptoms of living a passive lifestyle. If you can correlate with any of the three symptoms given above, then wake up and take charge of your life. Now that we know about the symptoms of a passive lifestyle, let’s go further and see how an active lifestyle looks like and what can you do to achieve it.

 

How do I stop living a passive life?

If this question has come into your mind, then it is a great indicator of your upcoming personality and habit improvement. Now that you have this question in your mind, it is important to find out the best ways to stop living a passive life and ensure that you proceed toward an active life. Here are some proven ways to stop living life passively from today itself.

• Accept it: Living a passive life is an unintentional choice that occurs due to certain distractions and negativities present around the respective individual. When someone tells you that you are not living your life to your best potential, it is a natural tendency to misunderstand others’ statements and opinions related to your way of living life. Here comes the point where you need to switch your mindset and take such discussions in the form of positive advice and not like the critics’ views. The best solution is you must accept that you are living life passively and now is the time to take proactive actions to achieve significant change in your lifestyle.
• Self-talk: Once you become aware of your passive lifestyle, it is crucial to ask yourself certain questions. This includes ‘What made me choose this lifestyle?’, ‘What encourages me to continue with this lifestyle?’, ‘How do I stop living the life passively and choose an active life?’. You can ask other questions according to your current state in life. This step will help you become aware of reality and realize that you need to take a series of actions that will fetch you the desired results. Initially, you will hesitate but later you will experience that this single step has done wonders to opt for an active life.
• Take intentional action: Now that we have explored and found the ways to detect a passive lifestyle and associated mindset, it is time to take intentional action at the right time. First, you must tell yourself that it is now or never to ditch the passive lifestyle and choose a healthier one in the form of active life. Start penning down in a journal. It will ensure that you keep a record of the thoughts and lifestyle that you opted for at that time. This way, you will commence the phase to live life with a purpose. In the next step, observe eating, sleeping, and fitness-related habits. After this, change your eating habits and opt for healthy eating. Sleep for at least 6 – 8 hours every day. Next comes the level of daily physical activity, such as an exercise routine. Therefore, you must prioritize these three aspects of living life If required, you can choose to get expert help in these segments to see speedy and effective change in your current state of passive lifestyle and retire from this way of life.

 

What is an active lifestyle?

An active life is the best way of living life for every individual, irrespective of age, location, or current state of life. Active lifestyle mainly comprises two factors – a proactive approach towards life and choosing a positive mindset. It will help to ensure that both your mind and body are active, thus contributing to live life actively with gratitude.

 

How to Lead an Active Lifestyle?

1. Have your own perspective

The biggest problem with this digital age is that we have a lot of content to mould our thought process. There are a plenty of videos available for students to get the “perfect” preparation strategy. We live in a very fortunate era where we can get all this for almost free of cost but we have to be very selective in what we chose to inculcate in our lives.

These advices serve a very specific purpose to inspire us. The most important fundamental of an active lifestyle is to have a perspective of your own. When you have your perspective and an ideology of your own, then these videos or someone’s advice will only enrich the perspective and not change it completely. Hence, exercise a certain degree of control over your life and choose how you want o live and carry on with it.

2. Resilience

When you start living your life actively, the first change that you will find in you is that your resilience to obstacles increases. This is what an active lifestyle can do to you. Your personal excellence depends on your ability to tackle the hurdles in your life and keep getting along with it. When you face a tough question or when you fail in one attempt or when you run out of money while preparing for an exam, more often than not you tend to run away from it.

We try to find shelter in our comfort zone and settle for what was not meant for us. An active lifestyle will enable you to be resilient to these sudden changes in life and will give you the power to reach the next level of personal excellence. You will always find a solution to your problems with this mindset.

3. Take charge of your Mind and Body

Many students, while preparing for ESE/IES and GATE, start living a very unhealthy lifestyle and don’t take enough care of their body or mind. What they tend to forget is that their body and their mind is the biggest gift they have. Without a sound mind and an active body, the battle is already lost. These exams require a lot of perseverance and without the support from your body and mind, it can’t be done.

Do regular exercise and meditation to keep yourself fit and active. This will inculcate an active lifestyle in your life. This will enable you to make active choices in your life and to take full control of your life. This is how the people with great personal excellence live their lives and achieve the success we keep dreaming of. The toppers which you here about have all done the same and hence, today they are at the pinnacles of success.

Hence, the choice is all yours. Do you want to be a slave of life’s sudden and unexpected hurdles or you want to be the master of your own destiny? Living an active lifestyle will empower you to achieve the level of personal excellence that others can only dream of. Don’t let the opportunities of life slip away from your hands because of your passivity. This life and this success is yours for the taking. All you have to do is to start living this life in an active way and have control over the proceedings and the choices of your life.

Any aspirant can become a GATE or ESE Topper. It’s a matter of choices that you make and your attitude towards your goal. If you want to be a topper just stand apart from the crowd by doing something different rather than replicating what’s been thrown at you. Choose your path, define your journey, fix your destination and work like you mean it. Before you will even realize, you would have reached at such a height of personal excellence that they will call you a TOPPER!

All The Best!