In The Company Of Self

A man is not only known by the company he keeps; he is also shaped by it. There are few things in life that you cannot choose e.g. you can't choose your parents or your siblings; but you can always make a choice about your friends. We spend a lion's share of our time with our friends & they influence our thinking, our behavior & ultimately our life. 

"Choose with whom to be accompanied; it's your free choice,

  Choose with whom not to be accompanied; it's your right."   - Angel Gutierrez

Though it is important that we choose people that we spend our time with, more pertinent is to choose people that we should keep the distance from. Both are choices; but of different kinds. The former one is to help & support you in your cause; the later one is to save you from people who take you away from your purpose. The former choice is an easy deal as you only have to select a group of people from a large pool who not only are your type but also share the same purpose or at least, second the cause that you are living for & are ready to die for. Keeping away from people who play a spoil-sport is a real task. Sometime, you do it quietly but some time you need to look them in their eyes & tell them to their face," I don't need any of your crap & perhaps don't need you as well."

In case, you don't find anyone who shares your vision, your calling, not to worry. There is someone inside you who is always ready to talk to you. Have frequent conversation with him. In fact, he is the best pal that one has got but irony is he is one of the most ignored one also. He suggests & shouts but his voice is muffled by the outside noise. Despite our continuous ignoring him, he doesn't keep quiet & wants to continue the conversation. The only problem is that we are busy talking to someone else. Sometimes, solitude can be a real gift; something to treasure. It is when you are alone that you can have a dialogue with your inner self. Keep aside thirty minutes for this pal inside you & the best time to spend time with him is in the morning. This is the time when you have no other disturbance to muffle this voice.

            "I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude."

                                                                                                               -Henry David Thoreau

Live Out Loud

The fact of life is that we have only one life to live but another fact is that one life is more than enough provided we know how to live it. Most of the time we pass our life for others or for a wrong cause. By the time we realize that I didn't live my life but someone else did, it is too late.

There has been a long debate on what influences the life of an individual more; nature or nurture ie. his heredity or his environmental factors. No doubt both play a definite role in the making of an individual. Genes may give an individual the color of his eyes, pitch of his voice, to some extent his IQ. On the other hand his environment nurtures his mannerism, his gait & many other personality traits. It is argued that it's the interaction of both nature & nurture, genes & environment that decides the development of a person.

 If this be the case, what is the role of a person in his life? He cannot decide his genes & he is also not in control of his environment, so whose life does he live anyway? What he gets from heredity & his environment is very small aspect of his life; what he makes of that he gets determines his life. This is what separates ordinary from extraordinary; an average man from a genius; and an ordinary life from a life of purpose. The best part is that he has full control on his thinking, his feeling, his attitude & his actions. So why do we complain about people or circumstances shaping our life? We just pass the buck. After all, it sounds better to say that my circumstances were such that I could not study further than to say that I did not study further. People don't take control of our life; we give control of our life to people. The results in our life are the consequence of our actions which originate from our feelings & our thoughts. People have control over their actions; they have no control on what I think of their actions & how do I feel. 

Successful people were those who lived their life their way & they lived it loud. They never bothered about the noise outside because their inner voice was much louder than that noise. They cared least what people spoke of them once they decided that they were living a life of purpose. They might not have been the wealthiest or the most powerful but they were, undoubtedly, the happiest people & to them that was the only thing that mattered. They did what they wanted to do without hurting others. Their success was not their success; it influenced a large section of humanity. They lived, loved & left a legacy. 

"A man is a success if he gets up in the morning & gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do." - Bob Dylan 

Reverse Evolution

When describing man as an animal, we largely point out his physical similarities or differences. We talk about his gait, his mannerism & his instinct as matching those of gorillas & chimps. One basic difference that we, time and again, harp upon is the size of his brain which is considered to be double the size of most of other animals(when measured vis-a-vis body weight). In fact, it is almost three times the size of the brain of a chimpanzee. It has also got well developed neocortex, prefrontal cortex & temporal lobes, making him capable of reasoning, introspection, problem solving etc. This mental capacity combined with adaptation to bipedal locomotion has allowed human being to free his hands and use tools more than any other living species. And this is how we have developed into a society full  of successful people, great inventors, & some powerful nations. Homo Sapiens are not contented with their progress on earth; we have made forays to other planets also to show our dominance there. 

But what we have missed in describing man as an animal are his emotional similarities or differences. Some of  our instincts are similar to animals, eg. flight or fight response. The way we cringe while facing fear or kill our opponent if he threatens our existence. But man also differs largely from other animals as far as his behavior and survival instincts are concerned. Some of these are mentioned below, without any particular order-

1) Man is the only animal that destroys its own abode called earth for its vested interests.

2) Man is the only animal that harms or kills its fellow beings because they don't belong to its social or economic class.

3) Man is the only animal whose desire is never satisfied. On the contrary, it is increased every time it is fed.

5) Man is the only animal that destroys itself for its own pleasure. For how else can you describe people dying of life-style diseases.

6) Man is the only animal that can pretend & cheat its fellow beings at its own sweet will & not feel sorry about it.

These are only few of the differences between man & animal that I could mention for paucity of space. I am sure you must be having many others in your mind. In order to achieve many unrealistic & unnecessary goals, we have forgotten what goals are made for. They are not made to achieve something; they are made to be something. And look what we have become! Aren't we going through a reverse evolution?

Life Goes On

Life is a funny business. The more we try to understand it, the more mysterious it gets. It being mysterious doesn't mean that it is a problem. Far from it, life is a wonderful experience. It has no beginning & no end. As the birth of a child cannot be the beginning of a life, the death can also not be the end point. It comes from a point & merges into it. The only thing definite about life is that it goes on.........

We try to understand life from a subjective point of view. For us, the life revolves around us, some people related to us and that is all. And for this reason when we lose someone, we are pained. We complain about the departure of the person. This happens because of our linear view about life. When we mourn the departure of the person we presume the departed soul to be a human being. While the fact is that all of us come to this earth as a spiritual being to have a human experience. The length of this experience cannot be measured in terms of years; it can only be measured in terms of moments. But the irony is that we ignore the moments & worry about years. Years remind us about death while moments remind us about life. 

All that you get to live is the dash between the year of your birth & the year of your death. Length of the dash is of least importance;beauty of that dash is all that matters. Anyway, you cannot do much about its length but you can add a lot of value to its depth.

"You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width & depth."   - H. L. Mencken 

The other secret of living a healthy life is to live it in now. But most of us either live in past or in future while now is all that we have got. Past is too heavy a burden to carry & future is as unpredictable as death. We don't live in now because it demands abnegation of all possessions. But we are so attached to our possessions that we don't want to shed it at any cost. We know that these possessions are stopping us to fly but still we want to carry it. We forget that we were the lightest at birth and will again be the lightest at death. We make our dash too heavy to float.

The only truth about life is that it has no beginning & no end; that it can only be lived in now; and that it goes on.........

Positive Mental Attitude- A Wonder Drug

Have you ever noticed that some days start on a bad note & end up on the same? Ever tried to figure out the reason? If you remember any such day, try to find out the first thought that came to your mind on that day. More often than not you will find that the first thought was not a positive one. And that was your mood-setter for the day. On the contrary some days pass as if they were gifted to you. And the reason is the same. The beginning of the day must have been a positive one.

You may get out of bed on the wrong side, but what stops you to go to bed with a happy mood? The answer is- YOU. Our first thought might have been a trigger to some incidence. It could be an unexpected phone call, bad tea or may be not sleeping properly the night before. Whatever be the reason, the result is same- a depressing day forward. It will be wrong to attribute all your trouble to that initial trigger. No doubt, it started it all but that is the only thing that it did. Rest of the job was done by you. Your spouse unintentionally says you something that hurts; you give it back to her; she starts sulking & shouts at kids; kids get offended; skip their breakfast; you rush to your office; meet traffic on the way; someone tries to overtake you; you stop his way & give him a piece of your mind; you reach office late; your boss behaves like a cat on hot tin roof; you also retort & decide to chuck your job. Sounds similar? It might have not happened exactly in the same sequence or the actions that ensued might have been different but the result must have been pretty depressing.

What causes ugly situation in your life & many a time becomes the source of depression? Some action by others? Their attitude towards you? Your circumstances? None! It is your attitude towards yourself & others that decides your life. What happens to you is only a small portion of your life. How you react to what happens to you determines your life. You don't have control over others or their reactions but you have full control over your attitude towards others & their actions. 

Millions of people suffer from depression, pain & heartaches & remain on treatment life-long. What they don't understand is that treatment is only one of the ways to control depression. Along with medical treatment, they should also give themselves some mental treatment & change their view about life. Life is as beautiful or ugly as you make it & your life is made only by you, not by some obscure figure or reason in your life.

Live To Dream

Living is an art & unfortunately many are not experts in same. We live as if we have come here to exist forever & try to be the richest or the most powerful. We want to have all that we can in terms of material possessions. We reject the concept of body being transient & soul eternal. But when the D-day arrives, we wish we could have lived a little longer to do tasks that were left unattended. We dream too late & too little.

Man is a born dreamer. A child has got billion dreams in his eyes & for that reason he thinks more in terms of possibilities than in terms of impossibilities. He thinks he can do anything & achieve anything. He doesn't hesitate asking for a moon, literally; & cries if he doesn't get it. But as he grows up, he listens to the noise outside which largely suggests impossibilities of things & discourages him to be a dreamer. The noise outside subdues his natural instinct of being a dreamer. It also suggests him to dream when he grows up & indicates towards futility of dreaming as a child. He is told time & again that he has many years to live & when he will grow up he will have power to make all his wishes come true. We not only kill many dreams but also tell him that he has an eternity to pass on this earth. Very soon he gets into a mindset that encourages material pursuits of things & discourages spiritual living.

He starts living for the future. He studies well so that he lands a plush job; gets a job so that he has all the comforts of life; and buys comfort at the cost of happiness. Soon he gets caught in the rut and finds hard to get out of it. Not that he doesn't want happiness or satisfaction in his life but he doesn't set his priority right. For him security comes before happiness; so job always gets preference over family. And by the time he realizes, it's already too late. 

            "Shop for security over happiness, and you buy it at that price." - Richard Bach

We dream as if we are running out of time & live as if we will live for hundred years. We think that we can afford to commit all sins in order to make our dreams come true & will have a long life to make amends later. If only we could learn to reverse the process. Live each moment as if this is the only moment you have. Dream as if you have an eternity to pass.  

Friend Or Enemy

More people have been killed in wars than in any other calamity. Earth has witnessed innumerable wars, suffered immeasurable damage & borne the brunt of unrepentant human race. All the wars took place not because one side didn't agree to the views of another or because one religion opposed another; it happened because two people didn't see eye to eye with each other. They might follow same religion, might be from same country or family; yet be at daggers drawn. So, what makes them go against each other?

Man is an emotional animal. We take most of our decisions with heart. Not that we don't use our head or don't want to use it but whenever we confront an ugly situation or a person who thinks differently or speak something which is not in sync with our thoughts, we tend to fly into a rage. We want to behave logically but our head stops functioning. This is described as emotional hijacking. This happens when we give control of our mind, the center of our logical ability, to someone else. With our head gone, we are left with only our heart to function & it does so by reacting not by responding.

There is nothing wrong with taking help of your heart. In fact, emotional quotient is a very important tool to read the success graph of a person. But the problem is how we allow it to function; to our advantage or to our disadvantage. This will primarily depend upon the kind of feelings we have for another person. The root cause of hating a person doesn't lie with his color, creed, gender or religion, but with how we empathize with that person. When a child is born, he is emotionally connected to everyone so much so that he cries seeing others in pain. But as he grows up he starts realizing that the pain is not his own but someone else's. He doesn't know how to deal with this emotion but he still empathizes with others. By and by, his emotions for others start dying or are confined only to a few. Now he starts making distinction between his family & other's family, his religion & other's religion, his school of thought & other's way of thinking. He forgets that he was one with all when he came into this world. In short, the empathy in him dies.

If we can keep this emotion alive; if we can understand other's emotion rather than his actions, we would make more friends than enemies. In fact, converting an enemy into a friend will be a cake-walk.