Don't Be Serious

Do you know someone who doesn't smile much? How do you feel in his company? Now think of someone who laughs a lot; cracks a lot of jokes & remains cheerful, no matter what circumstances. What difference do you find between the two?

The basic difference between the people who struggle to laugh & who laugh a lot is of the way they live their life. I am not talking about being successful or being a failure. Success & failure are quite subjective & at times, it is difficult to know whether one is successful or a failure from the things one possesses. A person is an utter failure if he has huge wealth but doesn't know how to enjoy life. On the contrary a monk might feel quite successful with no more than clothes to show as his possession. 

Robert Frost was right on the button when he said, 
                                "If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane."

In fact, people who don't laugh are, in a way, insane. They may not be mentally ill but emotionally they are. They don't live their life; they only pass it. And when you pass your life, you waste it. The tragedy of life is not that we have got only one life to live; the real tragedy is not knowing how to live it. You will often hear these people complaining about others not taking their lives seriously. They think they were successful because they were serious. They mistake seriousness for sincerity. They need to be told that life is not a serious matter & needs to be taken sincerely but lightly. Laugh a bit; bunk a few classes if you are a student; play some pranks, dance in the rain & never take life too seriously or you will go insane sooner than later.

Another positive aspect of people who laugh often is that they are an open book. They don't hide anything & therefore are quite trustworthy. They don't lead a worried or hurried life as they live in the 'now' and generally don't carry the burden of today or tomorrow. Since, they are cheerful they are natural heart-warmers. Everyone likes to be in the company of such people as they radiate cheerfulness all around.  

The only treatment of an emotionally ill person is a big laugh every now & then & a sound sleep at bed time!   

           "A good laugh & a long sleep are the two best cures for anything." - Irish Proverb

Power Of Imagination

Everything takes shape twice- first in our mind & then in the real world. There is hardly anything that materialized before being imagined. Then, why is it so that people don't believe imagination to be so powerful or don't use this power?

One reason is that it looks a bit phoney or unreal. It looks unreal until you experience its power. Most of the inventions in the world took place not in the labs but in the imaginative minds of otherwise ordinary people. What looked beyond the realms appeared quite doable once it took shape. These people became great because they used their imagination to think the unthinkable & thus did the undoable. They appeared foolish & their ideas absurd before they found the same things that they had imagined taking place in the real world. Einstein remarked,

                         "If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it."

At first, any imaginative idea sounds absurd to others & even to you but that does not warrant its failure.  On the contrary, more absurd an idea is, better are the chances of its success. This is what imagination does- it converts absurd into superb, unreal into real & undoable into doable!

Another reason people don't use their imaginative power is that they are not trained to use it.  On the contrary, from his early childhood a child is taught to follow the unsaid rules, do what is being told & not to try anything which looks out of box. Our education system teaches us to be disciplined, to carry out the orders. By the time a child grows up, he becomes slave to a system that discourages use of power of imagination. Hence, a large population remains deprived of a wonderful gift given by God to His children. 

All the miracles become real once we start working on this power. Our real magic comes out when we start imagining anything that looks impossible & start working towards achieving it. World will be more wonderful a place if a man is taught from his childhood to only do which has not been done, to think what looks impossible & to go for what looks highly improbable to achieve to an ordinary soul. One of the most imaginative souls of our age Einstein had this to offer  on reality & miracle,

"There are two ways to live your life.

  One is as though nothing is a miracle.

  The other is as though everything is a miracle."

Happiness Defined

One of the major aims of human life is to be happy. And the irony is the more we go after it, the farther it gets from us. We look for happiness in our bank balance, in a palatial house, in a luxury car. And more often than not, these very things rob us of whatever happiness we had before possessing these. How many times you have heard people saying," I was happier when I was not a rich man."? Why is it so that things which were supposed to bring joy attract untold miseries into our life? And the answer is because we misunderstand happiness.

All our life we chase happiness assuming it to be a thing, not an emotion. Things can give you comfort, they may bring security into your life, these may attract more people into your life; but things cannot bring happiness if you don't share these with others. Our basic instinct with things is that of hoarding, not of sharing. We think, the more things we collect, the happier we will get. In fact, it is the other way round. The more things we share, the more joy we attract into our life. Because, when we share things, we also send the emotions of happiness towards the other person. And the gratitude that he shows for the gift that he gets brings double joy in our life. 

Another thing to remember about happiness is that happiness of another person is essential to our own. It is as contagious as sadness is. You cannot feel happy if people around you are gloomy. How many times it happens that you are in a jolly mood & you hear the news of some natural disaster or some accident that brings misery to other people, you too go into depression? The disaster might have taken place on the other side of the globe & it has no bearing on your life but it affects you badly. It is because emotions don't know barriers or boundaries; they travel faster than light & affect all who come in contact. 

All the happiness that we presume to have got from success vanishes into thin air the moment we face another failure. It is because this happiness doesn't come from within; it originates from an outside source. So, the moment that source goes away, happiness also goes with it. Real happiness comes from within & flows out. If a person is really happy, people around him start feeling happy. They don't have negative emotions like jealousy, want, greed etc. They also want to be as happy as the other person but not at the cost of his happiness. Like water, happiness also flows from higher source to the lower. So, if you are happier than others, you should be making people around you happier. And you will also bathe in their reflected happiness!

Power Of Belief

Man is born free but he doesn't die a free man. When we come to this world we are quite light because we are not bound with restrictions. We can do whatever we want & it is primarily because people think we cannot do much & slowly we begin to crawl. People around us feel delighted as we take our first steps. They even clap, take snaps, capture the steps in video & show it to others with a glow of pride. Then we venture out & mix in society, learn new things & make friends. By & by, we learn to adapt ourselves to different environment. We also develop different behavioral patterns suiting different circles. We are different when we are with our friends but behave differently when we are with our parents or teachers. We think we have learned the tricks of the trade & our parents assume we have become worldly-wise. They in fact encourage us to behave differently. The point they miss is that by doing so we are becoming slaves of our circumstances. We are taught to respond in a certain manner in a particular situation, & the next time similar situation arises, we behave similarly. Our mind starts thinking & behaving in a particular manner. If someone else behaves differently in similar situation we call him idiosyncratic. We pick patterns, respond & pass our whole life like that. But, by behaving so we also become prisoners of some limiting beliefs & we don't even realize so. We divide our life into two sections- things that can be done & things that can't be. 

The question arises- Why don't we break these beliefs & patterns & be free?

This situation reminds me of an interesting story of a chained elephant. When a person saw an elephant tied to a pole with a very weak leash, he asked the mahout the reason of elephant not breaking free even though it can do so in single effort as the leash is too weak to offer any resistance. Mahout replied that he tied the elephant with that leash when it was a baby. It tried to break free many times when it was a child but failed as the elephant was not strong enough at that age. And now the elephant doesn't even try because it has developed a pattern in its mind that it cannot break free howsoever hard it may try. So, I open the chain whenever I need the elephant & make it work as per my needs. Once the work is finished, I bring it back here & chain it again. We are more or less like that elephant.

Just like the elephant we remain a prisoner all our life to our limiting belief patterns, to  circumstances, to our routine, to similar job & to many such things. Most of our patterns are difficult to go because we think they are made for us. We don't behave any other way because we don't know any other way. We come to this world a free man but die like a prisoner. What a waste of a life!

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will."

                                                                                                               - Charlotte Bronte. 

Wonder And Mystery

One of the side-effects of gaining knowledge is losing our sense of looking at things from a different perspective. At times, knowledge tends to imply, though mistakenly, that we have known all that is needed to be known. The fact is we don't know even 1% of our own being, leave apart the rest of the world. The vision of some people gets narrower & narrower as they gain more & more knowledge. The world looks a dreary place to them simply because they lose their sense of wonder which, by far, is the greatest of all human attributes. We miss the grand spectacle of nature around us & lead a monotonous life. 

When we miss to observe as simple a thing as a raindrop, we don't miss only a raindrop; we miss a universe in the raindrop. With the help of a very powerful microscope, scientists have documented that there are hundreds of life-forms in each raindrop. They are of different colors, shapes & sizes & each one of these has unique characteristics. This is not to say that when we observe a raindrop, we are able to see these life-forms; this is to carry home the point that when we miss a raindrop, we miss a whole universe. Same way we miss the miracles happening around us every day. And then we complain about life being boring.
"If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life will change.
                                                                                                                      -Buddha
 If we could observe the miracle of a flower blooming or a blade of grass coming out slowly; life would be a wonderland every moment.  We don't see the same things again & again every day; we miss different things every moment. There is so much to see & appreciate around us if we open our eyes to this beauty. This will happen when we attain the real wisdom; when we accept nature as the center of universe & human-being as the most wonderful creation of God. 

"Mystery creates wonder & wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand."

                                                                                                               -Neil Armstrong

All the great inventors, scientists, explorers had one thing common in them & that was their sense of mystery for the unknown. They went for the unknown because they believed that there existed something they were not able to see but that didn't deterred them to believe it. In fact, this sense of wonder became the basis for most of their research. What we see today is only 1% of the universe; what we miss is more than 99%. 

Bridge The Gap

We are living in the age of conflicts, most of which originate from misunderstanding. We have conflicts between two nations, between different communities, between states & provinces. Conflicts don't add anything to our life but they give us a lot of pain. And when the conflict is in the family, it pains us the most. When we live together, there is bound to be difference of thoughts & opinions & the difference is more when people belong to different age group. This difference is not because of difference in age but because of different mind-set. One generation is risk-friendly, wants to achieve its goals at any cost, believes in YOLO (You Only Live Once) philosophy. The other generation is risk-averse, lives an easy-paced life & thinks they know more because they have passed more years than their counterparts. The cause of conflict is that both are looking at the world from different platforms. Their views clash because their perspective differs.

This can be resolved if both the generation meet somewhere in the middle & try to change their own perspective rather than trying to change other's. Parents need to understand that they too were young only a few years back & they had same weaknesses & challenges that the younger generation is now putting up with. If you can't be in their shoes, try to be in your own old shoes. 

"Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn't have anything to do with it." 

                                                                                                                                - Dr Haim Ginott

Their argument is, since they have committed the mistakes in their youth & have experienced the pains, they don't want the generation next to go through the same. But they forget that in the process of safeguarding them from the pain, they are giving heartaches to themselves. Moreover, forcing the issue will be more harmful than letting them fail & learn. 

"People never learn anything by being told; they have to find out for themselves." 

                                                                                                                                   - Paulo Coelho

Sometimes, children complain that their parents behave like children. In fact, as they grow old, they do behave so. They are also going through a transition phase & need compassion & understanding. They pampered you a lot in your childhood; what about returning the favor? If they are talking about discipline, it is because they want you to achieve your goals. Remember, the banks of the river ultimately help the river to flow towards ocean. An overflowing river is not only bad for others, but also self-destructive. Many a time we do things that our parents warn us against & pay a heavy price. 

"Every generation thinks that it has the answers, and every generation is humbled by nature."

                                                                                                                                    - Phillip Lubin  
Once both the generations make a paradigm shift, their worlds will change & most of the ideas which seemed out-dated or outrageous would appear quite logical. Remember, it is always easier to change one's own vision than changing the whole world of the other person.

Attitude- Small Thing, Big Difference

As human being we want to reach the peak of our life. We don't want to settle with the average or ordinary. We acquire best of skills in the best of colleges & get ready to win the world. We have the power of knowledge, cutting-edge technology & the latest gadgets as the weapons to win the battle of life. But despite being successful in our respective fields, we realize that we have faltered somewhere. We wonder what is that we missed down the road to success. 

As a child we learn a lot of skills & put these to good use. As we grow up we are instructed to gather knowledge to be well-placed in society. We devote major portion of our prime age in acquiring general & specialized knowledge & implementing these in our work life to be successful. We do so because we are taught if we do these things right, the rest will take care of itself. But this is only half true. If this were true, why would people commit suicide or lead a depressed life despite being leaders in their fields? It is because we missed something & that something is attitude which is more important than all the things that we acquired to be successful. 

It is a pity that the most important of all the traits to get successful is ignored by majority of the people. It is neither given to us by our parents nor taught in any university. There is no degree or certificate that proves that I got 'A' grade in attitude or I passed with flying colors in the test of attitude. There might be some cursory reference made about your attitude in your report card but by & large it goes unmentioned & unnoticed. With this much of attention given to attitude, what do you expect from a child? He never bothers about it and laughs it away if someone makes a mention of it.

So far so good; but the problem is that you can't wish it away from your life. You acquire a certain attitude from the people around you, willy-nilly. And you live with it for whole of your life harming your interests through your bad attitude or winning the hearts by your positive attitudes. If you pay just a little attention to people around you & your attitude, you will find a strong co-relation. 

So, what is the way out? It is quite simple; you don't need rocket science to have a positive mental attitude. Merely by controlling what you get from people around you, a lot of damage can be averted. You cannot control what people speak, but you can always control what you hear. If you place filter in your mind that rejects anything that harms your positive mental attitude, you will save yourself from a big damage. Stand guard at the door of your mind and don't let any negative thought enter your mind. Remember, it all starts with thought; then comes feeling & next action. If you nip those negative thoughts in the bud, you will safe-guard your attitude to a great extent. Keep distance from the people who think or talk negative, even if they are your family members or close friends. It is the question of your life & the same people will question your ability when you won't get desired results. 

Remember, what Churchill said,

                        "Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference."