De-Generation 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.

True Abundance

One of the many lies that is making the rounds is that there is not enough for everyone; that if I part with some of my possessions, others will grow at the cost of my abundance; that there is not enough good to make every one satisfied. The fact of the matter is there is enough in the world to make every soul happy & contented. 

          "There is enough for everybody's need, but not enough for anybody's greed." 

                                                                                                                 -Mahatma Gandhi.

We don't enjoy abundance because we don't understand it. Abundance is not to have something enough but to enjoy something enough. We spend large part of our life collecting toys. We want to have best of cars, best of houses & best of everything. Once we achieve these, we want more. Our hunger for more is never satiated. When we have collected enough, we compete to have the most. We presume we have abundance mentality; on the contrary, this is scarcity mentality. You want more only when you think you have less. You compete with others when you assume you got the smaller share. Competing means thinking of less; sharing means thinking of more. 

Have a look at the people around you; you will see many people having enough to pass their life comfortably. But, are they comfortable? Not at all! They might be going through the worst period of their life. They have a big car; but they don't have a big heart. They have a palatial house; but they don't have a happy family. They have number of profit making companies & many trusts; but they don't have a single friend to trust. What are they experiencing? Abundance or scarcity? They are living in utter poverty. 

Humanity is in the grip of scarcity virus. We want more not because we want abundance but because we dread scarcity. Initially, we want just enough to meet our daily needs, and then we need some more so that we can lead our life comfortably. Then we need a little more to make our future secure. After this, rat-race begins & now we don't want just because we need it but because someone else has it. So, if he has it, I should have it too. The problem with this mentality is that we have enough to enjoy our life but are not left with enough life to enjoy all that we have.

      "Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into." - Wayne Dyer.

Making The Best Of The Worst

Life would be a boring story if we had same situations every time. It is a beautiful adventure because it offers a mix bag of success & failure, loyalty & betrayal, hopes & disappointments. Though we cannot remain stoic all the time, yet we should learn to control our responses to what life offers us. Sometimes, things do not go as per our plans or it may seem so. Just bide your time. Things always happen for a reason. The best way to respond in such a situation is to accept the situation & make the best out of whatever it offers. Every incidence that is taking shape in your life has a reason. It is happening to prepare you for the moment that is yet to come. Your job is to be ready for the moment as it comes. Don't try to understand the reason as you will not fully comprehend it now. Rest assured, when you reach the climax of this story, everything will make perfect sense to you.

Enjoy the good moments of your life as they add meaning to it & treasure the challenging moments of your life as they teach you the meaning of life. At the end of life you should remember these challenging moments not because these gave you a lot of pain but because these moments taught you a lot. When we complain about bad time in our life we prepare ourselves for more such time. On the contrary, when we remain steadfast in our approach to achieve our goal despite challenging time, things start taking shape. Challenges in our life are not to bog us down; they are there to give us strength.

Some people enjoy challenges; these become part of their routine life. Many times we complain that we get major share of pain & others are blessed with all the good things in life. The fact is that we only see their smiling faces during victory lap; we are never able to see the tough time that they experienced. They are the winners simply because they chose to make the best of what they were offered by life instead of complaining about the circumstances. If we have a way to find the average of total number of challenges or hard time of the world & distribute this average among all, each would get almost the same share of challenges that he has now. And if you think you got a little more, thank God for he considered you a worthy soul who would be able to take some load of his fellow human being. 

Why Not?

The most important faculty of a man is his imaginative faculty. As a child it is at its best but decays as he grows up. During his formative years the child tends to question the absence of anything that he can imagine but does not find around him. But, when he grows up, two vital changes take place- one, his power of imagination takes a back seat & secondly, he becomes skeptic even about things that he sees around himself. He questions every new idea that is mooted to solve any old problem and downplays anything that seems out of the box.

The root cause of all the trouble is not the man but men- men around him. Man is not a skeptic by birth. But every time he floats a new idea it is taken as a breach of the pattern & thus not accepted by people. But he keeps imagining his way into the unknown. And the world keeps throwing its tantrums, rejecting the idea on one pretext or another. By and by, he starts thinking that the world is all fine; he is an aberration. And this is the beginning of the end of his imaginative prowess.

The all important question is how some gifted souls manage to counter the onslaught of skeptics and refuse to get adjusted to the easy way of thinking ‘simple & straight.’ The answer is that they consider themselves to be gifted & not an ordinary soul & they remain so till the end.

The early sign of a man getting into the trap of ‘easy & plain’ thinking is that he moves from ‘why not’ mode to ‘why’ mode. Initially, he finds it difficult to adjust to the newly-found world of skeptics but once he gets there he finds it very comforting & snuggles up to it for whole life to lead a limited existence. So, the secret to a blessed & meaningful life is to question what is not around & enjoy what is present. Then only, we will truly be living in the present & preparing for the future. 

A Different Perspective

There are many ways to live life but two very good ones to live life to the fullest are-

1- From the perspective of time it should be lived in moments not in years.

2-From the perspective of things it should be lived observing the minute details of things of beauty around you.

Many people don't even realize that they pass their lifetime without even knowing what they are doing. They are always complaining about paucity of time. Actually, they are right to some extent because time really moves fast if the life is lived in days & years. On the other hand when life is lived in moments, the time stands still & waits for the person until he has enjoyed that moment to the fullest. The moment only cares for the person who cares for it. The fact is that for most of the people moment is the least important unit of time & that is why moments fly past them & so do days, years & a lifetime. The important thing to remember is that life can only be lived in moments; in years it can only be passed. And by the time we realize that, it is  already too late. The common regret of people at the end of their life is that they could not enjoy life the way they were supposed to. If asked to replay the best part of their life, they would surely replay some wonderful moments; not years. We don't remember years; we remember only moments- isn't it a big enough proof to justify this point?

Another way of living the life is by observing the fine details of the creations of God. The blade of grass holds the whole universe on its tip, only if we stand & stare. The magic is in the obvious not in the hidden. But we pass our whole life collecting the toys & ignoring the art of the Supreme Painter. One reason why we miss the obvious is that we think there is something which is beyond our purview. We forget that we are the best creation of God & are entitled to admire all His creations. 

 The life has no meaning if we don't have moments to stand & stare this abundant supply of beauty spread all around us. Observe the minutest of details of things of beauty & enjoy the vastness of universe, or else, regret  not doing so at the end of your life.

Smile Because It Happened

We should learn to celebrate endings not only because they precede new beginnings but also because they happen for a reason. Every journey begins & ends with a purpose. So, if we accept & celebrate the start or the continuation of the journey, what stops us to celebrate the end? Or, why are we pained emotionally when something bitter happens in our life? Why do we want it to end immediately?

 Most of us believe that we have come to this planet to achieve something. No doubt, we are the chosen few who have a goal to meet, a mission to accomplish. The life without purpose is a life wasted. We won't be able to live long if believe that we came here as the result of an incident & we have no control over what is happening in our life. Each one of us is an important cog in the wheel of this grand plan of the Almighty. The whole system is disturbed when we don't play our part to perfection. The challenge lies in understanding our role, our mission. The prime purpose of our life is to live it to the fullest & help others live theirs. Though we are separate identities, yet we are connected with one grand purpose. When everything is going our way, we don't want to break the pattern & if the pattern is broken, we regret it. It is because we treat ourselves as an island, not connected to anyone. So, we are not bothered about any other plan. 

Similarly, when someone leaves us, he does so because he has played his part in our life. His role was limited to that extent. His overstaying would only have disturbed the equilibrium & caused more pain. And we would be selfish if we want him to stay any longer in our life or if we cry because he left. The way he has moved away from you, you also need to do the same; it will bring tranquility in your & his life. Make the departure as smooth as possible. Say him good-bye, wish him a happy life & move on!

One more thing, attaching any relationship with departure will only bring pain in your life & remembering it for all the wonderful moments that you spent with someone will bring peace & contentment. It will be sad if a moment of sudden departure weighs much heavier than all the years of a wonderful relationship. And, don't forget that relationships are transient; purpose is more encompassing & permanent.

Dreams Vs Fear

Our whole existence depends upon one aspect- How big do we dream? In fact, it also doesn't matter whether all our dreams come true or not. Our dreams give direction to our goals which get manifested in different forms.
If dreams are so important then why don't we dream long enough?
There are two reasons why we stop dreaming. The first one is that the environment around us doesn't support this & considers this as a waste of an activity. A child dreams best when he is young but stops dreaming or shrinks the size of his dreams as he grows up. He encounters two obstacles on his way. First, he finds people around him who limit his dreams & secondly, he faces failures on the way of fulfilling his dreams. If he is not taught or he doesn't learn to tackle either of the two, he starts falling into a pattern that is set by others & hints at living an ordinary life.
After a certain period he shivers merely at the thought of having a dream. If at all he dreams, he dreams small; so small that it doesn't make any difference to his existence. Any new dream scares him to death. Instead of living his dream, he starts living his fears. Surprisingly, most of his fears come true because he believes in those & his belief on his dreams further shrinks. Fear is the most crucial factor to kill our art of dreaming.
So the only way to keep dreaming is to challenge your fears. Do what you fear most. Most of the successful people adopted this technique; they did what they feared.  They also did whatever others warned them not to try because it was too difficult or out of their reach. They questioned every doubt and defied every limit. The only thing that you need to overcome is your fear. If you don't, rest assured, one day it will overcome you.