Almost all resentments in life result from the idea that while
life is passing us by, we have not achieved as much as we should have.
At times, we are blue because of some temporary happenings:
for example a promotion which has been denied to us even when we are sure that
we richly deserve it and are dying to keep ahead of a particular individual or
a group of individuals or are trying to catch up with such individual(s) and it
hurts extremely bad to cut such a sorry figure in front of such (despicable?)
creatures. Or maybe someone is outperforming us in every sphere (that we can think
of) in our life- personal as well as official, or others’ kids are outdoing our
kids and, try as we may, we don’t seem to be able to do anything about
it. And when it gets the worst, we wish to drown ourselves in drinks or, in
extreme circumstances we feel like committing suicide. In essence, this feeling
of under-performance seems to be ruining our life.
But is that really a fact, are we really under-performing? Is
there really an ordered level of performance in our life, which is a divine
command? Are we really somebodys only if we reach a certain level of
achievement at a certain age of life. You might think that is the case, that
unless one starts earning a certain level of income by a certain age, gets a
given level of grades in his studies and is in a position to impress a minimum
number of individuals by his achievements he is a failure.
Okay let us go by this faith and try to fix what minimum levels
are they. And of course, who orders and determines these levels? Is it our
parents, who through their constant advisories have always been enlightening us
as to where we stand in our lives, is it our school and college teachers who
keep telling us that at this age where they were in their lives and where a
person of our intelligence should have been in our lives, or is it our spouses
who keep articulating how miserable they are that they have married such
miserable piece of trash, or is it evident from what the Boss at our office has
been rubbing in, 48 hours a day, 1000 days a year for eons together, or is it
our kids who keep informing us what the parents of their best friends or worst
enemies are achieving which they expected us to at least have done to ensure
them a minimum level of honourable subsistence? Or is it really ‘the FACT’ as
‘everybody knows it’ and ‘any person with a basic intelligence’ ‘would agree’
that we should achieve a certain level in any particular
field.
WELL IF THAT IS NOT HUMBUG, what else is? How did your
parents, your teachers, your spouse, your boss or your kids become experts on
how to decide the required level of achievement for you to be certified as a
worthwhile member of the human race? Where do these ‘FACTS’ that ‘everybody
knows’ descend from? The Heavens themselves? Or is it what others have been
able to rub-in into our so-called conscience through the years of our existence
till now?
OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE WHO ARE YOU ALLOWING TO RUIN YOUR
LIFE by giving your own intelligence away to others. There is no manual of
instructions on how to spend your time on this planet. Had there been such a
manual it would certainly have been supplied alongwith all new deliveries into
the world. Every society fixes up its parameters to brand its inhabitants into
different categories and sentences like ‘there are only two/three/four....
types of persons in this world’ are nothing but crap. There are more ‘types of
people’ than there are ‘people’ in this world because generally everyone
behaves differently at different times and cannot be ‘type-casted’. You don’t
need to measure your worth (or anybody else’s, for that matter) in relation to
such comparisons and are always free to enjoy yourself as you are, without
needing to prove your worth to anybody, including
yourself. You are always free to spend your time on this planet as you wish.
No two persons or societies can ever be the same, and there is no way of
gauging their superiority to each other. And on the highway of this life, you
can never be ahead of everybody else and you never know who all are ahead of
you, and you don’t even need to find that out too. You can enjoy your passage
at your leisure, sometimes travelling fast and at others slow, as your fancy
takes you, without feeling guilty. The only requisite, perhaps, is that you are
enjoying the scenery.
AND THAT, pray, is the way to eternal bliss !
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