Rebel to a cause- The Misguided Messiah?!

A number of times I come across people who are out to prove a point, wishing to prove the point above everything in their lives.  They have taken a sacred mission, placing it above everything in their lives, even their lives itself.  They want to do this to make everybody sit up and take notice that they are the greatest among all their compatriots and that others are just minnows in front of their lofty missions.

Let us stop here and take stock of the situation. Are the ones we are out to prove as no-account-minnows so big, that we are trying to prove them wrong by investing our entire lives into proving this point?  Even to the point of letting- go of all the happiness and enjoyment of our lives, the beauty of our beings? What kind of a cruel joke is that? Doesn’t that prove exactly the opposite of what we were out to prove? All it proves is that their opinion is more important than our entire lives.

Having missions in life is not bad , per se, but generally these missions are too small or too vague or too biased, maybe trying to prove a certain philosophy of life as the only correct way of living, trying to prove a person- who has put us down- wrong. They become too consuming and take all kinds of perspective out of our lives. Having the need to allow these missions to be 'the only thing' in our lives, is where we start going wrong. We should always realise that our life is too precious a gift to while away in trying to seek the appreciation of other persons, singular or in groups, proving a single point right or wrong, to the exclusion of all enjoyment and appreciation of other points-of-view and imagination. 

No doubt these ‘messiahs’ get occasional positive feedback, very strong one at that,  which encourages them to continue on the way to complete their mission, and most of the time such feedback is quite genuine. But is that reason enough to make you ruin your life?  Would you allow the opinion of one person, or a group, no doubt how important or intelligent or motivated you consider them to be, to take up the reins of your life at the cost of all the endowments you are going to overlook in your life?  Do you not want to live a full life simply because of your obligation to a few supporters or admirers? Don’t you value yourself enough, have enough self-esteem, to disappoint a million so called admirers, and allow yourself a life of self-contentment rather than being a slave to your obligations and ‘their’ preferences?

‘Moreover, my parents also keep encouraging me all along my way’  is generally the rhetoric of a social messiah. If it is not a parent then it would be a friend, a relative or an organisation, what difference does that make? Whom would you want to place higher  in your life than your own well-being and your own brains? How often do you reflect as to whose life are you allowing to be wasted?

Do you want to take control of your own life or let other well-meaning (!), and perhaps equally misguided, persons to be in the driving seat of your life? The decision is always yours! And, of course, you are always free to demand back the control!!

WELCOME TO HAPPY LIVING....... !

Dare to be Happy

Many of us are eternally on the brink of depression.

Grief-stricken, sick of our existence,  defeated by our day to day routine.  

Even those whom everybody acknowledges as grand successes. Most of them are not able to let go and relax. The idea of everything being under control is alien to them, they simply can’t be purely happy and the feeling of imminent doom is always lurking in the background. 

In some cultures, I am  amazed to note, there is practically a laid down belief that if you become too happy, doom awaits you around the corner. The children are not allowed to laugh too much for fear of their coming to some grievous danger.

 

The fact of the matter, however, is that our actual enjoyment, at any time in our lives, is directly proportional to our expectation of the being happy and our capacity to enjoy. If we have the willingness to be happy, the Gods too open up their bounties for us. 

You may invent a million reasons for being unhappy- the fate has not been kind to you, your health is not perfect, your kids are not what you craved them to be, you are not capable of having the luxuries which you are dying to have, but despite all these handicaps, if you are not enjoying the present moment, at all the times, you will not enjoy any moment in your life. Because,  the present moment is the only place where you will always be, and you will have to get into the habit of enjoying the present, inspite of all the possible futures and the darkest of the pasts.

You are always free to keep on adding demands to your wish-list - being able to fly, thought travel,  invisibility, invincibility and what-you-will, but if you plan to be a well-balanced person you should always be ready to be happy even without the basic amenities of life.  

And, believe me, God is not a vicious being who always wants you to ‘not-forget’ Him and be in His debt always, and is not eternally vengeful, waiting to spring the most excruciating of penalties upon you to ‘teach you a lesson’ if you step out of line.

Always remember, there is just one way of being happy, and that is, ‘to be happy’ .  Always expecting that something wonderfully pleasant is about to happen.

 Try it out for yourself and notice how your life changes ! Amen !

HOW TO FOOL YOURSELF & WHY?

        

‘I can’t fool myself, I know the realities of life and I would be a fool to shut my eyes to these realities .........’

Very well said indeed! This, in fact, is the call to the real world, of a man, of a real man, so to say as contrasted against ‘the boys’. There are so many things in life which are true and no matter what you do, you cannot change them. Right?....

Wrong!!!!

Can you change your basic nature? Can you speak fluently in public? Can you sell a million insurance policies? Can you Bungee Jump? NO?

Obviously YES !!!

‘But you don’t know my realities of life. I have a million chores to attend to, have responsibilities with which it is not possible to have personal priorities’.  And now who is fooling whom?

Well, its only you fooling yourself!

Over the years, we tend to get into grooves from which it is very difficult to dig ourselves out. We get a set pattern of life, start feeling comfortable with a certain kind of thinking, get our own set of ‘omens’ and ‘jinxes’ from our experiences .....generally bitter experiences.  Our lives start becoming stale, our attitudes start hardening and we become very sensitive to anything contrary to our line of thought. We get awfully irritated if someone insists upon ‘impractical’ thoughts (as we rate them). We know that here is a naive person who doesn’t ‘know the realities of life’ or ‘is trying to escape them’. And then we look at his exuberance, his bubbling spirit and know that this guy is going to realise the realities of life ‘the hard way’.


Now who’s fooling whom?

Well let me tell you, we are always fooling ourselves. We are just perpetuating our fears, sometimes in the name of reality, at others in the name of truth, conviction, conscience or whatever we  prefer to call it. There are so many things in our lives which are beyond our direct control that we are constantly afraid that our lives may be seriously damaged anytime. And then we approach the nearest available Messiah to take care of all our fears, to ward off all the lurking ills. We approach the nearest soothsayer to advise certain rituals to keep the evil away and to ensure that our future is properly taken care of.  And again, we are only fooling ourselves!!!.

So what is the way out?

When we are, even presently, in the business of only fooling ourselves, we can always choose to sail with happiness rather than with grief. We can as easily choose to fool ourselves by allowing our courage to take charge of our thought process and simply refuse to be bushed down by our fears. Let us start realising our life-pattern of doubt and start replacing our fears with boldness. We need to remind ourselves that things do keep going wrong in our lives at times, sometimes seriously so, but we always keep moving on, maybe after a period of hibernating in grief, the length of which depends upon our capacity to spring back. Some of the people you know have the shortest of recovery periods and spring back immediately, they are almost always exuberant. It helps to realise that the fear that currently pervades our mind, is neither the first of its kind, nor the last. Even if the worst possible thing happens, the life, in all likelihood, would go on, even though the quality of life may deteriorate a little.

But with a little effort, a little resourcefulness, more of determined cheerfulness and courage, the quality of life would again become better than the present fear-laden existence.


Let us fool ourselves in expecting only the best things in life, and we will see most of them  coming true!!!! 

IS THERE REALLY A GENERATION GAP ?

Almost everybody I know agrees that the Generation Gap is one of the worst maladies that confronts our world and the world could have been a much better place if somehow the situation could be properly addressed. Quotes like ‘Every generation is so designed as to give maximum trouble to the previous generation’ abound, and almost everybody keeps talking untiringly about ‘our times’ / ’our generation’ with such wistful nostalgia that the generation gap becomes most real.

But have you ever pondered these normal observations with a deeper insight? Do you recollect that your colleague Angels never seems to agree with you though both of you share the same month and year of birth. And the lady at the reception is so different even though she is only a year junior. Like nobody in your age group could agree to the same choice of restaurant for the company’s annual bash as everybody seemed to have a different experience with the same places. And that whizkid of the spoilt brat , 20 years your junior, was the only one with you in choosing the ‘ Angel’s Stopover’ as the right choice?

Only the MD, 10 years your senior, and the whizkid seem to agree that the strange gizmo the company has lately started shipping out can sell a million pieces in the year. Have you ever wondered that most of the persons in your age group seem to disagree on a zillion things (Well try making a list of these things and you will find out in a hurry!) and many of the others which are years apart tend to agree with your views or at least like them, at times are  impressed with them. Some amongst the younger/older generation seem such well behaved angels while others of your age are such insipid monsters.

Then where is this generation gap, when disagreements amongst compatriots abound while there is unity of thought amongst people who are years apart. Generally it is only a figment of our imagination, a simple way of bundling one-to-one relationships so that most situations can be attributed to a simple difference of age. And where does a generation start and the previous one ends? Why are your two kids, who were born just two years apart,  light-years apart in their behaviour? No simple solutions this time around? And what is the need for such simplistic explanations, aren’t they both equally adorable despite their differences! Is the world not such a wonderful place, where novelties abound, because of the differences of perception amongst individuals, where a Disney makes a wonderful difference, a Bernard Shaw paints the scenes totally differently than you always thought about it, a Tennyson, a Bach conjure up such beauty out of their imagination?

Would you write-off zillions of people under the label of a different generation rather than appreciating their points-of-view, their thought-process, their feelings towards you and dig such wide chasms between younger and older persons despite this multitude being such a diverse treasure of talent, available right in front of you. 

And make a complete mess of your life in the bargain?!!!!!    

COME START A NEW LIFE WITH A NEW VIGOUR & ENJOYMENT-AT HOME AS WELL AT THE OFFICE.