Why do we see life upside down?

I believe we can blame the principles of meritocracy to the stress and anxiety people feel these days. The value system especially applicable to the urban areas is lopsided towards how we are doing professionally and what it means is someone else will be ahead of you. It is a race after all. What it further means is that you are constantly told that any failure can be ascribed to the talent level you possess or in harsher terms you are assigned to the level of your incompetence or stupidity. 

In our lives meaning of self is derived from work, there is no wonder then there is stress, anxiety with respect to future outcomes. Success becomes necessary, people have amazing illusions about themselves which act as a self defence mechanism which make you feel better, there is politics, people resort to crab mentality pulling each other down to death. Once that self defence breaks in case of a little self aware person he or she cries in agony. Agony of truth of her stupidity or talent level. After all someone will overtake and that means you are good enough. Agony of the fact that this is it there is no going up further, you have hit your highest points and your friends, peers, colleagues till now your equals have still a few more miles to go. 

This reality makes you feel inadequate, a failure and will put you in constant stress about future, you may just get anxious about the fact if you will ever be able to come up? Such questions can bother and pull you further down. 

Alas this is what meritocracy does to you, raises you makes you a hero but only to a certain point. How do we get out of this, can we not believe that self worth is not equal to the designation or success at each activity we undertake. Not everyone can come first. Some are more talented, put in a lot more effort, sacrifice everything else to get ahead in the rat race. Not all can be equal in a race. So what is the alternative we can develop? What is the world view we need to develop? 

We need to not define ourselves with the race we keep running, we need not define ourselves with what we have been acquiring and where we stand when compared with others. Peace, happiness, stress free is a result of immersing oneself in the moment, taking one step at a point to your best capability. It is knowing that we are not falling back from where we are even if it means you cant move ahead, it is about learning and enjoying the current moment. It is a race with your self, to move ahead from wherever you are.

More than that perhaps it is not even about this race, life is a lot more there are plenty of miserable people. Pain, failure, suffering, misfortune is all around. If you look around you will realize how lucky you have been. What really matters is you feel grateful, each day a little gratitude to all the positives which are there in your life can help you cultivate positivity and  train your mind to look at what is happening in your life and not what constantly crib about what is not happening. 

Hope everyone feels the peace, happiness, gratitude before death takes this life away. Hope everyone learn to appreciate the good and not crib about the bad, hope all cultivate the mind to see the glass half full  and not half empty. Life is beautiful and life is also ugly it all depends where you want to look. I prefer to look at the  beautiful and be aware that there is some ugliness not to feel scared but to appreciate the beauty even more. 

What if I screw up......

Remember I screwed up in the past and I may just do that again.. This is the ugly face of anxiety and stress. It is made up of two thoughts fear of what if I screw up and bolstered by some past screw ups. 

All is however not a reality but imagination. The event is yet to happen and is unpredictable. What it does however is makes you paralysed, you just start living in fear and let your life just pass by. It is a short life and it is a pity to be in such a state. 

Anxiety is not an inherent nature but an acquired one. A manifestation of mind and can be dealt with if one is willing to put an effort. Imagine if this was an inherent nature. A child when starts to learn to walk she falls, not once but several thousand times. If anxiety was an inherent nature the child would have thought  - God I fell again I am such a jerk! Next time if she wanted to try to walk again the memories of all the earlier falls would just stress her out and she will rise fearfully trying to do again and damn she falls again. If anxiety was an inherent nature all the kids would have been on a wheel chair.

How did we manage to acquire such an ugly trait?  And some of us has acquired to a degree that we need tranquillizers. I think it is perhaps the over-dependency on pleasure, anxiety and stress were not so common in the past...about 100 years ago. Life involved some hardship and hardship was considered to be a norm, failure meant hardship it was part of life. Also life meant relationships - it was about the family, not just the immediate family but an extended family, society, etc. You lived your life with them and they never bothered of the screw ups you made, they were always there for you. They did not let the screw up become a live ghost of your mind. Life was beyond it. Life was simple and was about daily living we did not depend on reaching a certain milestone. 

In contrast life today is full of pleasures, screw up means pain which we just have to avoid the pleasure is our drug. We have forgotten no pain no gain. Courage which is doing it right even when you feel the fear is a lost trait. To add to it we have moved away from the life around the family and have reduced the life to a series of transactions of success and failure. A lot depends on these transactions and if you screw up you are of course doomed. There is a lot is at stake. It is a situation like the person who has put all his savings on the gambling table, if he loses the hell will break loose. It will and no wise saying can save him. That's the dependency we have created around a few things and if we fail we are bound to feel the stress and anxiety. 

Is there a way to reverse it? There is, after all not all end up acquiring this trait so there are plenty of ways to keep away from this disease. To begin with don't put all your eggs in one basket there are plenty of activities which can give you the pleasure which are seeking through life. spread your wings and don't be dependent on only one item for your happiness. If you have been putting all your energy in your job, increase your life invest in friends, family, hobby, anything which challenges you; makes you feel good about yourself. You don't have to climb the Mount Everest begin doing activities which challenge your skill level this will reduce your dependency if one goes wrong you have others to depend on. 

All above is good to start but the best method will be to train your mind. After all this is acquired nature of mind, as a child you did not have this, you were full of energy, hope optimism and learning new things. You were enjoying the process and not worrying about the results. If you have to kill this ugly acquired trait you need to clean your mind. How? There are several ways  - writing a journal - Build positive stories, acknowledge the good so that the mind does not trick you into just the failures; Meditation - it helps bring a balance in your thoughts; Immerse in the process of life - Train your mind to concentrate on the task you are doing and not overly depend on  the result, enjoy the process. If you fail learn from it, don't let it go waste.. 

Rise and try to walk again. Don't get anxious and end up with a wheel chair...