Can life be easy?

I hope my role is perfect,
I hope my rating is good,
I hope my boyfriend is greatest,
I hope my car is swankiest,
I hope my path is correct,
I hope my work is appreciated.

I want to grow big soon,
I want to be known soon,
I want to be best soon.

Many desires and many fears,
This is story of each human day,

Can life not be made easy?
Simple needs with simple life,
Rooted in here and now.

http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=2747

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...

Happiness

This has become a cliché now that happiness does not come through material or senses. They are pleasurable but happiness is something different, it is a state of mind.

Happiness comes when you are in control. In control of your surroundings and are able to manoeuvre your way as you desire.

• You become happy when you are in control of your work and you mesmerise your customers, peers, boss with the output. you are in control
• You become happy when your lover does as you would have wanted it, you are in control.
• You become happy when you are in control of your time. All done well as planned within time. You control your time
• You become happy when you are at your best in your social circle or with customers. You are appreciated for what you are. You are in control

Control gives happiness. Spirituality and Philosophy believe you cannot control the surroundings, you can never be that perfect and moreover the surroundings also want the same control. There will always be a conflict. As per them best is you control your mind and try to want as less external control as possible. Get it to a point of zero so that you are eternally happy. It definitely has a logic less you want from outside more you are in control of what you want as all lies within you and is independent of the surroundings. The more control you have on your mind the more happy you get. 

Life & Thoughts - 2

Life brings in many contradictions and answers are always difficult. The good thing is all such contradictions serve a definite time, they have their death and it solves by itself. One such contradiction is success and failure. 

We all want for ourselves, our loved ones, friends, family - success. But there are times it just does not come, life has its own ways of dealing with it. Life does not look at effort alone and there is luck, which a lot of times play a spoil sport. Unfortunately with failure comes whole lot of emotions - you feel as if you are being cheated, life is unfair to you, selfish conniving people robbed you of what you deserve, you start feeling under confident, you doubt yourself. The moment just takes over you with a force that it makes you go through a whirlpool. Not a happy one, too many thoughts, emotions.. utter confusion, anger, depression. 

All of this has a ripple impact. All your loved ones feel anxious, worried and they wonder what can we do to make you feel better. Many feel the same way you feel - Why is life so unfair? Why are people so selfish and conniving? Why do they hurt? They fear that you may lose yourself and want to protect you. 

But they cant protect you. The mind does not listen to anyone but to its own self. If it does not have the right coping mechanism it can go down; down to a point of no return. It is scary. 

The mind needs coping mechanism. The coping mechanism is nothing but a repository of good successful experiences, of happy thoughts, its about belief in oneself, it is about knowing your strengths and playing on it.  This is the repository you can go back to and remind yourself this too shall pass. There are ups and then there are downs. But there are ups. That builds hope and gives you courage to stand again and fight. 

The coping mechanism develops much faster  with sensitive encouragement from people who want to protect you - your loved ones, colleagues and family. This is perhaps the most important purpose of any relationship. If the relationship does not provide you this encouragement and is not sensitive to you, your strengths it is meaningless. Get away from it.

Keep Walking

Follow me I will take you to heaven,
Its a long way, will have to run,
Else the heaven moves further away,
We can't rest on this long journey
Think through, its a heavy burden to bear,
If you deviate you will waste your years.
_______

This is my dream and I will follow,
I know, my commitment is not shallow
I will follow it with unwavering grit,
Till I reach my dream, the heaven.

On the path for few years I have tread,
The journey has bestowed many rewards.
But often I have wavered and wasted,
Each time I  returned more determined.

Many times I fell, I learnt and rose back
How many mistakes will I commit?
How much will I learn from past?
Am I really learning? Am I in a vicious cycle?
I know not the answer, but this time I will not waver
With this determination I take the arduous path again.

Therapies of Life

I am an atheist and  if you have read my blogs you would have realized that. Atheism however does not limit me in believing in life which is larger than the lives we live. Much larger, a life beyond, something inside makes me believe my life will continue long after I am dead. I am not referring to work or assets I create here which may live longer but a concept which is non proven by science. I am talking about life after death. Anyway these are beliefs which I don't have a proof of and are best left unanalysed.   

What I want to analyse and leave a thought on is what are these larger beyond life concepts or God have a role to play in our lives. These concepts are the best psychologists and therapists. A belief in these give us human beings hope, a hope when most needed. At moments of failure or injustice or heartbreak or unhappiness  or hopelessness these give us a hope, a hope of life of dreams in time to come, as God or justice awaits in some form. These concepts give us a reason to believe in future and endure the travails with a smile. 

For the western world the God is much archaic and a life after death preposterous, therefore they have created similar therapists in glorifying stories of rags to riches like the one in the movie  - The pursuit of Happyness, there are many such stories abundant in Western world giving the average man a hope, a strength to face the bitter realities. It is as powerful concept as God yet it is not as effective. The problem is that it does not seem to create the same amount of reverence as God does and as these stories are human, God is supernatural. 

You may be wondering I am trying to say there is no hope and all the hope created is an illusion, a therapeutic tool. No that's is not the point what I am saying is these are 3 different ways (could be more) of powerful self therapy - God, Super Humans & Life After Death. Truth though is unknown and a mystery; may be death will reveal, that's my belief :)