Over the last two months, I’ve been thinking a lot (I’m a thinking man after all, aren’t I?), some based on what I read, and some on what I’m going through. All worth sharing:
Silence – The curse of the wise is to keep quiet. When we know something, the natural tendency is to speak out, help the other person. But, if the student is not ready, it would be water on a duck’s back. Life has to bring us to a point where we are open to learning. Till then, wisdom of words is just hogwash to anyone. Look at ‘Gurus’. They don’t run after disciples. They only preach to those who come to them. Look at books, they lie on your shelf till you come to them. They never come to you. The teacher should appear only when the student is ready. Need to change has to be realised internally, it cannot be forced onto anyone.
Facebook – Why should I write what’s up with me on Facebook? Who cares? Is anyone actually interested in knowing which movie I saw, where I ate, what I ate, with whom I hang out, what I do? Facebook did give us a platform to be in touch. But, very soon our ego starts treating our friends and acquaintances as audience whom we need to keep interested (in us). For me, Facebook has long turned into a place to say something clever.
Honesty – To ourselves. If I write a diary thinking someone will read it in the future, I’ll alter it so that I’ll look good in the eyes of whoever is going to read. I’ll lie, gloss over details and unsavoury parts. Just like what I’d post on Facebook. Then, few years down the lane, when details of events remain sketchy in my own mind, I’d start believing the story I’d written. Only when we cut out the ‘audience’ from our lives, can we be honest with ourselves.
Story – We all tell ourselves stories and we are the hero in them. We somehow know the right from the wrong, the correct path to take and how to behave. We develop a set of rules by which we believe the world works and force them onto others, or banish people who do not see the world as we do through these rules. They become our villains, the trouble makers, the fools in our lives, who refuse to walk the path of enlightenment we’ve shown them.
Humility – is the realisation that anyone can do what we did and it is only chance that you were at the right time at the right place. It is realising that two generations into the future no one will remember who we are. And, after we die, it doesn’t matter who remembers us.
Now – The past is now a story we tell ourselves of what happened to us and why. The future, yet another fantastical story onto which are projected our dreams and wishes. The past just was, the future will be, irrespective of our whims and wishes. No matter how much we wish it otherwise, we cannot control the future nor change the past. The only time we can live is ’now’.
Ambition – Our salaries increase. Our wants increase. The cycle repeats every year. Our wants are always more than what we make. What’s wrong in wanting more? Nothing. But, the problem is, wants never end until we say ‘enough’ somewhere. And, where and when that ‘enough’ comes in our life dictates when and if we’ll drop off the rat race and have peace. Should we say ‘enough’ in the first place? Why should we say ‘enough’? Peace comes from within which says I already have what I need to be at peace whereas ‘wants’ say, there’s a hole in your life that can be filled if only you can get that, buy this or have that. So, with a ‘enough’ mindset, you can be at peace. With a ‘wants’, ambition mindset, you are always incomplete.
Responsibility – A friend once said, ‘you have to make yourself happy’. The implication was clear — no one, not your friends, your family, or the world is responsible to make you happy. They don’t owe us happiness. We have to make ourselves happy.
Meaning – The only purpose I could find (so far) in living is — find peace and help others find it.
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