Each day, most of us worry about our lives – will my financial model have no errors, will that client take my call, how do I deal with the troublesome customer, how do I appease my boss, will I get a bonus, will I get food to eat, will my kid get admission- etc the list is endless. Our lives, therefore, become a series of measures to ensure that the worries do not fructify.
When practicing meditation, each person has their own methodology. One of the methods I found most relaxing in an odd sort of way was to focus on myself and then to slowly zoom-out. I mean, I start with concentrating on myself, move on to my room, house, building block, housing complex, my city etc until I am seeing the world as a tiny dot from a satellite. Sounds insane on so many levels but it provided a perspective that allowed me to just take a deep breath and just know that what I was worrying about was just not big enough.
The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield talks of an interesting concept – that when life began, humanity’s primary concern was finding out the purpose of life and this quest formed the fabric of life. Finding it unable to arrive at satisfactory answers, mankind dispatched a set of trusted people in search for a universally acceptable truth. In the meanwhile, they got down to their own lives. As part of this settling down into a routine, they looked for means to life more comfortable – resulting in the comforts and life we see today. Somewhere in the background, the search still continues.
Perhaps that is the reason why we lead our lives the way we do- because our own life is all that we can control anyway. Somewhere, the helplessness that is associated with the prospect of something beyond us guiding our lives, adds to uncertainty, which adds to discomfort. But that uncertainty has a way of hitting us anyway – and usually when we least need it. Usually, a global economic meltdown is ill timed to arrive just when you needed that high bonus, or, just when you could not handle your boss another day. You will have that breakup just when u know you need someone in your life the most. Someone will walk into your life when you need it the least. You could be benched just when the work is getting interesting. Life is weird.
On the other hand, usually, while the big picture of a meltdown has little good that it can do, it can lead to a clean-up. Not just of businesses but of mind-sets. Realistic expectations from work and life, sustainable salaries and perhaps the time to figure out what else a job can provide besides money. A breakup usually results in introspection and someone walking into your life can never be a bad thing. Life is weird.
It has a way of being unexpected. Of throwing curve balls that are impossible to predict. But then that’s what makes the match interesting. If you knew the outcome and you knew the process – life would have just been a ride in an amusement park – without any worries and a detached excitement. Thankfully, the attachment, the worry, the fear and the excitement puts the life into life.
Hum of the day
Happiness and peace are goals we try to achieve. Detachment and control are tools we use. Even if life were an engineering project, only if you put both your heart and head into it, will you get a result you want. Anything without that is just a result you will strive to better. Sort of defeats the need of peace does it not?
