Couple of days back on a visit to my banker, I read the following.
“Always Keep Smiling. Smiling doesn’t mean you don’t have problems but the ability and confidence to overcome them”
Suddenly I realized that I indeed had stopped smiling for quite some time. It wasn’t that responsibilities and pressures of life had suddenly come knocking but maybe because I was stressing more on the problems I have than the privileges I enjoy. Maybe I really understood what everyone meant when they said “Don’t take you self too seriously”. If you still have not understood what it means, is when we are busy doing our work in our field, at some point of time it so happens that the whole universe begins to center around our work. We start thinking that it is the only thing that is possibly happening in the whole wide world. We stop smiling, immersing ourselves more and more in the small world we have created and stop really caring what is outside. Its only when we open our minds and see with our eyes open do we realize that there is so much more to life than we thought of. The person we are thinking so high about is nothing but just a grain of sand in the vast oceans of time.
Every person’s life has their own amount of struggles and victories. I would not like to categorize people as more fortunate or less fortunate, happier or less happy, prosperous or not so prosperous because ultimately it all balances out. For some money is a fortune, but others good wife and children (family) is a fortune. For some bungalows, cars are happiness for others peace of mind is happiness. It doesn’t mean that keeping one view is the opposite of another. It just means that there are different definitions of same things based on different experiences and outlook. But like a learned Electrical Engineer once said “All life is but one sinusoidal wave. You reach the peak; now wait for the fall and so on”. It’s a cycle which keeps on continuing till life is a straight line (in medical equivalent of a dead person).
Over the last few months I have had varied experiences and interactions. I have invariably learnt so many lessons that are more or less likely to stay on for the rest of my life (or at least I wish).
· The people who stick with you when you are down are your real relatives.
There are many relations in our life that we just take for granted, like family, friends, colleagues, etc. Its only their true character is revealed when we are down. And this revelation is absolutely stunning; the people who stick it out when you are down are in fact your real relatives. Remember them and reward them when the times have changed. Don’t ever forget that they thought or believed in you or something and saw that you are through it. It’s a very humbling experience because you would realize that your strength doesn’t just lie within but because of this very people who believed in you. Maybe it’s because of their faith in you that made it possible for you to continue in spite or in face of innumerable difficulties.
· Importance of Balance of Mind and Good Intentions.
When you are roughing it out, when you are under pressure from all ends it is imperative that you maintain the balance of your mind and thought process. Equanimity is very critical. Besides the above good intentions can take you out of the toughest times of your life. The metaphysical concepts of thought is sometimes hard to believe and practice but in reality does hold true. Will Smith once said “To even think of a 2nd option / 2nd place (failure) is like giving chance for it to happen”. Believe that the best would take place despite the problems you are undergoing today and the whole universe would collaborate to make it happen for you. I know these sounds like some dialogues straight out of a movie but the fact remains that in the middle of gloom or center of happiness don’t get carried away. Just keep doing what you have do for every waking hour, without shirking responsibilities and passing out blames, taking the brickbats, doling out appreciations and you realize that there is nothing more fulfilling in life when you are at peace with your soul.
The most negative and harming effect which can pollute you in every way is the very thought of disrupting or harassing a person who is less powerful than you. The real test of a person in a powerful position is not how well he exerts his power on weaker subjects but how well he disposes his fairness unto them. Real respect for power arises out of this and everything else is just an aberration.
