Saturday, 21 October 2023

The Key to an imaginary lock

 

There is a traffic signal where your  expensive car comes to a halt late night.  You are busy on a phone call from other stake holders and there is a terrible escalation in office. Noting that there are 180 seconds to the  green signal , you open the lunch pack to avoid resentment at home . As you respond to allegations on phone , the morsel gets struck in the windpipe and you start to cough. You open the water bottle and it spills over you. Then you realize there is also a constant tapping on your windscreen and a few poor children are begging, expecting a good contribution from the expensive car. Struck amidst all this,  you throw the food out and curse your situation driving car home. The children are jubilant while they pick the feast . The same food that irritated you . 

What has changed the situation?  Only the state of mind . One man’s trash is treasure for another.


How do we keep ourselves happy ? Someone responded that as expectations cause disappointment  which ultimately causes sorrow, we must lower our expectations.  But by doing so, most often we feel being let down by ourselves or compromising on life . Our ancient thought is also not to bother about the result and to just concentrate towards discharge of our duty . This appears to be too perfect and ideal to follow ..


How do we manage this critical piece in the modern and practical world ? This needs some basic discussion first.

So to begin with , what is happiness ? Happiness is a state of mind . If we can manage to keep our mind out of bother and in good shape , troubles will fail to have any impact on our happiness .Sometimes we admit that a particular person makes us lose our cool. So in one way, we have handed over the keys of our mental state to the particular person. Then he enjoys taking us for a ride while we suffer at our plight. Should we not be the chauffer of our mind ? So we will have to take our own responsibility and respond with prudence , which is more critical than proving others wrong. We will not bang our car on another being driven in a wrong lane only to prove our point. Our first aim is to keep our car safe. That is precisely what it implies to keep our calm amidst all turmoil and provocation. 


Finally, happiness is like the equilibrium of a balanced body.  To maintain the equilibrium,  the centre of gravity must be the lowest possible.  Same stands for mental equilibrium.  The happiness must flow from lowest and not highest point. For us , if a small own home meant happiness years bqck , then a larger one followed by a bungalow,  now we find that  happiness erodes. However, the pettier the pre condition to be happy is, the easier it is to be happy. It is like dancing , you do not bother how your moves appear , and if you really enjoy your dance the outcome will also be enchanting . The cause will bring about the effect and not vice versa. So I will be happy with being alive itself. That is in fact the lowest denominator wherein the resultant value of fraction will be higher . So, in a prefect situation if the denominator is next to nil, our happiness will be infinite.  


So the next time we feel sad, be thankful for your breath that is still up and running! There is no misery in the real world, we fabricate it by altering our prefect state of mind..that begins with childhood which also incidentally remain the best days of our life . This is the Key to a non existent and imaginary lock.


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