I was
pressed into living a life tailored and programmed by others or rather somehow
induced into me by the flow of society and the environment I was pretty much
dependent on. Many unlike me are definitely fortunate to have their lives
sorted and streamlined. However with a strong ambition and bull headed approach
one forgets to see how the little nuts and bolts are really what keep a machine
intact and running. I never thought that a 12 week excursion from my rat race
would actually help me understand the race. And, how it would go on teach me to live the
next half or more of my life with a greater allocation of resources (mind,
money and matters) towards the right direction.
Every car runs on its own wheels: in life we tend to impose on others
our ideas and our ways way of going about things. And when we don’t see this
happening we tend to create a space of unhappiness for ourselves with the
belief that it is being done wrong and it shouldn’t be the way it is. But if
you think about it one can’t run a BMW on truck wheels. Allowing people to live
their lives the way they want to; allows for an even better co-habitation
relationship. Concurrently if you do see that one is running his BMW of truck
wheels then it is important to identify the anomaly and help remedy it. In life
similarly and with reference to civil society we cannot look at life with only
our perspective. Imagine the roads with only one brand of cars. It would be
DULL.
Matter cannot be created nor destroyed: one cannot create a life for others
but you can transform lives by contributing the change that is required. Many times
in our corporate life and world we think we are the masters of creation. But it
isn’t so as we cannot create what cannot be created when it’s already in
existence. The best we can do is transform its being. Problems and troubles are
part of this phenomenon and thinking that we created them or it was created
will only take us back into a whirlpool. Addressing the situation with the
mindset that we are just the levers that can move it rather than eliminate it
will help us understand corporate and life problems better.
Everything in life has a value
attached: every piece
of article you own and have has a value attached to it and that it has an
expiration date to it. We need to value and maintain its existence and this
could be relationships, a car, a pencil, or just about anything. When we give
each article its due importance and treat every valuable article with the appropriate
equanimity we ensure happiness over the passage of time. Mistreating anything
leads to unhappiness. These could be deadlines, our workstations, and anything
really that makes us be who we are. It’s nice to be confident to believe that
things will be replaced but making it a habit will reduce your valuation of
things and eventually it would become a hole in your bucket which will become
difficult to repair.
Helping others is really helping
yourself: it is the
best thing to believe that helping someone or something is really doing
yourself a favor. By helping others we actually create opportunities or fixed
deposits of help for ourselves. These fixed deposits like money banked up give
you great returns. And by helping people in the right manner yields you amazing
returns just as it would if you would have invested wisely. The Chinese saying
that if you’d help and teach someone to catch fish; you would eventually help
him feed himself. Now when things aren’t good for you; he’d be able to feed
you. In life and in the corporate world practising this would actually help
solve many troubles.
Virtues are really virtues one must
practice: growing
and learning and reading about all the time was very different from actually being
in it and practising it. These great things don’t come overnight and they aren’t
something you can wake up with. But it is something that needs practice and
repeated demonstration to enable the growth. 12 weeks was enough for to learn
and cultivate and inculcate and absorb that these virtues are something that
one cannot afford to ignore or cast aside. The greater the depth of these qualities one
is able to dig up the more resourceful and fulfilling life becomes. “The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”. Love,
Faith, Hope and Patience are virtues we cannot live without and the greatest
among them is Love.
Life has
direction and when you lose it you become a machine. Explore the world around you
and when you meet people from different WORLDS it gives you this direction.
I came out a better CONSTRUCTED human being and I’m sure and with
the last bottom dollar can bet it will be the same for you.
Life isn’t a notebook one could read but a practice one must
exercise everyday according to the principles one sets.
