ALL IN THE MIND

I know it has been a while since I made any entry here, but I guess I can forgive myself by stating that working in the IT industry has barely given me any time to re arrange and make sense out of my thoughts, let alone write them down. But here I am, and the topic I have chosen for today is how much of life is built around what happens in the mind.

Let us take self belief for instance, when I begin doing something believing that I can finish it on time or successfully or whatever it may be, it makes a whole lot of difference as compared to me starting by wondering if I’ll ever be able to do justice to it. This of course applies to almost everybody on the planet. Realizing this is just the first step, there is a long way to go after this. I have learnt that confidence can be hard to build during bad times, but not impossible. Actually, with time, determination and effort, nothing is impossible.

Obviously this is one of the simplest examples. I, for one have started to believe that you are only as healthy or happy as you want to be. I have seen so many people including friends and family members suffering from various ailments. And the one thing that I have noticed in common is that when each of these sick people want to do something they enjoy, they are able to sit up and do it despite being sick whereas if it is some daily routine kind of thing that they are not particularly happy doing, then they are too sick to do it. I personally know of a person who cannot bring herself to do the daily chores at home. Her head hurts, she feels giddy, her legs and hands are swollen etc. But being the religious person she is, even walking a couple of kilometers to the temple does not hurt. Of course her argument is that God is taking care of her when she goes to visit him. I respectfully disagree. I am not an atheist, but I’m not a religious fanatic either. I firmly believe that God will not help if you were to sit in one place and just keep praying without lifting a single finger to help yourself. This of course can be another topic of discussion in itself. But coming back to the point here, what I am trying to say is that she is able to visit the temples without feeling as much pain only because she enjoys doing that and in her mind she knows that it will make her happy. If she were to employ the same thought process while doing other things as well, I am sure she will be loads better. It is easier said than done, because wallowing in self pity is something that comes naturally to us human beings. But then again, nothing is more dangerous than self pity. You lose respect for yourself and become miserable. That is precisely the moment when you cease to exist in the eyes of others.

The same is for happiness. If you choose to be happy, if you want to be happy, then there are hundreds and millions of ways to be happy. Constantly complaining about how things have gone wrong in life, and the number of obstacles you have had to face while walking to the path of success will only leave you weak and demoralized. Victory is sweeter when it comes after you have fought your battles like a true soldier. Life would be no fun if we were all to get what we wanted immediately. Every time something goes wrong, we must learn our lessons, pick ourselves off the ground and walk on with our heads held high. The past will remain with us, but we must use that to pave the way for a happier future, not as stories that we tell people to earn sympathy. We would do well to remember that today is the day and now is the time to be happy. We will never get these moments back, and every minute spent frowning or being unhappy is a loss in this short life that we lead. Atleast for me, when I go, I would like to be remembered as someone who smiled and did things the right way even when everything around her did not exactly favor her. I’ll finish by saying this, ‘The mind is hard to control. I am not saying anyone is an expert, but optimism must be the way of life’.