AVIS Viswanathan's Blog, page 50

A frustration is a clear sign that you are resisting Life

When you feel frustrated about something or someone, stop wanting to control the situation or person, and simply let it – the frustration, the situation or the person – go!
I spent much of yesterday battling with my laptop. My laptop was gifted to me by someone last year. For some vague reason, in today’s age and time, it has only an Intel Pentium processor. For that reason, it is an awfully slow machine. I also have a Norton anti-virus software installed on my laptop which further inhibits its speed. Yesterday, I discovered that the Norton anti-virus program had crashed and when I tried to trouble-shoot and fix it, it made my machine even more slow. Now, I am not a tech geek. I just know how to use my machine and that’s it. So, while I battled with my laptop and agonized over every click of the mouse, my frustration mounted. I realized that I was letting my frustrations get the better of me, when I took it out on someone who rang the door-bell mistakenly. Soon, I was also hopping mad at the maid and beginning to sound irritable with a business associate who had called up proposing something impractical. That’s when I decided to let it all go! I said to myself that if this is the way my machine is going to be, so be it. If this is the way the Norton anti-virus program is going to behave, so be it. If this is the way people – my maid, the person who rang the door-bell and the unreasonable business associate – are going to be, let them be. I shut down my machine and went for a long walk with my wife.
I was healed at the end of that walk. I then returned to my desk and observed 20 minutes of silence. I forgave myself for letting my frustrations control me. I simply surrendered to the situation. I decided to live with the machine that I have – than lament about its idiosyncrasies or its slow speed or pine for a better, faster laptop.
I am sharing my experience – and learning – here just so that you too realize that it is perfectly normal for frustrations to happen in everyday Life. But to allow them to govern and control your moods is to push yourself into a depressive spiral. You feel frustrated only when you dislike whatever is happening to you. A frustration is a clear sign that you are resisting Life. You can’t avoid frustrations from arising though – a flat tyre, a computer that hangs, a phone that loses its display, an unreasonable fellow passenger on a plane, a delayed paycheck – anything, or anyone, can cause you to feel frustrated. But if you refuse to get dragged by that frustration into depression and instead are aware that your frustration is an early warning sign of your resisting Life, then you can overcome the situation and heal yourself. On the other hand, if you let the frustration take over and control you for more than a day, chances are you will let anger consume you soon, and before you know it, you will be depressed. Funnily enough, if you watch your thoughts and behavior patterns when you are frustrated, you will realize that you often end up feeling frustrated about everything around you – and not just with the one thing or person that ticked you off in the first place.
So, at the first sign of a frustration arise, pause, take a deep breath and let it go. Let go of the situation or the person who is frustrating you. Awaken to the realization that your being frustrated with a situation is not going to make it any better. On the contrary, it is surely going to make you feel worse!

Being healthy is a responsibility we must not abdicate

We think and worry about all things replaceable in Life, while never even pausing to think of the most important, irreplaceable, asset we have, our health.
[image error] Think of all the things that we worry about. We worry about money. We worry about careers. We worry about relationships. We worry about passports and visas. We worry about our cars and computers and smartphones. When we worry about these things, we rue their loss or fear their absence or their breaking down. Almost all these things can be regained. Almost all the time. What we don't or rarely worry about ever is the most important, irreplaceable aspect of our lives, which is our health. How often do we even think of the loss of our health? We don't think of it, so we don't talk about it and therefore we don't worry about it!

The call here is not to start worrying about one more dimension in your Life but to consider the banality in worrying about less important stuff and to not even focus on the most important one! Phil Crosby, the Quality Guru, said this famously: "Health is Wealth. And it is absolutely tax free!" Jonathan Swift, the immortal author of Gulliver's Travels, says, "Live all the days of your Life!" Read that line again. Living means to focus on what's important. And the most important tool you have to experience this lifetime is your health. This body will wither away with age. No doubt. But to be able to keep it in good condition till it finally stops functioning is a responsibility that you and I must not abdicate.

When we are illuminated from within, we are enlightened

The ability to see Life clearly is what leads us to be illuminated from within, to be enlightened.
A holy Hindu scripture, Brihadanyaka Upanishad, has a prayer with the line that goes “Tamasoma Jyotirgamaya”, imploring the Almighty to lead the prayerful from ‘darkness unto light’. From a state of existing to awakening. From being unenlightened to enlightened. This state, while salubrious to the soul when in prayer, is often, in all practicality, seen as unattainable. And this is why humankind fail to see the huge opportunity to evolve and awaken to this simple truism.
We think enlightenment is for the Buddha, for the fakirs, for the Himalayan Masters. And that those of us who are caught in the worldly web of action, emotion and desires, have to be content with just prayer which sounds pious on the lips but is listless in the heart! And so, we have concluded that several of us will suffer in the dark recesses of our existence. This need not be so. There is a way out. Interestingly, simply, practically, it is possible to lift ourselves from darkness to light. Instantaneously. All we need to do is to see Life with clarity.
Legend has it that when the Buddha was dying, and was about to embark on his ultimate journey, his disciple Anand, was distraught and was crying. He asked the Buddha, "What will happen to me?  Who will guide me now?  Who will show me the light?"  Buddha opened his eyes and uttered his last famous words, "Appo Deepo Bhava”. (Be a light unto yourself!)  “There is no one else on this inner journey.  We are all alone.  We need our own light to show the way,” was the advice the Buddha gave Anand.
Indeed, to find enlightenment, you don’t need anyone, you don’t need a venue, a tree or a religion. You only need yourself. You are the One! You are the only one who can be your own light. What is this light? This light is nothing but clarity in and about Life. To see things as they are. And not to interpret them or try to choose between them. There is always clarity in each moment. And you need not do anything other than just see it. For example, if there is death of a dear one, see it that way. Don’t avoid it or lament it. If there is loss in business, in love, see it as a loss. If there is birth of a child, see the new Life. Don’t reason, don’t justify, don’t exult, don’t gloat. When you see Life for what it is, as it is, choice disappears.
J.Krishnamurthi (1895~1986), the renowned philosopher, calls this choicelessness. This ability to see things as they are. When we have the clarity of this insight, it brings us freedom. Because we are no longer fearful of a choice that may lead to grief or are desiring success and witnessing the bloating of our egos because we chose right. This clarity, this freedom, is the light that can illuminate our souls. When we are illuminated from within, we are enlightened. We would then have passed from darkness to eternal light.

What is over is over: don’t cling on to the cocktail of hate, anger and grief!

Separations. Break-ups. Showdowns. Desperate but unsuccessful attempts to control people, situations or events. Whatever. They are all over when you stop responding to them. They are over when you decide they are over.
Yesterday, I had a conversation with someone from my family after many, many years. We have had serious issues between us – at least this person once believed that I had cheated the family and that I was not even worth having a conversation with. She suggested to me yesterday that we must make a fresh beginning. I replied to her that while I have long forgiven myself and have forgiven the others involved in this sordid relationship mess in my family, I just cannot forget what happened. And I did not see a need to start afresh. I said everyone’s happy and peaceful in their own worlds – even though these worlds are distant while we, ironically, live in the same city. I left saying let’s leave things as they are and simply maintain a ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ relationship.
It is perfectly normal to have a relationship problem if you can’t trust or relate to the person concerned. However, you need not carry the anger and grudge in you. It is pointless. Understand that whoever is the one that caused you pain and agony has accomplished whatever he or she set out to. The event is over and out. By expressing anger over the episode, by continuing to direct anger against the person who caused you the hurt, you are only injuring yourself. Sometimes, it may not be just a hurt from a word or an act that someone said or did. It may be from a separation that the pain, the grief ensues. And you want to avenge the person’s audacity to have betrayed your trust, that too with such impunity. You seek justice. And your entire being is consumed by this desire to get ‘even’. Because you feel used and discarded __ as if you were toilet paper.
The cocktail of hate, anger and grief can be depressing, debilitating, lethal. You, and only you , can draw a line. And decide not to continue with stretching this episode and story any more. It is best to remember that dwelling on what is past__including the prime, good times, of a relationship, and pining for those times all over again __ is futile. Harivanshrai Bachchan (1907-2003), the celebrated poet, and father of superstar Amitabh Bachchan, says this so beautifully in his poem, ‘Jo Beet Gayi, So Baat Gayi’. Here’s a translated excerpt:
Jivan mein ek sitara tha,/  there was a precious star in my Life  Maana woh behad pyaara tha,/ agreed, it was most loved Woh doob gaya toh doob gaya,/ if that star has set today, then it has set Amber ke aangan ko dekho,/ look at the courtyard of the skies Kitne iske taare toote,/ how many of its stars have set or broken away Kitne iske pyaare choote,/ how many of its beloved have been lost Jo choot gaye phir kahan mile;/ those stars that have set or been lost, where have they ever been found Par bolo toote taaron par/ but tell me on the broken, setting stars, Kab amber shokh manaata hai / whenever did the skies grieve Jo beet gayi so baat gayi/ what is past is past ...

It is important to also remember that this law of change is the law of the Universe. Seasons change. People change. Places change. Relationships change. You want to start afresh in a relationship, do it. You don’t want to, as I decided in this case, don’t do it. Whatever you do, don’t carry grudges and don’t grieve. An irrefutable fact about Life is that each new beginning results only from something ending. So, always, what is over is over. And you must just go on, move on!

Don’t try to hide from your emotions.

Anger, sadness, desperateness, hopelessness, anguish, angst, depression__don’t try to ignore any of them. It is in trying to suppress them that you cause them to grow. Instead consider each emotion as an integral part of your Life’s journey.
Someone said something that pissed you off, or you did or said something that you shouldn’t have, so you are angry. You lost something, someone, so you feel sad about it. You want something that isn’t available just now, so you are desperate. You feel that there is no hope in a situation where logically all the odds are against you. You feel anguish when you are betrayed. You seethe with angst when you find yourself alone in a fight against a system. And when nothing works your way, when you feel lost, let down and trampled over, you will be depressed. These are all real responses to real situations in real Life.
There’s no way you can escape experiencing these emotions, or more in similar situations. You feel agonized and suffer only when you try to avoid experiencing these emotions. Instead embrace them. Accept them as a facet of your Life in the present. This is the way you will be able harness the emotion to connect with your inner core and learn to “live in this world and yet be above it.” Living in this world means living amid all the chaos, trials and tribulations. Being above these means to accept Life for what it is just now and know that at your deepest core, you will be untouched by all this change, all this chaos, all this turmoil.
There’s an interesting story that Osho, the Master, says in his inimitable style. Mr. Goldberg came home from the office unexpectedly and found his wife in bed with Mr. Cohen, the next-door neighbor. Distraught and angry, he ran next door and confronted Mrs. Cohen.     ‘Mrs. Cohen!’ he cried. ‘Your husband is in bed with my wife.’     ‘Calm down! Calm down!’ Mrs. Cohen said. ‘Look, don’t take it so hard. Sit down, have a cup of tea. Relax.’ Mr. Goldberg sat quietly and drank his cup of tea. It was then that he noticed a little glint in Mrs. Cohen’s eye. Coyly she suggested, ‘You want a little revenge?’ And with that they withdrew to the couch and made love. Then they had another cup of tea, then a little more revenge, a little more tea, more revenge; more tea….Finally Mrs. Cohen looked at Mr. Goldberg and asked, ‘How about some more revenge?’     ‘I will tell you, Mrs. Cohen,’ said Mr. Goldberg quietly, ‘to be truthful, I ain’t got no hard feelings left.’ The learning, says Osho, is, be what you experience for sometime and it will fade away. You resist it, you avoid it, you will be avoiding what Life has designed for you. And so it will chase you, haunt you, torment you and not allow you to live in peace.

So face Life’s myriad emotions, celebrate its various colors. Each event will leave you emotional in its own way. Difficult times for sure will leave you with painful experiences, but, in the end, if you embraced those moments, you will feel enriched, energized and stronger after you have been through them. You will realize, without them, you wouldn’t have the opportunity to be who you are __ centered, anchored, grounded and blissful! 

A lesson in staying strong from a resilient 23-year-old

When we get into a mess in Life, either self-created or situational, focus not on why you got into it, but on how you must get up, dust yourself and move on. Analyzing the why of it is important – but after you have learned to cope or have found a way out.
Shweta Basu Prasad
Picture Courtesy: InternetShweta Basu Prasad, 23, the National Award winning actress (for Makdee, 2002 as a child artist; she also acted in another award-winning film, Iqbal, 2005), who recently found herself embroiled in a sex scandal in Hyderabad that made shocking headlines, has spoken her side of the story to the Times of India earlier this week. When I read her version I came away admiring her grit and maturity. Referring to her experience as “an episode in my Life”, Shweta told TOI’s Meenal Baghel: “I don't understand how I got into such a big mess. I was not doing drugs, I was not murdering someone...people are so interested (only) because they think here's some sex, some suffering and someone with a name (sic).” Shweta’s just out of a remand home that she was sent to after she was picked up from that Hyderabad hotel for, what the police allege, “soliciting customers to have sex with her”. At the remand home, she encountered people like her – women and young girls – confused, insecure and worried about their future. Shweta decided that she was not going to brood over what had happened. She resolved that she was going to stay strong. And so, she decided to teach poor children in the remand home. She offered her services to the school inside the premises and taught children Hindi, English and music. Shweta tells Baghel, “I told myself ‘Shweta is dead’; she has disappeared into this character of a school teacher that she is portraying.” And that’s how Shweta picked herself up. Commendable, right?
On her fifth night at the remand home, Shweta wrote this poem – The Cliff:
Thunderstruck, all alone, I stand here at the edge of the cliff. I crawled the dense forest to get here The tribes and wild and strays They say ‘Jump, jump from the cliff.’ As I look down, naked, cold and trembling, The ferocious sea I see with its mouth open It's ready to swallow me. The noises are unbearable, the place so dark.  As I decided to jump in the sea, I saw the North Star. I remembered how it shone above my blessed home where singing hugging and laughter awaited me I said, ‘Wait, I want to go home.’  The voices murmured, ‘End the journey.’ ‘Jump! Jump you ugly thing.’ I smiled to them and pitied them, They don't know I have wings….  
Shewta’s poem reflects her phenomenal ability to rise above her situation. And to look beyond the mess that she had gotten herself into. This is the unputdownable learning here – that we are not the situation that we find ourselves in. I am bankrupt. But I am not the bankruptcy. Shweta is stuck in a sex scandal. But she is not a prostitute, she is not the sex scandal either. It is irrelevant to me whether Shweta was indeed soliciting customers or whether she just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. What’s important is that irrespective of what happened to her, she is facing Life squarely. She’s resilient in the face of it all. And that’s why I feel inspired this morning.

Let’s understand this well. Often times in Life, what we chose to do will work for us. And there are times when our choices will come back to haunt us or even blow up in our faces. The world will offer its opinion in myriad voices. You should have done better. You shouldn’t have done this. Or whatever. Ultimately – for each of us – it is an intensely personal, individual decision – are you doing to sit down and keep brooding over what happened, or are you going to move on? None of the opinion-makers in your Life is ever going to have to live your Life. So while you can value opinions, and learn from them, don’t make Life choices based on them. You are not what other people think of you. Period. When you awaken to this realization, you too will, like the young and courageous Shweta, treat the messes in your Life as “mere episodes” and learn to move on! 

What an FM station producer taught me about compassion!

Among all the qualities that we human beings have – and are capable of invoking – the most precious one is compassion. When we are compassionate, we are truly human!
This morning I was on a live FM radio show. I was invited to share my views, and answers questions from listeners/callers, on “What do you do when you hit rock bottom in Life?” The FM station had set up this show around the enduring theme of my Book – “Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without money” (Westland, August 2014) . One of the questions I was asked by a caller was how do you take decisions when you are in an end-of-the-road situation. I replied saying, there can’t possibly be too much strategic thinking when you are surrounded by darkness and you don’t know where you are going; and when you don’t even know if there is a way ahead. You simply keep doing what you must do. I cited the example of having to take an auto-rickshaw to the FM station’s studio this morning. I had barely a few hundred rupees left with me in Life and the auto-rickshaw driver was unreasonable and demanded I pay him fifty rupees more. I did. And I did it without anger, without exasperation and without anxiety (over the fact that I was going to be poorer by Rs.50 when I had only a few hundreds left with me in Life!). I said I simply did what I had to do. Period. One of the producers at the FM station was riding into work when my show was on air. She was apparently listening into my show while riding. She reached the station just as I was leaving the premises (I had almost boarded an auto to take me back home). But she came running down the parkway, calling out my name. When I asked her what she wanted, she requested me if I could spare five more minutes. I agreed, feeling a bit lost though. She took me back into the FM station’s office and said: “AVIS, I heard your entire show. I want to pray for you and your family. I don’t know what your faith is and how you pray, but I have to pray for you.” As I looked on, surprised, overwhelmed and humbled, she asked me, “May I?” I said that she may. She then closed her eyes and for the next five minutes she sought, what she firmly believed to be, a divine intervention to solve my family’s ongoing financial crisis. Her prayer had a healing energy. All of what she said was in English. And her words made great sense to me, they touched my soul and empowered me to believe – not in the power of prayer or religion – but in the power of compassion and the power we all have of being human. Both she and I had moist eyes at the end of her benevolent prayer. I shook hands with her, thanked and left the FM station one more time – thoroughly recharged and re-energized.
All of us are capable of compassion for all of humanity. All our energies can heal the worst of situations that we see around us. But we are so busy running our rat races, earning-a-living, fighting battles with imaginary situations that we conjure up in our minds, that we are simply not pausing to see how people around us are coping with their lives. Often, when we see them closely, we will realize that there are so many people out there who are stronger through their grave Life situations than we are through our petty scenarios. To be compassionate is to be able to see and think of someone, other than you, feel their pain and help them with your prayer and energy.
My enduring penniless, work-less situation has helped me understand Life and religion better. To me now, there is no greater God than a fellow human being and there’s no greater teacher than Life. When a fellow human being – like this producer who hardly knows me or who I hardly know – takes time to send me and my family healing, positive energy, I realize that we are indeed blessed. And she – this FM station’s producer – is not the only one. Barring my immediate family – who, for their own reasons, continue to imagine that my wife and I have cheated them – everyone I know of has always been compassionate with us and patient with our situation. This is the biggest asset we have – that we are drenched in the love of fellow human beings and all their compassion that carries us onward every single day.
If you can, and would like to, please invoke the compassion within you. And unlock its potential. Pause and reflect on the fellow voyagers through Life that are around you. Give them your love, your understanding and send them your prayers and your positive energy. Watch them heal and watch yourself feeling blessed!

Be an intelligent master – use technology, don’t get used (read cooked) by it!

Things are incredibly simpler yet why are our lives more complex than ever before?
As I write this my son has reached out to me all the way from Denver, Colorado, in the US. Another young man has pinged me from New Orleans in the US. Yet another has sent me a facebook message from Singapore. And an old school mate, someone who I have not met in 40 years, has written me a note from Canada. All this has happened in just a span of 30 minutes. Can you imagine this being possible just 20 years ago? This is a new era. A simpler era. Where Google, and not Britannica Encyclopedia, is the fountainhead of all knowledge. Where, whether it is about cooking a meal with quinoa or it is about decoding an irritable skin rash or it is a query relating to when was the original “Ocean’s Eleven” movie released, you can source, all that you want, any time you want, in a nano-second – from your smartphone! It is also an era where you can buy a movie ticket, a plane ticket, book a hotel room or order a book or pizza, from your mobile device. And you can also transfer money from one phone to another! You can stay connected with me__or someone who you may have never met in ages or ever__using facebook and twitter__without intruding on their time or privacy!
The world’s so much smaller, so much closer, things are so amazingly simpler, yet, the billion buck question is, why are we, the people, still struggling? Why is it that we still ‘don’t have time’ for our families, our passions and our dreams? Why is it that we are not living fuller, more complete, fulfilling lives, if things have only gotten simpler? The problem is not with science and the technology revolution. It has done its job__made Life simpler. It is we humans who have not learnt to adapt and use technology. I remember reading a piece in The Economist a couple of years ago which describes this state that our race finds itself in and argues its causes fabulously well: “… for most people the servant has become the master. Not long ago only doctors were on call all the time. Now everybody is. Bosses think nothing of invading their employees’ free time. Work invades the home far more than domestic chores invade the office. Otherwise sane people check their smartphones obsessively, even during pre-dinner drinks, and send e-mails first thing in the morning and last thing at night. This is partly because smartphones are addictive…Employees find it ever harder to distinguish between “on-time” and “off-time”—and indeed between real work and make-work. Executives are lumbered with two overlapping workdays: a formal one full of meetings and an informal one spent trying to keep up with the torrent of e-mails and messages. None of this is good for businesspeople’s marriages or mental health.” That piece in The Economist, I remember, advocated digital dieting . A kind of rationing of tech-led work time for freeing up more Life time.
I would recommend we go the extra mile. My two-penny worth: Celebrate Life by celebrating technology. Don’t just cerebrate Life and technology! Here’s how I do it. 1. Wear your Life and your attitude to Life on your sleeve. Let people know__even if it is bosses, clients or children__who you are and how you live and work. 2. Never allow technology to slave-drive you. You can choose, and therefore please do, to be the master . 2. Define your quiet or silence or ‘mouna’ periods. About an hour every day. No voice calls. Just remain silent. Focus on whatever you are doing. Whether it is walking, watching a movie or even preparing a report. Just because you are accessible, need not mean you are available. 3. Check your mails, your text messages, your facebook or twitter account but don’t be trigger-happy. Choose whether and when to respond. Mull over the information streaming in. If it is bad news__a client feedback, an exasperated boss’ rant, a project disaster, a child’s agony__deal with it with patience. Treat the information as an opportunity to spiritually train yourself not to react . If it is good news, don’t exult either. Again spiritually evolve with the opportunity. 4. Flag as favorites some inspirational web pages (such as this one: J!) and visit them each time your mind wavers and grazes on negative emotions __ worry, anxiety, stress. 5. Do all non-core stuff__like paying your bills, transferring money, booking tickets and hotels__online, at times of the week or day when your energy is low. That way you save time for more value creation when your energy is the highest! 6. Take backups of all important data weekly __ phone contacts, mails, computer hard disk data __ that’s a sure and the only way to beat technology letting you down. 7. Remember: An intelligent master is one who can use technology to live a better Life – and not get used (read cooked) by it! So, if you find yourself stressed out by Monday morning 10 AM, know that you are to blame for the complexity that defines your Life. And the only way to make your Life simple, is to simply take charge __ of your Life and the technology you have! You will live happily, healthy, soon, after you become the master again…..!

Trauma is a catalyst – it can transform you

You often understand Life only when it becomes miserable.
This is the most amazing truth about Life. It is a revelation, a discovery, that strikes you, dawns on you, when you are in the throes of pain and despair. When everything is going per your aspirations, your desires, you conclude that you are in control, that you are the Master , that it’s all your design. You matter the most to you in these times__times that are popularly labeled as ‘successful’. You do well in academics, land yourself a dream job, get married to a person of your choice – well, you think you managed all of that ‘success’ on your own steam. Because of your brilliance, genius and effort. Undoubtedly, you have worked hard and efficiently. There has been your contribution. But to imagine that the design of your Life was woven by you smacks of ignorance, even if not of arrogance, of the way Life works.
I met a successful Tamizh movie director, a very successful man from Chennai, recently. He is smart, intelligent and very creative. He said, “I don’t believe in dreams. I believe in subconscious aspirations, dedicated effort and flawless execution. You make your own destiny.” Poetic words. Makes sense to the rational mind. Except Life doesn’t work like that. A very successful industrialist I know, who went bankrupt and has clawed his way back into reckoning and profits in business, has this learning to share: “When things were going fine, I was thinking it was my leadership, my acumen, my business-sense that were causing my success. When we started losing money and eventually went bust as a business, I found that the same leadership and acumen__mine__were of no use. That’s when I awoke to the reality that Life’s designs are different from my own.” The thing about misery and pain is that it offers a teachable point of view. Always. Trauma is a good transformation agent, a catalyst. There’s no rocket science to why we__you and me__often awaken only when in pain. Life is best understood by asking the right questions. And we pause to ask questions, explore with curiosity, only when we don’t get what we want. Interestingly, the questions we ask beget us no answers. Just more questions emerge. And the more questions we ask, the closer we are to understanding Life. To realize the only truth that Life is, well, inscrutable! The 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche says, “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” That meaning, when discovered by you in your own unique way, is that you too can avoid all suffering by simply accepting what Life has offered you. When you reach this state of understanding Life you will see how much your pain, your trauma has changed you and helped you evolve! 

Keep the faith and focus – both!

When you have faith, you need to keep the focus on the outcome you want.
All of us claim we have faith. Either in ourselves or in a Higher Energy. Yet we continuously worry? Why? Why worry when you have faith? A common, deceptive, reasoning is that ‘I know I will succeed. But you know, what if….’ So the ‘what if’ scenario that we paint leads us to a Plan B, Plan B is not what we want, but ‘may have to live with’ and so, we worry, we pine, we lament and we live in depression. This is so ironical.
A large mass of humanity flocks to places of worship, professing faith, and yet the same mass of humanity worries, imagining ‘worst-case’ or ‘what if’ scenarios? When you stray from a position of faith, you have strayed from the outcome you want. Period. Let’s attempt to look at this slightly differently. You have a situation. Let us say you are out of job. And you need a new job. You are getting offers. But you need a specific one. That which meets your financial and geo-specific needs. You have faith. And you know you will get it. But you work on a Plan B because of a ‘what if I don’t get it’ scenario that keeps emerging in your mind! Plan B is to accept a high-paying but lacklustre job profile__something that will not give you joy at all. Now, why did you start thinking of a Plan B? Because you want to ensure you have ‘cash’ to survive, to run you family. Think different. Think believing that you will get what you want and what will make you happy. Think knowing that sooner than later this offer will come. Think keeping the focus on what you want. Not on what you will have to settle for.
Now, Life’s designs play out in their own timeframe. Life knows no timelines, no deadlines. So, keeping the focus, will not only help you stay anchored to your faith but will also help you stay peaceful. Faith works miracles, we all have heard this before. But know also that faith works miracles only when you continue to keep the faith. You can’t kid Life. You can’t say I have the Faith, but keep thinking of a Plan B. Then you are being hypocritical. And Life doesn’t like us when we are hypocrites. You either have the faith. Or you don’t have it. If you have it, keep the focus. Keep fear, worry and Plan Bs out. At the same time, be willing to accept what Life gives you. Don’t let your wanting a certain outcome consume you. This willingness to accept what comes your way is what makes the difference. Remember that Life has only one plan for each of us. That plan will play out, in its own way, in its own time. And you__and I__can’t resist that plan. The more we resist, the more we try to outsmart Life, the more grief, more suffering we allow into our lives.

Michael Josephson, 72, an American lawyer and ethics champion, reminds us, “What you allow, you encourage.” This is so true of the Law of Attraction. You allow worries of ‘what if’ scenarios to take over your Life, you encourage what you don’t want to be the outcome. Instead, when you allow faith, when you remain rooted to your faith in your subconscious, you encourage an outcome you want. Now, you decide. Plan A or Plan B? Your pick!