What do you want? (Living without worry v.12)
(As usual forgive me for being random - I do not have a sequential thought process, whatever comes first to me, I write first...)
My inner voice in a deep husky voice has often asked me - "So, what do you want?"
I have realised, this question is posed to me almost always when I am complaining about something... And sometimes when I am doing nothing at all.. Two very opposite ends of my thought spectrum..
What else has two opposite ends I thought.. Instant response was a rope or a thread.. I have often felt that in my conversations with myself, I believe or think as an inanimate object..
(Side story - my english teacher during school days used to just make me write autobiographies of inanimate objects. A new one almost every other day. I have written about everything from Ganges to Coins to Nails to a empty bullet she'll and Staple pins.. It helped me expand my writing skills, sure! But also my imagination. Owe my teacher a lot.)
Maybe that's why, even today, if I have a thought about my life, I find it easier to compare it to an object. And I usually stick to the first object which comes to my mind.
So yeah, am I like a rope? A coir rope, maybe? Many threads coiled up together to form a rope.. That's like life, no? Various views and thoughts, inter-twined and together forming what our life is about - dreams, desires and memories! Maybe...
So what is it with a rope? A simple coir rope has two ends! I remember playing with one a few years back (I had this odd habit of finding odd things to pass time with. Maybe I should get back to that habit. Maybe I stil do that..)
Anyway, so this rope, it had knots on it.. You know, those military style knots? Yeah, not those, these were just simple knots...
So what does one do when they see a knot? I don't know.
I tried to open them. I remember thinking something like this to myself - "Wow, so many knots, I can spend an hour opening these..."
So the first knot itself took me forever... It made me realise a few things -
1. Unless you know or figure how the knots were tied, its difficult to open them.
2. Pulling on the two ends - makes the knots smaller, and also harder to open.
3. It is way way easier to tie knots than to open them.
4. Individual knots could be very different and require different styles to open.
5. ..........
So?
I think life is like that coir rope to a certain extent and problems or hurdles are like those knots..
Now, read back on those pointers the knots taught me...
Let me give you an example - say I am angry.. But why am I angry? That's knowing the knot. No?
Accepting a problem is beautiful, but to know what caused the problem is the first step you need to take in order to get solve it. Pretty much like a doctor's diagnosis, right?
Obviously different problems will have different solutions and it is easier to create a problem, than solve one.
Lets say I am angry cause I was expecting to meet someone and that person cancelled the meeting last moment. Now, I had cancelled some alternate plans to be with that person. I had the right to be angry? Maybe.
But why was I angry? If anger was the knot, what were the two ends?
I guess one would be expectation (pretty sure if I wasn't expecting to meet the person, I wouldn't have gotten angry)... And maybe the other end is sacrifice or alternatives or options whichever way? Maybe.
What if I had a different problem? Say i wasn't happy with my office or my manager... What would be the two ends then?
Expectation? Yes, I have an expectation from my workplace and people I work with. If that's not met, I might as well have a problem at hand.
What about alternatives? If I do not have alternatives or options, to say move out of my workplace, would I still have a problem? Maybe, but mostly not, I would presume.
So the two ends are then (perhaps) -
1. Expectations not met - what we have.
2. Desires to have soemthing we do not have. Alternatives? Upgrades? Anything.
Now imagine our life? Almost always pulling on these two ends - so the problems or the knots might seem to be becoming smaller, but do they really go away?
Of late, I have a few really close friends who as I say have achieved PhD in overthinking - they re so used to thinking that every feeling is thought, every idea is debated and every moments is a constant battle - perhaps almost always between expectations and options.
But is that life? I seriously feel, that words and language and communication was meant to understand what others felt - not what we felt ourselves...
Alan Watts wrote - ‘We seldom realise, for example, that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.’
So, maybe when my inner voice asks me this - "So, what do you want?" all it really wants to say is stop fiddling...start feeling.
"You can't just think through this. Feel what the universe has planned for you. Calm down... You don't need to stress about expectations and options. Just live in this moment.
Be mindful that all that separates you from not being you is as simple as - breathing. Breathe in, breathe out. That's it."
What you want is maybe inner peace. And it comes from acceptance not avoidance... a feeling of gratitude and not thinking of it... letting go and not holding on... practising patience and not speed.. brain-stilling over brain-storming maybe..
So, my friend, what do You really want??
Thank you for reading.
Pratik :D
PS: Come to think of it, I spent hours and finally managed to open those knots. Now, when I look back, I recall, mumma had given me that rope to open the knots..for some puja.. I am sure she would have never thought I would relate life to it.. And write one of my longest blogs about it... That's life - it is what happens to you. You just need to be able to feel it.