“Isko hi Jeena keh lenge to, yun hi jee lenge”
That’s an immortal line from the song “Jaane Voh Kaise Log The” in the movie Pyaasa. For those who do not understand Hindi it means this “ If this is called living, well we will just like that”. Too often when I run into people nowadays, I am just reminded of this line. Yes they have the latest cell phones, the latest IPods, the latest fashion, the latest hairstyle. They make a very desperate attempt to be cool and sophisticated. But scratch the surface, and the truth comes out, many of them are just living a life. Yes they have a nice job in an IT company, drive around in the latest car, have a nice apartment in an upmarket neighborhood. But something just tells me, these people are not living. All the time they seem to have a worried, brooding look. They just switch TV channels, drive by without any interest, don’t seem to be interested in reading or even discussing the news. You can identify these people by their reactions.
Show them a nice building or a lovely stretch of garden- “Hey its lovely isn’t it”. And the response**-“Humph”.
Try to get them talking about the latest movie or book-“ Duh”.
Play a nice piece of music and ask them about it-“Uh”.
Now I am not an anti technology **Luddite, who has renounced everything, and I am as much in real life. But my issue is this, do we have to be walking zombies, who just can’t take any interest in life around us. Our life is strictly in our hands, and when I see the people around me, my only advice to them is simple
“Take Control of your life, damnit”
Our life is strictly in our hands to a large extent. Now there are certain things about our life we have no control over. We have not much control over what we do, over deadlines, schedules and nasty bosses. Neither can we do anything much about work related stress or traffic jams or long tedious drives. But there is still a part of our life, which we can certainly dictate, but even that we happily relinquish to some one. Why should we allow some one to dictate to us, what songs we should listen to, what books we should read, what movies we should watch? That is completely our personal business, and if some one tries to advise us on that, ask that person to go take a hike. We try to be so IT and with the crowd, but in the end we just end up as characterless clones. There is a simple credo in life, you cant be any one else, so just be yourself. Now being yourself is not being irresponsible or selfish, there is a very thin line there. But its asserting your independence in areas which matter to you. As an individual you have certain characteristics, strengths and abilities. Be proud of them, and live according to them, instead of desperately craving for acceptance. What you do in your personal life, is no ones business.Don’t like Valentines Day, well and good, be proud of the fact, that is your personal choice mind you. None on earth can force you to do something you hate doing. Now if you do something you don’t like, but still want to do, to be with it, then all I can safely say is you are the worlds biggest loser.
Have you ever heard of the P-word called Passion? Yes most of us tend to associate passion with only one kind. But that is a very narrow scope. Passion is taking a deep interest in whatever you do. Unless you are passionate about something, you can never really claim to know it. And unfortunately I see that passion ebbing away slowly. I watch a movie in multiplex, all the audience is quite, no reaction, nothing. Watch a movie in a single screen theater, you find the audience whistling, throwing coins in the air. That is the key to enjoyment. Let go of yourself fully. Too often I see people during a lively concert, just sitting and watching, with no interest nothing. Why then attend, you can as well go home and sleep, or watch TV? I see people in my career, who are only interested in collecting their pay cheques at the end of the month. They take no pride or passion in whatever they do. Without passion, you can neither work properly, nor enjoy life and forget about love and romance. We just hog our food, without even tasting it. We try to finish a refreshing drink, without even savoring the taste. Yes you might say we are hard pressed for time, but what about the time we have for leisure. Do we enjoy that also?No way, so even on vacations we have our blackberries and laptops, checking our mails, and answering calls. What the hell are you taking a vacation for? Might as well work at office. Folks let us have some passion in our lives, else we are equivalent to dodos, just existing with no purpose in life.
And when you don’t have passion, and you don’t divert your mind, you end up getting stressed. And to beat that stress, you run around the doctors and psychiatrists hoping for that magic potion, which will rejuvenate you. Or visit some spiritual centers. Or maybe take refuge in drugs, smoking and liquor. Crap is all I can say, all we are doing is escapism. Lets face it no human being in the world can work for 12 hours a stretch. And when its imperative that you need to do so, take breaks, get refreshed. Put some music and work across. Laze around for some time. Yes idleness has its virtues, which we often ignore. After all Newton discovered the law of gravity, while he was lazing around in a garden. And Kekule discovered the structure of benzene, while he was dozing in a bus. We need to manage our time better, we need to take a breath. Else the time will come when we find that we can take no more breaths, and all our money would not be able to save us.
What I am saying here is nothing new or pathbreaking. Its what has been told by many people. And what I have told here is based on my own experiences. When you speak of Personality Development, just remember one thing, its not an overnight process. Its not that you read a couple of “Chicken Soup” books or “How to Do it” books and hey presto, you are now Bill Gates. Life is something too complex and complicated, to condense it into a 200 page book. How you develop your personality has nothing to do with attending seminars by self help experts dishing out fake advice or reading equally dubious books, promising to turn you into Superman overnight. Its about how you react to the challenges of life, how you respond to situations, how you resolve issues, and how you try to solve problems, that makes your personality. Your personality is something that develops as a result of the environment around you, and it will keep changing throughout. So if you are seeking any short cuts to be successful, sorry I don’t have it with me. I just wanted to share my thoughts with you, and if you learn something out of it, that is great.