Quotes Tagged "avis-viswanathan"

Are you living an unhappy Life while trying to make everyone around you happy? You want to make an unconventional personal – career or relationship – choice but you refuse to, because you are considering how your family will feel about it. Or you are keeping a job only to earn-a-living so you can meet the wants of those around you. Or you are not expressing yourself honestly in a relationship because you don’t want to hurt the other person. Whatever be your context, if you are choosing to be unhappy, only so that someone else is happy, well, then, you have lost the plot! How you are feeling alone impacts your happiness. Your feeling unhappy and being a martyr means you are squandering the Life that you have been given. Life is not a popularity contest. Being unhappy while wanting to be ‘nice’ is a poor choice you make.

When you are driven by Purpose, focus on living that Purpose every single day. Why are doing what you are doing is more important than what you have achieved, where you have reached. Yes, the human mind will play games with you. It will make you feel inadequate. It will make you imagine that the progress you make is not enough given the enormity of what you have set out to do. But believe in the Power of One…in your individual ability to impact the Life of another individual…one day at a time. How have I lived my day today? Have I lived by the why of what I do? Have I taken my vehicle forward in the direction in which I am headed? These are the only questions that need to be asked and the only ones that matter! Keep the focus, keep it basic, keep it purposeful…when you have Integrity of Purpose, all else will always follow!

It surely will help if children understand Life’s simple, unalterable truths early on: 1. What goes up, comes down and will go back up again; also, what goes around, comes around! 2. Until we get what we want, we must be patient. 3. Life happens through us and not because of us. 4. This human form, this lifetime, is a gift that we must be eternally grateful for. So, even if we can’t teach them or give them anything else, let us imbue in our children an appreciation for Life through these four perspectives – Faith, Patience, Humility and Gratitude. This is how we can prepare them for going through Life with equanimity, happily, despite whatever circumstances they have to deal with!

Invest in experiences not things. Surely, build an asset and savings base for a rainy day. But don’t kid yourself thinking you are really ‘secure’ and ‘settled’ just because you have money. Anything can happen in Life – that too, in a nano-second! Besides, as you age, you will realize that what you can do when you are 20, you really can’t do when you are 40! Which is why, invest in experiences, in doing what you love doing. Your experiences shape you. They intricately weave your learnings from each experience with your idea of Happiness to create a beautiful fabric that stays in your subconscious even when people and things around you perish over time. In the end, what will count most in your Life, are who you loved, how you were loved back and how you enjoyed doing all that you loved doing!

Responsible citizenship is about trusteeship. Think of trusteeship like this. You are a trustee of the Life that’s been given to you. And you are a trustee of the planet that you inhabit. So be responsible with how you live and how you use the planet’s resources. Recognize that you need only so much to live and to support your immediate family. Beyond food, clothing, shelter, education, a reasonable healthcare and retirement plan and hi-speed internet connectivity through a smart device, whatever you have, whatever comes your way, give it away. Give, not because you have to give, not because you are asked to give, but give because you want to give. Recognize that just as this human form, this Life, is a gift, every thing, every resource that you acquire in this lifetime, is also given to you. So, be responsible by employing all that you receive for human good, to make the world a better place.

Don't imagine you are in a worse place than you actually are. Things could have been far worse. So, seize the day, count your blessings and move on. You can survive a crisis only by dealing it with one day at a time. Don't add up all your problems in your mind and think you are finished. Compartmentalize your problems; put them in different buckets and project-manage them separately. This is how you live through uncertain times – making decisions when there are few or no options to choose from. You never see it this way when you are going through a crisis. But, unfailingly, every crisis leaves you stronger, wiser – and happy!

Life is not only about going after name, money, success, fame and fortune and getting all of them. It is also about how you live with humility, dignity, and discipline when all of what you attained and acquired are taken away from you. Resilience and equanimity cannot be developed and deployed in simulated environments. They are always discovered within you, when you stand in the middle of the battle of Life, in the chaos, in the eye of the storm. It is by facing Life and learning to be happy, to be useful, despite your circumstances, that you become stronger.

When something – or someone – that you are clinging on to starts controlling you, the joy of doing that something or being with that person evaporates. You feel miserable. To uncling, you must feel and hate that misery deep within you. Ask yourself if you really want so much suffering in your Life – for instance, if you smoke, are you smoking for yourself anymore or is your habit controlling you, driving you crazy; or if you are in an abusive marriage, are you in it because you are loving it or are you being held hostage in it by the person’s power or by social norms? Only brutally honest conversations with yourself on what – or who – is possessing you leads you to uncling. You finally uncling only when you realize that you have to make that choice to let go, to move on, to end the suffering!

Don’t think about what has not happened. What has not happened has not happened. Simple. It has not arrived. So why worry, why fear? Of course, when it comes into your Life, you have to, and must, deal with it. But why lose your precious present, your sleep, thinking about the unborn future? Living in the now is not an art. It is an absolute necessity for you to be happy. It is like breathing. You (can) breathe only in the now – your having breathed in the past is over, it is done with; and your breathing in the future is irrelevant at the moment. The only Life you have is what you have in the now. So, stay here. Be present. Be happy with what is.

Sometimes Life will hang you at the edge of the precipice. And fear will grip you. You will not know what to think, say or do. But don’t despair. You see, Life has always been and is intrinsically risky. Your education and your money trick you into a fake sense of security. But look at what Manohar Parrikar, who passed away yesterday, had to say: “You are alone in the final act of the drama when the end of the show is visible. Nothing, and no one, can help you.” Such is Life. It has always been fraught with uncertainty and has never been in your control. So, don’t fear dead-ends or no-go Life situations. Face your fears, gracefully accept the darkness. Learn to hang from that precipitous edge, live dangerously – and when you do that, you will, interestingly, not feel scared, instead you will feel calm, content and happy!

Your Life is ultimately made up of the choices you made at different times. When you choose based on economic criteria you may end up being both challenged and unhappy. When you choose based on Happiness, you may still have challenges to deal with, but you will be happy. So, choose wisely. Going with the flow is to be able to choose to be happy over choosing to be economically secure. Because economic security is a human invention, it is an illusion. What is true is Happiness. You have been given this human form to be happy. With Happiness, you can never be unhappy. Simple!

Acceptance does not necessarily help you solve a problem. But acceptance helps you immensely in dealing with it, in making you non-suffering. When you resist a situation, you are fighting it. Whatever you resist, will fight back. Such is Life. All your suffering comes from wishing that your Life is different from what it is. So, in addition to the intense pain that the situation has thrown up, you have now invited suffering into your Life by wishing that the painful situation did not exist in the first place. Instead, embrace the situation. Gracefully accept your Life for what it is. Then, slowly, very slowly, time heals, peeling off layer after layer of suffering, as you understand the futility of prolonged sadness. As your suffering and sadness dissolve, you feel repaired, happy and at peace with your new reality.

Each one’s pain is different. You can empathize with them but you cannot always understand what someone is going through. Even if they are a long-time companion, a sibling, a parent or a child. No amount of empathy can help the other person either. They have to go through what they have to go through. Ultimately, everyone has to deal with their pain themselves; they have to understand it, negotiate with it and accept it. Acceptance does not take away the pain, but it instantaneously frees you of all suffering. So, if you you love someone who is dealing with intense pain, encourage them to embrace it; help them to be non-suffering. Being non-suffering holds the key to Happiness.

Instead of obsessing over getting them married, what parents must really wish for is that their young adult children find great soulmates. A soulmate is someone who you can relate to and are best friends with; someone that you want to grow old with – and live with all your Life! Some people find their soulmates early and some others find them over time. So, parents’ worrying sick that their children must be married here, now, by a certain age, to a certain ‘category or class’ of people…all this is clearly avoidable stress and effort. A marriage is only a social contract, an irrelevant label. Pushing your children to get married so your duty is done, so you may have grandchildren, is acting selfishly, irresponsibly. Instead encourage your children to do what they love doing, to find love and be loving! Living-in with a BFF trumps being unhappily married – any day!

Everything happens in its own time, place and pace. You may wish for something to happen. Or you may wish against its happening. But you cannot force the outcome. What has to happen alone happens – always! So, go with the flow. Understand that it is what it is. Accept every happening in your Life that you didn’t want, and which you dislike, as your new normal and keep going. This is what intelligent living is all about. It doesn’t change any reality but frees you from unhappiness, from misery. It helps you anchor in peace and be happy no matter how challenging your circumstances are.

There is nothing wrong in getting married. The problem arises when you expect a marriage to deliver companionship or when you start believing that a marriage makes love happen. If you look at it objectively, marriage is just a social license for people to live together and, well, have sex, and, in most cases, procreate. Beyond being that license, it serves no purpose. The loving between people, the act of sexual intercourse and the biological process of having children – all of these can surely happen even outside of a marriage. Which is why marriage is neither necessary nor relevant. So, marry only if you really want to, but don’t expect the marriage to make you happy. Companionship is what delivers happiness. And companionship is not about gender or age; it is about finding love, being loving – in the present continuous – no matter what and celebrating each other!

When all your efforts at trying to get what you want are exhausted, if you choose to walk away calmly, without grief and frustration, then what you want will flow to you, on its own, if it is meant for you. There is great power in letting go and moving on. It is only when you have let go, of desire itself, that you can receive what is truly meant for you! No one – and nothing – can take away what is meant for you and no one – and nothing – can get you what is not meant for you! Understand this truth about Life – and you will live happily ever after.

There’s a part of all of us that is always wanting to be warm, willing to adjust, open to accommodate and ready to tolerate. But let all the warmth, adjustment, accommodation and tolerating happen at a material level. And let it stop there. Please don’t allow anyone to affect your dignity just because they are older to you or more powerful – whoever they are, even if they are a parent, sibling or spouse. Because when you allow that you end up becoming intensely unhappy. And, more often than not, you suffer silently. Let this be your guiding light – your inner peace and happiness are the only wealth you have, so, protect them till your last breath!

Don’t intellectualize Life. Not everything has a scientific, rational, logical reason to it. Beyond a point, Life is largely inscrutable. 2+2 does not often add up to 4 in Life and you can’t find the answer to some questions – particularly to the why and why me questions! It is always what it is. Life does not happen because you planned it in a certain way. It so happens that sometimes your plans are in sync with Life’s plans for you. So you end up thinking – given your education and your economic power – that you are controlling your Life. But the moment Life throws you a googly, you are stumped! You are left clueless, numb and debilitated. That’s when you realize that surrendering to Life, humbly accepting what is and going with the flow is what intelligent living is all about! This realization is the key to Happiness.

If you reflect on Life, it has no meaning. You came with nothing. And you will go with nothing. In this time, you will acquire knowledge and experience…you may get fame and wealth…you will build relationships…and blah and blah and blah…but nothing – and no one – is going with you, when it is time for you to leave. So, is Life meaningless? Perhaps, yes. But there’s another view too. The only option each of us has, since we don’t choose to be born, is to bring meaning to the Life that we have been given. Simply, what you do is more important than what you acquire and own in your lifetime. Therefore, make what you do – to make this world a better place for the generations to follow – the singular focus of your journey while enjoying every moment of it. This is how you bring meaning to an apparently meaningless Life!