Refusing to look at a problem, or denying
its existence, cannot make your Life any simpler.
All what you suffer from comes from
what you deny. Facing Life and taking a problem head on is what can make you
solve it and live in peace.
But we invariably don’t like to
exorcise our demons. We somehow have become comfortable suffering, feeling tormented,
preferring to stay debilitated than feeling liberated. Because continuing to be
miserable seems far more easier than having to work hard to rid ourselves of
what makes us miserable!
I met someone yesterday after a
couple of years. He, in his own opinion, was financially ‘very well off’. Yet
he found his Life ‘incomplete’. He spent entire days, daily, in a prominent
five-star hotel’s bar, literally being there from the time it opened to when it
closed! He lamented to me that his wife no longer loved him and all she wanted
was ‘his credit card and a certain sum of cash monthly for her shopping sprees’.
His 24-year-old son, though married, was not exactly doing anything significant
and ‘lived off’ his dad. His daughter was the only one who understood him but their
relationship too in recent years had come under stress. She wanted to go
overseas for higher studies but he was insistent that she marry now because
that was the norm in his ‘community’. He said to me, in a tone reflective of a
defeated man, “I have lost it in Life. I have done no wrong. Yet everyone
around me has let me down. I am suffering. I wish I could die.”
I laughed at him and looked him in
the eye. And said: “My friend, you are the problem. For as far as I know you,
you have been drinking entire days for years now. You have a drinking problem –
spurred by a lack of purpose in your Life. There’s enough and more money. So,
because you don’t know how to be useful and productive, you are indulging in
something that has already ruined your family Life and is on the verge of
consuming you.”
My friend suddenly turned hostile.
He ended our meeting and drove away drunk in his car, despite my request and
protests to engage a taxi leaving his car behind.
I wish he understood that unless he
faced the brutal reality of his Life, he may really be unable to make it any
better.
Just as my friend has a problem, each
of us has. All of us like to deny whatever is our problem__ranging from a
relationship to a lousy job to a ruinous habit__hoping that time will take care
of it! This is one area where no one can help you than you, yourself!
But facing the truth is scary. How
does one see the reality?
Good question. And so, it is with
all situations, with all of humanity, with all aspects of Life! Fundamentally,
if you know what you want out of your Life, you can go find that Life and recreate,
reinvent yourself. But if you don’t know what you want, how can anyone help
you? This question is not as profound as many people make it out to be. It is a
dumb question. Even a person with low IQ can answer it __ by approaching it the
other way, by knowing, for starters, what you don’t want in your Life! Because
the answer is that nobody, definitely not you, wants to suffer. Since you don’t
want to suffer or be miserable why do anything, or accept any situation that
accentuates your suffering?
The only way to solve a problem is
to accept it exists. And to look it in the face and lead the change yourself. There
are no two ways in which you can change your current realities or end your
suffering!
So, if you are feeling miserable
about anything__or anyone__in Life, sit down and introspect. Diligently make a
list of actions that you must take to end your misery. Resolve to do it. And
just get down to doing it. Don’t give yourself the license to make excuses.
Resolving to do it from the New Year is an excuse straightaway! So, don’t kid
yourself!
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