It could have been worse, you know…

 I have this bad habit of overly worrying about a lot of unnecessary matters – mundane ones, really. No, make that M-U-N-D-A-N-E!

A point in case, I fret and fume when it rains incessantly. I worry over the clothes that don’t dry easily, about where to put them up for drying as my clothesline starts filling up, about the soggy backyard, slippery floor, and grime in the shoes and so on. Or I worry about how inconvenient my house is to live in. About how dirty it gets when children run amok. About how small it is for a family of four. About how there is not enough light or air even when the windows are open and so on.

And then, when I encounter people for whom everyday life itself is no less than a test of survival, I remind myself that things can be a lot worse than they are.

The maids and cooks, for instance. The other day my maid nonchalantly told me how her neighbor steals all her daughter’s good dresses that she puts out for drying. Imagine if you were to slog the whole day in people’s houses to earn a few good things for yourself and your family, only to see them getting stolen, how frustrating can that be. And I thought, shouldn’t I be thankful for the safety I find within my four walls?

So I tell myself,

You worry about badly stitched clothes, but then there are people with none to wear.

You worry about not having enough vegetables in stock for next day’s cooking, but then there are people who can’t afford vegetables and certainly not a cook.

You worry about irregular water supply, but then there are people who trudge everyday for kilometers  to collect two potfuls of water

You worry about work-family life balance, but then there are people who have neither work nor family.

You worry about how finicky parents or in-laws get at times, but then there are people who yearn for their guiding presence and support

You worry about financial security, but then there are people who don’t even know what it is like to earn.

And so, everytime I remind myself that it could have been worse.

I could have been a malnourished child in Somalia, or an anguished Tamil in Sri Lanka. I could have been a goat tied to a pole outside a butcher’s or a tusker in Veerappan’s jungle. I could have been an Afghani woman in some remote hilly village or an ISI operative. I could have been a drug-addict teen or a beggar on the streets. Or anything worse than any of this.

Maybe I was one of these in the past. Maybe I am yet to see some tough times in future. But whatever it is, today I am happy to be where I am, am happy to be kyjym. Thanks to and for everything.

Mind and its matters

A strange beast indeed, this mind!

Milton captured it the best in Paradise Lost when he said, “The mind is its own place, and in itself; Can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven”

The fascination that mind, as a subject, holds is not new. In fact, what is it made of, where does it ‘reside’, how does it tie to the body, what about “sub processes” like ego and intelligence? Questions like these have perplexed and intrigued us (our minds?) for ages now. Innumerable theories and perspectives abound. But here, I am not going to delve into any of those. Rather what I will do is simply talk about mind as I experience it.

To me, the mind is a puzzle, a study in contrast. Full of potential, but difficult to tame. Vagrant, but authoritative. Stubborn, but also easily swayed. Villian and hero, all rolled into one.

What else can you say of the mind that orders you to devour a plateful of unhealthy snacks even when mildly hungry, and the same that settles down meekly and doesn’t as much raise a whimper when the body fasts for a whole day? It is also the funny one that after days of feeding on a thought can very easily discard it and seek something else if allowed to, including things that it shouldn’t be seeking at all.

Have you noticed the way the mind always looks for excuses to lead you, never letting you recognise that you are actually its master? How many times has it convinced you that swallowing that bar of chocolate is ok, or that burst of anger directed at your child was justified?  How many times has it regurgitated trashy and completely unnecessary thoughts that don’t have any businesses residing in you in the first place, even when you didn’t want to remember them? How many times has it tricked you into seeing a veil of illusion and showed you things that didn’t exist at all – love where there wasn’t any or animosity where there wasn’t any? How many times it dictated your body language – that sparkle in your eye when upbeat, and those drooping shoulders when not?

A bar of chocolate relished by some is also totally despised by some others. Is tongue the factor responsible for this stark difference? Tongue is but a blob of flesh with a few taste buds in it, meant to recognise some basic tastes. It is mind that is the actual power centre that creates this feeling of like and dislike (raaga-dwesha) towards that bar of chocolate and every other object of the world. So  is control of the mind all that is required for you to turn that yucky bittergourd into a delicious snack? Maybe!

Again, my intention is not to portray the mind as a terrible villian lurking inside me. I see it as what it is – simply a tool, albeit a very intelligent and powerful tool and the one that decidedly makes me what I am. Innumerable times it has taught me to do the right things, and has played a decisive role in bringing me to where I am now. Many a time it has even helped allay fears and anxities that it itself caused. Why, only the mind can formulate and allow a treatise like this, with itself as the subject!

So the fact to remember is that the mind nurtures thoughts and thoughts shape the person. So ultimately, I am what I am due to my mind. Which is why it gets very important to make sure the mind gets fed in the right way with the right content and that too persistently.

To tame the wavering mind, some of the following steps (as gathered from multiple sources) will help.

-          Identify the mind as a separate entity, one that is different from you and that functions on its own. Dissociating yourself from the mind and the thoughts it creates will help in an objective view of and fix to any problem it creates

-          Practice, practice – tell the mind what to do and remind it everyday that you are the master. Don’t for a minute let it dictate its own terms. It should follow what you have taught it to do.

-          Meditation – another form of practice, but a more austere one. You don’t gently explain to the mind, but actually force it to fall in line. Much like disciplining a naughty child.

-          Finally, prayers for Divine help in your efforts

And remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day. With a mere snap of fingers, you can’t suddenly master and control what controlled you for years. It is a long, arduous effort but one that will pay you handsomely nevertheless.

Tags: Mind