Thoughts

The Inner Struggle…

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

How do we choose what we choose? Why do we behave the way we do?

How do we better control our thoughts and emotions and channel them into the positive zone? Is it something that we can do to mentally train ourselves better on? Or is it a factor of our conditioning and our circumstances and not always controllable?

These questions have been on my mind more than once.

This weekend, as we sat down for a family movie night, I didn’t expect that these will be answered. But as I got up after those 2 hours, the fog had somewhat been cleared!

It was the animated movie ‘Inside Out’, which is a beautifully crafted story of how the mind behaves in different situations and reacts to them, depicted through a week in the life of a young girl.

The one answer to my questions – what we choose and do is a constant struggle within ourselves – one that we fight day in and day out. And the feeling we have conditioned ourselves to sense the most wins over more than the others.

That’s the reason, some of us get flustered even on small things while some don’t mind even bigger problems and smile them away. Or why sometimes we may get sad but recover while someone else becomes sad and goes into depression.

It is complicated!

One thing I did realise though is that the power to swing to one or the other direction is in our minds and hearts.

The power to move from being self-focussed, apprehensive, and angrier than we used to be in today’s hyperconnected yet disjointed world, to become more accepting, welcoming, and less exacting.

Or to move from the ‘rat race mindset’ so that we allow ourselves to experience happiness in the small things in our life, rather than being dissatisfied even when we have achieved something.

Or to be proud of even the small achievements that our kids have landed up with, instead of pushing them for more and more out of our desire to excel at all costs.

I am sure, all of these are, or will be, inner struggles for most of us. But winning over them and emerging on the right side is perhaps the only thing that’s important today, as we reset our lives and relations in this new world…

of Preoccupations…

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

This week was a blur. I was pre-occupied with something happening on the personal front.

That meant a lot of thinking beyond the obvious on what is happening, how to handle it, when to do what, and above all why should I do whatever I choose as the way forward.

As I spent the week surrounded by all these thoughts and running mental simulations and validating various hypothesis, it meant time between work or later spent in the pursuit. It was exhausting and refreshing at the same time.

And it helped me realise one thing – it is good to sometimes have some pressing preoccupations in your mind. Helps you feel challenged about certain things.

Prior to this week, I always used to view some of these pre-occupations as an issue interfering with work or something to be relegated to weekends. In doing so, I often pushed naturally occurring thoughts out or postponed moving forward until the weekend, which would then be spent crunching time and running a crash routine.

This time, somehow I let the thoughts flow naturally. And while it meant staying up late on some nights or ruminating about hypothesis during my morning routine, it allowed me to progress in an unhurried fashion and logically evaluate different aspects.

It was out of turn. Completely not me. And yet, this new approach helped me see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel in a controlled and faster manner.

The realisation that I don’t need to leave all the thinking on such aspects to the weekend and can manage it on weekdays along with work, also made me understand that preoccupations are not a bad thing after all.

Yes, if they interfere with your normal life or duties. Or if they completely take over and stop you from doing what you should be doing. Be it on the personal side or professional side.

But if they are controlled in a disciplined manner with clearly drawn boundaries between what has to be done as one’s duty and without letting them affect anything else, they can be a good segue into another direction that’s perhaps important to be explored.

After all, we cannot control what thoughts we have and when but we can to some extent manage what we want to do with them and how…

False Narratives…

~ Rishi ~ 1 Comment

They abound!

In every sphere of our lives.

At home, at work, in the society, within ourselves.

They are constructed in our minds. In our words. And in our actions also at times. And then some of them escape us and land with others and start a chain reaction. Once released into the open, they have a life of their own.

Sometimes these chain reactions help us stay afloat and live our lives believing and holding onto dear hope. And in other cases, they may drown us in sorrow and lead us to a downfall.

Sometimes, these chain reactions stop sooner than we want them to. On other occassions, they run amok beyond our wildest imagination and in spite of our best efforts to curtail them.

As long as they are limited to matters of personal interest or to trivial pursuits, these can serve as a reminder of the alternative or a check on whether we are doing the right things. In fact, some of them may be beneficial for us to meander through our lives, difficult as it is.

It’s when they go beyond the realm of personal or trivial, is when they can assume gargantuan proportions. They then permeate the society in myriad ways and channelise our lives in different directions depending on what we believe.

With the rising trend of easy internet access, tools to enable social connections, and unchecked platforms to spread whatever one believes in, all of this has just become EASY. And that’s what is worrying the most.

Because, these false narratives have the power to alter our reality and push us into directions which may not be worth turning to. Or they may compel us to act in ways that could be counterproductive for ourselves.

And that may cost us many a things!

So, how do we discern between the truth and the false?

No one is an expert in this subject. But hopefully with our own judgement and best intentions towards self and the ones we love, it is probably easier to understand the intention of the narrative and the direction it may take us into. And then asking ourselves a question – do I really want to go down that path?

For beginners, this hopefully may be enough to put us at a reduced risk of being sucked up in the whirlwind of these false narratives and the ensuing madness…

PS: COMMENTS WELCOME!