The Boiling Point

Have you ever boiled fresh milk on a stove? If so, have you always taken the pan out right on time, so that the milk does not spill over? If you have not experienced this, I suggest you stop reading this now and get into your kitchen, try boiling some milk and experience these things for yourself first. This is important for you to understand what I am going to say next. Else you better have a solid sense of imagination.

You would have noticed that when you boil a pan of milk, unless you take the pan out at the right time, a considerable amount of milk will spill over on to the stove. Getting the stove cleaned is a herculean task. The spilled milk stains the pan as well which poses a big challenge to clean the pan properly. You could only wish that you had taken the pan out on time so that you avoid all the hassle.

What I am going to say next is not something I have invented. But this will definitely be a good reminder for all of us, including me, so that if we ever go through such a state, we will remember these words and hopefully will act accordingly.

Now imagine this. The pan we use is nothing but our life itself. The milk we try to boil is the bunch of emotions we go through daily. The stove is the society where we live and the environment around us.

Just like how the milk will reach a boiling point, our emotions too have an upper limit. The more we refuse to address the fact that we are reaching a tipping point of an emotional churn, the bigger will be the impact. The earlier we acknowledge that we need to take out the pan of emotions, the better will be our mental situation. Else just like how the spilled over boiled milk leaves us with a nasty job, we will be gifting ourselves and people around us with quite a difficult challenge to solve, a twisted life of ours.

Now the bigger question is, how do we avoid this situation? This is where we all need to consciously build a support system for ourselves. This could be someone we are closer to at home or a friend, with whom we could speak about the emotional turmoil that we are going through or someone at our professional environment with whom we could disclose some of these experiences.

Please note that I mentioned both personal and professional contacts. There is a reason for it. There are topics or incidents involving our emotional wellbeing that are personal or professional in nature. The support system we develop needs to cater to both. We can't be addressing only one of them. Hence, we need to have a healthy mix of both personal and professional support system in place so that whenever we need to express our emotional concerns, the party on the other side understands and empathise with us.

So much is spoken these days about mental health and emotional wellbeing. These are not magical words, instead as humankind we are capable of ensuring these to our fellow humans. All that is needed is being a good human and live the spirit of what humanity stands for.

Let us all take out our pans of emotions on time and like how we enjoy a well-prepared cup of coffee, let us lead a life that is beautiful, how it is meant to be!