Calm in Storm – The power of perspective.

Fredrich Buechner wrote, “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.”

This is a shout out to all my friends on the brink of break down and who feel that there’s no light at the end of this tunnel. Also, perhaps the ones who are in the midst of experiencing a linear positive graph and misconstruing it to be the destination.

Although the article is mostly drawn on the basis of the experiences and observations during my short entrepreneurial journey, its relevance pervade through all aspects of life. The quality of my experience begins with my interpretation of it. How I interpret any experience, set the foundation for my actions around it. Stoics teach us thoughtfulness (Reason) precedes the virtue (Happiness).

I really wish if everyone, or not falling prey to the perceived notion of generalizing my experiences onto others, atleast I was exposed to and told that: Attachment to anything external is a recipe for disaster.

Parents will fail us. Loved ones will depart. Not all efforts will yield desirable outcomes. Fleeting externals would help me appreciate the success a lot more as there will be times of failures again. I need to relish the presence of my loved ones as I might not be able to see them or hear from them again. And because things are ALWAYS changing, I can skip the phases of unproductive frustration and move along to the next task. The feeling of happiness isn’t contingent on ending or beginning of any event. Its virtually impossible for anyone to escape from the iteration of happiness-sorrow-success-failure. The news is that this iterative process is here to stay.

As frivolous as it might sound, hard times need to be embraced as much as the good ones. There’s never a better teacher than the time of struggle itself.

I have realized that I don’t need to rely on circumstances changing, but resolve to constantly changing myself. Being overly ecstatic at time of success or deep despair during the hard times are equally detrimental to one’s instinct to “thrive”. One can easily cause complacency while the other can induce inaction, which is like allowing things to rust out of disuse. Inaction saps the vigors of the powerful human mind out of sheer disuse.

The ability to hold the dissonance in our minds (while we continue to work towards the well-intentioned goals set for ourselves hoping for the best results while expecting the worst) induces resilience, and prepare us to endure them. It prepares us for inevitable not-so-favorable times. Even if it doesn’t eliminate the sorrow when they occur, it definitely minizmizes its adversarial impact on us. 

SR.