Managing Stress

“The real human is who can find intensest activity in solitude and peace and can find intensest peace and solitude within intensest activity”Swami Vivekananda

Highlights:

●    Reason for stress

●    Effects of comparison

●    Success

●    Confidence, over confidence, low confidence.

●    Existence of equilibrium in our life

●    Motivation- a key factor to be successful.

Let me ask you all a very simple question. Are you all happy in your life? Are you all leading a peaceful and prosperous life? I think the question itself is wrong. I mean it simply seems next to impossible.

I get to hear some phrases every now and then.” How can I be without tension, had an argument with my arrogant boss. Going to have an interview tomorrow, God help me!!!,I am not happy with the current job as I am not getting a good pay, fees to be paid , have to cook food, girlfriend not happy, my dad is going to kill me as I flunked in the exam……. ” and endless number of tensions, isn`t it???????

And for students, their childhood and youth is lost in projects & assignments completion, proving their love for gorgeous girls ( Hey Hey), challenges set by their classmates and so on.

But don’t you think in all these mindless things, some very important and beautiful things are getting a backseat and are being sidelined. What about your desires? What about the charm of childhood? What about those little things and hobbies that brought smiles on your faces. Career has become so important that we have forgotten our real selves and have started wearing a mask with a fake smile. Whom do we think we are bluffing? Our society?

No, my dear ones, it is actually ourselves. Is it practically possible to bluff and cheat ourselves? We want to be successful but at what cost. At the cost of our smiles and our desires, if I am not wrong.

Actually the term Success in mostly misunderstood and is not defined by most of the people.The most common mistakes by most of the people are:

●    Comparing ourselves with others

●    Not setting the parameters of our success

Getting inspired and motivated by others is the positive side of comparison. But you know very well that we the humans are experts in attracting negatives. Comparing ourselves with others in most of the cases gives rise to two negative traits.

1.   Inferiority Complex

2.   Superiority complex

And both of these are very complex and very harmful. You already know meaning of both of the above mentioned traits but let me present a clearer picture.

The first one, inferiority Complex that is feeling of low self-esteem when you find others better than you in any field. People in majority suffer from this whether a student or professional in any field. This is very harmful for you as it harms you subconsciously i.e without your will or put in simple words without your awareness.

We see someone better looking than us we feel insecure, we see someone with more marks we become depressed. We see someone with a better car or bike than ours we feel insecure. Someone performs better in a competition we feel inferior.

The result is that it lowers our confidence and engraves negative feelings about ourselves in our minds which is more harmful than being physically damaged as physical damage heals with time but the above damage keeps on deepening and growing all our lives. This in many ways is the main reason of people being unsuccessful in life.

And the second one i.e superiority complex is as harmful as the first one. Put in simple words it means a feeling of high self-esteem when you find others not as good as you in any field. It also happens to grow sub-consciously. The result is a feeling of over confidence which is also one of the main reasons for people to be unsuccessful.

We are all responsible for this comparison but at the same time our elder parents, teachers are all responsible for the development of this attitude because it is them from whom we learn and follow.

In daily life we come across very beautiful dialogues.

“See your cousin and yourself, he has obtained 90% marks, you must obtain greater marks.”

“see Mr. Sharma`s daughter, so well versed in singing, why don’t you join her ”

“His brother has done ABC course and is getting Rs.50,000 as salary, you should also go for that course” and so on….

And as we grow up we follow the same process of comparison

“Mom, he has got a smart phone, I have to get one better than his”

“Dad! My friend has got a new car , I also need a car ”

“My friends are going for this course so I`ll also do the same course” and so on….

And this very comparison ruins our career and doesn’t ever allow us to excel in our fields. In fact our career choice has also become crowd-driven against our interest.

 Few of us who become successful are the ones who doesn’t commit the above mistake of comparing. They always focus on themselves i.e if they see something positive in themselves they further strengthen those qualities in spite of becoming overconfident. And if they realize something negative in themselves they always try to throw out those qualities in spite of feeling inferior.

We need to draw strong line of demarcation between confidence, over confidence and low confidence

The key lies in realizing your strength and weaknesses to be successful on life

Compare yourselves with your grandparents. How calm and peaceful life they had. Despite all the responsibilities, they had quite a happy life and enjoyed to their fullest and we in the 21st century with all the luxuries and technology fail to be at peace with ourselves. Everybody is running miles to win the rat race. To achieve something that is not going to make us calm in spite of all the riches and luxuries.

I came across a saying in one of Swami Vivekananda`s book –

“The real human is who can find intensest activity in solitude and peace and can find intensest peace and solitude within intensest activity” 

You see there are people who are very much satisfied and happy with their live irrespective of their financial condition, social status, marks, career, wives, girlfriends etc…

Let me present before you something from my little knowledge and experience

There exists equilibrium in everything and in every sphere of life. For example, you sit on a chair and if you disturb its equilibrium with ground, you will get disturbed and moreover you can fall. You write with a pen, if you disturb its equilibrium with the paper your handwriting would be affected and moreover you may end up tearing your page. You drive a car or a bike, there exists a proper equilibrium between gear, accelerator, clutch, brakes etc…If you disturb their equilibrium your drive wouldn’t be smooth and moreover you may end up with an accident.

Similarly in our lifespan of about 60 years. (Though who want to live longer can of course live much longer!!!!!!!!!I don’t have any problem)

This very equilibrium exists with our wives (,oooooppppppsssss.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) I mean lives. And it is very much practical and has been proved by all the successful people.

If you disturb the equilibrium of life you face problems, it is as simple as it sounds. There has to be a balance between your dreams/desires and your qualities/talents. The equilibrium of life is maintained by striking a method to live happily. And believe me there is no thumb rule to strike this balance. 

Everybody must have their own way to strike this balance. For me, I strike this balance by doing all those things that makes me happy like when I was writing this blog. I write because it simply gives me happiness. I play guitar to make myself more confident. I make paintings as it gives me my much needed peace. I go for swimming. I love to work for the welfare of the society. These things are just like meditation for me. It provides me my strength, makes me feel content and motivates me to work further more.

Wondering whether how to find this balance and whether it is easy or difficult?

I have the answer with me. The moment you say it’s easy it becomes easy and if you say it is difficult it actually becomes difficult because your mind responds as per your order. And that is how I achieved it.

 It is up to you whether you want to get ruled by situations in your life, or you want to rule the situations in your life. Why we are forgetting that it is we who have created this materialistic environment but I think it is getting other way round. We are getting ruled by the environment created by us.  

So I request all the people to become aware of this fact and start to enjoy

●    E-Enjoy

●    N-Naughty

●    J-Joy

●    O-Opportunities

●    Y-Yearn for your desires

Not setting the parameters of success

Another most common mistake by us is setting wrong parameters and definition of success. So what do we actually mean by the term “SUCCESS”. Amassing as much money as possible, reaching great heights of career, Cracking a Civil Services exam or getting entry in IIT Bangalore?

So many theories and philosophies have been put forward by a number of intelligent people like this one which is very close to the definition of success.”Success is not a destination, it’s a journey”

But what I have found in every successful personalities` words is that “If you are doing a work which you love the most to do, you are really successful. Your success can’t be defined in terms of money or degrees or anything else. If you are doing a work that you don’t like to do, you are unsuccessful.

I must tell you that when you try to follow your desires/dreams you are bound to fail, but if you Chase the same you are destined to be successful. You will be thrown down to the ground for n number of times but “it doesn’t matter how many times you fall, but what matters is how many times you get back up ” “It doesn’t matter how hard you are hit, but what matters is how hard you can get hit and refuse to accept your defeat”

But the question here is how to make this possible? How to be this much strong to face such difficulties?

You need just one and only one thing i.e motivation, defined as the key driving force for human beings which ignites us towards action and unfortunately most of the students and elders don’t even bother about this. There is not a single successful person without motivation. This is the only difference between winners and losers or successful and unsuccessful people. This is the only one thing which will force you to work even much harder when you fail. It will provide you the strength to get back up again after falling

Reminders:

●    Never compare yourselves with others in any respect.

●    Define the parameters of success for you.

●    Draw a line of demarcation between confidence, over confidence and under/low confidence.

●    The key lies in realizing your strength and weaknesses to be successful in life

●    Existence of equilibrium in every sphere of our life

●    It’s up to you whether you want to get ruled by situations in your life, or you want to rule the situations in your life

●    If you are doing a work which you love the most to do, you are really successful. Your success can’t be defined in terms of money or degrees or anything else. If you are doing a work that you don’t like to do, you are unsuccessful.

●    “It doesn’t matter how many times you fall, but what matters is how many times you get back up ” “It doesn’t matter how hard you are hit, but what matters is how hard you can get hit and refuse to accept your defeat”

●    Always motivate yourselves.