Make Time For Higher Pursuits

Most people see money as the starting point of exchange, a means to acquiring goods and services. To be able to access more and more of goods and services, we strive to acquire more and more money, working extra hours.What we often tend to forget is that money comes at a real price. Money is not the first point of exchange in this world: it is an intermediate point. You earn money for a good life, and, ironically, even as you are struggling to earn money, you are exchanging your good life for it.Pursuit of money can become an end in itself. It can distort all values, and make you blind to the basic purpose of life. 

Henry Thoreau discusses this phenomenon in his celebrated book, Walden. When you, for instance, build a large and grand house, or buy a new car, how do you understand the cost of your acquisition? You may express it in terms of how many rupees you have paid for your purchase. But this amount represents a certain number of years of your labour and earnings, a definite part of your life.Thoreau prefers to understand the cost of any acquisition in terms of how large a portion of life you had to expend to acquire it. If the cost of a house is the equivalent of, say, a decade of your toil and earning, the expenditure on the house is 10 years; equal to maybe 12.5 per cent of your entire life. Thoreau's view of economy in life is how to minimise the portion of time on toil devoted to organising food, clothing and shelter, so that the bulk of the prime time is available for attending to callings of a higher value in life.

The situation in our present day world is most often the opposite of this. Most of our life is spent in the pursuit of money. Even the education of the children is chosen with the purpose of equipping them for this pursuit.Result: Occupation tends to become the sole preoccupation, until acquiring money becomes a way of life, drowning the very habit of thinking about any higher pursuit. Thoreau sees much of what passes as livelihood as a fool's penance. He pities young men in his town "whose misfortune it is to have inherited large estates". Ego-driven, men expend the best part of their life to raise their social status in a fool's paradise. If and when they do get to it, they find it hardly fulfilling. Having made it to the top rungs, they cannot descend, because they fear a loss of face; and so they continue to pay with the balance of their life to maintain their 'position'.  

A successful CEO expressed this irony in the form of a sequel to the fable of the fox and the grapes. The fox, failing to reach the grapes, 'rejected' it as sour. His friends, however, said he had failed and so he was calling the grapes sour. The humiliated fox was provoked into action ? while his friends slept, he worked hard for long hours, practising the high jump. One day, as his friends watched, he jumped and deftly grabbed the grapes. The fox earned their respect and titles were conferred upon him. The poor fox, however, discovered to his dismay that the grapes he'd managed to attain were in fact sour. How could he reject it now? Would he not be jeered at? fox had reached the point of no return; he must feed on, pretending to eat the sour grapes with great relish. Miserable and unable to share his secret, the fox eventually fell ill and died.

By K S Ram 

To feel

I sing, I am not a singer I know I dance, I am not a dancer I know I write, I am not a writer I know When I sing, sometimes I am loud When I dance , I dance my heart out And thats enough, not to be famous and rich But to be what I am To feel my own being To be alive

Slow Down

When walking fast - slow down a bit and look at a roadside plant. It exists.

When watching TV late night - slow down a bit and look at the star or moon through the window. They exist.

When staring at computer or phone screen - slow down a bit and look at people around. They exist.

When eating that calorie counted diet - slow down a bit and think of people who don't get to eat. They exist.

When all consumed with future - slow down a bit and remember the days gone by and cherish memories. They exist.

When working hard to get ahead - slow down and look at your creative side. It exists.

When longing constantly for a happy life - slow down and look at fulfilment of present moment. It exists.

Are we connecting?

Are we trying to do too much?

Most of us are trying to squeeze the best we can out of the time available to us and some of us are really good at it.

But most of the times we are rushing from one thing to another. While we are doing something we are already thinking about what to do next, whom to meet next, where to go next. In doing so we loose the connection between us and the things we do or people we are dealing with. As a result  although we end up doing lots of things, we are not there fully with anything or anyone. 

As there are more and more things available to us to choose from, we really need to choose carefully what we want to spend our time on. We need to ask " what can I do from the things available to me that I can connect with fully in the time available to me". If it is reading a book make sure you immerse yourself in it. If it is cooking make sure you are not facebooking or tweeting at the same  time and are connecting fully with what you are making. If it is playing with kids make sure you do it in  a way that makes kids feel you are one of them. If it is facebooking make sure you find interesting things and are not trying to do ten other things at the same time. 

When we do things by really connecting with them we make art, we make the whole experience worthwhile, we make new relationships, we strengthen existing relationships, we learn, we add value, we help, we give, we love, we introspect, we inspire, we find peace and most importantly we grow.

You are not alone

All of us want to be happy.

But even if we are not we want to put up a face that shows we are. We always want to show our side which makes others beleive everything is just perfect with us.  And most of the times we struggle under the surface with ourselves, alone.

Since everyone around us is pretending to be happy, we think we are alone in our struggles and we try to hide it from everyone and pretend we are happy.

If facebook posts are used as indication of everyone's happiness, then probably none of them should ever have an unhappy moment. But as we all know the reality if far from it. As soon as we scratch the surface we realise how we are not alone in our struggles, how everyone is trying their best to cope in their lives.

The very pain we are trying to hide from others can heal people around us and ourselves if we share it with each other. And we wouldn't feel so lonely.

So -

1. Never feel you are alone in your unhappiness just because everyone around you seems to be happy.
2. Try to find as many people as you can with whom you can share your pain.
3. When someone tries to share their pain with you, welcome and open up.

Is free good?

Somehow we have come to value things, places, experiences and even people in terms of money. If something is expensive it must be good. Conversely if something is inexpensive it can't be so good. One of the reasons for this is that we want to use expensive things as medals of our accomplishments, our "success". We want to have symbols which speak on our behalf to others and say " Look , I am successful , I have achieved what only very few people achieve " irrespective of the actual satisfaction or fulfilment our "medals" give us.

On the other hand we tend to completely ignore free or inexpensive things that we have access to. We don't try to take a closer look as we automatically label them as routine, boring, not worth a mention etc. This attitude deprives us of so many chances of being grateful for just ordinary everyday things, birds chirping, Art of the clouds, blossoming flowers, having heartfelt chats, playing with kids, reading something inspiring and so much more. No matter what situation you are in you always have so many things around you which are free and are of immense value.  But often in the midst of them all we are looking for those expensive "medals" and loose out on things which are much more valuable.

Pat on the back

All of us are constantly striving for new things, new achievements, new targets.

When we hit any of those milestones, we celebrate and move to next goal. There is nothing wrong in moving on to better things or higher goals but most of the times when we reach a target, the sense of fulfillment is so momentary that it makes you think "Is that all?" .

 The uncertainty of our future goals troubles us as well for some unknown event can take it all from us. Our focus is constantly on future and it should be but at the same time past achievements are something which nothing can take away from us, there is a sense of certainty about them. We should probably take more time to pat ourselves on our back for what we have achieved so far. It helps us feel that sense of certainty . It also helps us take bolder steps ahead as we know we already have a part of us which has been immortalised by time and nothing that future brings can destroy that.