We all think that we are invincible. We see people around us doing all sorts of things: following their passion which can be something very bizarre, earning a living by doing what they love, travelling around the world as a travel blogger, doing breath-taking stuff and making those fantastic GoPro videos, going to the most amazing music concerts, securing admission in colleges where we once dreamt of going, cracking interviews of companies where we imagine to work at one day, et cetera, etcetera, et cetera……The list is endless, and I know that most of you could relate to this. These are some of our unfulfilled aspirations: Some of this we would be able to achieve and for many others, the time has passed and it is already too late. These so called aspirations, gives us the motivation to work and for others, it’s just something that makes them feel incomplete and that they haven’t achieved anything in their lives. How does this makes you feel? Happy? Sad? Numb? Hollow?
More often than not, we find ourselves in this never-ending race to complete just one more thing, reach one more goal, to secure one more target. Every time we do any of these, we realise that the milestone is shifted even further. Have you ever experienced lasting satisfaction after doing any of these? Have you ever felt that finally it’s time to relax now and I don’t mean this in a procrastinating or a lazy way. What I really want to know is that have you ever felt absolutely calm and serene and peaceful after achieving one of your goals? This is a feeling where your mind is completely satisfied with all your achievements. Your personality, your rights and wrongs and everything else is accepted just as it is, with no judgement whatsoever. You care about no one’s opinion and you just feel complete, in that moment.
Some people, unfortunately, turn to substance abuse to get this feeling. All the research shows that tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, pills and chemicals, trigger the release of various hormones which makes us addicted to them and give us that calm and happy feeling. Adrenaline, Dopamine, Serotonin, Oxytocin, Endorphin and Cortisol-These are some of the hormones which play the game of keeping us happy. They also help us in forming good and bad habits. This is what controls our emotion. And all our actions are driven by the emotional conditioning we have had for as long as we have been alive. Also, this is what makes us humans. We are not some video game character which is just designed to go through various obstacles without getting killed in order to keep getting to the next level. How do you feel a few hours after whatever addictive substance you have put inside your body? Don’t you feel much more miserable than before? That fleeting moment of happiness is gone and is replaced by a much worse feeling. The concept of ‘Loss Aversion’ as given by Kahneman and Tversky in 1979, is at work here.
In life, we are ultimately in pursuit of happiness. Whatever we do, our innermost desire is always to be happy and be satisfied and feel fulfilled. People who know their life’s purpose crystal clear are very fortunate because they know what is it that they are working towards. Some others are applying the strategy of fake it until you make it. Still others are following the advice of all sorts of self-help books out there. Many are using the power of Meditation. I, personally, had found real and lasting calmness of mind only when I was practising regular Yoga and Meditation. Doing my daily Sadhana regularly was one of the best things that I ever did. I have felt and experienced feelings and emotions which are so experiential in nature that you can never understand them without doing it yourself. No one can put them in words. For the last two years, I haven’t been doing my regular practice, and I can clearly see the difference in myself, while I was doing the practice and when I have stopped doing it.
Amidst all this rat race, we start to feel we will keep racing towards our goals and nothing can stop us. Continuing from the first line of this post, we begin to think that nothing can happen to us. No disease or natural disaster can touch us. No unfortunate accident can happen. Have a look at these images below:
This is from an accident that I had in March 2017. My UBER driver was driving at 90–100 Km/hr around 5:30–6:00 am in the morning as I was going to catch a train. Suddenly an SUV cut through the divider and came right at us on the wrong side of the lane. There was hardly 2–3 seconds when I could see the SUV coming at us, while in reality it should be on the other side of the divider. Before I could even say a word out of my mouth, the driver took a sharp turn towards left, and our car’s right portion touched the left part of that SUV, and our car was up in the air due to the sharp turn, high speed and frontal collision with that SUV. After that, something happened, and I don’t remember any of that. The next thing I remember is that after a few minutes, people were opening up our car door and taking the driver and me out. Fortunately enough, the car did not overturned, and we were mostly unhurt apart from a few cuts and bruises. Funnily enough, UBER still charged me for that ride and never responded to any of my emails regarding that accident. But I couldn’t care less about these money guzzlers. When people took me out of the car, I was shaking uncontrollably for the next few minutes and couldn’t understand all the commotion around me. I had no clue about my luggage, my belongings or anything. Later on, I realised that those were the after-effects of an immense shock. Sometime later, I had this intense feeling that how could something like this happen to me? This wasn’t supposed to happen. This is what I see in news and happens to other people, not me. When I tried to book a ride back home, UBER couldn’t care less and told me to complete my last payment to book another ride. Their helpline number had pathetic response. Anything could have happened to that UBER driver and to me that day, and I feel fortunate enough to come out of that accident almost unscathed. That accident made me realise how mortal we are and how fragile this human body is. Just a second of super-bad-luck and its Game Over.
What separates us from this inescapable truth? Isn’t it just one breath? If only this next breath doesn’t come, we are gone. It’s done — we breath approximately 17000–23000 times in a day which makes it some 8.4 million breaths in a year. Have you ever paid attention to this? In…..Out…..In……Out……..In………Out…………If this cycle breaks, we are over. All our dreams and aspirations and everything else is gone with us too. There is absolutely no doubt regarding the fact that we are mortal beings. Just like billions before us and probably trillions after us, our fate is decided. With each passing day, we are getting closer to our graves. Each birthday that you celebrate, it has taken away another year of your life.
If you are 25 years old and living in India, then according to the life expectancy rate in 2019, you have some 45 more years to live. 55 more if you stay well and maybe, just maybe 65–70 more if you are fortunate. What are you going to make of these years? Do you want to spend this chasing other people’s validation? Or Likes, Comments and Shares on your social media post? Do you want to live for this? Thirty years from now, when you look back to this day, will you really feel good about your post that got maybe one million views? Will that matter? Is that what you are living for? Or perhaps you want to do something and make your mark in this world. Maybe a handful of people will remember you after you are gone. Maybe they will name a street after you or a neighbourhood or a city or a state or in a very rare case, you’ll have a country named after you. But who cares about you? So what if you have a country named after you? Does everyone who visits it, is told a story about you or shown a movie on your life? Since you are already long gone, does someone cares about how you were as a person? Do people discuss how you made them feel? How was your vibe? What did you smell like? How was your handshake? Were you a charming and humorous person? Maybe the people who lived their lives alongside you are going to miss you always and discuss about you. But that’s about it.
Tell me one thing, how many times do you discuss your grandparents? Probably a few times in a year. What about your great-grandparents? Perhaps sometime in the last decade. And what about your great-great-grandparents? Maybe never. You won’t even know their names. But guess what, they most probably passed away within last hundred years. They were in this world just a century back. And you have so conveniently erased their existence from your minds, as if they never existed. And that’s what is going to happen to you too. In all fairness, to all of us. That’s how cruel, this life is. It is a never-ending struggle between trying to stay happy and fulfilled but being sad and empty most of the time.
But the question is, does it really matter to you right now, whether you are remembered a hundred years from now or not? For most of us, it doesn’t matter. What matters to us is our happiness at this moment and in the near future. For me, it is of utmost importance to keep my feelings in check. Otherwise, everything starts feeling worthless. Are my spirits high? Do I get a chance to do those little things daily which make me happy? All these things keep us going. Too much stress releases cortisol. Cortisol, when released in our body in large quantities, messes up our system.
After I completed my schooling till K12, I joined an automotive engineering course at a good college, because I was excited about cars and wanted to learn more about them. I never felt regret of not getting into a better college, and I was satisfied with myself. I still remember being free and relaxed during the initial days of my college. With time, that enthusiasm died out, and by the final year, it was only a race to secure suitable placements. I was selected in one of the country’s top automotive conglomerate, and it all seemed like a dream come true. With time, in my job, it all again became a race to send reports before deadlines, achieve targets and reach monthly, quarterly, half-yearly and yearly goals. I worked for almost two years and realised that there are still many things which I need to learn in management and in Sales and Marketing, so I thought of doing an MBA. I gave CAT and got into one of the country’s top college. I had calls from many colleges, and I converted most of them and then made a final choice based on many factors. I never felt bad for doing two DILR sets incorrectly in CAT’18, which otherwise would have improved my percentile greatly and would have given me more options to choose from. I was happy that I secured admission in this college. But then, it was again a blind race of achieving the best summer placements. I got into one of the country’s leading banking institution and was amongst the first ones to get placed. I couldn’t have asked for anything better, and it was all so wonderful. The internship came and went by. It was a great time. And then came the time for final placements. This seems like an uphill task right now due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I am not sure what to expect and avoid thinking about it. You will have your own story. How does it feel to think all that right now? Have you ever done any analysis of your last decade. And please don’t judge yourself. Just see the choices you made at those moments. Right now, whatever you are, it is due to the choices you have made. It could be something very small or something substantial. But all that played a role to shape you as a person today.
You see people over the internet bragging about their achievements and saying that they are self-made and took no one’s help but 95 out of a 100 times, it is a lie. Especially those people who never had to pay for their education loans just coz they were sucking out their parents dry like a leech or maybe they were too scared to take on responsibility. I paid back the education loan that I took for my graduation and will do the same for my post-graduation. I never wanted to put undue stress on my parents and make them spend their life’s savings on me. Let me tell you one thing, if your family paid for your U.G. or P.G. or both U.G. and P.G. education, then please don’t consider yourself as if you have achieved something only out of your hard work and determination, no matter which college admission you crack. Luck had a huge role to play in this, and you are much less perseverant than any other candidate who comes from any sort of a disadvantaged background. (My last article was related to this, check it out here).
But wait a minute !!!!!!! What about that discussion of immorality that we were having? Where did that go? You also forgot about it, didn’t you? LOL !! That is exactly what happens to us on a daily basis. Since our eventual death is such a huge truth, looming over us all the time, that we tend not to give it much thought and forget about it. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius writes “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” “Memento Mori” is a Latin word which means “Remember you must die”. This is the reminder that we must keep giving ourselves all the time. Keeping the thought of our mortality in our mind, keeps us focussed. Yoga and Meditation is another useful technique to keep us centred.
But many people out there are not able to understand this. Their minds do not comprehend the importance of all this. They are not able to get an upper hand on many aspects of their lives, social media being one of them. They get affected by someone’s achievement post on LinkedIn and start feeling bad about themselves that they are not doing enough. They regularly get into this negative feedback loop of using social media, not doing enough, feeling bad, using social media, not doing enough, feeling bad…………….No one’s opinion(or judgement) about you should matter to you. If they criticise you in good faith, then ask them how to get better at that thing. But if someone only wants to put you down or make you feel bad then you got to deal with that in the appropriate way. For instance, this is my personal blog, and I will write here, whatever I would like. Unless it is something illegal or plagiarised, who are you to lecture me on the morality or the righteousness of it? If you don’t like this, then please don’t read this, it is as simple as that. Also, this desperation in people to get recognition on social media makes them use plagiarised content. Even after repeated name callings, these people do not stop. Without any shame, they keep doing it again and again. I have faced this a few times, and I couldn’t care less. Just like Mark Manson said in his bestseller: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F#CK, I am also learning to choose the things to pay attention to.
I believe we all need to do a thorough long-term analysis of what truly matters to us. In this fast-moving world, the longest we plan is only for a few years, and most of the times it is just the next few months or weeks. And all our efforts are guided by the things which we care about the most. Also, our ultimate aim is to achieve lasting happiness and many times, fleeting moments of pleasure also trigger a lot of our actions. Students think that good grades will make them happy, graduates believe that getting a job will make them happy, MBAs think securing the highest package will make them happy, employees think doing work that they are passionate about will make them happy or maybe the next job will make them happy, thieves think money or material possessions make them satisfied, politicians think gaining more and more power makes them happy. It is the same everywhere. Everyone is looking for the same thing. Though, they have different ways to achieve that. But they all want happiness.
And they are all looking at the wrong place for it. You won’t find your car inside your living room when it is parked outside, in the garage. Happiness is not something that can be found outside. Happiness comes from within us. It is inside of us. Similarly, calmness is inside us, not somewhere outside. And once you are able to explore it or even have an experience of it, you’ll understand that everything you could ever desire of, is inside you. It is the origin and also the end of all your needs and wants. All you need to know is how to explore it. The books Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, On The Shortness of Life by Seneca, Srimad Bhagavad Gita by Lord Krishna, Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma, Inner Engineering by Sadhguru, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Start With Why by Simon Sinek, they all tell us more or less the same thing, that we need to go deep within us. If you could read just one book in this decade, then I would suggest you read the following translation of Srimad Bhagavad Gita: God Talks with Arjuna by Paramhansa Yogananda. It has most of the things you would need to apply to all parts of your life. Reading books is one thing that makes me really happy. I read all sorts of books and it makes me feel so good. What is that one thing that could calm you down even when you are at your lowest? You need to have at least one such thing. This will help you through all the difficult situations in your life.
Finally, I would like to say that in pursuit of our goals and in the race of completing our dreams we shouldn’t forget that the ultimate aim of doing everything is to have long and lasting happiness and we are mortal beings, so we have limited time on this beautiful planet. So, let’s not forget to do what excites us with the ultimate aim of achieving long and lasting happiness. I have share with you many different things with you which have the power of increasing your happiness by 10x even when applied with small but consistent efforts.
I sincerely hope from the bottom of my heart that you all achieve everything that you desire and stay happy always.
P.S. I am grateful to you that you took your time and effort to read this. I hope you could connect with my thoughts. Also, over the last few years, I have read over 125 books and gone through loads of content on the internet, and all this has shaped my thought process. It is possible that some of the things that I said here were mentioned by someone else. So, if you find any such thing, then please connect with me at irajatseth12@gmail, and I will give credits wherever it is due. Do share your thoughts in the comments — Peace Out.
