A Life lesson from ‘Waiting’: start living, while waiting!

It is always what it is. And you have to go through whatever you have to go through.

A friend had booked for us to watch Anu Menon’s beautiful, beautiful film Waiting last evening. Everything about the movie is so endearing and uplifting – the story, the script, the screenplay, the dialogues, the music and, above all, the brilliant performances by Naseerudin Shah and Kalki Koechlin. I don’t want to talk about the film’s plot so as not to spoil the viewing experience for readers who have not yet watched the film. But instead I want to share what we can learn about Life from Waiting, the movie, and how we can live our Life better while waiting…!

Actually, if you pause to reflect on Life, isn’t it all about waiting; from the time you are born, for your impending, inevitable death? As you wait, you are so consumed by the material pursuits that you indulge in – driven by your wants and social conditioning – that you have missed this point that Life – and living – is nothing but waiting for death. So, when Life gives you a zor ka jhatka that brings a twist to your fairy tale – a relationship issue, a career or business challenge, an irreparable health condition, someone’s death – you begin to want to understand the most inscrutable – Life itself! But because you are so used to having lived Life your way, and are so accustomed to everything being reasoned so logically, you begin with denial, resisting any disruptive – often irrational, illogical – change that comes your way. Your denying the existence of a problem doesn’t make it go away though. The problem persists. So, you ask, partly in anger, partly in grief, partly in helplessness, why, why me? But the problem still persists. You rage on angrily, thinking your aggression can drive your problem away. When this approach doesn’t work, insecurity and fear creep in. Because that which you can’t make sense of always scares you. But fear only cripples you and holds you hostage – and if you are not aware, it can push you into a dark abyss called depression. When after repeatedly banging your head against a wall, when after desperately seeking answers, after trying to rationally, logically analyze your situation, when you find yourself in a no-go, you grudgingly begin to appreciate that between you and Life, you are less powerful. That’s when acceptance comes in. While accepting a problem – your Life for what it is – does not either solve the problem or get rid of it, it sure does help you deal with it better. It is only through facing Life can you live it more meaningfully. So, Waiting, the movie, really helps you understand that you too can be Zen – attaining that seemingly elusive state of equanimity – by accepting your Life for what it is. It teaches you that, while Life is a wait, from birth, for death, there are two possible dimensions to that wait – waiting for you to awaken to your Zen and waiting for death in that awakened, transcendental, Zen state!

Yet, as Ankur Tewari’s lyrics in Waiting’s ‘Zara Zara’ song, sung so soulfully by Kavita Seth and Vishal Dadlani to Mikey McCleary’s music, remind us, it is a slow process. This awakening. This evolution, this arriving at your state of Zen. It happens with the passage of time. It happens slowly through each experience that you encounter, endure and overcome in Life. It happens as an integral process of the journey of Life. But it happens for sure – for each of us, in our own unique ways. In this time you do realize, one way or the other, that only you have to bear your cross in Life, going through what you have to go through, for no one else can or will do it for you! Finally, when you arrive at your personal, individual state of Zen, you realize that the waiting is what makes Life beautiful and meaningful. That’s when you stop waiting for the inevitable end. Instead, you start living, than merely existing, while waiting!  

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From being ‘troubled and unhappy’ to being ‘untroubled and happy’!

Learn to be patient with Life. It happens at its own pace and in its own time.

A friend wrote to me after a long time and wondered if my “Life’s troubles were over”! I replied saying while we are still enduring the crisis, we are not troubled by it anymore. This doesn’t mean we are accustomed to or resigned to our “comfort zone”. To be sure, you can never be comfortable in pain. Yet you can avoid suffering if you are in a state of acceptance of your current reality and have learnt to be patient with Life.

All of us are products of the time that we go through. Initially, when I was much younger, less wiser, and more impatient, I pooh-poohed this theory. Now, when I look back, I realize that my academic education – which encouraged me to think logically, rationally – had made me arrogant. I wanted to be the master of my Life. I imagined then that I could make my own destiny. I seriously believed that success – fame and money – are all that mattered in Life. But then, when I started noticing, both through my own Life experience and through those of others around me, that having talent and integrity alone can’t make your plans work for you, I came to accept that you also need time on your side.

The time I refer to here does not mean the 24-hour construct. It means the phases of time that your lifespan goes through. I soon discovered that through the passage of time, what goes up comes down, to go back up again and to come down yet again! I recognized therefore that nothing is permanent – not even Life; that death is inevitable! So, I realized, the best way to live is to be available to, and accepting of, whatever’s happening to you, even if it is not something that you want or ordered into your Life. This way you will not suffer in Life; nothing can trouble you!

I have also understood that there is no concept of good time or bad time in Life. Time, like Life itself, is neutral. In fact, every event in your Life, happens for a reason. Even stuff that you classify as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ – events that you dislike – happen at the ‘right’ time! And whatever happens in your Life, is happening to make you humble, strong, peaceful and happy! This understanding has helped me immensely. I wake up to face each day with great enthusiasm. I put in my best efforts. And I take whatever comes my way – acceptance, rejection, compassion, hatred, praise, ridicule – without judging it and without resisting it. About 10 years ago, I was indeed troubled and unhappy with my Life. My material context and physical situation have not changed. But I have learnt now to be untroubled by what’s happening to me and to be happy despite the circumstances I am placed in!  

 

 

Why you must be an uber cool parent – and your child’s BFF!

A cardinal principle of parenting (especially of adolescents and young adults) is to not come in the way of the passions and dreams of your children.

In a recent story “The lure of foreign education” in Business Standard my former colleague (when I was with BusinessWorld/ABP) Anjuli Bhargava reviews the pros and cons of educating children abroad – especially if parents can afford it. I am not going to analyze her piece here. All I am going to say is that whether it is their education or their relationships or their careers, give your children the power of choice. Offer your insight from an experiential and values-based point of view. But leave the final decision to them. If you can fund their dreams, great. If you can’t afford to fund them, at least don’t stop them from chasing their dreams. Encourage them instead to believe in themselves, to trust the process of Life and that will lead them to find creative ways to fulfil whatever they are setting their sights on.

I talk from personal experience. Vaani and I have followed this principle with both our children – Aashirwad and Aanchal. In fact, the decision to send Aash to the University of Chicago in 2008 in the most improbable of circumstances – when we had no means to even cover living expenses for us in India dealing as we were with a bankruptcy (which we continue to endure) – and the story of his miraculous graduation from there is detailed in my Book Fall Like A Rose Petal (Westland). I always tell Aash that his real education happened over the course of the four years of his undergrad program in the way he learnt to thrive in a multi-cultural environment and in how he conquered the harsh winters of Chicago. The degree that the University offered him is just a piece of paper. But what he learnt from Life on a US campus he will find unputdownable, and invaluable, over time. Aanchal is currently looking to do her Master’s overseas. And she’s working on getting her funding in place – through scholarships and grants. We know that she will find her way. So, what we have learnt, as a family, is to never come in the way of what Life is offering us. We truly appreciate the value of going with the flow.

Vaani and I believe parents must never weigh the aspirations of their children against their own (parents’) insecurities. This is not about education alone. Even in the matter of relationships and career choices, as parents, we must learn to let go. We must understand that our children have unique Life paths. Just because we went through a certain experience it need not be necessary that our children will go through the same. Yes, all of us parents are always wishing that our children must not encounter pain in Life. We want them to lead good, comfortable, prosperous, healthy and happy lives. But do you even see the futility in having this expectation?  No amount of prayer or wishing by you can prevent your child from having to go through her or his unique Life path. To put it bluntly, you cannot live your child’s Life. You cannot prevent your child from experiencing pain. All you can do is to, if you know that art yourself, teach your child how not to suffer in the face of Life’s challenges, when pain strikes. And if you don’t know how to avoid suffering, then just back off. Let your child learn from her or his own unique experience. Also, please, please, don’t see your child’s Life as a financial opportunity, an investment that you must seek to extract a yield out of. Your child is not here to fulfil your dreams either. Nor is your child here to jump at your every whim, obey your every command and fear your every look. Your child’s future – be it education or marriage – is not a duty or responsibility either that needs to be ticked off as having been accomplished in your Things To Do list. Your child is, to quote Khalil Gibran, Life’s longing for itself; your child is born through you and not for you. And certainly, your child didn’t ask to be born. So let your child simply be. And believe me, or look at yourself – haven’t you, despite all your frailties and challenges survived and reached where you have in Life? – your child will be just fine!

Finally, allow me to suggest this. Be your child’s BFF. It’s far more fun than being your child’s parent! So, go get yourself a Snapchat account and an Instagram handle. Be an uber cool parent. For, parenting in today’s world, especially of adolescent and young adult children, can be a joyous opportunity to practice detachment, to let your hair down and to let go! And when you do let go, you will find that your children always turn out more responsible, more caring, more compassionate, more strong and more successful – in that inescapable worldly sense – than you would have ever thought of them to be!

 

Simplify your Life – un-cling!

Are you in possession of something or is something possessing you?

Anything that you cling on to is bound to bring you grief. Because you will first be consumed by your fear that you may lose it. Second, you will eventually end up grieving over its unavoidable loss – whenever that happens. Because, everything that you cling on to today will be lost surely someday! This doesn’t mean you give up everything. It doesn’t mean you renounce. It only means stop ‘clinging on’ to whatever is making you fearful or sad or both __ memories, things, people, habits, opinions, whatever.

A friend of ours owns a 2000 square-foot apartment in the heart of Chennai. The value of the real estate is a few crore rupees. He has been wanting to rent it out but strangely there have been no takers. So, earlier this year, he decided to sell it. But for almost four months now he has not been able to find a buyer. Every deal falls through at virtually the last minute. Our friend confesses that he has been losing sleep over this property jinx for several months now. His grief: for all his financial prudence, he is unable to plug the losses he is incurring over this dead – and locked up – investment in the past year!

This is a classic example of the possessor (my friend) being possessed by his possession (the property). His grief is palpable. With due respect to his financial acumen, I hope he realizes, sooner than later, that it is simply not worth it for anyone to be ‘losing sleep’ over ‘losing money’. The solution obviously is not to let go of the investment. But to let go of the expectation that just because there is an investment, it must yield returns. My friend can end his suffering, and get over his grief, if he awakens to the fact that his investment is not wrong, but his expectation of a yield from the investment, in a time-frame he expects, is what is holding him to ransom.

Clearly, Life doesn’t work the way we want it to just because we have drawn up blueprints and excel sheets. The humbling truth is that the more we cling on to plans or expectations based on our plans, the more we will suffer and grieve.

I have learned that clinging on to something actually ends up making you feel vulnerable and the opposite of being in control when you understand the vicious game your mind plays on you! While you are physically in possession of something, and you think you are in control, the truth is that the ‘something’ is controlling you. The mind loves dependence. It needs a crutch. And in your clinging on to many things at various times the mind exults at the innumerable possibilities for dependence. So, in effect, over time, your mind controls you, leads you and directs you. It is like being in a car where the driver has been rendered powerless and the car drives itself to wherever it feels like!? Do you even think this is normal? This is what has happened to each of us because of our ruinous tendency to ‘cling on’!

What are you clinging on to? To understand this, ask yourself what’s possessing you – a thought, an opinion, a suspicion, an object, money, property, a relationship or perhaps a habit? Simply un-cling. And watch how you feel. With your feet no longer chained to the ground, un-clinging sets you free! As Mevlana Jalauddin Rumi, the 13^th Century Persian poet has said: ‘You were born with wings; why prefer to crawl through Life?”

Busting three absurd myths about happiness

You – and only you – are responsible for your happiness.

A recent discussion, of which I was a silent spectator, on what makes people happy or unhappy, depending on how you see it, caught my attention! One school of thought was that social media has become a necessary evil and that spending too much time on Facebook makes people depressed and unhappy. Another view was that because happiness is a ‘much marketed’ industry, more people are unhappy because they are unable to be happy despite their best efforts. A third perspective shared was that people who tend to be positive about Life, no matter how challenging their Life situations are, are normally those who are keeping “stuff bottled up within them” and that their “depression and suppressed negativity will soon explode”.

I found all three points of view absurd.

Let’s start with the third. Vaani and I are folks who are not just positive, we are enthusiastic about our Life despite whatever we are faced with. And we don’t have any bottled up feelings that are waiting to explode. There is no simmering anger, grief or guilt within us. As I write this, I honestly don’t know how we are going to survive – in a purely bill-paying sense – the month of June, but we are not pinned down by insecurity. Apart from our enduring financial crisis, we are also confronted with some serious health and professional challenges. But we are not moping over our fate. To be sure, we are also not the only ones who are upbeat about our Life. We know thousands of others like us, around us, just in the city of Chennai, who have learnt the art of being happy despite their circumstances. Someone is dealing with a child’s autism, someone’s lost her husband, someone’s teenaged son committed suicide, someone’s efforts to find love and companionship have failed more than three times, someone’s wife deserted him because they had a child that has cerebral palsy; so the man is a single parent even as he has a career as a master chef, someone’s walked out of a 28-year-old marriage and given up on her business career – both at the same time – and does not know how she will survive both in an economic and emotional sense…! Now, all these stories have one thing in common: all these people are, we know, immensely happy! And since Vaani and I know them personally, we can vouch for them; they are not putting up a “happy face”. The truth is you cannot fake happiness. You can put on a brave face, but never a happy one!

Now, let’s go to the second perspective. People may be marketing happiness. The peddlers of happiness as a concept may be profiting from selling the idea. But if you buy the happiness theory because someone hard-sold it you, then, seriously, honestly, you have lost the plot. Happiness is who you really are. And you will realize who you are only when you awaken to your real Self. That can happen through a friend or a family member holding up a mirror to you. That cannot happen because you were ‘sold the idea of happiness’. So, merely attending a retreat or a program, or reading a book or watching a movie, on happiness, cannot make you happier. Only you can and must help yourself to happiness. Nobody else can. And if they claim they can, then be sure it’s just a sales pitch. You may buy into it but you won’t benefit from it! Because you can and will never be happy waiting for someone or something to make you happy!!

And finally the first point. Think of your social media platforms as your living room. If you allow all kinds of people into your home, into your living room, be sure that they are going to ruin your inner peace. Who would you entertain or host at home? Only those whose company you enjoy, right? Only those whose value systems match yours, right? Only those who make you come alive, who inspire you, who complement your energies, right? So, why do you allow all kinds of people onto your timeline – on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and such platforms? And having allowed them, by your own choice and volition, why blame the medium and the platforms? Try weeding out all those whose presence you don’t enjoy from your social media connections and then see how you feel. I bet you will be a lot happier than you are presently!

Happiness is a personal choice, an individual responsibility. It is available 24×7 and is free. To be happy, you must simply be. Don’t complicate your Life by trying to understand how to be happy in today’s times. Spend that time and energy simply being. You will be happy!

 

If you are being a ‘khadoos, dukhi atma’, go get yourself a ‘jadoo ki jhappi’!

Your awareness can help free you from your anxieties. 

This morning we were visiting a friend at a five-star hotel property. This is a global hospitality chain that has been my first preference for many years as a world traveler. In fact, until our business went bust, I had even earned many thousand stay points with them as I was rated a privileged guest by their loyalty program. Our meeting this morning was with a key manager in the chain. While we were seated with our host in his small office, in the back (service) area of the hotel, the general manager of the property walked in. He was looking very tense and spoke tersely to our friend. We were introduced to him briefly; he tried to be cordial but his anxiety, his stress, showed. To me he looked very unhappy and burnt out. After his boss left, our friend apologized for the interruption and told us that he was planning to put in his papers. He said that he had stopped enjoying working for the hospitality chain and that he particularly found his boss khadoos – someone who is forever grumpy and stuck-up! I told our friend that his boss perhaps needed a jadoo ki jhappi* – a magical hug that can re-energize and repair dukhi atma – a worn-out, unhappy soul!

I have a confession to make here. I once used to be quite like the hotel’s general manager we met this morning – forever tense!!! And I used to hate myself for being that way. It was only when I became more aware of my true Self, that I learned to deal with my anxieties, worries, insecurities and fears better!

Think about it: how can anyone enjoy being in a continuous state of tension? Anxiety is nothing but being in a tense state – tense about things, people, events, situations, kids, work, commute, traffic, almost everything! To be sure, anxiety is a real threat to our happiness but it has, unfortunately, become a part of our everyday living. And that’s primarily because the mind unfailingly magnifies our anxieties. So the hotel’s general manager is not alone.

Is there a way out? Indeed. Awareness can rid us of anxiety.

The human mind is like a freeway. Hundreds of thousands of thoughts, like vehicles on a freeway, make their way through the mind. And every thought need not be a call to action. But because of this notion that you are supreme, you are the center of your Universe, you jump at every thought. The anxious human mind is like a scared rabbit – it is forever scurrying in different directions! Responding to several zillion, irrelevant calls to action!

Your anxieties are actually evidence that you are not anchored within. And that’s because your reference points are all outside. For instance – Who’s saying what about you to whom? What will people think of me now? What if my kids don’t turn out like other kids their age? What if people think I am not smart, not handsome, not beautiful, not intelligent, not wealthy – whatever? Anxiety is not just a feeling. It is a reflection of your continuous desire to become something rather than simply be.

Such thinking makes Life miserable. Because in an anxious state we are being driven by desire. Besides, in worrying about wanting to become something that we are not, we are missing what we already are. In Tuesdays with Morrie (by Mitch Albom), Morrie tells the story of two waves in the ocean. The wave in the front tells the one following it that it is frightened because it is about to crash into the shore and cease to exist. But the second wave shows no fear. It explains to the one ahead: “You are frightened because you think you are a wave; I am not frightened because I know I am part of the ocean!”

Our anxieties are an impediment to our being happy! Once we become aware of our true nature, of who we really are, we will be free. Awareness will then replace anxiety. And then, like the second wave, we will realize that no matter how many times we crash on the shore, and stop being a wave, we will still celebrate being part of the ocean! So, let your awareness take over, drop your anxieties. Whenever you catch yourself being a khadoos, dukhi atma, go get yourself a jadoo ki jhappi – or two!!

*In the Bollywood movie Munnabhai MBBS, Sanjay Dutt, Munna, memorably uses the jadoo ki jhappi – a magical bear hug – treatment to heal dukhi atmas – unhappy souls!

 

Happiness Secret: Give away anything – except critical docs – you haven’t used in 6 months!

De-clutter, de-materialize and de-hoard your Life. You will love the way you feel and the energy that flows! 

One of the biggest blessings of our bankruptcy is that Vaani and I have learnt to understand what we truly need, dump all our wants, recognize and celebrate what we have and give away anything that we don’t need. At every stage, over the past decade, we have been forced to rethink and appreciate the critical difference between what we want and what we need. Even when we are willing to live with what we need, we have often had to make do with what we have. Plus, important, we have both, driven by necessity and through reflection, learnt the art of giving!

An enduring theme in our Life ­– apart from our physical sense of cashlessness – over the last several years has been a constant recalibration of our living and working space. We had to first close down our office and move it into our apartment. Obviously, everything that was fitting into our office could not make it into our home. So, we gave away more than 800 kilos of material as waste and e-waste. Additionally, we gave away some computers, two printers, a scanner, white boards and filing cabinets. All of these were useable though they were not re-saleable. So we found a charity that we could donate them to. Then when we were forced to vacate our apartment in Bishop Garden – because of our inability to pay rent – and move to a much smaller living space, we had to give away a lot of furniture. Again we chose charities and people who we thought can benefit from what we were giving away. Around this time, an epochal decision was made. I had personally collected over 600 books – on management and leadership – over my 25+ years as a working professional. I gave them all away to a friend who runs a training company in Bangalore. My collection of books was not just personally curated by me; I was fiercely protective – and possessive – about it. But there was no way I could move the collection into our new home – there was simply no space! And we hated the idea of selling the books to a kabadiwala. So I gave my prized collection away to my friend’s company! I strangely did not feel any sense of loss when my friend drove up and took away my books. I actually felt very good that my labor of over a quarter of a century will be useful to someone, somewhere.

But this decision to give away my books, did not include another, equally prized, collection – editions of  Harvard Business Review (HBR) from 1997 – over 130 issues, carefully and tastefully preserved! I held on to my HBR collection for some more years. Until this morning, that is. Again for reasons of space and having found a worthy beneficiary in a reputed business school, I am giving away my almost 20-year collection of HBR.

As Vaani and I evolve through Life, we find that all we need is a roof over our head, some clothes, a laptop each, a smartphone each, internet connectivity and food on the table. We have been car-less for a long time now. So we know we can survive handsomely without a vehicle of our own. If we are seeking work, I mean work that involves a commercial proposition, it is only because we feel responsible towards retiring our debt and repaying all our creditors who have reposed their trust in us. Once we fulfil this responsibility – we don’t know exactly by when this will happen, but do believe it will happen sooner than later – all we want to do is to continue to serve humanity by being useful in our own small way.

So, we follow a simple principle: every six months, we give away anything – barring of course our passports and important legal or financial documentation – we have not used in those six months. It is a simple rule of thumb. And it has worked for us big time. It makes our home lighter. It makes us feel better because, be it an old printer or an old suitcase, we find great joy in reaching it to someone who may use it more frequently than us. And that’s how I decided on giving away the HBR collection this morning.

Vaani and I will remain eternally grateful to our bankruptcy for teaching us the value of de-cluttering, de-materializing and de-hoarding our Life. Some call it minimalistic living – which is the art of living with the bare essentials. Whatever it is, we can vouch from our own experience, that it teaches you to be happy with what is, with what you have, despite the circumstances!