Do your bit, do it well and leave the outcomes to Life

Focusing on all that is beyond your control is what makes you miserable.  

I met a friend some weeks ago. He is in consulting quite like us. We got talking about the nature of the business and the lack of work ethic that is prevalent in the market today. “No one replies to emails or returns calls,” he lamented. Then he said, “For all my experience, I don’t understand why I don’t get enough consulting projects.” I did not offer any opinion and chose instead to talk about the weather. But he came back to what we were discussing and asked me a pointed question: “How do you deal with rejection and non-recognition of your true worth?”

I replied: “I don’t deal with it. I just let it pass. If someone does not respond to my emails or fails to value me for who I am, I don’t grieve. I have only the right to my duty – which is to write the email. I have only the right to value myself. I don’t have a right to expect others to value me the same way. I remain detached from the outcomes of my efforts. So I am at peace.”

Indeed. That’s how you have to preserve your self-esteem to keep plowing on in a world that’s become too self-centered and discourteous. By saying this, I am not blaming the world or its people. I am just accepting them for the way they are.

But I can empathize with my friend. I too have felt that way in the past. Because your ego will dramatize the situation, it will convince you that you are being pissed on and passed over. It will push you into a depressive spiral. Or it will make you cynical, bitter and angry. Bottomline: it will make you lose your sleep, your inner peace!

Your ego is your worst enemy. It makes you believe that you are – and ought to be – in control of everything in your Life. Your ego will keep trying to convince you that you are causing both your success and your downfalls. In times of success, you will be struck by hubris! And when you fail, and fall, you will be forced to think by your ego that you caused it. But the truth is that Life happens inspite of you and never because of you! Every major event in your Life has happened beyond your control. Your conception, your gender, your birth, your religion, your name, your love, your companionship, your loss(es), your bereavements, your health setbacks, even promotions in your career and your being denied what’s due to you __ every single thing that’s made a difference to your Life, for your good or for worse, has happened despite you, inspite of you!

So, don’t play into your ego’s designs. Now, I am not one to preach on dropping your ego and becoming egoless – because I don’t believe anyone can be that way. Let me share a simpler approach that I follow. Remember always that, in any context, you only have a right to your actions which is something within your control. Beyond that you neither control anything, certainly not the outcomes of your efforts, nor do you have a right to expect anything. Expectations always bring agony. If you can’t control something, don’t agonize over it! So, take it easy. Do your bit. Always do it well – sincerely, honestly, passionately, excellently. And then sit back. Let Life take care of the outcomes – as it has always done!

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Stop giving anxiety attention and it will stop bothering you

Focusing on the now, the present moment, is the only way to ‘dissolve’ anxiety.

A friend reported that she often has spells of anxiety. She is keen to have clarity on her career, she worries if her daughter will get a job and she is edgy over an arthritic condition she has been battling with for over a year now. “I sometimes feel I go into an anxiety-loop. One anxious thought feeds the other and soon I have an anxiety mountain up in front of me. How do I get rid of my tendency to get so anxious,” she asked.

You cannot get rid of anxiety. Thoughts relating to anxiety will arise, just as angry thoughts or grief-laden thoughts or insecurity-driven thoughts will arise. Because you cannot ever be in a thoughtless state. But there’s a way to deal with your thoughts, particularly those that tend to debilitate, and pin you down. Like anxiety often does. And the way is to not give those thoughts your attention. An “anxiety mountain” pops up in front of you only because you feed your anxieties, your fears, your insecurities and your worries. Stop giving them attention and they will stop bothering you.

Living in the now is meditation. This is not as difficult as it is made out to be. Being in a meditative state does not require you to be at a particular place at a particular time. You can drop anchor wherever you are. And bring your mind to attend on the present moment. Let’s take an example. Consider this: you are cooking and thoughts about your health or you career or your spouse’s drinking habit begin to bother you. Take a deep breath and bring your mind to focus on the cooking. Watch the dish you are making take shape. Give it all your energy, all your love, all your attention. You can do this to just about anything, at any time. When you are bathing, feel your body, for instance. Feel the water calm you. Enjoy the bath. When you are walking on the street, celebrate your ability to direct your feet to go where you want them to go. It is a miracle truly to be able to walk and go wherever you want to do. Don’t think of anything else, just enjoy the process of walking. This is how you engage with the moment, in fact, this is how you immerse yourself in each moment, from moment to moment. This is what living in the moment means. This is what is called mindfulness. This is meditation.

So, don’t try to get rid of your anxieties. Just stop giving them attention. What you don’t give attention to will not grow. Simple. That’s how your anxieties either become insignificant or they dissolve altogether. This doesn’t mean inaction or being irresponsible. This only means you are intelligent – because you now know that worrying or feeling anxious cannot solve your problems or make your Life any better. Doesn’t it make great sense to ‘invest’ in whatever you are going through right now, by immersing yourself in the present, than worry about something that is yet to arrive? Think about it!

Witnessing can help your Buddhahood

Every once in a while, you must assume the role of a witness of your own Life.

Yesterday I had to wait a couple of hours at a computer maintenance studio. The people working on my daughter’s laptop were not able to tell me how long the fix would take. So, I slipped into ‘mouna’ – anchoring in silence within me. I took stock of my Life, looking at myself, as a third party. I figuratively perched myself on the wall in the studio, and viewed “AVIS’ Life” as a fly would view it. It looked totally devastated on so many fronts. I could list about 8 areas of “AVIS’ Life that were completely broke – apart from the most visible one, the bankruptcy”! I examined what “AVIS could be doing about each of them, apart from what AVIS was doing and what they, both Vaani and AVIS, were doing to fix it”. After deep and candid introspection, review and analysis, I reiterated to myself that it was not for lack of effort from us that we were still struggling with those 8 broke areas of our Life. It is just a phase that too shall pass. While assuming the witness role helped in looking at things objectively, it also helped me avoid feeling guilty or burdened by the enormity of having to fix these 8 areas in this lifetime. As a witness, I also saw “AVIS’ Life” as “abundant, radiant and useful – in the manner in which Vaani and he were creating value around them despite all that they don’t have!” I let both realities about my Life, as “witnessed” by me, just be – I did not grieve that there were so many broke areas nor did I exult at the thought of so much abundance despite so much of strife and loss.

Just then the engineer working on the laptop reported that he was going to try one more time to revive the machine, and if he failed, he was going to have to junk the hard drive and advise that we buy a new one. He asked for two days time to make this decision. As I took at an auto-rickshaw back home, the irony of the two stories, between me witnessing my Life and the engineer’s prognosis for the laptop, overlapping in more than one way, was starkly visible. I smiled to myself. Because I felt good being calm and unmoved.

Being a witness, refusing to get dragged into the drama – the anxiety, the anger, the grief, the suffering, the exultation, the ego, the pride or the I-am-controlling-my-Life attitude– associated with any situation is a great way to see your Life dispassionately. It gives you the opportunity to see the abundance in your Life that you so often miss when you are miserable or are suffering. Being a witness teaches you to be patient and keep the faith. Being a witness often times offers you creative solutions to knotty problems. Being a witness is the only way to live in this world and yet be above it!

Osho, the Master, says this so beautifully: “The witness is the very being of a Buddha. Witnessing is the nourishment for your Buddhahood. And the more powerful your Buddhahood is, the less anxiety there is. The day your Buddhahood is complete, all anxiety is gone.” My experience, through my ‘mouna’ session yesterday, is evidence that with witnessing it is possible to be detached from real-world, material and emotional, challenges. I have found that witnessing has helped me remain happy despite my circumstances. Witnessing has helped my Buddhahood! If it can help me, it can perhaps help you too – if you are willing to become the fly on the wall of your Life!!!

What the genius ‘musafir’ Pancham’s Life teaches us about our own

You cannot escape what’s in store for you in Life – you have to bear your cross, no matter what!

Google reminded me that it is R.D.Burman’s 77th birthday today. Panchamda is my absolute, all-time, favorite. He passed away so suddenly 22 years ago with so much music still left in him.

During the last 10 years of his Life, the man who ruled Hindi film music in the late 60s, all through the 70s and in the early 80s, struggled to get work. Bappi Lahiri’s disco music had taken over and nobody wanted to touch Pancham. Not even Nasir Hussain, who had consistently used RD for all his films that included (and followed) Teesri Manzil (1966). Hussain let his son Mansoor Khan have his way and signed up Anand-Milind for his production Qayyamat Se Qayyamat Tak (1988), which famously launched Aamir Khan’s and Juhi Chawla’s careers. Interestingly, Panchamda got no National Award in his entire career and won only 3 Filmfare Awards (out of a total 18 nominations) – Sanam Teri Kasam (1983), Masoom (1984) and posthumously for 1942 – A Love Story (1995). Observers and chroniclers of Hindi cinema say that RD died a beaten and heart-broken man because he felt the industry that he gave so much to, “abandoned him and moved on with the times”.

Anyone who has heard Mera Kuch Samaan  from Ijaazat (Gulzar, Asha Bhosle, 1987) or Dhanno Ki Aankhon Mein  from Kitaab (Gulzar, RD himself, 1977) will agree with me that RD is sheer genius. In fact, long-time collaborator, lyricist and director Gulzar refers to Pancham’s Life as an “era that began and ended with him”. To be sure, RD, Gulzar and Kishore Kumar together produced magic and the collection of the songs they created together would rate as the finest and most brilliant ever in Indian cinema. Why then should such a genius have had to go hunting for work? Why then should he be spurned by the same film-makers who once queued up at his door? Why then should such a celebrated artiste die a heart-broken man? Well, while there is no straight, logical answer to these questions; the only one I can muster is that “such is Life”!

Indeed. Such is Life. What goes up will come down. And what goes down will come up again. So, RD’s Life teaches us, yet again, to appreciate the impermanence of everything. Name. Fame. Wealth. Success. Glory. And even failure. Because, though he died wanting to be celebrated again, posthumously, RD is now worshipped. Such is Life! What I have learnt is that we must keep going with the flow. Be humble and be happy for all that you have. When you get what you want in Life, be grateful. When you don’t get what you want in Life, or when you get what you don’t want in Life, be accepting. Don’t fight Life. Don’t become bitter. You are born untouched by worldliness. Live untouched. And go away untouched. Success and failure are both worldly labels. Don’t let them get to you. As they seem to have gotten to RD in his last years. To quote my favorite RD number, again written by Gulzar, and sung memorably by Kishore Kumar, be like that ‘musafir’ (wanderer/voyager) from Parichay (1972): Musafir Hoon Yaroon, Na Ghar Hai Na Tikhana, Mujhe Chalte Jaana Hai, Bus, Chalte Jaana…!!!

Go be the best at whatever you love doing, money will always follow

To follow your bliss, all you need is to decide what you want from your Life. Nothing else is either necessary or matters!

I curate a monthly Event Series at the Odyssey Bookstore in Chennai called The Bliss Catchers^TM. Each month I invite guests who have gone on to do what they love doing. I talk to them to understand how they have followed their bliss. Last evening, as the June edition of the Series wound down, a member in the audience asked me if following your bliss was really possible when one had financial and familial responsibilities and commitments? Besides, he added, if someone’s bliss – like traveling – required money, won’t it be important for that person to first save up that amount and then follow their bliss? Which means, is following one’s bliss then the exclusive privilege of a select few?

I am often asked this question. So, I was hardly surprised when it came up again.

First let us understand what bliss really is. In recent times, American mythologist and author Joseph Campbell (1904~1987) has demystified bliss and has made it both understandable and accessible to those who are ready and willing to follow what they truly believe in and come alive with. Bliss is definitely not what you attain sitting under a tree. It is who you are. It is what makes you come alive. Which is why Campbell says follow your bliss. So to someone it may mean cooking, to someone else it may be gardening, to another it may be traveling and so on. Another way to know what your bliss is, is to ask yourself what would you like to be doing in your Life if money were no object. If you didn’t have to worry about earning money or paying your bills, what would you want to do? That which you so absolutely love doing is then your bliss.

However, in the real world, you can’t escape money or materialism. So, how then can we pursue what we love doing without upsetting our material ecosystem? There is no straightforward method or answer available here. Just as bliss is uniquely personal, so is the way to follow it. To each one their own. So, at best, we can try to follow a simple thumb rule though.

Decide what you want from your Life. First understand what your bliss is by asking what you would be doing if you didn’t have to earn money. Then, examine your current reality and ask yourself: Are you working for joy? Or are you working for joy and profit? Or are you working only for profit, only for money?

In any context and in anyone’s Life, all three scenarios are possible. You must address all three before you decide which one you prefer. Obviously, a no-brainer is that the best scenario is when we can get both joy and profit from the work we do, from the bliss we (wish to) follow. But if you are stuck in a job or business that gives you only profit and money, and if you want the money more than your inner joy, then there is no point grieving over the lack of joy in your Life! And if you are experiencing joy doing the work you are doing, and are not making enough money from it, then don’t grieve the lack of money in your Life! Either you can try and bring joy into your Life if you have only money or bring money in your Life if you have only joy! Be clear. Be decisive. If you want a different scenario from what you currently have, remember you have to change your Life! Be clear about what you want, and go for it. Please don’t complain, please don’t whine, pine or grieve. So, really, following your bliss is not a limiting philosophy or idea. You limit yourself with your thinking, with your arguments, with your logic, fear and insecurities. Period.

If you examine your Life, all your unhappiness comes from not doing what you want to do or from doing what you don’t want to do. So, to do what you love doing, you must decide what you want from Life. Like so many, many others have done. Look around you. You will discover that almost every story of world-class performance and success (in purely real-world, material terms), in any field, conforms to this philosophy. Simply then, if you want to be happy, if you want lasting inner joy, go be the best at whatever you love doing. Money will always follow.

Fight if you must, but never at the cost of your inner peace

You must fight the good fight if the process of fighting makes you peaceful. But if your inner peace is lost, then the cause, the raison d’etre  – to fight – itself is lost.

I am often asked by readers or audiences on how we can differentiate between a good fight, a fight worth fighting for, and one that isn’t? This question often arises when I recommend a principle that I stand by – that the best way to win any battle is to not fight at all – or when I tell people to forgive and move on – even if they can’t forget – than cling on and suffer. Let me share my understanding here though, let me quickly clarify, choosing to fight an individual, situation or system is an intensely personal choice.

First, why do we fight anyone or anything? The idea of a fight arises only when you disagree with what’s happening to you – either with the way you are being treated by a person, by an establishment (a community, organization, society or even by a government or legal system) or by Life itself. So, essentially, you fight every time you see a lack of fairplay in an interaction, relationship or context. But just think about it – when did Life promise any fairplay? Life itself appears so grossly unfair when you weigh your intent, integrity and values against situations that you have to end up facing. So, when Life doesn’t guarantee any fairplay, where is the question of expecting it from humans, and from human-made contexts, systems and situations?

Even so, this doesn’t mean you must not raise your voice against acts that are inhuman or are against social interests. This doesn’t mean you must not want to or try to correct an action or system that urgently needs correction or fixing. Surely you must. But do whatever you must do, do whatever it takes, without agonizing, without suffering, without losing your inner peace. This is where the choice becomes very personal.

My close friend got into a litigious separation process with his wife some years ago. She is 16 years younger to him. They married after a breezy romance. But within a year, she separated from him and sued him for dowry harassment, impotency and domestic abuse. All this, because my friend confronted her with evidence of an affair she was having with a colleague at work. Given the women-friendly anti-dowry laws in India, the lady’s strategy was clear – harass my friend so that he grants her a divorce immediately and compensates her with a huge alimony that included a red Pajero! We advised our friend not to take the legal route. I encouraged him to settle out of court: “Just forgive her, don’t ruin your peace of mind, buy her the car and get out of this mess.” But my friend decided to fight her. In court. The process took over 8 years and it was hell – repeated impotency tests, dowry harassment charges against him and his aged parents having to be defended at every level from police stations to courtrooms, huge legal expenses and his inability to keep a job because the matter required 24×7 attention all through the years. Ultimately my friend won the case at the Delhi High Court. He was exonerated of all charges. And the lady apologized to him in court in return for being granted divorce. Now, all through the fight, through all this drama and humiliation, my friend remained stoic. He was always deadpan, unruffled. I never found him beaten or defeated. He anchored very, very well. Now, if you can deal with a fight with such clarity, such equanimity, then, it is perhaps worth it. But if you are going to suffer fighting, then you might as well not fight at all.

I too have the option to fight many fights. But I have chosen not to. For instance, there is so much corruption around us. Just take the state of the Chennai Airport. The contractors and the Airports Authority of India have a lot of explanation to do over its pathetic condition – falling glass panes, leaking ceiling, unsafe carousels and escalators. It has been rated as the worst airport in the world. Yet, no one has fixed any of these things in the last five years. Worse, no one has been held accountable for this shoddy piece of critical public infrastructure. I do feel like filing a public interest litigation demanding a court direction to the authorities to hold the people concerned liable. But between dealing with my existential crisis and public interest, I prefer preserving my inner peace for investing in resolving my own problem first. Or let me take another instance, of my need to be exonerated by my own family – I have been branded “a cheat” by them despite there being no evidence of my having frauded them at all. Now, this is a fight that I will never fight. Because I believe that if members of a family cannot trust one of their own, what is the point in making them realize their mistake? I have decided to let them live with their theory, and I have learnt to be accepting of my reality that I will never have their understanding all my Life. Important, I have forgiven them – even though I can’t forget the way in which I was treated – and I am at peace with myself and with them.

This is how I choose not to fight each time I am provoked – I go simply by wanting to preserve my inner peace. Because the only reward worth cherishing in Life is your inner peace! It doesn’t ever matter whatever else you have, or gain, if you have lost your inner peace!

So, to fight, to forgive, to move on is an intensely personal decision. The only way you can take that decision is to ask yourself what will make you peaceful. And go do what gives you peace. The key is to be at peace, to be happy with whatever is, even as you are making a sincere effort to change your current reality!   

The Universe is always showing you signs, leading the way – but are you tuned in?

If you are tuned to the Universe’s Energy, you will see always see – and follow – the signs that are meant to guide you along the way!

A young student reiterated this learning to us yesterday. Tawheed Sayyid is just another MBA student at first sight. He hails from Haripad in Kerala and is currently interning with a social entrepreneur in Chennai. Now, I know Kerala pretty well. I went to college in Kollam between 1982 and 1987. Though times have changed, I personally believe that while most people from that state are very creative, their potential often goes untapped and underutilized, more so if they go to college there, given the conservative, myopic, socio-political environment that they still grow up in. So, when I first met Tawheed, I was not surprised – he seemed the typical, quiet, meek, introverted kind. But when Vaani and I got to know him better, we discovered that he had, 5 years ago, lost 30 kilos over six months, dedicating himself to a fitness plan that he had found online (www.nowloss.com). Now, we found that inspiring. How does someone, who was just 17 (then), motivate himself to do something as remarkable as lose so much weight?

So, Vaani and I invited Tawheed over for a coffee. He is fasting this Ramadan season, so he didn’t even touch a drop of water. But his story left us with so much food for thought.

He says it all began when he consistently flunked in Math in his early school years when he lived with his parents in Abu Dhabi. So, by the time he reached the 8th grade, it had become imperative that he needed special tuition for Math. His parents put him under the watchful eye of an Indian teacher named Raji. Tawheed says that when he went to Raji’s home for the first time to enroll for his special tuition program, a quote by Swami Vivekananda, on her door, caught his attention and imagination. It read: “All power is within you; you can do anything and everything. Believe in that…Stand up and express the divinity within you.” Tawheed says the quote had a magical impact on him. It made him question himself. And push himself. Besides, Raji too told him that she was not going to exactly make him more proficient in Math than she was going to make him believe in himself. So, the journey began for Tawheed, in believing in himself, and by the time he reached the 10^th grade, he had started scoring 80 % marks in Math – from sub 33% levels or the “Fail” grade as we commonly know it! Armed with this self-belief, Tawheed decided to go on a weight loss program. The motivation was purely adolescent in nature – his elder brother’s wedding was coming up and he wanted to “look good” by then. He stumbled on the online program, worked on it diligently, started avoiding elevators and climbed all 15 floors of his building several times a day, ate in moderation and in a matter of a six months, his weight had dropped from 105 kilos to 75 kilos. Tawheed will finish his MBA program next summer and is thinking of an entrepreneurial venture that hopes to marry people’s obsession with their smartphones with their intrinsic inner goodness, their empathetic nature – and in the process make the world a better place. Bravo!

Tawheed is just another student but what sets him apart is that he picked up, he actioned on, the signs the Universe showed him to get to where he is today – the Swami Vivekananda quote, Raji’s championship of self-belief in him, working out with the www.nowloss.com plan that came his way and his internship in a social enterprise that is making him think of making a difference apart from just wanting to make money.

And this Vaani and I have seen so many, many times in Life, if you are ready and willing, the Universe will always send you signs. It may be a car sticker, it may be tangential remark you may hear, it may be a movie dialogue, a song, the title of book or a newspaper headline. I talk about many such experiences in my Book ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal’ (Westland) too. I once had a random member of my audience walk up to me after my Book Launch event at the Odyssey Bookstore in Adyar, Chennai. She thanked my profusely for what I had shared that day – she said it changed her attitude to Life completely. I asked her how did she come to know of me and my Book. She said she was buying snacks from a roadside thelavala that evening and her pakodas came wrapped in a newspaper that had a mention of my Book and the Launch program. She said she felt an instant connect with me and what I was possibly going to share. I felt the Universe had brought her to where she ought to have been that evening.

The basic premise on which Life operates is simple – all that you need is always available. But you must be looking in the right direction. Often we end up looking in the direction of our wants or, worse, we are not even looking – we are complaining, grieving, suffering over what we don’t have. Staying tuned with the Universe’s Energy simply means staying connected with abundance, with the Higher Energy that has created you and me, with the Energy which powers the Universe. As long as you are living your Life logged into this access point, anchored to this Energy, it will always show you the way. Young Tawheed’s story is a gentle reminder that this principle works handsomely. And it is not something original that I bring to you. It is the most elementary of all Life principles. The Zen Masters would often say that when the student is ready, the teacher shall appear. I’ll just tweak that slightly and say, when you are tuned in to the Universe’s energy, you will find your way, no matter how lost you feel you are.

So, look up from all that’s causing your suffering. Please look up. There’s a benevolent light waiting to guide you onward – and inward! Just see the next sign that comes you way and follow it. It will take you to where you must arrive and where you truly belong!