What the Indigo cockpit door signage teaches you about Life

Non-worrying is an intelligent choice you can make.

If you are on an Indigo flight the next time, pause as you board and glance at the cockpit door. A little blue sticker advises the crew to leave their worries out of their work: “Flying is a serious profession, do not carry your worries beyond this point.” Even as I shot a picture, our flight attendant and Leading Lady Vaishali said, “I follow this advice all the time, Sir!”

That’s an intelligent choice Vaishali makes. But the sticker’s message is not applicable only to the flying profession. The way I see it is like this: “Living is a serious business. And we must not let our worries come in the way of living our Life to the fullest!”

Worry is a human invention; it is not a part of Creation. We worry only because we are not in control of our mind. The human mind thinks 60,000 thoughts a day. Now, you can’t get rid of thoughts. They will keep arising in your mind just the way waves arise in the ocean. And the nature of the mind is such that, in its untrained state, it thrives in the dead past spewing thoughts of anger, grief and guilt or it races to the unborn future painting dark, worrisome, fearful scenarios that cause you to be steeped in anxiety, insecurity and stress. When you train your mind to anchor only in the present moment, it becomes powerless. In its powerless state, the mind learns to live fully in the present moment. In the now, the past and the future are both irrelevant. This understanding, and a disciplined practice of any form of meditation to train your mind, are what can lead you to be non-worrying.

Simply, there are only two kinds of problems in Life. One kind are those problems that you can solve. So, why worry? Another kind are those problems that you cannot solve. Again, why worry? Either way, worrying is a completely futile activity. Worrying has solved no problem – ever!

Yet, to be sure, you cannot get rid of worries. But you can choose not to pick up a worrisome thought when it arises in you. Only when you attend to a worry, only when you pick it up, does it control you. Non-worrying is when you choose to ignore a worry. So, worrylessness cannot be attained; but you can surely learn to be non-worrying.

To me, the little blue sticker on the Indigo cockpit door is the simplest primer available for Life. It reminds us that Life is a one-time, limited-period, offer. And encourages us not to squander our Life either by worrying or being held hostage by negative, debilitating thoughts.

Worrying = Wall Banging

Why worry and postpone happiness?

A worry controls you only when you feed it with your attention

Non-worrying delivers happiness!

“Is there a method or technique with which you can stop worries from arising in your mind,” asked a gentleman over a message to me on my App (“AVIS Viswanathan” – available for free download on Google Play and the App Store).

The simple answer is that you can’t stop worries from arising in your mind. You can only choose to be non-worrying.

Let me explain further what I have learnt about being non-worrying.

Non-worrying means that when a worry arises in your mind, you simply let it pass. Anything that you don’t attend to will not bother you.

Consider this: in some months of the year the population of flies in India usually multiplies – particularly in humid conditions in Chennai. Even the cleanest five-star properties in Chennai will not be spared by the flies in such times. So, if you walked into a swank coffee shop and found a couple of flies on the tables there, you will not make a hue and cry. You will simply ignore their presence thinking to yourself, “well, this is India, this is Chennai, this is common occurrence” and move on. Non-worrying means treating the worry that arises as you would treat a housefly in India. Accept that it exists, accept that you can’t do anything about it and move on.

A worry controls you only when you feed it with your attention. It controls you only when you allow it to control you. Just ignore it. Let it be. And you be too. When you make a worry powerless, it will simply recede – the same way it arose in the first place.

Of course, the human mind, like the human body, must be trained to practise non-worrying. And that requires 24 x 7, consistent, practice! When you master the art of non-worrying, you can only be happy!

Postponing happiness can’t solve your problems

In this Vlog, I share why postponing happiness doesn’t make sense. Hoping to solve all our problems and then planning to be happy is a myth. Instead, let us to learn to be happy despite our circumstances.

View time: 4:59 minutes

A Life lesson from the waves

In today’s Vlog, I share my thoughts on how to deal with worry when it arises…

View time: 1:57 minutes

How not to complain about the dirty cup and enjoy the pure wine instead

Worrying serves no purpose; postponing worrying helps immensely though!

Yesterday, I found my equilibrium disturbed by a few irksome operational situations. This was in addition to the drama that Google’s actions had whipped up in my Life. And as if what we were dealing with was not enough, a new crisis arrived in our midst by mid-morning. The last thing we need right now is this new crisis, seriously! To add to the chaos, this crisis comes with a deadline – it has to be resolved within a short timeframe, else…well…it is looking like it will snowball into something bigger – grave and unwieldy!

By mid-afternoon, I decided to get myself some quiet time at my desk. I find it absolutely necessary to remain silent for some spells – at least one – daily. I use this time to pause, reflect – and importantly to postpone worry!

In my silence period, I make a list of all the stuff that worries me – and I have enough and more to worry about, just like you have – and bucket them into two lists. Stuff that I can act on and resolve over time. And stuff that I can’t resolve. Those that I can work on and solve, I convince myself that I need not worry about them. And those that I can’t solve myself, I convince myself again, that I must not worry about them either. This is how, methodically, practically, logically, I postpone worrying on a daily basis.

If you think about it, worrying serves no purpose; because no problem, however big or small it may be, has ever been solved by worrying about it! The biggest benefit of postponing worry is that you are available to the now – and are present in the moment. No past. No future. Which means no grief, anger or guilt over what has happened – the past. And no fear, anxiety or worry over what may happen – the future. No past. No future. You are just present in the moment.

In the present moment there is just beauty. There is complete magic.

Taking a break from all that I was doing and grappling with, I looked outside my window. Several jackfruit hung from the tree in our building’s backyard. They looked so beautiful. A few squirrels scampered up and down. And in the distance, a train blew its horn as it pulled out of the station. For a while I stayed immersed in what I was seeing and hearing.

When I returned to attend to my notes on my desk, I was a lot more anchored. I felt very good. Important, I wasn’t obsessing with my worries that were gnawing at my feet. The worries were there. And I was there too. But I wasn’t picking up any of those worries. My thoughts instead went to Jalauddin Rumi, the 13th Century Persian poet, my favorite, who has said this of Life: “Be aware of the pure wine being poured. Don’t complain that you have been handed a dirty cup!”

You too can train yourself to postpone worrying if you choose to bucket them into the categories of those that you can resolve and those that you can’t resolve. When you do this, you realize the futility of worrying. When you learn to be non-worrying, you can only be in the present. Then the dirty cup doesn’t matter – only the pure wine does!

As long as you don’t attend to a worry, it is powerless

You must realize that you have the ability to prevent worry from affecting you.

Yesterday, while copying some files from someone else’s pendrive, I first ran a virus check. I always do that. No matter how trustworthy the source may be, I don’t want to have my machine and files infected. Not again. A few years back, my laptop was severely infected. And the person who helped me fix it, a geek, gave me this piece of advice, which I have followed ever since. “Don’t trust any source,” he said, adding, “Just install a gateway check before you allow any data into your system – via email, internet or offline transfers.”

What the gentleman suggests as a possible method to keep out computer viruses, applies to our lives as well.

Most of us are, subconsciously, constantly, worrying. We are led by our worrying. From relationships to our children to our finances to health to careers to the state of our countries and world, we worry about anything and everything. Now there’s no logic or pre-qualification required for worrying. The human mind thinks 60,000 thoughts a day. And if unchecked, if untrained, the mind simply keeps spewing worrisome thoughts among several other debilitating ones like anger, grief, guilt, fear and such. So a worry is like a wave in the ocean. If there is an ocean, waves will arise. If there is a mind, a worry will arise. But you have to realize that you have the ability to prevent that worry from affecting you. You may be touched by the worry, but you can choose to be unaffected. Being able to do this consistently is what intelligent living is all about.

One way to be untouched by a worry is to simply postpone it. Most of us do just the opposite. We miss the beauty and magic of living in the moment by postponing living, by postponing happiness. We indulge in worrying almost 24×7. Instead try postponing worrying for a change. Let’s say, you have to pay a bill and you don’t have money. A worry arises dramatizing the consequences of being unable to pay that bill. Just postpone the worrying and instead focus on what you can do, within your means, with your abilities, to earn the money to pay the bill. Simple. And if you can’t pay the bill, on the D-date, well, face the reality then. How could worrying have ever helped you pay off the bill? Think about it!

The other way to deal with worry is to practise ignoring it. When it arises, just ignore it. Your ability to ignore worry will be honed when you consistently remind your mind that worrying is of no use. Truly, no situation in your Life, or even in the world for that matter, can be solved by worrying. Only concerted, focused action leads us to solutions. So why worry? When worry arrives, don’t pick it up. As long as you don’t attend to a worry, it is powerless. So, simply ignore it.

So, install a worry-check gateway in your mind. Keep the worry virus out. Postpone worrying to start with. And you will instantly, magically, start enjoying the moment. This ability to enjoy what is, is happiness!

 

Postpone worrying, well, by being alive, living fully!

If you ‘want’ to stop worrying, that ‘want’ may become a new worry!

“How can I stop worrying,” asked a reader over Facebook Messenger. “I have tried meditation, prayer, physical exercise, but I am unable to get rid of my sense of insecurity and worry. I feel miserable,” she added.

I have a simple take on this. You cannot stop worry from arising in you. You can only postpone worrying by being aware of what you are thinking.

Let us understand why you worry in the first place. You worry about things, people, events, money, health, relationships, your job, because you want them in your control or you want to know more about them or both. And when you are unable to do any of that, you worry. You say that you want a job. Is that a worry? Hardly. Will you get that job? Now, that’s a worry: because you want to control the outcome of your want and you want information about the future. My wife has gone to meet a friend. Is that a worry? Not really. But who is that friend? It is this greed for the detail, for that information, that will spawn a worry. And then the issue is no longer about the wife meeting the friend, it is about the gender of the friend and then it morphs into another, new, nagging worry: is my wife cheating on me?

Next, understand that in the time that you spend worrying, you are missing living! You cannot do both at the same time. You can either live. Or you can worry. If you are worrying, be sure, you may be alive, breathing, seeing and doing, but you are not living! The nature of the human mind is that it will keep churning out thoughts incessantly and most of them will be about your worries. If you want to stop worrying, then that want may now become a new worry!

How do you contain this human urge to want to control what’s going on and/or keep seeking information on what’s going on? The simple truth is, you can’t. So, wanting to stop worrying is an improbable vision to begin with. What you can do, however, is to be alive, live fully! When you are filling out your job application, for instance, why do you worry about the outcome of the effort? Focus on the application you are preparing. Pour your heart into it. Postpone any worries that may arise. Don’t let your mind wander. Bring it to attend on the only, supremely important, singular task at that moment in your Life, the job application. You will never enjoy a sunrise if you keep thinking about your nightmares. Even if you are at the most beautiful resort in the Pacific, you will not even see the sun rise if you are not present in that moment.

The cure to worrying is like the cure to diabetes. Once a diabetic, always a diabetic. At best, you can astutely manage your diabetes with your strict diet and exercise regimen. Even a day’s, or even a meal’s complacency or indulgence, can spike your sugar levels. So it is with worrying. You cannot stop worrying. Period. But you can always postpone worrying by starting to live fully. When you live, in the present, no worry can plague you! That’s why I say don’t try to stop worrying, instead postpone it, by being alive, by living fully!

Magic!!! How a ring became a pumpkin!

Suspend all scientific reasoning and simply see how beautiful each moment is.

A friend and I got together for a drink last week. He told me that he had concluded that Life is meaningless, that it has no logic. He has been through a bitter divorce. And he has recently lost his job. He said, “I loved my wife dearly. But she wanted to reunite with her boyfriend from college. I gave my heart and soul to my company. But just because the industry we operate in is going through a downturn, I was laid off as part of a sweeping job-cut policy. There’s no logic in Life at all yaar, AVIS!”

Unwittingly, my friend has stumbled upon the biggest secret about Life. That it has no logic! To me, Life’s full of magic though!!

To see the magic in you, in your Life, around you, you must stop being an adult, abandon all logic and just see everything with a child-like wonder.

While our logical temperament has been honed by years of education and social conditioning and while it has helped us grow our careers, it has really stunted our evolution as individuals. Consider your own Life. You too, like me, like my friend there, have problems. And, logically, you want those problems resolved. So if the problem is financial, you may want your income to go up and your expenses to come down. Logical thinking. But what do you do when your efforts at boosting your income come to a naught? You get depressed. Depression leads to scarcity and negative thinking. If your problem is a relationship, you will want to sit down and resolve it. But the other party is just not interested. You grieve. You suffer. If your problem is your health, logically, medication should work. But the doctors are wringing their hands in despair, because they say their efforts are not working. You start believing it’s all over. In all this logical thinking, in all three contexts, you are tormented, you are anxious and you are not present in your every waking moment. You are living in your problems.

And this is where you are missing the magic of the present. Of the myriad opportunities that Life is still offering you. Remember that despite all the problems you are faced with and are seemingly drowning in, Life is flowing, unraveling itself. Magically. There’s magic everywhere. In the rising sun. In the chirping birds. In the smile of a child. In the few friends who are still standing by you. In the fact that you have a home, food to eat and someone to call family. When you are allowing yourself to be gripped in the stranglehold of your problems, you are missing all this magic.

Your being wedded to your problems may appear to you to be very logical – after all, you want to solve your problems. But there are some problems that you cannot solve. Only time and Life can heal and solve them. This is why being stuck demanding to understand Life’s logic kills your ability to see all the magic. As American author Nora Roberts says, “Magic exists. Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence of the stars? Anyone who has loved has been touched by magic. It is such a simple and such an extraordinary part of the lives we live.”

I experienced this extraordinary part of my Life yesterday – one more time! Vaani and I were at a wedding last evening. As we awaited our turn to greet the young couple, we saw a picture from their engagement show up on the LCD display – they were exchanging rings. I remarked to Vaani that I had never given her a ring in all our Life together – not even at our wedding, 28 years ago! So I quipped that I would get her a cheap, plastic ring for Rs.10/- because that’s what we could afford now! (Read more on why we can’t afford anything better here: Fall Like A Rose Petal) Vaani smiled back at me and told me this with a straight face: “You know what, get me a pumpkin instead, I plan to make sambar tomorrow!” We both erupted laughing even as other guests looked on, amused.

That moment, that was sheer magic! Such moments are waiting to happen to you too. But are you tuned in? You don’t have to do much. Simply, love the Life you have! Know that it won’t last forever. Abandon all logic. Then, and only then, will you see the magic – and beauty – in Life!

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