Life gives you problems so that you know who you truly are!

When you don’t know what to do, simply play along with Life!

You don’t have to know everything or have all the answers. It is fine to be clueless. In fact, it is great to just be.

I am in a familiar zone this morning. I have no idea of what’s going to happen. (Now, I know, the truth is none of us can ever know what’s going to happen!) But I am referring to all our efforts at putting our business back on track, the way we want it to be, that have come unstuck. Yet again. It surely is unsettling at a practical, material, everyday level. But this is not something that we don’t have experience dealing with. Vaani and I have seen this time and again, that whenever we don’t seem to know what is happening or why it is happening and what we must do, Life has always shown us the way. That way may not be something we would have known of or liked to take, but we implicitly trust Life and allow ourselves to be led by it. This is perhaps why we don’t suffer despite our often excruciating circumstances.

The human desire to know why something is happening to you is what causes your suffering. The simplest way to avoid suffering is to stop asking why or why me. Stop wanting to know all the answers to questions that fox you. Stop wanting to solve all your problems at the same time. In fact, there will be times in your Life, when you can’t solve even one of your problems – let alone all. You will just be pushed to a corner by Life, button-holed and made irrelevant. Of course, you will be irritated, you will feel helpless and totally, completely, lost. This is when suffering will arrive in your Life. But it will lay siege only if you want answers, only when you seek solutions, only if you ask why. Instead if you just accept that being clueless, being helpless, being solution-less is fine, you will not suffer, despite the pain.

So, when I am in that zone, where I am this morning, I don’t ask why. I simply surrender to Life and say, be my light, show me the way and give me the strength, the stamina, to further endure the journey. I have learnt, that it is best, when you don’t know what to do, to simply play along with Life – as in this immortal song from Dev Anand’s Hum Dono (1961, Amarjeet/Vijay Anand, Mohd. Rafi, Jaidev, Sahir Ludhianvi)! 

Pray, cry, step away, surrender – do whatever, while trusting the process of Life!

You don’t have to always have the solutions to all your problems in Life!

I visited a temple – Sai Baba’s – after a long time yesterday. I tagged along with Vaani because it was the first anniversary of my father-in-law Venks’ passing – he loved visiting Sai Baba temples, wherever they were. It was a usual Sunday at the temple. The priests were busy with the early morning aarthi service, the crowds were beginning to file in queues and the public address system played ‘om sai namo namah…’ setting the tone for devotees to enter into their personal communions with ‘their’ Baba. One lady did not join the queue. She did not even stand in front of Baba’s white marble idol. She stood in front of his portrait, in an ante-room, and wept inconsolably. It was a cathartic moment for her surely – and for us as we watched her briefly before we moved on.

I could relate to the way the lady was expressing herself. I have done that many times: I have cried at Baba temples, or at other places of worship, or when I have found myself in a private, intimate moment with nature. I have cried whenever I have felt lost, helpless and clueless about how to deal with some situations in Life. My belief that there is a Higher Energy, an inscrutable divinity that shapes our lives, led me to places of worship back then. And while there my form of prayer was to surrender to this Higher Energy. I would acknowledge my “smallness” and accept that I didn’t know what to do and offer myself to be led – by time and by my faith that if I have been created I will be looked after and cared for. The Hindu scriptures talk of this concept too and call it saranagati – total surrender. I have intuitively learnt to surrender myself. This has not always helped me find solutions to my problems but has always helped me find and retain my inner peace. I don’t visit places of worship necessarily to pray – or to surrender – anymore, because I have learnt to live – celebrate, pray, surrender – in the moment! The guiding principles of my Life are the two words that Sai Baba taught the world: Shraddha/Faith – keep the faith that you will be provided for and shown the way; and Saburi/Patience – trust the process of Life.

I have come to believe that when you don’t know what to do in Life you must do what you can do. And one thing you can always do is to allow yourself to be shown the way, to be guided and led, by Life. It is perfectly okay if you don’t have solutions to some of the problems you are faced with. Just trust that Life will, over time, solve your problems for you or point you in the direction of solutions. As you let go, surrender to Life’s compassion. Indeed given the tough situations and contexts that Life may place you in, you may think that Life is harsh and cruel. But no, Life’s really very compassionate. Because you have always got and you will always get what you need even if you get it from unexpected quarters or through unconventional, unpredictable means. To let go and surrender, choose your own way to express yourself. If you feel like praying, pray. If you feel like crying, cry. If you feel like stepping away from whatever is making you frustrated and unhappy, step away. Basically, when you feel overwhelmed by a Life situation, let Life take over and you simply go with the flow.

The way to live through a crisis is to engage with the NOW

When you don’t know what to do, allow Life to take over!

Often Life will push you to the edge of a precipice. You will not know what to do. Fear then is a natural response. But the way to overcome fear is not to avoid it. But to feel it and face it.

What is fear telling you? It reminds you how horrifying the situation is. And it tricks you to respond to such a situation intellectually. But the very fact that you are on the edge, at Life’s mercy, is a sign that your intellect has not worked. Because, had it worked, you wouldn’t be this way, in this place, at this moment! So please don’t intellectualize any grave situation. Please don’t respond with guilt either. ‘I caused this mess’, ‘I hate myself’ or ‘I am bad’ are wasted responses. Poor self-esteem cannot help you overcome a tough situation. And fear solves no problem; it, in fact, compounds a problem.

When you have tried everything, every solution and every approach, and when nothing seems to work, when Life’s become chaotic and turbulent, just sit back, relax and let Life take over. You must understand that you don’t necessarily have to know how to solve each problem that you are faced with. Know that Life is all powerful – more intelligent than you are. So, let Life handle situations that you don’t know how to handle.

No matter what your situation may be, remember, the simplest and easiest way to live through a crisis is to just be engaged with the present, with the NOW. Because a crisis anyway means all else is already lost or is being lost. So, prudence demands that we live with what is left, which is the present moment!

 

Denying the problem does not make it go away

Refusing to look at a problem, or denying its existence, cannot make your Life any simpler.

All what you suffer from comes from what you deny. Facing Life and taking a problem head on is what can make you solve it and live in peace.

But we invariably don’t like to exorcise our demons. We somehow have become comfortable suffering, feeling tormented, preferring to stay debilitated than feeling liberated. Because continuing to be miserable seems far easier than having to work hard to rid ourselves of what makes us miserable!

I met someone recently after a couple of years. He, in his own opinion, was financially ‘very well off’. Yet he found his Life ‘incomplete’. He spent entire days, daily, in a prominent five-star hotel’s bar, literally being there from the time it opened to when it closed! He lamented to me that his wife no longer loved him and all she wanted was ‘his credit card and a certain sum of cash monthly for her shopping sprees’. His 24-year-old son, though married, was not exactly doing anything significant and ‘lived off’ his dad. His daughter was the only one who understood him but their relationship too in recent years had come under stress. She wanted to go overseas for higher studies but he was insistent that she marry now because that was the norm in his ‘community’. He said to me, in a tone reflective of a defeated man, “I have lost it in Life. I have done no wrong. Yet everyone around me has let me down. I am suffering. I wish I could die.”

I laughed at him and looked him in the eye. I told him: “My friend, you are the problem. For, as far as I know you, you have been drinking entire days for years now. You have a drinking problem – spurred by a lack of Purpose in your Life. You have enough and more money. So, because you don’t know how to be useful and productive, you are indulging in something that has already ruined your family Life and is on the verge of consuming you.”

My friend suddenly turned hostile. He ended our meeting and drove away drunk in his car, despite my request and protests to engage a taxi leaving his car behind.

I wish he understood that unless he faced the brutal reality of his Life, he may really be unable to make it any better.

Just as my friend has a problem, each of us has a problem too. All of us like to deny whatever is our problem__ranging from a relationship to a lousy job to a ruinous habit__hoping that time will take care of it! This is one area where no one can help you than you, yourself! 

But facing the truth is scary. How does one see the reality?

Good question. And so, it is with all situations, with all of humanity, with all aspects of Life! Fundamentally, if you know what you want out of your Life, you can go find that Life and recreate, reinvent yourself. But if you don’t know what you want, how can anyone help you? This question is not as profound as many people make it out to be. It is a dumb question. Even a person with low IQ can answer it __ by approaching Life the other way, by knowing, for starters, what you don’t want in your Life! Because the truth is that nobody wants to suffer. Since you don’t want to suffer or be miserable why do anything, or accept any situation that accentuates your suffering?

Remember: There are no two ways in which you can change your current realities or end your suffering! So, if you are feeling miserable about anything__or anyone__in Life, sit down and introspect. Diligently make a list of actions that you must take to end your misery. Resolve to do it. And just get down to doing it. Don’t give yourself the license to make excuses. My good friend Andy Law, maverick creative thinker and head of The Law Firm, says, “Unless you are prepared to give up something valuable you will never be able to truly change at all, because you’ll be forever in the control of things you can’t give up.” What he is reiterating is this: the only way to solve a problem is to first accept that it exists. 

Focussing on issues, not people, leads to solutions

Focus on the issue on hand. Never on the people connected or on the sentiments they express.

Life’s full of challenges. Some of them involve the interactions we have with people. There are some whom we can never escape. Like a short-tempered boss. Or a temperamental adolescent. Or a depressive spouse. Or an irritating neighbor. When we start wondering why is so-and-so behaving in such a manner, we lose the plot__and therefore the opportunity to seek a resolution or find a win-win platform for both parties. Know that people are different. And it is in people’s nature to be the way they are. Each of us is created differently. And so is the person you are having a challenge interacting with. So, if you look at the person and grieve saying she or he does not meet your expectation, it is an exercise in futility. For example, if you expect your boss to be polite and dignified with you__when he is incapable of such niceties__you will suffer. Instead the issue you have is with the way you are being treated. And if you don’t like it, you must find yourself a new boss! Meaning, a new job. Simple! Don’t grieve over the current one. Similarly, a teenager behaving irresponsibly at home is reflective of her adolescence and not a sign of any disrespect to you nor is this pointing to your failing in your duty to bring her up well.

There’s a saying in cricket: “Play the ball, not the bowler.” And we will all do well to remember this in all situations in Life. When we respect the issue, the situation, and give it all the attention it deserves, irrespective of who is causing it, we will always find solutions __ and inner peace!