On that particular day, it appeared, wouldn’t be for me as happier as it was the day before. Right from the morning the gloom in my moods sat heavy and turned hostile each passing moment. Curled up still in my bed, I felt like not to go after my self- motivating ‘yoga, meditation, mild body work out’.What I do as a usual spell of an emotional refresher. To keep my mind actively cooperative for a day!
Straightaway I knew who the culprit was. I have received an early morning phone call from bank personnel. The call intended to remind me, by the party, in a rude, impolite way, about the upcoming installment dues. When the call was off, the next moment, all that I have summoned as calmness, after a session of morning meditation, had melted in one jolt, in a fit of hopelessness.
Early morning, when mentioned about money issues, whatever the tone it was conveyed, would trigger a rush of dullness. My eyes start showing a change in color – a paleness of sudden tiredness. Though, I meditated obediently, to shoo away tensions. But despite, a twig of uneasiness had its way, spinning its hurtful swing: weakened my morning cheerful mood.
Unable to escape from this abrupt mood swings. Very often, bending down emotionally, even for the slightest bump of smaller issues, it was like getting pushed often into a deep pit of torment.The predicament, I felt ashamed to share it with my wife, and mentally not very firm enough to fight it -alone. This low self-esteem mindset and the aptitude for frequent bouts of negative spells crippled my efficiency. Discouraged to a low, I couldn’t allow myself even to relish my family and my work.
Thus meekly, I got habituated yielding to the purest form of agony. That I slumped too low: felt upset for any unpleasant incident or a comment that would cross my day. In turn, they further twisted me, into a shell of passiveness, sullenness and prolonged silence. Consequently, my family got trapped in confusion. Not to know what has happened to me: for no fault of theirs.
Finally, step by step, I found the ropes to balance myself. Where, I have compiled together a recipe, a procedure, as solutions to many of my internal behavioral faults. I picked up one practical routine, to calm down the negative impulses that have choked me all the time.Thus – the love of reading entered into my lifestyle. Buried every day into the enriching genres of writers and authors, I found myself looking at my fears from a newer perspective. The fascinating insights I have absorbed and got them combined to cultivate a new conduct in my daily acts and affairs. I have assured for myself a new genre of self-esteem. A payback: the first person who was delighted to see the change in me was my wife.
I have pieced together the keys and caution grasped from reviewing the best of creative writings. I have ardently replaced the recurring distress with desire. The mission was to discipline; my feeble mind to concentrate on to read as many books as I can. Holding, the ‘showing the way’ essence, enclosed between the pages, close to me, now calmed my mind. Pridefully, I have allowed myself to get guided rationally. Together, in my personal and professional affairs following the leads from the inbuilt life supporting principles unified in them.
Distilling and decoding the spirit and substance of various novels, fiction, scores of essays. I have noticed a definite transformation in me both in my attitude and behavior. The most spectacular I can vouch for were the two inclusive edicts. They have given me strength from unwanted fears. They have helped me to replace the routine irritations by self-reliant braces of possibilities – to look at my work, my family and my relations, and my priorities.
THE FIRST COMMANDMENT:
This was the yardstick I have cut and started measuring how it can be applied to my day to day decisions. That I right away acquired, inspired by reading the book:
NEURO-LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING (NLP), the New Technology of Achievement” by Steve Andreas and Charles Faulkner
The first commandment I have learned was:
“If what you are doing isn’t working, do something else. Do anything else.”
This prescription has helped me in finding ‘acceptable ways out’ when I’m found stuck in a frustrating dilemma. Taken by any imminent crisis wherein all my reflexes become unhelpfully rigid: not knowing what to do. As an answer to these stiff difficulties, the book is a store of multifarious ways of thinking. It has clarified to me that they are several ways to tackle a stubborn issue that we face in our day to day events.Further, the author defined that it is our job, firmly, to keep on looking for useful, workable options. Just keep looking – again and again until you get one.Taken this faithfully, as my vitamin tablet I have become skilled and stayed free of any ensuing crippling anxiety and health hazards.
“Holding this precious teaching on the top of my every decision process, subsequently, I enjoyed peace, satisfaction and desired results time and again coming my way.
THE SECOND COMMANDMENT:
For the reasons not very clear to me, I always found myself in a victim mode. I thought this condition was due to my chaotic upbringing. Humiliation, fear, deep anger at injustice and sometimes intimidated by dominance. I’m sure of myself being emotionally frail. I have learned to stay calm watching the hovering chaos around. Nevertheless, I use to ask one question to myself, “How can I save mind, body, and soul from this obvious unfairness around?”
What fashion of words would create a cushion of comfort? What honest verses would uphold my humility? How to remain blind when the reality just beyond my doorstep was spectacularly fake and abusive? When reason was ridiculed, honesty left heckled, and the well-informed character was considered worthless?
Again the question would pop up as always. How can I stay sane and survive? How can I remain calm, composed? When the reality of what I have perceived is as adversely opposite as to what “I see as a societal truth”. When the waves of this crushing, hurting realism tossing and turning the basics of my daily life. The question was always, how?
The answers as a prized revelation that got me liberated by the truth and the essence enclosed within the two books:
“Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl and “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey.
Dr.Frankl was an Austrian and a Jew. He was a prisoner in the death camps of Nazi Germany.
“As a long-time prisoner in bestial concentration camps Dr.Frankl, found himself stripped to naked existence. His father, mother, brother, and his wife died in camps or were sent to the gas oven. Excepting his sister his entire family perished in these camps. How could he – every possession lost, every value destroyed, suffering from hunger, cold and brutality, any minute expecting extermination –how could he find life worth preserving?”
Dr.Frankl, in the midst of the most degrading circumstances imaginable, he said yes to life in spite of its tragic aspects. What he describes his self-awareness as “a tragic optimism?” He speaks about optimism in the face of tragedy. The book heroically marvels about the human potential at its best that allows us a choice turning suffering into achievement and accomplishment.
Stephen R.Covey, in his book, has concisely encapsulated this philosophy of Dr.Frankl as a workable credo. “Dr.Frankl could decide, positively, within himself how all the suffering around would affect him. Between what happened to him, or the stimulus and his response to it, or power to choose that response; which he believed as the fundamental surviving principle. “One singular human endowment and a heroic nature of man”
Concisely, we can read it as “Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose”. In all the wrenching circumstances I have selected this as my surviving response. I made it as an incentive that I always depended on sincerely. Helpfully, many viable choices that always protected me from many day to day battles. My choice always was, when faced with crippling issues: stay composed, look for all the alternatives, and don’t ever entertain negative reactions. Whatever may be the misleading provocation I have learned to stay cool to choose my next word or action?
For the last three decades, my life has passed through many stubborn, difficult junctions. I have endured all the stress and ultimately emerged with minor emotional bruises. I have also learned to appreciate more happy endings in the journey. At the end of a rewarding day, I would sentimentally endorse it to the “two beliefs I have acquired and the wisdom they endowed me with”. In all frankness, the philosophy I have carried through thick and thin in dealing with my daily toils and tears.