Life Unplugged - 8

The interplay of emotions

How many of you have started a new activity (such as a personal project or exercise routine) with a burst of enthusiasm, only to see that initial momentum evaporates? This often leads to depression and causes us to give up prematurely. I’ve experienced this letdown dozens of times in my life. But fortunately, with a bit of thought and reflection one can turn this negative emotion around. The key to harnessing your emotions is understanding them. The natural pattern of our emotion is peaks and valleys. When we start a new project we’re filled with tremendous optimism. All we can think about is the expected benefits, and since we haven’t started yet, we aren’t aware of the difficulties involved. This natural high causes a surge of mental and physical activity. The peak is a great thing because the energy boost sets off the project. You feel like nothing can stop you. Then starts the drama of our bi**h(Life) with minor obstacles and snowballs into a thunderstorm of negativity.

The downside of this surge of energy is that it inevitably ends. Exerting large amounts of quick energy doses, the initial optimism wears off. Confidence takes a beating and motivation goes for a toss. The combination of fatigue, scant results, and an awareness of impending adversity makes us want to give up and motivation goes for a down ride. Emotions, by nature, lose their power when we understand them. Prove this to yourself. Next time you get angry, take a moment. Step back and reflect upon yourself. Look at the causes. Are you tired, burned out, disappointed by the results? Are these feelings justified, or are they a by product of a low point in the emotional spectrum?

To overcome this prepare yourself for a letdown. Know your emotions, understand your emotional pattern and be prepared for an initial emotional peak to pass. Mostly, optimism would give way to depression. In the back of your mind, foresee the impending motivational battle and the faith crisis in your ability to take it to end.

The passing of an emotional peak is a blessing in disguise because it allows you to revaluate your plans from a fresh perspective. At first you are blinded by your own optimism. Such motivation crisis drives away the Dhritarashtra from you and makes you look around 360. Guys, either get down on ourselves and give up, or use these negative emotions to discover your faults and rectify them. Revisit all the negatives thoughts you had and apply them to this crisis. Be realistic about your abilities and expectations. Emotional valleys bring us back to reality. Without them we’d be raving lunatics with unlimited self-confidence.

One reason people digress is that they became too concerned with the financial aspect and lose the theme of life. Know your passion and realign your motivation with it. It won’t be a cakewalk but your goals will be the carrot to take you forward and I bet nothing beats the joy of meeting your set goals and basking in the shining drops of sweat.

In truth, sometimes giving up is the right decision. If you started doing something for the wrong reasons you’ll likely lose your motivation. This is a good thing. It allows us to see what really motivates us. In these cases, the best choice is to move on to a new endeavour. Don’t fight self doubt, use it for your benefit.

We generally accept our emotions as beyond our control. They are powerful and mysterious and appear quite irrational. But if we contemplate our emotions, if we explore the inner workings of our minds, we find that like all things, emotions obey the law of cause and effect. Armed with this knowledge, we can continue to allow our emotions to dominate our lives, or we can use them to our benefit.

What I learnt in the last few days is learning the hard way embosses the lesson for the lifetime. But to be on the fast track one needs to look around and learn from others’ emotional breakdowns, others’ goof-ups. Even sharing your stupidity sometimes help. You can get new angles which you haven’t even thought of. What life has taught me is never be shy in sharing the knowledge.

The Unplugger takes your leave with some lines…

Nothing quenches thirst like water, nothing is as refreshing as sleep, nothing is as comforting as a friend’s shoulder in a sob and nothing is as divine as nap in the mother’s lap. Guys it’s family time for me. Will be meeting 40 cousins, (both sides) in a span of one week. This is from Tony. “When it rains, it pours.” :)

Life Unplugged - 7

Hello Folks,

It’s happy spring from the Unplugger. I know it has been long but it’s worth the wait. Life was playing the game of see-saw and I was deep into the ocean of dilemmas. Conundrums are good for life but I almost got suffocated in them. Bruised and razed, somehow, I arose out of them, the past weekend. Now you must be wondering why am I beating around the bush. It was magical and it was none other than Barbie.

Every human has carved a specific life for himself but hardly one’s plans fall in place as designed. After breathing oxygen for two dozens years, rarely I have seen the perfect engineer of life. Different weights are set for different elements like success, leisure, love, family and solitude. The variations in the above ingredients results into different recipes of life. Even though one attains the desired combination at some junction in life, the quest for perfection drives people more. This in turn takes the value curve of life for a down-ride. People forget emotions, values and principles and materialism takes its ugly form.

I have seen many friends, relatives and even the Barbie run after perfections or the best fits. The craving for the best is like swimming in whirlpool which takes you deeper and deeper and people lose control over desires. The ladder of desires starts from Lux moves to Dove and then to Dior and it never stops. But four brothers sharing Lifebuoy for bath at village’s lake: Priceless.

What I exactly mean is you miss the beauty of life when you run after perfections. The real charm of the bi**h called life is turning imperfections into the magical ones, turning Bihar into Gujarat, turning Dharavi into clean labour centres, turning yokels into gentlemen, instead of running after the perfections or best available resources. I bet most of you like underdogs metamorphosing into heroes than heroes becoming heroes. But why don’t we carry the same philosophy in the real life. Why we try to stay away from the imperfections like beggars, disabled or the crooked ones.

The real spirit of a person is seen in how s/he deals with these imperfections. I have two friends and they showed how obtuse humans can be. One just tipped the flanking poor child and other stopped had a word with the child and made the lil champ comfortable with life. Very few people have this egalitarian eye which sees people as people. These are the ones who can screen your souls like anything. They just sieve the materialism from the humanism and gives rise to new kind of mankind. I wish if every one of us treats the every other with the same eye.

The day when the amount of satisfaction one gets in helping others super cedes the satisfaction derived from self-help, my job is done. I can foresee people hurling questions on the practicality of the above “Gyan”. Well life is not about living it king size but the right size.(as it goes with the inner wears :P) I hope my reasoning sounds well. Life is not walking past the finish line alone but about setting the right tone and always be in the fun zone.

Some one said “Try your luck now”. And I did. To say the least, it was enamouring, charming, and really touching. I fought over petty issues, twisted one’s hand, visited women’s section more than I did in my lifetime, hurled stones at bunch of dogs at 12 am and even woofed with the bunch till I got the commute. Sometimes people go “crazy” and but the word is reflecting in life again and again and I wonder is this the magic which Barbie creates?

Guys and their gals lemme chao for now as I accede to the internship program.

The more you miss it the stronger it becomes......

Happy Unplugging :)