Donât wish that your Life is different from what it is now. This is how you invite suffering into your Life. What is happening to you has already arrived in your Life. You canât wish it away, you canât undo it, you canât deny its presence. By asking why is something happening in your Life, you are resisting your current reality. Thatâs also why you are suffering. Instead, learn to be non-suffering by embracing what is. Being non-suffering is a personal choice, it holds the key to your Happiness!
When you start viewing another personâs Life and wonder âhowâs it that they are having a good time when I am not?â, well then, you have invited suffering into your own Life! Be sureâŠ1. You donât know their story and donât quite know if they are really having a âgoodâ time and 2. Itâs their Life and another personâs Life is none of your business! Seriously. So, to be happy, stop comparing yourself with others. Period.
Adulting is serious stuff. Yes, it is cool to be independent and getting to do your own thing. But with freedom comes responsibility. Where you are not just responsible for taking care of yourself or earning enough to pay your bills, but you are also responsible for facing Life and dealing with its upheavals and surprises. There are no right or wrong ways to face Life. Everyone has to do what they believe they have to do at a particular moment and keep going. Eventually, you will figure out why what happened to you was part of your own myth unfolding. So, if you are a young adult and are up against a wall, keep the faith and keep walking. Doors will always open, the path will always appear...
Dealing with toxic people is an art that can be learnt. Whether it is in a family, among friends or at the workplace, exercise a choice to establish and maintain clear contours of your relationship with such people. Define very clearly in your mind what about this person irks you. And draw the line there. The point is not whether others can get along with such people, the point is that you cannot suffer them. So, when others ask you to be âadjustingâ, you must tell them why you canât do this â that it affects your inner peace. Once you define and draw the boundaries clearly, barring the initial settling in issues, pretty soon, everyone will see value in your approach. Clearly, thereâs no point sacrificing your Happiness for anotherâs behavior or your reluctance to call them out!
Whatever be your current reality, you are never in conflict with it. Life is happening to you. And you are going with the flow. A health challenge, a break-up, the loss of a loved one, a career-related complication, a messy financial situation, whatever you are dealing with, you are doing pretty fine living with what is. However, the moment your mind plays up an expectation that your Life must be different from what it is now, suffering kicks in. So, clearly, suffering comes from expectations. And you cause your expectations. The solution, therefore, to avoid suffering is to drop all expectations. Embrace your current reality, do what you can do in the given context and keep movingâŠ
Being happy professionally is really the ability to do what you love doing the way you want to do it. Which is, if you have a natural talent and you have honed it to a world-class standard, you want the creative and professional space to express this talent your way. However, because your customers â both paying customers and society at large â want to control what they want from you, there may be times when you feel suffocated and unhappy. Ask yourself: is it worth doing something for money or social acclaim/validation at the cost of your inner peace or Happiness? If the answer to this question is ânoâ â choose to be âhumbly ruthlessâ. Be unflinching and non-negotiable on your professional and creative standards. Yet take that position with all humility, knowing fully well that someone else may fulfil that need for your customer should you opt out. Surprisingly though, 9 times out of 10, people may come back and work with you. The one deal that breaks off may have never made you happy; so, really, no sweat there! This is the key to Happiness â being âhumbly ruthlessâ!
Donât grieve that your child has a problem. Donât wish for the problem to go away either. And certainly donât imagine that âbad timesâ have befallen your child owing to âbad karmaâ! The truth is that no matter what you do or wish for, your child has to go through what they have to go through. Just as Life happened to you in its own unique way, it will happen to your child too. You canât change that reality. Nor can you live your childâs Life. So, be practical. Be available for your child surely and invest in prayer. A crisis is Lifeâs way of coaching your child. So, pray that your child learns to face Life, not fight it or run away from it! Pray that your child evolves spiritually from the experience â often growing stronger, wiser and happy from it.
Even if the world says so, and you know it too, that you have genius, donât allow it to carry you away. You are, just like anybody else is, ordinary. You are a mere instrument that Life uses to express itself. âYourâ art is actually not even yours â it comes from a divine Source, flows through you, so it can touch the world. So, no matter how talented, famous and wealthy you are, know that you are just a microphone, a messenger, that is amplifying a message that is passing through you. How can a messenger ever take credit for the message? This doesnât mean you must not celebrate yourself or market yourself well or profit economically. Surely, you may! But do it being fully aware that without the Source choosing you, without âyourâ art flowing through you, there would be no acclaim, no recognition. So, stay humble, stay grateful!