Quotes Tagged "life-lessons"

Instead of obsessing over getting them married, what parents must really wish for is that their young adult children find great soulmates. A soulmate is someone who you can relate to and are best friends with; someone that you want to grow old with – and live with all your Life! Some people find their soulmates early and some others find them over time. So, parents’ worrying sick that their children must be married here, now, by a certain age, to a certain ‘category or class’ of people…all this is clearly avoidable stress and effort. A marriage is only a social contract, an irrelevant label. Pushing your children to get married so your duty is done, so you may have grandchildren, is acting selfishly, irresponsibly. Instead encourage your children to do what they love doing, to find love and be loving! Living-in with a BFF trumps being unhappily married – any day!

Everything happens in its own time, place and pace. You may wish for something to happen. Or you may wish against its happening. But you cannot force the outcome. What has to happen alone happens – always! So, go with the flow. Understand that it is what it is. Accept every happening in your Life that you didn’t want, and which you dislike, as your new normal and keep going. This is what intelligent living is all about. It doesn’t change any reality but frees you from unhappiness, from misery. It helps you anchor in peace and be happy no matter how challenging your circumstances are.

There is nothing wrong in getting married. The problem arises when you expect a marriage to deliver companionship or when you start believing that a marriage makes love happen. If you look at it objectively, marriage is just a social license for people to live together and, well, have sex, and, in most cases, procreate. Beyond being that license, it serves no purpose. The loving between people, the act of sexual intercourse and the biological process of having children – all of these can surely happen even outside of a marriage. Which is why marriage is neither necessary nor relevant. So, marry only if you really want to, but don’t expect the marriage to make you happy. Companionship is what delivers happiness. And companionship is not about gender or age; it is about finding love, being loving – in the present continuous – no matter what and celebrating each other!

When all your efforts at trying to get what you want are exhausted, if you choose to walk away calmly, without grief and frustration, then what you want will flow to you, on its own, if it is meant for you. There is great power in letting go and moving on. It is only when you have let go, of desire itself, that you can receive what is truly meant for you! No one – and nothing – can take away what is meant for you and no one – and nothing – can get you what is not meant for you! Understand this truth about Life – and you will live happily ever after.

There’s a part of all of us that is always wanting to be warm, willing to adjust, open to accommodate and ready to tolerate. But let all the warmth, adjustment, accommodation and tolerating happen at a material level. And let it stop there. Please don’t allow anyone to affect your dignity just because they are older to you or more powerful – whoever they are, even if they are a parent, sibling or spouse. Because when you allow that you end up becoming intensely unhappy. And, more often than not, you suffer silently. Let this be your guiding light – your inner peace and happiness are the only wealth you have, so, protect them till your last breath!

Don’t intellectualize Life. Not everything has a scientific, rational, logical reason to it. Beyond a point, Life is largely inscrutable. 2+2 does not often add up to 4 in Life and you can’t find the answer to some questions – particularly to the why and why me questions! It is always what it is. Life does not happen because you planned it in a certain way. It so happens that sometimes your plans are in sync with Life’s plans for you. So you end up thinking – given your education and your economic power – that you are controlling your Life. But the moment Life throws you a googly, you are stumped! You are left clueless, numb and debilitated. That’s when you realize that surrendering to Life, humbly accepting what is and going with the flow is what intelligent living is all about! This realization is the key to Happiness.

If you reflect on Life, it has no meaning. You came with nothing. And you will go with nothing. In this time, you will acquire knowledge and experience…you may get fame and wealth…you will build relationships…and blah and blah and blah…but nothing – and no one – is going with you, when it is time for you to leave. So, is Life meaningless? Perhaps, yes. But there’s another view too. The only option each of us has, since we don’t choose to be born, is to bring meaning to the Life that we have been given. Simply, what you do is more important than what you acquire and own in your lifetime. Therefore, make what you do – to make this world a better place for the generations to follow – the singular focus of your journey while enjoying every moment of it. This is how you bring meaning to an apparently meaningless Life!

Intelligence is really the ability to decide which battles to fight in Life…and when you employ your intelligence this way, you will awaken to the choice that perhaps, in most cases, it is best not to fight (any battle) at all. Almost always, the best way to live (and to win, if you like) is to not fight anyone – or anything. This understanding will interestingly help you choose wisely and in the event that you do choose to fight for a cause that you truly believe in, it will teach you to be detached from the outcome. When you are engaged only with the process, you discover the opportunity to be happy without getting keyed up about the result.

Don’t find meaning, assign meaning.

Every Life experience is teaching you a lesson. It is likely you may not see the experience as an opportunity to learn – not when you are going through it. But your experiences are always shaping you, teaching you; they are helping you understand who you really are and what your true potential is. So, don’t hate what you are going through if you are currently dealing with something that you didn’t bargain for or didn’t want in your Life. Just step back, climb onto the fly-on-the-wall position, and observe your Life. You will then notice unmistakable teachable, learnable, points of view embedded in your experience. To take them or leave them – well, that’s your personal choice! One thing’s for sure though, you will be a lot more at peace – and happy – when you learn from your experiences!

You can work for joy and you can work for money. Ideally, in the real world, if you can do work which you love doing, which also earns you money to pay your bills, then you are doing great. But if you are doing work that you loathe, and are doing it only for the money, then chances are you will be very, very unhappy. And if you are doing stuff that you love doing but are not earning any money from what you do, then while the going may be tough in a material sense, you will still be, interestingly, very, very happy! So, instead of complaining about your Life, ask yourself which category do you belong to. And learn to make an informed choice or be content with what you are doing – and having!

In your moments of solitude, when self-doubt, worry, anxiety and fear creep in, dive deep into what you love doing. This could be music, painting, gardening, reading, cooking…whatever…do whatever that makes you forget this world, that makes you forget your pain…surely, there is something that makes you forget who you are. Simply, go do it. When you do this, you will realize how you magically heal, how all your stresses and insecurities vanish. This is why Bliss is so powerful. This is why following your Bliss is so profitable. It helps you live in this world, inevitably trapped in the pulls and pressures of everyday existence, and yet be above all of it, thriving, living happily despite the circumstances.

When you come home, after a hard day’s work, don’t you feel you belong there…when you are on your way home…isn’t there a longing to get home, lounge, goof off, just be, just chill…so it is when your Bliss finds you or when you find your Bliss…you feel you have finally come home, to a place that you always longed for, where you truly belong.

Happiness is not quite about always getting what you want, or about buying stuff which you can afford, or even about being understood, recognized and celebrated by those around you. There will always be times in Life when you won’t get what you want, when you can’t even afford what you think are the basics and when you will imagine that the whole world is conspiring against you. Happiness is a decision. It is your decision. When you decide to be happy, the circumstances don’t matter. Happiness, then, is to be accepting of the Life you have, while celebrating it for what it is, and learning to be non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering.

Nothing belongs to us. Everything and everyone will be gone someday – including you and me! Clinging on to people, material possessions, stances and opinions is a total waste of energy and precious time. If we review our lives closely, deeply, we will find that all our insecurities, our strife, our suffering, comes from whatever we are clinging on to. The moment you let go of whatever is possessing you, consuming you – a habit or a position or an object or a person or a relationship – you are liberated. You are free. It is only when you are free that you can experience Life – and its magic and beauty – fully…and live happily!

When you are feeling restless, confused, lost…when you are searching…don’t panic…it is a great sign. It means status quo does not appeal to you anymore. It means being economically secure does not quench your thirst anymore. It is only when you are lost that you can find yourself. The moment you look up from your earning-a-living circle, when you begin to search for meaning, for Purpose, when you begin asking why am I here and what am I doing/supposed to be doing with my Life, your Life’s Purpose, your Bliss will find you!

Things are never as bad as you think they are when they first hit you. So, when a situation blows up in your face, don’t resist it, go with its flow. Chances are the ground beneath your feet may appear to cave in, or it may look like the roof over your head has blown away…you will imagine that there is no way you can survive this situation…you will fear that your Life, your world, is going to end. But don’t panic. Don’t worry. Just go with the flow, doing what you can – and what you possibly must – in the given circumstances. Slowly, with reflection, reason, prayer, letting go and acceptance, you realize that everything can – and must – be faced. And that the situation doesn’t seem so formidable after all! This is how you find strength and inner peace in a storm!

Acceptance does not make a problem go away. Accepting that a problem exists is the first step to dealing with it. When you stop denying its existence and accept that you have a problem, your ability to deal with it increases manifold. You become calm and you start exploring avenues for solving the problem. In denial mode, you are running away from the problem. And what you run away from, will chase you, will haunt you. But when you turn around and face the problem, accepting it, taking it head-on – you discover your inherent resilience and feel a strange ability to withstand any amount of pain! You may be in the throes of a huge crisis, but you are anchored and are at peace. This is why Life gave you the problem in the first place – for you to know who you truly are and what you are capable of!

A true, continuous, celebration of Life is the ability to always be happy and content no matter what is happening in your Life, no matter what you have or don’t have. Simply, Happiness is a decision. You are happy the moment you are content with what you have, when you accept what is. You are happy when you serve another, when you are making our world a better place.

Life’s magic and beauty does not lie in your ability to get all that you want, whenever you want it. Life’s truest, miraculous, nature reveals itself when you are given all that you need, exactly at a precise moment in time, when you need it the most. To recognize this magical quality about Life, you must be in a total let-go, in complete surrender, trusting the process of Life implicitly. This is what Faith is all about. When you are this way, you will discover that there is no logic to – and in – Life ever…it is all magic, magic, pure magic!