Skip to content

Tag: contentment

Take less stress

A simple principle to follow could be one of inversion. Continuing on from yesterday’s post titled ‘Take more stress’, here are some examples of useful inversion.

The things we are stressed about, and (how to invert them):

  1. landing a better job, (enjoying our current job to the fullest)
  2. earning more money, (living in contentment)
  3. finding a good spouse / partner, (being a good spouse/partner/person)
  4. having a good family, (loving the family you have, and being a dependable family person)
  5. going on a quality vacation, (living every moment like it’s a vacation)
  6. being recognized in society, (working for society)
  7. working to fulfil our kids desires, even if they don’t reciprocate, (allowing the kids to live their own lives, and taking care of your loved ones with no expectations)

On doing these, we will perhaps come to realize what Gandhi ji said, that peace is not a destination, but a path. Moksha is no different, and as my Guru says, available here and now to one and all.

Like it? Please share it!
2 Comments

Expect the expected

We all know that happiness can come right here right now. We’ve discussed it here on ForeverHappyNow many times already. That is because happiness is nothing more than a choice, and a state of mind. But we still hand over the control aka the choice to the monkey-mind!

There is a huge chasm that exists between our current life and the life that we believe we deserve. The operating word being ‘deserve’. Do you believe you deserve a better pay or a better bonus? Of course! A better relationship? A better house? A better car? A better friends’ circle? The answer is always yes. The image we have of ourselves is often of do-gooders who are somehow waylaid by life, unable perhaps to get to that level of greatness we each think we are so capable of.

And we certainly may be capable of greatness – no denying that. But when we envision ourselves as great people, we also begin to believe that we deserve more than we already have. This comes in the way of happiness because being great is not necessarily the same as being happy. This leads to higher expectations, anxiety and dissatisfaction.

Setting the ‘expectations’ bar very low helps. The great late-physicist Stephen Hawking, famous for books such as A Brief History of Time and The Theory of Everything, was diagnosed with motor-neuron disease. He was paralysed and unable to talk from the young age of 21. His doctors gave him only a few years to live, but as those who have seen his videos and interviews (he could speak only through a computer) know, he was also a witty and humorous person, and lived till the age of 76. An interviewer once asked him, “Are you always this cheerful?”. Mr. Hawking replied, “My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus!”

Like it? Please share it!
Leave a Comment

It’s Time To Party!

My Guru gave me a special invitation to his lavish Millennium Party.

He said, “Every person who attends the party, would be gifted a mansion worth US$ 10 million, two Rolls Royce cars, and US$ 25 million wired to their accounts.”

The catch? Each invitee must come in-person, to collect their gifts. The Millennium Party will happen (you guessed it) in the year 2120.

Everyone reading this today would be a 100 years older. Our kids would be great-great-grandparents, their kids would be great-grandparents, their kids would be grandparents, their kids would be parents and some from the youngest generation would have just started working!

Not even one person from today’s 8 billion population will be alive to make it to the party.

Our end is clear, yet we live a life full of one-upmanship.

As Mahatma Gandhi aptly put it, “There is enough in this world for everyone’s need, but not enough for even one man’s greed”.

Like it? Please share it!
Leave a Comment