Certain things bring you back to perspective. When we experience life beyond our normal
routine we find how comforting our routine normally is (you like that play on words don't you!).
I had been away for about a month, traveling
India and Pakistan I came to one realization, which I always knew but seldom
felt. I am blessed beyond measure, I am
given more than I ever deserved and that gratitude is what provides me to not
only believe there is a god but also gives me the power to be thankful to him.
We are creatures of negativity, as in our minds it is the
only way to feel driven or want more, better.
We stockpile our belongings, we create wealth which we never enjoy, we
build false sense of security in things that are temporary, forgetting that
which is permanent. Then we end up in depression, in strife and in constant
conflict with what we need to feel full.
There is no answer in living feeling empty constantly. The countries I visited, I can point out
thousands of things that were wrong, I can point out thousands of things which
annoyed me, which wanted me to come back to the United States, but I can tell
you having nothing, at times even less than nothing, I have met those people
who have a sense of satisfaction about life which seems to be missing even with
those living in abundance in the west.
Sense of family, friendships, and relationships felt real
there. I was offered assistance from
complete strangers, I was force fed out of love from those who barely knew me,
and I saw service that was unparalleled.
This made me think about many things as I was there, and
even more as I have returned. Over there
I told those who I talked to that here I see an overflowing element of faith,
and in the west, I see an overwhelming element logic. Both are needed for living, but with a balance,
as without balance both have some adverse effects to the human experience.
It is not fair to rationalize all the people I met and interacted
with in these categories, obviously there are always exceptions but I am just
talking generalizations. In the USA we
have unlimited comforts, yet the level of stress, depression and medication for
mental issues is very high. In India I
noticed those in extreme circumstances, in dire states, were willing and prone
to joke and laugh with me. Having close
to nothing they lived with a positive outlook, here having everything we often
live with a negative outlook. Our
surroundings of ever competitive nature do not allow us to even enjoy what we
have, as our thirst for more continuously fuels an uneasy desire.
In the East I experienced life in a different capacity, the basic human needs when not fulfilled, how
thankful one becomes when they are.
Having warm water, just having clean water was a luxury, that many were
far beyond thankful to get. Yet here it
is part of the routine, part of the norm, and so it is not given a second
thought.
It led me to understand that human nature is that of
thanklessness. Our basic default, is
never to count our blessings, its always to count our short comings. We have to force ourselves to count what we
have, why is that? It makes me think that we are sort of driving
ourselves to be negative. We deny
ourselves the bliss of living in a feeling of being full. Yet we are full, we are full in so many scenarios,
even those who have nothing are still full, their lungs are getting full of
air, for free, yet nobody has thanked anyone for this. There blood is being pumped to every part of
their body for free, yet nobody has thanked anyone for this. Each millimeter of our body can sense, can
feel even a soft breeze of air, within nanoseconds this reaches the brain and
provides us awareness of our surroundings, yet nobody has thanked anyone for
this. We have many around us who care,
who love, unconditionally yet we do not have anyone to thank, we really did
nothing to deserve this, and going into detail we can point out millions of
other things in our surroundings to be thankful for, yet we fail constantly to
live in fullness.
We have in fact programed ourselves to live in logic, fear
and emptiness. Our desires do not like
to hear, “I have enough” , that is not something we program. Every effort is made to strain relationships,
not to appreciate what others have done for us, but to criticize what they didn’t
do, or what they failed. We do not live
in a state of compassion, we live in a state of delusion, that the world did
not revolve around us, that we were the victims of certain circumstances.
It is only through disconnect, that you can begin to realize
how blessed you are. It’s not about comparison,
we always see others who have less yet somehow we justify to ourselves why that
person has less. Maybe they didn’t work
hard, they didn’t educate themselves, yet when we see someone above us, we only
see that they may have been luckier, we seldom see what they must have sacrificed
to ‘have’ more. This is the one of the biggest tragedies of
the human condition.
The sad part of this is we teach our children, who learn not
from what we say but what we do the same fault.
They forget how to be happy, they forget how to laugh how to enjoy life
because we put the pressures of what we think the world will give them. We begin to fear the future, even before it
happens, just the chance, just the thought drives us to insanely prepare, to
stop enjoying the present, to acknowledge all we have, just to protect
ourselves from something that has not even transpired into reality! If that is
not living in insanity, I don’t know what is!
In my trip I connected to many things, culture, heritage,
history those, were just part of the surface level. Something deeper within me connected to a
part of myself that had forgotten how to be truly grateful, not just in the
sense of saying, but FEELING grateful . I
had time to contemplate away from normal family life distractions, I had time
to remind myself that this is not a race for possessions but life is about the experience,
it is not how many people I can change or influence, but how much I can change
and influence myself.
Life is simple, life is fun, life is not about having, life
is not about worrying, life is about experiencing the reality that is in front
of you at every second, it is about counting what you have and ignoring what
you may not have. To do this we have to
be in check constantly about our purpose, about not only who we are but what
our actions and duties towards humanity should be. Once we numb ourselves to live as robots,
running after possessions and temporary highs, we lose the constant default
bliss that was always an underlining part of this human experience, sadly
getting that bliss back requires more work than just giving it up! J
