26th April 2020, Sunday
Is this feeling familiar to you? The feeling of Hyper Accountability that leads to an unease that afflicts oneself, like a malady that will not leave you alone, come thick or thin, day or night, good times or bad.
That malady is holding yourself up to being constantly accountable on how well you are performing: as an individual, a partner, a professional, a father, a student, a seeker, a member of the society, as a devotee, as an employer, as a colleague, as a son, a brother, a cousin, a relative, a friend, as...oh goodness, as 'anything' or in any role whatsoever. And in all this, you are the only one doing the performance appraisals on how well or otherwise you are faring ( hopefully!).
Ain't that a heavy burden to bear? To say that the the load is heavy is an understatement.
Take a leisurely walk, or, sit silently - and undisturbed - with oneself, and ponder over this situation. You may be blessed with an insight, similar to the one that came upon me. It was accompanied with a wave of relief. One realizes that one just has to let go. That's all. You have to let go of holding yourself so cruelly and so horribly accountable to your own self for all your blessed seconds, in all these domains.
A particularly nasty weight is about the use of available time : am I not missing out on something more important, more productive, more ... All this while I am engaged in something that is actually quite 'useful'!
In this context, a canard doing the rounds these days is, life is too short! Well, so, how much do you want to pack into it?
The other version of this one is, YOLO - you only live once. Hence, the reasoning goes, go ahead and make the most of every moment, do this, do that; live here, and also, there. This is fine as far as it encourages you to do well in a given activity, but there is more to it.
The underlying ( and damaging) message seems to be this: like Alexander the Great, conquer all domains of inner and outer experience possible in your life, and also, by wanting to experience first-hand what the others are doing, import these experiences of others into your consciousness, things others have done and you have not, lives others have lived and you have not. This YOLO attitude and its resultant freneticism of life, frittering from one flower of experience to another one, before the nectar of one flower is even tasted leaves you with a sense of persistent discontent. ( As an aside, the word fritter comes from a related German word, Fetzen, meaning, a rag or a scrap; amusing, isnt it?)
Rather than living life fully in the moment, which remains the eternal message, YOLO makes life an addiction to an adrenaline rush: more excitement in more domains, without much meaning. YOLO based life is the exact opposite of a life of Wisdom, of Depth, of Contentment and Peace.
Sometimes I am very curious to find out about the winners and runners-up of Iron Man and Iron Women competitions, the Triathalons, the Marathons and so on. How do these people fare after it is all over, the race? What do they do? How do they live? Are they contended, are they happy with how they live after the win, once their energies wane. Sure, they would be up to something that engages them, provides a livelihood, but , do they hanker after even more of achievements that are, clearly, beyond them now? How many of them have found their way into a life of Depth? The more such, the merrier!
What if there were a race, a contest, which does not get over after the finish line is reached? You do not have the pleasure of crossing over the pink or white ribbon, whether first or later?
More pointedly, what if you were in a race in which there IS no finish line? Would you participate in such a race? Or would you rather spend your time in better, more satisfying pursuits? Is your life such a race?
