Modern age brings with it many challenges to life. Metropolitan people making a living by negotiating through the fast-paced life everyday will vouch for it.
Things moving with ‘breakneck pace’ and people joining in the ‘mad race’ inconsiderately have made even the daily routine tasks a challenge. Right from waking up early in the morning till reaching home late in the night and everything that happens in-between has robbed people of their ‘me-time’.
I don’t go beyond myself as case study to understand that. To complete the mandate given by clients, we work five days (at times seven) a week. The weekdays pass by with the speed of light and weekends are consumed in doing domestic chores and running errands for stuffs that are essential to run a household. However, in the meantime, I also try to take some time out for recreational activities. But even that becomes a rarity instead of regularity in my routine tasks.
Monday mornings usually start off not only with new individual and business goals to be achieved in the running week but also with a mental make up of outdoing competitors by maintaining one-upmanship and staying ahead in the rat race. Sure I am that there are many more in the corporate fraternity who are accustomed to such perilous lifestyle. In some cases, it’s even worse.
In all this running around, we are, in a way, limiting ourselves to setting up only short term objectives and are not looking at the bigger picture. We literally have no time to sit back and take stock of things….more importantly, to take stock of our LIVES…..
Of late, I have realized that the real pleasure lies not in outdoing others but in making oneself better equipped to face the challenges of life. The trick lies in not doing complicated things even more complicatedly but going about them in a simple manner.
Look at the way country people go about their lives. They spend better part of their time and resources in doing things that are essential to life. Unlike most of us, they are not bothered or feel guilty-conscience if they do not get time to do frivolous things.
Taking a leaf out of their lives, we should also put all frivolous tasks aside and concentrate more on things that are fundamental to living a peaceful and enriching life.
Just as an aside, whatever tall claims spiritual and religious gurus make in contributing to a peaceful mind, sometimes a simple walk in a garden or reading a classic is all it takes.
