Life is so easy when we have means to blame whatever goes wrong on others. A deeper reflection makes one understand there’s not much one can do when it comes to passing the buck. In life, most of the given time we only have ourselves to blame for what we go through as most of them are results of our own doings - the decisions we took and choices we made.
So why are some so good at decision making process and others not?
One of course is knowing what is good for us, the other being the ability to use IQ and visualise along with having goals in life. Because when we have goals there is a purpose to our existence or at least that is the way it makes us feel. There is not much room for depression or negative thinking to be lost in.
This is not to say that we do not have other challenges such as the feeling of being stuck. What do we do when there seems to be no space to manoeuvre to the next stage in life. This is when you wish there was more sunlight in our life. Even in this situation we need not take the blame wagon and find faults with everything else and everybody else but is, instead we can seek the sunlight.
After all this is what the 13th Century Persian poet Rumi said: “What you seek is seeking you.”
If you must find light, light will find you. Light will not only destroy the darkness in our mind but also find space for enhancement of knowledge and awareness. Because knowledge alone will not take you to places but application also matters as well as understanding it in various contexts. But most important is the intention.
Then again to reach that level of intention we need clarity in mind but how is it possible when we are flooded with emotions, some of them blocked others raring to go.
Let the emotions flow but the difficult part is to stay in touch with the reality, which some call as an illusion. This is because lot of our fears and concerns they say are in our imagination. But we can also argue saying that these concerns are the one that prepares us for the emergency situations or line up with Plan Bs and Cs. The ones who do the perfect plannings think of all potential circumstances and are not necessarily thinking negatively but readying oneself so they are not caught off guard. Do the optimists never think about a potential crisis? If one is to focus on risk management it is easily understood what are the potential threats and crisis control we ought to be preparing for.
At the same time overthinking can lead us to kill projects even before we start. It is important nevertheless to hit the right balance. So when we do meet up with zone of discomfort we can accept the situation and try to find our footing instead of finding faults in others and buy time. What it actually give us is a set back to work from all over again. This is just like playing the board game ‘Snakes and Ladders.’
No wonder the game continues to exist till today. Now would it not be lovely if they could teach all the practical lessons too in school. In fact today there are classes offered in finance for youngsters because managing finance is one of the areas that seemed to have the biggest challenges.
Just like how each generation evolves and takes up a trend as we have seen from the 30s to 60s to the millennials, the thought process including ambitions have been changing. It must be because we learn from previous generations but certain areas we don’t seem to have learnt from previous generations are conflicts and environment.
Food consumption changed and the more sophisticated we became, further complicated became the health matters from life style to food intake we seemed to need classes to avoid complications. One group says coffee is good for the heart and another group says it is not healthy. Even staple diets are challenged because the resources today are refined.
So is it overthinking to learn more about health? We are in the age of information overload, they say, and access to information is high but are they all with credibility - that is yet another question. The best method would be patient education. So it is not just about following a prescription but actually understanding what is it for and what are the lifestyle changes we can adapt to reverse the situation. There is a reason why - because we are then taking direct responsibility for our health. How long will we stay motivated?
Staying motivated is a challenge, but we need to stay focused to keep troubles at bay and enjoy quality life. It is easy to preach but not so easy to practice. It is only natural to have flaws but with determination we can pick ourselves up and keep trying.
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
