Have the audacity to face Life. Look your most difficult
moments in the eye.
Last evening, we
were visited by a family which has got mired in a web of circumstances. The
father, who is a Director in a firm, had signed several personal guarantees for
financial transactions on behalf the firm. The promoters of the firm embezzled
the money and vanished. This gentleman now is having to face the consequences
of the firm’s transactions and is accountable to the firm’s creditors for
monies owed to them. His wife and two daughters brought him to us – so that he
can get some direction on how to deal with creditors in a situation like this.
The gentleman, with his limited wisdom and experience, and also fearful of the
ire of his firm’s creditors, asked me if he too must “vanish” from the scene. I
told him that I wouldn’t advise that he takes such a step. I said that he
cannot disrupt the lives and education of his daughters and make them pay for
his wrong choice of associating with that firm and for the firm’s questionable
dealings. I advised him to seek legal opinion and figure out a way where he
could disassociate physically from the firm. In the meantime, I advised him to
meet all the creditors, individually, and explain to them why he too is a victim
of the circumstances and why he doesn’t have the means to pay any of their
dues.
“But taking that
route means I will have to face the anger of the creditors. They won’t believe
me. They will deal with me very harshly,” feared the gentleman.
“You don’t have a choice
Sir. While they will be belligerent at first, they will also appreciate your
proactive and responsible behavior. You will have to convince them of your
sincerity and genuineness. This is your singular option right now and the only
way you can, over time, get out of this mess,” I explained.
The gentleman and
his family went away promising to act on my advice. Whether they do that or not
is entirely up to them. I hope they will. Because running away from a problem
does not make the problem go away. Facing a problem too does not make the
problem go away. But when you face a problem, there’s no chasing, there’s no
expending of precious energy wastefully. That energy can be employed in solving
the problem instead.
But the normal
tendency we all have is to run __ from challenges, responsibilities and
consequences __ away from Life. Instead stand up and face it. Look at tough
situations and say that you are going nowhere and you intend lasting the
journey. When you do that, you will find no peak difficult to scale, no
challenge impossible to overcome and no trouble that obstructs your path
forward.
How do you get
this quality called courage in you? By knowing that what you are going through
is a test and that the lesson will appear only when you face the test and
survive it. By knowing also that nothing is permanent __ not money, not Life,
not troubles, not opportunities. When you face Life with such clarity and equanimity,
you will be unshakeable. You will have what the world calls courage. And with
courage you can last any journey, however impossible and treacherous it may be.
Swami Vivekananda couldn’t have said it more appropriately: “Face the brutes.
That is a lesson for all Life—face the terrible, face it boldly. Like the
monkeys, the hardships of Life fall back when we cease to flee before them.”
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