Go to work on your problems than just lament about them

When Life’s problems seem insurmountable, take each day as it comes, but keep at your problems without thinking of the outcomes.

There will be times when nothing will seem to go your way. Situations at work will be unproductive – stressful, political and complex. Your relationship could be heading nowhere – often leaving you lonely and lost. The money may just not be enough. And any efforts you make to fix things, to find solutions, to make the situation better, may only end up confounding matters. The normal response to such a situation is anger, frustration and depression. When these emotions arise, observe them. Hold them and give them your attention. Ask yourself if feeling angry, frustrated or depressed is of any use in a situation when you don’t like what you are getting in Life. When you realize the futility of anger, frustration and depression, you will immediately want to let them go.

Running away from Life or feeling sad continuously for what has happened or feeling guilty for what you may have contributed to what has happened – none of these serve any purpose. In fact, Life never cares how you feel. Life just goes on happening. And if you bring debilitating thoughts to the table, if you keep clinging on to the negativity that arises as a result within you, you will feel bogged down and held hostage.

What is a problem situation at the end of the day? Any situation that you dislike is a problem situation. Plain and simple. If what you dislike must go away – one of two things must happen. Either you must work on driving it away. Or you must walk away from it. You can’t forever be lamenting that you dislike a situation. That’s escapism. Of course, in any situation, you can act, you can take remedial steps. So, act. Don’t worry about the results. Simply act. An action may lead you to a result. And you may like or dislike that result. Then act again if you must change that result. That’s how it works. Inaction on account of depression, anger, guilt, grief or worry is sacrilege. For anything about a current reality to change, you have to change something within you first. Which is, you must be ready and willing to go to work on your problem regardless of circumstance, outcome, reward or recognition. Just keep chipping away. When the going gets tough again, when you face rejection, failure and hit another no-go place, you may well face another bout of depression and frustration. Hold your depression again and examine its futility. Then let it all go. And you go back to work, to chipping away at your problem. One day, one day surely, what you are chipping away at will give way. And that day, when you connect the dots backward, you will be grateful for the choice you made – to have gone to work on your problem than sit and bemoan it!   

“When there is gratitude, there can be no grief”

When you grieve for something – or someone – that you have lost, or don’t have, you are perhaps missing the bigger picture. You are missing focusing on what you have! 

We had coffee with a friend over the weekend. She recalled her visit to the Gandhi Ashram, on the banks of the Sabarmati, in Ahmedabad some years back and told us about how a quote on gratitude at the ashram changed her thinking completely. The quote, she recalled, read, “When there is gratitude, there can be no grief.”

I can’t agree with that quote more. The nature of Life is that what is today will not be there tomorrow. With birth, death is certain. So Life itself is a limited period offer. While it is natural to grieve over loss, of someone or some thing, grieving endlessly pushes you into a depressive spiral. Grief has to be understood as a natural emotion, a response that arises with any loss. But you must value that grieving over what isn’t is pointless. What is over is over. What is lost is lost. It is gone. Stay with the grief to mourn the loss. But move on. And if you can’t move on, learn to be grateful for whatever is (left), whatever you have with you. This sense of gratitude alone will help you overcome your grief.

To be sure, there is no harm in grieving. But there’s no use either. With every moment that you spend grieving, you are missing a moment to live. The truth is that Life is happening for you, around you, 24x7, irrespective of whether you are grieving or whether you are enjoying it. It is up to you to decide what you want to do with your Life. With gratitude, your problems don’t recede, they don’t go away, what is lost cannot be always gained back (certainly not instantaneously), but you can at least avoid missing – losing – the magic and beauty that each new moment contains.

Being grateful is common-sense. After all why would you miss what is, for whatever isn’t? 

To un-depress yourself is a personal choice

When you are depressed give your depression your fullest attention. Only then will you realize how futile it is to be depressed. 

Depression arises when things don’t go the way you want them to go. And depression does not necessarily mean that you will sulk. Chances are you may, like the way I once was, rave and rant. When I met a psychiatrist, under my wife’s advice, after several bouts of uncontrollable anger, years ago, he told me this: “You have depression. You can take drugs. Or you can heal yourself by practicing yoga or meditation. When you see Life clearly, and understand it, you will not be depressed.” I chose not to take medication for my depressive state and instead practiced mouna (a daily silence period) which helped me awaken to the opportunity and abundance in my Life.

From my own experience this is what I have learnt – it is normal to be depressed. So, don’t fear it. Don’t hide it. Don’t run away from it. Accept it and give it attention. When you do this, it will slink away the same way that it came!

When you understand the cause for your depression, you will realize that you cannot get rid of the cause merely by brooding. You need to act. By sulking and smarting under the burden of your negative thinking, you are going to stay snowed under – forever! To break free and climb out of your dark, black, hole, you must know that while depression cannot be avoided, staying depressed can surely be avoided. I ask myself the following questions when I am depressed: 1. What is causing my depression? 2. Can I eradicate the cause of my depression by continuing to feel depressed? 3. What must I do then to remove the source of my depression? I then go down to work on removing that source. I don’t succeed in immediately getting rid of the source in some cases, but at least, I don’t stay depressed.

Try applying those three questions in your Life contexts too. You are sure to see remarkable results! To break-free from depression is a personal choice. You can un-depress yourself anytime you are depressed – provided you are ready and willing.

Staying depressed is a complete waste of precious time

Dealing with depression requires a deeper understanding of what’s making you angry and unhappy. The moment you understand what is disturbing you, you can either let it go or fix it.  

A recent issue of India Today ran a cover story on depression. The statistics are alarming. One in every four women, and one in every 10 men, in India is depressed. That’s about 120 million people – enough to fill a state the size of Maharashtra! From death to divorce to health to stagnating careers, these people are battling unmet expectations and struggling to cope with the psychological impact of their challenged state of mind.

I know what it means and feels like to be depressed. About 10 years ago, I was depressed too – except that I didn’t even know I was depressed! I had gone to meet a renowned psychiatrist Dr.Vijay Nagaswami; I was reporting irrational bouts of anger. Dr.Nagaswami heard me out for an hour and told me that I was depressed. He said I had two ways in front of me to deal with my depression – medication or meditation. And he staunchly advocated the latter. Thanks to Dr.Nagaswami, for me, meditation worked.

I learnt to practice silence periods daily – a method called shubha mouna yoga. It required me to be silent for an hour each morning. That investment of an hour up front in the day helped me gain control over the remaining 23 hours! As my practice of mouna deepened, over time, I began to go to the root of my anger and my depression. Through that process, I understood myself and Life better.

Let me share my learnings here. You become depressed because something you expect has not happened. You wanted someone to love you, but she is not interested. You become depressed. You wanted a raise but it’s not happening. Again, you are depressed. The only person who understood you in the whole world is dead. You are depressed. You are accused of something you did not do. Depressed! You have a health situation that has crippled your functioning. You are depressed, to the point of losing interest in Life! So, in effect, whenever an expectation goes unmet, you are depressed.

Now, depression can manifest itself in two ways. As anger. As it happened to me. But that anger is not always there. A certain listlessness, a self-pity governs your daily Life. When someone or something interferes with it, you explode with anger. The other way depression happens is with sadness. Sadness is nothing but dormant, passive anger. You conclude you are helpless and lonely and that no one understands you. You brood all the time and keep pitying yourself.  Now, in either context – anger or sadness – the mind is not allowing you the opportunity to understand the futility of your being depressed. Which is why meditation – which helps you still your mind – is very useful in understanding what’s going on and choosing an intelligent response, and not a depressive one, to the situation.

Let us say you are angry, hurt, upset – and are therefore depressed – with the way someone has treated you. You can sulk for as long as you want, but that person is never going to realize that she or he has done something wrong, until you walk up and speak your mind. When you do this, that person can either accept your point of view or reject it. Now, you can never control another person’s attitudes or actions. You can only do what you can. When you realize that you have done the best you can, you learn to let go and move on. Now, you are not depressed anymore – because you are not suppressing your anger against that person nor are you sad that you have been treated shabbily.

Surely, this approach works in all contexts. The simplest way to snap out of a depressive spiral is to know that, in Life, it is always what it is. People and events are just the way they are. Your wanting them to be different is of no use. Unless people and things change, of their own accord, it is what it is. Period. So, don’t punish yourself trying to bemoan your fate. Get up and move on. Every moment that you are angry, sad and depressed, is a moment you have not lived your Life fully! Think about it. Staying depressed is a complete waste of precious time. And you don’t have much time either!!! As the famous Persian philosopher and poet, Omar Khayyam (1048 ~ 1131) says in his classic, Rubaiyat, “The wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop; the leaves of Life keep falling one by one.”

Awareness can help you beat frustration

Frustration fulfills a need to express what you feel momentarily. But prolonged frustration makes you angry and depressive.

The only way to beat frustration is to be aware of it when you feel so. Each of us is entitled to a bad hair day, a lousy mood and explosive expressions. Nothing wrong with it. It is part of living, growing up, learning and evolving. In an instant gratification environment, a piece of technology that plays truant can cause frustration. An inconsiderate fellow-passenger can land you in a bad mood. A spouse or child can lead you on to a depressive spiral. And you may choose to express your frustration: gritting your teeth, thumping the desk, yelling, kicking a piece of furniture or breaking something. Up to this stage it is fine, but when you reflect back, you will often find that your frustration does not linger on because of what caused your explosive behavior but because you chose to express yourself in such dramatic ways. And for several hours, maybe even days, weeks and months, after that bout of frustration, you continue to sulk, grieve and brood over your 'plight'. In this time the cause of your frustration may no longer exist or may have chosen to move on! But you are still languishing in the abyss of your negative mood or the anger that followed it.

For just a momentary indiscretion, do you want to embrace prolonged agony? Think. How long would you hold on to a matchstick after you strike/light it? If you hold on too long, you risk burning yourself. So it is with frustrations. Be aware. The moment you feel frustration building within you, shift your attention. You see yourself in a long-winding queue, look for the most beautiful sight (may be even a person!) in your vicinity. You receive a disturbing e-mail, get on to facebook for a moment and see what's going on! You and your spouse have had a lousy argument, go out, stand in the open and look up at the sky! Beat the first frustrating thought that arises within, by shifting focus. If you can play a game on your phone or computer, where you have to shoot to win, you can and will win this frustration-beating game!

Frustration almost always breeds anger – which is a killer! So, be aware and beware! The Buddha says this so beautifully, "You will never be punished for your anger; you will always be punished by your anger"!

Being depressed for too long is an unevolved response to Life

If you are feeling depressed about Life please know that you are experiencing something normal. Just don’t allow the depression to pin you down and hold you hostage.

Recent media reports suggest that Bollywood star Deepika Padukone has talked about battling anxiety and depression last year. She reportedly felt a ‘strange emptiness’ in her Life and her close friend’s suicide only made matters worse for her. Deepika has said she shot for much of the climax for Happy New Year (2014, Farah Khan) feeling “this way”. Now, this confession by the actor may make some people wonder why she, of all people, has to be depressed. After all, doesn’t she have it all – a glamorous Life, success, money, a fairy-tale relationship with a co-star and what not? But that’s the way depression is – it strikes different people for different reasons. Even so the fundamental cause why people tend to feel depressed is the same – they are depressed when they don’t get what they want. Since people’s wants vary, the reasons for depression vary too. But since everyone out there has unfulfilled wants, depression is inevitable at some time in Life or the other in everyone’s Life.

The way to deal with depression is simple though. First accept that depression is a normal and natural response to not getting what you want in Life. Sometimes your wants may be well defined – money, a car, a vacation, a relationship, a child…whatever. Sometimes your wants may be tangible; you may have all the material wealth but what you may be looking for is something intangible – better understanding from family, inner peace, joy in the work you are doing and such. In either case, know that most often you will not get what you want in Life. So, feeling depressed over a want not being met, or granted, is a juvenile, unevolved response to Life. Now if you learn that the nature of Life is such that all your needs will be fulfilled, but never your wants, then you can rise above your depressed state and move on. But if you allow yourself to be depressed for too long, then suffering isn’t far away. Because depression is like a wave. If you stand there too long, you will be drowned by the high tide. Then depression will hold you hostage. This when you will not find motivation to do anything – to face people, to go to work, to believe in yourself or even to just be alone – by yourself. You will become irritable, you will grieve and you will suffer.

The first wave of depression is natural. But the second one is self-inflicted. You can’t avoid the first one. But you can ensure that you keep the second one away. Be wary of depression. For every second in your Life that you are depressed, you are not living. You are merely existing! A simple truth worth remembering when depression strikes you is that if you are not getting what you want, then perhaps, it is the way it is meant you be. Instead, simply, accept what is and go on with your Life.

A frustration is a clear sign that you are resisting Life

When you feel frustrated about something or someone, stop wanting to control the situation or person, and simply let it – the frustration, the situation or the person – go!

I spent much of yesterday battling with my laptop. My laptop was gifted to me by someone last year. For some vague reason, in today’s age and time, it has only an Intel Pentium processor. For that reason, it is an awfully slow machine. I also have a Norton anti-virus software installed on my laptop which further inhibits its speed. Yesterday, I discovered that the Norton anti-virus program had crashed and when I tried to trouble-shoot and fix it, it made my machine even more slow. Now, I am not a tech geek. I just know how to use my machine and that’s it. So, while I battled with my laptop and agonized over every click of the mouse, my frustration mounted. I realized that I was letting my frustrations get the better of me, when I took it out on someone who rang the door-bell mistakenly. Soon, I was also hopping mad at the maid and beginning to sound irritable with a business associate who had called up proposing something impractical. That’s when I decided to let it all go! I said to myself that if this is the way my machine is going to be, so be it. If this is the way the Norton anti-virus program is going to behave, so be it. If this is the way people – my maid, the person who rang the door-bell and the unreasonable business associate – are going to be, let them be. I shut down my machine and went for a long walk with my wife.

I was healed at the end of that walk. I then returned to my desk and observed 20 minutes of silence. I forgave myself for letting my frustrations control me. I simply surrendered to the situation. I decided to live with the machine that I have – than lament about its idiosyncrasies or its slow speed or pine for a better, faster laptop.

I am sharing my experience – and learning – here just so that you too realize that it is perfectly normal for frustrations to happen in everyday Life. But to allow them to govern and control your moods is to push yourself into a depressive spiral. You feel frustrated only when you dislike whatever is happening to you. A frustration is a clear sign that you are resisting Life. You can’t avoid frustrations from arising though – a flat tyre, a computer that hangs, a phone that loses its display, an unreasonable fellow passenger on a plane, a delayed paycheck – anything, or anyone, can cause you to feel frustrated. But if you refuse to get dragged by that frustration into depression and instead are aware that your frustration is an early warning sign of your resisting Life, then you can overcome the situation and heal yourself. On the other hand, if you let the frustration take over and control you for more than a day, chances are you will let anger consume you soon, and before you know it, you will be depressed. Funnily enough, if you watch your thoughts and behavior patterns when you are frustrated, you will realize that you often end up feeling frustrated about everything around you – and not just with the one thing or person that ticked you off in the first place.

So, at the first sign of a frustration arise, pause, take a deep breath and let it go. Let go of the situation or the person who is frustrating you. Awaken to the realization that your being frustrated with a situation is not going to make it any better. On the contrary, it is surely going to make you feel worse!

The way to live free from suffering

We suffer only when we try to control outcomes and do not accept Life for the way it is.

Last night I received a mail from a reader of my Book – “Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without money” (Westland, August 2014). He wrote saying that the story of my Life resonated with his own. He thanked me for the strength he gained after reading my Book. He confessed that he had been very upset with his own Life – being out of job, struggling to make ends meet and yet having to pay for his son’s education. He had for a long time held himself responsible and guilty for his “errors in judgment” that had led to his wife and son having to undergo so much stress along with him. He said at one point he wanted to delete his LinkedIn account because he didn’t want to connect with anyone.

Now, what has a LinkedIn account got to do with feeling defeated and lost in Life? Well, sometimes, it has everything to do with feeling depressed. I have been there and felt so too. Not just LinkedIn, you, when you are suffering from loss and failure – despite your best efforts – just don’t want to believe in Life or anyone or any opportunity anymore. You just want to go into a cave and not come out. You prefer the darkness in your Life – and love wallowing in self-pity. Indeed. Sometimes, suffering can, strangely, make you feel comfortable with all your pain and agony.

It is in such times that you must ask yourself the following questions: Is feeling depressed going to help you deal with your Life situation any better? Will ripping down a LinkedIn profile or quitting facebook or not wanting to meet anyone help you solve your problems? Will sulking ever make you happy? If you answer ‘yes’ to any of these questions, then your choosing to be that way is well worth it. But no one can honestly answer ‘yes’ to those questions. The truth is suffering is convenient. It does not require any great effort. Whenever there’s pain, suffering follows. You don’t have to do anything to suffer. Just hate and resist the pain – which is quiet natural again – and you will suffer. But if you want to avoid suffering, you must work on accepting whatever is causing you pain. And that’s a lot of work. That work becomes easier to do when you realize that there’s no point resisting whatever’s causing you pain, or hating the Life you have. Because resisting pain does not make it go away. Accepting it doesn’t make it go away either. But when you accept pain, or any situation in Life, you don’t suffer. When there’s no suffering, the mind is clear and focused. Solutions stand a better chance of emerging from a mind that’s free from clutter and is focused than from a confused, depressed state of mind.

Remember that you can only control your efforts. You cannot control the outcomes of your efforts. So, make all your efforts but accept the outcomes as they are. That’s the way to live free from suffering in Life!

Abandon all logic, see the magic around you!

Logic buries the magic in the Universe. It prevents us from seeing how beautiful each moment is.

To see the magic in you, in your Life, around you, you must stop being an adult, abandon all logic and just see everything with a child-like wonder.

While our logical temperament has been honed by years of schooling and social conditioning and while it has helped us grow our careers, it has really stunted our evolution as individuals. Consider your own Life. You, like me, have problems. And, logically, you want those problems resolved. So if the problem is financial, you may want your income to go up and your expenses to come down. Logical thinking. When your efforts at boosting your income come to a naught, you get depressed. Depression leads to scarcity and negative thinking. If your problem is a relationship, you will want to sit down and resolve it. But the other party is just not interested. You grieve. You suffer. If your problem is your health, logically, medication should work. But the doctors are wringing their hands in despair, because they say their efforts are not working. You think death. You believe it’s all over. In all this logical thinking, in all three contexts, you are tormented, you are anxious and you are not present in your every waking moment. You are living in your problems.

And this is where you are missing the magic of the present. Of the myriad opportunities that Life is still offering you. Remember that despite all the problems you are faced with and are seemingly drowning in, Life is going on and WILL go on. There’s magic everywhere. In the rising sun. In the chirping birds. In the smile of a child. In the few friends who are still standing by you. In the fact that you have a home, food to eat and someone to call family. When you are allowing yourself to be gripped in the stranglehold of your problems, you are missing all this magic. Your being wedded to your problems may appear to you to be very logical – after all, you want to solve your problems. But there are problems that you cannot solve. Only time and Life can heal and solve them. This is why being stuck with logic kills magic. American author Nora Roberts says, “Magic exists. Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence of the stars? Anyone who has loved has been touched by magic. It is such a simple and such an extraordinary part of the lives we live.”

So, love this Life. Know that it won’t last forever. Abandon all logic. Then, and only then, will you see the magic – and beauty – in Life! 

A lesson in finding yourself from ‘Finding Fanny’!

There will be times in Life when you will find yourself lost. Don’t panic or feel frustrated at such times. Know that only when you are lost, can you find your way – and find yourself!

I recently watched this very cute Bollywood English film called Finding Fanny (2014, Homi Adajania, Naseeruddin Shah, Dimple Kapadia, Pankaj Kapur, Deepika Padukone and Arjun Kapoor). The story revolves around how Ferdie, an old postmaster, goes in search of his lady love, Fanny, who he had lost contact with 46 years ago. Ferdie is supported in his search by Angie, a widow who lost her husband on the day of their wedding six years ago. Tagging along with Angie is her mother-in-law, Rosie, who claims her husband is dead but the truth is he ran away with someone else and Rosie makes up his “lost in the sea” story so that she doesn’t lose face in the village. Then there’s the man who has loaned his car for the search journey, an artist, who has a fixation for “big women” – and Rosie is his latest muse. Driving the car is young Savio, whose inability to profess his love for Angie to her in the first place, led to her wedding and subsequent widowhood! As the story unfolds you discover that while finding Fanny is indeed the context, each of these characters is really searching for something they are missing in their own lives. Each of them has lost something – most importantly, precious years of their Life – and are seeking love and belonging in their own ways. That’s where, subconsciously Finding Fanny, connects to our own real, everyday, lives.

Each of us, at different times in Life, in different, often unique, contexts, will find ourselves lost. Either a job might have become listless or a relationship may have lost its very meaning. Or, sometimes, just raising a family – bringing up kids, attending to parents and in-laws, providing for the spouse – can take its toll. There may also be times when some decisions you took about your Life have misfired and you are swamped with guilt and self-pity. Or someone you deeply love someone who was you anchor, your everything, is suddenly gone – is felled by Life and is dead. Each of these situations – and many more – can happen to anybody. It can happen to you. It can happen to me.

The normal reaction in such times is to feel depressed. You will be deluged with a lot of questions in your mind. Questions for which you will have no immediate answers. What is the meaning of Life? Why am I having to face this problem situation? Why me, now? Is there really a God out there? If there is God, then why do good people like me have go through pain – and suffer? Why should I live any longer? Why is the world full of cynical, scheming, uncaring people? Where can I find love? Where can I find home? Just the vast range of questions, and the lack of answers, can weigh you down even more. And you will end up being more depressed than you already are.

But know and remember this: allowing depression to take over is not the way to respond to Life. In fact, when depression strikes and you sense a ‘lack of meaning’ in your Life, get up, even if you don’t feel like it, and push yourself to keep walking, even if you lack the energy or intent to even take the next step. As much as you may think that Life has been cruel to you by placing you in a certain situation – joblessness, a critical health challenge, a divorce, widowhood, death of a child, a business failure or whatever – the truth really is whatever it is now that you have is really your new Life. Being depressed means continuing to mourn the Life you once had. But think about it. What was once is gone. It is not going to come back. No matter how hard you pine for it. Feeling lost and  feeling depressed are convenient ways of saying you want to delay, you want to postpone living. Fine. But Life will go on. Just as the characters in Finding Fanny discover, your years will simply pass you by. There’s no point waking up later in Life and wailing that you lost such a lot of time just feeling depressed. Instead, when dealt with Life’s twists and turns, learning to accept what is, the way it is, taking it all in your stride and moving on – you will discover, is intelligent living!

You don’t feel lost in Life because Life has been unkind to you. You feel lost because you don’t understand, or often you don’t want to understand, that the Life you have is the only Life you have. When you realize that you must live this Life that you have – no matter what circumstances exist – to the fullest, relishing every moment of the experience, you will have found yourself!

“Tomorrow the birds will sing. Get up and face Life!”

In any tough situation, never ever give up!  

Last evening, I was watching Charlie Chaplin’s iconic City Lights (1931). In one scene, an eccentric millionaire wants to end his Life. And the Tramps tells him: “Tomorrow the birds will sing. Get up and face Life!”.

That is the way it is. Life is something which has to be faced – no matter what. Our entire expectation that we must not face difficult times or tough situations is wrong. The most important education we must all carry with us is the awareness that Life is just a series of experiences. Some of them may be easy to handle. And some will be tough. Just because the going gets tough, it doesn’t mean we must sulk, brood, feel depressed and eventually give up. What we must remember is that no matter how difficult a situation is, what doesn’t kill us, only makes us stronger!

Many of us are victims of flawed thinking. When faced with a challenge or confronted with tragedy, we imagine that everything about our world is wrong. We feel alone in the wake of Life’s challenges. So we bemoan our situations and lament that we are cursed and doomed. This thinking pushes us into a depressive spiral. Now we have two problems – one is the challenging situation itself and the second is the depression we have invited into our Life. But, with a little awareness and some support from friends or family, if we pause to look around we will be surprised – everybody around us is challenged. Someone’s dealing with a health setback, someone’s coping with the death of a loved one, someone’s struggling in business, another’s trying to salvage a sinking career and someone is trying in vain to rebuild a dead relationship. Everyone’s dealing with pain – only the degrees and the contexts vary, that’s all.

For all the challenges that people face, this then must be a very, very depressive world that we live in! But it is not. And that’s because not everyone who has been felled by Life, lies there ruing their fate. People get up, dust themselves and move on. You must do so too. The best way to pull yourself out of a rut is to accept that your Life is what it is, the way it is. And what you have to do in any given situation – no matter how daunting it may be – is to simply face it. No amount of your wishing that things were different from the way they are, no amount of your crying, no amount of your kicking around in anger and frustration, can change your current reality. Irrespective of how you feel about Life, every long, dark night will soon become a bright day, and as the Tramp said so wisely, tomorrow the birds will sing – again. So, you might as well get along and enjoy the beauty and magic of the Life that you still have than fret over what has happened to you. Whatever is – is what you were ordained to experience. What is not – was never meant to be. If you get these two perspectives deeply embedded in your understanding of Life, you too will live happily ever after!

Feel, face and understand your depression – it will flow away!

When you are depressed, feel the depression. Understand it. Go to its cause and awaken from the experience. That’s the only way to deal with depression.

Robin Williams
Picture Courtesy: Internet

With the much loved Robin Williams’ passing yesterday, the question uppermost on everyone’s mind is how can such an affable man and a great actor like him, who gave so much to the world to cheer about, actually have been so depressed that he ended his Life? I am not sure what caused Williams’ depression, but I sure know what it means to be depressed and what it takes to deal with it.

Depression can happen to anyone. And almost in all cases, it happens when you don’t get what you want – from something material to recognition to fame to money to understanding. No one can avoid depression. When it comes, it simply comes. It is a very debilitating emotion. Because, it brings in its wake self-doubt and self-pity. Just because you did not get what you want in a particular context, you start questioning your abilities, you wonder if you can cope with Life going forward and you imagine many situations that really are not there.

Osho, the Master, has explained that depression means suppressed anger. Anger is when you explode, express yourself in a vocal, violent sort of way. It is an extrovert emotion. Depression means this anger is pressed – it is pinned down and it keeps simmering inside. And anything that’s simmering will boil over pretty soon. In most cases depression drives people to end their lives because they do not see its magic and beauty anymore. They are angry with someone or something, or both, and they just want to run away from it all, they just want to hide from the world. And that’s how people drive themselves to committing suicide.

There are no right or wrong ways to deal with depression. There’s just one way – and which is to face it when you feel it! Yes, psychiatrists do prescribe medication. But many of them will also champion the need for those who feel depressed to go to what’s causing the depression. Understanding the cause of your depression is very helpful. When you go to the root cause of depression, you will realize that what’s causing it is beyond your control. Let’s say you wanted a raise at work and had toiled for it only to find that your manager overlooked your contribution and rewarded someone else. You feel depressed. When you go to the cause of what’s depressing you, you realize that you are angry with your manager and you are possibly jealous of your colleague who was rewarded at your expense. But think deeper and understand that what has happened has happened. Your depression cannot undo what has happened. Your suffering on account of your depression cannot get you that raise. The only way to deal with the situation is to get up, dust yourself and move on. This is true in all contexts in Life – a failed business, a broken relationship, death of a loved one or a health challenge. In each situation, face the fact that you are depressed because you haven’t got what you wanted. Go to the cause of your depression. Make an effort to understand it – and you will realize how futile your staying depressed actually is. When this realization dawns, it will set you free and you will awaken from the experience.

Perhaps, Williams did not face his depression. He sadly allowed it to consume him. We must all remember that nothing lasts forever. Certainly not depression. So, don’t fight it, don’t resist it, don’t avoid it. Feel it, face it and understand it. And it will flow away – just the same way it came, unannounced.

Being happy makes living through tough times easier

How do you celebrate Life when nothing’s working out, the chips are down and you simply don’t see a way out!? Simple – focus on what you have, instead of agonizing over what you don’t have, and learn to live with your reality!

Depression over things not working out the way you had planned them to be can be very crippling. You may find it even cruel that someone can suggest that you “celebrate Life” at such a time. Let me tell you that I too have been there – I have been through depression, have protested against “motherhood concepts” like “celebrating Life” – and yet, now, totally believe that the only way to live is to keep on celebrating the Life you have!

First, understand that to be depressed is not a crime. It is a natural, human response to situations that have arrived in your Life despite your efforts or desire to keep them away. So, when you feel depressive, accept it as yet another emotion that you have to deal with. Examine what is causing the depression. For instance, if you are looking for a job and are meeting with no success, your depression can be stemming from any of these questions that you may be struggling with – “Am I worthless? Is my career over? Is everyone scheming or conspiring against me? What if this jobless state prolongs, how will I provide for the family and pay my bills?” There could be more questions. But the point here is that all these questions are based on your perceptions, your apprehensions, your fears. Very rarely are such thoughts backed by evidence. And even if you have data, or see a pattern, if you examine your reality – and your depression – closely, you will realize there is nothing much you can do about it.

I remember, some years back, in 2007, we submitted 500 proposals for projects from our consulting business. Now, if you have reached the proposal stage with 500 prospective clients in 12 months, it means you would have met several hundred more prospects, some of whom may not have wanted to engage with you. However, despite such a brilliant sales and marketing effort, we got no business that year. Not even a day’s engagement in 365 days!!! It was very depressing. Very humiliating. The data on hand told me that we were being rejected. But I refused to look at it that way. Because none of the business leaders we had met got back saying we were not the right fit or that they couldn’t afford us. They all had internal reasons not to engage with us. And in fact, none of them engaged with another similar partner either. Now, when I re-examined my depression, I realized that I did not have any control over the outcome of my efforts. Just because I did not get the result I had envisaged, it didn’t necessarily mean something was wrong with me or my effort. Yes, one could definitely make a better effort going forward, but being depressed, I discovered, doesn’t solve anything.

Over five years later, since 2012, pretty much the same situation has prevailed on the work front for me – no assignments and therefore, no money. But this time, I did not feel depressed or insecure or scared. Actually, I decided to focus on what I had, than what I didn’t have. I realized, for one, that I had a whole lot of time on my hand. I decided to put that time to good use than simply mourn a reality that I had no power to immediately change. Definitely not with sulking and being bitter or by feeling insecure. That’s really how my first book “Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without money” came about. It is being published by Westland and is due for release in three weeks. So, while it may seem incredible that during a phase of acute, often numbing, cashlessness, and severe, crippling emotional pain, a book that celebrates Life got written – the truth is that’s how it really happened!

Celebrating Life doesn’t mean jumping up and down and screaming from rooftops. It simply means cherishing and valuing what you have and valuing what you cherish. It is knowing that no matter what the evidence may be pointing to, every dark, depressive phase in Life will pass. It may take longer than you wished it took, but it will pass, for sure! Until then, intelligent living calls for the understanding that there’s no point being depressed. Being happy, instead, makes living through tough times that much more easier!

Don’t interfere with Life

Ending your Life is not a solution to the problems you face! Suicide is a very selfish act – while it may end your physical tribulations, it may just begin a whole new set for those people who love you, depend on you and believe in you!

This morning’s papers had a shocker. Murli Mohan, 54, whom the entire film, TV and advertising industry in Chennai knows as “Horlicks Uncle”, had committed suicide yesterday. He had become famous after he did a few television commercials, directed by ace filmmaker Rajiv Menon, for Horlicks several years ago. Mohan was known to us – our son had acted with him in television commercials for Milka Wondercake and TVS Motors, over 15 years ago. We remember Mohan as a cheerful person and as a thoroughbred professional. Today’s papers said he had been depressed because he had been out of work for over six months now. I was deeply saddened by the news, more so, for the reasons that were being attributed to Mohan taking that drastic step of ending his Life.

This Life we have is a gift. None of us have asked to be born. Yet we have been born. And that is the gift, this lifetime, that we must learn to cherish and celebrate. None of us has the right to take away what is not ours. And this Life is not our creation – it is just a gift. So, let Life take you wherever it takes you. You simply flow with it. And let it end, when it must, and when it will, and you see the end – if it can be called one, that is – whenever it comes.

Interestingly, had he lived, today would have been R.D.Burman’s (RD, Pancham) 75^th birthday. He was a genius. Someone who ruled the roost in Bollywood for 20+ years. Yet in the last decade of his work, he found work difficult to come by. Studios and producers – the same people who had waited in queues to sign him up earlier in his career – shut their doors on him. RD became depressed. And died, of a heart attack, beaten and side-lined. Yet, despite his depression, despite the rejection and humiliation, he did not give up. Every day, he made a fresh attempt to resurrect his career. It was one such effort that led to his meeting Vidhu Vinod Chopra and the making of 1942 – A Love Story, a film that won him a Filmfare award for Best Music Director, posthumously. Today, the same world, which once rejected him, holds RD’s memory on a divine pedestal and worships the man, his genius and his music!

Such is Life. Just a series of ups and downs, highs and lows. You – and I – have to face each of them stoically and with equanimity.

A friend famously remarked once, in the context of my bankruptcy and my inability to pay back my loans, “Someone who cannot keep up his commitments, especially with regard to money borrowed from people, has no business to live.” Indeed, one’s self-esteem gets punctured in such grave contexts like joblessness or cashlessness or any other. You may tend to conclude that it is futile to live. Yet, I firmly believe that low self-esteem does not give us the right to resort to a selfish act – suicide. Suicide may end your Life, but will make that of everyone around you miserable. Is that what you really want – for others to suffer at your expense? Motivation is an inside job. No one can help motivate you but yourself. In my case, I am blessed that my wife is by my side – walking with me, every step of the way, however treacherous the path may be. So, every day, we both wake up with a resolution to work harder to put our Life and business back on track. Every night we retire with the hope that the next day will be better and will bring with it a new beginning and a new opportunity. This is how we sustain our inner peace, our focus and our commitment to Life, to our family and to our creditors – one day at a time!

An unputdownable lesson that Life has taught me is this: Don’t interfere with Life with your whys, why mes, why nows? Just live with what you have, do what you can in the given situation to the best of your ability and savor each experience. Life will sort itself – and you – on its own, over a period of time!

Coping with Life when you don’t get what you want

Life often will not work the way you want it to. In such times, more than any other, it is important to learn to stay detached from the outcomes of your efforts.

A dear friend is going through a grim career crisis. He’s an expert, the tallest professional, in his field. He’s well known and widely respected in the industry. Yet he’s unable to get himself a job. He briefly tried his hand at consulting but things didn’t work out. The few times he did get jobs, in the last five years, he has been unable to retain them. Either he fell out with his bosses or the company he worked for decided to close down his division or there was a downsizing that led to his axing. In the last few months, my friend has been out of job again and is battling depression and negativity – which is stemming from his efforts on the job front drawing a naught every single time.

Anger, frustration, self-doubt, self-pity and depression – all these are by-products of an expectation that if you are hard-working, sincere and ethical, nothing should go wrong with your plans or that every effort of yours should yield the result or outcome that you truly deserve and expect. There’s nothing wrong with this logical expectation. In reality though, Life doesn’t conform to any logic. Fortune or tragedy, success or failure, opportunity or rejection – none of these choose those that they strike! They simply happen. Because Life happens through the medium of time. And each of us, whether we like it or not, whether we accept it or not, whether we believe it or not, is a product of the time we are going through. So, you can be the most talented, most respected person in your chosen field and you can be out of work. You can appear to be the fittest person around but you could be having a grave health challenge. You can be the most understanding, caring and compassionate spouse, and yet your partner could be in another relationship. Simply, there’s no point getting angry with the Life you have. Because your anger or depression can’t change your reality.

This doesn’t mean that you should resign to your fate. Acceptance is different from resignation. In resignation, there’s a certain frustration and depression that is simmering within. In acceptance, there’s peace and equanimity. In acceptance, there’s an opportunity for further action. In resignation, your frustration will hold you hostage. It will keep pushing you down a negative spiral. When you accept your current reality, you will realize that the best thing to do when things are not working out as planned, is to simply make your daily efforts and choose not to get depressed when the results don’t come as expected. This is not a profound perspective. This is a real world, practical point of view. It comes from experience and from knowing that when you don’t get what you want, it doesn’t mean something’s wrong with you. It simply means it not time yet for you to get what you want!

Travel light – travel far and in comfort

The concept of good health immediately points to our physical condition. But many of us are carrying too much weight in our minds – excess emotional baggage, born out of past experiences and anxieties about the unborn future. Unless we offload them, we can’t make much progress in Life!

The human mind is always engaged in thoughts. It’s like a freeway. Thousands of thoughts keep coming on that freeway. And most of these thoughts pertain to anger, hatred, fear, insecurity, jealousy, grief, guilt, sorrow and very few deal with inner peace and joy. Resultantly, each day, we are carrying the excess emotional baggage of several debilitating negative thoughts. Just like a flight agent will charge you for excess baggage, you have to pay a price for your emotional baggage too in Life. And that price is through a challenged physical and/or mental condition – diabetes, hypertension, stress, depression, insomnia and what not!

The way to offload your excess baggage is to do two things: 1. When you wake up every morning focus your attention on the day ahead for a few minutes and remind yourself that you will not bring any of the past or the future into your day. 2. Before you go to bed focus your attention on a peaceful night’s sleep and remind yourself that you will not bring any of your past or the future into your night. This could include reminding yourself about anything that’s going on in your Life – from a relationship issue to a fear of someone or something that’s gnawing at you to anger over a business deal or an insult someone has heaped on you to anxiety over losing a job…whatever. Whether you pray daily or not (depending on your religious preferences), do this twice daily, religiously. Watch yourself slowly, over just a few days, anchoring in inner peace.

This practice is adapted from an ancient Zen story.

Two monks, one of them in his 60s and the other in his 20s, were once travelling together along a mountain road. A heavy rain was falling. Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross a small stream that was overflowing. The current was ferocious. And obviously the pretty young thing was scared she would be washed away should she step into the water.  

“Come on, girl,” said the younger monk. Lifting her on his back, he carried her across the stream and set her down on the other bank.

 

The older monk was aghast at what had happened. Monks were not to touch women under any circumstances. He angrily crossed the stream and grunted several times to see if the younger chap would notice his discomfort. He did not speak again until late that night when they reached the monastery. He no longer could control himself. “We monks don't go near females,” he said. “It is forbidden by our monastery’s law. Why did you do that?”

“Sir,” said the young monk, “I left the girl there, by the riverside. Are you still carrying her in you?”

This lifetime is too short to be weighed down by emotional baggage. So, as much as you would focus on your physical health, focus also on losing, or offloading, the weight you carry around in your mind. When you travel light, you travel far, and travel comfortably!

When you don’t know what to do, simply surrender to Life!

Life is a great leveller.

Whether you like it or not, whether you ask for it or not, at some time or the other, in some unique, unfathomable way, Life will bring you to a state when you will awaken to the truth that your Life is not in your control. At such times, the best response is to simply surrender to Life. Let whatever must happen, happen. Because, whatever is to happen will anyway happen!

But the normal human response is anger, frustration, depression, fear, insecurity, anxiety, worry and grief. There’s no point suppressing these feelings. They will naturally arise in you. Allow those feelings to come. Feel each of them and ask yourself if they can help you deal with your Life situation any better. If they can, persist with them. Let’s say, someone’s dying of cancer. How can any of these feelings help cure the cancer? Or prevent that person from dying? Or let’s say you have been let down in a relationship. How can these feelings help you cope any better? When you sit calmly and analyze your Life situation – any situation which cannot be solved at a human level; and there are many of them – you will understand that going with Life’s flow, and the grand Cosmic Design, the Master Plan, is the only intelligent option you have. So, logically, there’s no point persisting with these debilitating emotions. Surrendering to Life really means dropping these feelings and being free!

There’s a forgettable Tamizh movie called Azhagiya Tamizh Magan (2007, Bharathan, Vijay) that has a great song (with some awful picturization though!) composed by A.R.Rahman in it. The song celebrates the Creator – to me, Life, the Higher Energy – and goes, “Ella Pughazyum Oruvan Oruvannuke, Nee Nadhi Poley Odikonduirru…”. It means, “All glory is to the Only One, you keep flowing like a river…” The essence of this song has resonated with me every time that I have heard it. I have come to believe that not knowing what to do in Life is an opportunity to understand, appreciate and live Life better. It is a humbling experience. Our education and intellect make us believe that we are in control, that we are achieving this and that, we are creating assets and raising families, that we have everything planned out and mapped out in our lives. But when a Life situation strikes, and pushes you into a corner, you realize that you were never in control then – or now. It is only through this awakening that you understand the value of surrendering to Life and going with its flow.

So, if you are in a place in Life when you don’t know what to do about someone or some situation, go with wherever your Life is taking you. Don’t resist. Don’t fear. Don’t agonize. Perhaps, that’s where you eventually need to be and that’s where you will be peaceful and happy!  

How to be untouched by the “D” Word

Life is a mind game. How you play it depends on what you are thinking and how you are feeling!

Jayaditya Gupta, the executive editor of ESPNcricinfo, recently wrote a piece for mint, the business paper from the Hindustan Times Group, titled “Losing the Mental Game”, which explored the causes of depression and its aftermath among famous and successful sportspeople. Gupta spoke to former New Zealand cricketer Martin Crowe, among the best players of his time, who has been battling cancer since his retirement from the sport in 1996. Crowe, 51, told Gupta that his cancer, which struck him twice, was directly linked both times to extremely negative emotions. Gupta’s research on Crowe’s health revealed that: “… his (Crowe’s) first battle with lymphatic cancer was due to the “toxic suppression of negative events” throughout his Life. That battle, Crowe wrote in a recent article, had been successfully fought without chemotherapy. But then a controversy in New Zealand cricket—the demotion of captain Ross Taylor—affected him so deeply, he said, that the cancer reappeared. “Within three weeks they found a 6-inch tumour in a completely new place to the original cancer, for which I (Crowe) had to have chemo. It came out of nowhere because of the anger.”” Gupta’s reasons in his piece that the loss of stardom, post retirement, and their inability to cope with the vicissitudes of Life, often drives sportspeople to despair, depression and suicides. He analyses the stories of other cricketers Jonathan Trott, Marcus Trescothick, Andrew Flintoff and Richard Hadlee who have faced depression, and of German footballer and goalkeeper Robert Enke who committed suicide, and of Bobby Charlton, the Manchester United player, who survived the “Munich” disaster (a plane crash that killed 8 Manchester United teammates and caused severe physical and mental injuries to others on the team) and a depressive phase afterward. Gupta concludes that clarity of thought and brutal self-honesty are critical to overcome depression and avoid suicidal tendencies.

While celebrities find it harder to deal with the “D” word, the truth is that even you_and I_are, and in fact anyone is, prone to depression. We may not have been under the arclights, and so we may not crave for them, but what we always seek is that Life be fair, kind and compassionate towards us. Life offers no such guarantees though. It has made us no promise to be this way or that. So, death will come calling in your family, relationships will turn sour, you will out of job and out of favor, you will be struck by a health problem – anything can happen to you. Each time something that you don’t want happens, you will be drawn into a depressive spiral. When you are in grief, depression is a “comfortable” state. People around you will pamper you, will do things for you and will continuously be at your beck and call. A sense of importance surrounds you. Over time, the people go away – because they have their lives to lead, you see. But you stay in that depressive state – wallowing in self-pity. I am sure there are several other conditions for depression to set in and take control of your Life – doctors and professionals involved in its study and management will be better qualified to talk about this state than me. But, to put it simply, you get depressed when you don’t get what you expect or when what you don’t want comes to you.

The only way to deal with depression is to accept your reality – whatever it is. When you accept Life for what it is, you see it more clearly. That way, there’s no confusion. When you don’t accept reality, you are in a state of continuous conflict within you – why is this happening to me, why now, what if I lose everything I have gained, what if I die, what’s the point in living this Life that I don’t want…these and a zillion others thoughts will arise in you. The mind will go on reminding you to grieve, to pine and to hate what it is. But the moment you accept that this is it – it is what it is – none of those questions or feelings is relevant anymore. Accepting what is, really means being present in the now and knowing that you have everything that you need and deserve. There’s nothing missing or amiss. Everything – be it loss, failure, death, disease, pain, whatever – is just the way it should be. In this state of acceptance, in the now, in the present, the mind is powerless. It cannot take you into the future with worry nor can it hold you hostage in the past with guilt and grief. Which is why Life is really a mind game. If you can get your mind to be powerless, and learn to live with what is, then no loss, no failure, no depression can ever touch you. To be sure, they will all happen in your Life, depending on the events that occur through your lifetime. But you will be untouched!