What is over is over! Move on…

Each new beginning results from something ending.

Separations. Break-ups. Showdowns. Desperate but unsuccessful attempts to control people, situations or events. Whatever. They are all over when you stop responding to them. They are over when you decide they are over.

Understand that whoever caused you pain and agony has accomplished whatever he or she set out to do. The event is over and out. By spew venom over the episode, by continuing to direct anger against the person who caused you the hurt, you are only hurting yourself. Sometimes, it may not be just a hurt from a word or an act that someone said or did. It may be from a separation that the pain, the grief ensues. And you want to avenge the person’s audacity to have betrayed your trust, that too with such impunity. You seek justice. And your entire being is consumed by this mad urge to get ‘even’. Because you feel used and discarded __ as if you were some tissue paper. The cocktail of hate, anger and grief can be depressing, debilitating, lethal. Yet there is a way out. You, and only you, can draw a line; and decide not to continue with stretching this episode and story any more. It is best to remember that dwelling on what is past__including the prime, good times, of a relationship, and pining for those times all over again __ is futile.

It is also important to remember that seasons change, people change, relationships change. Each new beginning results from something ending. So what is over is over. Get up. Dust yourself. Move on. And go on…living…

You suffer only when you partner with your grief

How can anyone forgive when in grief and when still mourning the betrayal?

It is possibly true for all of us that we have all been, at some time or the other, let down by people whom we trusted and loved deeply. It is always numbing to discover such a let-down. You will feel beaten and betrayed. The after-taste of the episode will continue to haunt you for a long, long time. At all such times, remember this: People do what they do because they think they are right in doing it that way. So, there’s no point in either talking sense to them in such a time that they are gripped by their own stupor or in grieving over their behavior. The best approach is to take the one that Jesus took on the Cross – “Forgive them O! Lord, because they know not, what they do!”

You will perhaps argue that this is easier said than done. How can anyone move on when the heart aches, when the mind is lamenting why such a thing has happened in the first place?

I have learned that it is fine to be a fool sometimes in Life. A fool is one who doesn’t know anything. He or she is not worldy-wise. So, he or she, will continue to trust despite the evidence pointing to the contrary. The fact that you stand betrayed points to your having been a fool. So, simple. Continue being a fool. If you find forgiveness difficult, just continue being trusting or being vulnerable. A few more times people will continue to hurt you. But they will soon give up when they realize that you are refusing to get hurt. People love, in a sadistic sense, to see that their actions, in this case negatively, impact their target audience. When you subtly, through your, even if feigned, foolishness, deny them that pleasure, they will cease to persist with their designs.

The other case for ‘moving on’ and not ‘retaliating’ is that the world is already divided. By several zillion factors. If it is a close friend or relation, perhaps from the family, that has let you down, your sulking or wanting to avenge, is only going to divide your already fractured world further. It is only going to make the distances between you both grown wider, and often, render them unbridgeable. It takes two hands to clap. Suppose you don’t offer yours, there will be no thunder. And hence no issue. Or at least a complicated situation will not get further confounded with your participation.

Here’s an interesting story that came my way.

"In the forest there is a banana plant with its smooth wide leaves next to the thorny berry tree. The wind causes both to dance and to sway. The thorns of the berry tree rip the leaves of the banana plant. 

Who is to be blamed? The wind for causing them to sway?

Or the banana for growing close to the berry tree?

Or the berry tree for having thorns? 

The sage wonders, and realizes that if he did not exist, these notions of who to blame would not exist. Only humans blame and begrudge and resent, because we can imagine an alternate reality. 

The rest of Nature go about their own business."

So, let go. Go about your own business as if nothing’s happened. In a betrayal, as in any other situation involving pain, you suffer only because you choose to partner with your grief. Choose instead to be a fool and go on trusting or choose to believe as if you do not exist. Know that there is no alternate reality. It is what it is. This the only way you can be happy, and untouched, in the wake of the pain that follows let-downs!

How do you pick yourself up when you have been felled by Life?

The only way forward from a crisis is to get up, gather yourself and move on. 

Many a time, Life deals with you in the most brutal ways. And before you know it you have been socked and have been left devastated with the turn of events. How do you pick yourself up when you have been felled by Life? Well, there are no easy ways in such a situation. You have to take Life as it comes, one day at a time, one step at a time.

When a tragedy or a crisis strikes you – death of a loved one, loss of business or money, a serious health challenge, a heart-wrenching break-up – you feel numbed by the event. All you are asking repeatedly is “why” and “why me”? But there are no answers to any questions in Life. So, you can spend time mourning and grieving – and feeling miserable – or you can move on. Now, there is no problem really with grief. It is after all a normal emotion that follows a loss. In fact, when you encounter grief, don’t try to suppress it. Allow it to rise within you. Feel the grief, hold it, let it hang around and watch it as it first rises and then recedes. When you suppress it, when you resist it, it will persist. But if you let it be, it will fade away. In the aftermath of a crisis, when the grief begins to subside, be aware and pick yourself up again. It will appear to be difficult initially. But when you choose to move on, it will happen more seamlessly than you can imagine.

For instance, just to cheer you up, when someone asks you out for a coffee or suggests a book or watching a movie, don’t say no. In the beginning it may appear that you are “indulging in being happy” while you need to be “clinging on to grief”. But allow yourself that indulgence. Don’t feel guilty. The truth is that your feeling sad is not going to undo your Life. In fact, nothing in Life can be undone. So, to move on, after you have been dealt a Life-changing blow, you must first be ready and willing, and then you must actually, physically, move. Moving on is not a feel-good philosophy, it involves a lot of practical, doable, must-do, actions.

But it all begins with believing that there is a lot of Life after a crisis. What you think is the end of the road, almost always, is the beginning of a new journey.  When you move on, when the scenery changes, as Life goes on, you will find that there is much more to Life than just clinging on to the dead past. 

If someone has a problem with you, whose problem is it?

If someone sees you as their problem, it is, seriously, their problem – not yours!

A friend called me to share how his brother has been making Life miserable for him in their family business. Although a formal separation has been gone through between them, my friend’s brother is insinuating and charging his sibling with transgressions and non-compliance. “I have no problem with him. And I have no problem with the share of the business that I have been left with to manage. I feel very disturbed that my brother has a problem with me,” lamented my friend.

Now, this could be anybody’s story. People often have problems with other people. And if you happen to be, like my friend, with whom someone has a problem, you too may want to learn to simply ignore it. What can you do if someone has a problem with you? At best you can hear their point of view and if there’s something to learn, something to unlearn and something to change in you, you can go to work on it. But what if someone continues to have a problem with you despite your best efforts and intentions to appease them? More important, what if you are someone’s problem – not what you do or what you don’t do? Well, the most sensible response must be to shrug off that viewpoint saying ‘too bad’ and move on. It is when you lack that discerning ability, and instead grieve over why you are being perceived wrongly, that you suffer.

When you grieve and suffer over such inconsequential opinions, you sometimes end up becoming a problem for yourself. And that’s such a sad thing to happen. So, develop a more evolved and mature view of Life. You can only control what you think and do. You cannot control what others think and do. So, if someone’s insists on having a problem with you, let them have the pleasure of keeping it that way! Why work overtime to displease or dissatisfy them?

Don’t be a bad student – learn from what people teach you

Each person who comes into your Life is a teacher.

She or he is teaching you through not just what they know, but through their behavior. Some people teach you why you must never trust them. They have taught you this by repeatedly refusing to live up to the trust you placed in them. Eventually, you may have reached a point when you would have said that you can’t trust this person anymore. And yet you would have given this person one more chance. When your trust was betrayed one more time, you move from the can’t-trust to the must-never-trust zone. Please know, there is nothing wrong with you if you come to this conclusion. And there is nothing inhuman about this stance.

To trust humankind and Life is indeed the best way to live. But to have your self-esteem trampled upon__that’s precisely what happens when your trust is betrayed__is foolishness. Remember if that person is a teacher, just as each person in your Life is, then you are being a bad student if you are not learning from your teacher! You don’t have to hate the person though. Just don’t trust. When you don’t trust, there can be no relating, leave alone a relationship. You can still know each other and not be in a relationship. Now, even if this is a parent, sibling, child, or spouse, it is imminently possible to stay this way. Because at the end of the day, the person is simply not worthy of your trust. And the person has taught you, through repeated patterns of behavior, that she or he is not trustworthy.

So, please simplify your Life. If you have been let down repeatedly, know that you have a right to choose not to trust someone anymore. Exercise that right. Live your Life in peace and not in grief. Yet live leaving that person alone. Don’t fight. Don’t provoke. Don’t grieve. Just live and let live! 

Realizations of a “scumbag”

Don’t take what people have to say about you seriously. Better still, don’t take yourself seriously either!  

The other day someone I know called me a scumbag (per an online dictionary that I referred to, it is a noun and means ‘a contemptible or objectionable person’; ‘someone with poor judgment and no class’) in a closed-group message thread. I smiled at the charge. And decided not to respond.

Just three years ago, I had physically prevented this person from drinking and driving. He had then objected to me intruding on his privacy, personal preference (to drink and drive) and judgment (to know what is right for him). I had tried explaining to him that I only had his best interest in mind. But, in the same closed-group message thread, he had cried foul. Back then I was pained that I could not get him to see where I was coming from. I apologized for my behavior. But the matter never got resolved and, in fact, as he continues to see it, the “damage to our relationship is irrevocable”.

But this time, when in another context, this person referred again to the three-year-old episode and called me a scumbag I was unperturbed. I was neither pained. Nor was I keen to avenge his sentiment. And here’s why I chose to be so: after all, this person had a right to his view – if he found what I had done to him contemptible and objectionable, if he had found my judgment poor and for all those reasons, if he perhaps found me lacking in class and not worthy of his association, he definitely was entitled to his opinion. In essence, the best and the only thing I could do was to respect it.

Truly, the lesser importance you give to what others have to say about you, the more peaceful you will be. Developing this attitude need not mean that you must be thick-skinned, brazen and egotistic. It only means that you have learnt to respect an opinion which is divergent from yours, that you have stopped sweating the small stuff and that you realize the value in letting go and moving on!

The reason why we want to avenge people’s uncharitable (per our view, not theirs!) sentiments with a how-dare-you is that we place undue importance on ourselves. A how-dare-you is nothing but your ego erupting and manifesting itself as anger and intolerance – often even as physical violence – towards whoever you are disagreeing with.

Actually, you need not place so much importance on yourself. I have learnt this the hard way – from my own experience. There will be times in Life when people will not be willing to understand you or appreciate what you have to say. In such times, the best response is to not respond, not clarify, certainly not avenge and to simply let go and move on. You can never control what people say or do. You cannot make them understand you if all they want is to interpret what you say. Respect their right to have an opinion even if you disagree with the opinion. Forgive them if you can. If you can’t do either, just remember this: whether you are called a scumbag or a cheat, whether you are called a liar or an opportunist, at the end of the day, you know who you really are. As long as you are true to yourself, and are happy being who you are, don’t sweat over what others have to say! 

Don’t shut yourself to love

It is fine to fail in love in Life. The bigger tragedy is to not get any love or, worse, shut yourself to love.   

I read the story of a 62-year-old man from Bihar yesterday. In his early twenties he had an affair with a South-Indian, Tam Bram, girl. Her parents had her hurriedly married off to a Tam Bram engineer when they heard of the affair. Today, 39 years hence, the man still pines for her. He lives in Nainital presently but visits Hyderabad each year just to see her. He recently wrote this on facebook: “Today she has 2 kids; one son married and the other son is in the United States. She also has a grandchild, a girl. She lives in Hyderabad. Every year for the last 39 years, I have gone to see her. I don't meet her or make her even aware that I am there. I don't want her to feel embarrassed. I guess I live my Life through her. I never knew why she didn't have the courage to fight for “us” – something that I was willing to do. I guess I will never know. I am 62, unmarried, retired; I live alone in a three bedroom cottage, and today, when I reflect back, I wonder if I made the right choice?”

Clearly, this man is clinging on to his past. He has simply shut himself to love. It is fine to fail in love. Sometimes things don’t work out. Either before marriage or, as it often happens, even after marriage. The truth is marriage plays no role in helping two people relate to each other. When the relating stops, the relationship ends – whether or not you marry someone. In this man’s case, his beau succumbed to the pressure she faced from her parents – a story that has been played over and over and over again in many a Bollywood film right up until the late 1990s. In fact, films of those days merely portrayed what society was experiencing. By clinging on to what he believes is true love, the man has shut himself out for 39 long years. He need not have married again. But he surely could have been open to allowing himself to be loved and cared for.

Interestingly, this man and his story are but a metaphor. The learning from his story applies to all of us – whatever be our contexts. His is a tale of a lost relationship. But so many of us are trapped in the past too. We are clinging on to something which is dead. By holding on to what isn’t there, we are missing out on what is. And what is, is the perfect present – the now. Where love is in abundance. Where peace is in plenty. But to experience all of it, we must be present here – in the now.

Ask yourself: “What am I clinging on to?” Let go of whatever that hasn’t worked out or worked for you. Simply let go! Open yourself up and offer yourself to the opportunity in the moment. Then you will feel the difference. Your Life will be filled with love, peace and joy! 

When you are hurting, take a 30,000ft view of your Life

Sometimes people mess around with you for no reason. Sometimes they do it intentionally. Whatever be their motives, the fact that you have been messed around with cannot be reversed. In either case, just shrug off the situation and move on. Even if you can’t forget what has happened, move on – and, if possible, forgive the people involved!

The other day, our client, an organization that we were conducting a workshop for, had provided us a car with a driver. It was a badly maintained car and the driver seemed particularly disinterested in his job. During the course of our ride, when we stopped at an eatery, we invited the driver to lunch with us. He politely declined saying he had “finished” his lunch. After our lunch, when we got into the car, we found it smelling of food. Apparently, he had had his lunch in the car; worse, to my dismay, he had used a document bag I had carried along as a prop for him to open his lunch box and set out the dishes. A lot of food had spilled on my bag and had stained it all over. When I confronted him, the driver mumbled a meek, remorseless, apology and volunteered half-heartedly to clean my bag for me.

Initially I was furious. The driver’s bad etiquette pissed me off no doubt. I was even more put off by his lack of empathy. He had messed up my bag – the least he could do was to genuinely feel sorry. But no, the driver was in no mood for this. For some time I was grumpy with him and the situation. He had no right or reason to do this to any guest/passenger, I thought. My wife, seeing my sense of exasperation, stepped in and urged me to move on. I had barely begun to reason with the driver, but I saw my wife’s point and soon dismissed the idea as a complete waste of time.

The next morning as I attempted to clean up my bag, I could not escape the learnings and perspectives the entire episode offered.

The driver and the food-spill are but metaphors for people and situations we find ourselves in. On many an occasion we are pissed on and passed over. It hurts more when there’s no provocation from our side. When you are focused on your work and someone comes to disrupt it or rides roughshod over you, you feel vulnerable. Not because you don’t know that you can retaliate but you feel so numb – why would anybody want to expect anyone to be insensitive and unkind to them? – that you don’t know what to do or how to respond. The best response, so that you protect your inner peace, is to forgive, even if you can’t forget, and simply move on. This applies as much in small, mundane, everyday skirmishes with rank strangers as it does with pre-meditated attempts to cause you anguish by people close to you. When you don’t move on, and instead demand justice or seek understanding from insensitive folks, you are only allowing yourself to be hurt more; to be trampled upon more. Because insensitive people are not bothered about how you are feeling. They may not have set out to hurt you but if you are hurt, it hardly bothers them. So, why waste your time with them and on them?

Also, people, events, situations are just the way they are meant to be in your Life. When I reflected, I concluded that the food-spill in the car was just meant to be. In the larger scheme of my Life, I reckoned, the food-spill and the irritation it caused should hardly matter. Because I am dealing with a far messier situation – I am in the throes of a bankruptcy, working harder each day to put our business and our Firm back on track. Besides, the driver’s insensitivity pales in significance in front of my mother’s – she called me a cheat because of my inability to return money I had borrowed from her. Similarly, when you reflect on your Life, you will find that the misery you feel over people’s actions and attitudes are hardly relevant in the context of your Life’s larger design. When something is hurting you and you are obsessed with that hurt, zoom out and look at the bigger picture. Take a 30,000ft view of your Life. You will realize soon that you can reason with someone when reason works. But you cannot reason with someone who doesn’t see reason. So, be smart. Protect your inner peace. In such situations, with such people, simply forgive and move on!

Mukesh Singh is a metaphor for all remorseless people who surround us

Ignore people who have hurt you and show no remorse. There’s no point in lamenting their behavior. Forgive them if you can, and even if you can’t forgive or forget, simply move on…  

Mukesh Singh
Picture Courtesy: BBC World/Leslee Udwin/Internet

I finally watched Leslee Udwin’s controversial – and now banned – documentary India’s Daughter that tells the horrific story of the gang rape (and subsequent death) of 23-year-old Jyoti Singh on December 16, 2012. What struck me most was the remorselessness of Mukesh Singh, one of the convicts on death row. He is one of the six who is convicted of rape and murder – he has since appealed against his conviction in the Supreme Court. He tells Udwin in the film: “When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back. She should just be silent and allow the rape.” As he says this, Mukesh’s face is expressionless, dead-pan and his tone is cold, showing no signs of either guilt or repentance. Of course, there’s a huge debate going on out there whether it is right to allow such an unrepentant and heinous view as Mukesh’s – which seeks to justify violence against women – publicly or not. Each side of this debate has its own argument. For now, the Indian government has banned the documentary. But my personal opinion is that it ought not have been banned – people must know how people who commit such crimes actually think. The film only portrays, brutally honestly, the mind of a rapist and murderer.

But if you pause to reflect and consider another perspective, Mukesh Singh is also a metaphor. He personifies anyone who tries to justify their unjust actions. And there are several people like that around us – in our families, among our friends, at our workplaces and in public, in society. These are people who continue to do what they do, often at the cost of other people’s rights, emotions and liberties, and, in almost as cold-blooded a fashion as Mukesh does in Udwin’s film, they justify that their actions are right. They believe vehemently that they did what they thought appeared to be right to them. So, there’s no question of them feeling guilty or repentant at all. And so they go on – often, mercilessly and remorselessly, trampling on people, emotionally, and at times, even physically. Now, here’s a view you may want to consider: what’s right and what’s wrong is always subjective. What appears right to you may not be so to me. And what’s wrong to me may appear right to you. Look at Mukesh – the way he looks at women is very different from the way all of us look at them. But Mukesh couldn’t care less. To him his view is the right one. So, he may as well go to the gallows, than repent – let alone reform. So, people who cause pain and suffering to others do so only because they firmly believe what they are doing is right. Period. No amount of our efforts to make them see reason, or reform them, is bound to bear fruit unless something within them changes; until their conscience awakens.

The tragic truth we must all live with is that our society and our lives abound with people like Mukesh. The best way to deal with them, if they are in your personal circle of influence, is to simply let them be. Don’t try to educate them. No education will be possible until there are both ready and willing to unlearn and learn. Don’t try to reform them. They won’t awaken unless they realize the futility of the path they have chosen. Don’t try to avenge them. This will only make you bitter – for they are likely to fight you to the end. It is best to leave such people to a higher energy, to a cosmic retribution, if you will. As for you, if you at all have one of these people in your Life, well, simply forgive them if you can. And if you can’t forgive or forget them, leave them alone and move on. This is the only way to protect your inner peace.

Forgive, even if you can’t forget, let go and move on!

When you end up having to fight someone or something, or plain injustice, don’t let emotion rule you. Being angry and emotional will only ruin your inner peace.

This morning’s Chennai Times reports Tamil lyricist Thamarai’s on-going protest against her husband Thiyagu. The couple have been estranged for a few months and Thamarai’s been on a sit-in protest with her son Samaran outside Thiyagu’s office for the last few days. She’s been demanding that her husband apologize to her and, possibly, reunite with her. The media has been full of stories of her protest. Today’s Chennai Times leads with this heading, a quote from Thamarai, for a story by Janani Karthik: “I need the 20 years I spent with my husband back.” 

Samaran and Thamarai sit in protest
Picture Courtesy: Internet

I felt sorry for Thamarai. Not just because she is having to grapple with a personal challenge. But also because someone as intelligent and as deeply soulful (her work in Tamil cinema in recent years is unputdownable) as she is, has lost her equanimity and is responding in such a futile manner to the situation. I am not even speaking in favor of or against either Thamarai or Thiyagu. I don’t know them. If we were to go by Thamarai’s version, Thiyagu left home in November last year and has been refusing to resume ties with her ever since. Clearly, it shows that the couple have stopped relating to each other. When there’s no relating between two people, what is the point in berating the relationship – that too in public? I feel sorry for Thamarai that she does not realize that her relationship with Thiyagu is dead. It’s over. Even if they come back together, it will be more for a social need than for experiencing the joy of being together. Also, by demanding something which cannot happen – wanting back the 20 years she spent with him – Thamarai is only causing herself more grief and agony. Which, although she claims otherwise, will affect her craft – something that is the bliss factor in her Life, something that she undoubtedly is a master of. In trying to shame Thiyagu and in trying to win the sympathy of her professional circle and of her fans, she’s simply on a mission to destroy her inner peace. In the context of a marital dispute, there are laws and the country’s family courts are more than equipped to sort out such an issue. In the context of her inner peace, she is only ruining it further by resisting what has already happened to her and failing to accept that her marriage with Thiaygu is, obviously, over! My advice, unsolicited obviously, to Thamarai is this: forgive, even if you can’t forget, simply let go and move on!

There’s a huge learning we can draw from l’affaire Thamarai. Very often in Life we may end up feeling let down, trampled upon, pissed on and passed over. We will want to avenge the person or the act or both. Every cell in our body will want revenge. After all, who can accept or tolerate injustice? This is when we must realize that the best way to win a battle is to not fight – emotionally – at all. Emotions only make any matter worse. By all means fight, but don’t respond emotionally. Chose a legal or sometimes a practical, strategic approach. Think through what you want. And act with a plan. Don’t react. In a dispute such as Thamarai’s and Thiyagu’s, public shaming will get neither party anywhere. Definitely not to feeling peaceful. Remember that people always do what they do because they feel they are right. In trying to tell someone that they are wrong, when they believe they are right, you may well end up burning a lot of your precious positive energy. You build up negativity and stress in you and, eventually, turn depressive. Instead if you approach the situation with peace, calm and – if possible, forgiveness, you will be able to operate with more clarity. When you are able to see the situation – and your Life – more clearly, you may really not want anything other than your inner peace. Most important, you may not want to fight at all. That’s when you will realize that there’s great value in forgiving someone, even if you can’t necessarily forget what they did to you!  

Don’t suffer! Either speak up and/or forgive and move on…

We sometimes don’t realize we have this phenomenal ability to forgive and move on. So we end up suffering people and situations – often endlessly!  

Two days ago, I met a young lady who was very disturbed emotionally. Her’s is an arranged marriage. Her husband of five years, she says, had let her down over an issue raised by his mother – her mother-in-law. He had apparently abused her (his wife) and held her accountable for “insulting” his mother. This incident is over two years old and even as this young lady has been struggling with this emotional hurt, her husband has been diagnosed with cancer. Interestingly, she’s been by his side, dutifully nursing him and helping him cope with all the pain and depression. She told me while she was doing whatever she could to help her husband, she was still unable to get over her hurt over the past and move on. “I simply am unable to forgive him for what he did to me. Agreed, my mother-in-law made a mountain out a molehill, but I can’t understand why my husband vented his fury at me. I felt trampled upon and felt like dirt. Now, when I sit by his side all night helping him deal with his pain and nightmares, I am also suffering within. I feel so much anger for him. Instead of letting it all out, I am having to control it and look after him. This makes me feel worse,” the lady told me, breaking down a few times as she shared her predicament.

I told her that she was making matters worse for her by carrying so much hurt and anger within her. She either has to express her anger – which is to tell her husband how she feels about being treated the way she was or she has to forgive him and move on. It will be ideal if she can do both. Her suffering, I told her, was coming from repressing her feelings. Since her husband is in a fragile state himself, the only way forward for her – and him – at the moment, is for her to be by his side. And since this is not the time to rake up a past hurt and discuss it, she must forgive him and pour her heart into caring for him. (Well, she has the option to leave him at this time. But she, rightly so, does not want to exercise this option.)

Her story may seem unique. But it is not. Many of us suffer from not being able to speak our minds when we must. And many of us also suffer from our inability to forgive and move on. It may not always be possible for us to forget whatever has happened in Life, but we can surely forgive others for what they have done to us. Here’s the nub: when someone does something to you that you do not appreciate, simply tell them so on their face. If you can’t speak up – send that person a text, an email or a WhatsApp message or a facebook messenger note. Then forgive that person and move on. If you have failed to speak your mind and communicate your feelings because you see no point in even discussing the issue with this person, at least forgive this person for his or her transgression and move on. The more you cling on to a hurt, an insult, an abuse, a betrayal, the more you will suffer. Interestingly, unless you “allow” someone to hurt you emotionally, you will never suffer. If you treat people with the view that everyone is entitled to their opinions and behaviors, you will never be emotionally disturbed no matter what people do to you. However, since not all of us can claim to be so evolved and mature, the best way is to speak up or move on or, in a best case scenario, do both. Never suffer anyone or anything grieving that you “wish” you were treated better. It is this wishing, your wishing, that is causing your suffering. And never the person or the event that has upset you.

What is over is over: don’t cling on to the cocktail of hate, anger and grief!

Separations. Break-ups. Showdowns. Desperate but unsuccessful attempts to control people, situations or events. Whatever. They are all over when you stop responding to them. They are over when you decide they are over.

Yesterday, I had a conversation with someone from my family after many, many years. We have had serious issues between us – at least this person once believed that I had cheated the family and that I was not even worth having a conversation with. She suggested to me yesterday that we must make a fresh beginning. I replied to her that while I have long forgiven myself and have forgiven the others involved in this sordid relationship mess in my family, I just cannot forget what happened. And I did not see a need to start afresh. I said everyone’s happy and peaceful in their own worlds – even though these worlds are distant while we, ironically, live in the same city. I left saying let’s leave things as they are and simply maintain a ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ relationship.

It is perfectly normal to have a relationship problem if you can’t trust or relate to the person concerned. However, you need not carry the anger and grudge in you. It is pointless. Understand that whoever is the one that caused you pain and agony has accomplished whatever he or she set out to. The event is over and out. By expressing anger over the episode, by continuing to direct anger against the person who caused you the hurt, you are only injuring yourself. Sometimes, it may not be just a hurt from a word or an act that someone said or did. It may be from a separation that the pain, the grief ensues. And you want to avenge the person’s audacity to have betrayed your trust, that too with such impunity. You seek justice. And your entire being is consumed by this desire to get ‘even’. Because you feel used and discarded __ as if you were toilet paper.

The cocktail of hate, anger and grief can be depressing, debilitating, lethal. You, and only you, can draw a line. And decide not to continue with stretching this episode and story any more. It is best to remember that dwelling on what is past__including the prime, good times, of a relationship, and pining for those times all over again __ is futile. Harivanshrai Bachchan (1907-2003), the celebrated poet, and father of superstar Amitabh Bachchan, says this so beautifully in his poem, ‘Jo Beet Gayi, So Baat Gayi’. Here’s a translated excerpt:

Jivan mein ek sitara tha,/  there was a precious star in my Life 

Maana woh behad pyaara tha,/ agreed, it was most loved

Woh doob gaya toh doob gaya,/ if that star has set today, then it has set

Amber ke aangan ko dekho,/ look at the courtyard of the skies

Kitne iske taare toote,/ how many of its stars have set or broken away

Kitne iske pyaare choote,/ how many of its beloved have been lost

Jo choot gaye phir kahan mile;/ those stars that have set or been lost, where have they ever been found

Par bolo toote taaron par/ but tell me on the broken, setting stars,

Kab amber shokh manaata hai / whenever did the skies grieve

Jo beet gayi so baat gayi/ what is past is past ...

It is important to also remember that this law of change is the law of the Universe. Seasons change. People change. Places change. Relationships change. You want to start afresh in a relationship, do it. You don’t want to, as I decided in this case, don’t do it. Whatever you do, don’t carry grudges and don’t grieve. An irrefutable fact about Life is that each new beginning results only from something ending. So, always, what is over is over. And you must just go on, move on!

When s#$t happens, forgive yourself, and move on…

Don’t be too harsh on yourself. It completely ruins your inner peace. If something goes wrong, get up, dust yourself, and move on!

The other day, I left the keys to my home in an auto-rickshaw. I was holding the keys in my hand as we were nearing my home when, I reckon, it must have fallen off unknown to me. It was only when I reached the door of my apartment that I realized I had lost the keys. Luckily, the driver is known to us, so I could summon him back to hand over the keys to me. But a wave of anger and guilt rose within me. I was angry with myself. I consider myself to be very organized and responsible. Already in so many areas of my Life, things are totally, bizarrely, insanely out of control. Each day is a tightrope walk. And now, in these challenging and difficult times, I have become disorganized and irresponsible? Just this thought made me very, very, very angry with myself. For several hours after the incident I remained disturbed. I had got my keys back, but I could not accept that “I” had “become” so careless.

Then, during my mouna (when I remain silent for some time each day) session, I thought through the whole event and experience. My response of anger and guilt was but natural. I could not have and I need be suppressing that natural reaction. But to continue to dwell on that sense of rage and grief, I realized, was futile. I reasoned that no one is or can ever be perfect. The act of missing the keys was but a metaphor. It reminded me that you do drop a few catches in the game of Life. This doesn’t mean that you don’t know how to play the game. It’s just that, momentarily, your concentration may have wavered or maybe the situation you are placed in got the better of you. I decided to forgive myself. And, instantaneously, I felt my inner peace was restored.

When we cause things to go wrong, or when things don’t go our way, in either case, let’s remember that the initial wave of anger and depression that sets in is normal. Don’t fight it, don’t resist it. Depression is like any other emotion. It will rise and subside on its own. In such times, as I did over my keys episode, and as I do often, quiet reflection helps. This period of solitude is important because, otherwise, the human mind will drag you into reasoning that everything is wrong with your Life. It will quickly connect several dots backward and justify to you that you are increasingly becoming inefficient and worthless. This is when the second wave of depression will drown you – in self-pity and remorse. This is what you must be very wary of. If unchecked, this wave can push you into a long depressive spiral, recovering from which can take a long, long time.

Remember: being human you will make a few mistakes. Treat each episode in isolation. When s#$t happens, forgive yourself and move on. Don’t see patterns where none exist. Watch your anger, with yourself or with the situation or with the one who caused it, melt away with reflection. It is only through these reflections that you realize the value of the inner peace that you have and are capable of having.  

Reach out, forgive, seek closure, move on

Don’t let resentment and anger, over a betrayal, breed within you. Reach out, seek closure and move on.

Whenever you are wronged, especially by someone whom you have trusted, the hurt doesn’t go away easily. It continues to haunt you and causes you intense agony. People will encourage you to forgive. You too will want to move on. Yet there will be a struggle within you. And that struggle will make you feel miserable and suffer. You can go on suffering or you can seek closure and move on.

There are two ways to seek closure – either by forgiving (even if you can’t forget) and moving on or by reaching out, resolving and moving on. But move on you must. Staying there, suffering in your own hurt, makes no sense.

A friend of ours shared how he dealt with being betrayed by his own wife who had – and continues to have – an obsession for hoarding money. She apparently came from a wealthy family and also got a fortune by way of what her father had bequeathed her. Right from the beginning, she insisted on keeping “her money” in a separate bank account  which only she operated. My friend says that he did find her choice strange but he did not ever raise the issue. 13 years into their marriage, when their son, who was then 11 (now he is 28),  was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, the doctors advised an urgent, major Life-saving surgery. That surgery cost a huge sum. The wife apparently had lots of money sitting in her bank account and my friend’s business was doing badly. He had no cash with him. But, even then, his wife refused to bring forth the money required for the surgery. She told him that it was his responsibility to provide for the family, not hers. However bizarre and obnoxious he found the reasoning, my friend mobilized the required funds for the surgery from borrowings from friends. He says, after the surgery was over, he sat with his wife and told her that he could not relate to her anymore. He said their marriage was over. Yet, he said, they could live under the same roof, but separately. He recalls: “I forgave her. But even now I cannot forget the pain that her absurd choice, of not coming forward to support the treatment costs for her own son, caused. I have never had a conversation with her after that beyond muttering banal greetings. I just can’t. But I also don’t hate her. I understood, right on the day that she made her choice, that she was someone I could not relate to anymore. I left it there. And that’s where our relationship has since been.”

You may find this whole story absurd. I too was shocked when I heard it. But my friend’s attitude to seek closure – and not carry the resentment or grief in him – is remarkable.

Reaching out, forgiving and seeking closure may seem difficult. But only until you have not tried reaching out or forgiving. If you let the hurt grow, it will consume you. You can never forget the pain of what has been done unto you, but closure does ensure that the episode cannot grow in proportion anymore. Anger, grief and guilt are always about a past event. Staying in the past will only keep you out of the now. And if you are not present – in the now – you are not living! The learning for each of us here, from my friend’s story, is that no matter what happens, no one can take away your choice to seek inner peace by reaching out, by forgiving – even if you can’t forget – and by moving on.

Life's too short...so, “move on” when you can!

I had an interesting experience yesterday. A certain institution, a not-for-profit service provider, who have laid down some very stringent processes for them to be able to run a world-class operation, decided not to allow me to use their services. Apparently, I had failed to fulfil some of their requirements. The service was time-bound and had to be  delivered today (Wednesday morning IST). A senior management member from the service provider’s side sent me a strong email saying they could not deliver me their service because of my inability to have met/fulfilled certain criteria. While accepting their verdict, I told them that I failed to see why they were inflexible. The gentleman got back saying while they were flexible with certain ‘genuine’ cases, they were unwilling to be so with me. He wondered if I would, despite this one time, want to continue to avail of their services. I wrote back a mail saying Life is too short to be breaking up over what they saw as ‘a non-negotiable’ process and what I saw as an ‘inanity’. I wrote why I felt my case was genuine – not so much to influence the service provider’s stance but to merely explain mine! Even so, I offered to continue to avail of their services going forward. The mails between us were officious and terse, with both of us using impeccable English – making the exchange more dramatic than it should have been. After the last mail from me was sent, I forgot about the issue and moved on with other things to do on my plate.

By early evening though, the gentleman who had been corresponding with me, wrote back. He apologized for his stance and felt, after reading my last mail, that my case was indeed genuine. And that he would advise his team to deliver the service that I had requested. He went a step further and called me up. By the time his call came in, I had just finished reading his mail. I answered his call saying I was very grateful for his understanding and deeply appreciative of his offer to provide us with his institution’s service. He said: “Please don’t deify anyone or anything beyond what is necessary. I would like to apologize for what happened. Let us move on.”

Being a not-for-profit organization, that was offering a service which was rare, there was no way I was going to make them accountable for their stance. So, there really was no need for the gentleman to do any of the following:

    

          - Review my case
    - Accept that, despite my non-compliance of their process, there may have been an ‘error in
       judgment’
    - Apologize
    - Pick up the phone and ensure (through that one call he achieved what half-a-dozen emails
      could not) that a bond was built
    - Offer to provide the service  

To be sure, the fault was also mine – owing to a set of circumstances that I was caught in, I was unable to fulfil certain criteria that anyone seeking their service must. Through the gentleman’s conduct, and this experience, I learnt, yet again, the power of “moving on”.

A lot of the time, a lot of people, cling to positions, stances, opinions, that their ego drives them to take. Once on that ego-driven perch, reason fails to apply. Empathy fails to matter. And the ‘I-am-right’ view holds sway. It takes a lot of courage and conviction to climb down from such a stance, accept a mistake and “move on”.

Think of the number of times you have been driven to taking such stances. Perhaps you are still clinging on to such positions. Review your actions and ask yourself if you can really “move on”. If you believe you can, just climb down, own up your mistake and let go of your big, fat ego. Life is short…so, “move on” when you can! Your world will be a much more beautiful and happier place than it is presently!

S%#t Happens! Get up, dust yourself, move on…

Yesterday’s papers led with a picture of cricketer Ankeet Chavan and his wife Neha shot at their wedding on Sunday. Ankeet has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. One of the players arrested on charges of spot-fixing in the IPL (Indian Premier League) scandal, Ankeet was granted bail until June 6^th by a Delhi court to enable him to get married. The marriage itself, per earlier, erroneous and speculative, media reports, was doubtful. Until, of course, the bride-to-be, Neha Sambri, came out and clarified that no matter what, she stood by Ankeet and was going ahead with the wedding. In the midst of all the scandals, rumors, controversy, it’s remarkable how the Chavan and Sambri families decided to face the reality stoically even as they went ahead with the wedding as planned.

Neha and Ankeet: Love and Grit

Consider the various scenarios:

• Perhaps Ankeet is indeed guilty and may be convicted.
• Perhaps he’s not. And he may walk with his head held high. (PS: I sincerely wish he does!)
• But, either way, his cricketing career is all but over with Rajasthan Royals (the franchise that he was part of) sacking him and the BCCI (Board for Control of Cricket in India) banning him from the game pending a probe.
• He’s lost all his reputation for now and will be treated as an untouchable by most people and organizations

Yet, there’s something beautiful about Ankeet, his family and his long-time girlfriend and now wife, Neha. And it is that they have displayed rare courage to face Life squarely and to move on.

You will agree this isn’t easy. I remember when I was Ankeet’s age a project I was involved with went bust. And I was rendered jobless and people in my professional network looked at me suspiciously. Many of them dubbed me a failure. I was so stung by their remarks that I refused to even come out of my bedroom. I was scared to face the world. I was hiding from Life.

In that context, Ankeet and Neha have show tremendous grit. They teach us that clinging on to something that has happened, a past which cannot be undone, is an exercise in futility. The past is a chapter which is over. We have lived through it. And perhaps learned from it too. What’s the point then in allowing ourselves to be tormented and enslaved by it? Whether the past happened of your own accord or happened beyond your control, even if you thought you were right doing what you did then, even if all of it blew up on your face, isn’t it sensible to simply move on? To love the present and to keep loving it? The other learning from Neha’s decision is that actions are not half as important as intent is. If your intent is right, and conscience clear, it’s perfectly fine even if your actions are questionable because of the circumstances and context in which they took place. Also let’s remember that nobody is a Saint. In fact, even a Saint may well have a sinful past and no Sinner is beyond reformation.

Journey through Life with this complete awareness. Know that there’s no one way to live Life. That each path has its own challenges, opportunities and tragedies. Nothing is permanent. A fall hurts. But, again, no fall is permanent. When you fall, get up, dust yourself and move on. Life cannot be lived fully when in grief. Life’s a celebration! It requires a total understanding – that you will make mistakes, you will be a victim of your own designs or of circumstances, you will fall __ but each time, celebrate the learning in each experience and simply keep moving on!