I, Me, Myself....

We all have a very natural tendency of worrying too much about ourselves. Chicago Sun-times had an interesting article a while back where the author highlighted how "[w]e spend an enormous amount of time worrying about ourselves, but not an awful lot of time caring for ourselves. Caring for ourselves means thinking very seriously and carefully about the conditions under which we're living our lives, and how others are living theirs, and taking instruction from the way that others have lived their lives." (http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/1347078,CST-EDT-open24a.article)

We become so self-obsessed with ourselves that we forget that there is a whole world to care about and we are just a part of it. Thinking about self is a natural instinct because without that thought it would be hard to survive and protect our interests but when it becomes an obsession, things become a bit different. You start feeling as if the whole world revolves around you and everything should happen as you want it to be. We forget to look outside and care about the people around us. Our own problems and issues become (or more appropriately - appear) so big and important that we fail to acknowledge the fact that these problems are experienced by everyone and you are not the only one going through them. At that time, you wonder how everybody around you can neglect your problems and carry on with their lives. You keep on worrying about the problems again and again and again.... with no solution in sight. Somehow our mind gets a sadistic kick out of trapping us in this endless/solutionless loop of thinking about your personal issues. We feel that we can find a solution by thinking about these problems while I feel that it is best to pause the thinking tape for some time and focus on the outside world.

It's time like these that I feel that we should shift our attention and start thinking about how we can help the poor beggar around the corner, the haggard looking man down the road, emaciated and quivering child two blocks away, or the cold and hungry woman who must be somebody's grandmother. Look outside, people have suffering and problems which are of a much larger magnitude than our own personal issues. We should never pity these people because these people have learned to endure their pain and live with it. Call it acceptance of destiny, fate, or god's will, these people have made truce with their life and know that they will have to endure through it. Such a submission is not what I recommend but what can you do with an empty stomach? Have you ever tried to face an uncertain future with an empty stomach out in the chilling winds with no warm clothes on? On what basis can you hope that things will be alright soon? How do you define "alright" here? How can you think about long term future when you do not know if you will live through the next ten minutes? Experiencing these is difficult and I cannot even imagine how these people live through it. Pity will not help. What will help instead is if you act on your emotions. I love a quote by Dalai Lama - "It's not enough to be compassionate, you must act". This encouragement to act forces us to get out of our nice and cozy life, stop the useless circular self-obsessed thoughts, and helps us appreciate how small our problems are as compared to the ones these people face.

I have often felt that in helping others, you help yourself. In other words, while you are engrossed in the task of helping a person, you suddenly discover a direction in life which holds possible solutions to some personal problems which you had been thinking about for a long time. Swami Vivekananda said that “The more we come out and do good to others, the more our hearts will be purified, and God will be in them.”

Reach out, touch someone's life today and let them touch yours. Do this for sometime and then see the magic that happens. You will feel that you are a part of a bigger plan that encompasses the universe and experience a warmth in your life.

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