My Ways to Groom the Self

Grooming is not exactly synonym to 'deserving' or 'being eligible' but all the three words have the same sense as far as an individual's success is concerned. There have always been two channels of success - specialization and diversification. While specialization leads a person to go the deepest in his/her field of interest with gradual narrowing down to a pinpoint. And there ends the game with or without any achievement in his/her lifetime. This way has been leading to radical developments sooner or later, hence essential and beneficial to the world humanity. But the individual him/herself may remain curious all his/her life achieving nothing for him/herself in terms of success and happiness, the ultimate goals of human life.

Only thing such a specialist gets is satisfaction of his/her curios craving which he/she can't live without. Therefore, specialization can be a fulfilling lifestyle of a few in the world, but most of the people are made differently in their searches for meanings of life and they want results in a regular stream. This piece of writing serves purpose of people of general type. There are 9 simple ways through which a person may find what he/she may be aiming ultimately.

Study variety of Subjects

Life is not unitary and it doesn't depend any one thing or subject of study. It is too diversified and a complex composition of a wide variety of phenomena many of which are still unknown to humanity. Therefore, for anybody to experience life and relate him/herself closely to it, he/she must study as many subjects of study as possible gaining depth of knowledge in varied degrees. In-spite of this way of life, it is essential for everybody to have specialization and expertise in some field.

Variety of subjects provides a wide canvas to the person to paint a colorful life of him/herself in the way of his/her liking. Many people relying on one subject of study realize later that their interest is in some other subject, when it may be too late to shift. This problem is effectively nullified through interests in a variety of subjects of study.  

Soil your Hands

Knowledge remains a hollow drum to beat unless related skill is possessed by the person for which he/she must use his/her hands to work in the field of knowledge. Those who keep their hands clean keep canvases of their lives also clean without any colors of life-stream. Therefore, it is a must for everybody to develop some skills in him/herself for being successful and happy. Such skill comes handy to the person to serve contingencies of his/her life.

Putting hands on a work not only means a deep knowledge of the field but gaining more practicable knowledge and experience in the field. Through the use of hands on work, a specialization gets transformed into an expertise. With knowledge and skill of a field, the person becomes undefeatable by any person in the competitive world of today.

Widen your Skills

This point is a direct derivation of the first and second points discussed above which implies developing skills in all the fields the person has knowledge of and interest in. This would require the person to supplement efforts of his/her brain with efforts of hands to become undefeated in a wide variety of fields.

Relate to Real People you Like

Human composition is 80 percent emotional and 20 percent physical, on an average. The physical self may be satisfied through so many ways like having a good income, enjoying sex with prostitutes, eating tasty foods, wearing costly dresses, travelling widely, etc but there is only one way of finding emotional contentment, and that is having truthful relationships with real people of your liking, as friends, beloved/lover, brothers/sisters, sons/daughters, parents, uncle/aunts, etc. Without such relationships, the life remains a hollow drum to beat on without any essence and harmony.

Have Patience to Grow Up Intellectually and Experiencially

Nature has a universal application of time to all its phenomena, including human life. Everything of value takes time, and greater the value longer the time. However, its length may vary for different individuals, but none develops into something of value instantly. This respect of time, called patience, is essential for achieving success and happiness in life for everybody.   

Work while you Work, Play while you Play

A nursery rhyme -

'Work while you work,

Play while you play,

That is the way to be happy and gay.'

Is not a lesson for childhood only but for the whole lifespan of everyone. But remember being humorous while on a work is different from playing with a work. Every work requires its serious pursuance which may be lightened through occasional humor. But playing with the work or while at work is detrimental to working efficiency and may rob the person of success from the work.   

Have Time to Think

A person's intellectual bent gets satiated through thinking on problems, on people, on Nature, or on anything a person feels inclined at the time. And thinking is the first step toward achieving some success or happiness there from. In rushes from one activity to another, we don't find time to think and whatever thoughts come during rushing periods, they remain half-baked or immature. Accord a status of an essential work to thinking, for which you must provide time in your schedules of business. However, it may be coincidental to your body taking rest for a next bout of activities but not to when you are tired and relaxing for rejuvenation.

Don't Waste your Thoughts

As aforesaid, thoughts are primal activity to every materialization activity. If a thought remains without pursuance, it goes waste and energy put in it remains without fruition. Whatever you think, make a brief note of it and keep it close to you as reminder for its pursuance later when you have time or think it appropriate for pursuance. A thought until it remains a thought only is likely to be erased soon from your memory but when it comes on paper, it remains in your memory too. Every human thought has a value to humanity, hence make the best possible uses of your thoughts.  

Relax Fully when you do

Relaxing or sitting idly is not a waste of time for a person remaining busy otherwise. These are exercises in rejuvenation and recovery of the body, mind and brain of the person, and some of these moments may be sources of great thoughts for the future of humanity. Therefore, learn the art of relaxing, and don't superimpose anything else on your moments of relaxation, but don't stop also if some thoughts prop up during these moments. Treat relaxation as a fruitful activity by itself.

Positive Side of Monkey-Minding

For quite some time now, I have been reading defamatory works of psychologists and others on monkey mind. The monkey-minding of a person means the person jumping from one activity to another.  This way of working has both positive and negative sides of itself like two sides of a coin. But the positive side of monkey-minding is not appreciated by many. It is indeed bad if the person keep on shifting from one activity to another without caring for completion of any.

The Monkey-mind at Work

Activities coming under arena of human endeavors are of different natures with respect to monkey-minding. While for some, monkey-minding has adverse effects, some others reap rich harvests through monkey-minding. I have a huge collection of my archived notes of the last 40 years or so, which I keep on searching when I run out of new ideas for my authorship. These note were not written in accordance to some plan but at random whenever some idea propped up in my mind and were stored for completion some other time. Reading of some of these even surprises me about the excellent idea I got at some time in my life. Many people would call these notes as products of my monkey mind.

Even now, if a new idea props up in my mind while reading or writing some piece, I immediately make a note of that on my computer and save that for my future use. Even while working on some article in a planned way, if I get stuck-up at some point from evacuated of my ideas on the topic, I leave that work pending and move over to some other topic. Like this, I have a huge list of works-in-process of my mind, which get completed at different times and published. Thus, I make a good use of monkey-minding.

Same way, I work on house-keeping of my garden, work-desk and home, leaving many tasks in unfinished stages for getting tired or arrival of an emergency to attract my attention. I see no harm in keeping such things pending to save myself from boredom of monotony and exhaustion of energy. Later, whenever I find time, I complete them. Thus, I complete my duties and responsibilities without getting tense for completion of anything within a fixed time-frame.

Thus the monkey-minding habit of mine saves my spontaneous ideas from getting extinct and becoming treasures for future.

Converse to the monkey-minding on some activities, I take up many activities and keep on working unto the finish. Such activities are, for example, preparing my meals, washing my clothes, taking bath, going on a journey, etc. Keeping such activities pending without finishing would cost me dearly.

With this, my considered advice to my friends is not to be averse of your monkey-minding nature but make a good use of it for building up yourself without worries and exhaustions. The purpose of life is not to do a particular task but to enjoy life and go on doing something until you enjoy that.

The most Tragic Period of Life

For about 3 months now, I feel a severe mental pain when I see my eldest brother living next door to me with his wife. In another part of his home, his son lives with his wife and children. The brother, I am talking about is around 75 and sick with breathing problem due to deposition of cough in his lungs and allied body parts. He had been getting medical treatment many times in the past one year when the doctor removes the cough deposit for a high cost. Another son of his lives in a city who accompanies him to the doctor and bears the medical bill. After the treatment, he feels better but for a few days only but soon begins suffering from breathing problem. For the high medical cost for a relief of few days, my brother has come to understand futility of the medical aid to him. He is mentally compromised to live with the suffering and die soon with the disease, and this worries him. I read these feelings in his eyes, but never dare to talk to him on this. This is most tragic state of life for anybody.

Another problem that worries my brother is health of his wife who has been serving him day and night. A few months back, when her state became critical, she was taken to a doctor who diagnosed her of kidney damage at the verge of complete failure. She is surviving on medicines and serving him apart from doing domestic chores. My brother is worried who would support her after he dies, as none of his four sons seems to be inclined to take care of her.

Third problem of the brother is economical for his business of selling cattle feeds to villagers which he began after his retirement from a nearby sugar mill at the age of 60. Business in the villages runs on credit sales. My brother also sold his goods on credit and many debtors never pay back for the goods they take. Now, at the verge of death, he has debtors owing him his lifetime earnings which may not come back if he closes the business or dies. To recover his money, he is bound to continue with the business resulting into continuance of credit sales, else his previous credits won't be recovered. The fear of losing his lifetime earnings creates more anxiety for him to suffer with.       

Death is inevitable and an old person can understand it and face the end happily. But when a person is ready to face death, he makes maximum of his remaining days of lifespan. This is possible for a healthy person only having no constraints in enjoying the remaining period of life. This is not the case of my brother who has breathing problems and passing time is a great problem to him. For this reason, he may be wishing to meet his end at the earliest to cut back on his painful survival.

Thus, with problems of health, worries for his wife and hard-earned money, he finds it difficult whether to wish an early end to lessen the pain of living or keep on living for long to end to see end of his anxieties. He finds himself a loser on both ways. This makes him more worried every moment he lives.

Why the problems

The main problem arises for his ill health which is his own creation through smoking since his youthful days. I arrived in the village for a resettlement 13 years back, and my first task was to make people agreeable to quit smoking. For the old people, I used to advise it with assertion that their bodies are no more as capable in tolerating misuse as these were in youthful days. I tried my best to convince my brother too for this, but he used to laugh at me for my childish advice. He quit smoking much later on his own painful experiences, but it was too late. The damage done to his frail was irreparable.

Another folly my brother committed was in caring for our father during his last days. My father lived for a long time with another brother of ours who kept him confined to a room with none to talk to him. The loneliness made him more sick than his problems of the old age. Otherwise, he was well-built and led a healthy and socially-rich life for being active in freedom movement, politics and social services. When it was realized that his end was near, he was sent to the village where I too am living. I took him under my care when I used to attend him for all the 24 hours taking care of every minute inconvenience to him. We used to talk a lot for many hours, laughed and enjoyed memories of the past. I started cutting down his dependence of medicines. In a week's time, he was much better and we expected to take round of the village after another one week's time.

Serving him all the 24 hours was impossible to him but it was essential for him. So I asked my this brother and his son to allow me a rest and sleep for 4 hours a day and attend the father during that period. At this, they both asked me leave him under their care and stop bothering about him. I got annoyed and left the village on the same day leaving our father for them to take care. Instead of serving him, the brother and his son started giving him sleeping pills whenever he would wake up and demanded something. With heavy doses of sleeping pills, the father expired on the fourth day under their care.

This might be a realization of my brother now who doesn't want to rely on his son for any of his problems but calls his other son from the city. He knows it very well he would be given the same sleeping pills if he relies on the son in the village. This makes him more worried for his wife after his death who would be constrained to rely on this son.

Thus, all the problems and anxieties of my brother are his own creations through omissions and commissions, and now none can help him. He himself has to bear the most tragic period of life, now, until his death.