Mind your own business !!

 

Last week I discussed one of the subtle traits that keep us from happiness: Justifying yourself. Continuing, let’s get to the second subtle trait that takes us away from Happiness; minding other people’s business.

We have always heard this phrase; mind your own business. Most notable in a negative connotation when asking other people about some parts they don’t want to share. To be honest, no one likes to hear that phrase. The immediate reaction is “I care and hence I ask”. But that's not the whole picture. My continuous introspection led me to believe that Minding my own business is really the secret to my happiness.

Let’s dive in, Minding your own business doesn’t only mean not asking other people about their business, it actually means thinking about your own business. So many times our mind is filled with stuff other people are doing. What is he doing? What is she getting? Is she getting more than me? Why isn’t he answering me? Why wasn’t I invited to his/ her party? Can you relate to these? We think these thoughts and only muddy our own mind. By thinking about others, we put them in the pedestal of our minds. And let me tell you, no matter what, you should be on pedestal of your mind. So stop minding other people’s business and start minding your own. Also, you cannot control others, so get away from trying that by thinking about them J

Another aspect of minding other people’s business is actually a little scary. So many times, I have sat in front of TV and watched horror going around the world. And then I start worrying about the world and then I start feeling bad at all the plight and misery and then one thought leads to other and finally I am going down the sadness spiral. We need to stop it. Reasons being,

a)       We actually cannot solve all the world problems.

b)      Bad thoughts cannot solve bad things. Have you ever heard of using darkness to eliminate darkness?

Have sympathy for people, but don’t change that into worry. You are not going to help people who are in trouble by dropping down to their troubled life. You will only help troubled people by being an example of leading a trouble free life. Remember this!!

So what should I do? To begin with, just like last time, don’t jump into any change. Slowly start monitoring your thoughts. And when you feel that you are thinking about a situation involving others a lot, try to logic as to why you are thinking about it so much? Is your life and present moment worth it? Are you trying to compare yourself or gain acceptance from someone? Most of the times, the answer will be in one of these questions. Using logic will give you extra strengths to quit thinking about that situation and do something else.

Secondly, try to stay away from bad news. Ignorance is bliss and in this case there is nothing bad about this ignorance. Get your house in order first before thinking about world problems. You know why so many protests fail and lead to more disaster? It’s because people protesting don’t have their own shit together. And hence, what protestors are actually doing is to bring their own insecurities up and express them in terms of protests. Remember, you worrying about world issues from comfort of your sofa is not going to help. What going to help is you not being part of those issues. Someone said it right, best way to help poor is not be one!!!

To conclude, keep on minding your own business and stop looking into other people’s business. The more you will focus on your business, the more you will start living in the present and the happier you will be. You will also start focusing on your own desires and wishes. You will have more energy to work towards them and eventually you will start shining and smiling.

Be so good at minding your own business that people should ask you to mind their business……

- Happy Omie

Stop Justifying your existance....

           

If you want to be happy, stop being sad!

The above statement might be very simple and more trivial in tone, but it contains everything you want to know about happiness. It insinuates happiness as a feeling caused by a state of mind rather than an external emotion based on outside objects. It drove me to look for happiness within me rather than in outside world and circumstances around me. I understood that you are a happy being to begin with and you make yourself sad with your thoughts; same as covering the lamp and then crying about darkness.

On my journey inwards, I discovered different scenarios that had the potential to drive me into thought processes that would result in sadness. Some of them were prominent culprits like regrets, fear and anxiety (more on those later), but there were also the subtle ones which had made a way into my normal thought process which looked good from outside but were really causing me to dive into more sad parts.

This article explores one of the most subtle tendencies which might be doing you more harm without you knowing it.

Stop justifying yourself….to yourself: Have you ever taken a step back and noticed how much energy you spend, in action as well as thought, into justifying yourself? That introspection will show you that majority of your days’ work and thoughts revolve around us justifying something. May be we are justifying our point of view at work or maybe we are justifying our stance or existence to our friends and family.

But the most venomous of it all is justifying your existence to yourself. By doing so we inherently accept that where we are in this time and space is wrong and we should be somewhere else. That very thought is a resistance to free flowing energy that is you and that resistance causes sadness. We have a picture of what we should be and then we are in constant struggle with justifying how our actions or thoughts are working towards that ideal picture. Now don’t get me wrong, you need to have your life’s ideal picture in front of you, but that doesn’t mean where you are right now is wrong. While traveling from US to India, I have to stop in Europe. Even though my destination is India, my lay over in Europe is not wrong. It’s just a point towards my Ideal.

Moreover, the ideal picture you portray about your life mostly comes from societal conditioning which is usually counterproductive if you are a free thinker. A lot of people get into roles that have been set for them by society (including parents) and try to live them out; while continuously shunting the inner call to change into directions of happiness. How many of you have been told to “Act your age”, just to find out that you gave away fun and your inner child in an attempt to “Act your age”.  On a side note, is there any chart that shows how to act at what age? I can make Billions selling those….

So what should I do? To begin with, don’t leap into changing yourself from what you are now. Start slowly. At the end of the day, take few minutes to analyze your daily activities and see which ones you did to justify yourself or your behavior. May be you said something nice to someone when you didn’t want to? Or maybe you said something bad to someone and then criticized yourself for that? Or more classical, you had big imaginative argument in a shower with someone and won it by justifying your point of view or your behavior. Once you identify these behaviors, it becomes easy. Just be conscious next time you are in one of these situations and just breathe and relax and walk away. If you cannot physically leave, just walk away from the subject in your mind. Slowly this will become your modus operandi and soon you will block one of the mental paths that was leading to sadness.

Be Happy !!