To Put a Quart into a Pint Pot

English being a unique language, has some of the most quirky rhymes in it. This is a phrase my daughter got to write an essay on. It really made me think.

It is possible to put a Quart of any Liquid into a Pint pot. After all a Pint is only half of a Quart. But it makes you wonder what would happen to the other pint which is not in the pot but remains in the quart!!! The possibilities of the left over pint is very interesting. It is as interesting as what we make of the rest of our lives. We all have put the Pint in the pot, but never bother about what is left. Wouldn’t it be great if we all thought about the pint that remained in the quart, would it be double the trouble or double the joy? The way we live our lives is like the pint in the pot, and the pint remaining is our potential of what we do not live.

The possibilities of us living the life we would always have liked to live is the remaining pint. The joy of that pint or that life is really endless, the life which we had envisaged for ourselves, and never got the guts to live it. The house we want to live in, the car we want to purchase, the job we imagine of, the dream we want to live one day, if we stop living in the past/pot. We all would find that pint which is left. We would always know that there is still the other pint to live.

The story of the three boys

There were three boys named Rachit, aged 10; Nishant, aged 8 and Anuj, aged 6. Rachit who was the eldest used to tell his mom to organize the themes for his birthday party and also ask for the latest toy in the market as a present. Nishant the second boy, used to always follow his brother in every thing he did. He would just copy his brother in every thing. So when his birthdays arrived he did exactly what his brother had done on his (Rachit’s) birthday. He had the same theme parties and wanted to have the same toys. He sometimes could not play the games because he did not understand them but he wanted it exactly the same. When the time came for the youngest brother to have his birthday, Anuj would cry and insist that he wanted the same toy, his eldest brother had and when told that he might not be able to play with that toy as it was not for his age that didn’t deter him. He would cry, make such a ruckus that his parents eventually got it for him. He never played with those toys but just kept them. He had the satisfaction that he owned the toy and some times it took him years to play with those toys. But each year this was the scene for their birthdays. This went on until they became adults.

The eldest, Rachit, always having been able to think for him-self, grew to be a man with original ideas. He charted his own course and was not afraid to take decisions and risks. He turned to be a dynamic businessman and founded his own company. Ran it for many years, gained success, respect from the community and eventually became a leader of the society.

Nishant the second one, always needed to be guided, and could never make his decisions. Though if he was given a model he could follow it and be able to complete his tasks. He never ventured to chart his own course. He was always afraid to take any risk. He is like most of the bureaucrats in our systems. Always need a method to follow and cannot take risks.  He did gain success but as a follower. He went on to become a very successful bureaucrat. In his later years he helped his brother Rachit in his community service as his right hand man.

Anuj the youngest, who was always jealous of his eldest brother, grew to be a very spoilt man. He wanted only what others had. He would acquire things which he did not need and then didn’t know what to do with them. He had never played with the toys he got when he was young and so when he became an adult the same pattern of behavior got repeated. Sounds like the merger and acquisitions guys doesn’t it. We he did become a art collector. He did use his acquiring skills in buying and hording painting and sculptures. He would just buy them and place them as he pleased in his house, soon he could not house any more, as he had run out of space. But he would not sell any of it. It didn’t mean he appreciated the value of the paintings, the paintings meant nothing to him. His hunger for having them was what drove him. His brothers talked him into selling some of his collection so he could live with the money he earned from the sales. He died a miserable man, with too many paintings and sculptures but not much taste or value.

Well this shows how the childhood behavior frames the adult mind sets. It is worth getting into research and finding out what makes men act like children some times, or may be all the time. We find such characters in our daily life and think what makes them like that. May be this is the answer to it. Many childhood patterns are what we resort to when we are disturbed or are in stressful situations. And stress is what we have the most these days. It brings to the fore such attitudes and behavior. 

The Hare and the Tortoise

This story seems very familiar to us, yet we can learn so much more from it. The story is very straight forward in its story telling. The Hare being the faster and more flamboyant one runs the race with his uniqueness as he is, fast and flamboyant. The Tortoise being the slow and steady one runs the race with a quiet self assuredness and a determination. In the end it is the determination and the self assuredness that wins.

The little things that we do each day is what is like the Tortoise, we build our homes, our self, our image, our money worth, all by bits and pieces, but with determination and self assuredness. We win in these aspects, but in which we build flamboyantly and fast, without thought and without assurance, but to show others what we are, i.e. to show off, we never seem to make it, we are left stranded right near the end and never are able to make it across the finish line.

To do anything with self assurance means to do the thing with being one with the Universe. When we are one with the energies of the Universe and do it with determination and a self knowledge that we will make it, come what may, even if the pace is slow and steady, we will make it eventually. The race is not to cross the line first, it is to steadily make a progress which is at a pace we are comfortable with and which we set for ourselves and which we can maintain without putting stress onto ourselves. That kind of progress always has success and lasts a longer time. We do this unconsciously and do not deliberate on it. We work towards a goal we have set for ourselves, each with what they feel comfortable with, it could be a three bed room apartment, a fast car, expensive piece of jewelry, or a position at office we work towards. All these we achieve with a stead fast goal oriented approach.

As the saying goes ‘Save a penny for the rainy day’. The more pennies we save the more we have when we need it. Here the penny is just a signifactor for stocks, share, portfolio, bonds etc. anything that you build over a time. The more in tune we are with the sentiments of the market and of the people of our nation, the more you will gain and the more you will save in the long run. The shares bought at one time and left to ferment over years do earn but go through a lot of ups and downs. The shares that we trade in each day and try to catch the pulse of the nation makes more cause you are in tune each day with the whole nation and if your synchronization one day is not right, you lose. The rule being one with the Universe.

Perspectives

Life’s perspectives depend on what we see and get from it. The information we gather and also the opinions we form through the lens of the experiences we have had or the experiences of others which ring a true bell in us.

The way we perceive is the way we form the opinions and also the way we slot people, their behavior and also their attitudes in our minds. We remember the incidents and our experiences that we have gone through in those moments, the feelings, the insecurities, the gain or loss of power, the limitations of our mind and the boundaries that we put in front of us. All these put together form our own perspectives, and also the environment plays a certain role.

We all have our own view points that are unique to our psyche. I do not by this mean, that we condemn, judge or criticize, I just say this is our perspective; this is the lens we use to view the world, the people in our world, and our immediate near ones. The judgment comes only when we link it up with an experience or with some-one else’s experience.

Judgment is a defense that we put up to keep things in slots in our brain, to categories the experiences. Judgment serves only that purpose in our minds that we can slot and put a label on the experience and also be able to relate to it and to be able to explain it in our own way.

Judgments that we keep that don’t depend on our own experiences but are formed by someone else’s experience, creates a mismatch and that causes problems, because we don’t know how to relate to it. We have a certain link with it, but do not agree with the whole. This experience was not picked up by our mind, and viewed from our own perspective; it had a similar feel, but could have been different in its original form. We relate to it to some extent so we adopt that judgment as our own. And when we try to apply it in our lives a mismatch is created in the link and we get caught in it.

These goof ups we do unknowingly, or subconsciously. This brings with it a lot of new experience that our core doesn’t gel with and that is where all our confusion starts. This forms the phantoms that we are unable to reveal or unravel. We get caught and don’t know how to get out and go back to our core beingness. The harder we try to get off the more we get caught, and the mess seems to increase.

Like all knots, all we need to do is to let it be and try to gently get to the bottom of it or let it loose and the unraveling process begins and gains momentum. Once this starts we are on a rollercoaster of finding our own selves and we feel good, happy and light. This is when we go back to our core self and this is when we find our selves. This is what people say ‘finding yourself’, ‘realization’, ‘enlightment’, going back to the source. In a nut shell we are just making a ‘U’ turn and are being what we originally were meant to be.

A little change in how we perceive and record it in our minds makes a giant difference in how we feel and how we progress. This is not only fascinating but also an interesting study, when we say how we perceive puts us in good or bad health. This brings a totally new way to deal with a lot of problems and find a solution to it.

The stories that follow are all going to highlight these aspects. We can identify with them as they may be what we have gone through. But, as a warning do not adopt them as your own, do not create those phantoms, just enjoy the stories.