Let’s get serious for a
while, shall we? Philosophy has always amazed me. And I mean philosophies from
both sides of the world: Oriental and Western. If you take Philosophy as only
“Spiritual” stuff, let me guess… you are an Asian. In western context, you
don’t need to be a saint to be a Philosopher. Even atheists are Philosophers.
How cool is that!? That’s why Jackie Chan says “This is the West, not the East.
The sun may rise where we come from… but here is where it sets” in Shanghai
Knights. Great Movie!!!
“Life is a suffering.”
Now stop giving me that
look as when you lower your eyebrows and squint those eyes. That’s just creepy. The opening quote
is simply the first one of the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism. Lord Buddha left
behind everything to find this answer to life, I suppose.
We suffer for our ego and
obsession—the kind of obsession which Albert Einstein tagged as insanity—doing
the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We suffer
for our obsessive infatuation to control the uncontrollable. We focus on what
we cannot control where we drain up all our energy, time, and freedom to
eventually become or get more of exactly what we don’t wish [to] in the first
place.
If your Internet speed is
so annoyingly slow that it’s already noon by the time you successfully upload
your early-morning-yawning selfie on Instagram and nobody gives ‘like’ to your
yawn — Stress and profanity won’t make you the Instagram superstar the next
minute. And who would want to have a god-awful day looking at your drooling
face and messed-up hair unless you’re some kind of awesomely idolized
celebrity? Or, if you’re stuck in the traffic, then banging your head on the
steering wheel won’t make the traffic move any faster. It will only get you a
sore forehead (or a broken steering wheel!) and make you appear peevish, and
you don’t want to be that. And to be what you don’t want to be and to be not
what you want to be is hell. Well done! You’re now licensed to enjoy your
eternal privilege to suffer.
Of the many phenomena,
time is the greatest cause of our suffering because it’s one of those things
that we can’t control, but nevertheless which we always try to, in vain, just
to suffer. We just can’t grab our magic wand and hover over it to create more
of. It’s not a fairytale. Life is no a Mario game. Time machine is merely a
fiction.
Deep down inside,
everyone wants more in life—happiness, success, and peace of mind. But we’re
literally choking out our own life bottling up our god-given talents and
abilities, eventually driving down the path of sufferings. Most of us tangle up
our past, present and future that we cannot distinguish between the three. We
often love to detach ourselves from the present or reality and get captured in
the past or drowned into the future which doesn’t even exist. We’re so
vulnerable to the fallacy of success that we forget to be successful in real
life. We get so busy making a living that we forget to live our life.
Depression and anxiety
are just enough to make our life a living hell. You’ll go nuts if you worry
about everything that you did last year or everything that you need to do in
the next month or everything that could go wrong in the next year. Quoting Lao
Tzu here seems to be the best way to sum up this article: “If you are depressed
you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If
you are at peace you are living in the present.”
Don’t beat yourself up.
Tomorrow can take care of itself.
©LinkinMyth:Published Articles-Licensed to Suffer-Umesh
Gurung-Republica
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