Hi Friends!
After my day’s work, personal and professional commitments, I returned home quite exhausted. The moment I entered my home, my kids hugged me. My tiredness was half-gone! Then I freshened up, prepared a cup of coffee and just came out in my balcony, overlooking the sea-front. I rested my elbows on the iron rod above the parapet and just drowned myself in the beauty of nature. The breeze was cool, sweeping past by the coconut trees lining the beach, the sun was about to set, the rhythmic sound of waves was tranquilizing and the chirping of birds was just enough to pull me into a state of trance. I just pulled in my easy chair and lay down on it. I probably fell asleep. I woke up after an hour or so and found myself to be all new, rejuvenated, energized. I was wondering as to what could have happened in my short nap that I am feeling so good and then I churned my grey cells and tried recalling some phenomenon that happened to me during my sleep. I had a dialogue with myself—my “inner-self”.
I was walking past a street and saw a man sitting in anguish. I asked him, “What happened, my friend?” He replied that everyone in this world is better than him. No one loves him, no one cares for him. I asked, “Do you love yourself?” He said, how can I love myself when no one else does? I had to tell him that he has to love himself first, and only then the world will follow suit. Love thyself truly, fully, unconditionally, with all pluses and minuses in you. Don’t sit and solve the puzzle of how many pluses and how many minuses. Just have a look at them and improve your pluses, the minuses will reduce automatically. He felt happy, I felt happy too. Do you know who he was? He was my inner-self. As my inner-self felt happy, I too was happy.
Then I went inside a park. It had lush green lawns, palm trees, beds of various fragrant flowers, birds and bees all around and kids playing in the play area. I sat there for a while and pondered over what makes kids so happy? Why are they so energetic, so vibrant all the time? And I realized that it is because they just don’t bother about others and their opinions. They are just by themselves. While playing, they fall down, get hurt and sometimes cry too but nothing to bother my friend; they just get up, brush their bottoms and get back to their play. Do you know who they were??? They were my simple thoughts, telling me not to bother about someone else’s opinion about myself, just be myself, and that’s it.
From there I came to the beach. I went and stood amidst the waves; coming towards me and going back into the sea. I was amazed at the restlessness of the waves. I asked them, friends why do you look so restless, why do you come to the sea-shore and why do you go back? What do you expect, what is about to happen to you? And they laughed at me. They said, our dear friend! We aren’t here to expect something; we aren’t here to please someone. We are just we. We do our job without any expectations; we just come to the shore because we ought to and that’s what we do. We are ourselves and we enjoy being ourselves. And you know friends; this was again my conscience telling me to be myself and to have no expectations from others.
But I was still not convinced with the reply the waves gave me. So I poked them again. Friends, tell me one thing. I understand that you have no expectations from others but what about your expectations from yourself? I thought they might muddle up the words but no! They told me that they don’t expect anything from themselves as well. I was surprised. I asked them why? They replied in a very calm tone that the expectations are like utopia; you can never have it in reality. The unfulfilled, insurmountable expectations bring the feeling of distress and you feel discontent. So why to have them at all?
My pristine sleep was interrupted by a sharp thud; a coconut was falling down and the moment I opened my eyes, I couldn’t believe that I was sitting in the cozy atmosphere of my home. I just took some moments to gather all the pieces from my invaluable, incredible dream, where I made my first rendezvous with my true self.
While pondering over the snippets, I was thinking that one must have self-acceptance, self-esteem and certain expectations from oneself, though not unattainable because having expectations will only bring out the best in you. If we have no expectations at all from ourselves, we will be nothing more than a lumpish squid. So, do have expectations but they should be realistic. Secondly, as far as the opinion of others is concerned, I don’t pay heed to what someone says about my looks, my attire, my culture and many such personal and superficial things because I know why I am the way I am. And if I am the way I am, there’s a valid reason to it.
It was the effect of this dialogue with my inner-self which brought me to the sunshine.
I would like to quote, “Always know in your heart that you are far bigger than anything that can ever happen to you.” – Dan Zadra
I will now try to follow these principles of life and work towards becoming a more self-assured and enlightened human being!
Regards
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