Are we really hard on ourselves .... ?

Are we really hard on ourselves?

The question popped up in my mind while doing one of the counselling assignments where I was supposed to observe the counselling process. We have a subject where we are supposed to counsel each other, 1 person plays the role of a counsellor the other one becomes a counselee and 1 person observes the entire process and takes notes. What’s surprising is the fact that most of us have similar problems and the roots of those problems can be traced back to similar origins. In fact, it’s something I have observed everywhere I have been to. People are never satisfied with what they have and they are always reproaching themselves for it. People always think that they are lazy, dumb, unskilled, inferior, procrastinating and could have achieved much more if they were more hard working, sincere and serious towards life.

From childhood we are raised with lessons of hard work, being focused, being unsatisfied, always aiming higher, I think that has produced an entire generation which is always unsatisfied and insecure and always competing. I have rarely seen anyone satisfied with his/her life and achievements for a long span, people celebrate victories for a while and then get into the rat race again. When dreams become realities, when success is realized, when victory is achieved, people hardly find time to sit quietly for a while, rest and relax, pat themselves on their back, and live the moment fully. There is always a future to think upon, that’s exactly how we are raised. Never rest, never quit, just compete, just run, keep on running, don’t get satisfied, there is much more to achieve, all the clichés were part of our holy book of living life, to compete became our karma, hard work became our religion and in this process insecurity became our god.

Our colleagues, our classmates, even our friends, everyone is a potential rival, a potential competitor, a threat, someone who can run through us, go ahead and won’t stop to pick us up. We are not satisfied with what we are but we are always aiming for what we can be. Now, this article may looks very negative or in fact opposite of what general motivational articles are. But, right now I am not talking about motivation. May be, many of us don’t need motivation at all, we just need relaxation and realization. We just need to appreciate small victories and celebrate big defeats.

I have seen people pushing themselves really hard to get a decent paying job, but when they land up with one eventually they don’t have a long lasting happiness. It’s just a temporary elation, rest they start feeling threatened again. Only the stage changes, only the track changes, only the participant changes but the race continues. No time to rest, no time to hang the boots and lie on the grass, people pick up from where they stopped and start running again. May be for promotion, for a more paying job, for an on-site opportunity, people in India mostly start studying for post- graduation. GRE, GATE, CAT, UPSC there are multiple examination. Those who don’t do anything start feeling useless when they see others working hard. It’s like an infection, person working hard is also unhappy and person who is not working hard is also unhappy when he sees other persons working hard.

What next, you land up with a better job or a good technical college or b-school. Again the track changes, participants change, running continues. Talking from my personal experiences, when I joined XLRI which is one the most reputed and prestigious college I talked to many people initially who were of the opinion that they have done enough hard work for life, did a job of 10+ hours daily along with study and now they want to relax. Within 2 weeks, everyone realizes that they are in the biggest circus of life, professors are the ring master and grading system is a whip. A whip that will make you dance on its tune, now there is a competition to stay relevant amongst the best, amongst those who are equally talented and hard working as you are, and you will be evaluated relatively. So, all the happiness of making it to best school vanishes quickly and you have to prepare yourself for another battle, a battle for survival because many gives up the hope of thriving very early. There is struggle for grades and then there is struggle for job and with the continuous assurance that you will live the life of your dream once it’s over.

Like your parents and society fooled you during 10^th board, then during 12^th, for college entrance preparation, during graduation and then post-graduation or job. There is this carrot of pursuing our hobbies and interest that never come. Most of us didn’t learn guitar, or start regular gyming or travelled the world because we kept on fooling ourselves since a long time that once I achieve this goal, I will quit the race, hang my boots and smell the flowers. What we lose in this process, our happiness, our stability, our satisfaction, our peace.

I have seen people always in regret that they are not doing well with their life. They haven’t achieved anything. They could have utilized time way better than what they are doing right now. People are hard on themselves. We are turned into a masochist in the process. Then there are inconsistent phases of us living our ideal life. Some people going gym, some learning guitar, some studying regularly, but then once our consistency breaks, we are sad and disappointed again. We start blaming ourselves again, we are hard on ourselves, we are our own punisher, we are our own judge, we became the parents that puts pressure of expectation on us, we became the society that judge us, we became the coach that push ourselves for working hard, we became the teaser and taunter, we became our worst nightmares.

All for few successes, which never ends, only the criteria changes. We may be successful for few but not for many and people keep changing in our life. We may be successful for those who are not in a good college but we can perceive ourselves as failure because we are unknown here, we don’t have good grade, or we may get a job way below average here. The same package might be something we could only dream of after 10 years in our previous job. But we used to perceive ourselves as a failure back then although we were successful for someone who hasn’t got a job. It’s a matter of perspective, we decide whether we are successful or failure, and for some we will be successful always. For a person earning 3 lakh, 12 lakh is a big deal but a guy studying in a college where average package is 17 lakh, he would perceive himself as a loser. Our perception is the reason of our dissatisfaction.

And the race never ends, it’s an addiction, we are addicted to compete, we are addicted to be hard on ourselves, we are addicted to chase the carrot of peace and pursuing hobbies and interest. We are running since a long time and we have been brainwashed to such extent that we think only running is the purpose of life. It is not, purpose of life is living, a life which has proper mixture of rest and hard work, perfect combination of victories and defeats, involvement of both friends and enemies, interaction with both companions and competitors. Life is an experience, live it before it’s late.

For all those who are employed or who are studying, just think for a while when you are 70, lying on a bed in some hospital with all the money and success, what will you be thinking that time? Will you be happy on all you earned or you will regret what you missed? Your designation might not bring that much a comfort than the photographs you clicked while on a solo trip would. Your cash will be much less meaningful than the poems you had written. There would be many people visiting you, bringing flowers and fruits if you had time in your life to build relationship and you didn’t crush people to move up the ladder.

Life is short, too uncertain, and too unpredictable, it doesn’t take much to be happy. A smile is contagious, positivity is like an epidemic, spread it. Ending with Jim Carrey’s quote:

"I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer"?