The lockdown journal: The new in the old
A colleague of mine once told me: We need to reinvent ourselves every now and then. Erase our previous perspective and look at things in a new light. That's how we improve and grow.
Profound words.
The afternoon sun saw me sitting drowsily, tired from the chores of the day, struggling to continue with my work. I found myself restlessly pondering over the tenuous future, and contemplating what an extended lockdown could do to my mental well-being. I tried hard to reassure myself that this too would pass, and I re-read a post I had bookmarked last month: No feeling is final.
I had commented on the ephemeral nature of happiness, but I had missed the author's reply to my comment, which I now read:
But the more I think about happiness, the more I sometimes feel true joy is not ephemeral – we tend to think of happiness as a feeling and that it goes away the minute we are sad. But what if we can be happy even with the sad? What if we are happy with the challenges? What if we are happy with the conflicts?
Now, this was a radical perspective, something I needed to adopt to re-invent myself. If I could find good cheer amidst all this chaos, it would give me something to hold onto. Perhaps I could then take some of that happiness and also bestow it on someone else, and brighten up their lives too. To be able to do that with my writing has always been a dream :)
I headed out to my balcony with a tiny cup of coffee, and looked outside. As I slowly sipped that coffee, I felt a sense of serenity envelop me. I accepted that I was sad, that so many people around were struggling. But that doesn't mean there's no happiness. Happiness is a flower that's forever in full bloom. It is a child's unguarded laughter. It is a tiny puppy frolicking around. It is the hot meal that you just cooked. It is ever present, in so many forms, but you can only find it if you clear your mind of the notion that happiness cannot co-exist with sadness. It can and does, just the way a pristine lotus blooms amidst murky waters. But it is solely up to us whether we bemoan the murky waters or celebrate the lotus.
P.S: The psychological explanation for this is probably hedonic adaptation in reverse: instead of climbing the treadmill, we are now descending it. This is the new normal, and it realigns our expectations. As a result, things that we took for granted in the past now seem like wondrous miracles. We find new things to be grateful for, tiny nuances of life that we had never before appreciated. Our average happiness thus remains the same, despite major negative events. :)
Profound words.
The afternoon sun saw me sitting drowsily, tired from the chores of the day, struggling to continue with my work. I found myself restlessly pondering over the tenuous future, and contemplating what an extended lockdown could do to my mental well-being. I tried hard to reassure myself that this too would pass, and I re-read a post I had bookmarked last month: No feeling is final.
I had commented on the ephemeral nature of happiness, but I had missed the author's reply to my comment, which I now read:
But the more I think about happiness, the more I sometimes feel true joy is not ephemeral – we tend to think of happiness as a feeling and that it goes away the minute we are sad. But what if we can be happy even with the sad? What if we are happy with the challenges? What if we are happy with the conflicts?
Now, this was a radical perspective, something I needed to adopt to re-invent myself. If I could find good cheer amidst all this chaos, it would give me something to hold onto. Perhaps I could then take some of that happiness and also bestow it on someone else, and brighten up their lives too. To be able to do that with my writing has always been a dream :)
I headed out to my balcony with a tiny cup of coffee, and looked outside. As I slowly sipped that coffee, I felt a sense of serenity envelop me. I accepted that I was sad, that so many people around were struggling. But that doesn't mean there's no happiness. Happiness is a flower that's forever in full bloom. It is a child's unguarded laughter. It is a tiny puppy frolicking around. It is the hot meal that you just cooked. It is ever present, in so many forms, but you can only find it if you clear your mind of the notion that happiness cannot co-exist with sadness. It can and does, just the way a pristine lotus blooms amidst murky waters. But it is solely up to us whether we bemoan the murky waters or celebrate the lotus.
P.S: The psychological explanation for this is probably hedonic adaptation in reverse: instead of climbing the treadmill, we are now descending it. This is the new normal, and it realigns our expectations. As a result, things that we took for granted in the past now seem like wondrous miracles. We find new things to be grateful for, tiny nuances of life that we had never before appreciated. Our average happiness thus remains the same, despite major negative events. :)
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