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Monday 8 June 2015

Losing the Self

My friend was rushing to the hospital. His brother had called him to say that their dad had passed away and that the ward boys in the Government Hospital were asking for the body to be taken out immediately. As he reached the hospital almost an hour later, he went to the mortuary and his dad's body was placed outside on the ground and the hospital clothing on his body had moved due to the wind and his body lay exposed. My friend told me later, "His body lay there unattended. I turned around and could see the huge office compound opposite the mortuary. Those were the very corridors that he had walked like a king when he worked there. He was the absolute authority there. And, today, he lay here unattended." His face had a sad smile when he remembered the scene and he said, "I am not sure of our identity. Who are we? One minute we are striding the corridors of power and in the next we are gone and lying unattended outside a government hospital's mortuary not even covered properly. This is the irony of life."

We play many roles - child, sibling, parent, spouse, friend, employee, manager, leader, customer, supplier, etc. And, in a day, we play so many of them and some simultaneously. Most of the times, we are not ourselves. We are the roles that we play.

We make so many decisions that are for the good of others. Not ourselves. Some for our children, some for our spouses, some for our parents, some for our friends and colleagues and some for ourselves. If you look back and take stock, there will less of decisions that were for ourselves and more for others. And, still, people call us selfish!!! This is true for most of us in lives. How many of us have not taken a role that was a promotion because we would have had to move and that would have caused a disruption in schooling of kids or the jobs of our spouse, etc.? How many of us have given up a job because we wanted to focus on our children as they grew up? How many of us cannot recognize the face that we see daily in the mirror? How many of us have heard our friends say, "Are you the same friend I had in college? You were such a firebrand and my role model. What has happened to you now?" How many of us have lost the idealism that fired us up every morning when we attended college or the first few years at work?

I had conducted a workshop in India with ageing parents and they complained bitterly on how their children were asking them to move out of their home town or the place they lived because they were either getting transferred or moving jobs. Most of them opined that for few extra rupees their children were uprooting everything and moving away. An hour in to the conversation, I asked them as to how many of them had transferable jobs, had moved jobs, had left their home towns, lived away from their parents, etc. Over 80% of them had. I asked them then why were they now asking their children to give up opportunities in their careers just because they (the parents) did not want to move? I asked them as to why they were not moving in to old age homes with full facilities (as these are now available in India) instead of complaining? Neither did they want to move to an old age home (somehow it is seen as a taboo in India - that their children have abandoned them) nor did they want to move out of the places they lived in currently. I asked them if they were not being selfish and not letting their children live their lives the way they (their children) wanted.

Given all these pulls and pushes, we try and find ways and means to satisfy as many and in the process, lose the self in us. Many a time, we are unhappy with the way life is because, for example, we gave up our job/career for our child. There is nothing wrong in doing all this, but it cannot come at the cost of our happiness. If we decide to find happiness in our decisions, then, nothing seems right or wrong. It is only right or wrong for that individual and that too at that point in time.

So, what should we do to not lose the self in all this and yet be someone who is not selfish? It comes down to ensuring that we have time to ourselves every day for reflection, relaxation, exercising, indulgence, etc. It comes down to respecting our own feelings and having open and honest conversations about them with our family and friends. It comes down to taking difficult decisions on various aspects of life that may not be what some in your family want. Easier said than done is what most of you reading this post must be thinking. I will share with you as to what has worked for me. It is discipline, confidence and honesty. We need to set apart time for some exercising, reflections of the previous day or what you want to get done today, sipping a cup of lemon tea,...preferably, all of them!!! What has also worked is having those honest conversations. Even if things have not gone my way all the time, it has always worked out where conversations have been honest and reconciliations are done. It is  essential that we do not lose confidence in ourselves in the process.

Honest conversations are essential. If we do not do this, we do ourselves and the people with us (family and friends) a huge disservice. It is such conversations (though extremely difficult at times because of emotions involved) that will help us from losing ourselves and others around us. If we cannot be true to ourselves and our family, who else can we be true to? At such difficult situations, I have found it better to tear away the mask that I wear and be honest and open.

Such is life. Many a time, we need to search hard to find ourselves. “There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” ― Nelson Mandela