Skip to main content

Hard Decisions

I am human. As such I have never ceased in my pursuit of the easy way out. That was one of the reasons why I stopped reading motivational books and started meditating. Motivational books promised success, but it came at a cost. I had to plan out my life for the next 10 years and then dedicate myself to that plan with an unflinching attitude, which I found quite ridiculous given that usually I had more than enough trouble keeping to my plan for the day.

Meditation on the other hand seemed to propose a one size fit all solution. Meditate for 10 minutes a day and it promised everything. A calm and composed mind, a disciplined lifestyle, a positive attitude, the opposite of which were the root of all problems in my daily life. However, just to sit there and to focus on my breathing was harder than I thought and soon I gave it up, though I never gave up on the hope that one day I would return to it again.

When the semester started, so did the stress and all the usual problems. So when a friend of mine told me that the NUS Buddhist Society had a seminar on how to deal with stress, I quickly took up the offer. After all Buddhism was heavy on meditation and it had to be my easy way out, my final solution. And true to my word, he guest speaker, who happened to be a bigshot from a local company, did emphasise the role that meditation could play in a stress free life.

But that was not all. According to him, a stress free life also needed the individual to plan out one's life, to make the correct decisions, not to procrastinate, to consciously have a positive attitude etc etc. Meditation was a part of the solution, but not the whole solution. It was back to square one all over again. As stressing out as it was, I finally realised the fact that I had to start making decisions, decisions that would be painful, but had to be made so that I would not end up blowing the future that lay ahead of me.

And just to play safe, I signed up for the club's 10 week meditation course.

Honestly, there has to be an easy way out right?


                          "The fool who persists in his folly will become wise"
                                                                                                      ~William Blake

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Journey to the West : Mind Your Language

"Lettuce, tomatoes, onions and spinach", I pointed out to the lady wearing the apron behind the counter. She looked at me questioningly. "LET-USE, TOE-MAT-OH, OH-NION, SPEA-NATCH", I repeated with better enunciation. She looked back down at the the multiple compartments of colourful mix of vegetables, leaves and fruits and methodically grabbed some from each, while repeating the names of the ones she grabbed. "Let-us, Toe-mado, Ah-nion, Spee-Nuch", she clarified. I shrank a bit in embarrassment. With every passing day in the country, my belief that the English education that I received in a former British Colony, that set high and rarely achieved standards in English for its students, was of substandard quality, strengthens. In a well intentioned effort to assimilate, I have over the past couple of months tried to mimic the pronunciation of the Texans. "Howz'it goin man?" "Ye'no"   "Can I ha...

Life in the Time of Corona

I can't remember the last time I felt I had this much time. Not that I was never the beneficiary of a balanced life within socialist Europe, but I had squandered much of it away, jumping from the consumption of ever immersive electronic devices, forgetful routines and the maintenance of social relationships. A digital detox felt timely. Faced with a swath of unfilled time, here I was blogging again after ages (does creative pursuits such as writing does not fall within digital detox?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). Time had flown. 2020 is a year that will live in all our memories till the end of our lives, not so much because of what happened, but because of what did not happen. A year that started promisingly with two memorable marriages of family and friend came to a halt as a tiny microorganism proved how vulnerable we humans still were. I remember when colleagues in the office laughed as a Chinese friend hoarded masks so she could send them back home. A month later they were asking her where the...

An Eye for an Eye

"Something that three or four years ago you told me was one of the touchstones of maturity: being nice to people even when they’re not nice to you…" - William Styron It was an plan that came out of nowhere. Perhaps half depressed by the winter and half depressed by the inactivity at work, there was sufficient turmoil in the mind to create these type of plans and then let it fester, until something that started off with a what-if turned into a why-not. It would have been the perfect revenge for the past hurt and humiliation that was yet to completely heal.  The circumstances were similar. On one side, an eager visitor who had traveled far to say "Hello" and on the other side, a host, bewildered and surprised by this visit. In the first case, the host would not receive the visitor, who would turn back humiliated and vowing never again. Now the roles were reversed and I was the host. What if I agreed to receive? What if in reality I did not plan to receive? ...