Striving towards Excellence

-Karthik Gurumurthy

A farmer came and asked the owner of a restaurant if he could serve a million frog legs in his restaurant. The restaurant owner was shocked. How could he supply so much? The restaurant owner agreed when the farmer told him that in his pond next to his house, there were millions of frogs.

The next day the farmer brought just two frogs and apologized, ‘Hearing them croak at night I thought there were so many’. Next time when people hurt you and just remember the above story in your mind when millions of thoughts tell you that some one has hurt you a million times . A problem always looks bigger and magnified in the dark. Its because of our thoughts and interpretations. When we introspect we find that we fuss over nothing.

But why do we worry over everything? Is there logic to our worry?

In fact we are victims of our logic. We whip ourselves with our point of view. Our logic tells us that if our desires are not fulfilled we can’t be happy. But if you look closely there are people who are happy without those objects. You are constantly worried for you have programmed yourself with the belief that you would be happy only if your wants and desires are fulfilled. It is this thought process of ours that has to be altered. Worrying has become a habit. We have become familiar with this habit. We tend to continue with anything that we feel familiar with. When we have a difference with our friend/boss/spouse, we feel very hurt and start worrying. What shall we do?

Start looking at differences as points of view. Have fun with differences. Represent your perception of differences more wisely. Create space within you for differences. Don’t limit yourself with your point of view. Even if some one hurts you, give it its right place. May be it is 5 units of unpleasantness but with clustering of your thoughts it appears 95 units of unpleasantness.

I remember waiting for my life to get easier. I thought, “When I have less problems, then I’ll be happy!” Then I noticed something fascinating. The happiest people I knew had more problems than I did!

Maybe you have noticed the same thing - that people who seem to get the most out of life have often had it tough. They have lost loved ones, they’ve gone broke, they’ve suffered major illnesses – and most likely, they still have big problems! But they are happy because at some point they decided “happy” is the only way to live. Happiness doesn’t just happen to you, like some “accident”. It is something you choose. You make the choice to be happy first. Happiness is a daily decision. When you look at the victims of Tsunami, hurricane Katrina or the recent earthquake in Pakistan, realize that whatever you are going through is nothing. Be Happy and thankful for what you have.