by Shikha Rastogi | Jan 5, 2018 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! I took a little hiatus from writing in the last few months but I am back and this time I am examining beliefs around human beings’ addictions which could be anything from being addicted to drugs or alcohol or prescription medications or any other kind of addiction! In today’s post, I am attempting to examine what goes on in a human being’s mind who is an addict and this society’s response to such humans!!
Belief: He should be a responsible adult and get his act together because he is not just hurting himself but his entire family!!
On my recent trip to India, I came across two individuals who are barely in their 40s and who are really struggling with various forms of addictions. Both these individuals have families, wives and kids, but they are still not able to get their acts together as per their families and society’s expectations! And in talking with the family members of these ‘irresponsible adults’, as our society would define them; I can’t help but wonder, what is it that prevents such individuals from giving up their addictions especially when they are not able to become sober even for the sake of their families!! This is my attempt to dig deeper and find some answers. And the reason I am even writing this post is because I want this society including the families of such individuals to view addiction and the addicts themselves from a different perspective – a perspective of love rather than disgust and ridicule!!
Anything that a human being does or does not do throughout his lifetime can be traced back to one thing – his mind. The mind which generates hundreds and thousands of thoughts every waking minute of the day! And if you have ever paid attention to the way a human mind works then you would know how it automatically gravitates towards negative thoughts. Negative thoughts that tell him how this world that he lives in is not a safe place so he should keep his guard up all the time and look out for danger even though none exists most of the time. Negative thoughts that tell him how he needs to behave in this world to be accepted by his own family, friends, neighbors and even strangers. Negative thoughts that tell him how he is not good enough yet until he becomes this or that. Although, this kind of thought pattern is a reality for most people on this planet; however, some of us are able to somehow either train our minds to look for good and positive or are able to learn to not take our negative thinking very seriously. But for the rest of the people who very much believe in the crap that goes on in their heads; they either turn to hatred and violence and hurt other people or they turn destructive to their own self. And an addict belongs to this second category of human beings who somehow over the years of living has come to believe that he is not worthy of living this life because he doesn’t feel lovable enough or good enough or smart enough or beautiful enough or rich enough etc. And because he doesn’t feel ENOUGH, instead of getting angry at other people, he gets very angry with himself and tries to mask and not feel that pain and anger through various forms of addictions! And all these things that he becomes addicted to are to basically keep him from feeling his crappy feelings.
But here is my very honest question to you? Don’t we all think this way from time to time, especially during the lows in our lives? Don’t we all try very hard to not feel the negative and unpleasant feelings that arise because of thinking this way? Don’t we all try to hide the fact that we feel these negative feelings from the rest of the world and our own families? Don’t we all pretend to be happy and act like our lives are so perfect although deep down inside we know that they are far from being perfect? So, if this is how we all think and feel sometimes, to me, the only difference between us and those addicts is that somehow, these addicts are not able to bounce back from this kind of thinking and feeling. And because they are unable to bounce back, they need a lot of help, love and support from their family members, from the medical community, from this society. But what I have understood so far in all these years of living life is that although some of us may try to help such people in the beginning; however, because it’s very challenging to get them to let go of their thinking and hence their addictions; as time goes on and if the addicts still haven’t become sober, even those of us who initially tried to help, start to pull away! We start to pull away because we expected them to have come out of their addictions by now but because they didn’t, we feel like they are not trying hard enough or they don’t love their family and friends enough or they are simply irresponsible human beings who don’t deserve any love and help and support because after all they are doing this to themselves!! But what I have also learned in the process of living this life and paying attention to the crap in my own head is that to be able to let this kind of thinking go is easier said than done because what you are trying to do is to un-learn this old way of thinking so that it would make space for new ways. And that is not easy – even the non-addicts would know that very well!
So, to anyone reading this post who may be struggling with addictions themselves or anyone who has a friend or family member who is struggling; this is what I want to say. Yes, I agree that it’s totally up to the addict to pull themselves out of this mess but family and friends play a very important role. You play an important role by not ridiculing and judging this person; by not making them feel bad about the fact that they can’t do it; by not calling them irresponsible human beings; by being compassionate and understanding even though you don’t understand a thing about addictions; by not giving up on these people because if you give up, they will too! They are banking on your hope for them to pull them out of this mess!! But wait, you can only practice compassion and love if you ever learned that yourself in the first place but because most of us never even learned to use compassion and kindness to help our own very young kids when they are ‘being bad’; how is it that we can make ourselves not judge the adults for not being able to get their acts together!!
And as always, leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. And until next time, give more love and support and compassion to especially to the people who can’t seem to get their acts together because they are the ones who need it the most 😊
by Shikha Rastogi | Sep 21, 2017 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! A few weeks ago, I examined why is it very important for parents to tightly hang on to compassion and kindness during the times of change especially when we may feel most stressed and out of control! This week, I want to talk about stress, where this stress is coming from and why is it that we can’t allow ourselves to become un-stressed even though we know that this stress is harming our physical as well as emotional well-being!
Belief: I am so stressed out all the time but this is how life is in these modern times!
In talking with people and reading articles these days; I have begun to realize that a lot of people have started to shift their perspective on ‘stress’. They have started to believe that ‘stress’ is part of living life in these modern times and that there is nothing much they can do about it. Stress appears to be the new norm for living a successful life in these times! It’s like this fashionable thing, a hot topic that people discuss with friends and family and enjoy comparing who is busier and therefore more stressed! And although at its face value, stress does seem necessary to achieve all the hundreds of desires we have in our life in this day and age; however, all of these signs point towards another reality. The reality that we have become addicted to stress because on some level we have invited and accepted stress as a ‘normal’ part of life and living.
So, have you ever wondered why is it that most of us think that being very busy and stressed out is the new norm? Why is it that although this busy-ness and stress is wreaking havoc on our physical as well as emotional health, yet, we somehow are unable to do what is needed to reduce some of this stress? Here is my take on it. I don’t think anyone would disagree when I say that the goal for most humans in this world is to achieve great things and become very successful. And to achieve great things and become successful, we believe that it’s very important to work very hard. And because we think it’s very important to work our butt off; we ignore everything that comes in our way of achieving and becoming successful and it includes stress!! So basically, our own expectations from ourselves as well as from our life trumps our basic common sense which may be telling us all along to slow down and to pay attention to what we have already achieved. To pay attention to our mental as well as physical health because our hearts as well as bodies can’t take it anymore!! But because we are always too busy doing things based on what our heads tell us; some of us don’t even know the first step to getting un-stressed and slowing down. And for the rest of us who may know how to slow down, we are so attached to our ideas and beliefs about achievement and success that we are not at all ready and willing to let go. And we are not willing to let go because we are very afraid that if we let go of the busy-ness and stress and unwind and slow down; we will be out of this rat race that life is. We will be out of reach of that elite category of high achievers and extremely successful people who make life look so very cool. We will be left behind relaxing and de-stressing while our neighbors and friends and family members will achieve their dreams! And because of this constant fear in our heads, even though we know that we can’t handle that demanding full-time job on top of raising our kids, we continue to do it! Even though we know that our kids are our priorities, we continue to work longer hours and just expect our kids to raise themselves! Even though we know that our kids will not be living with us for very long, we continue to be stuck with our devices doing very important things! Even though we know we will not be here on Earth for very long, we continue to disrespect ourselves by not listening to our hearts and bodies!
And when you ask people why is it that they can’t let go of some of the desires and thus some of the stress from their lives; a funny response is that this is the expectation of the society these days :-). So, for example, if you have a teenage kid and if you are that mom who has devoted her life to making sure your kid is that kid in high school that all other parents are in awe of – an all-rounder who knows pretty much everything that a human can know; let me make you aware of one truth! These expectations and ambitions that you think are coming from this society of people around you and you are just doing what everyone in this society expects you to do; guess what, – it’s YOU who has these expectations and ambitions to make your kid into a genius not the society! It’s YOU who has this fear that if your kid doesn’t become this teenage genius, he will somehow fail in life! it’s YOU who couldn’t get into that successful club and so you want to realize your own ambitions through your kids!
So, folks, don’t just go around blaming the society and the people in that society because it’s YOU who create this society. You are this society! It’s YOU who contributes to it! So, instead of blaming the state of your lives on this society, look within and start by taking full responsibility of the life stressful or not that you have created so far! Because unless you have the guts and courage to look within and take responsibility of the things you could have known and done differently, you will be stuck in that vicious cycle of expectations and stress and will continue to blame the state of your own heart and head and body on someone else. So, be brave and assess your own beliefs and thoughts which are being created because of these beliefs and the feelings that you are feeling because of these thoughts. Are they working for you? If they are not, it’s YOU and only YOU who can do something about it – not this society!
And as always, feel free to leave a comment if you feel like leaving one; and until next time, be brave and take responsibility!!
by Shikha Rastogi | Sep 7, 2017 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! A couple of weeks ago I examined the close connection between ‘feeling our negative emotions’ and our happiness and in the process it got a little emotional for me :-). This week, I would like to examine a very popular relatively new belief which is getting a lot of attention especially from women these days. And that belief is – A WOMAN CAN HAVE IT ALL!!
Belief: A WOMAN CAN HAVE IT ALL…
Even though at first I really want to say, no, absolutely not; especially not without making sacrifices which would affect at least some aspects of a woman’s life – personal or professional and the lives of her family members; I also believe whether a woman can have it all or not depends on how she defines as “having it all” and what her priorities are in her own life and what parts of her life she is willing to make compromises with because without compromises, there is no such thing as “having it all”!! For me personally, it’s not possible to have it all because whenever I think about having it all, what I really want in my professional life is to have a very high profile career with amazing pay, a fancy title, and great prospects to keep climbing the corporate ladder regardless of the long working hours. On top of that, for my personal life, I want to be married to a husband who is very loving and supportive of my high profile career and who pitches in to raise our 2 very well behaved kids. And I don’t think I am going out on a limb when I say that most women define “having it all” similar to how I define it. But like I mentioned above, since a lot of compromises will have to be made to get to “having it all”; I don’t think it is even appropriate to call it “having it all”. It should rather be called “having most of or some of it all” 🙂
Folks, I believe a revolution started a few decades ago in this world when some women who became aware of their very intense desire to become as successful as men in their own careers and therefore started to work very hard to achieve their dreams of having these very successful careers. And even though these women were out there achieving amazing heights in their careers, they still were not willing to sacrifice their dreams of having amazing personal lives on top of these high profile careers. Thus, over time, as these women tried to have the best of both worlds, it created a huge dilemma for these ambitions women because at the end of the day, they were still women which meant that according to the laws of nature, they were still the ones who had to get pregnant and bring human beings into this world and nurture them far more than their husbands could. And since this law of nature hasn’t changed and probably never will; and on top of that, since over the last few decades a lot more women have bought into this belief of “having it all” and now have this flame of ambition burning inside of them, it has impacted women by tremendously increasing their workload and as a result their stress levels. And this is what has led some women, including myself, to question the sanity of this belief – IF A WOMAN CAN REALLY HAVE IT ALL?
If you are a woman who believes in this belief; each time you watch/read the news which talks about the Marissa Mayers and Indra Nooyis and Sheryl Sandbergs of this world; do you think to yourself, I can be them. Or I want to be them? Or I have what it takes to be them? And the more you pay attention to such stories, the more you buy into this illusion and think yes, you can have it all!! You can have a very high profile career; a loving and supportive husband who has a similar high profile career, yet, completely supports you in your career as well and 2 beautiful and very well behaved kids. Each time you think to yourself, if these ladies can do it, why not me. And if you are already an ambitious woman, these kinds of news stories really catch your attention and make you desire the kind of life that these ladies lead. It makes you desire the kind of power and money and importance and being needed all the time by very important people to do very important things. But ladies, the truth is, even though these women with these high profile careers appear to have it all, however, what you don’t know is the entire story. You probably don’t even know half the story because this is the side that you don’t get to hear in the news. You don’t get to hear what these women’s internal states are as they try to manage everything in a day that just like all of us only has only 24 hours in it. You don’t hear the news about their stress levels and their coping mechanisms to deal with those stress levels. You don’t get to hear about how little or no time they have available for their own kids and spouses. You don’t get to hear their kids’ longings to spend time with their own mothers and not the nannies. You don’t get to hear about their own disappointments of missing out on watching their kids grow older. You don’t get to hear about the kinds of relationships they have with their own family members. My point is, you don’t hear about a lot of things which they have to sacrifice to get to where they are in their careers, the price they have to pay. And its not just women who end up paying the price, its men too who pay the price for having a very high profile career. But this is the compromise they choose to make. And that’s why, even though, to you it may appear that these women have it all, they simply don’t! They just choose their careers over other things in their lives. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that because this really is a personal choice. But even though this really is a personal choice, at the end of the day, you, the woman, has to be satisfied with making this choice no matter what you end up choosing. If you choose your career over your personal life, you have to be OK with it. If you choose your personal life over your career, you have to be OK with it. If you try to do a little bit of both, you have to be OK with it. You have to be OK with it because if you are not, you will never be happy living the life that you have today and will want to do what your friend is doing or your relative is doing because like I mentioned before, everyone’s lives look much more appealing than your own until you look deeper. Moreover, at the end of the day, all these choices lead you to one and only one destination – happiness and none of these choices are better than the others, I think. They just make our life journeys different, that’s all!
I know to be able to be at peace with your choices in general is a tough thing let alone when that choice impacts the entire foundation of your life and the people who matter to you in that life. But personally coming from an ambitious mindset and now living peacefully by accepting a little bit of both worlds, I can tell you that no matter how highly your boss or colleagues think of you, its only spending those few precious moments watching the smiles and laughter on the faces of these little people who you brought into this world is what makes my heart sing with joy :-).
Leave me a message if you feel like leaving one and until next time, live life 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Aug 25, 2017 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! A couple of weeks ago, I examined failure and a very popular belief associated with failure which tries to act as a motivator but I believe ends up doing more harm than good to a person’s psyche and that belief was ‘try, try and try again until you succeed’! This week, as kids head back to school, the emotions of families in most households are on a roller coaster ride. Hence, this week, I would like to examine why it’s even more important to tightly hang on to that compassion and kindness during these times especially when we may feel most stressed and out of control!
Belief: Its important to punish kids so that they can learn how to behave better!!
Don’t we all love to listen to all those heart melting stories when someone shows amazing kindness towards us or someone else. Or, when someone wraps us or someone else up in this soft blanket of compassion when we need it the most! When someone understands us the way we would like them to understand. When someone just listens to us without making us feeling like we are bad people for saying all that we want to say! When someone waits with open arms for our storms to pass so that they can give us that tight hug and let us know that we are still ok after the storm. When someone appreciates us for the small as well as big things that we are capable of. When someone loves us simply because we exist and are part of their lives. When someone accepts us perfectly along with all our imperfections!! Don’t we all love that and deeply desire that kind of love, kindness, compassion, acceptance and connection? So, if we all, regardless of where we come from or how we were raised or what religion or faith we follow or what our family values are, desire the same things; how is it that we can’t give these same things to each other or at the very least our own family members, our kids and our own selves? How is it that while raising kids, we continue to believe that punishment or anger is necessary to get kids into behaving better? Why is it that we continue to blame the state of our lives on external people and events and don’t take responsibility for our inability to manage our negative feelings like anger? Here is my perspective…
Folks, even though we all deeply desire these beautiful things that I mentioned above; however, those times when we need acceptance and compassion and kindness and connection the most, we are unable to extend that to anyone including ourselves and our very young kids because we are too busy judging ourselves, our kids and other people as bad. And we judge them as bad people because we judge negative emotions as bad and therefore whoever displays such emotions or lets them out in the form of anger or any other bad behavior is tagged as a bad person. And because as a society as well as in a family setting, we have such high expectations from everyone including young kids to be able to display good behavior all the time every time; we create an environment of so much shame and embarrassment for the young kids and adults who for whatever reasons at times are unable to manage their emotions and thus their behavior. And because we create so much shame around negative emotions and behavior is why a lot people end up having really bad episodes of anger or bad behavior because they have been holding on to that shame and anger for a very long time. And when they can’t keep this shame and anger inside anymore, they snap and we all know the damage that could be done by people when they snap!!
So, how is it that we can begin to create environments where people feel safe to let their crap out? Well, just like charity begins at home, I feel very strongly that the very first step towards breaking this vicious cycle of shame and embarrassment with regards to all negative human emotions is to learn how to parent our kids with compassion, kindness, acceptance and connection. And when we learn to hang on to compassion and kindness in the midst of our kids yelling and crying and tantrums; what we are teaching our kids is that they are they are not bad people for behaving the way they are behaving and that they are only HUMAN! On top of that, when we are able to stay calm and not yell or get angry at our kid or call them names when they are in the middle of their crap; we also let them know that we accept them and love them regardless of all their imperfections! And when kids know that about their own parents, they don’t feel ashamed about displaying their negative emotions as well as behavior. And when they don’t feel ashamed, they don’t feel like bad people who are unable to manage themselves and their emotions and behavior. And when they don’t feel like bad people, they are able to recover faster from an episode and are able to connect better with themselves and love themselves for who they are. And when they are able to love themselves for who they are, miracles happen!! Miracles happen because they are able to connect with themselves, their parents and everyone else around them on a heart level instead of an ego level! And when they are able to connect on a heart level, they are able to give all the compassion and kindness and love and acceptance. And when they give out all these qualities, they receive them back in abundance!! And honestly, don’t we all want to raise kids who are kind and compassionate?
To anyone who is still not convinced, I would like to say this – I know it’s very hard to stay calm in the middle of a kids’ tantrum and bad behavior especially because most of us were not raised this way and didn’t learn how to manage our own emotions; however, I want you to imagine this. Imagine that you work in a corporation and your boss is a bully. Every time he needs you to do something, instead of encouraging and helping you into doing your best work; he shouts at you and calls you names. So, do you think you will like to be yelled at by your own boss? Will that encourage you to perform your best? Will that motivate you to wake up each morning and show up at work? I don’t think I am going out on a limb if I assume that no one, literally no one, will like to work for a boss like this. So, answer this then – aren’t you doing exactly the same thing to your kids; bullying them when you yell at them and call them names? If you are judging yourself for being a terrible parent right now, I invite you to show yourself some compassion and kindness because this is where it really begins – YOU!!!
And as always, feel free to leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. And until next time, let your crap out because you are human 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Aug 10, 2017 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Hope you are enjoying summer wherever you live. Few weeks ago, I examined a belief which tells us that we should do whatever is necessary while we are still young so that we can live an amazing life sometime in the future. This week, I would like to examine failure and a very popular belief associated with failure which tries to act as a motivator but I believe ends up doing more harm than good to a person’s psyche and that belief is ‘try, try and try again until you succeed’!
Belief: Try, try and try again until you succeed!
Sometimes in life you may feel like nothing seems to be working the way you want it to work or when you want it to work. The goals you set for yourself may not seem achievable. You may feel like you don’t have control over pretty much anything in your life! It may feel like someone up there in the sky is not your friend and doesn’t love you and wants you to suffer. It may feel like no matter what you do, it’s never enough. You may notice all these other people around you living their amazing lives expect you! You may feel so frustrated, so hopeless, so unloved, so unworthy all at the same time! You may feel like a complete and total failure! The very raw experience of failing is what you may be experiencing…
‘Failure’ is something that every single one of us experiences in our lifetime. It doesn’t discriminate between rich or poor; white or black; intelligent or average; fancy title or not. It’s a basic truth of life and living and if you allow yourself to learn from it, it has the power to transform you! It can transform your beliefs, the way you think about life and living, the way you think about failure and success and thus it can change the way you go through the very raw experience of failing itself if you allow yourself to listen to the messages that are being sent your way! Amazingly, it also opens a well of opportunities that you were turning a blind eye towards until now! It allows you to move in the direction that is meant for you in this lifetime. However, most human beings don’t think about failures this way. Most of us are so afraid of failures and the experience of failing itself. And they are afraid because from the very beginning of their lives, the people around them tagged failure as something bad, something embarrassing, something that should not have happened but if it did happen, you are to bury it into a dark corner of your heart and with the help of positive thinking and your will power, you should just keep trying again and again and again….until you succeed! And when you finally succeed, that’s when you feel worthy as a human being, devoid of all embarrassments, able to talk about your success and just pretend that your failures never even happened! Failure is like this monster that exists in everyone’s thinking, but we are all too embarrassed to acknowledge that it not only exists but takes up quite a bit of room in our heads each time we try anything!
So, let me ask you this – what is the worst thing that happened to you when you failed? Did you feel awful? Did you feel like you have nothing to live for? Did you cry your eyes out? Did you feel like this is only happening to you in this whole wide world? Did you feel very alone and lonely? Folks, whatever it is that you may have felt or are still feeling because of whatever you have failed at and how many ever times you may have failed at that thing, failing is just as important as success. Failure is the Universe’s way of maneuvering you in the right direction especially when you are that person who has everything planned for yourself and your life, however, your plans don’t match the Universe’s plans! But because most of us have a negative perspective on failures; we tend to just stay in that frustrated mode and keep trying over and over again for that same thing without even realizing that there could be something else that we could be doing with our time and with our life.
A few years ago, I read somewhere that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. And to me, that is exactly what ‘try, try and try again, until you succeed’ means. By using this belief to try to achieve whatever it is that we want to achieve; what we ignorantly end up doing is denying all the other possibilities that are out there which are just waiting for our attention. And I don’t even need to give you examples this time because there are many that you can find from your own life about how you failed at something and then something even more amazing happened to you. Something that you didn’t even realize was possible. What I have been realizing over the years is that we have created a very narrow definition of success in our heads and all of us like sheep in a herd try to go about achieving success in very similar ways – getting a degree and working in a corporate job and making six figure salary etc. etc. But let me ask you this – how many of you actually love what you do in your jobs other than the paychecks that you get? If you don’t love what you do regardless of whether you are a rocket scientist or a janitor, then I think you still are a failure if you just have the guts to ask your own heart :-)..it will tell you the truth!!
Folks, I have had a very intimate relationship with failures, quite a bit of them actually! But failures is the very reason why I am able to express my heart out and type up these words which resonate with so many of you! I didn’t realize it back when I was in the middle of all my failures but the Universe was just trying to reveal all that I am capable of in this lifetime :-)…Do you know what you are truly capable of? Just ask your heart and do what it says even if you feel fear in every cell of your body! Just do it!!
And as always, feel free to leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. Until next time, listen to your failures and learn from them….
by Shikha Rastogi | Jul 14, 2017 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! A couple of weeks back, I examined relationships and what happens to two people in a relationship when we say “relationships grow apart over time”! This week, I would like to examine the belief that we should do whatever is necessary while we are still young so that we can live an amazing life in the future when we can send our kids to the most prestigious schools and retire thereafter!
Belief: We should do whatever it takes to accumulate for our kids’ college as well as for our retirements which is when we will get time to live our lives and be happy :-)!!
Wow, I really want to call us the most stupid species on this planet but for the sake of keeping it civil, let’s just call ourselves, naïve! And we are naïve because we think that we have time. We think we have time to work in that stressful job that leaves us so drained that we can’t even spend a few beautiful moments with our own family and kids; and we tell ourselves that we are working so hard to make our kids future bright. We think we have the time to forsake the relationships that we have right in front of us so that we can spend more time with our ‘online’ friends; and we tell ourselves that we are making those much needed ‘connections’ which may help us when we need them in the future. We think we have time to shop until we drop instead of spending that time having fun with our family; and we tell ourselves how much happiness we are bringing into the lives of our families by shopping with them. I think you get my point!
Folks, we have a very twisted view of life where even though we have so much of what we want from life already, however, we still keep chasing after more and more and more. And this greed for more and more doesn’t end with more. In fact, it just paves way for even more and more and more!! And this cycle of needing more continues until very late in life you realize what you have done! You realize, all these years, you had so much stuff and so many people who loved you but because you were too busy trying to chase after more, you didn’t even pay attention to what you already had! You didn’t take time to appreciate who already loved you. You didn’t pay attention to the amazing life that you already had. You didn’t pay attention to the hundreds and thousands of dollars you already had in your bank account. You didn’t pay attention to the amazing kids you already had. You didn’t pay attention to any of that!! You just kept chasing after more because the belief in your head told you that when you have more of everything it will lead to more happiness!!
I want you to understand what you are missing out on when you are focused on achieving more and more. So, let’s imagine you are a parent of a young kid and because you work in a very demanding job, you are unable to spend much time with him. Thus, this kid, although he needs you and your time and your attention; he is growing up in a one parent family because you are too busy creating a great future for him. So, down he road this kid grows up to be a teenager and now that he is a teenager, you want to influence him and his life and the decisions that he needs to make about his path forward in life. However, he refuses to listen to you let alone choose to do what you expect from him and this makes your relationship with him very turbulent. And because there is a lot of friction in your family, it creates a lot of unhappiness amongst your family members. But although your kid has nothing to do with all the unhappiness that is being created in your family, however, you blame him because you assumed that just because you are his parent, he will listen to you and do what you expect him to do. You thought it was more important to accumulate the money which he will need sometime in the future and sacrificed connecting with him in the present when he needed you. You sacrificed building your bond with him because you set a future date for your family’s happiness and you set a future date because you believed that your family including your son will be very happy if he only you could accumulate enough money to send him to that Ivy league school! Thus, you didn’t take the time to be the parent to your kid but now you want him to be the kid to his parent!
Folks, what I have come to understand in life is this amazing thing called ‘connection’! If you have a kid or any other family member, you need to connect with them and that is what makes you happy right in the moment. You need to notice and enjoy the already amazing things you have in your life which will make you happy not earning more or achieving more so that happiness can be yours in the future! I think most of us don’t really need more of anything! What we need is to be more present for what we already have enough of! And a lot of us already have a lot of what we desire. It’s just that we don’t take the time to notice and appreciate what we already have. And when we begin to do that, we will not have to wait to be happy at a future date, we will be able to find happiness right here, right now! And that is what makes any life worth living because until we do that, we are not even living, we are just chasing :-).
And as always, feel free to leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. And until next time, be more present in your already amazing life 🙂
