5 Things I Learned During Crisis

I hope I was missed. It is more than three months since I have posted anything here. There was a crisis in my life. I may share the details here some other time, may be at a time when I will be able to look back into all that happened in last three months and smile at them. But as they say, anything that does not kill you makes you tough. It was a learning period, when you are in the middle and lot of stuff happens around, things you wish had never happened, people you wish you had never met. Needless to say, I lost few things, but gained a lot. The crisis is unsolved yet and I am in no way sure of the outcome, but as of now, I am at peace with myself and the world. I am in a position now, to look back at things and analyze them, though it makes me feel sad. I thought I will make my come back post by writing about few things that I learned during this time. May be you can use them sometime.

1.     Face the heat: You got two options when shit hits the fan- run for cover or stay and face the heat. You run from any problem, it always finds a way to reach back to you. But if you stand and face it, in your terms and your way, there eventually emerges a solution. It may not be what you wanted, but some solution is better than no solution. At least you will not face the same problem again. And even if you do, you have some idea of how to tackle it again, because you stood up and faced it first time.

2.    Forget the convenient way, go for the right one instead: While facing any problem, there are many ways you can go about it. Normally people end up taking the first visible path that is seen in front. Because it is convenient. It is a well made path and you have a comfortable journey. The best thing is that you reach somewhere too. But most of the times it may not be the right path. The destination that you reach may not be the one where you should be because all you were looking at was the smooth, wide highway just in front of you. If you want to reach the right destination, you may have to look more intensely. It may be a path that is less travelled, laid with gravel, thorns and many obstacles, but which will take you were you really want to reach. Sometimes you may not even have a way to reach there and you have to make a new path. It is tough, but better than reaching a false destination and pretending that you have done a right thing.

3.       Let the life be principle-centered: All of us built our lives around some objects or virtues. We have lot of money-centered people amongst us, who is hell bent on making money their sole destination. There are luxury-centered people, God-centered people, spouse centered people, job- centered and alcohol centered people. What is your center? I feel we have to be principle centered. I feel I should have a set of well formed principles on which I build my life. My actions should be based on them. I told to someone last day, “I don’t feel the need of convincing you or anyone the rightness of my deeds. The only guy whom I should convince is that man in the mirror whom I see daily. If I am unable to meet my eyes with him, I know I am in some real trouble.” I believe principle centeredness gave me the confidence to assert it. But do not be too tight with your principles too. You will soon be an arrogant ego centered person. Every while let your inner man- the man in the mirror, audit your principles and let him to modify or scrap it for you. 

4. Keep your options open: No one can say what lies in future. Never shut a door fully unless you are clearly convinced it is out of bounds. Keep the good relations; give whatever support you can to anyone around you without giving a thought if they deserve it. Be open to everyone and every thing, because anything that comes to your life makes a mark on it. It is up to you how you interpret if the influence is good or bad. Let your life be flexible enough to accommodate diversity and it will surely pay one time or other.

5.      Money is a means, not the end: Money is never an evil. It is a necessity. Just like air and water is required to sustain life, in modern life money is essential to sustain and develop you. But undue importance should not be given for money. There is no point in killing a relationship for sake of money.

That's all for now, guys. Keep smiling.