ALSphere Foundation
Jyoti slumped in a chair, her eyes swollen. She felt her life meaningless and felt like escaping from her own self as she wasn’t able to clear her UPSC exam even after her third attempt. She walked like a sluggard on two legs not able to accept her failure. As she discussed her plight and predicament with her best friend, she told Jyoti to not loathe herself as accusing herself would be wrong in inference. Suddenly Jyoti recalled the words of Emerson often quoted by her late father in tough situations, “Wait for your returning strength,” and she had an epiphany, this too shall pass.
Remember when we were kids, we always had dreams? We never thought about fruitful results. This never caused us anxiety. When we grew up, many of our dreams didn’t come true due to various reasons which mostly consisted of our own mistakes. But as we grow up, this logic takes a back seat and we get immersed in the clouds of doubt when we see the expected results don’t take shape as we had conceived.
If we peep into the inner recesses of our mind, we can draw a significant pattern of the root cause of our pessimistic perspective. Every dot of that pattern will scream three words: fear, envy and guilt. These are the three emotions which lead to emotional vulnerability. Emotions themselves aren’t destructive. They become so when we express them in inappropriate ways. Becoming self-aware and not self-centred is the first step to overcome mental pollution. Now reason out the factors that trigger such atlas of emotions and endeavour to win over or neutralise them.
James Mursell describes how once while making his way through a very narrow valley that cut across a range of mountains, he felt nervous and trapped. But he says, “I found myself bathing in the sunlight of a beautiful bright day, and the clouds that had seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon were just a little waft of vapour in the past behind me.”
It is so with a good deal of mental health. Assure yourself that the clouds or cobwebs of stress and strain will disappear as you drive them away with the magic wand of grit and determination. Anxieties and agonies are like fears. They make home in your heart if nurtured with negative thoughts. Treat them with wholesome neglect, they will quickly pass. Don’t lock yourself in the dungeon of your own making. Why live in an emotional cellar when there comes a beautiful view from the top floor? When you are in a bad phase of life, see which worse patch of life another friend is going. Focus your energy to help that friend. It will snap you out of your bad phase, make you frown upon your own furrows and you will realise like the character of poet John Mansfield, “The harm I have done by being me.” This will bring a desirable change in you.
Happiness is a habit, and so is sadness. Whenever you feel low, stride along with your shoulders back, your arms swinging, take a deep breath and count your blessings. Indulge deliberately in an activity that makes you happy, and the gloom will disappear with emotional resilience. Well, we all live in a world where hurtful things happen and we can’t change the world or avoid emotional injuries but we can learn to recuperate from injury with a strong mental makeup.
When Millet was painting his famous masterpiece ‘The Angelus,’ he was dipped in poverty. He wrote, “We have only enough food to last us for two days and we don’t know how we are going to get any more; for they won’t let us have any without money.” Yet he continued painting.
Life has to go on. Keep your mental health fit with absorbing aim, perseverance and passion. Nature exemplifies: it’s darkest before the dawn.
Ritu Kamra Kumar
