Hi reader,

Thank you for sharing your valuable time with me. And a special thanks to everyone who read my previous blog about the Depth, and shared their views. Honestly, I never thought this could be something so relative among us, but this is what life is all about, surprises and experiences. 

Before we talk anymore, let’s recall that this blog is a continuation of the previous one – Depth of a Problem or Problem of Depth. So if you haven’t read it yet, I appreciate it if you could give it a read. However, since it has been almost a month, let me share where we left off,

“So be mindful, of who you are sharing your emotions, hurdles, and challenges with, and who you are expressing with, as there could be people who will see no problem in it at all, and make you doubt even more if you are overseeing a problem, or just too bad in expressing. “

After publishing the blog, there were a few doubts with the people, concerning who I was talking about with “people are shallow” comment. So here to clear the air, there is no one who was specifically targeted. We all have a different life, different hurdles, different joys, and different sorrows at intervals of time. My present can’t be the present for you, and vice-versa. Hence, there is always a possibility of a gap existing between our understanding of us. One could be deep, and to its reference other can be shallow. 

To understand it, let’s take an example. Suppose, two people are in the same building but on different floors, one being on the 4th floor and the other on the 14th floor. The views of the two floors can be different. A 4th-floor person might be seeing someone damaging a mango tree for greed, while the 14th-floor person just sees a mango orchard. One is seeing a problem while the other is unaware of it, just as seeing the enormity of the orchard. 

Similarly in life, one with a deeper understanding of a situation can sense a problem, however, the other might not be able to. And when these two talk, there will always be differences in opinion. It is not the difference in opinion that matters, what matters is their intention to bridge the gap and reach the same level of understanding. When people are committed to bridging the gap and understanding each other’s problems, the relations get stronger, but when either of them is not equally committed, the gap just gets bigger and bigger, and this is where the relations start getting affected. To revise, it is the intention and commitment to bridge the gap that matters, not the depth or shallowness. 

There is another way, people have started to tackle the differences, “Agree to disagree”. Does it help? Isn’t it the other way of saying, let’s be committed to keeping this gap as is, and no one will try to bridge it as we don’t want to? I still fail to understand what good it does in the long run, other than being ignorant of the differences. 

It is so important that we strive to understand one another, because out of understanding is born empathy, out of empathy is born compassion, out of compassion is born love, and finally, out of love comes peace. We can’t love something that we don’t understand. Though many may disagree, understanding is the soil from which love grows forth. To summarize the sequence: concentration, listening, reflection, understanding, empathy, compassion, love, then peace.

– Dandapani

In my previous blog, we discussed that we would talk about the expressions. What does expression mean? Is it just making others aware of your thoughts and feelings? Or, in addition to it, even make ourselves aware of them?

Have you ever seen a baby cry, out of hunger? In my opinion, we all have seen, and do you know you also have done that unknowingly, just ask your mother. That cry is an expression. It makes the mother aware that the child is hungry. Yes, expression is that simple to understand. But when does it get complicated? When we grow up! To all my bachelor friends who are staying in different cities (or even with families), how often have you lied at home that you had lunch, and you hadn’t but lied just so the parents do not get concerned? This extra care and affection for our loved ones is often the reason, we suppress our expression, and never really notice and it becomes a habit. A baby won’t think twice about not crying as it might disturb others, but that same baby after decades will lie. 

Another reason, we stop expressing ourselves is the fear of judgment. A lot of us fear, that if we express our happiness and joyful moments and achievements, it can get jinxed. And many of us fear, that if we express our fear, anxiety, sadness, and anger, then others will judge us as being weak, cowardly, or evil. 

All the extra care, affection, love, fear, and judgments, just push us down to not express, and take the burden and pressure of our emotions. 

“Under pressure, you don’t rise to the occasions, you sink to the level of your training.”

Anonymous US Navy SEAL (ref. Power of Unwavering Focus, Dandapani)

Due to these habits of ours, a major challenge I have noticed in myself and my friends, we skip to acknowledge. We fail to be loyal to ourselves by not acknowledging our expressions and our emotions. We think a lot of things, how the other will react, what will it look like, what will be the outcome if we express it, and what if things get jinxed. Why do we not acknowledge the happiness we get when we do something for ourselves? Why don’t we express our sadness and disappointment, if we fail? Why are we stacking up our expressions, just waiting for the right time? Why do we think multiple times to speak what doesn’t feel right until it’s too late?

When holding our expressions becomes a habit, and we have stacked a mountain of expressions in our minds, what happens? Does it affect us, or am I just shooting in the dark? Have you ever faced a situation, where you were in doubt, whether to smile or not? Have you noticed in life, that something is going smoothly, and something is on the rocky road, but we don’t know how to react? Should we smile, or be sad, or be anxious, or be excited? When we see the mirror, what expression do we see on our faces? Just look at the mirror right now, or turn on the front camera of your mobile phone, and look into your eyes. What is the current emotion? Are you perplexed? Are you unsure of how are you feeling right now? Are you able to find just a single expression on your face, and in your eyes? This is what happens when we hold expressions.

I understand it is easy to say, and tough to adapt. Old habits die hard, completely understand it. But are we ready to live our lives like this, or do we want to do something about it? Do we want to enjoy all the moments of our life, do we want to feel the little happiness in the daily mundane life or do we just want to pass second after second until it becomes year after year, this I leave up to you. 

Yet, if you are looking for suggestions, this is what you can try. Do you see a clock, with the seconds hand ticking? Just watch it, how it moves, watch it for 10 seconds. Yes, this is present, this moment is life. The moment we start to understand that those 10 seconds are now gone, they will never be back to our life (no matter how much money we make, not even the richest person alive can bring back those 10 seconds), we understand the importance of the present.

“Though it seems a harmless gauge of time, to those that fathom it, a day is a saw steadily cutting down the tree of life.”

Anonymous

When the present is so precious, do we want to waste it? When we are unable to understand how we feel in the present, then why can’t we just enjoy the present, why can’t we dare to be loyal to our emotions and express ourselves as we feel? Why don’t we decide to stop carrying the burden and express ourselves in the moment itself? Why not decide to celebrate our joys and success when they happen, without the fear of jinxing it? Why not express our disappointments and sadness without the fear of being judged as weak? Why can’t we just live in the present? Living in the present is easy, yet we have to take a leap of faith, carry trust and belief, and commit ourselves to face all the challenges in the present and take our procrastination head-on. Are we ready for this, is a question for self, just like “Can you express?”

And on this food for thought, I leave you hoping you embrace the present, and enjoy this moment!
– Navneet