Day 14- Every Day Inspirations - Time for Digital Detox

Fasting used to help us get a physical detox once in a while.  It used to provide a balanced metabolism and build in right immune system.     

But today, we are so much overloaded with technology and gleaming gadgets.   No one walks around without a mobile in hand or pocket and without heads phones hanging over.  People keep talking in air as they walk, run, jog, sit, eat, and sleep.  They are talking into the phone…ignoring who is around you.  

I love technology and I make a living working for one of the largest technology company.   I am not an exception to this addiction.  Sometimes, instead of the gadgets serving or helping me, they have become my energy consuming devices taking away my precious time and thoughts.   Creative forwards are killing my own creativity and thinking.  I am enjoying the repeated memes and endless shares.  

This unending connectivity gives me no time to connect within, with my hobbies, with my friends over a coffee table, with a paper-book in hand.   It is challenge…I feel totally lost without internet, without my phone beeping on messages and if I don’t get calls for half day, I start feeling desperate that the world has forgotten me.  

Thanks to the recent floods in Chennai, that thrashed this syndrome of virtual connectivity restlessness…no messengers worked, Skype was at sky distance, mails flooded the mailbox and not our heads, and Facebook and Twitter didn’t flood me for 5 days.  

I don’t dare to take the pledge of continuing this disconnect from the world, but I realized that it is time to start keeping things in control.  Start with few hours of digital detox every day.   Probably, I would talk to my neighbor aunty over the compound wall, than wishing her happy birthday on the Facebook Wall…

Mails can wait, unless someone’s roof is on fire.   Stop my followers and likes on pictures on the net.   I will give myself a chance to reconnect within. 

Not typing ‘Om’ hundred times on internet page, but to sit devotional in the puja room and fold my hands and say my prayer loudly.   Instead of sharing pictures of sweets and cakes, probably I will carry a cake at 12 in the night on a friend’s birthday.

Instead of repeated promises to get fit, I now need to tie my shoes and take the first few steps in the nearby park.    Yes, I have to start living.  Not just in the virtual world.   I need a digital detox for sure.  And if not now, When?   If not I, who?  

Day 13- Every Day Inspirations - The Story of a Care-Giver

She kept looking at the sky.  I could imagine what my wife would be going through, the sort of the day she was having and her mood.   

Face is in the index of mind.  Here, the mind is feeble and not listening.   Rain, Shine and drain, all happens in the same day.  Like a wild boar in the forest, like a hurt caterpillar curled up to rescue, or just like a peacock dancing in the rain.   She could portray everything in one single day and still work with her daily routine.  To be her caregiver was not only tiring but also confusing. 

As I pushed her in the wheel chair to the hospital, this time, I know she was suffering from mixed episode, severe mental condition with moods swinging ferociously with mania, anger, depression and acute agitation, kind of loss and total disconnect.  Her doctor was very kind and he had the patience to help me understand her medicines and also keep them away and give her as per the prescriptions time to time.  Any lapse on my part to do this, will put me at the havoc of running with her to recuperation center trying to revive her back to life.  How can I forget that one afternoon she pushed me into that state of helplessness?   Medicines and treatment that made her get annoyed and more restless.  But we had no choice but to listen to our doctor.  Patience.  Perseverance.  I know my inner spiritual strength is helping me as her care taker.

Her mental pain created a mess causing disturbing episodes of anger and argument with my parents and family.  Not everyone can understand her illness which is driving her and cannot endure what I do.  I just stay calm for I know that arguments or justification will only lead her to get agitated  and in a mood.  There are times, when I just give up being a peacemaker.  I feel like giving her a slap to make her shut up.  I want to kick her out of our house.  I am also a human and there are times that I just lose my patience.  But I still endure. 

She strives to orchestrate activities that keep her busy.  She seems to be doing best in everything.  Suddenly she gets lost.  She gets tired.  She shouts for a break.  I silently wish I could say no to her, when she initiates hundred things at a time, triggering another episode of pain, to herself!

I was getting drained, with stress and worry, striving to look after my child, attend my job without losing it and maintain my sanity in the process.   A plethora of moments in the treatment, that cause a deep sense of anxiety.  Will she ever recover?   She was unwell and often required hospitalization for physical illness just because her mind did not give in the immunity that the body requires.  The longer the hospitalization episodes, the wheels of our apple cart seems to be coming off.

Being mentally ill, she often opened the can of worms without even realizing it.  Every past hurt, difficulties with parents and parents-in-laws, past relationships, insecurities, regrets, would often surface during counseling.  Instances of abuse in which she got locked away, disappointments and fear had to be slowly decoded and put back in order for her to move on.  

 

Listening to her favorite classical music, reading her favorite fiction, and creating awesome network of friends and taking steps of recovery at work and focusing on her childhood dream were happy indicators as she slowly limped back to life.

More than 2 years of being on the roller coaster times of illness and to keep her better, I had to stay positive.   Focus on her recovery and our life together.

She gave me love unconditionally and accepted me as a perfect husband with all my imperfections.   She blessed me with a beautiful child as our symbol of love.  She took me around the world and enjoyed every moment as a traveler.  We explored several things together, passionately and in peace.  I gave into love and did not give into negative emotions of anger, fear and hurt in spite of my own moments of uncertainty.

Life is just inevitable, with its own package of challenges thrust upon us by no fault of own.   Keeping up my own physical wellness and mental stability was key to keep the challenges under control.  There are so many aspects of our lives that we have no say in.  In whatever we can, it is fine to keep with the ways to control, with the inevitable random nature of things that life throws at us.

It was much easier to explain to the world, when she met with the car accident in one of her business trips.   Her bruises and cuts on the face showed her pain and was much easier for others to understand what was going on.  They contemplated her path to recovery.   Prayers and wishes kept pouring in till she got her physical broken parts were put back in place and got back to action.

But I had no particular way to make people understand her pain.  The stigma of mental illness did not allow me to even share the episodes of her hospitalization with family and friends.   However, I am just thankful to the awesome recovery which overtime, was a firm build of gratitude that became a massive relief for me.  I don’t need to explain to this world.  As long as I stay in her world and manage her.

Deadly silent nights when she would scroll through her entire friends list on the phone and find no one whom she could call and speak her heart out, she used to call me and cry for help.  The hours of uncertainty, doubt, worry, and pain doubled when she was ill.   Yet, she made every effort and listened to every suggestion of her doctor and kept her strong will sustain.   Miracles started to happen.  

Her episodes are not completely gone.  Though they are not that frequent, she does get into a state of despair making me wonder what recovery she had.  But both of us kept our hopes high and faith strong.  We will together fight it. 

I don’t want to question myself if she would change for good or bad permanently.  Neither do I have the miniscule doubt of her love for me, my child, our family and her profession.   I keep my respect for her and feelings uncompromisable and truthful.   Wishing our worst nightmares never repeat.   Our relationship and love between us all is stronger than ever.   As her best caregiver.  As her husband.  As her friend!  Life goes on!

Day 12 - Every Day Inspirations : World Needs Swami Vivekananda Today!

There lived a great man,  a man of selfless love for his Nation; Who lived with deep insight and wisdom, presenting India amongst World Nations with a irrefutable logic,  pride of the religion he was born into, taking Hinduism with its own charm and equally interpreting and respecting world religions.    His greatness with scriptures and knowledge of science was immense.  A life not long lived, but well lived.   His vision and thoughtfulness makes him not just a day's inspiration but for every day!

Ten beautiful life lessons from Swami Vivekananda...

1. You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.
2. Arise! Awake! and stop not until the goal is reached.
3. You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.
4. “In a conflict between the heart and the brain, follow your heart.”
5. They alone live, who live for others.
6. Neither seek nor avoid, take what comes.
7. Comfort is no test of truth.  Truth is often far from being comfortable.
8. The fire that warms us can also consume us, it is not the fault of the fire.
9. Ask nothing, want nothing in return.  Gove what you have to give, it will come back to you, but do not think of that now.
10. Do one thing at a time,and while doing it put your whole soul into it to the exclusion of all else.

Day 11 - Every Day Inspirations - Spending to live and not living to spend

All our lives we run behind goals and targets.   Projects, pipelines, deadlines, ambitions, benchmarks and lot more.  

All for that one fat pay check at the end of the month.   Comes the first week with a good outing with family and friends,  to a movie, to shopping, to eating out and you live life king size.  Before you even realize,  your bank balance slowly takes a downward slide...EMIs and monthly commitments...then you start to budget, plan , squeeze and if things worsen, beg and borrow to make the ends meet.   Already the lifestyle expectations are kept at such great heights.  We spend when we have,  we keep quite when we don't.  Why is this imbalance?

Because, we are not spending to live.  But living to spend.  One writer wrote that a pizza costs Rs 600 for one night dinner, where as a poor family of 4 can buy Rice and Dal for whole month. 

Similarly,  we are ready to buy one expensive suit for the Prom night worth of Rs 10000 and above..but fail to recognize that a family can survive with proper clothing for the entire year with that money.    It is the value of money which we are failing to notice.

Falling for false prestige of big cars,  EMI driven apartments,  avoidable parties and buying more that what is required makes you only be in spending to live and not living to spend.   As long as the bullish market of consumerism is pushing us and we get into its trap, none can save us.

Go back to the days when we write down what we need and go for shopping.  It makes sense and value for the hard earned money.  Don't get driven by provoking advertisements that would make no sense once you leave the place.   Short term and regular savings will make your money multiple.  Do careful investments and protect your future.   

As long as you have roof, proper clothing, good education and three times food,  and you can still help others, you are actually spending to live and live properly.    Let us stop living as if we are born to spend.....mostly on unnecessary things.   You are not just eating away your money in a wrong way, but also the most precious resources of the land.   Beware!