Today’s world is of instant gratification. We do something and then expect an immediate result from that effort. Or at least we expect something in future, preferably in the near future. We tie our happiness to the outcome, and thus our entire focus shifts from the journey to the destination. That’s how we train our children too – “finish your homework and then you can watch TV,” or “if you get good grades, I will get you the latest model of iPhone.” And that’s how we work in the corporate world, which lives and dies by quarters. If the quarterly results are good, the stocks go up. What if, I say, perform to the fullest but let’s not get hung up on the results? Pretty dramatic! Most of the times, our results are directly proportional to our efforts but there are always times when it is not. And that’s just fine.
We work hard and smart because we want results. But often we see that even when we give our best, the results are not as per our expectations. Yet, we feel satisfied and happy – because, we realize that we enjoyed what we did; we were in the zone; and there were factors beyond our control that dictated the outcome. Many a times, we lose track of time when we are fully engrossed in whatever we are doing. Whenever we give our 100% to an effort – with our full attention, with our full being and presence, with passion and enthusiasm – we seem to enjoy our work. We look forward to our work. We are, in fact, enjoying the journey without thinking about the destination. We are happier! And that’s what the life is about – being happy.
When the results are not to our expectations, we feel dejected, disappointed and even depressed. And why not? We had all the right intentions and efforts in completing the work, so what’s the harm in expecting some monetary or non-monetary returns from it! Right? Not really. The Newton’s law of action and reaction does not always apply to real life where there are many factors that can move the outcome from ideal to less-than-ideal. The sooner we realize this, the better it is for us to accept the outcome.
Especially, when we associate our ego with our efforts, any outcome less than ideal feels like a thorn in our lives. We expect and hence, we get dejected. For example, sometimes even our most sincere and earnest advice gets rejected or ignored by our near and dear ones. We get hurt. Our ego then responds to the situation by choosing to “not care” anymore. But actually, we do care and want our advice to be heeded. Somewhere deep in our egoist mind, we want that person to fail and come back to us for guidance because they did not lis
ten to us the first time. The sooner we realize that our role and contribution is over when we delivered our sincere effort and the fact that the results are not in our hands, the more at peace we will be.
We are in a happier place, when we give 100% to our efforts and then let the universal forces decide the outcome. More important is to live with the principle of, “I don’t mind, what happens.” Let’s get detached from the outcome of our efforts and just put in our best every time. Let’s be open and accepting. There is always a reason, why some things don’t happen the way we want it. We may or may not come to know of that reason. Let’s focus on “how” instead of “why” or “why not”. Let’s be happy rather than being just successful.
Tags: Destination, Happiness, Journey, Life, Makhija, Spirituality
April 4, 2016 at 8:15 pm |
Worth read n realising
April 4, 2016 at 10:42 pm |
A simple and beautiful concept to shift the focus on the little things that would matter most which otherwise would remain unseen in this result and expectation driven world.
April 4, 2016 at 10:53 pm |
Great post!