I was reading a book titled "The Comfort Zone" written by Kristen Butler. This book made me think about the different types of human beings I have encountered. The author has used the concept of three zones, viz, the zone of complacency, the zone of survival, and the zone of comfort. In the zone of complacency, we just give up and don't make efforts, in the zone of survival, we make efforts to "become" somebody, and in the zone of comfort, we act effortlessly in a state of flow.
Probably, we can look at it from a different perspective as follows:
Some people do not understand their "Swadharma" and get a supporting ecosystem. They have no motivation to work hard since they have whatever they want in life. That's why they become complacent. We see many such people in our vicinity. Their parents have money, or they have a family business, and they settle comfortably in that business or start enjoying that money. Such people never contemplate their purpose in life and their "Swadharma". They end up living life in the same frame in which they were born. Life is easy, but at the same time quite limited for them. However, they never get to realize the limitations of their frame.
The other category of people comprises those who do not understand their "Swadharma," but their ecosystem is not that supportive, and they have to struggle to survive. Struggle may be for two reasons. Some people in society may have to struggle for basic needs such as food and shelter, while others may have to struggle for their greed. Greed has no limit. Somebody may have crores of rupees in their account and may still feel like a struggle. That is why most people who lose awareness of their "Swadharma" and set their focus on extraneous rewards keep struggling throughout their lives. Greed has no saturation point, and therefore, the more they get those extraneous rewards and the more hungry they feel. First, they want to get those rewards for themselves, and then for their kids, and then for their future generations, and keep struggling for that. We can see the same "strugglers" even among the richest of the people in our society.
The third category of people comprises those who have contemplated the meaning of life and have understood their "Swadharma," but have a challenging ecosystem. Since they understand their "Swadharma", their actions are guided by that. They are not seeking to "become" somebody. They are content since they connect to the "reality of their being". That's why there is little or no desire to get extraneous rewards. However, they just want to manifest in the best possible manner, and that's why their actions are guided by their "Swadharma". Their innate abilities and strengths. Most of the heroes in our society fall in this category. When we watch "Shindler's List" movie, we can see that contentment on the face of Oskar Shindler and yet he is determined to save the lives of so many old, women and children who would have otherwise been killed in the Nazi concentration camps. He is not a "struggle", rather he is a "reformer". The lives of all the "reformers" would be guided by a deep sense of "freedom", "love", and "compassion". They would understand their natural abilities and strength quite well because they are lost in the shine and gleam of the extraneous rewards, and therefore understand themselves well.
The fourth category of people comprises those who understand their "Swadharma" and also have a supporting ecosystem. They are the "creators". They explore for the fun of exploration, and their explorations are guided by "search for truth and reality". Sri Aurobindo may explore the domain of the metaphysical world and write Savitri, Rabindranath Tagore may write Geetanjali, Einstein may explore the nature of relativity, and Leonardo Da Vinci may explore different forms of art and science. All these people make the entire community grow. Galileo challenges the fixed framework of a society that believes that the entire cosmos revolves around the Earth. These creative people create something new that helps society break free of its fixed frame and grow.
Since the majority of the parents have been "strigglers" in their lifetime, somehow they get fed up with that struggle. They fail to realize that the reason for their struggle is not the ecosystem but their lack of understanding of their "Swadharma" and their "inner disconnection". That is the reason why their actions are not guided by love, freedom, and compassion. That is why they are constantly seeking extrinsic rewards. That is why they feel fearful despite having almost all the external possessions as per the standards of the world. Due to their limited understanding of "Swadharma", they force their kids to be "strugglers" and some of the kids whose parents have gathered sufficient resources become "complacent". Either way, this is a sure shot way of being stressed and depressed when the kids reach their 40s and 50s, or even before that. "Extraneous rewards" give us an instant kick, but their charm is very short-lasting, and that is why efforts centered around extraneous rewards are bound to bring "burnout". I wish that more and more parents understand this and guide their kids to understand their "Swadharma" lead their lives driven by "love", "freedom", and "compassion" that will make their life fulfilling and meaningful.
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