While walking, I just saw a couple sitting on the pavement. Slight disappointment on their face with the male smoking and the female sitting as if feeling helpless. They really looked constrained for resources. On the other hand, we often see so many people who have all the resources available to them sitting constrained. I fail to understand why they feel hopeless and constrained despite having a sound body, a skilful mind, and enough resources to do something or the other. I find no reason for that helplessness except that they just want to feel helpless. Probably, they do not want to work hard, and feeling helpless looks like an easy option.
Some experiments were conducted on mice in which they were kept in a box with low boundaries and given an electric shock. All of them jumped the boundary and ran away. Slowly, the boundary's height was increased until they could no longer jump over it. After some time, the "learned helplessness" set in: they couldn't jump the boundary, and after that, the boundary's height was reduced, and they were unable to jump over it because they had resigned mentally. They accepted mentally that they were helpless.
Don't we do the same thing with ourselves each day? Every time we tell ourselves we can't do something, aren't we learning to be helpless? The sky holds clouds of so many sizes and shapes. But the sky is not the cloud. Cloud is different from the sky. Similarly, we have infinite possibilities. One of these possibilities may be challenged. That does not mean that the sky has been deprived of all possibilities. There would be millions more possibilities that may be manifested through this body and the mind.
Then, why do we give up? Why do we get depressed? I have found that in most cases, a sense of entitlement makes us depressed because we have enjoyed a possibility without being worthy of it or without earning it. That's why the children of rich people, who get all the privileges and comforts without any hard work, get more stressed and depressed. They have got something out of fluke, and they are not worthy of the same. They somehow want to hold on to the same. They know they wouldn't be able to get the same again if they let it slip out of their hands. That's why they overreact. Had they acquired the same through hard work, they would know how to get it again.
I feel that the biggest curse for any human being is to receive something he does not deserve. If a beggar is made to live in a five-star hotel for a month and then asked to leave, he will be the most cursed person. While the other beggars would be okay to stay in those filthy conditions, this beggar would not be able to go back to the same place. He has seen cleanliness, and he would find it more difficult to sit on the filthy streets and beg. Now, think of a situation where he can stay longer in that hotel by manipulating the ecosystem. He would go to any extent to manipulate the system. It is because he is extremely insecure. He has a situation where the alternative is nowhere near comparable to what he has in hand, and he has no skill set to secure that stay at that hotel on his own. On the other hand, if he has the capacity to stay on his own in that hotel, he would not be that manipulative. That's why I feel that skill-building is one of the foremost prerequisites for self-respect. We have to constantly invest in our skill sets so that we may cross any boundary. "Learned helplessness" and the "sense of entitlement" both make us weak and insecure. Even in Vanvasa, the Pandavas kept honing their skills, which is why they could fight the Battle of Kurukshetra with so much of ease. Constant skill-building with love at the centre of life makes life fulfilling.
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