Letting go and life.

In psychological realms, the human mind is the very ground where the seeds of thinking, emotions and actions are sown, nourished and cultivated as social behaviour. As emotional beings with latent intellectual capacity, humans undergo various experiences - some are rewarding while others are otherwise. This taste and distaste stem from experiences, thought patterns and actions that we live through at an early age. Anything that benefits us or confirms our nascent beliefs or behaviour turns out to be our choice, and vice versa. As we grow into adulthood, the sense of emotional attachment to what we deem dear becomes stronger. These attachments form the nucleus of our thought pattern and ultimate behavioural tendencies.

However, soon we realise that events, people and life hardly respond to our mental horizon, but for fair reasons perhaps. As circumstances affect many people in society, their conformity to each individual aspiration would defeat the interest of people around us. This dichotomy in our thoughts and realities puts us at the crossroads of life and leads to a war in our minds. This battle is between our perceptions and longings and the unfolding realities around us. More often than not, the realities triumph over our aspirations of dictating them. The defeat raises the shackles of regrets, grudges, resentment and desperation and robs us of the joy of the moment. We begin to be overwhelmed by negative energy, people, memories and events, so much so that they end up lording over the rest of our lives. And for all defeats, no one but we ourselves are responsible because we decide to hold on to their fallouts.

What do we need to do when events turn out contrary to our aspirations? The answer is in acknowledgement of the fact that we cannot selfishly shape the outside world. Nor should we try to dictate unless we are influential enough and the expected outcomes are for the larger good of those around us. Anything that we selflessly try to control ultimately controls our lives. We can, however, change it by refining our terms with the surroundings by balancing the two opposite forces of...