Abhijit Naskar's Blog - Posts Tagged "happiness"

To understand mental health, we must first understand what is mind? And by understand, I mean realize, in our bones, what this mind thing is. So, let's try to figure out. I assume you know what water is - what it is made of. It's made of hydrogen and oxygen. That's why, water is H2O. Likewise, mind is made of neurons - most of which are inside our brain and the rest are spread across our body like a network, not just to drive our body, but also to receive information from the environment.

We have about a hundred billion neurons in our brain. And just so you know, the number of neurons remains almost the same, since the time of our birth, what changes as we grow up and live through time, is their interconnections. For example, when you practice a certain task over a long period of time, the neurons responsible for that task, get substantially interconnected, and as they get more interconnected, you become better at that task.

Now, where does mental health come in all this? Well you see, we are animals. Yes we are, technically speaking. But since we severed our dependency on mother nature, by building civilizations, modern civilizations, we became somewhat non-animal. Which means, we no longer rely on the internal mechanisms that helped up animals to survive in the jungle alongside other animals. And these mechanisms are what we call instincts. But by instincts, I am not talking about the way you use the term in everyday life. I am not talking about just gut feeling. Instinctual drives helped us survive in the merciless kingdom of the wild - the drive for reproduction, the drive for staying alert and so on.

Now, the drive for staying alert is the instinct that's responsible for most of our modern everyday mental health issues - anxieties, stress and so on. Why, because we are not wired in our brain to stay calm - we are not wired to remain peaceful - we come from a long line of ancestors, who had to remain alert all the time, in order to be able to fight any possible predatory attack. And this evolutionary instinct of alertness still remains quite strong in the human psyche, except, now, we have labeled it with problematic terms like anxiety, stress and so on.

We have started to delude ourselves with the belief that these everyday mental health issues are our enemies that have risen recently, but the matter is quite the opposite. As I said in my book "What is Mind", fear, anxiety, stress - these are not our enemies. You cannot get rid of them, by thinking of them as enemies. They are evolutionary wisdom in the face of danger. So, you should not try to get rid of them, rather you should try to befriend them.

Accept them as part of your life - accept them as part of your being - rid yourself of the fairytale notion, that you ought to be full of happiness all the time - rid yourself of the false belief that being sad is bad, that being upset or disappointed is bad - these are all human conditions - one can't erase them, just because one doesn’t like them or one's society presents them as evil. Only when you accept yourself, the way you are, along with all your joys, sorrows, miseries, disappointments, failures, achievements and ecstasies, can you truly step beyond the dualities of existence - only then can you become truly alive to life itself.

Mental health awareness doesn't mean fighting stress, anxiety, depression and other everyday mental health issues, rather it means consciously modulating the habits that intensify those issues. Once you are in control of your habits, instead of letting your habits control you, you would automatically be in a much better shape, both mentally and physically. In fact, if we put aside the severe neuropsychological conditions, there is no such thing as mental health awareness, there is only awareness. Awareness breeds health, whereas callousness breeds more suffering.

Where is el dorado?
It is not a city but a person.
Where is the kingdom of heaven?
It is not a place but compassion.
Where can we find joy?
Not the market but in acts of goodness.
Where can we find health?
Not in gadgets but in simpleness.
Where can we find strength?
Not in the bank but in character.
How can we make progress?
Not with luxury but by lifting the other.
Lesser the needs, better the life.
Gentler the soul, lighter the strife.

In praising myself,
I only insult myself.
In pleasing myself,
I bring misery upon myself.
Lots of things I bought,
Plenty places I travelled.
Nothing gave me the bliss I seek,
No matter how much I groveled.
Then I stopped wanting things,
I ceased craving for gratification.
I placed my heart at your feet,
Finally I found my absolution.
Long was I lost in the sleep of pride.
Erasing the self I found my light.

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Oh, what fun it is to give our own life away!
Saint Nicholas did his part, so did Chris himself,
Now it's time for us to be the happiness gateway.
Dashing through the alleys devoid of lights,
Holding up high as beacon, our own heart,
Breaking ourselves to pieces and burning to ashes,
We'll ensure no one lacks the love a human deserves.
We are Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen and Comet,
We are Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph.
We are also modern day Nick, Chris and Eckhart,
By our love and oneness let the world be engulfed!
Twelve days ain't enough to celebrate Christmas.
As humans we must live each day helping others.

Rich is not the one who's got a lot of dough,
But one whose touch make others forget their woe.
Happy is not the one who's always chasing pleasure,
But one who forgets all pleasure helping another grow.
Success is not about getting recognition,
Success is about achieving excellence beyond norm.
Achievement is not when you reach a certain goal,
But when your goal lifts others beyond your home.
Destiny is not a script written by a superman,
But one you write yourself with your labor and sweat.
Sanctity is not what priests sell you at the church,
But how you behave with others outside the church gate.
Nobody can give you lessons of life packed in a few lines.
If you know to help another, your heart knows all the lines.

Being happy alone is no sign of genius,
It is either narcissism or hypocrisy.
You’ve got to be extremely selfish,
To be happy without human company.

If your heart is alive and human,
Loneliness will cause you misery.
It’s only the self-absorbed animal,
Who don’t need people to be happy.

It’s okay if you are alone and miserable,
It is but a healthy mind’s healthy reaction.
Do not romanticize it with phony philosophy,
For derangement starts with self-deception.

Fact of the matter is – I suffer, therefore I am.
Life is but a cosmic dance between dusk and dawn.

I am yet to find a happy computer, despite being the epitome of rationality. Likewise, I am yet to find a civilized animal, despite being the epitome of sentimentality. What this means is that, only with the right balance between rationality and sentimentality there can exist a magical creature called human, brimming with infinite potential – but mess up the balance, and you are stuck with either a cold mechanical world run by rationality or a red-hot uncivilized world run by brutality – both equally unfit for preserving civilized life.

I don’t do Netflix,
I don’t binge for adrenaline.
I find it far more soothing to
listen to old BBC radio shows
while I do my writing.

Happiness is not a matter of exhilaration,
Happiness is a matter of moderation.
Just because all the monkeys are partying,
doesn’t mean you gotta give submission.

So I say, get your priorities straight,
Happiness will take care of itself.
If you don’t know to draw your own lines,
That’s not freedom, but apish descent.

I don’t scroll till I pass out,
I don’t drink till I feel sick.
Happiness means happy-in-less,
Trends don’t bring you peace.

Life is like the lunar cycle,
sometimes it is full shining,
sometimes it is half shining,
other times it goes totally dark.

But one thing is certain,
no one phase lasts forever,
it all just keeps changing,
thus light is sustained
through life’s brief encounter.

The unpredictability of life
is what makes life predictable.
Sometimes it rains cats and dogs,
the next moment sunshine is unavoidable.

You don’t find a way out of grief,
You embrace it and it becomes your strength.
You don’t find a way out of suffering,
You surf it and it endows you with courage.

Avoiding sorrow you won’t find happiness,
Road to happiness goes through sorrow.
No matter how dark life seems tonight,
without heartwrecking darkness, we’ll
never discover resilience, and grow.

Amidst the grief none of this makes sense,
I’ve felt it first hand this past month.
So I say, it’s okay to be shattered to pieces,
but you must gather the pieces and soldier on,
for the sake of your living loved ones.

It’s okay to not be okay, it means
your mind is trying to heal itself.
Persevering pain for those who live,
the sun will rise once again.