Foreword
We just loosely use words, sometimes because of the way we are seasoned to use certain kind of words at homes, offices, businesses and public gatherings. But certain words have deeper meaning, sometimes literal and sometimes figuratively used. Trap is one such word. In a spur of the moment, while you are enjoying, you just slip into something that is not good, or rather dangerous for you, you are trapped. After being so educated, wearing astoundingly professional suits, do we slip without knowing into traps? Oh yes! Because
Mind is a somersaulting monkey, looking for sweet experiences, even for the most beautiful woman, or most handsome man, or the rich, poor or the intelligent or stupid.
Our personality is just an external appearance and behavior, that impresses others, but inside us, each of our mind is directing its own dramatic movie and has its own casting. Isn’t it, for you as a reader ? It is . It has its own agenda, movie to direct, cast from the known and unknown people, all converging to the “quest for sweet experiences”. And these sometimes become traps.
Now Traps
In the last articles we understood that A human life is just a package of three key items, The wrapper Time, the two items inside, Resources and Energy. The vehicle that carries these, Body, which is equipped with five Sensors called senses and the navigator Mind. Mind has these five (Time, Resources, Energy, Body, and Mind itself) at its disposal. How does it make use of these five to create sweet experiences, is again within the knowledge, the intelligence and the awareness of the Mind. The more it is aware, the more it tends to find sweet experiences that destroy less and less of these key items.
Just like water tends to find low level, mind tends to find sweet experiences
This weakness or the quality of mind, or less awareness of mind, when we fall for, eventually makes us fall into trap. Isn’t it so? If we are weak in our appearance, some one will exploit us, no? Here, the activities in our life, will become traps for us. Because we haven’t had higher experience of life. Major ones are listed below
- Sleep
- Gossip
- Entertainment
- Shopping
- Self pity
- Addictions
Sleep
Sleep is rejuvenator, recovery specialist, disease healer. All good qualities, just like sugar and salt as taste enhancer. Sleep not only makes us refreshing, but hibernates our conscious memory, and intellect, which throughout the day, churned over and over again, and makes us feel stressed. So, a clean board is available after sleep. When mind experiences memory cleansing, intellect hibernation, suddenly, it feels good, and finds a sweet spot there. Now, lethargy sprouts from there. And it becomes a trap. Why trap? Is sweet experience not good? Well, Life is to live, not to die. Sleep means death.
Sleep is half death, because your memory and intelligence is hibernated, activity stopped. Life is to be active, memory and intellect at its full potential.
Choice is always ours, how we want to live. We can even live in death, or constantly die in life. There are only situations around us. If we are not equipped enough to handle, we will choose the latter part. Sleep makes us feel great, but it depletes your key item “Time”. Remember that.
Sleep to the extent needed for your recovery and refreshment, not to make you lethargic and lazy.
Gossip
When people accept us, it makes us feel great. When we present something that people listen to, suddenly it makes us feel accomplished. Social interaction is necessary, to create and maintain relationships, to exchange views and ideas, to find solutions and to convey problems. When people talk things that interest us, and we can participate, and our participation is valued, suddenly mind finds a sweet spot there, and gets stuck. We overdo it, and leads to gossip. At the end of it, we feel so elated, but in essence nothing great happened, and we have consumed our two key items, time, energy, for absolutely no productive reason.
Entertainment
I have been saying this for over a decade,
Entertainment has become an industry, because we stopped entertaining ourselves.
Our lives have become a run for the quest of “money”, “assets”, “gadgets”, “travel” Because mind is constantly searching for sweet spots. This quest is so unquenchable and tiresome, that we end up needing constant breaks that digress the mind from the main course. So, entertainment has become so essential as a break. Just think for a moment, if we don’t run a mad race in life, and have the capability to enjoy a little flower, or a drawing, or listen to a song, or dance for a tune, appreciate a small kids smile, suddenly our life is entertained by itself, its ability to respond to aesthetics of life. We lost it, haven’t we? And so we are on quest to find entertainment on screen or else where, outside of ourselves, our homes, sometimes beyond our city and national boundaries! Space travel once becomes affordable, people need entertainment beyond planet also! So funny!
As mind finds sweet spot there, it can become addictive, and so it eats up your “Time, Energy, and Resources” all three of them, dangerous, isn’t it?
Limit your entertainment time, if you want to do something significant in life.
Shopping
When my mood is off, I will buy something . When I see new colors in showrooms, I tend to go in and buy it. It is a false assumption that, a new thing/color added to my life, will bring well being, or happiness.
Most new assets/things give happiness,only till you acquire them, in the imagination of how they make you happy. In reality, when you buy them they don’t, or you cant extract happiness out of them.
Does this also apply to people you invite into life, I leave the answer to you! Remember, mind is on a constant quest of finding sweet spot, so it engages in acquiring things that attract your senses (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin), and you get lost in shopping. Shopping is a trap, where you lose all three “Time, Resources, Energy”.
Shop to your need, shop to elevate, improve, complement your skill, shop to make great presentation of what you are. That is it!
Self pity
This is a self induced, cyclic issue. When we are cheated, or some wrong event happens in our life, or events go against our expectations, and there is no way out, and nobody comes to our rescue, or supports us, suddenly mind jumps into action to make us appear victim of society or circumstances. It paints us bright, and rest dark. It keeps constantly suggesting us, “You were always good. Good people have no value in society”. “All ugly things only happen to you, you are not cared, not valued, not loved, you have no value in anybody’s eyes”. Here it plays a counselor role.
After that, with these kind of suggestions, mind plays the second role, it suddenly becomes humble and starts pitying itself. When it pities itself, and certifies you as victim of society, but otherwise naturally good person, it finds a sweet spot there, and keeps making same suggestions over and over again, and can lead to depression eventually.
Mind is an accomplished actor on the playground of your life. It just not plays one, but multiple roles at a time, and the significant part of it is, you believe all of them are true!
Self pity eats up your not only Time, Energy, but also health. Just ensure this drama is not played more than once in your mind. That is awareness.
Other Addiction
Addiction itself means, mind found a sweet spot there, and is constantly running there. It could be anything, not just smoking and drinking, but adding more sugar to tea, or the tea and coffee itself. Habits are different from addictions. You can survive leaving a habit, but cannot by leaving things you are addicted to.
Addictions are activities overdone to our senses, because of the pull of mind or the sense organ itself.
Good or bad, I leave it to you, but definitely they will gobble up “Time, Energy, Rersources”, and many a time “Health”.
Conclusion
Once you realized mind is in a constant quest to find sweet spot, you should find spots which are complementary, enhancing, supportive or productive to your life and others. That is an intelligent and wakeful way of life. But even then, don’t get addicted to anything,
Addiction, even if it is good, makes you crumble away from the balance of your life.