From Stoicism to Equanimity

What was designed as a casual time-out with friends watching a movie, turned out to be an eye-opening rich discussion on the ostensibly obvious but a rare quality in individuals – stoicism.

The trigger of the thought was a remarkable performance by Will Smith in an exquisite film called ‘pursuit of happiness’. In addition to the overwhelming message of the heights determination can help you achieve, with the protagonist turning from pauper to prosper via sheer strength of will, the movie has a subtle hint of the importance of keeping your head on your shoulders when you want to scream. In the deepest of the dumps, the hero refrains from all discussions about his sorry state of finances with anyone, only asking his son to keep the faith in him.

Greek philosophy professes ‘Stoicism’ as self-control, fortitude and detachment from distracting emotions, sometimes interpreted as an indifference to pleasure or pain, allowing one to become a clear thinker, level-headed and unbiased. The surface of the definition appears doable, but pondering over it brings home the realization that most of us practice just the opposite.

In majority of the situations, at the slightest hint of discomfort we choose to be loudly vocal about it, at the first pang of pain we want everyone around us to acknowledge us as victims and empathize, and even before an achievement we frisk others for ego-boosts. In circumstances of challenge, stoicism generally flies out of the window and whatever is the primary basic reaction that is espoused.

Like everything else that is contrary to our inherent instinct toward entropy, being a stoic also needs constant practice. Pausing before playing hostage to the mind, contemplating before reacting and faithfully tuning inwards for an action-plan are the baby-steps in direction of this gargantuan task.

The further we go, the more fortunate we become because practicing this unbiased level-headedness is the preparation for the most coveted and quintessential quality of all seekers – equanimity. The importance of equanimity cannot be described enough. I came across a beautiful definition of equanimity in a text on Buddhism. Termed as upekkha in Pali, it is described as seeing things as they truly are, untainted by one’s delusions and desires and unaffected by one’s pre-judgments and expectations.

The instant opposition to this chain of thought mostly appears in the form of interpreting equanimity as indifference and hence diagnosing it as an obstacle in the path of success driven by passion. The argument could not be farther from the truth. Equanimity can only serve as a fuel to the fire of success, the difference lies in the reason for accepting that goal whose achievement is defined as success. If the reason anchors on other’s opinion and is measured by the yardstick held by someone else, the pleasure and pain at the ‘success’ and ‘failure’ would be an iterative, wasteful cycle. On the other hand, if the sole reason is self-improvement and learning, with other achievements being the side-effects of our primary goal of continual self-improvement, then our whole being would be filled with a perennial overwhelming feeling of success which is untouched by ephemeral pleasure or pain.

The bad news is its easier said than done, but the good news is that imbibing this attitude as a part of our lifestyle and checking ourselves each time we experience pleasure that comes with attachment, displeasure due to aversion and an ignorant kind of indifference, we would be half-way there. The other half as always is within us. A wise teacher once told me that the pursuit of happiness ends only when we understand, accept and practice what he termed as ‘detached attachment’ . The interpretation is left to each. What we need to cultivate is an awareness to expand the meaning of this phrase as this ‘koan’ unfurls.

The Heliotropic Hypothesis

Most ubiquitous and iterative childhood dictates by the parents must be to see good in everyone. The gravity and quintessence of this thought seem to fade regressively with age, that too logarithmically than linearly. So the attitude toward others takes a U-turn from innocent till proven guilty to vice-versa – to the extent of proactively searching for ‘latent’ motives behind innocuous acts of others. Unfortunately it becomes a reflex reaction, conditioned so deep that it takes the shape of our second nature.

The jolt to awareness of the espousal of this attitude came for me while watching a very popular talk show. The guest on the show, an extremely stoic man, was sans any tone-modulation describing the chilling story of his wife suffering from a mental disease that forced her to kill five of their young children. The thought per se would send shivers down anyone’s spine, and hence aptly so the show host was expecting him to show some signs of anger, vindictiveness, raw grief or at least a flicker of hatred toward his wife, for which she kept needling him about his feelings. But to everyone’s surprise and the show-host’s frustration he kept his poise throughout the interview, and most importantly attributed the whole act to his wife’s illness and not to her intentions. The focus was tuned into how she needs medical help rather than a strict penalty by law. Focusing on the good in others cannot go higher and more honest than that.

David Cooperrider, an Organizational Behavior Guru has delineated a theory called “Appreciative Inquiry”, where the organizational change and improvement is perceived as a dream to be discovered and destined rather than a problem to be solved. Through his years’ of experience he has found that true betterment comes from enhancing the abundance of ‘good’ in organizations through honest appreciation of the same. This spirit of appreciation is built on the belief or what he coins as the ‘heliotropic hypothesis’ that all try to grow in the direction of light. On hearing it for the first time, the beauty of the term completely swept me off my feet. It is so true, all of us make conscious or subconscious attempt to grow toward light – this is our true being, the nature that we are born with. The idea is to try to focus on this beauty of others so that we encourage this growth toward light in all our interactions.

How often when we feel the other is failing miserably at a job the truth that surfaces points to a lack of fitment of the job with the person and not a lack of anything in the individual herself making her an absolute rock star in an alternate profession that matches her innate propensities. Similarly when we brand another under one of the many negative adjectives in our mental dictionary we discover that she has a quality that surpasses all our projections of her, and every time we ignore someone due to the inconspicuousness in her acts she does something so fabulous that it triggers a major change in the lives she touches – we all are naturally heliotropic.

This truth bestows a huge responsibility in all – a responsibility that implores us to see that true beauty in others because it’s through our seeing and spelling that this beauty expands multi-folds. As in reel-life when the ostensible semi-villain turns into a ‘good’ person when the hero saves his life in spite of all his ‘evil’ acts, in real-life too every interaction that is based on the hypothesis of focusing on that real pristine beauty in the other, in spite of our mental images in a way triggers the multiplication and growth of that beauty. It is thus necessary to proactively develop this focus because it has the domino effect of making the whole world gorgeous.

After each of my yoga classes my teacher guides us to take our hands to our hearts’ center and chant ‘Namaste’ which she exquisitely describes as ‘may the light in me see the light in you’.

May we all find that vision to see and encourage the light in each other.

Predictability In Execution

This phrase is the all encompassing answer to the sweet fructuation of years of learning and applying and the rationale behind the value attached to the highly valued commodity called ‘experience’.

The difference between a novice and a maestro lies in the predictability that the maestro exhibits in her actions, envisioning all possible scenarios and crystallizing a plan B for the undesirable ones. This coveted power of vision is a logical outcome of having ‘been there and done that’.

Interestingly the degree of predictability acquired varies for different individuals exposed to similar stimuli. Some of us just have the innate capability of re-application of learning procured via ‘dirtying our hands’ so that we don’t have to dirty them again.

The most striking example of the surfacing of this predictability in execution can be observed in the form of policies or laws formed by organizations for their employees or government for their citizens. The crafters of these guidelines of approved actions and behavior, like the Master Craftsman of all, have the mammoth task of looking into the future to comprehend all in the most holistic form of the word all, situations that can occur, and providing the course of action to be adopted for each situation. If we were to dissect the cranking and shafting going on inside their minds during the designing of these laws and policies, the most probable source for the solutions provided would be the huge database collected over the years through actually dealing with these situations or their cousins in real time.

As they call in the field of Knowledge Management, this ‘tacit’ knowledge slashes the ambiguity and delay in actions by those in front of the battle line in organizations and similar social systems, by a huge percentage through‘re-use’.

Richard Bach had written in one of his books that learning is finding out what you already know. The essence of the theory is that we all already know all there is to know; we just need to be reminded. Each experience that we go through, reflect upon and imbibe is that reminder. It is analogous to these millions of doors that are closed and hence blocking the light, but fortunately the opening of the door requires only a gentle shove of an honest learner, when we commit to do that the eruditeness of the light that fills our whole being takes us only one way- forward.

The Invisible Hand

Contrary to the immediate association of the phenomenal theory of the economist Adam Smith, this phrase can be linked to a much omnipresent and deeper connotation in everyday life.

Through innumerable experiences triggering the hypothesizing and concretization of this theory, I firmly believe that whenever it is required, a higher power intervenes. Just like an accomplished parent providing the impetus and opportunity of freedom and related exploration to the child, but coming to the immediate rescue of the child in the time of need, designing his flights of adventure as a long extension of the umbilical chord eternally connected to the source, this higher power also designs the course of multi-faceted development of the child intervening directly or indirectly when required.

Thus, we pick up a particular book and open just the page that has the perfect answer to the dilemma we had been struggling with, or as we walk down the road wondering what decision to take a car bumper sticker will spell out exactly what we inherently know but need to hear explicitly, or when we are not even aware of our latent apprehension the person next to us in the bus would casually say something that would resolve the anxiety in its embryonic stage. When we are cold we are provided with friends showering warmth of love, when we are too comfortable we are thrown in the middle of discomfort to shake us out of the lethargy triggered wasted potential, when we need to connect we are lead to individuals who motivate us to connect within, when we are too harsh on ourselves we are introduced to delays that force us to stop and use that time to reflect and when the ego starts taking over a cushioned failure brings us back to our true being. All this is too well-timed to be coincidental.

Unfortunately most of us operate at too thick an awareness level to receive the directions. Dismissal, ignorance or plain stubbornness to not acknowledge the works of the invisible hand has the sole outcome of a self-induced delay in understanding what we are crafted to know. So all will be provided with similar inputs for breaking out of the shell of ignorance and making an honest attempt to aggregate the level of awareness but some of us do it early and easily while some take huge effort and time to understand the source.

Every time I open a new page to write on my blog, I feel further amused by the inspiration and the words that flow out naturally – sometimes I can trace the source of my writing back to an external trigger but most of the times after I finish converting the effortless flow of ideas into words I sit back and admire the handiwork of the invisible hand.

Facing Your Fears

Flight-or-fight is a basic neural response, having been conditioned since primitive ages. As Daniel Goleman puts in his book on emotional intelligence, it’s the way we are wired.

Whatever be the biological reasoning behind possessing fears, the truth that in most cases it handicaps you is undeniable. Some might argue that it can also protect you if one chooses the flight response, but if the fear starts to hinder the execution of everyday activities, it certainly is a handicap.

There have been discussed multitude reasons behind the inception of fear in our minds. Some of the common ones could be enduring a life-endangering incident that brings back the memories every time similar circumstances occur, hence constraining one to go through the situation. Others could have their roots in the way we have been treated during childhood.

Though understanding the reason behind the conception of the fear is important, what’s more important is making a proactive effort toward eliminating it. This brings us back to the ultimate maxim of all times, the realization that it’s all in our mind. The difference between the one scared and the one not is the allowance given to the mind to take over. The first step hence is to practice not allowing the mind to keep us hostage. This can be achieved by deliberately being in the situation and proactively conditioning our reaction toward the desired. A wise friend once advised me to do what scares me the most at least once a day and soon I discovered that it does not scare me anymore.

Because of the huge personal impact from practicing vipassana, would quote how one can overcome fear experientially. When one is scared the body undergoes some physiological changes, which at higher awareness levels can be experienced as sensations surging and ebbing all through the body. Combining this with the basic philosophy of vipassana that everything is temporary, one realizes that this overwhelming sense of fear is also ephemeral like those sensations fading away after a huge surge. With regular effort it becomes a natural reasoning and response in any fearsome situation.

There is no escape, if we wish to overcome them we need to face our fears audaciously. There is a pose that my yoga teacher introduced us to called ‘Hanumanasana’ or the pose of lord Hanuman. It is a full split of the legs that most learners usually find intimidating. She beautifully explained that the way lord Hanuman took a giant leap to save goddess Sita, we need to take a huge leap forward to overcome our fears which at the end of the class, after excruciatingly overcoming the fear of standing on our heads upside down, we could appreciate and derive benefits from. It surely is true that the only thing we need to fear from is fear itself.

Thin is in but big is beautiful


Thin is in. The message is ubiquitous and being made pervasive by every channel catering to all human senses – media, society and fashion rule-crafters. The quantum of pressure this puts on individuals of all shapes, sizes, colors and age group is phenomenal and incessantly prospering.

World is flushed with creative diet plans and professionals professing to help you fit into the size of your aspiration, medicated pills claming to help you shed those extra pounds sans effort and slimming centers catering to your baser need of that cellulite loss which would help you look like the ‘after’ in their before and after ads.

Obesity (with apology to professional nitpickers who split the hair between being obese and overweight, I would take the liberty of clubbing them into one) is touted to be an albatross around your neck which somehow makes you inferior to others. Fat are the protagonists in sit coms, have special stores to shop for and are instinctively assumed to be lazy and dim-witted.

But having been there and waging a constant war from a fallback to that taboo range on the weighing scale, I can safely proclaim that the dissatisfaction with one’s physical shape is a phenomenon that has negligible relatedness to one’s actual physical status. Irrespective of how thin or fat one is there is a reflex wish to be thinner. Unfortunately there is no stopping.

For some extreme cases, this addiction to loose weight takes the ugly form of eating disorders. The disorders like anorexia or binging can easily be compared to any psychological disorder with graver consequences as it has a direct and instant effect on one’s body. Advanced cases of anorexia have been found to indulge in purging for double digit times a day. Sadly, this also has no association with the true physical form.

The association lies in our mental image of how we look, which through many social experiments have been found to be poles apart from how the world perceives us. We are the worst critics of ourselves. The belief that the world fits us into the category of obesity constantly hammers down our self-esteem which is reflected in our interactions and attitude.

The lack of appreciation from friends and especially family further pulls down the already low esteem. Criticism on looks by close-ones adds to the mental conditioning that one is unattractive and it somehow is a non-reversible curse.

Fall-outs of the low self worth associated with a perceived lack of physical attractiveness are myriad and very commonly observed. Being overtly aggressive, clinging on to anyone who expresses even an iota of appreciation, criticizing all aspects, especially those concerning intellectual capabilities, of those who by social mores are attractive, are some of the easily observable ones.

Like everything else the choice lies in our hands. One can either choose to feel like a victim of fate, adopting an ostrich solution to the ‘problem’ by burying our face in the ground hoping for the storm to pass on it’s own or can choose to gear up and decide to expense all our might into reaching the evasive goal we have set for ourselves. More important than an honest effort to feel healthy and beautiful, we owe it to ourselves to love the way our body is at the moment, which when sent out as an implicit message is reciprocated by the world. We also owe it to others to refrain from judgments, criticisms and discussions about other’s physical appearance. Like author Jessica Weiner of the book “Do I look Fat?” very succinctly puts, someone else’s body is none of our business.

It’s another chicken and egg situation, whether we feel good when we look good or we look good when we feel good. Irrespective of the direction of the solution, the attempt must be a continual improvement of our mental and physical capacities. It certainly is worth it.

All In The Name of Vanity

How many times it has occurred that you have compromised your natural instinct of survival against the furies of nature to live up to your sense for fashion and just when you hoped everyone’s appreciating your sense of style and not lack of it in the ‘common sense’ category, someone comes up to you and asks you if you are not feeling cold in that dress.

Especially when it comes to members belonging to a chronologically higher age group, or members of your gender not so endowed with a propensity to dress up on the slightest excuse. To your dismay, they always ask this question, with the level of decibel in their voice and the crease of not so genuine concern on their forehead that inevitably makes you hope you were wrapped in at least two more layers of clothing.

The logic behind the quizzing feels further warped when you attempt to decipher the answer they could possibly be expecting in return to that question. What is one to say, ‘No I am not cold, I was born with an extra-layer of insulation that has a great resemblance to human skin’, or ‘Yes I am cold, but if I hold my breath tightly for long I am able to control the goose bumps and shivers that are running down my spine’. The rationale of the question is entirely evasive.

To all those who believe that the weather is an alibi to give up one’s sense of fashion, and assume that it is mandatory for everyone to look like a product of an assembly line production, devoid of any hue or curve, here is the response to your question, ‘The attempt to adorn the dress in spite of the weather is all in the name of vanity!’