It’s very easy to slip into frustration when there seems to be a huge difference between the desired outcome and the actual outcome. We assume the actions we are doing are taking us towards our desired outcomes, only to realize the reality later. It can very well be disheartening sometimes and can break us down, questioning everything we believe!
Let us acknowledge that there are possibly very few things more frustrating than not knowing why something doesn’t work. We experience it time and time again in our lives. We gun for the top grades, make all attempts that we think are helping us get towards that aim; attending all the lectures, taking down the notes, getting the study material printed and marking the important points with the best highlighters we can get our hands on! But only to discover later that it didn’t quite work.
Similarly, while working on projects or solving an assignment or building a product, why is it that it failed or didn’t perform at the level it was expected to? Was it only that there was a lack of commitment from your side? Could there be something that works, but you didn’t think it did and vice versa? Perhaps a hint of ignorance from your side or just unlucky?
When it comes to relationships, we continue with what we think works for us. We find it easier to lay in the bushes of ambiguity than to ask where we are heading with our actions. We humans find it very foolish of the ostrich to bury its head in the sand to avoid problems but ahem… yeah! Are we willing to ask ourselves where we are heading with the current relations we have with people? Or be bold enough to ask whether we are satisfied with the association we hold with them? And if laying in the safe zone was the ideal solution then why didn’t it work till date?
All these questions are bound to unsettle anyone.
Asking questions doesn’t mean one can have the answers immediately. It only means that one realizes that there is knowledge yet to be gained and wisdom still to be found. Our brains are one of the finest pieces of evolution. A single hint of realization can turn our thought processes 180 degrees around and foreseeably change our realities. It’s not an understatement or even a philosophical discreet idea; rather a fact that it is our consciousness that separates us from other animals!
What can be done today to…?
We all have our concept of ‘better life’ (which also is a proof of our consciousness!). By our definition of a ‘better life’, we can ask some really hard but straightforward questions.
- What matters the most for you in life?
Perhaps the well-being of your family? Maybe that goal that you know in the hindsight that overshadows over all the other goals? Or is it the feeling of satisfaction of having an impact on the lives of people that you are craving for? A very, very open-ended question that you can ask yourself. And it would be only surprising if it’s not a hard, unsettling one!
2. Were your actions aligned to the best possible solution you know?
Dig up your past. Yes. There is room for improvement only if you can compare it with something. And it is always a better idea to compare with yourself than others. There are moments in past that we find embarrassing today or decisions that we regret till this day. This only means that our value structures have changed. Expectedly your actions weren’t quite on the path to meet your goals. The day we invent the time machine, you are most welcome to change them. But until then, just knowing how deviated your actions were in past and how much better they got in the recent past can help you understand yourself much better!
3. What are you doing today?
Once you know what you should be doing, the next step could very well be to act out what you should act out, today. What is the next smallest step you can take today towards what matters most for you? Are you taking that little step consistently? Is it showing even the slightest hint of change within you? It could be the next little section of a chapter you want to learn for an exam, but instead of rushing through (as always), you choose to spend time understanding small bits of it!
You might as well ask what’s that little step I can take today, to talk about something that’s bugging you. Is it that phone call you can do today to take a step towards bettering your relation? Or that conversation that you have been avoiding because it seems there’s no possible solution in sight? What is the smallest step forward that you feel you can take and make it out alive!?
Walking the thin line
It is quite foreseeable that asking these questions can easily make one uneasy, maybe even stressed beyond comforts. One of the conflicts that a person is bound to run into is ‘When to question and when not to?’. Say you begin physical training for only a week, and you happen to question whether there are any changes visible in you; then it is only obvious that there aren’t any. In such cases, changing the training routine immediately would probably make all the efforts fruitless.
Similarly, if you begin questioning every action towards your relations or your faith, it can only make matters worse. Certain situations demand time, consistent efforts without immediate visible effects. Yoghurt takes its own time to ferment, saplings take their time to grow and relationships take their own time to nurture. Opening the oven every 2 minutes to check whether the cake is baked won’t help!
So how can one determine whether one is being conscious or simply being impatient? Again, a question! And let’s be honest, the answer isn’t an easy one either. An approach towards it could be being more watchful and a little less ignorant. With our cake baking example, it’s quite easier to search online ‘how long it usually takes…’ and maybe even ‘how many days’ with the effects to start appearing in your body after training.
But where can one search about how much time a relationship will take to nurture? Or a skillset to master? Probably no one can. But one can stick to a simple metric; if the next action you take is ‘not overwhelming you to the point of paralysis’, has meaningful changes (by your justification) and is ‘oriented in the direction of the greater goal’, then you are on the best possible path you could be towards your goal!
Everything happens as expected when you dare to ask and act?
There seem to be situations, where you give it all you have; make efforts to be more conscious, more rational, more deterministic and yet the success seems to elude you. You could do everything correctly in the eyes of people, act according to the textbooks of generosity and live in accord with the path you believe. And yet, the goal seems to avoid you, the people who matter to you could fail to take a notice of you and life might just decide to make you the unfair child of fate!
This can very well happen. It has and will continue to happen. If you are willing to hold your end deterministically and then let the uncertainty of life take its turn; maybe you can go to bed embracing the truth of the satisfaction of giving it all!
Maybe it was best for you?
The write up was way relatable to me and it has deep meaning I must say…!
Thank you for the kind feedback. Glad to help!