What we get easily, we rarely value it. Even if that “thing” was once
out of reach for us, now when we have it we tend to focus our energies on the “things”
that are now out of reach for us. I am not sure if this happens to most of us,
but it does happen to me very often.
When I am behind something in life- like to pursue a particular line of
profession, I do focus all my energies to be there. All important things
revolving around me during this pursuance become secondary, tertiary etc. Once I
achieve what I had aimed for, I move to another thing. Now this thing could be
having that one person in my life whom I adore or with whom I want to be friends
with. Again I focus my energy to pursue that person. During this process of
going behind things, I do lose out on many things which are in the periphery
and out of my focal point. These could be things which I had pursued at some
point in my life or I might pursue at a later point in my life. But since they
are not my focus now, I don’t notice these things.
I call this as myopic outlook towards life. Focus is so much on those
things / thing that are held close to our heart that we tend to lose out on
looking for bright things easily present around us. The closer we keep these
things to our heart, the more we ignore good things around us. Well, it is good
to have goals but to make our life rule us by means of those dreams/goals can
take away lot of happiness from us.
This recently happened to me. I was so focused on making my project
successful (and yes, it means a lot to me) that I started spending 10-12 hours
at work. All I could see around me is ideas that would make me succeed. I had
almost missed noticing that my son (who was obviously my dream at one point in
time!!) had learnt to write the first letter. Only when his daadi forced us to
check his slate and asked him to try writing, I was amazed to learn that he
could write on his own. I felt embarrassed and guilty at the same time. How and
why on earth was I focusing so much on my work (my current goal), leaving
behind my then centre of attraction.
There is also a high possibility that what we are running behind, we
may not even get those things at all. And focusing all our energies on that
single thing will result in disappointment as that is the single most important
thing for us. Adjusting our lens a bit and including things present in the
periphery might increase our chances of being happy. Basically to create more
and more sources of happiness instead of one or very few.
What do you feel?
Very nice
ReplyDeleteThank you :)
DeleteIt's a well written piece. I believe it's Human nature to pursue something they think they need/want. It's also a tad natural that the interest or excitement weans off once you've got what you were after. Don't they say, you value something when you don't have it and even more when you lose it. It's just about knowing how much is too much and this applies to everything including the pursuation. Because we all secretly know what cost we are paying for it. But the drive has to be there nonetheless, coz without it life would be but mundane
ReplyDeletewe all secretly know what cost we are paying for it- great line. Your comment tells me setting the right tone for the blog is necessary. I wanted to focus more on how not to have one single thing as your focal point but I now it seems blog is focusing on how we don't value things we have got.. thanks for your comment
DeleteWhat you wrote just made me realise that I’m running behind an ideal idea of happiness without appreciating that what I have right now is something I wanted badly at one time
ReplyDeleteso true :)
ReplyDelete