The Pursuit of Happiness

Sunil is a DM in Cognizant. He often shares a cab with me. I usually sit quiet in the cab or use the journey to catch up on sleep. Just a couple of days back we got talking on the way to work.

He has such a positive attitude to life. He told me I was negative. I resented that. But then I understood what he meant. It wasn't that I alone am negative. It is that all of us are negative most of the time. We think of what is going wrong and somebody that is bothering us or work that is stressing us out.

He said something really simple: You need to take each object and see the good in it. Even if it is really difficult to see, squeeze the good out of it to be visible to you.

I analyzed my conversations that day. Was at work for the most part. Everyone I spoke to had something negative to say. The boss was not considerate, the task at hand was so difficult, the meeting room had not be prepared for the VC.....

On my way home he happened to be in my cab again. My conversation with him that evening was so different. I tried to talk about the good things that had happened. That I had left on time from work, was going out to dinner. Trust me, it was really difficult at times to converse because negative things kept popping into my mind. Like the cab was late and so I was going to be late for my dinner with my sweetheart.

I had a really nice dinner that night. I thought of all the good he brought into my life and not just the stress we felt when we bugged each other. I thought of how nice it was to see him smile, or when he held my hand. I did not get upset when he caught my lack of knowledge about the Sun temple in Orissa and it bothered him. He cares about me and wants me to be perfect!

A sadhu had once said: Inside each of us is a good dog and a bad dog. Negative thoughts, bad deeds, gossip all feed the bad dog and he will take over. Feed the good dog instead with positive vibes, kind actions, a smile and he will thrive.

I have a lil mantra of my own. Since life has a way of becoming mundane and we get low, we all need something to look forward to all the time in order to keep our spirits up. For now I am looking forward to practicing guitar tonight and eating a CadB and going cycling on the weekend.....