The Neurotic Me
Sometimes I feel my world is going to collapse. I will not be able to do anything in this life time, achieve anything in this life time. I would just sit gabbing and waste my life. There are times when I feel my time just passes away, without my control over it. A friend calls or a sudden work crops up, it is amazing to look back at the day and see nothing has been achieved during the day. In the earlier times my mother and my grand mother used to actively look into household matters. The spices were freshly ground, the food was well thought out, the family expectations were met etc. When I look at myself today I realize that, I am doing none of that and yet my day is filled with activities and I am tired at the end of the day. Tired at the end of the day literally doing nothing. This fills me with remorse for myself. This remorse transforms into creating excessive activities for myself and my children, where I am just engaged in dropping off or picking them up. At the end of the day I feel yes I am doing a lot and doing it all for my children. A feeling of gratification helps me get through the day.
However if this continues even for a week then I am again filled with a sense of ‘What am I doing with my life?”and I start looking for new work opportunities. And as if the universe is keenly listening to each word of my want, it opens up flood gates of work. Of course I am judicious about the work that I pick, so I take work as per my liking and appetite. As I start to work sometimes I realize, that it is getting too much and it requires me to be away from my family and friends for too long. Then I wonder what is it that I want…may be I just want a break. I would plan a break and in the break I wonder there are so many other things that I want to do. I sit and dream about my own enterprise, a school for children perhaps, or something that would make my life worthwhile on this planet. Writing a book or a series of books, creating a movie…so many thoughts crop up as possible options for a more purposeful life. But no, as soon as the break is over, my neurosis takes over and I am back to my daily grind and supper issues. However because I feel a little neurotic after a break I am ready to go on with life as it was earlier without any change until it is time for another break…
I have come to realize that the Neurotic me is just a part of me. She is a young mother and career woman around 30 years old and has a lot on her plate. Nothing she does is ever enough, she has no time for herself and lives in a constant struggle of achievement and purpose. She has difficulty resting and is scrambling from one place to another. After she has run around and complained about how tired she is, she sits down and rests her head on the study table. As she relaxes her breath becomes slower and rhythmic, a gentle snoring follows as she sleeps in peace for now.
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The Wise Me
As soon as the Neurotic me is off to sleep, the wise me wakes up and takes the mantle…
This constant struggle between the being and doing has manifested itself into the human world since time immemorial…animals don’t seem to go through this struggle…they can just be all the time. They act or do only when required. But humans have ‘higher consciousness’ and supposedly a ‘higher purpose’ so whatever they ‘be’ they can’t just ‘be’ for a long time….their neurosis would take over and they would push themselves to the brink of insanity to ‘do’. They would judge themselves, abuse themselves into ‘doing’…We judge our being all the time…even when we say we are celebrating our ‘being’. Celebrating our being is also ‘doing’ and neurosis is active here. We just keep getting better and better an conning ourselves into saying we are ‘being’ when we are actually waiting for finding out what do we ‘do’…
The real ‘being’ is devoid of explanation, it is devoid of illusion of any creation. Everything that had to be created has been created, nothing awaits your attention. The abundance is there, the life you want to live is there, everything that you wish for exists all ready….but we all are entangled in the illusion of our doing…our creation…our story…The lesson of our being is best learnt from the trees that surround us. They become a witness to our doing in their being.
There is and will be nothing truer than the being of a tree,
Knowing and experiencing that being will truly set you free.
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The Colored Mist 