Life -beyond The Big Room !!

If someone asked me to define Life- i would professionally say its social, emotional and psychological game...

If i would take a philosophical view to it - i would say its a BIG ROOM... a big empty room..
For the next few minutes, I would ask you to let your imagination loose. If you multi-tasking, leave everything. Be comfortable, read the following and try using your imagination as you go thru it...I am sure you will enjoy the psychological experience.


Imagine those first 18yrs of your life... take yourself back to the earliest memory you have... imagine how it was growing up.
first whn you where 5yrs old
...
then 7yrs..
...
9yrs..
12 yrs..
15yrs..
18th yrs..
remember your house, your parents, your friends, your school...
how naive you where, how you naughty you where,
how you did things secretly,
how you did some things openly...
enjoy the memory for a minute.
now sit back... relax and think..
those 18yrs gave you a way of thinking, a way of behaving, a way of reacting to every single incident that happens in a day.
those 18yrs built up a platform where you slowly stood and started interacting with life.
slowly as you moved ahead in life.... pillars of responsiblity where put around the corners of that platform..
one pillar was your obligation towards parents
one pillar was your obligation towards your learnt moral values
one pillar was your obligation towards society
one pillar was your obligation towards your personal desires.
slowly there where walls that interconnected these four pillars... you slowly found yourself standing in the middle of this big room. Every new situation, made life push you towards one of the corners...
Its amazing.. how years and years are spent struggling to get from one corner to the other...
Its amazing how many times you are pushed to one corner, when what you want is in another corner...
Just imagine.. how many times you have revolted against life to go towards the corner you want...
Like many, probably even you have learnt to "adjust" in this BIG ROOM, probably even you dont want to see that little red door...
Try to see that litte red door, made of wood, just big enuff to fit you, that has your name printed on top of it...
That one door, that separates the normal from the successful, the struggler from the content, and the sad from the happy....
That is the door of endless possibilities...
Rejoice the moment of seeing that door... keep the image of that door in your mind..
and slowly come back to present..
think of your current life, your current difficulties, your current desires....
Remember there is a way out towards happiness.... you need to take that one step towards it!!!

regards,
Dr.Hemant Mittal (MBBS, PGDPM)
http://www.mindmantra.in/
email- eksoch@gmail.com

The Power of Happiness lies within You

"If you consider yourself an eternal learner, life will teach you some of the most beautiful lessons"

The Mall, a mordern avatar of yesteryears sunday-bazaar.. is a feat to watch on sunday evenings. Light, camera,.. action... crowds, fun, food, movies... a celebration of life!!

Its also a place where happiness is achieved by the psychological game of ... "I WANT"... its about satisfying our needs... from buying groceries, to window shoping, to geting some good discounts, to watching a movie, playing some games, or just to grab a bite at one of the fast food counters.... its always about "I want..."

So whats wrong in "I WANT.."? well, there is nothing wrong...To be happy, to enjoy is the prime objective of every being in this planet.

Its just that when we are enjoying ourselfes, we forget to..

a. forget to help elders, and children climb up the escalators...infact sometimes make fun of them when they fall down.

b. forget that the house-keeping staff is compromised of human beings..not animals

c. forget that its not the waiters duty to be the brunt of our life's frustrations, becoz he served us late or commited a mistake in taking the order.

d. forget that when we discriminate poor people for "coming and polluting" a mall's environment.. what right do we have to criticize developed countries for doing the same on our people.

e. forget that not only your mother and sisters are pious women ...while you sexually fantasise about every other woman that your eyes prey upon...and your facial expression shows whats running in your mind.

f. forget that the pharse "human is a social animal" doesnt mean to fight for every single vacant chair.

Since its euphoric and easier to get happy by satisfying the feeling of "I WANT"... we never venture to learn how to create happiness by "giving".

As we grow older.. the social, familial, and economic pressures drag us to choose the easier way out to happiness.

Life tries to teach us the art creating happiness by giving ...but as poor learner we forget it easily.

Remember how A new born child ...his smile, his gestures, his mannerisms... bring a stress-free long lasting smile on our faces.. his actions register in our long term memory and can still trigger a sudden smile after many years.

Remember how a candid conversation with a friend or group of friends, lingers as your sweetest memory..

Remember how your mothers food, or your fathers scolding still seems like yesterday....

All of them have "given you" something...

"to give" doesnt mean to shed millions of ruppees and get media coverage. "to give" means to create peaceful happy memories for you and those around you. "to give" means to learn to :

a. give a smile to the waiter

b. give a "thank you" to the house keeping staff

c. not to discriminate some one for his social status

d. to give a prayer to those who need it.

e. to give a helping hand to those who are struggling.

f. to give a joke/humor in a tense situation

g. to appreciate beuty, but not profanate it.

because the happiest moments of your life will be the ones were your at peace with yourself.. enjoying the moment...

LEARN TO GIVE... and see how life gives you much more happiness than what you could ever desire...

DR.HEMANT MITTAL (neuro-behavioural expert)

www.mindmantra.in

email - eksoch@gmail.com 

3 idiots!!!

I recently watched the hindi movie "3 idiots" ... a few weeks latter than the rest of the world thou... for which I would blame my lazyness rather than busy schedule :).

The movie was a great watch... A great comedy, with the age old message of "follow your passion"... Being true to my passion, psychiatry.. I decided to socio-psychologically dissect the movie, from my point of view..

Within minutes I made a mental frame work of the 3 idiots in the indian society... that strive and long for individual brilliance but keep blaming each other for their failures...
our 3 idiots:
a. Mr.Education System
b. Mr.Parent
c. Mr.Individual

Together they form the great indian education circus... where an individual preforms.. the parent is the ring master ..and the education system is our event coordinator...

There can be huge debates of the reforms, responisibilities and duties of each one of these 3... but in the end no one wants to take an action on the debated.

A few moons ago, when the education minister decided to bring reforms by simplyfying the education system... it was the parents and the students who objected to a "grade" system.
The indian education system is orthodox, outdated and highly demanding on the mind of the student...but also its the simplest way of catering to an every growing number of students.
2 lakhs students appear for MBBS entrance exam every year... when the country has hardly 2500 open seats.. aint the question papers bound to be tougher and tougher every year.
Its very easy to blame it for all the non-imaginative, non-brain stimulating, stupid things that a student has to learn every year, but if tht extra information wasnt there, how would they qualify and quantify 2500 out of 2 lakh.?

Mr.Parent... is probably the most important link in this great circus. The socio-cultural rules and regulations of the Indian society compel the Parent to have complete physical, mental and emotional authority over his childs.

As happens with 90% of the people i see around. First the society pushes you to marry someone they feel is compatible for you. 60% of these new couples "adjust" to each other... A year after marriage, the society starts playing the trumpet of parenthood. Willing or Unwillingly parenthood becomes a reality. As pregnancy progressess, the society takes the form of an aggressive mental predator...which keeps asking stressful questions to an already tense and stressed to-be parents. Boy or girl? White or Black? Name? who will take care of the child at night? how to change nappys? Mothers milk or bottle feed? Gynec Bills? Peadiatricians Bills? New house? School he/she will go to? Money for donation of school? blah blah blah... and finally what will he/she become?
Its like putting 100kgs of weight on a loaded coolie... in between this, the occasional uncle/aunty/friend will come up with there own "hyped" notions and experiences.

aunty- when i was carrying amit..then only i had thought of making him a doctor...see today he is so successful (very neatly.. 28ys of struggle with books, an easier admission procedure 20yrs ago, thousands of slaps on his face take out your irritations, etc etc.. have been deleted)

uncle- good to see you young parents.. i tell you guys.. i have been reading the newspapers, a with my huge social circle, and my 30yrs of experience tell me ..that if its a boy.. make him an MBA ( again very neatly... 30 yrs of nothing but siting in an office drinking tea, doing one same job, reading newspaper articles on sachin's century's and fashion models wardrobe malfunctions..and a bunch of friend who indulge in a sadistic ritual of geting pleasure by findin faults in others... has been deleted)

uncle 2- oh well looks like another engineer or doctor is coming to enlighten the name of our community and city.. ( he is the master of all.. his euphoric statement was based on a mathematical genius mind whose statistics show how 5 out of the last 5 generations have been extremely "monetarily" successful.. nobody cares if they had a horrendous family life, there children left them, they where alcoholics or they just strived to smile.)

friend- when we were having juhi... i knew she had to become an enginner.. after all she needs to get married...and today qualification and working girls are must. now we are also slowly slowly buying some gold..after all we need to give her at least 2-3 gold sets... (oops... juhi is just 8months of age...poor girl already geting to hear all this...)

A similarity between human and animal psychology stikes my mind ... in a given stressful situation, the easiest way out is choosen.
90% of new parents follow this rule. Instead of standing up for their own beliefs, their own ways of educating and moulding their children, decide to take the easy way out and follow the set rules and regulations of the society...
Its therefore acceptable for them to see their 6-8yrs old children carry a 5kg bag to school... with the idealistic expectations of he/she becoming a successful engineer, doctor or MBA...without caring that its during those growing years that a child learns to smile...not when he/she becomes a doctor/engineer or MBA.

If i was to speak in the language of psychiatry... its a self-created hallucination that a parent concieves about his childs future. Its based on facts, experiences and knowledge that the parent has. Completely different from the facts, experiences and knowledge that his child will acquire.
Its extremely rigid, and constitutes the core of happiness the parent expects to get from his child. Leading to a retardation in psychological, physical development of the child.


Finally the weakest link.. the main lead... of this circus...The student...the individual... A preformer who is taught how to act, move and behave in accordance to his ring masteer.

The mental behavioral code can be simplified to taking stress, creating stress and fighting that stress. Happiness comes from conquering one stress... Stress-free environment is not known to exist.

The Desire to Learn and apply is only for those who are a "bug" in this system... Smiling and Rejoicing life is for "the anomaly" in the code writen... Going against the flow, persuing something of your own interest requires the courage and bravery of a prisoner of war trying to escape from behind enemy lines...

The biggest reality show is life... where an individual gets a pre-defined script... 1000's of eyes scrutinizing his behaviour... 1000's of voices asking him questions... 1000's of "counceling" sessions... Not every body is happy with results... and no chance to say I QUIT!!!...

They say change starts from the smallest of disturbance in a peaceful enviroment.

"3 idiots" make us think.... but to make it count... depends on each one of us.!!!!

Dr.HemanTT MittaLL

A VERY HAPPY 2010

A VERY HAPPY 2010...

DR.HEMANT MITTAL

www.mindmantra.in