Finding Calm in the Chaos

Most of the time the chaos or unrest we experience in our life stems from within. This can be compared to looking through a cloudy lens spotted with dirt of expectations and comparisons. No matter how much we try to clean the objects under view, everything appears blurry due to the dirt on the viewing lens. Let’s start with the impact of expectations! It is amazing how unrealistic our life expectations are, as if when we were born someone guaranteed a comfortable, hassle-free life on our birth certificate. When we are in a self-generated rush to meet our commitments, we expect the entire Universe to work in a consortium to make things painless for us. When we act in a certain way, we subconsciously start expecting people around us either to have the same standards or even better to make things easier for us. More than half of the time those people are left completely in the dark, where they have no clue what is expected out of them. At times, even if they know, they will find it extremely challenging to meet such potential. I admit, it is often disgraceful to spell out our expectations, especially when such hopes fall under “basic” courtesy or manners or moral values. However, we need to understand we all are constantly evolving and at any given time, there will be some individuals who will be ahead of us, some will be lagging, and some will be comparable to us on this growth trajectory. And we are free to choose our company according to our compatibility without looking down upon anyone considering everyone is growing at their own pace.

​To make things more challenging for us, along with setting the bar of our expectations unreasonably high, we further refrain ourselves from seeing things as they are. We have an inherent ability to overestimate our difficulties and make them appear at least ten times magnified. To balance this overestimation of our limitations, we equally underestimate our strengths, blessings, and everything that we have for which we should be thankful. Often, we get late to acknowledge the precious belongings of our life. By the time we realize, they get lost from our lives either due to lack of care or by the law of nature. 

​As mentioned by Zero Dean, the author of the book“Lessons Learned from the Path Less Travelled” that energy flows in the direction where our attention goes. Therefore, we can stimulate whatever we choose to focus on in our lives. If we cannot spontaneously allow our attention to be drawn towards the brighter side of our life, then let’s practice with effort in the beginning until it becomes our habit. When we meet people, we can make efforts to draw our attention to their strengths rather than weaknesses. Now, some people can make this job really challenging for us and the amount of time and effort we need to invest to dig out their strength may not be all worth it. Under such circumstances, we can always try to maintain distance not necessarily out of hatred but simply because we do not want their limitations to flow through our awareness.

​Next time life seems to get unpleasant, chaotic and people around seems to be unfair, probably we need to pause, take time for ourselves, adjust the bar of our expectations, accept the people in their journey of evolution as we accept ourselves and bring a sense of calm within. As John Milton wrote in his epic poem “Paradise Lost” that “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven”.

- Soma Banerjee