A wise man once said, ‘At the age of seventy you shouldn’t feel like you have lived one year seventy times.’ What does it mean? From the time when we wake up to alarms in the morning till our mobile phone talks us to sleep at night, our mind is stacked with sort of similar memories. If you don’t agree, then let’s have a look at any normal day in our lives. In the morning, even before our drowsy brains can make a transition from the dream world to the real one, we start the day by looking at our mobile phones after we have snoozed it for enough times. When gradually the brain comes to terms with reality, everything is rushed afterwards including a quick shower, slipping into clothes, and a breakfast on the run. We run to our offices fighting for spaces in the metros or racing strangers for every inch of distance on the road, or zig zagging our ways on the pedestals. All this for what – to gain a couple of minutes. Our lazy start to the day gradually transforms into catching up with this cunning time who always manages to stay ahead of us.
Our offices are no different. If we try to remember some random day from our last month in the office, we can’t distinguish much because it would have been a mix of meetings, work, lunch, tea, break, killing time on phone in some random order. We are living one day repeatedly for the five days in a week and few of us even for six or for all seven days. I am no one to judge and many of us could claim to be different, of being enthusiastic for their work, about facing the challenge with open arms every day but another wise man has said, ‘You want to see where you are going to reach in your life after ten years just look at the people who started at your level ten years ago.’ I hardly see any enthusiasts with grey hair around me. All of them look like tired generals who have worn out, fighting the same battles over and over again, just too involved and scared to quit on their own.
You must be wondering what is the point, shall we quit our jobs in search of some adventure? Absolutely not because repeats in life are always not bad. Salary repeated every month is no less important than oxygen. But how can then we not let these vicious cycles suck life out of us in return for money. Well, we must try to find a way to manage stress on a day-to-day basis and inject a dose of passion into our lives. Believe it or not, our corporate routines are like chronic conditions that slowly make us addicted to constant stress and eat up our passion. And watching television or pointless ogling at smartphones to seek temporary comfort from our routine timetables is like taking painkillers to cure cancer. Their effect may remedy the hollowness in our lives for some time, but as soon as we switch off these devices, the problem returns with a pinch of guilt. We need to look beyond devices and drinks to find a way to deal with our stress and bring back passion into our lives. But, what can help really?.
Relive the unfulfilled dreams
There must have been something which never tired you. Dancing, swimming, writing, painting, singing, playing some instrument, playing some game, gyming, travelling, that something which had excited you at some point in your life to the extent that had you listened to your heart then, you might be living a completely different life. It might be late to change our lives but it’s never too late to relive those dreams because no paycheck, no parties, no drinking could bring that child inside you but just that one hobby. For me playing cricket is that one hobby which can make me scream and run and make my heart race just like when I was a kid. The thrill of being on a cricket field, how so ever big or small, is like a waft of fresh air from my childhood.
We need to remember that our childhood was full of excitement and happiness, and we always wished to grow up into these wonderful people who would be different from all those boring adults at that time. Yes, life happened, and we matured to stray away from our dreams, but those unfulfilled dreams hold the key to our happiness. Let’s find those dreams from our past and live them in whatever way we can. They hold the power to thrill and excite us and to make us meet our childhood again.
Stick to no-filter friends
Family is always wonderful, and it always makes us feel loved, cared, and wanted. Family time is always nice but sometimes family time can become a little too heavy because it continuously reminds you of responsibilities and expects you to behave in a certain way. But what better way to deal with a bad day at the office than by swearing and yelling in front of friends. The no-filter friends are like a support group who could get so involved in your stories that they might end up cursing your boss way more than you do. If these are men, they would pretend hard to understand your emotions, would fake to be good listeners, would give nonsensical ideas but at the end you would end up laughing with them. For women, they would understand your emotions, would be good listeners, would give you sincere ideas and might end up borrowing your tension. Bottomline is that they would try their best. Never miss out on making regular plans with such friends. They are the best stress busters and incredible distractions. The only deal is that they should be real ones.
Plan to travel and then travel
Travel can be the real deal to get away from all the stress. Tranquility of mountains touching the skies, music of waves washing off the shores, soothing sight of snow-covered fields, mystic noises in a dark jungle – a trip to nature always has the power to remind you that your life is bigger than your problems. If you love adrenaline rush, then jumping off a cliff or diving under the water could keep your nerves at peace for a long time. However, in travel there is something even better than actual travelling and that is looking forward to the travel. Again, I would like to take you back to childhood, when we used to go to a fare or an amusement park, what was more exciting – planning the trip or the actual trip. Life can only be satisfying if we have something to look forward to in the future, but the challenge is that we only look forward to our next promotion or the next raise. But exciting as it may sound, does that happen too often? No. But having your next trip planned after two months could give you a lot of motivation to deal with the daily stress and of course, then the actual trip would give you a lot of memories.
You can always go advanced in finding passion and releasing stress from our routine lives, but these activities are easy, and you may be doing it already, just do it consciously. These activities don’t just inject real excitement into our lives but also motivate us to work hard such that we can enjoy relaxing afterward even more. It’s true that we want to go all the way in our work lives, to achieve the most, but in the end all that we remember are experiences – a trip with family, an evening with friends, a game where we surprised everyone including ourselves. Let’s use the money for the purpose it should be used for, to create experiences and make them even better. Let’s go for seventy unique experiences rather than seven figures in our account and just one repeated memory at the end.