“When a man realizes his littleness, his greatness can appear.”
– Anonymous.
Our blogger friend Nick has a very interesting post in his blog on the same subject and my flippant comment on his post and his quite considered response has inspired me to write this post.
Before you proceed further, I request you to read Nick’s post so that this post makes sense.
My comment on his post went like this: “If you are in an advanced age, I am a doddering old man. The point of life is not growing up any way. I do not know of anyone who grew ‘up’. I know a lot of them who grew sideways! I did. It is just to enjoy the process of life while it lasts. Why worry? Just be happy that you are what you are. I am.”
Nick responded with: “Ramana – Well, enjoying the process of life sounds good to me, I do plenty of that. I’m mostly happy with what I am, though there are a few things that bug me. Total self-acceptance is somewhat elusive….”
Yes indeed, total self acceptance is somewhat elusive. In fact, I would say, very elusive. But with practice it can be brought about to a reasonably stable state. I use some tricks to do that and this is to share those tricks.
I rarely, if ever,
- spend a great deal of time in front of a mirror
- read books on self improvement
- take myself seriously
- feel jealous of anyone
I inevitably,
- laugh a lot at myself and my shape
- enjoy jokes at my expense, particularly from irrepressible souls like Maynard
- Share jokes that come my way with my friends
- spend a lot of time doing things for my exclusive pleasure, like cross word puzzles, cooking, reading and blogging/commenting on other blogs
- try to be helpful wherever I can
Whenever accepting myself as I am in the moment becomes difficult, I take a cold shower. If that does not help, I ring up a friend of mine who can puncture my ego like no one ever has been able to. Unfortunately, he refuses to comment on my blog posts. If he did, you will know how insufferable he can be. If, even this does not work, I simply read the political section of all the newspapers that I get. I immediately know that I am better off than all those featuring there and total self acceptance rushes in.
In my earlier posts, I have tried to convey that I have simply lived my life as it happened without too much interference from me, and so far it has worked. Whenever my pockets got empty, something inevitably happened and they got filled. I have learnt that unless they are empty, fresh stuff cannot come in as there is simply no space there.
I am human. I hurt when sad things happen. I rejoice when good things happen. I accept that life will deal unexpected cards at unpredictable intervals and I have to play my hand to the best of my ability.
I did not take any special training for all these things. I am just made that way. Grace, I suppose.
In various posts that I visit regularly, there are some commentators who inevitably say, that they never grew up. I too am one of them. I truly believe that I grew horizontally after nature stopped my vertical growth. For some strange reason, that growth has now stopped. I wonder if this is a temporary phenomenon or nature will deal some new cards.
What about you?
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