Your Well-being Is Your Responsibility

Concern with well-being has been with man kind for as long as we remember. However, the definition of well-being and how we generate it and who is responsible, however, has changed over time.

There was a time when people left the responsibility of one’s well being to their clan, their community and believed that if all was well with the community or clan, their well-being was taken care of as also the reverse; i.e. if they had a sense of well-being with themselves, then the community as a collective also had a sense of well-being with itself. Often in such diffused state, individual’s sense of well being had to be sacrificed at the alter of the collective well being.

Then came a time when we were told that a sense of well being came with who you are in your roles that your establish with the world at large – be it in the family, at work, in the world and wherever else. If we maintained the balance in the relationship well, well-being would be guaranteed was the assurance. This created the misbalance that we did not know how to relate to ourselves and to others without the given roles and found a sense of identity only within the given roles. Any sense of well being that came outside the scope of roles were discarded and generated stress.

Today, I believe we are going through a phase in the world, where the basic message that is being passed on to us is that “Your well-being is your responsibility alone”. We are going through a phase when we are individuals first and collective later but unlike the clan or the role era, the collective tells us who we should be and how we should be without taking any responsibility for it.

We are told, nobody else can or will take responsibility of your well -being and hence the individual is to maintain and generate her or his sense of well-being irrespective of the context. So, for instance we keep getting message through ads of chocolate, cars or even bottled water, which generates instant sense of well being even when the situation surrounding the protagonist is potentially fearful, disconnected or stressful. We are also given lessons on positive thinking which would generate well-being but often times some of these messages do not take into account the contextual reality.

However, there is an associated message as well, which is while you are solely responsible for your well being, you must not disturb other people’s well being. This effectively means that not only you have to be continuously aware, competent and rational, you must also remain vigilant that you do not become a source of disturbance for others. On the surface of it, this sounds quite alright; if everyone took responsibility of their well-being, this world will be a happy and peaceful place. The problem occurs when remaining vigilant and aware at all points of time itself becomes difficult and when such things are simplified to such an extent that they become absolute, like a dogma.

Before I proceed any further, let me clarify that the kind of individuals and context that I am talking about here are largely urban, middle class, above school level and are mostly into employment or business or are professionals. I must also clarify that as a concept I am a great fan of positivity and positive thinking but I do take offence when they are passed on as an absolute reality without taking their context into account.

Let me state a couple of small stories.

Story number one in which a woman who is feeling quite direction less in her life. She is in her mid thirties, holds a responsible job and is intelligent, caring, perceptive and competent. The sense of confusion and directionlessness comes partly from her past history of stressful relationships and partly from her work context where she is new and is trying to find her feet. Despite her best efforts, she often finds herself on the verge of losing control over her emotions, falls sick quite often without any associated disease and ends up taking decisions that she regrets later on. In this situation, more often than not, she receives advice from her near and dear ones both at work as also from her personal context that she needs to sort herself out and only if she could do that, i.e. go to a therapist, practice yoga, take care of herself, has better routine, all such problems will be taken care of and things will come back to normal. This woman, despite doing all of the above, finds herself at the same crossroad and then starts doubting her sense of worth.

And what does the context do, while she stands on her head trying to “sort herself out?” Her mother who is critical, gets hyper critical about this woman’s problems out of her own anxiety, her boyfriend stays away from her because he was unable to handle her emotional upheavals, her work context demands the same amount of attention, care, concern and competence from her irrespective of her situation and they all pass on this message to her that “please stay away from us, take care of your situation and come back to us as a “functional” person as we are unable to take care of your dysfunctionality. We however, wish you well and are willing to bear the cost of your medical bills, will hire a counselor for your or even help you find a yoga teacher, offer you gymming facility, etc, etc. This in turn increases this woman’s low sense of self worth and pushes her to the brink further and further.

The context in this case, would hardly ever look at reducing some of the stress causing factors that may contribute to her lack of well being, e.g. her mother becoming less critical, her boyfriend’s hyper sensitivity to her emotional outbursts, her work context not demanding her to be always sensible, rational and fair, etc, etc.

Story number two is a multinational organisation where higher and higher responsibility, ownership and performance are demanded from the employees. The employees don’t mind, they see this as a rightful demand on the part of the organisation in return of the money, status, position, learning and value that are being provided to them by the organisation.

So far, so good- Right? Wrong. In a situation like this most of the time the employees would not know what to do with the stress and tension that they carry for a context that is ever changing, highly competitive and very demanding. One can of course argue that this is the way of the world and that people who come for this kind of work have made a choice. However my point here is not about the choice but whether just by making a choice, the responsibility of the generating well being becomes an individual responsibility or is it both? After all, if the context learns to take care of its inhabitants, the context generates its own well being as well. However, most of the time, organisations such as these would term such stresses as symptoms of lack of work life balance problem and would organize training programs to take care of such anomalies without making the slightest difference to the internal environment which is tipping off the balance continuously. Alternately the context usually not question the value frames from where such stressors are originating and whether they are an absolute must for the “development” and “progress” of the context.

Therefore it is not surprising that often who we are and who we should be are defined and dictated by the popular media and even when we hear a heart breaking story of a model taking her own life, it often comes in the garb of how her professional life created this stress and how does one stay away from the stress through individual effort while the context goes away scot free in the name of being a “high stress” industry.

The opposite is also true, i.e. there are individuals and groups who would never look at how they are contributing to the stress of the context and would demand that the context makes all the changes while they retain all their dysfunctional habits and patterns in relation to the context.

Till such time both the individuals and context look at each other as integral part of each other and that this relationship is not just contractual (work context), or societal (family, relationships), but are complimentary to each other and one will not survive without the other, but at the same time one can not subsume the other, this confusion and stress will continue to haunt us.

On a different take, why is a constant state of well being so important? What is wrong with unhappiness, struggle, sadness, confusion, anger, grief and lack of well being? Aren’t some of these great mobilisers for new path, new directions and new action choices? May be this calls for another post, later!

What do you think and feel about your well being?

self absorption - the favourite game

One of the thoughts that I have been with in the recent past is the thought of self obsession (and I am a master at it :-) .  Self obsession is quite a funny thing, it creates a make believe world which tells you all kinds of things about yourself, good, bad and ugly, but the one thing that remains constant is the delusion that you are the centre of the universe not only for yourself but also for others.

One of the ways this delusion works with us is in creating our image of ourselves in myriad shades and hues.   One such image is that no matter how much love or affirmation or assurance we receive, there remains a nagging doubt that we were not really welcome into this world either at the time of conception, or birth or to the people we were born.  Obviously this image is totally subjective;  there can not be any argument about this being right or wrong nor can there be any  moral judgements about its desirability, etc.  People who have a self perception like this do not really enjoy it, nor do they go around showing these off as  medals to the world.

So then what is my point? My point is that this alleged dislike of self is actually a deep love for oneself and it is so intense that this negative perception is next to impossible to give up. People so deeply care for this image of the unloved and uncared for self, that they find it very difficult to give up irrespective of the way their lives turn out to be or the innumerable acts of courage, passion love and commitment that they may display. The belief here is so absolute that it becomes imperative to crave for more love for this "unloved and unlovable self" hoping that at some point of time this need will be totally fulfilled by someone somewhere; but it never does. For this need to be fulfilled, one has to feel satiated, and in order to feel satiated, one has to accept the notion that one is lovable. However, this acceptance will then destroy this well nurtured image of the "unloved and uncared for self" and a new "self" would have to be created. This new self then will have to give up all the old habits, all old longings and and all old ways to be and for a while one has to live in a vacum of not knowing what is next. This is the most difficult path for most people to trade, the fear of loss of the old self and old ways to be and most of the time, this is where we stop and become stagnant and get caught with a frozen image of ourselves. 


The other kind of delusion that I often experience is when people talk about being in love.  Some people talk about being in love with someone special and they describe how the other person becomes the centre of their lives; how without the lover their world will become bleak, meaningless and empty!  How without the person, they would not be able to live even for a day and the world would lose it meaning!  I have often wondered whether it is the love for the other person, or is it the love of the idea of being in  love with the other person?  Aren't we in love with the "self which is in love with the other"?  Often when I hear lovers killing the other, I doubt whether the killing was for loss of love or was the killing for loss of status in the lover's eye?    This is also another form of self absorption when everything else and everyone else cease to exist except the image of "self" as the centre of the universe.


the third kind of self absorption that I come across is when people talk about sacrificing their need, their desire, they wants for others and when it has become a steady pattern of their relatedness with others.  I am of course not talking about extreme situations here nor am I including instances when people sacrifice  their needs for others in dire need.  I am talking about people who have made this into a steady pattern of relating to the world and who firmly believe that this is what is expected out of them by others.  In other words, their sense of self worth is derived from the extent of "sacrifice" they make for others, irrespective of whether it is needed or not.  Often the others are helpless spectators or are unwilling victims to this blackmail as the "sacrificing' one has to be given his or her dues and would almost always have the superior position in the relationship.  This too is an intense self absorption where the others are merely entities in a drama that are needed for the drama to be enacted over and over again.

How does one deal with this?  well, perhaps the first step is to accept that life exists as sets of opposites, i.e. we are simultaneously good and bad, loved and not loved, accepted and not accepted, liked and disliked, courageous and cowardly,  loving and despising, efficient and incompetent, and many many such contradictions.  Life is but a set of contradictions and these contradictions are what  make life worth living for self and for others.  If this is accepted, one may then can look forward to move out of self absorption and relate to the world afresh and anew.

Amazing women in my life - part 2

Today I am going to tell you the story of my cousin  Neelu.  She was born in early 1930s in Rangoon, Burma.  Her parents later settled down in Kolkata and Neelu was largely brought up by her mother.

Neelu's childhood was not very pleasant, she grew up watching her parents fight;  mother struggling to make two ends meet but at the same time trying to give her the best of education and comfort that she could provide. Neelu went to a convent school and had many friends.  She was a gregarious and  lively person, who loved to live!  She loved food, she loved outings, she loved the good things in life, she loved gossiping, she loved meddling in other people's lives, she loved helping others, she loved cooking and most of all, she loved being appreciated, recognised and loved.

In no time Neelu fell in love with a young musician who also happened to be the landlord's son.  Needless to say their union was not looked upon kindly by both sets of parents - to boot, the two families belonged to two sides of Bengal who were  diametrically opposite to each other in their culture, in dialect, in food habits, in their beliefs and values and more importantly in the way they treated their women.

Neelu being the passionate person that she was, followed her heart and married the man of her dreams and they lived in the same house as before, i.e. she continued to live with her parents and her husband moved in with them.  This was not taken very kindly by her in-laws.  However, the husband also being the independent kind, did not join the family business and instead went on to becoming a professional musician and soon became quite famous in Kolkata.

When I came into Neelu's life, she was in her early thirties and I was three years old.  It was her mother K who brought me up.

My earliest recollection of Neelu is warm and fuzzy.  She was this busy big sister who was much older to me, was glamourous and went to work every day.  She had expensive tastes in sarees, jewelleries, perfumes and in make up. Her sarees ranged from gorgeous cotton hand-looms, to fine silks to sophisticated chiffons and such other materials.  She used to import Max Factor make up for herself and to me her make box was a treasure trove of  many hued lipsticks, eye liners and many other unknown lotions and potions.  Every time she would open that black and yellow striped box, I would try and get a whiff of the wonderful odour of the contents of the box.  To me they seemed like a magic box, and she was the magician who created magic with them.  And, she had shoes with heels, the stilettos that I lusted most after the most.  Since we were forbidden to wear her heels lest we fall down, all my experimentation used to be when she was away at work.  During one such time, I also fell down and cracked open my skull, but that is another story!

In that household, apart from me, there was another small girl who had the same status, i.e.  part orphan  as me.  Her name was Tini and she was Neelu's sister-in-law's daughter.  Her mother too passed away suddenly leaving Tini and her other siblings.  In Neelu's eyes, both Tini and I were like to two little kittens who would be pampered or scolded depending on whatever mood she was in.  Intrinsically Neelu was a very generous and affectionate person and whenever she was in the mood, she would offer gifts with both hands to most people.  I remember she used to take Tini and me to a big departmental store in kolkata and send me to the book store while she would wonder off to the jewelry or the saree counters.  I would explore the book racks, bury my nose in the new books to smell th em and then pick up one or two that Neelu would buy for me.  oh, how I loved to smell the new books!

Neelu would do many other things for the two of us; she would use her slightly old silk saree to make dresses for me and for Tini.  She would cut our hair at home and experiment with new styles on us.  She would design our dresses.  The  part that I liked the most was when if we requested her to give us a makeover, she would open her make up box and work on our faces.  I felt like a little princess with my made up eyes and lips and would insist on not washing my face even when it was time to sleep.

As days progressed, Neelu's life started changing.  She had a baby and the baby needed special care for a while, and at the same time Neelu's health started deteriorating.  This was where her mother took charge of looking after the baby, so that Neelu could continue with her work and manage her own life space.

Neelu's married life started developing chinks soon after their child was born.  As she got busy with her work, baby and other paraphernalia of life, her husband got busy with his booming career as well as his female fan club.  Neelu started putting on weight, started having frequent mood swings, had an early hysterectomy and  started relying more and more on her cooking skills to win over her husband's heart.  In all of these, she forgot to look after herself.

During this time, I observed her losing her sense of aliveness and becoming more bitter and more critical of herself and of the entire world.  Her gift of the gab did not help much as it became more of a weapon to lash at people rather than relate to them.  On other hand, her mother was being looked up to as the agony aunt for the whole world and their cousins, and this obvious comparison did not go down well with Neelu.

There is not much to write about the rest of her life as it went downhill rapidly from there, not so much in terms of financial stability as they were very well off, but from her sense of well being with herself.  Her marriage continued but the joy went out of it.  Neelu's only son did not give her much joy either as he turned out to be quite similar to his father, uncaring and insensitive.  Her huge sense of pride never allowed her to share her pain with anyone else and may be that was why she never really found it easy to allow anyone to get too close to her.   Hence she would offer generously but would never ask for help.

Neelu passed away suddenly, one day prior to 9/11, but not a single day goes by when I don't think of her and her passion and zest for life.  She was a kind of woman who was born to live life in its fullness, with vigour, courage,  kindness, passion, possessiveness, envy,  jealousy, generosity,  etc along with the attendant liabilities.  My sense of "joie de vivre" came mostly from her, watching her embrace life in all its positives and negatives with a "never say die' attitude.

self worth and relationships

Have been feeling low, down and out for several days. When I look at how I feel, there are several so called reasons for it, feeling unloved, undesired, low on confidence, lack of hope, lack of direction, lack of purpose and the whole host of it.

After moping for several days i am feeling more enraged and irritated towards myself. One thought that keeps coming to me is that if I were to face a person who was like who I am at the present moment, what would I have felt towards him or her? one single answer that comes is : "CONTEMPT" in capital letters.

I would have felt contemptuous, helpless, angry, tired and irritable. This constant whining would have got at me faster than it is hitting others. I think A has been quite patient and sweet with me, he is coping with whatever i am dishing out to him with grit and hidden resignation and may be even a little bit of despair.

Who would want to love a woman like me, this way? If i am whining about feeling low on self worth, etc, what is the other person supposed to do? At best the other person can try and help, be a problem solver. but basically apart from just listening, what else can any one do?

I hardly ever smile, I am sulking most of the time as though the whole world owes me big time and they have not paid their dues. what the fuck!

I am more and more getting convinced that this deeply entrenched sense of "low self worth" (behind that a very firm belief that I AM COMPLETELY UNLOVABLE) can not go, until I start gazing inward, but not in an analytical way. I have done that way too many times. By now I know every cause, every 'why's of every 'how's. that does not help. in fact what that does, in a way, is to strengthen this whining that 'oh such a bad thing happen to me, therefore, what else will i be, but this, that and the other".

my internal gaze would have to be more spiritual, more meditative. I am not sure I alone can do it. when i try to do it, there is tremendous resistance to it. I feel very restless, my mind races off and i feel like running away. It can be quite distressing at times.

but I also know that meditative practice is a discipline and not something that happens in a day. I am hoping that one of these days, very soon, I will be able to settle with that discipline within myself.

meanwhile can I experiment with smiling? not just a physical mouth open teeth showing smile; i mean, can i smile at myself and smile inwards?

As i am writing this, one of those restless, disbelieving and laughing voices in my head is saying "what the fuck are you writing, you stupid idiot, do you even know what the f*** does that mean"?

and it is right. I have no clue about what i am saying, but I am hoping, that instead of knowing, I can experience it somehow, soon.

the man just called. and he has been calling some 10 to 12 times a day .... the whole purpose of the call today was to tell me that he is a biggie shot in society and that therefore he should not be called names by me .... I did not know whether i should laugh or to get angry.

in fact i should not even call him a man ...in order to be a man, a person has to be a 'man' .... you know the kind who has self respect and sense of dignity ...just like another 'woman' will have ... and it is less to do with gender identity ... it is more to do with dignity and self respect.

anyway, so here i was holding on the cellphone almost 6 inches away from my face, on a loudspeaker mode, when he kept on telling me how all of this divorce stuff is useless and how i should not do it.

that how regretful he was for abusing me, and for calling me whore and other names in front of our daughter who is 21 years old, and calling up all my business associates and slandering my name to them, and telling me how i have been whoring ever since i was 13 years old. all of these are being "regretted" because he was unwell and now that he is under medication, he is sorry. this is notwithstanding the fact that just yesterday (in his so called stable stage) he abused me and threatened me. "regretted" indeed .... that too from a 'socially respectable person" ... i am so MAD! so mad because i think this creature thinks i am still gullible and i know that i am gullible as somewhere deep inside me i still have expectation that this creature will understand the need for self respect for both him and for me and will stop calling me

but why the **** am i taking his calls? what the **** is wrong with me?

i know. i have a strong need to punish. punish the creature, punish my father who abandoned me and worse still became a parasite onto me; punish my mother for being so irresponsible and dying on me when i was 3 years old; punish the bastard who raped me systematically from age 13 to 15; punish, punish and punish!!

and alas! i know how useless all of these are ... no punishment and no counter screaming/shouting/fights leave me in peace. when you grow up without having a mother, a absentee father and no siblings, you kind of become a little cold to yourself. you try to be all of that to yourself and end up being none of that ... just you. that is who i am partly. but then ...yipppeee...

there is so much to be thankful of:

• so many wonderful friends
• my beautiful, beautiful daughter ... she has grown up to be such an adorable, sensible, intelligent, accomplished and a beautiful individual in her own right.
• special people in life who cares for me and love me unconditionally .. (well almost - complete unconditional love is a big myth)
• for being able to choose my areas of interest and work and enjoying every moment of both.
  
• for being me - a bundle of contradiction, full of energy, assertive, loving, compassionate, highly opinionated and confused.

so much to be grateful for. thank you!