Once I was reading “how to stop worrying and start living – written by Del Carnegie. One of the great-great books that I ever read. In that book, I was reading the mathematical terms to explain the suffering or unhappiness.
Del Carnegie explained in the book that most of the time, the human becomes unhappy knowingly. When they know the silent dog bites but still they play with it and get bitten. Just like this – when they know 5+2 is 7 but, still they count it as 8 and become confused.
And, suffer. I was the same. There were times in my childhood days, I used to think blatantly, act foolishly and worry day and night uselessly. When I was 18 years old boy. I was so much saddened and unhappy about my physical appearance and also height. I was a monk and I used to wear the robes till my toe with the hope of looking a bit taller.
Sometimes I used to hang on the bar and do exercise to straighten my body. So I could become an inch taller. Unfortunately, nothing helped me. Nothing good happened to me. So, I stopped doing such stupid and foolish acts ever again. Then, I came with the idea of “People-pleasing.” I just cared about others. Studied to please my master.
Worked to make them happy. Listen. Become humble. Honest. Nice. Just to make them happy. While I was doing these stupid things, on the other side, I was killing myself slowly. At the same time, Dale Carnegie’s 5+2=8 ideology ringed into my mind and brain.
“How stupid I am?” I thought and started to learn “Let it go” which I learned from the Buddha. The story between a stupid Brahmin who blamed the Buddha and get wasted his blames and words meaninglessly since the Buddha didn’t accept it.
And, this “let it go” gave me huge boosts that helped me to disrobed and I am here living, applying all the learned things for my practical life and fighting for the expected things. I never think that something happened and is happening in my life. I just think that life is teaching me. And, I am learning life happily.