The Vipassana Chronicles

The day before the day before

A huge party was scheduled for that night. A private party at a private pool at Leo Meridian. I had dark rum and a chicken kabab. I helped myself with extra doses thinking about the dry and vegetarian days I am going to spend at the Vipassana centre for the next ten days. I was sure that I would love doing it and was in a way eagerly looking forward to it.

That night tossing on my comfortable soft bed at Park Inn, watching TV, I thought about the upcoming ten days.

Around two and half years back, I drew up a Master Plan of my life. I had identified six major areas of my life and prepared goals in those areas of self, love, career, finances, family and society. It was an ambitious, bold, strategic plan filled with lot of vision stuff.

I took several major decisions about my life based on my master plan and totally altered my life in a single week. The plan was my guiding force, a kind of compass that always lingered in the background.

I reviewed the plan occasionally. It told me where I was doing good and the areas I was doing badly. A year later, when I was reviewing the plan I realized that I failed miserably in many areas.

NOW

When I looked back and reviewed my life in that year, I realized that it was an eventful journey. Extreme fun, bold and dynamic energy, unlimited spending, utter failures, learning new things, adopting to new environments, realizing the dreams, failing the dreams, unlimited sorrows, unending pains, fear, the ugly side of humanity, love, women, the beauty of humanity, loyalty, friendship, relationships etc. So much happened in one single year.

But one thing that was constant was the stress. Anxiety, worry or stress, whatever you call it. Blame it on the number hours I was spending at work, or the number hours I was spending drinking and partying late nights or my lack of managerial skills or lack of ability to handle conflicts or lack of communication. Whatever it was, as much as I was happy, during the entire time, I was that much worried too.

ACT

After being clinically diagnosed with stress and given anti stress pills and sedative medicines, I realized that it was time for me to concentrate more on my ‘state of happiness’ or the ‘mental balance’.

In that process I stumbled upon a book called ‘How to stop worrying and start winning’. The author of the book is also the author of one of the all time self help best seller ‘How to win friends and influence people’. Even though the title sounded cheesy I bought that book because of the name of the author. I read it. Usually I make notes while reading a book like that. On a neat white paper, after I read the last page of the book, I wrote just two words.

Now.

Act.

For the sake of clarity, I added italics later,

Think Now.

Act now.