I have this habit of giving advice to everyone I know. The problem is that when it comes to practicing what I preach, I fail miserably. These days I'm trying to get active and be fitter. But I'm so lazy. I have been telling my sister to walk every chance she gets, not to sleep so much, to eat healthy, etc, etc. But then here I am, just making excuses when it is my turn. It's not just this fitness thing but everything else, too. What can I do to follow my own advice?
-AnitaI have been giving advice to people through this column for over two years now and I only wish I had applied the same things in my own life. I often tell people to believe in oneself, to forgive oneself and people who have done them wrong in their past, to change their outlook towards life, or to start taking action. This doesn't mean that I have unshakable faith in myself, or that I have forgiven myself for things of the past. Some mornings, I feel so low that I can't make myself get out of bed.
What we tell others to do is out of empathy and compassion and not because we are or we think we are perfect. Sometimes we show them the path that we have walked ourselves, sometimes we show them the path that we have learned about but not walked on ourselves. Advices come from a deep desire to support someone whom we love with everything we know or wish we knew, everything we have or wish we had, and everything we have experienced or failed to experience. Unabashed, we give them stories of both our successes and failures. When we love someone, we want them to rise above us and be better than us because we believe or wish that they can achieve more than what we ever could.
I hope your sister knows how much you love her. Your own inability to follow your advices is one thing but I hope you know how much you love your sister. As for the other part of the question, I know young people have a lot of ideas about what an ideal life looks like. We all want to live like yogis: wake up at 4 AM, yoga and exercise, meditate, work tirelessly all day, eat healthy and stay happy. But the biggest barrier to leading a balanced life is our obsessive desire for an "ideal life", which is often an indication of a deep level of dissatisfaction with life. The greatest paradox of life is that we can't change anything about ourselves without loving ourselves just the way we are. I believe that a lasting personal transformation is only possible at the peak of joy, happiness, and satisfaction.
Thus my advice to you is, fall in love. Fall in love with yourself, with someone, with something, with life. Love brings joy and happiness that in turn makes your life flow like a river. When life begin to flow like a river, steer yourself to the direction you want go. But first, find love, joy and happiness.
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Dear Swastika,
My brother recently got married and I liked his wife when I met her on the few occasions before the wedding. The wedding took place six months ago and we all live together with my parents. Somehow, I've stopped getting along with her and I'm sure she dislikes me, too. We have this cold war situation going on at home for the past two months and it's so bad that I don't feel like returning home after my college gets over. I know she makes my brother happy and she is a good daughter-in-law as well. Despite all this, I feel constantly angry with her around and can't even speak to my brother or my parents properly. Am I just jealous of her? I don't know how to make things better for myself and everyone at home.
- Prabha
Sometimes we don't like people. Sometimes we don't get along with people. I personally believe that we don't have to like everyone or get along as long as we can allow them their dignity, and offer respect and courtesy while holding ourselves accountable to basic human values. Maybe over the time your relationship soured because she did something that you didn't like or something that made you seem less important and less valuable at home. It would help to reflect back on the six months, and try to remember different things that happened and the kind of feelings that you developed for her at those times. Maybe you can rationalize some of your feelings or realize that you had misinterpreted certain situations. But most importantly, remember – there is nobody in the world who likes everybody. Everybody dislikes somebody for reasons that they themselves don't understand and can't explain. Many times, everybody seems to love somebody for reasons we can simply not understand why. Everybody at some point in his or her life feels anger, jealousy, frustration or greed. There is nothing wrong with feeling these emotions because they are not just part of us, they are us. There are no right emotions or wrong emotions. Every emotion, be it anger or compassion, is primordially pure. All you have to do it accept it and develop the skills to use these emotions to transform yourself. If you can't get along or truly love – still uphold the basic human courtesy, respect and compassion.
Swastika Shrestha is the co-founder and head of training and support at Teach for Nepal. She has several years of experience training and mentoring youth leaders. She can be reached at swastika@teachfornepal.org.
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