How do we draw the line between self-pity and humility and assertiveness?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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how do we practically draw the line between self-pity and humility, passivity and maturity if we have done certain actions how do we evaluate and how can we ourselves choose yes, just as it’s a matter of appetite how much should I eat I learn by experience I think this much food will be enough for me sometimes I may find that it’s not enough, I may take a little more sometimes later I may take a little less and then after that I hate that, that was too little or that was too much we learn by experience but it’s not just by experience alone experience plus introspection I’m just feeling so lethargic after I eat that probably that item I should have eaten less so just as eating is something it doesn’t come with formulas, nobody can tell us if you eat only two chapatis, you should only eat this much rice no nothing like that, we all have to learn ourselves so like that, what level of assertiveness we should have in what situation that will depend on a lot of things just as I diet what works for me may be very different from what works for you so similarly different people are comfortable with different levels of assertiveness so for example, a person with a kshatriya mentality they want to change things, a person of a brahmana mentality they may want to just tolerate things or walk away from things I have other things, I have better things to do in life I don’t want to get involved in all this so we can’t make a rigid formula that this is what it is our own thoughts, patterns and our own priorities also change with time so what may have seemed reasonable earlier may not be reasonable now so in this case we do three things from a practical perspective first is that we sometimes are forced to make certain decisions which need to be urgently done should I do this or should I do that there is some petition, should I join the petition or should I not join the petition so we might just make some decision based on our gut feeling but afterwards we observe and usually when we look back at the past the usual tendency is to let the mind be in control I am just doing some work and suddenly only if I had done that it would have been so good so then that is simply lamenting lamenting about the past is very different from learning from the past and the primary difference is who is in control when the mind is in control the mind is saying think about this, think about that oh I did that mistake, if only I had done that so when the mind is in control and is diving our thoughts here, there and everywhere at the end of it we simply feel bad we feel depressed but learning means first of all we situate ourselves in goodness we chant, we pray, we read some scripture we may take some deep breaths situate ourselves in the mood of goodness and then consciously take our thoughts behind this is what happened, this is what I did what did I think when I did this maybe I didn’t think about this factor or I thought but I did not think this factor is so important so try to reconstruct our thought process and then we understand where our thought process was inadequate so that calm deliberation of our past actions even if we have made some mistakes it’s ok, but we need to calmly deliberate not just lament over the mistake then we can learn from it because we have to not just look at our actions and say this was wrong and this was right we have to look at the thought process that went behind that action and not just say I was so stupid at that time what was my thought process when I did something see even when we act in a stupid way and we do all act in a stupid way at times but at that time it doesn’t seem stupid so at that time the mind provided some kind of reasoning by which the unreasonable appeared reasonable so we have to deconstruct that reasoning of the mind and then make sure that we don’t fall prey for that same wrong reasoning again so that calmness and looking back at what we did in the past is important and this can be done not just for our past mistakes it can also be done for our past good things sometimes we just take some impulse some decision based on gut feeling and that turns out to be a very good decision so we can learn from that also so that’s firstly learning from the past second thing is dealing with the present situation it’s very good to write if a situation is of significant importance to us it is good to write down our thoughts writing down our thoughts in a journal helps us to have a snapshot of our mind so for example if in a particular situation the nature of the mind is to keep us dissatisfied whatever situation we are in if I have this job or this position I shift to some other role there will also be problems the nature of the mind is to keep us dissatisfied but there are different kinds of dissatisfactions there is some dissatisfaction which is just because of the irritability of the mind there is some other dissatisfaction which is because of genuine incompatibility I am just not fit for this job so when it is genuine incompatibility then that feeling is persistent whereas it is just of irritability it just comes and it goes so if we have to make a major life decision about what we should do then we keep a snapshot of our mind by writing our feelings at periodic intervals so we decide this is the issue which I am going to decide about then once a week I will spend 15 minutes and write down my feelings about this and then if any other time the thoughts come I am not going to spend time thinking about it because that is simply a waste of mental energy if I get some new thought I might just note it down briefly somewhere and then put it in my journal later and then if we do this for a significant amount of time 2-3 months, 6 months and then we observe consistently this is what I am feeling this means that if the same feeling goes on consistently for a long time that indicates some fundamental incompatibility so there we may need to change make some change ourselves, walk away from the situation or change the situation other thing if it is just coming occasionally and going wherever we are there are always going to be problems so we may just decide that sometimes I get this irritation, sometimes I get that irritation and this is something which I will have to live with so the second aspect I will say is that keep a journal and keep it for a significant amount of time don’t just let the mind wallow in that thinking constantly but allot some time for that thought for that subject and give focus time in that time third is to get a third person perspective that if we consult a counselor we consult some senior devotee and what happens usually for us say I am here and there is some situation out there most of the time we evaluate everything through our mind this is a lousy thing this person is just this person is like this, like that so we always evaluate everything through our mind now if we have even one person in our life whom we can trust more than our mind that is a matter of great fortune that means when that person speaks something it’s not that we evaluate them through the mind we evaluate our mind through them that means my mind is saying this person is so bad but then this person is saying you are also not behaving properly no no no you are taking side if we have trust in that person then we will start evaluating this is what this person is saying and this is what my mind is saying then if we have even one person whom we can trust that much it’s a matter of great great fortune and it’s not easy to have one person like that and sometimes we have to consult multiple people but the point is we can’t take major decisions based on our perspective alone ultimately we have to take our decisions but if we rely only on our perspective and we talk only with those people who reinforce our perspective then it becomes a big problem no, Kaikeyi’s problem was twofold when she got Ram exiled her first problem was she heard mantra and second bigger problem was she did not hear anyone else so if we are going to take a particular decision we can hear from those who reinforce that decision but if we know somebody is also having the opposite perspective at least we can give them a hearing and by getting these outside perspectives we can evaluate our feelings better and then we can arrive at a mature decision does it answer your question? thank you very much