I’ve come to understand that my dad was, in his own way, right when he said the world was merely a number game.
I usually have only 60 rupees in my wallet on a regular work day. I spend 35 one-way to get to work during the morning rush hour. One day I gave away 20 to an agarbatti vendor stationed at a signal on my way. I knew I wouldn’t have enough to get back home but that was a worry for a later hour.
That evening my boss offered to drop me home. The laws of physics – apply to the laws of genuine human kindness. What you throw out there you will get back in ways that will surprise you.
I had been giving this man 20 rupees everyday for a year straight, we exchanged no conversation except the regular charade “Madam Agarbatti – Nahi Bhaiya par aap ye lo.” A smile, a blessing and a wave later my cab would drive on as the signal started. A nameless face in my routine, that made me happy.
One day – I was hit with the biggest (proverbial) heartache my 23 year old self had experienced. It put me in a very sour mood, I was sobbing halfway through the commute, repeating the harsh words that had been said to me, over and over. As these bitter, unrelated thoughts consumed my mind, I became very petty in my thinking. I wondered why I patronized this man at all.
I stopped giving him that 20. Just like that. After 20 days of repeatedly shaking my head at him – he stopped asking me. Like a domino effect of bad emotions my pettiness had turned into guilt. I would cower as the signal approached as I knew, with or without the 20, he would still wave at me if he saw me or flash a smile in my direction. That guilt turned into anger towards him – maybe he purposely smiled at me to guilt me into giving him money. The anger became an issue of the infamous “Ego” where I felt it was too late to reinstate the tradition.
As more time passed, he stopped acknowledging my presence completely. If I did happen to glance in his direction – I was met with the same hostility I spewed out earlier.
I had spread hate. To a person I met for a fleeting 30 seconds everyday. And at the end of the day it is all a function of chemicals and hormones in the brain. I had become a trigger to someone else’s negativity.
Along the way I had become a visual trigger of negativity to so many others – and so many others had become a trigger for me. That I realized it was important to fix those broken connections, change the flow of chemicals and make every effort to rectify this error. There is so much negativity in the world and within every pulse of the internet it spreads, like wildfire. It is a wonder that people are a lot more anxiety stricken than before. We literally gifted this situation to ourselves.
Think of it as The Power Of Self Control – you get to exercise this super power every single day.
We are so conscious of the food we recommend to other people, as it is a reflection of our taste. We are so conscious of the clothes we wear in front of other people as it is a reflection of our fashion. Then as superior life forms that have the super power of communication – why are we so quick to transfer our damaging and infectious negativity?
It definitely isn’t easy. But would you rather accumulate the compound interest of positiveness or be stuck in a debt trap of negativity?
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