What if I told you, as a child, my favourite game was playing ‘fire on the mountain, run, run, run!’

And it continued until almost yesterday. And it somehow makes me feel I am related to Lord Krishna, because he is called ‘Rann Chod Daas’, or the one that runs away from the battlefield. Okay, let me not tax you anymore. What I mean to say is, my strategy in times of trouble or calamity has always been, “Run”!

Had a fight with a friend? Leave them

Work seems like something I do not like? Resign

Responsibility feels overbearing? Dump it on others

Just run, run, run!

Body feels heavy and pudgy? This time, there is no running.

But life is a great teacher. It gives you a plethore of chances with love, in the way of fun challenges and by way of gentle reminders and nudging. But if your primary coping mechanism has been running away, life chooses to get smarter.

And so, it puts you in a spot. It shoves you in a corner. A dark corner with no escape. Pretty much like putting hardcore criminals in dark cells. And the only way out is finding your inner light.

While I kept running from discipline, rituals and looking at life beyond seeking happiness all my life, there came a time of deep isolation. Friends dropped off. Career saw doomsday. There was nothing to look forward to on any given day. The juice of life simply got sucked out. 

All those things that had made sense previously and had made me believe, were sources happiness, faded away. And once more I took to running away. Next up, complaining became my easy companion. Complaining endlessly that life was unfair. That people leave me. That opportunity has stopped knocking. I was acting like a sullen, demanding boss who is incorrigible. Who lives in a fanciful world built on a kingdom of desires. However, he does not know the outer walls of the kingdom have doomsday written all over it. We see that some people in power seem to behave this way. And it leads to geo political crisis. History is witness to such leaders too. It’s like death or stupidity. Everyone else can see the person thats dead or stupid. But the person experiencing it cannot. 

So after many pitfalls, literally losing my sleep over sorrows and fears of all sorts, I realised that I needed to stop running away. From myself. From my thoughts. From my expectations. I reckoned a simple trap. You experience joy and happiness. For example, eating junk food, binge drinking, binge watching Netflix, doomscrolling, meeting friends, posting on social media, making more money, a brand new vacation, the list is endless. It ends up spiking your happy hormones. And so, you keep going back to the same methods, that have always worked for you, looking for the same or an even bigger level of gratification. It works most of the time since we are social animals. And it is a necessary evil.

But there is a principle in Economics – The Principle of Diminshing Marginal Utility. Life choses to put it in place once if reckons you have been telling yourself you are happy just raking in the superficial moolah, and acing the game of chasing cheaper dopamine, aka material success in life. That is exactly when it takes away any or all of the elements that give you happiness, leaving you parched with unmet expectations and a broken system. You experience sorrow. Things seem to be going south. As a first instinct, you try doubly hard to go back to the things that have always lived up to the happiness promise. To try and make new connections. To crash land into a party. To binge watch. To turn to addictions. To do whatever it takes to feel that high that kept coming to you without much effort. And it isn’t your fault. You thought all those elements made you who you are – happy.

But then, there is an another way to look at it. And it is certainly not the easy one. And that is to question the purpose of life. To question who you really are. And if there is anything else that can make you happy other than the life you have known so far.

Now this method is time consuming. It can get draining. It offers opportunity to cry, go mad, give up, and go downhill. But if you have a spark, even the slightest bit of it, and I believe we all do, then you have an imminent choice to make. That of questioning everything about your habits, ideas and definitions of success and happiness, expectations around life, people, situations and your own mind and most importantly, questioning what is it you can do – about life, your choices, your situation and your ideas. Because hey, people and situations will keep changing, so will your own thoughts and perceptions. Are you then willing to accept that today might be the beginning of the end? That things may never be the same like they used to, that life will only get worse?

Or in simple words, we are all going to die some day. And the only time left is the time between today and d-day. So what do you wish to accomplish within this timeframe?

How would you like to live the rest of your days?

Merely surviving and pulling through?

Trying desperately to get back the same life and outcomes or making different choices?

Thinking differently about life and the meaning of happiness, success and what is enough?

Creating your own dopamine by giving – back to your self, to your family, to friends, to the world at large or going around the world with a begging bowl, hoping they will drop in a smile and some happiness?

So here are some breakthroughs that are actually simple and doable, but took me long to realise:

1. To have a structure to my day, irrespective of the traps that life choses to lay – exercise, breathwork, journalling, volunteering, hobbies, podcasts.
2. To feel gratitude, no matter what I receive. Every trouble, every grief, every wound is a blessing in disguise. And if you keep working out your mental and physical muscle consistently, the results are bound to show, sooner or later.
3. To work on serving others. Because remember, most of life is based on thoughts – now it is upto you whether the thought leads to misery and suffering or freedom and bliss. And a lot of bliss comes from serving those that are suffering more, putting your own suffering aside. It comes from bringing a smile. It comes from consistently churning out the best of yourself even if you are going through the worst. 

P.S. Over a period of last seven months, I have had this profound realization that the pillars to building a life of fulfillment lay in the foundations of knowledge, exercising your body and mind, taking responsibility for causes big and small and giving love and kindness daily – to your loved ones, to strangers, to those in need. And the dopamine spikes are better quality than those provided by doomscrolling or binge drinking. So why not turn away from spirits towards spirituality instead. Why not choose to turn away from seeking to giving instead. And why not turn away from chasing happiness to strengthening that muscle of become a better and more wholesome being? Could life then turn around?