What is in our control

Chris, my hairstylist, has clients coming to him from all corners of the City, owing to his convivial character, and his craftsmanship in creating chic coiffures. More than his amazing ambidextrous skills, what is appealing is his abundant knowledge, acquired through assorted sources. In fact, some of his perspectives are so profound, particularly those pivoted around philosophies of life. 

During my last visit, as Chris was skimming through several subjects, suddenly he started speaking of the stark ‘volatile’ quality of human life, wherein nothing seems to be in our control. Then, with examples, he went about explicating the evanescent and ephemeral nature of all things in life, and ended his talk with, “Perhaps the only thing in our proper control is our mind!”

As I started traipsing back home, I sensed a train of thoughts, triggered
by the truth in what
Chris had stated.

I recalled, just a few days before, how I had fixed up a day for film-viewing on OTT, with the family. And, my body, which was ‘in fine fettle’ till then, had suddenly got feverish, thus foiling all the fun. True, even seemingly trivial things in life, don’t seem to be in our total grasp.

But, then again, the next minute, my mind merrily started making plans of eatching a movie on the big screen in a multiplex itself the coming week, thus managing to melt away all the melancholy. 

I discerned, be it anything, to feel dejected or delighted is in our mind’s domain. And, constant monitoring/marshalling of all activities on our mindscape is of mammoth importance.

It is not about snags or troubles in life that matters. Our approach, attitude, and our ability to surmount, and succeed in tackling those snags is what really matters. Interestingly, even by having that “only one thing - our mind” in our control, we can control many other things. Like, say, our inner peace, joy, mental relaxation, equipoise of mind, et al. 

Incidentally, there are those evil vagaries of life, (even virulent acts of humans), that very often keep erupting, to vitiate the mind.

Well, we can’t block these. But, by mind-control, we can buttress and buffer ourselves against these bad forces. It is like, during storms, if we can’t change the direction of winds, definitely we can adjust our sails!