In the beginning, focus more on approvals and try to ignore disapprovals. Once you reach advance stages, you should ignore disapprovals as well as approvals. This is because even in case of approvals, the evaluation of your actions as well as that of you is dependent on the opinions of people and not on you. The validation of your actions as well as your personality should come from within and not from outside, as that is the only way for true validation. This is why spiritually advanced people may do what they feel is right and they may not care about how other people judge them.
However in the beginning, it is better to get approvals from people. Hence focus on the approvals. Likewise, start engaging in similar type of activities which are somewhat difficult at this level but not a lot more difficult. Once you’re comfortable with this level, you should move to the next one. At this level, try activities which are somewhat more difficult than those in the first level. However, they should not be a lot more difficult.
This way, you can replace the script on your subconscious with time and efforts. As you engage in more and more things that you wish to do, the number of grudges may drop. As that happens, you may feel more relaxed and much more positive, since a lot of negativity has left you along with the grudges that you had for so long. Once you reach advance stages, start doing what you feel is right in every sphere of life, even if it upsets your family members. With time, they’ll learn to respect your decisions or they’ll learn to accommodate.
Be wise enough to stay away from practices which may pose actual problems for other people, even if you wish to engage in them. For example, you may wish to drink a lot on regular basis. However, you can’t handle alcohol beyond a point. Hence whenever you have a lot of it, you fight with your family members, spouse, friends and/or other people. You often put others in difficulties after consuming a lot of alcohol. In this case, you should stay away from alcohol unless you can learn to control the quantity of alcohol you consume. Though you may feel like having alcohol, you should not.
You’re free to do whatever you like as long as it doesn’t pose real problems for others. If it does, it’s not your individual choice to make and it becomes a collective choice. On the other hand, if you consume alcohol in decent quantities and you never cause problems for others after drinking; consuming alcohol is fine for you. In case a family member has an issue with it; it is not a real issue and it is his imaginary problem. Hence he should learn to deal with it and you should not restrict yourself.
As long as an action of yours doesn’t cause real problems for other people, you have the right to engage in such action on your own, without taking approvals from others. However, if an action of yours affects other people, it needs their approval. Taking another example, suppose you wish to smoke in a room where five other people are present and all of them strongly object as they also have to breathe in toxins they don’t wish to. Hence it is not your individual decision. If everyone in the room is comfortable with you smoking, you may do so. Otherwise, get out of the room, smoke and get back.
Looking at this equation from a different angle, if these people are your family members and some of them disapprove even if you go outside and smoke, as they don’t want you to smoke, it is not a real problem. Hence you’re free to make your choice without caring for their approvals. The same rule applies to all other spheres.
Whenever your actions affect other people in reality, their approvals or disapprovals matter. If your actions don’t cause real problems for them and they have imaginary issues which means they are against your actions without valid reasons, their approvals or disapprovals don’t matter. Hence be wise enough to know which actions of yours are the ones which don’t need approvals from other people. Start doing more and more such things which you wish to do but you’ve held yourself back so far, due to fear of disapproval from others.
Looking at the other type of restriction, it is more difficult to handle. This is because other people are a part of it and you alone are not responsible for everything. In this case, if you feel that you’re right in doing whatever you wish to do and your dear ones should not make one such decision for you, try to convince them. An effective way of doing so is by seeking help from someone in your circle, who is wise and who is valued by such dear ones in question.
A wise man may not only understand that what you wish to do is right for you, he may also be able to convince your dear ones to understand your point of view. It means you should always keep company with wise people as they may resolve a number of your problems without much trouble or effort. Apart from that, you may try to convince your dear ones by yourself, if you’re good at doing so.
If you don’t have one such wise person in your circle and you fail to convince your people on your own, a grudge may be created in this case, since you may not wish to go against your people. Though you may not stop this grudge from building, you may do things to reduce the damage it may cause. Firstly, try to reduce the overall number of grudges that you have. If you’re able to get rid of majority of your grudges, the remaining ones may become much easier to handle.
Secondly, you should help other people who may be in similar situations. For example, if someone’s parents are stopping him from doing something that he wishes to do and which may be a right thing to do, you can try to convince his parents to let him do so. If you’re able to convince his parents and they let him do what he wishes, you may feel that the similar grudge within you has lost a lot of strength. Through his person, you may see yourself doing what he wishes to do. This may provide relief.
This is why you may have seen in some movies that a character tends to help many people stuck in situations, which he might have faced and suffered from. As he helps them get out of such situations, he feels relived as if he’s got himself out of one such situation. Hence trying to help other people do what you can’t do may reduce the strength of similar types of grudges within you.
Looking at another approach to handle such situations, you may choose to engage in certain actions which you feel are right, despite strong opposition from your loved ones. If you take this path, you may offend some of your loved ones and at times, the damage may be serious. Hence this option should be the last one. It should be used only in cases when what you want to do is of utmost importance to you but your family or loved ones are standing in opposition to it.
During one such moment, you have to take loss one way or the other. You’ll either end up quitting something that holds utmost value to you or you may end up causing serious damage to a relationship. Which one of these losses you want to take is dependent on your personality type, priorities and a number of other factors.
As long as you’re social and you’re living in the concept of family; there’ll always be compromises that you’ll need to make. Family and friends do a lot for you and being humans; they may expect a lot from you in return. At times, their expectations may make perfect sense whereas at times, they may be completely nonsense. Even in the latter case, you may not always have the luxury to reject their choices or opinions; and you may have to honour their expectations despite knowing they’re wrong.
This is necessary evil and there’s not much you can do about it, as long as you’re living in one such concept. Only a person living alone may make all his choices on his own. However in that case, he may miss out on a number of beautiful and meaningful things which family and loved ones may add to life. Hence for a person living in society, a balance needs to be struck. Follow all such choices of yours which are right and which may not offend your loved ones a lot. Though they may still offend them somewhat, such damage is easily repaired in most cases, since families are bound by strong bonds and they’re not shaken by small things.
Whenever you feel that a choice of yours may cause serious damage to a relationship; you have to pursue or leave such choice after carefully assessing what matters more for you. If such relationship matters more, leave the choice and be prepared to handle a grudge. If the choice matters more, follow it and be prepared to handle a potentially troubled relationship.
By engaging in aforementioned practices, you may reduce the number of grudges and you may also reduce the quantum of grudges which can’t be avoided. Always start with small activities and build up from there. Never attempt such tasks at any level, which may be a lot more difficult compared to what you can handle at such level.
Himanshu Shangari