Turn off your mind and relax

NOV 29 -

We are all made to believe that an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. Since our early years, we are given a long list of books to read for our school and never-ending homework by our teachers. Therefore, we are always keeping our mind occupied by fulfilling our academic duties of reading and writing, escaping to the movies, watching cartoons and TV shows or playing a game of cricket to relieve the stress that accumulates due to other activities. We never get a chance to experience an empty mind. Besides, doing absolutely nothing (no SMS, no email and no TV) sounds too horrible to us.

A few months ago, circumstances led me to quit my job. I haven’t done anything worthwhile besides reading and occasionally writing during this period. There has been no scarcity of friends, family and relatives who express their discontent at my inactivity. However, this period has been one of the most relaxing and educating experiences for me. And it is my contention that a stress-free empty mind is a prerequisite to do something meaningful in life.

Our society has become extremely result-oriented. From the first day of our academic journey, we face excessive pressure both at home and school to get good grades. We are taught from a very tender age to worship success and achieve success at any cost. Our curiosities and the spirit of adventure in us slowly die, and the only thing that remains in us is the ruthless pursuit of success. We amass knowledge, but we lack self-awareness, because we rarely have time to understand ourselves. 

We are either busy in the pursuit of success, or losing ourselves in television, movies, alcohol, drugs or other forms of entertainment to escape from the stress created by our search for success. 

After we graduate, we end up working at a job we do not enjoy because we don’t  know what we really want to do. Therefore, we work for someone else, get trapped in that work day in and day out, destroy our creativity for a little financial award, and live each day to arrive somewhere in the future while completely missing the present. This, to me, seems absurd, and is the reason for my inaction for the last few months.

These few months of contemplation have taught me that true joy in living comes only when we give our best without caring a tad about the results. This is possible only when we find our life’s passion, and dedicate ourselves steadfastly to that cause, rather than conforming to a pattern fostered by our education system. To discover one’s purpose in life, we need an intelligent mind. An empty mind, which is capable of learning continuously, is an intelligent mind, and not the mind that has been moulded by traditional education. So, is an idle mind really the devil’s workshop? I beg to differ.