Guest AuthorKavitha Hemanath
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To be or not to be: a mid-pandemic crisis

By | Kavitha Hemanath | An absolute advocate to being truly human

There is a pandemic in the air.

And the world is forced to catch its breath.

This sudden freezing and slowing down of my world is not at par with the ever pacing fast runner that my mind is. I am constantly battling between two modes:

  • the mindfulness to be truly present in the now and enjoy the little things
  • not to be complacent, to do everything possible to be better for the future

The opportunity cost is one I cannot begin to fathom, and being so truly human there is the need to have it all. Yet realistically, one’s gotta choose.

To be or not to be, am still wondering.

If it is to be, what should it be? If not to be, how exactly would it be?

The mind is ever thirsty for a project to work on, something to keep busy. While the heart is over joyed with the vastness of the sudden space, time and resource available. To finally feel all the things it always couldn’t, to do the little things in life.

They say now is all we have.

  • So the plan should be to just be. Here and now. Right?
  • But if now is such i.e with a big-little virus choking us, what hope do we have?
  • And if we don’t have any hope aren’t we supposed to create it, find a solution, an alternate plan?
  • And creation needs vision, a long term perspective and therefore the absolute acceptance of a future!
  • But weren’t we just trying to focus on the here and now?

Some deep ‘DARK stuff this is, and we are back to square one.

Eckhart Tolle has very beautifully addressed this whole conundrum in his book, ‘The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment’This is a powerful book dwelling on the power of being present. It is a powerful book and as such not an easy read. It is the kind of book that discusses material so intense that it tends to take up all of your time, engulfs your mind, makes you sit down and actually use the grey matter of your brain because one can’t not ponder, but wonder and nod in agreement when it finally clicks. It is so powerful, that the ideas shared lingers around in one’s subconscious and with time it gets ingrained in our general state of being and kicks in in times of doubt like now. It says,

“Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is?

And that makes perfect sense.

So therefore, in essence, time is fleeting and though we have miles to go before we sleep, now is all we really have. I believe that it then comes down to finding the right balance, finding a middle ground, and adapting depending on the need and circumstance one finds themselves in. There is no one right answer. It is always going to be about alternating between the two, knowing when to, having the wisdom to do so.

In all the time that I’ve spent pondering about this, I’ve gone ahead to name this whole confusion of being, I call it The holiday-syndrome.

Why? Because we could treat it like the summer holidays or turn into a study holiday.

Or as Eckhart Tolle says, we could just stop thinking altogether.

Republished with permission and originally published at Kavitha Hemanath’s LinkedIn

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