Effortless Changes

We all want to change something or the other all the time.

Many men want to look and feel like 22 year olds when they are almost over the hill and touching 50. So they try hard to change and behave like a youth sprinkled with a liberal dose of self hypnotism that age is only a number and try hanging around with women half their age. It does not work.

Similarly many women would love to hide their ever growing imagined wrinkles and sagging skin to look like a sweet sixteen through application of costliest available cosmetics till men can no longer read between the lines. That does not work either. 

We imagine the trauma of cancer and do our best to avoid the disease by supplementing our breakfast with anti-oxidant capsules and make bold public declaration of giving up smoking, drinking and probably sex. The chance of having the disease might in all probability be decided by the flip of an unbiased coin. 

We also don't want to remain poor. So we try with great effort to change our thinking and action by copying the richest people on earth with well concealed hopes pinned onto their rag to riches stories only to find at the end that we were left running on an endless conveyor that leads nowhere. 

Lot many are crazy about going up the very oily and slippery corporate ladder. So we gather around us all types of self help books that promise 101 ways to reach the top in less than 5 years. We all know what might happen. The authors of the self help books get richer by the day and we continue to remain where we were or might even slip off the ladder to break a bone or two.

As human beings we are all afraid of death. Some take it to absurd extremes by changing their lifestyle and probably their inner lives in 8 predictable ways like a) give up smoking b) give up drinking c) moderate love making d) moderate exercise e) trim the fat around the waist f) take cholesterol lowering drugs for life g) take aspirin for life h) change the nature of work. Risk assessment studies show the worth of such careful interventions and changes to be +/- 2.5 years than one would have normally lived. It isn't worth the effort.

Most of our lives we try to deal with changes the hard way with lot of pomp and fury signifying nothing. The reasons for such changes are a) Fear b) Social pressure c) Pleasure d) Self aggrandizement. Changes in these lines are always fraught with inherent danger of not working out well enough resulting in wasted effort, time, money and a big dent on the self esteem. Moreover, these are all superficial in nature. We think we have changed the inputs but the outputs don't change in any significant ways. It might at times, deteriorate instead.

That leaves us with very little precious time and energy to go for real changes. Changes that follow our natural instinct to do something very well. Changes that calls upon us to take real life changing initiatives for others. Changes that allow us to live more authentically. Changes that allow us to discover ourselves through play. Changes that spring from our intelligent insights and responses to ever changing reality and engaging in something more meaningful and humane. Changes that are based on the lessons learned from the dynamics of nature. Changes that are based on the reflection of reality. Changes that can bring about quantum effects. And changes that can be done almost silently.

These, fortunately, are all real big changes where a small change in the input with the right initiative and thought can bring about dramatic and long lasting changes in output.

Surprisingly, such changes call for the minimum effort, minimum time and minimum resources. Moreover, such types of changes can be brought about in any human activity that we are passionately engaged in. The other good thing is such changes are effortless and easy; devoid of fear, anxiety, pressure to conform and egos, which in turn release endless creative energies enabling us to make the right moves to live life more authentically, just as it was meant to be.

Are we game for effortless changes?