Get busy living

“Get busy living or get busy dying.” This is a line from the movie Shawshank Redemption. The recent Bollywood hit 102 Not Out is saying the same thing is a different way.

The veteran actors Amitabh Bachchan and Rishi Kapoor have bowled over the movie goers with their superb acting. But more than their acting, the idea of ‘living’ is portrayed so well. Amitabh at one point says with a lot of humour, that he never died in his entire life. He says as long as you are alive don’t die. His son of 75 years is afraid of living as much as of dying. He gets his BP and blood sugar checked everyday. He takes shower for less than 15 minutes because he will catch cold otherwise. He doesn’t listen to music, doesn’t go out, doesn’t even smile. Basically he’s just waiting for his death. Have you come across such people?

The spirit of living every moment is the key. We don’t live in a perfect world and we shouldn’t expect either. We can imagine and dream of a world for us. Every living moment is precious and worth savouring. Worrying about tomorrow doesn’t help.

Being Intentionally Positive

We can’t be positive at all times. That’s human nature. But we can be intentionally positive. It means you don’t let any negativity ‘seep into your bones.’ On any given day you can get frustrated and start feeling negative but that cannot be allowed to take away your happiness.

Most of us live in the past and that’s why we are unable to visualize the future. If we have had a great past, we continue to dwell in it. If we have had an awful past, we keep thinking about it. Basically we are stuck in time. We are bound to bump into negative people every day and there is always a chance to be influenced by them. We may start a day with a lot of positive affirmation and one little negative incident or a comment can ruin our day. The best way to tackle this is to not let it affect you beyond a certain point. It’s your life and happiness after all, so it’s important to intentionally fend off these negative thoughts as quickly as possible. Let it just be on the surface so that if you just shrug your shoulders it will drop to the ground and vanish.

Living in the past will only take us back there and can never move forward, even in our thinking. We have to visualize for a better tomorrow.