It is important to know what you should eat. But, it is even more important to know what is eating you.

A delicious dish can be made to feel like tasteless by our diseased tongue. Similarly, we may tend to treat our precious life as worthless by our mischievous mind.

Fundamentally, we all are finite beings. Whatever we have is all in limited quantity. Be it time or energy, we all have them in a very limited quantity. So, just like money, we should also know where and how to use our time and energy.

Imagine, you have a close associate who uses your hard-earned money to pay his own loans, without your consent. When you confront him about it, he says he did for your benefit.

How ridiculous would such an answer sound, won’t it?

Well, that close associate is our own mind which eats up our money, time, and energy in so many unnecessary ways without informing us. Moreover, when you try to reason, it pretends as if whatever it has done was to please us.

You can relate to something like the above if you can think of any situation or incident in your life where you got tempted to indulge in some activity, expecting some pleasure out of it, and regretted later for the indulgence.

Not just this but we can find many more such actions for which we clearly see that we were being played on by our mind.

Robin Sharma says “Mind is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master.”

If we analyze our life carefully, we will find there are many things which have consumed a huge amount of our time and energy – the returns from which are practically nothing.

If we consider our unregulated mind as our financial advisor then we can say that based on its advice we have invested a lot on various NPAs (Non-Performing Assets). Out of them, two are most damaging: “Unchecked Worries” and “Misdirected Expectations”.

Let’s explore them one by one.

I) Unchecked Worries:

“Concern” and “worry” are two different things that some of us use interchangeably. The important thing to know is that “concern” increases the quality and quantity of our effort whereas “worry” decreases the quality and quantity of our efforts. It is ok to be ‘concerned’ about things in life but what is not ok is to be ‘worried’ about things.

Mark Twain had said, “Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe.”

In our life, we have some things in our control and many that are not. It is wise to know what is in our control and dovetail our efforts accordingly. Thinking too much about what is not in our control paves the way for royal suffering.

In our day to day life, we worry about many things without being conscious of whether they deserve that attention. In fact, worrying has become a habit for many of us. The thought starts with “What if”, which is both positive and negative depending on what consciousness we have behind it. If we are thinking about some uncertainty that we might have to face in the future and preparing ourselves for the appropriate changes, then it is a positive one. But if we are just thinking about uncertainty and have no intentions to make required changes then that thinking is quite negative and can paralyze us even before we face the actual situation.

“Worrying” is one of the primary fuels that help fire of our anxieties. And later this will convert into stress and many other unwanted unhealthy expressions that ruin our life. We must check the worrying mind by asking an intelligent question such as “What you can do rather than just worrying?”

We can question our mind only when we are conscious of ourselves. Otherwise, our mind will drag us into an ocean of worries without our consent or knowledge even.

II) Misdirected Expectations:

In general, for anything we do in our life we expect some benefit out of it. The benefit can be monetary or emotional, or it can be something else. When we do some work, we expect suitable returns. When we suggest something good to someone, we expect them to appreciate and follow that. When we do some favors to others, we do expect them to help us when we are in need.

Along with our expectations, we should also accept that we cannot have the desired results/responses every time. Just like how we are struggling with our own mind and senses, others are also struggling with their own mind and senses. Just like how we have our limitations, others too have their own limitations. We also have to accept that we cannot have the results for which we are not entitled.

So, if we go on expecting good results without any acceptance then we will get misdirected and become too much attached to results which can cause us greater suffering. Moreover, it can bring out unhealthy expressions that can cause irreparable damages in our relationships.

If we don’t use our intelligence to differentiate between rightly directed and misdirected expectations, our mind will portray all our expectations as genuine ones and make us fall in its trap.

One of the best ways to stay away from misdirected expectations is to be a committed person.

The real meaning of commitment is “To do what you can, with what you have - NOW”. Results may vary with time but we should never let our results define our worth.

If we keep a constant check on our worries and have clear expectations, then we can restrict our mind from eating up our valuable time and energy which could be, instead, utilized to increase our productivity, and make our life healthier and happier.

Thank you.

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