So I fell off the biscuit wagon. But then I got back on. “Fall down seven times, get up eight.” Resilience.
Or maybe resilience is not the right word.
Rather the translation of a Japanese word: antifragile. It means that when you fail somehow, it makes you stronger, like the mythical Hydra of Lerna that grew two heads every time one was cut off.
It’s good to f*ck up.
Because then you know “not this”. You start to experience what is called sthitha pragna, or a stable mind, in the Bhagavad Gita.
Evenness of mind is what lets us see things exactly as they are, not how we perceive them to be through all our conditioned lenses. We then do exactly what we should. We take the right action, at the right time, in the right way. And we do it without attachment to what this action will bring. We do it because we know we have to from inside.
And then, after some time of riding this magical pink cloud, we f*ck up again. “To err is human”.
And then we get up again, a little bruised, a little wiser.
For me, I used to have a lot of issues with food, perhaps hence my choice of career. I know in my bones that for every diet, every restriction, every feeling of want, there is always an equal and opposite binge. Call it Sona’s First Law of Food.
Deciding to give up biscuits for Lent, went again my own first law. It would have been better to turn my actions towards seva, or selfless service. This would have still met the purpose without unnecessarily trying to contort my ego.
I do this for patients all the time. Why is it so hard for me? Because I make it so hard for me. The answers are actually very simple.
If I would just listen.
