Mark took onto his new fatherly duties towards Max with great committment – trained him, fed him, bathed him, took him out for his walks, played with him. They had both become very famous in the neighbourhood. Everyone in the neighbourhood was enamoured of Max’s elegant walk, his handsome face and gentle nature. Soon Max had grown into a big strong healthy dog.
One evening, as usual Mark took Max with his leash out for their walk, when Max spotted this beautiful Labrador dog across the street in the park that he knew he had to play with. Without any prior warning, Max just took off and soon Mark found himself running after Max holding tightly onto the leash. Despite trying to control Max and shouting at Max to stop, Mark soon found himself being dragged after Max. Fearing for his and Max’s safety, a thought then crossed his mind, “Am I taking the dog out for a walk or is he taking me out for a run? When did the tables turn?”
My teacher paused, and with a gentle smile on his face, looked at me and said, this story is not about Mark and Max but you and your life. Here are some of the lessons for you.
Lesson No 1: Just as Mark decided to get the dog, we choose everything that we bring into our lives. What time to wake up, which side of the bed to sleep, when to eat, the choice of our drink, the profession or work we do, our relationships, friends, children, the clothes we wear, whom do we talk to or not, our mortgages, all our financial obligations etc etc. There are absolutely NO CHOICELESS Moments.
Lesson No 2 : Just as Max had his own mind, other people in our lives also have their own mind. And we never ever have control over how they choose to think and do. We never have control over how things will shape up or what the outcome will be of our actions. It is the attachment to the outcome which is the biggest cause of suffering.
Lesson No 3: Just as Mark found himself being dragged after Max, often we will find that we are being dragged by the circumstances of our life, running after life.
Whenever we find ourselves in a situation where we feel dragged, this is the time we should PAUSE and EXAMINE our life and ask this fundamental question to ourselves – Are we living life like a Master or like a victim?
Fundamentally, there are only two ways to live LIFE – either like a MASTER or like a VICTIM.
99 percent of the people lead their lives as a Victim, blaming someone else, or something else which brings unhappiness or sadness to them. From the weather, to governmental policies, to traffic, to bosses or subordinates, to office politics, to inflation, to spouses or children, relatives, neighbours or neighbourhood, television programs, someone or the other is always responsible for the unhappiness, or there is always something to complain about. They find themselves constantly running behind the dog, behind life wondering why their lives are that way. The only pandemic the human race suffers from is Chronic Discontentment – sheerly because our expectations of life, from others are not met.
So you go through today – give it a thought – are you living your life like a Victim or like a Master?