I was aware of this for a very long time. Almost every second coaching client of mine, had this underlying root cause for most of the challenges they faced in their life. One could safely be sure that this is quite prevalent in our current society.  As I am bound by non-disclosure clause,  thought I won’t write about it, as it would not have been possible  to write without mentioning about a specific case study.  Anything that reveals the identity of a coaching client, however remotely possible, is in violation of the sacrosanct spirit of coaching ethics. That is one of the holy grails.

    But then yesterday, a person I did know to an extent from a distance, posted a vlog in LinkedIn about the crisis he faced and how he successfully came out of it.  The parent group which owns that IT company did repost that vlog in LinkedIn. He was a senior leader in the company I am working and currently he is a COO of a Major IT company.  What I found very refreshing was the authentic and honest way he aired out the challenges he faced in his life, and he dared to take a pause from his work for a quarter and how he came out of it.   That takes come personal courage. I felt, also remarkable was the way the parent company, shared that we the world. They do seem to look it in a compassionate way.  

The message said, “What happens when even ‘success’ feels empty?
, COO at  —-, reached that breaking point and made a choice most of us only dream of—he hit pause. No career plans, no future job lined up—just three months to recharge and reconnect. In a world that glorifies the grind, V’s  story is a powerful reminder that sometimes, the bravest thing we can do is to take a step back, breathe, and tend to our minds. Because at the end of the day, your mind matters.

 I wrote a small reply to that.  And there were a quite a few DMs at me, seeking clarifications and guidance.  This blog is in response to that.

 It is very pertinent to highlight that late Ranjan Acharya (who imv was a rare Sage at a Corporate!)  and Kayomarz Shroff recognized this pressing need of the workforce and was instrumental in initiating Mitr, a Counselling initiative, driven by the employees for the fellow employees at Wipro long time back in 2002/03. (It is important to keep in mind that they started it some 2 decades before the current wellness work movement!).  I was one of those early cohort of counselor and cofounder of that initiative.  So, it is not that, organizations are not aware of this challenge, though not much has been done to change the underlying root cause of it.

 From the title of that message in LinkedIn (“What happens when even ‘success’ feels empty?) , it is self-evident, that mental health challenges are not just the result of empty pockets, wallets, bank balance, CV, LinkedIn profiles and meaningless and purposeless life .  Even  “success” can be felt as empty.   Psychologists call it Gold medal syndrome. It is also known as Olympics syndrome. To quote , “Gold medal syndrome is a feeling of dissatisfaction and lack of purpose that can occur after achieving a major life goal.”.  Since many super athletes seek professional help immediately after a major sporting event like  Olympics , it is also known as Olympic syndrome.

 Another related issue is  Silver medal syndrome. ( “Silver medal syndrome is the term used to describe the tendency of silver medalists to be less happy with their medals than bronze medalists. This is because silver medalists tend to compare themselves to the gold medalists, while bronze medalists compare themselves to those who didn’t make the podium. “  from the internet.)

 All these points to the fact that it does not take that much to make one unhappy about the station we are at life.  Regardless of whom we are and where we are , it can hit our mind.  One’s intellect, brilliance and other talents rarely equip one to manage those situations and lead himself / ourself to the true path of  joy and peace in life.

 One question below my post read like this, “Finding that balance between hustle and rest is key, huh? Zero time sounds smart. How do you think we could fit that into daily life?”.

 Probably the remedy too starts , reframing that question.  And it is essential to start with that reframing  from  “How” !   Often in life, our solutioning starts with the question “ How to… “ and it more than often creates more issues and problems for us to solve.  It is important to start with “Why ?” .  To paraphrase a famous quote by Nietzsche , “Those who have a WHY will do it any how”.  It points out to finding one’s purpose.

 If you are one of those who don’t like Nietzsche, then let us see what Carl Jung, one of the best psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists and who is considered as the father of analytical psychology says . He  said, “In all my life all the major psychiatrist patients above 30I had met came with religious problems”. What he meant was their issues stem from lack of purpose or vision for themselves.  Elsewhere he says , “Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

 Let me buttress my point by quoting Viktor Frankl, whom I think knows a thing or two about surviving real trying circumstances having survived  nazi concentration camps . He writes in his seminal book. Man’s search for meaning “ Don’t aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run — in the long run, I say! — success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.”

 These sums up the need for each one us to have a purpose and meaning for our life and that purpose got to be to a cause great than oneself.

 Once we have the Why question answered, it is time to step on to the  path of How !

 To start with it : Every one of the human beings.. Yes… every one of us are inmates of prisons we have created in our mind.  Those prison bars and walls are invisible to  our inner sight and often we mistake that we directly are in touch with the world out there and are living in it and responding in it. Those prison walls and bars are made up of our own mental images about ourselves, others , belief systems etc.  Unless we are aware of them, we have very little power to transcend it and gain our inner freedom….   Inner freedom precedes outer freedom and is essential for our peace and joy.

 There is a famous quote of maverick Scottish psychiatrist, R.D. Laing, etched in my memory and i dont get tired of sharing it again , again and again. “The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice there is little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.”

 You will be able to transcend the prison cells of your minds, only when you are aware of them.   You got to realise ( and not just understand. While understanding is intellectual in nature, realisations happens when u get insight of it.)  that you don’t directly live and operate in this world.  U create maps of them in your mind. Maps/ images about youself, others in your life and the world in you live in.  And those maps at best are representational model of the world. Quite often a distorted , alternate factual world.

Unless you become aware of your beliefs, mental models, question the assumptions you make in creating them , very little you can do to transcend them.

 Even if one becomes aware of the prison and can see a key Infront of him got to overcome the challenge of bread.   You might have seen this picture , where a prisoner seeks out bread in front of him rather than the key . ( Pic courtesy Facebook.)

The bread is just a metaphor. And that is the second challenge.   IT could be a BMW, Benz in your porch, that fancy upmarket villa with a huge mortgage, that foreign vacation, your children’s want to study in an expensive foreign university.  The whole setting of modern society we live in are  that of scarcity and unlimited want.  Scarcity is the bedrock of pseudo discipline called Economics. ( Hope my son Manu , who is an Economics major, don’t read this  ) and unlimited want is our mind’s creation.  Nothing in nature including your brain or heart has unlimited want.  The brain needs limited glucose, and it can’t handle more glucose than really needed. The same goes with Heart. More oxygen is not good for your heart.  Even your body can’t take more water than needed. People can die of poisoning from water.

 Most of our unlimited wants comes from social comparison.  It is not our need. It is society’s want imposed on us.  If success of Gold medal can feel empty, so can a silver medal , bronze or no medal.  

 One of the key to inner freedom is to know and be aware of our needs and wants.  People can spend more than a billion dollar in a marriage and yet feel compelled to come and explain to the world why they did it in advertising time slots between a cricket match.  Then you know it is important to know the thin line between the need and want if you want to be on the path to peace, joy and happiness.

 Third point is that of Balance.  You might have heard umpteen times Life work balance or work life balance.

We separate work from life with solid border or wall.  One got to realise every borderline is a possible battle line.   Our life is the only concept out there in the world for us. Every thing is just part of it. In a way, in our wheel of life,  work is just one  of spoke.  Our life wheel will have other spokes,  our family , friends, social relationships, hobbies and interests, social work etc. Only when all the spokes are in sync , our wheel of life start rolling smoothly without any hiccup.  Every spoke is very important in our wheel of life if we want to read a fulfilling life.

 Now in this era of magnetic levitation and wheelless mobility, smart minds may think of the wheel of life as a single spoked wheel.   Have not you heard that work is life quote and  need to work more , more and more.

 Does life have to be single spoked wheel? Isn’t  it a wrong notion in our circles that Life has to be single dimensional.  Did not Gandhi take time out to listen to a M. S. Subbalakshmi keerthan, even when he was racing against time to get India independence? How many know that Einstein was a gifted violinist and Richard Feynman learned to paint and play drums? Ratan Tata enjoys flying planes and sketching. And a Jack Welch truly worried about his Golf scores and diligently worked on it? Did they had a lesser contribution to the society and their chosen fields compared to others?

It would be interesting to read a story about one of the successful Generals Indian Army ever had, “So innovative was his operational planning and so meticulous its execution that Lt-Gen J.S. Aurora did not forsake his daily round of golf even once during the 12-day battle to “liberate” East Pakistan, which emerged as Bangladesh in 1971. As India’s Eastern Army commander tasked with evicting the tyrannical Pakistani military from East Pakistan, the Sikh soldier even played a relaxed 18-hole round inside his Fort William headquarters at Calcutta, before leaving for Dacca to accept the surrender of Lt-Gen A.A.K. Niazi and 93,000 soldiers.”

These are all pointes to the fact, there are many good examples of great souls who did excel in their chosen field, without depriving themselves the good moments life offered them moment to moment. One common denominator in all of them is a multi-dimensional approach to life.

 For me the most inspiration story is that of my Zen master Ama Samy as I get to observe it  when ever I am at Zendo.  He is 89 years old. Still has the zeal of a  first day fresher at work. He built the current zendo, Little Flower Zendo when he was 86 years and last year travelled to. Australia, USA and a long European trip ( including icy cold Sweden) to conduct sesshins.  Most of his waking time, he spends in meditation, meeting his students or writing or reading. It just proves to me that if one’s life is aligned with true north of one’s purpose of serving others , then there is no breakdowns.

 Not every one is fortunate for that kind of life. Lesser mortals can still lead one’s life being aware of ourselves, the prison cells we are in, our inner freedom and moment to moment fleeting life.

 How can be one aware of oneself!

 Meditation helps.  Meditation is not limited to what you do on a specific timeslot every day.  One extends one’s meditation to 24 hours.  7 days a week.

 I do follow the Zero minute / every hour, Zero hour/ every day and Zero day / every week with a religious zeal.  The life span of individual cells in our body varies. (Though medical science says average life span of human body cell is 7 – 10 years) . While brain cells last for a life time, the life span of cells that line our stomach and intestines are just last 4 – 5 days. Our body cells are created, live through, get tired or rejuvenated and die every single moment of our life.  When that is the way our body works, what is the point of earmarking a specific time of the day or a specific week of the year for rejuvenation of  our minds ! .

 It just takes a few seconds to do a zazen breath. In that one breath everything is included. Birth, life and death.