We are born free. But Are we living free?
When we came to this world, we had no control over our birth process, we had no control over how we will look, what will be the color of our hair, our eyes and so on.
We had no control and it just happened. Similarly, we will have no control over how we will die. It will also come inevitably someday. But, what about the journey in between, that we call our life?
As I was in sales, I had the opportunity to meet lots of people and worked closely with them. I have seen one of the most common factors which stop people from living freely is FEAR.
Fear of losing a job, Fear of not being able to meet expenses, Fear coming out of insecurity and so on.
I read somewhere, Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. I can clearly say based on my studies, that if we start giving importance to any fear, that fear slowly becomes our reality. And as a result, all our actions and plans are based on that fear.
We try to find security in insecurity and anxiety, we live to make everything secure and as a result, sometimes we live paycheck to paycheck, sometimes, we sustain ourselves but forget to live the way we wanted.
Hence, I thought of choosing and writing 3 things among all that can help you to reframe your fear and help you start living freely.
1. Your Expectations:
Our expectations about achieving something, that we call our dreams or goals – these are the fuel of our life. These are what help you to go forward in life.
But you must have a balance in what you achieve and what it takes to achieve that. There is no harm in chasing a big dream but it should be meaningful to you. Every big achievement requires sacrifice, every growth requires pain – there never was and never there will be any shortcut to achieve something big.
It requires time, energy and lots of sacrifices and hard work. So, you must be well aware that what you want to achieve is meaningful. If it’s not meaningful, there are high chances that after achieving that, you might not be happy. There is no harm in lowering your expectations. What matters the most – it should make you happy.
Sit with yourself, think about what you want to achieve and ask why you want to achieve and see if it’s meaningful to you. If it is something that can make you happy and you are ready to give everything that it takes, just go for it! Else, work on the same and fix the missing part!
2. Living Within Your Means:
Your finances, your income, your money – these help you to experience life better. So they are very important in life. But, more important is to live within your means. In true sense, how much money you make is what you are left with after all your expenses.
For example, let person A is earning yearly INR 20,00,000 with yearly expenses of INR 18,00,000. So, A is left with INR 2,00,000 yearly. On the other hand, say person B is earning yearly INR 10,00,000 with yearly expenses of INR 5,00,000. So B is left with INR 5,00,000 yearly. So, B might not have a great lifestyle, may not do frequent parties – but makes more money than A.
Living within means can be done in two ways – by reducing your expenses and by increasing your income. Whatever it be, living within means helps you to live better and with more freedom.
Unnecessary spending, frequent debts, high EMIs, not investing, not donating – these are some of the factors, which can affect your quality of living in the long-term. So, its time to look back and find out if there is anything that you should improve upon.
3. Self-Care:
A good physical and mindful state makes you fearless. Your physical body is the instrument through which the energy flows. A proper physical body will help you experience life better and with more freedom. You can only realize the value of good health once you are not having that.
Self Care is taught in the ancient books of Ayurveda as well. Eating Mindfully, Physical Exercise, Taking Proper Rest, Meditation, Personal Hygiene- these are some of the must-dos when we talk about self-care.
You can get tons of information on these topics. And practicing these doesn’t take much time. If you are not practicing self-care, its time to start that. Make small plans which you can easily do daily and start practicing and slowly scale it.
For example, going for a walk for 10 minutes and meditating for 5 minutes is good enough to start with. You need not focus on the result when you are starting. Rather, you should focus on doing it daily.
It’s important to make your new habits as easy as possible and practice it for a month. Then you can slowly scale this up and improve further.
There are a lot of other factors that help in living freely but I have picked these three as I found these MOST COMMON three things you can do to achieve freedom. Lastly, I thought of sharing one of my favorite lines which I firmly believe in:
The best way to handle fear is by experiencing it!
“| Minimalist| Strategizer| Explorer| Enjoys Silence| – That’s what I am & What I do |” – That’s how Shouvik defines himself. An avid photographer, a Raghu Rai enthusiast, who also eats, sleeps and dreams the Vision of Steve Jobs, Shouvik has given birth to The HR Monks in a vision to change lives.
Greatly influenced by the passion of service of Mother Teresa and Karmayoga of Swami Vivekananda, he dreams of building an organization of the HR family, who will not only serve the nation by creating India a happy work-home but also creating a monks team who takes work as worship.
In his personal life, he is touched by Dr. Wayne Dyer who believes in a shift.