Yesterday, in the evening, I had this wonderful opportunity of visiting my paternal aunt’s place (bua) after a long time. Though, I happen to live in the same city as she, yet I would like to admit that I had been acting a little lazy of late and had not been able to find the time and motivation to visit her place in recent times. Though, some of this laziness can be attributed to the kind of work that I do and the kind of revoluntionary age that we all happen to be living in, which truly can be referred to as the age of internet.

On one hand where the internet tends to make our lives comfortable and easy, on the other hand, it tends to create a divide amongst the friends and relatives who all seemed to be caught up in this web that is woven by the technology around ourselves and we end up leading our lives in a virtual world.

Have you ever wondered whether living in this virtual world has made us all lose touch not only with our near and dear ones but also the nature and the environment and in a way has deprived us all of the pleasure and happiness that togertherness seems to shower upon us?

Yes, in a way, the internet has been instrumental in solving numerous problems and issues that might have haunted us in the years to come and it has indeed proven to be a boon on numerous occassions and situations where otherwise we might have found ourselves wanting.

But the manner in which, we have ended up using the services of this ubiquitous facility has to be called into question and needs to be reconsidered and deliberated upon. It is always a good idea to extract all the good things and to discard away all the bad ingredients. True to its core, we haven’t managed to do just the above and have ended up losing upon the fun and excitement that human contact tends to bring along with itself.

Breaking away from this mode in which I had been caught since a couple of months, I decided to break away all the shackles and tried catching up with all the family members who could possibly turn up on this occassion where we all gathered to celebrate the birthday of one of my bhanjas.

It was a truly memorable experience having had long conversations with my cousins on topics ranging from anything to everything. To put a cherry on the cake was the delicious food and the desserts that were served immediately after the cake cutting ceremony.

As I bid goodnight to all the relatives present there and sat in my car to drive back home, I realized how much I might have missed in the past couple of months just because I happened to make myself hooked on to the virtual pleasures of life ignoring the reality altogether.

It is amazing how a balanced lifestyle can end up increasing the happiness quotient and in turn the well being of an individual. It plays a very significant role when it comes to getting rid of and overcoming our tensions in life. It acts as the best antidote to the increasingly materialistic rat race that we all seemed to have got so used to running and the associated stress that comes as a part and parcel of the failures and success that we end up facing having become a part of all the hooplah surrounding this race.

At the end of the day, the onus of finding peace of mind lies on the individual. Some amongst you might want to derive it by earning lot of money. Some might want to abandon all this and instead choose to live a life of seclusion. As suggested by Lord Buddha, and as propagated by numerous philosophers, the Middle Path seems to provide us with the best way, which if tread, tends to give us the most amount of happiness and satisfaction in life.

But what the hell is this middle path? And how can one go about treading the same? Does it mean that we should give away all our ambitions and instead lead a life which is dull to the core?

Well, these are some natural queries that tends to haunt our mind in order to achieve this eternal happiness that we all tend to crave for at some point or other in our lives. As far as I am concerned, I have been able to come out with this definition of Middle Path which might not find resonance with the original proponents of the theory but seems to do me good:

“We all are social beings. All our motives, apart from the basic needs, are culturally and socially determined, which makes me think that if we are able to take care of our social needs, we will end up living a satisfied life.

In every society, there are norms, values and definitions of what is successful and what is not. We are culturally and socially conditioned to follow and accept most of these defintions. Breaking away from these is indeed an onerous task. So, instead of correcting or modifying such defintions, it is not such a bad idea to accept some of these which tend to fit in our own concept of life and to ignore those which don’t tend to go along well with this concept that we have developed over a period of time.

What we are left with is a set of customized concepts of what we might want to achieve in life. Having found the concepts, the next step is to develop a strategy for achieving the same and to implement it thereafter.

Even after knowing the strategy and the goal, one might not always emerge successful. By this I mean one might not always end up achieving what one might have thought of achieving after successful implementation of a strategy.

First of all, you must think that the success lies not in achieving the fruit but in implementing the strategy to the best of one’s ability. Of course, there will be sense of disappointment, but it will never be able to have an impact on your confidence.

What this will ensure is that it will give you the courage to re-evaluate your strategy and will help you in putting your best foot forward for a second time with increased determination and motivation.

Amongst all this, by maintaining a balance between your professional and social life, you will be able to find that synergy needed for rejuvenating one’s mind and persona and the support that no matter how much one denies, everyone seems to need it at some point of time in their lives.

So, if I have to conclude all the above in a single line, I would say: Middle Path is all about going after your customized goals keeping at all times a customized definition of success in your mind, at the same time maintaining that all important balance between personal/social and professional life.“

Source for Image: http://theunboundedspirit.com/following-the-middle-path-in-depression/, http://louisejames157.blogspot.in/2012/04/birthday-celebration-scavenger-hunt.html