The Joystick of Eternal Mirth...

It's Thursday today. Catherine looks brand new. She looks at the daily health magazine and advises her 12 year old daughter Nivia to follow the nutritional health inputs. Her smartphone lying little away on the bed out of her easy reach, even she can't feel the buzz of it. Her dog comes close to her lap and starts licking her, her smile radiates her husband who looks keen to fix a wooden framed painting on the wall. Catherine's small but compact garden gives an aura of all seasonal flowers. She again picks up the magazine when Rich, her 6 year old son carried the dog away. Rich asks her mom if she can quickly give him more inputs to stay healthy. Catherine grins and remains quiet. Rich knew her mom would come back to her soon. Rich goes outdoors and plucks a Lily from the garden. Dog pees at a corner on the garden. Offended Rich again shows the dog where to pee. The Dog looks at him half eyed in surprise.

Rich was not the same 3 year ago and neither their dog. Their home resembled a perfect warehouse where all household articles kept unsorted and in disarray. Their wooden framed paintings had a half inch cover of dust on them. Their basement had all forms of garbage and the house owners often had sleepless nights due to the atrocities made by the resident rodents. Catherine who was proud owning a home and a job in a bank often ignored everything. Her husband Procter worked as a supervisor of a company managing Janitors. Their neighbors often saw them having late night parties. Catherine mused everyday of having a perfect life and the daily rituals they did and their neighbors see them doing invigorated her feelings. Catherine's life was deeply engraved on proceedings nailed on Instagram and Facebook. She too was deeply infatuated with them. All uploads went within few minutes of the actual event. Scrolling up all through the hours kept her facebook account alive. Even on weekends Proctor was either found at his office or at a friend's place on a get together. Kids had a hard time saying 'good morning' to them together.

1 year ago Catherine sought medical help. She had feats of anxieties and each time she had this her blood pressure rose, eyes begged for rest however with no deep sleep. She had been asked to integrate few of the healthy changes on her schedule and take few medicines without any miss. Couple of years ago from here she thought only Instagram and facebook as her medicines to keep her alive. She was blatantly poised into the addiction until one day when her cellphone was being robbed in a street while she was walking down. Hours of non indulgence on social media gave her the first symptom of an anxiety disorder. Proctor too was not left unscathed though not that far. He was least bothered by her anxiety syndrome and their kids were seen astray on the streets often with the kids they should not be with.

They called it a perfect life and believed the 'race' they were into would take them to a socially scaled up position. The myth with which they were surviving had a potential suicidal structure until one day when they had accidentally invited their old friend Darren who was also a relationship coach. Darren looked amazed to see their house and the communication flowing inside between the members. Darren was quick to asked them about their goals. Catherine talked about money, Proctor talked about status and Nivia on video games. Darren asked his second questions- 'What is their greatest fear'. Everybody looked mum though after a while Catherine mentions her smartphone if gets lost. Darren started sweating. He spoke slowly-"Life is a Race when you compete with others, it's a Run and just compete with yourself."

Proctor and his family had a long counselling session with Darren and he had delved deep deep into their life to understand their limiting beliefs, fears and stressors. He warned if they would follow his advice with discipline their life would change else they might need medical help later on. With Darren's exit, his advice too crawled through the back door.

Today Darren looks busy transforming their life and for many others. There are so many people around us who would need immediate help like that but either a help doesn't reach them or they are oblivious of the fact they would need one. There are so many beautiful things around us, why do we need more? why do we need to copy others when we are not born as exact carbon copies? why do we peep into somebody's life when we have a capacity to take our life to peak by concentrating on ourselves? why are we jealous of others if we have been given same 24 hours to grow and prosper?
The answer lies within us but fortunately we are not open books and there is no control F. We have to find answers by putting our efforts. (c)

Till we open up
Rajesh