44 Doing too much

The Boy and the Filberts: A narrow-necked jar was full of filberts. When a boy put his hand into the jar and tried to take a fistful of filberts, his hand got stuck inside the jar. Unwilling to lose the nuts and unable to pull out his hand, he started crying. A bystander, who realised what the problem was, told him, "Don't be so greedy, young boy! Be content with a few nuts and you can easily pull out your hand."

Mr Saxena, a busy industrialist, had high blood pressure that was difficult to control. He also had recurrent episodes of headache. His doctor told him, "These are stress related. You should take more care of yourself. Take rest.” Mr Saxena asked, "How is it possible, doctor? I have to work hard and keep my industries going on full steam.” The doctor smiled and replied, "Don't be such an empire builder, Mr Saxena. If you can be satisfied with a smaller and manageable empire, you can improve your quality of life. You will also have less of the stress related health problems."

Comments

Human beings have the desire to be in control: be it Nature, other creatures, other humans or one's own body. It cannot always succeed. The laws of ecology states -

Everything is connected to everything else. Everything must go somewhere. Nature knows best.

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There is 'no free lunch'. (Every action extracts a price.)

Beyond a point, more work often means less success. We must apply Einstein's formula (Parkinson's version) in our lives. It states:

S = X + Y + Z where, S = Success X = Hard work Y = Play or rest Z = Silence

This simple formula is one with profound implications. The human body and mind need hard work for achievement, play or rest for self-renewal and periods of silence or solitude to gain insight by mature thinking (C Northcote Parkinson).

In our own lives, we have to find our threshold levels of tolerance for stress. Within that limit stress is a positive motivator and goads us into action. Any stress beyond that limit may mean less in terms of health, joy of living and quality of life.

Several studies have shown that the inability of human beings to manage the social, psychological and emotional aspects of life can lead to the development of high blood pressure, asthma, migraine, peptic ulcer, heart diseases, etc (Cockerham W, 1989).

When would we learn to manage ourselves and our lives better? Do we have to wait until we evolve into a superior species (superman) as enunciated by saint Aurobindo?

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