Life - An Act Of Art

Personal Growth

Life means to grow. To grow is an art, personal growth as well. Creativity, or art allows us to view and solve problems more openly and with innovation. It opens the mind. A society that has lost touch with its creative side is an imprisoned society where generations of people may become closed-minded. Personal growth broadens our perspectives and can help us overcome prejudices.

All await the arrival of the New Year. It gives new hope and happiness. Lots of expectations and jubilation seem in the offing. In the present context of pandemic and endemic, let us hope that time will take away social distancing, sadness, and the sufferings of previous years. Many of us will make one resolve or the other for the New Year. New Year resolutions will vary depending upon the individual and his circumstances. The common deficiencies most of us face are indiscipline and procrastination in our daily life. All of us know what is beneficial to us but are not able to implement it. Our resolutions fade very soon. Come February, they fade. Alas! What a tragedy for us human beings - the premier creatures on earth. God lives in all of us, irrespective of our race or religion. Yet we find ourselves helpless in front of as small a habit as waking up on time and keeping discipline in eating, having a positive attitude, recreation, and exercise. I call it DARE (Diet, Attitude, Recreation, and Exercise).

I ask, Can you dare? Before asking you, I am putting this question to myself also. However, let us not miss the opportunity to enter into a New Year and take charge afresh.

The greatest test of a man’s character is how he takes charge of his own life. Most of us are aware of this fact and are striving to improve ourselves in every aspect of our lives, whether it is physical or mental. Everybody wants to be physically fit and mentally alert. Still, we are prone to illness and forgetfulness. We keep our minds involved in the same habits of worry, anger, and procrastination. We keep on living a life with the same old bad habits without any improvement until our last breath. With regard to file and document management, I am still in the same old habit of keeping these in a helter-skelter manner, without proper order, as I was when I was young. People lose their temper on trivial matters. In this respect, an old Hindu proverb has had a more recent imitation: Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today. - Jordan Peterson. Our New Year’s resolutions should be average and attainable.

William Shakespeare, in his play Hamlet, wrote how Polonius advises his son Laertes, This above all; to thine own self be true. It means to look at your character. Be honest, moderate, and sincere with yourself. In our daily life, we see that we are not true to ourselves. Knowing fully well, we are in the habit of repeating the same mistakes again and again. We have forgotten that all a man achieves or fails to achieve is the direct result of his own doings. In the New Year, no resolution is as good as believing in your own abilities and putting them into practice before it is too late. To accomplish our aim, we have already lost enough time. There is no time like the present. Catch hold of the new year with confidence and climb the stairs of success step by step. Through self-analysis and contemplation, one will find that one is in no way inferior to those who have achieved success in any field of human activity, be it physical fitness, exam qualification, or even writing your story, poem, or novel. According to James Lane Allen, In all human affairs, there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance is not. Gifts, powers, material, intellectual and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort; they are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, and visions realized. No New Year’s resolution will be worthwhile until and unless one knows oneself. Because to know others is clever, and to know oneself is an art and enlightenment. No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.

Whatever our age, we all are students in life. We should keep on learning to develop good habits like getting organized, exercising regularly, stopping procrastinating, eating healthy, enjoying the present moment, helping others, and reducing unproductive use of time, etc. Many of us are habitual to excessive use of social media like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter. By taking some time off from these, we can spare time to find a sports activity in order to keep ourselves fit. Finally, you will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success depends on what good acts you do daily.

Work is Worship

Work and Worship - both are art pieces. Our work can be viewed as a form of worship. One example of work being as worship is the labour we offer explicitly in line with bringing about God's Kingdom. It would include preaching at church, doing administrative work to run a ministry, or studying the word of God. About work, Work is the open sesame of every portal, the great equalizer in the world, the true philosopher's stone which transmutes all the base metal of humanity into gold. - Sir William Osler

Work is a magic word. The dictionary means work is an activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or a result. The purpose can be earning an income, a status, or a name. Work can be termed as labour, toil, exertion, industry, and service. Worship means giving reverence to some apparent, notional, or hidden power to seek blessings in order to achieve our desired results. It comes from the old English word 'worth-ship,’ which means giving worth to something. All achievements, happiness and bright futures emanate from this magic word ‘work.’ Thus, work is the very essence and elixir of life. From the stone age to modern times, the great inventions, and discoveries in all fields are by dint of hard work. When the wise ones said, "work is worship', they meant doing what we do with a sense of worthiness and respect. When we understand that any work – big or small - is valuable and done with reverence, then our work becomes worship.

In 19th century Britain, Thomas Carlyle, one of the bright stars, wrote eight simple words that express his lifelong philosophy: Blessed is he who has found his work. Today Carlyle's words have a deeper significance than ever, Get your happiness out of your work, or you will never know what real happiness is. Thomas Carlyle knew better than most men. He struggled against poverty, illness, uncertainty, and despair all his life. He took up several jobs: minister in a church, teaching, and other professions, but gave up when he could not accept bigotry, stupidity, and narrow creed and found no joy in his work. Finally, he turned to writing, which he enjoyed throughout his life. In finding the work he loved, he found purpose, direction, and inner satisfaction.

Khalil Gibran, another eminent philosopher, is worth mentioning here pertaining to the dictum ‘Work is Worship'. He said, If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you leave your work, and sit at the gate of the temple, and take alms of those who work with joy.

When our work is useful, productive, and wholesome for society, only then we can say that 'work is worship.’ Otherwise, it will become monotonous and boring. Many people believe that luck plays the most important part in their lives; they avoid work and wait for some miracle. They forget the phrase 'God helps those who help themselves’. The paramount role of action, ’ karma’ in Hindi, has been admitted and given significant importance by all religions. There is no alternative to hard work done in earnest and with full devotion, even without expectation of any result from work. Because, very emphatically and religiously, it is said in the Gita, the holy scripture of the Hindus by Lord Krishna, karmanye adekarastu, ma phalesu kadachnna – which means that your duty is to work without expecting any reward for it. The work itself is the reward, giving you happiness and satisfaction provided the work has been done as worship. The work done in compulsion without putting your heart into it is a sort of punishment. Slavery or bonded labour is nothing, but work done under pressure and with fear of punishment.

One of the most important teachings in Guru Granth Sahib, the eternal Guru of the Sikhs, is "kirat karo, naam japo and vand chhako" (do your work, remember God, and eat the fruit of your work by sharing it with the needy). Priority must be given to work. All other worldly affairs come afterward. Let us see what the Holy Bible tells us about work, Honest hard work, this is something God seeks from all of us. Working hard but with faith in mind can lead to the great things God has planned for us. A sluggard's appetite is never filled, but the needs of the diligent are fully satisfied. Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies have no sense that only hard work brings profit. Mere talks lead to poverty. In Islam, work is given special importance to the extent that it is considered an act of worship. The Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) was a hardworking person even before he was chosen as a messenger of God. In Buddhism, the 'right efforts’ is a central teaching of the Eightfold Path. I remember the following words while undergoing a ten-day Vipassana meditation course taught by the late Shri S.N. Goenka, Work. Work. Work. Work diligently, work ardently, work intelligently, work patiently and persistently. You will be successful.

It is necessary to understand that only hard work done with a good aim and purpose brings greatness in life. Without work, our life is a waste. The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. 'Work like a Trojan’ means work extremely hard. Work done as worship works wonders. So, let us work like an eager beaver.

Time

Time, life, and art have correlation. Life and art exist in time. Time implies change and movement. Movement and time are crucial elements in art although we may not be aware of it. As society expands and grows, art changes to reflect its new developments. Art reflects time and documents the crucial components of our lives. Mother Teresa beautifully said, Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has yet to come. We have only today. Let us begin.

When I thought of writing about ‘Time,’ I opened the English dictionary and was surprised to know that almost one and a half pages are devoted to explaining the word ‘time’ there. As a noun and a verb, and with its prefixes and suffixes, time is a frequently used word. As a noun, it means ‘the indefinite continued progress of existence, events, etc., in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole. As a verb, it means to choose a time or an occasion. I am sure that hardly anyone will have opened the dictionary to see the meaning of time. So, it is time for you to open any Standard English dictionary and read about the wonderful word ‘time’ and its usage. You will not regret this suggestion!

One's life is a fixed time period between birth and death. On the infinite path of time, there are incidents of ups and downs. One of the well-known milestones on this path is Lord Jesus Christ. The time before him is known as BC (Before Christ), and after him as AD (Anna Dominie or After Christ). Similarly, seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months, years, decades, and centuries are other units to categorize time. In fact, time is not the main thing, but it is the only thing.

You wake up in the morning, and lo, your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours – the most precious of possessions. Arnold Bennett. He, as a poverty-stricken young clerk in a London Law office, became a celebrated writer by budgeting his time so that every hour served some useful purpose – and it worked beyond his most ambitious dreams! He called it How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day. In the following paragraph, he explained the gist of the philosophy that worked so well in his own life:

Time is the inexplicable raw material of everything. With it, all is possible; without it, nothing. The supply of time is truly a daily miracle, an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it. You wake up in the morning, and lo! Your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the remanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions. No one can take it from you. It is non-stealable. And no one receives either more or less than you receive.

Not only Arnold Bennett but the famous Sufi Saint Omar Khayyam said about time:

Tomorrow's fate, though thou be wise,

Thou canst not tell nor yet surmise;

Pass, therefore, not today in vain,

For it will never come again.

If we can become aware of moments as they flow by, focusing our attention on the present moment, we can connect to a thread beyond time: a thread that attaches moments together. In several religions, God exists outside the bounds of time and space. In fact, the practice of stepping outside the bounds of space and time and opening consciousness to grasp the infinite is what meditation teaches. Meditation is nothing but the transcendence of time and space with an awareness of the present moment.

Naturally, to lead a healthy and prosperous life, one must manage one's time wisely. Time management or timetabling is a critical factor in life. Real success cannot be achieved without proper time management. Effective time management depends on the stage of an individual's life. Time has to be managed by keeping in mind the varying demands of teenage, young age, and old age. The most common measures for using time effectively are – (1) Punctuality. One should understand the value of time and must be punctual if one wants to progress in life. Courtesy demands that we should be on time to meet an appointment. We should learn commitment, continuity and regularity over time. (2) Time is more valuable than money. We can earn money and health even after losing it whenever we want by working hard again, but we cannot earn the time which has been lost. ‘Time and tide wait for no one’. Time runs continuously without any stoppage. (3) To avoid chaos, we should finish our tasks on time; otherwise, ‘there is no use in crying over spilt milk’. Those who plan ahead hardly fail; they face less mental tension and worries. Time has the capacity to heal us from our injured feelings and broken hearts. Therefore, time is called ‘the best