Editorial > Your Power to Identify The Leaking Buckets of Life; The Wisdom to Fix It

Your Power to Identify The Leaking Buckets of Life; The Wisdom to Fix It

Some of life’s most interesting insights and learnings dawn upon us in the midst of the most mundane activities. Some of the greatest discoveries were also made through unexpected situations. Like, we all know – A falling apple brought Isaac Newton to discover the law of gravity. Looked simple, but is it? Its life after all, silly! Not everything is as simple and straightforward.

As we keep going about our daily chores with large bouts of mundane and short spurts of mindful – the ocean of experience we gather along the journey seems wide and deep.

Having lived through 2020, a lot of us felt tested and jolted to reveal the innermost fears and strengths, first to ourselves and then to our dear ones. Even we felt surprised at what we were capable of as human beings and amazed at what we could pull off as a collective. But it was not just the strengths that came to the fore. It was also those gaps that became more exposed, some of them even widened – leaving us a tad ashamed of the person we become when pushed to the extremity of our own limits.

We decided to concentrate our energies at the beginning of this year to first address and possibly fix these holes – without which any effort to greaten the incoming year 2021 would be futile.

This week, acclaimed Life and Career Transformation Coach Deepti Jandial helps us unravel each of our “Leaking buckets” and tells us what to do in a gap-by-gap approach!

This is some soup for the soul.. read on!

 

Some discoveries can lead to a detailed breakdown of a rather complex ideology. One such discovery happened in a very unlikely place – the kitchen in my house! While handling a cracked ceramic bowl in the kitchen one day, I got on to thinking about the repercussions of pouring something in a leaking utensil. After a few minutes of trying to mend the damaged bowl, with the fixtures not appearing too obvious, I realized that fixing all leakages is just so not child’s play.

There are many analogies when we use the word ‘leakage’. When you look at it from one dimension, it could mean spillage due to a technical glitch. But additionally, it could also indicate towards something said that is so untoward that it cannot be retraced; or something… anything that is not arrested at the precise moment, that it can cause further damage without much scope for repair.

It was in the midst of this thought that I realized that our lives are so similar to a leaking bucket. And then like pieces of a puzzle, several instances and contrasting behavioral patterns began to validate & perpetuate this realization.

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Fixing that leak – Making Life Meaningful again

We struggle to fill our ‘lives’ (the bucket) with ‘earnings’ of spirituality and knowledge (the water) hoping it will retain. But it is leaked by the many ‘flaws’ (the holes) that we bring to it, on a daily basis.

In order to work towards a higher consciousness, we engage ourselves in many good deeds. But, it is when we give in to the temptation of following them up with the not-so-good ones, that we end up nullifying everything that was a positive contributor.

Let's explore a few areas of our being to help you understand what I am talking about and see what you could potentially do about filling that gap

Mindfulness

You wake up early in the morning trying to do your prayers / yoga, but your mind is elsewhere and before you know it, you are done with it, without being mindful of it. (A leaking bucket)

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Learn to center your thoughts and focus on the task at hand. Be present in the current moment and dedicate your complete attention to the deed you are working on. Don’t deviate, don’t get distracted, and don’t attempt to multi-task when not needed.

Selective Compassion

You are very kind to outsiders or people (in general) and speak with them gently; but with your own family, you are harsh / rude to the extent of being abusive as well. (A leaking bucket)

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As humans, we are tuned to yearn for attention and praise from people whom we barely know. That is why, in order to project a picture-perfect image to the outside world, we end up displaying compassion and kindness to them. But, our family somehow bears the brunt of our raw and blunt persona that we can never show to an outsider.

Spitefulness

You honor and treat your guests well, but when they leave, you tend to gossip about them and talk about their flaws. You discuss and talk about their character, choices, lifestyle, etc. (A leaking bucket)

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If we spoke TO each other instead of speaking ABOUT each other, then we would most likely eliminate a majority of our problems. Being spiteful towards another person behind their back negates the goodness that you may have shown to their face.

Spiritual Muckspout

You try to read as many religious books as you want, listen to spiritual discourses / meditate, participate in social service; but you swear, insult, and curse daily. (A leaking bucket)

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It is important to not just read holy books and listen to spiritual teachings, but also is essential to imbibe those words into our daily lives. If we know of the perils of insulting someone and cursing, yet we continue to do it unabashedly; then we have failed to absorb the goodness of our learnings.

Selfish Motives

You help others but you are doing it to gain something in return from them and not doing those acts of kindness selflessly without a vested interest. (A leaking bucket)

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The urge to do something for another person should never be acted upon with a hidden motive of gaining something out of this gesture. Being able to extend a helping hand without the expectation of the receiver being of use to us in some way… is an important stone in the foundation of our character.

Practice What You Preach

You frequently advise / preach to others, but practice none yourself. (A leaking bucket)

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Expecting another person to follow our advice and act on it, while we may not be able to do the same in a similar situation is an unfair anticipation. The credibility of our spoken word is built on the actions that we follow them up with.

Learning to Agree to Disagree

You slander every other person out of hatred / spite when your views do not meet theirs (A leaking bucket)

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Acceptance of another person’s conflicting ideologies, views, thoughts, and feelings plays an important role in enhancing our own tolerance levels. Knowing that each person acts & reacts differently in diverse situations, and applying a broadminded approach to the other person’s beliefs will help us keep hate and spite at bay.

Lack of Acceptance

You look down upon others and feel superior to them… based on external appearances, judging their level of knowledge, even hating them because they are different. (A huge leaking bucket)

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It is so difficult to adapt to the idea that anything that is different from the usual can also be good in its own way. Someone who speaks a different language, has a different skin tone, or is educated differently isn’t unintelligent or uneducated. It means they are good at something that is different from the qualities and skills that we possess. The beauty of a rainbow lies in the individual colours coming together; if they all looked the same, the rainbow wouldn’t be as appealing. Like we accept the uniqueness of natural phenomena, we must learn to accept every individual as they are. It makes us happier people as well, when we are not being judgmental.

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2020, the year finally gone-by, has been difficult for everyone. Rich or poor, educated or otherwise, differently-abled or uniquely talented – the pandemic has brought on the realization that we’re in this together. It is the age-old learnings that come forward in these times – ironically to guide us to the future.

The Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi gets enhanced and further invoked in our thought processes when we delve back inside us to seek answers of dealing with our situations. Kintsugi or the art of repairing a broken vessel by filling it with powdered gold or silver dust – is perhaps the metaphorical ‘something’ that we all need to do to make it through to the next phase of our lives, hit the ‘repair’ button rather than the ‘reset’.

The learnings of the past, the baggages we carry, the buckets that leak – are all powerful instances that can stay deeply embedded in our subconscious minds and the Kintsugi done to fix them will make it appear beautiful yet strong enough to take in the next filling with open arms and unbiased hearts.

Dais World wishes its readers a beautiful mend to their broken toki this 2021 – we have all been through so much in all our lives with a culmination of it all coming together in the year that went by. There is so much that we would like to leave behind and there is so much more that we would like to embrace as it comes to us. But without mending first of whats broken, it is difficult that we would be able to absorb all that life brings our way this New Year and beyond.

Well, let's promise to give ourselves the love, the cherishment, the time to heal and the propulsion to move forward with child-like enthusiasm and really live the moment that life has for us.

What Hurts You Blesses You.. Darkness Is Your Candle! - Rumi

D E E P T I   J A N D I A L  is a seasoned Talent Transformation Consultant who has worked across industries on enhancing capabilities and creating highly impactful business environments for over 2 decades. Deepti has conducted various programs and workshops across large corporate houses as well as educational institutes in India and abroad. Her diversified experience has helped her leverage best practices of each industry and has made her a holistic L&D Consultant. She works extensively on Psychometric assessments and tools to bring out the best in the incumbents and the training. She can be reached for further connections here.

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