Restless mind

The human brain is a complex organ. We still don't understand it completely, but we know about it much better than any of our previous generations. Many of us have a restless mind, I am one of them. Often, it is hard to control our thinking, the more we try to control the more mind resists, and the more we try to stop, the more it persists. A restless mind or a continuous unending stream of thoughts can be a challenging and exhausting experience. This affects our ability to focus or concentrate and may induce a feeling of being overwhelmed and stressed. Fortunately, there are ways to deal with the restless mind, it's not a one-time fix or a permanent cure, we need to practice whatever works for us regularly. 

One of the main reasons for a restless mind is stress. Stress could be a result of lack of sleep or some other factors. When we experience stress, our body releases cortisol, a hormone that prepares us for the fight-or-flight response. This hormone and the corresponding response are very necessary for our survival, this is how humans survived many attacks in the past and prevented our species from getting extinct. However, in today's world, this can lead to a racing mind as our thoughts become focused on perceived but not actual threats or problems. Our minds can become overstimulated and unable to focus on a single thing. Racing thoughts are not easy to handle. 

A chronic restless mind could have far-reaching effects. It may affect our ability to focus on work or study effectively, as our concentration and attention span are affected. It can also lead to anxiety and depression as we may become overwhelmed by the constant stream of negative thoughts and emotions. It may also affect our personal lives by affecting our relationships as we may struggle to be present while being with others, this may cause us to become irritable or easily frustrated. Also, we may need something to constantly distract our mind so that it doesn't get trapped in a negative stream of emotions, this can lead to more restlessness.

Fortunately, there are some strategies that we can develop that can help us to manage a restless mind. One of the strategies is to focus on the present moment and observe the thoughts without judgment. As I mentioned, the more we resist, the more it persists. So, allowing our thoughts to flow without getting affected by them results in some calmness as we are not trying to react to every thought that comes to our minds. This can help to reduce stress and calm the mind. Thoughts will come and go, but we just observe them without any judgment. It is difficult to do, but one can learn this by practice. Many also benefit from mindfulness meditation, it is basically the same thing, observing our mind without any judgment, but is a different setting with some set routine. People who try to control their minds by controlling the flow of thoughts often fail to get the benefits of meditation. I agree with the fact that meditation does not work for everybody, but if you are struggling with a restless mind, it is worth a shot. Another strategy is physical exercise. It doesn't have to be a gym workout of tracking, a simple half an hour walk is enough to reduce stress and improve clarity. Getting enough sleep is also an important factor, but if we work on other aspects sleep pattern automatically improves as lack of enough sleep is most of the time related to some other habits that impact our sleep directly or indirectly. If there is no change in the restlessness of the mind even after trying all this, then it is important to get professional help. There are many options like wellness counseling, therapy, and mindfulness sessions, that can help. A mental health professional can also provide some additional strategies that are not listed here to manage the symptoms of a restless mind and improve overall mental health.  

A restless mind can become challenging and exhausting if no attention is given, it is important to acknowledge it and take suitable steps to manage it. There is no one size fits all solution for this, humans are very complex organisms and we need to find what works best for us. All of us face some mental health-related issues, there is nothing wrong in acknowledging them and taking necessary steps to manage them, it helps to improve our overall mental health.     

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

My parent's and I

Our parents (or guardians or caretakers if not biological parents) are the first individuals who cast some influence on our lives. Our first social and intellectual interaction starts with them. They teach us how to walk, talk, eat, and many other relevant physical and social skills. Parents normally have a significant influence on their child's life and they can shape the thinking of the child. I think this is the reason why we see the continuation of the same religious and political beliefs running through generations in the same family. Like everyone's parents, my parents are special to me and their influence on my life is significant. First of all, I am thankful to them for bringing me into this world. I know that my birth was not any divine incident. It was just a biological phenomenon like every other birth of that time, born out of physical attraction between a male and a female, one similar interaction resulted in my birth.  

My parents migrated from Uttar Pradesh to Maharashtra a few years before my birth. My father came to Pune (a city in the state of Maharastra) to work in a factory. It was a new place, a new culture, and a completely new language. It was especially difficult for my mom to adjust to these new surroundings as she came from a very protected environment to this new world where she had to take care of her family, learn a new language, and adjust to totally unfamiliar surroundings. There was a social and economic struggle, but they managed to tackle all these problems. As far as I remember I always saw my dad working very hard. I never saw this man resting or relaxing, even today he never feels comfortable sitting at home. Now his body can't cope with his enthusiasm to work, but still, he goes out and contributes as much as he can. He worked as a machine operator in a gas cylinder valve manufacturing company (Vanaz). When his company gave him an option, he took a voluntary retirement in 1989 and started his own business. I was in high school when he took this bold step, with three kids to feed, this guy took this brave step to invest all his retirement money into a dairy and sweet shop business. He established this business from scratch. He used to do all the work, he was the owner as well as the helper in the shop kitchen, whatever work was required he did it without any complaint. We never even had a two-wheeler at that time, he used to go on a bicycle to bring milk every day and also to market to procure other stuff. I know the reason why he suffers from knee pain, he pushed his body beyond its physical limits for many years. When I look back to those days, I can't stop myself from being impressed by the amount of hard work my father did to support our family. This all would not have been possible without the support of my mother, they both really worked hard, and seldom had any time to enjoy. We never used to have any spare money to go to a restaurant or watch a movie. The only movie we watched as a family was Sunny Deol's debutant movie "Betab," this movie has a special place in my heart just because of this reason. Going to our native place during summer vacation used to be our only picnic. They both dedicated their lives to establishing their family in a new place. They worked really hard and established their business, built their own house in Pune, and paid for the education of their three kids.

They both taught me the value of hard work. Our many problems were related to money, and this made me realize the importance of money very early in my life. I am thankful to my parents for countless things, but, I am most thankful to them for not insisting their beliefs and values on me. They never forced me to follow their religious or political beliefs, this allowed me to develop my own independent views about these things. I am really grateful to them for this. I am their son, but I am very different than them in all these aspects and I thank them for making this possible. I can see the amount of influence parents try to put on their kids as far as their religious, social, and political beliefs are concerned. Fortunately, my parents never did that. They taught me all the necessary values like respecting people around you, working hard, being honest and sincere, the importance of education, and many other things. Apart from education and some social etiquette, nothing else was forced. We were not allowed to play cards as gambling was very rampant in our neighborhood. My dad never had a drink in front of us, even though many of his friends used to drink regularly in their homes and even tell their kids to fetch the bottle from the neighborhood wine shop. They were really strict about some of these things and I really applaud them for this. These rules protected us from the bad influences of our neighborhood. I don't know the exact number of kids going to school with me at that time (must be around thirty), but only three or four successfully graduated from college, and two of them were from our family. These numbers say a lot about their efforts.

They both couldn't go to college, but they made sure that each of their kid got a chance to enter college. My education and freedom to think are the two biggest gifts to me from them. Their support was very pivotal during my education. Their decision not to allow their kids to enter the workforce to support their family was very important, this allowed me to complete my college and then my Ph.D. Many of my friends started working at a very young age and couldn't finish their college. My education changed my life completely. It allowed me to question many things which I would never have done without the power of knowledge. Their reaction to many of my objections and protests is also admirable. I never expected that they would take my objections so sportingly. Not only did they listen to my outrageous (according to them) views patiently, but even changed their views on certain topics after having a lengthy chat with me on those matters. It is not that we don't argue, we do it a lot. My concept of respect is not absolute obedience, no matter who the person is. I challenge their actions wherever I feel I have to and we argue, sometimes we agree and many times we don't, and this is what life is. Our disagreements so far haven't put any cracks in our bond, it is as strong as ever. Our journey so far is really enjoyable, with some ups and downs for sure, but I do share a special bond with them and over the years that bond has become only stronger. Actually, one post is not enough to say everything about our parents, but I wanted to share something about them with my readers. We all love and respect our parents, but rarely share our feelings with them. I think it is better to express our feelings, I learned this after coming to the US, in India rarely people express their feelings to each other in some relationships, especially son-father or daughter-father relationships. It is a personal choice, but I feel it is better to express them and have a very friendly relationship with our parents, it is a very rewarding experience.

Thank you मम्मि (mom), thank you पप्पा (dad) for everything, love you.

Thanks for reading.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

What and how to teach kids?

Recently, I wrote a post about one incident in my home where my son called Krishna a thief and murderer. He had his own justifications for his statement and we both discussed in detail how this can be true or false, and how the same incident or a person can be looked at from different angles and each angle or view can yield a totally different conclusion. My discussion with him was very interesting. This post generated some passionate comments on my Facebook page as well as on my blog where some people expressed concern about how we should train our kids so that they should be able to think properly and understand the real meaning of mythological texts rather than commenting something stupid like this. Actually, I expected these types of comments, so these reactions were not surprising to me. Today's children are more evolved than their previous generations, they are more informed, intelligent, and better equipped to find answers to their questions than we were. This is true at least in my case, I never had all the tools and resources that my kids have to educate themselves.

Every parent or guardian feels it's their moral responsibility to educate and train their kids. We all believe that we should teach good things to our kids. it's a very noble thought but the only slight problem is that the definition of "Good" changes from person to person, religion to religion, and culture to culture. There is no universal guidebook for these things. Based on our upbringing, culture, and many other factors we decide what is good and what is bad. We form our opinions based on our own experience and then try to pass the same things to our kids. We want them to follow our religion and beliefs and also expect them to follow our culture and our advice.

If we look at this entire process most parent's emphasis is not on teaching their kids how to think but they focus more on teaching what to think. We like to teach them everything that we believe in. I was fortunate that I was born and raised in one of the most progressive states in India, Maharashtra, and that too in the most progressive city of that state, Pune. Maharashtra has a long history and tradition of producing very progressive thinkers and philosophers who introduced revolutionary ideas and challenged very well-established customs and traditions which they thought were outdated or harmful to certain sections of society. People like Jyotiba and Savitribai Phule, Dhodo Keshave Karve, Gopal Ganesh Agarkar, Lokamanya Tilak, Lady Ramabai, Dr. Ambedkar, and many others played a very important part in initiating many social movements and introducing social reforms. There is a vast amount of literature available in Marathi that documents a detailed history of all these events and also tells stories about all the hardships and opposition these and many other reformers faced in fighting against well-established rituals and customs. I was lucky to read many books related to these people and incidents in their lives and they all inspired me on many levels. All those Marathi books (some of them were translations of books from other languages) that I read during my school and college days shaped my thinking. The English language came very late in my life. I started speaking and reading English only when I came to the USA in 2003, before that most of my reading was in Marathi. My parents never really forced me to follow any particular regimental lifestyle where they dictated everything, they were strict but only in the case of my studies because they knew that only education could save me from poverty. As long as I was doing fine with my studies I was allowed to read whatever I wanted and these books became my teachers and guide. I consider myself very lucky in this regard. Many of these books are responsible for the way I think today and I am grateful to them.

I want my kids to develop their own thinking, to have their own vision and this is only possible when I don't force my own vision or thinking on them. As a parent, I guide them whenever necessary. I make sure that they get all the help whenever needed and get exposed to all cultures and customs. I take care that knowingly or unknowingly I don't force my prejudices and assumptions on them. This is the way I deal with my kids, maybe it's not the perfect way. Maybe some people will think that kids don't need to be given so much freedom as they are too young and immature to decide what is good or bad for them. Maybe, but as per my personal experience, today's kids are very well-informed and can deal with many complex issues. And when I say that I won't dictate or force them that doesn't mean that they have total freedom to do whatever they want. When I say "no" to them I explain why my answer is no, and also listen to their opinion, if they convince me that I was wrong then I change my decision and it does happen in certain cases, and I feel happy most of the time when this happens. For me it's a great feeling when I learn certain things from my own kids or for that matter any kid, this has taught me not to underestimate their intelligence just because they are younger than me.

In my home everything can be discussed, everything can be argued, and nothing is sacred and unquestionable. Kids are allowed to bring any topic to the table for discussion and I assure them that every question will be given full consideration. If I don't know the answer we try to find out the answers together and we all enjoy this whole process. Many of my friends also play a very important part in this process and my kids have total freedom to ask them their questions and take their suggestions on issues they think that my friends can help. So far it's working great and I am sure there will be many parents who may not agree with this method of parenting, but as I say this is my way, and it works for me. I found this method myself and I am sure every parent can find their own way to train their kids. Every kid is different and there is no universal parenting way or method that can be used to train all kids, but one thing is sure we need to train them so that they become responsible and capable citizens of this world. So, please find a method that works best for you and your kids. Good luck.

Thanks for reading and please share your views about this topic.

References:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyotirao_Phule; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savitribai_Phule
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhondo_Keshav_Karve
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopal_Ganesh_Agarkar
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bal_Gangadhar_Tilak
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandita_Ramabai

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)