Have You Ever Had Coffee with Yourself?
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It is sad to relate that the most frequently visited sites in Sri Lanka are sites that circulate titbits, pieces of gossip and scrap of information about other people. Each and every one is interested to know what is happening to others whereas no one pays attention to where they are heading. People like justifying their failures through others failures. They are inclined to look out for substantial failures of others so that they could validate their blunders through them. It is indeed a sad sight to see people criticising others from dawn to dusk. A doctor can heal millions of people, but what would happen if he does not pay attention to himself. He will eventually neglect to detect any sickness he has, by doing so he would not be able to do any good to himself. The sicknesses and disease within him will invariably kill him some day.
I have come across many constructors who have built a countless number of houses over the years for others, yet they have failed to build a room for themselves. There are barbers who cut the hairs of many, yet they look like vagabonds. Today’s society is constantly evaluating others failures in order to justify their own mistakes, whereas they should be evaluating themselves in order to navigate themselves towards success. On the bright side it is advantageous to look unto others mistakes if your sole purpose is to merely evaluate the point at which they went wrong so that you could prevent making the same mistake.
The disheartening reality is that many people know about others but they are not aware of themselves. It is like a dire batsman, who continuously gets out as a result of the weak strokes he plays, yet he has no idea of the reason he is losing, but he is entirely attentive to the weak strokes of other underperforming batsmen. World class batsmen are made by continuously evaluating themselves so that they could improve their weaknesses, where they fall prey to the bowler. Discussing about other people’s lives while catching up over a coffee has becoming a booming trend amongst friends nowadays. If you calculate the time that you have invested on looking for gossips on Facebook and then talking about it with your friends, you will be stunned to see the number of hours you have wasted on others. You become a labourer who toils on another person’s land, and one fine day when you have to leave that land when you are old, you realise that the land you own is still barren and futile. The tragedy is that the equipment you used in the other persons land are also not yours. Enough is enough, stop diagnosing and treating others, when you do not even know who you are and what you acquire within you.
As a habit, I often speak to myself in order to strengthen the relationship I have developed with myself. The worst circumstance you can be in is to like others and hate yourself. That is a very depressing state of mind where you hate to be with yourself. That is the point in which people lean towards alternative substances or relationships, merely to overcome the challenge of being with themselves alone. I love myself a lot, therefore I take great pleasure in spending quality time with myself over a coffee, so that I could listen as well as talk to myself. I lock myself in my room along with a hot coffee to spend a decent amount of time with myself alone, so that I could understand myself more precisely. In order to know if you have diabetics or not you must test your blood. Checking another persons’ blood will not reveal your report to you. If you are a secretive personality, your weaknesses are not exposed to other, in that case, self-diagnosis is a very effective tool to evaluate yourself.
When was the last time you listened or spoke to yourself? Were you busy speaking to others about others? Without an appropriate analysis and evaluation you cannot drive towards growth. Unless you go in front of a mirror or weigh yourself on a weighing scale, you will not realise that you are 120kg, until then you will not be able to work towards losing weight. Therefore, stop gossiping about others, start listening and speaking to yourself. It is the healthiest way that you can advance yourself. Spending time with myself has revealed many of my weaknesses, it has helped myself to focus on them for my betterment. Just as you would do at an important meeting, do not forget your pen and notebook when you take time to be with yourself, so that you could jot down the essential aspects.
Being with yourself alone, is not merely to understand yourself but also to love and appreciate yourself. We all are very fond of being loved and appreciated by others, it is one of the greatest desires of every human being. Well, there is nothing wrong in it, but it is equally better if you practice to love and appreciate yourself because the more you expect from others, the more you take the risk of being disappointed. I am certain that you would agree with me on that. The reality is that the person you love the most has the greatest possibility of disappointing you. And so, if you assign you, as the most loving person in your life, then the chances of you being disappointed by you is less. Talk to yourself with an attitude of gratitude and appreciation, just as you would speak to your loved ones. Appreciate your good deeds and motivate your conscious to do even better.
Nevertheless, there is an important factor that I would like to draw your attention towards in listening and speaking to yourself. That is to hand-pick the frame of mind you are in when you want to talk to yourself. If you turn on the hot water tap, you can have a hot shower, whereas turning on the cold water tap will make you shiver under a cold shower. Be vigilant when you speak to yourself as you are listening to yourself. Listening and speaking to yourself will be productive only if you are in a positive frame of mind. If you are in a negative frame of mind, all you will hear is negativity and depressing statements. Even though it is the same water that runs through the shower, the outcome of it depends on the mode you select, your selection of water pours out of the shower. Therefore, whenever you want to talk to yourself, make sure that you reject listening to the cheating, manipulating and deceiving frame of your mind.