Being kind to oneself

At times mind is at war. At other times the mind brings peace. There is a lot which goes in creating a good healthy body. Daily workouts and proper dietary habits come together over a period of time to give you that beautiful body. If building a body can take so much of our time, mind is a subtler entity, how long and attentive we have to be to have a healthy mind. A minor setback can give us a reason to leave a task at hand altogether, a minor criticism can throw you off a cliff of progress and land you in the valley of sorrows and depression.
At times things are haywire when you don’t mean it to be, well you never mean it to be, but it does happen. How can you come out of such situation ? I think a little kindness can do miracles. What is kindness, to me it’s like giving a breathing space to oneself. I have to be kind in my thoughts to help myself. I have tried being harsh and mellow about my routine and I have tried being fervent with my resolves but eventually I give up on my task, not because I was not not excited to work but I gave up when I see a daunting uphill task in front me and I lose my confidence.

At times I have seen people running and taking me over while I am barely able to take a step. It seems like I am loser. But when I see it up close I find that they are not me. It was not even a race. They have had their share of sorrows and hurdles to overcome. Being kind to myself is the first thing I would like to do in a difficult situation, it’s okay to be slow but it is important to be sincere. I have never seen a grand thing being done in haste or even a minutely detailed embroidery being done in a hurry. To leave a mark on something we do, a mark of perfection requires time. We might not be allowed to do things perfectly as the demands from our work or jobs can be different but trust me, anything done is haste has it’s cost. It might look you have achieved your goal when you do it fast but eventually it crumbles under it’s own weight of intrinsic faults. Haste is faulty but you can build something that works with speed and perfection once you have paid enough attention. Eventually we can do things fast but we have to speand our share of time and effort in building or learning the details first.

Especially when you are starting a new field, be kind to yourself. I am not saying competitive spirit is bad, it is not. But you can only enjoy competition when you are in a set mood to face challenges. For that you should be able to accept falls, defeat at times and still have the courage to move on. My dreams are my investment in life, the most important thing is that I am fair to myself and second thing is that I am not complaining about life and the problems it brings. There is no fun in life if it is a smooth sail. If we can do these two things an attitude of confidence and kindness dwells upon us to do something. Start small, believe it is going to fine, it will be. People will criticize we can’t stop them, even if you are the emperor of the universe there will be criticism but what you can do is to be kind to yourself and it will lead you to be kind to others. Kindness can heal many scars over period of time. It is being graceful to your own self than asking others to endorse you or to ask god to favor you first.