Unwanted Burdens

We all want to be free from burdens, because being burden-free is the epitome of happiness. I've yet to hear anyone who'd say 'no' to happiness and eagerly say 'yes' to receiving more unwanted burdens. These days, we just can't live in an ideal little world through our flawed eyes. In fact, there's nothing that strictly goes by the book, except for those in the scriptures.

Living in this world, nothing is tangible, unless we make it so by believing and putting in effort and commitments to see things through the thick and thin. Some believe in God, while some depend on the self to alleviate themselves from more worries generated from their burdens. Those who believe God as their companion in sharing their burden walk a more satisfactory route (though no easier route) in going through their doldrums in life, while the Godless, find themselves exhausted and 'humans' afterall - flawed, depleted of strength... and so forth. Which one are you?

With the realisation of Godliness or Godlessness in life, comes responsibilities of different magnitudes... all entails patience and routes of impatience that gives our lives interesting steep and shallow uphill and downhill lines, if plotted in a graph. Likewise, burdens that we have, big, medium or small, do overlap or run alongside each other. To complicate things more, there are lots of other variables that gets latch onto these lines i.e. family, friends, love life, and work. It becomes a bigger burden in our already-complicated human lives. It calls for a form of burden management. A reformation that involves a type of management that will not run us down spiritually, physically or mentally. My recommendation is seek God, but hey, not everyone's like me (though I hope that many would be able to experience God).

In life, we are never exempted from our fair share of guilts, obligations, depravations and also satisfactions of different forms, sizes and numbers - with Godliness or Godlessness alike. I'll term the concoction of 'guilts, obligations, depravations and dissatisfactions' as a drug. It is an inhibitor to allowing one in living a full life. The fact is that, it's a drug that only our individual selves could control... the amount of doses in it.

Most of us are constantly high on this drug. We are almost experts at using as a driving force to live life battling from it's addiction while contradicting ourselves that we are on our way to achieve more happiness. By taking little diversions here and there, as in lessening the dose, in hope to take our worries off our minds. But it doesn't go away, we have too much unwanted burdens, we just have to learn how to manage it.

Likewise, as many unwanted burdens we have in our lives, we also have many undeserved blessings. Yes, you heard the word - BLESSINGS, and undeserving at that too. A form of burden managing is to realise and learn to see how blessed we are! I'm talking about little blessings in life, such as having enough basics in life, the providence that yields to our survival to this day i.e. food, shelter, help received when we needed them (even simplistic help such as someone sharing your burden of carrying your groceries to the house / apartment). You know, little things are little blessings in life as well. All these are easily overlooked, and could be discounted as blessings because we choose to discount it and choose to take it for granted. Hence, behind all our unwanted burdens, we do have a million and one undeserving blessings. So why grumble? Think about that.

Another form of management is to perceive that all burdens have it's learning curves. Yes, there are lessons in life, a refining process. Nothing is chanced and cursed to be a futile 'happening' that yields to a total waste of time and wasted emotions. Acquiring acceptance and having a new perception over such things would only mean that we need to manage our bank of forgiveness too. Forgiveness applied unto ourselves and others without forgetting the lessons learned from the past, so that we could press on to be better persons and lead a happier and contented life. I'm a strong advocate for this... that lessons that are not learned from the past, imperils the current and the future life.

Though other stories of burden involves discontentment of one's financial position. Though discontentment drives many to be more wealthy, but not necessarily a smooth road to happiness. The thirst for 'finding more money' comes with addiction for the love of money, hence a loss of meaning in sustaining, let alone, achieving a fullfilled life. An empty vessel filled with the thought of having lots of money does not quench the thirst and hunger in humans, because when we die, we can't take worldly materials away with us. Even by knowing this, a majority of the world still grumble...

While some of the poor, the mediocre, and the upper-middle class are envious of the rich and famous, but what good would all that money bring? Look around the world, see how happy the rich are, you gauge and reason for yourself. Let's name a few... Christina Onassis took her own life because she was so unhappy with her position in life in spite of being a tycoon, money still couldn't buy her happiness... Princess Di, who died while in the progress of chasing true love and happiness all her life in spite of having all the money and fame in the world, and Barbara Hutton and many more that I can name. They too, are like us laymen out there, in having our own burdens. Money could not buy them happiness but only all that glitters and all that fame, but left their soul dry.Both the rich and poor have their burdens in life that weighs them down with responsibilities, if not, obligations of equivalent magnitude. Different sets of responsibilities and obligations for different individuals at that for people of different positions, ethnicities and levels of life.

There's no such thing as one having a bigger burden than the other. If we could empty our pockets of burdens into a weighing scale, they all weigh the same from one person to the next. They are all of the same magnitude, though it's of a different burden of different areas that is specific to our individual lives. So grumbling could be a form of pride in 'I'm handling bigger problems than you, so don't grumble about yours... ' Even grumbling has a rat race of it's own - a competitiveness in it's own world.

It's good that most are able to acknowledge that they are burdened, and are able to grumble and complain as an initial step to find salvation. Somehow, airing it out may work as an outlet, but it still doesn't allow the feel-good-endorphins to kick in. Maybe it's just temporary relief that some seeks. Afterall, the burdened views grumbling is allowed by grumbling aloud. Grumbling about things could probably alleviate some of their burden, temporarily, but it's a placebo, it still doesn't take away the negative toxin planted in the head.

Grumbles all stem from unwanted burdens in life. Such burdens come in different forms and sizes and directions, making us question again and again, "Why me?". The questions can never be answered, it leaves a sad echo trailing off into the space yonder. Somehow, it magnifies the burden into an unbelieveable size. Of course, we have people who are completely from the other end of the stick - those who are in denial. Nevertheless, those in denial are no happier than those who acknowledge that they have burdens. Those in denial are only able to mask the weight of their burden, for how long, only the individual knows. Yet, they prefer to suffer in silence when they are alone, in their quiet times - leaving the body weak and the soul dry.

Every single day, I hear people grumbling. Even walking past unknown strangers in malls or in some walkway, I hear them. Maybe Malaysians are born with the grumbling gene woven in the innocent-looking XX or XY chromosomes... as I hear less of it when I was travelling in other countries. Or perhaps it's an international thing or just plain coincidental? Aren't people the same everywhere? Anyway, I'd zip past people, and due to my high empathy level, my antennas usually pick up things along the way most of the time. I'd catch on to a sentence of two which entails either the tail-end or the midst of a complaint / grumble of some kind much more than those that has to do with joy or neutral things.

The negativity amongst people is astounding. People are always unhappy with their positions in life, leaving them sullen, laden with worries of all sorts. In most cases, giving them slouches, frowns, poor health, depression... even making them drag their feet to wherever they go. The embittered and depressed demeanor is so unattractive and unpersonable! I always believe that the negative would draw more negative... and they sometimes latch on to the positive and suck it dry with overwhelming doses of negativity. It's a recruit. They unconsciously form a community of depressed people, a grumbling communion, a mass that would understand their drowning of sorrows. Who can help them? No other ones but themselves. Even the urge to pray comes from within, the need to seek help too, comes from deep down in the heart.

Like the old saying, there's a silver lining in every cloud, that is how we should generate positiveness. By drawing on such beliefs, we will have renewed perception of things, our worries and our 'old negative selves' will pass away. There's a negative and positive button built closely next to each other in all of us. We should learn to press the positive one, eventhough we're going through the doldrums of life. A positive mind frame will help us look for drippings of grace and mercy amidst our burdens in life, giving us hope for a relief soon. So, try turning your grumbles into praises, you will know what I mean. With a little perseverance and patience, you will see that over time, you are actually living a full life filled with many underserving blessings amidst the unwanted burdens!