It’s sillier to upset yourself by yourself

It’s sillier to upset yourself by yourself
1 Sep, 2007, 0019 hrs IST,Vithal C Nadkarni , TNN

There is someone who knows and understands your every thought and feeling,” says an SMS doing the rounds of mobile networks.

“This is someone who understands your pleasures and pain, the joys and the sorrow, who perceives your deepest needs and longings of your heart.” No prizes for guessing who this can be: It’s you and you alone who’s privy to all your thoughts and innermost feelings. Remember that the next time you feel overwhelmed in the essentially lonely battle of life. For no matter how much you care and however much you try to reach out to those whom you love (or even hate) across your somatic barrier, you and your inner ‘skull cinema’ remain strictly out of bounds to the world.

No matter what psychics tell you, no one else can get in there. ‘You’ as a self-conscious voice trapped inside your skull-tower are born alone and die alone. That doesn’t mean you’re destined to feel desperately lonely and unhappy. Being alone inside ourselves is the reality we share with everyone else. Existentially, we are all in the same soup: but the key to your deliverance from self-perceived alienation lies in your hands.

This was something the Greek philosopher Epictetus pointed out two thousand years ago from a different angle: you do have the power to change and control yourself to a remarkable extent. What you don’t have is similar power to control the behaviour of others (we aren’t talking about fatwas or political diktats). “No matter how wisely you may counsel people, they remain independent entities and may — and indeed have the right as individuals — to ignore you completely,” says the late Albert Ellis, founder of Rational emotive Behavioural Therapy (REBT), in Accepting Reality.

“If, therefore, you get unduly aroused over the way others act, instead of paying closer attention to how you respond to their actions, you upset yourself over an event that is beyond your control. This seems akin to tearing your hair because a jockey, a prizefighter, or actor does not perform the way you would like. Very silly business indeed!”

Conversely, it’s sillier to upset yourself by yourself, since you do have control in the way you behave and the things you do. Thus, says Dr Ellis, by the proper cultivation of your emotional garden, the most harrowing things that happen will not perturb you too much. As the Bhagvad Gita says, Atmevah atmano bandhu (you alone are your own brother).