Collect All Your Worries in a Box
(Vinod Anand)
On a pleasant, cool night, everyone in the apartment block had gone to bed after a nice dinner, and there was absolute silence.
Early in the morning, the police came with a search warrant for carrying out a search operation at Apartment No.6. Their announcement about this was followed by a gunshot. Hearing all this, a person sleeping in the building next door got up shivering, His wife tried to calm him down.
Finally, the police arrested the man in search of whom they had come and went on their way, but the man in the neighbouring building was still scared. Finally he decided to confess his fear and asked me, “Why am I feeling so fearful and scared?”
I explained to him in a comforting tone that fear is the absence of love. One has to bring light of love to the darkness of fear. You can’t do anything with darkness directly.
You can’t destroy it by action of will or throw it. “But my wife is a loving person,” he said. “Your wife may be a loving person, but are you receiving and validating that love in your heart? The flowers are beautiful, but the question is whether you are receiving and validating it or are you lost in your worries,” I asked.
You are no longer sensitive; you are highly sentimental, reacting to what is, from the framework of your likes and dislikes.
Being sensitive is being available to experience “what is” as what is. Most people are living a shallow life; they are not living and thinking deeply. If you live a shallow life, you will fail to see how you are limited by your wants, conclusions and prejudices. “Do you mean to say, one should accept life as it comes and not change it,” asked the man.
I said, “More than accepting, see things as they are. Be free to see what is, and in that freedom one is not bound. When you see it, then you see the elegance in imperfection and from that space you will do or act on what is needed. This will not be out of conflict but out of harmony.
I said to him: Whenever you worry or have fear, write it down and put it into an imaginary box and stop worrying. Let us call this box as the ‘Friday Box’.
Every Friday, open the imaginary box, scan through the written worries and see how you can solve it. But in-between don’t worry except to write down any new fear and put it in the imaginary box. The following week he came to me and said, “It certainly works.
Most of my worries and fears have been solved but still there are about 25 per cent existing. What shall I do?” I said, “Put them also into an imaginary box that you will open only on the last Friday of the month; till then do not worry about it.
Open that box once a month on the last Friday and scan through the worries. You will find that most of them will be solved if one stops worrying”. Apply the technique of one to twenty. Write out 20 ways to solve your problem. Then, apply those ways.
If you are calm, most of the problems will be solved, and if you are creative, any remaining problems also will be solved. Any problem remaining unresolved even after all these will make your life humble and challenging.
VINOD K.ANAND: A BRIEF PROFILE
Born in 1939, and holding Master’s Degree both in Mathematics (1959) and Economics (1961), and Doctorate Degree in Economics (1970), Dr. Vinod K.Anand has about forty five years of teaching, research, and project work experience in Economic Theory (both micro and macro), Quantitative Economics, Public Economics, New Political Economy, and Development Economics with a special focus on economic and social provisions revolving around poverty, inequality, and unemployment issues, and also on informal sector studies. His last assignment was at the National University of Lesotho (Southern Africa) from 2006 to 2008. Prior to that he was placed as Professor and Head of the Department of Economics at the University of North-West in the Republic of South Africa, and University of Allahabad in India, Professor at the National University of Lesotho, Associate Professor at the University of Botswana, Gaborone in Botswana, and at Gezira University in Wad Medani, Sudan, Head, Department of Arts and Social Sciences, Yola in Nigeria, Principal Lecturer in Economics at Maiduguri University in Nigeria, and as Lecturer at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in Nigeria. Professor Anand has by now published more than 80 research papers in standard academic journals, authored 11 books, supervised a number of doctoral theses, was examiner for more than twenty Ph.D. theses, and has wide consultancy experience both in India and abroad, essentially in the African continent. This includes holding the position of Primary Researcher, Principal Consultant etc. in a number of Research Projects sponsored and funded by Universities, Governments, and International Bodies like, USAID, IDRC, and AERC. His publications include a variety of themes revolving around Economic Theory, New Political Economy, Quantitative Economics, Development Economics, and Informal Sector Studies. His consultancy assignments in India, Nigeria, Sudan, Botswana, and the Republic of South Africa include Non-Directory Enterprises in Allahabad, India, Small Scale Enterprises in the Northern States of Nigeria, The Absolute Poverty Line in Sudan, The Small Scale Enterprises in Wad Medani, Sudan, Micro and Small Scale Enterprises in Botswana, The Place of Non-Formal Micro-Enterprises in Botswana, Resettlement of a Squatter Community in the Vryburg District of North West Province in the Republic of South Africa, Trade and Investment Development Programme for Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises: Support for NTSIKA in the Republic of South Africa, and Development of the Manufacturing Sector in the Republic of South Africa’s North West Province: An Approach Based on Firm Level Surveys. Professor Anand has also extensively participated in a number of conferences, offered many seminars, participated in a number of workshops, and delivered a variety of Refresher Lectures at different venues both in India and abroad. Dr. Anand was placed at the prestigious Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Shimla in the State Himachal Pradesh, India as a Fellow from 2001 to 2003, and had completed a theoretical and qualitative research project/monograph on the Employment Profile of Micro Enterprises in the State of Himachal Pradseh, India.