What Floats Your Boat?

You sit in a boat. It is filled with a bunch of positive items that are undeniably yours - happy memories, wondrous moments, encouraging words from teachers and mentors, appreciation from people around you, quiet, firm, and objective support of your family and friends, and the unconditional love of your child. These keep your boat buoyant. 

There is a hydrofoil attached to your boat. It is made up of numerous sources of inspiration, accomplishments, aspirations, creative achievements, learnings, structured thought, and crystal clear perspective. On certain days, the hydrofoil activates and your boat rises above water, speedily headed towards a bright horizon. 

You also have a container of fresh water, which has hope, optimism, and determination.

Your boat sits in the ocean. The ocean is made of negative elements – your fears, insecurities, self-doubts, stresses of daily life, betrayal by people you trusted whole-heartedly, unhappy memories, moments you would never want to recall, callous words spoken by close ones, expressions of disapproval from people you look up to, pain caused by the ones you loved because they did not return the kindness you extended them, the hurt you caused your loved ones due to your own insensitive actions, and the shock of dealing with bad outcomes resulting from your good intent. But that’s the ocean. You are in your boat, relaxed and comfortable, and you have fresh water. What’s to worry?

Well, there is a hole in your boat. Every day some water seeps into your boat. You spot it, scoop it up, and throw it out. And everything is fine again. You do this on a daily basis. If you don’t, there’s more water to clear out than you would like. Plus it’s salty water – you cannot drink it. Unfortunately, some people mistake that for fresh water, get used to drinking it, and forget the taste of fresh water. 

Occasionally the sun goes behind clouds, and your boat gets hit with storms. The storm scatters your positive items, and it requires some effort gathering them and getting back to your boat. Sometimes the storm is severe, and the boat flips over. But you have the strength to flip it over and the foresight to perform some repairs and expansions so that the boat is more stable go forward.

In your journey, you notice many overturned boats, with people in the process of flipping them over. You also see people who are underwater - some in their boats, others absent their boats. The ones with boats are occasionally able to get back to their boat and make it buoyant again. Some of the ones without boats appear to enjoy being underwater and show no interest in searching for their vessel; some occasionally climb onto your boat and start throwing your positive items out, resulting in your sinking boat and their unavoidable departure; and some appear to be in agony yet weighed down heavily by an invisible force that prevents them from responding to offered assistance, let alone trying to reach for the surface.

And then there are boats that are not even touching water. They are most rare, and something to aspire to.

Negativity appears to be hardwired in the human psyche – it is the emotional equivalent of entropy. Happiness requires conscious effort and housekeeping on a very regular basis, but is totally worth it.

--------------------------------------------------------

Positivity is an effort, negativity a breeze

Integrity a burden, disingenuousness a tease

No matter how hard life appears to squeeze

The engine of happiness must never ever seize

--------------------------------------------------------

So what floats your boat?

Piece of Mind

You have a house. It’s neither too big, nor too small. It sees mild summers and bitter winters. But you like your house. It is comfortable, it is cozy, and it is exactly what you need. However, you cannot ignore the feeling that something is lacking. So you start exploring that feeling to understand what is lacking.

You decide you need a nicer house in a nicer location. One day, you chance upon a brochure advertising a beach house in Florida. It appears perfect. It is a little beyond your means, but you are enamored. You must have that house. You go to Florida, take one look at the house and the location, and decide it is what you need. It looks very nice, appears to have sturdy construction, and not one thing seems out of place. Matter of fact, it is too perfect, if there could be such a thing. And it is priced low considering how perfect it is. You are too fascinated by it to notice these points – they are on the periphery of your consciousness, and are flicked away with effortless ease.

You buy the house and move in. For a little while, everything is great. Then one day all hell breaks loose. A hurricane hits the house. It blows away the roof, and tears down the walls. You sit on the wet sofa, wondering what just happened. But your sheer optimism forces you to ignore the obvious and focus on rebuilding the house. You put in your blood, sweat, and tears, and rebuild the house. There are a few tiles missing in the roof, but that’s fine. The location is great, after all.

For a little while, things are fine. Thanks to a few missing tiles in the roof, the floor gets a little wet when it rains.  But you clean it up and move on. Then the hurricane hits again. This time it wipes out the whole house. You are left wondering about your decision for the first time since you moved into the house. But you are not ready to give up. After all, the location is great! So you build the house again. There is a gaping hole left in the roof this time. You try to get the hole repaired, but that section of the roof is weak. The room gets flooded whenever it rains, and the floor takes a while to dry up.

Then the hurricane starts hitting the house twice a week. You are shell-shocked and left bewildered. You build and rebuild, but the foundation gets weaker after every hurricane, and the house is lacking a few essential components every time it comes back up. You are exhausted, but are stubbornly focused on rebuilding because after all, the location is great. When it rains, there is heavy water-logging. The floor never dries up. You wade from one room to the other.

Then one day a Category 5 hurricane hits the house. Not only does it blow away the house completely, it wipes out the foundation too. You move back to your original house, but are still left longing for your beach house. But now you are extremely cautious, and finally decide to do some exploring. While you are in Florida, you are hit by the hurricane again. Then you are confronted by the obvious – the location is great, but the weather is extremely unpredictable and highly destructive. Then you realize that it is not the weather which is the issue, it is the climate! You were too busy focused on your beyond-perfect beach house and awesome location to think about anything else.

Not only are you back to liking your original house, you also realize that you never really lacked anything. It is exactly what you always needed. What value is location if the house itself cannot stay up?

Peace of mind does not require happiness in addition, it IS happiness. 

Shamelessly borrowing this concept from Edgar Allan Poe: Happiness without peace of mind is simply happiness. Without peace of mind or the recognition that you have peace of mind, color becomes pallor, man becomes carcass, and home becomes catacomb...