Balancing Act: Juggling Multiple Roles and Responsibilities
Questioner: Sir, my question is, that since you have graced multiple responsibilities throughout your life, from being a Civil Services officer to being a teacher, graduating from IIT and IIM to being an animal rights activist, how do you zone yourself out from one responsibility to another?
Acharya Prashant: No, I don’t have to zone myself out. They are all related to each other, no? So, right now, I’m probably mentoring a few students, but in the process of mentoring I can also be an animal activist. In this particular interaction, there was no occasion or opportunity to speak on that, but it usually does happen, one speaks on that. But I did speak as a Vedanta scholar in the one odd hour we had.
So, the various things that I am doing are really so intermeshed; they are inseparable. I begin doing one, I find myself doing each one, and I thank life for this, that I don’t have to deal with things that are in different dimensions. I have to deal with different things, yes, but not with different dimensions.
One thing just seamlessly moves into the other, right? Because all those things are related. All of them are related because they are coming from the same centre. There is just one thing that I’m doing and that one thing is manifesting itself as five different things.
What is that one thing that I’m doing? I’m trying to bring freedom to you, right? And, in bringing freedom to you, those other five things are just thoughtlessly, effortlessly happening. It’s not the way we usually go through life. We live in the distinction between the personal and the professional, don’t we? And even in the professional field, if we are doing something part time, then it’s quite possible that our day job has nothing in common with our evening job.
That’s a miserable state to be in, no? Because that does not speak only of the difference between the two jobs, rather the lack of connectedness between you and either of the jobs. Had those two things, those two jobs, been related to you, then those two jobs would have been related to each other as well.
And what to say of the great gulf between the office work and the work or life at home! The moment you step into your home, you become another person altogether and, in popular wisdom, that’s quite appreciated. They say, “There has to be work-life balance; you have to be one person there, another person here; you have to totally forget the office the moment you step out of the office.”
All that to me is nothing short of hell. There is one life and there must be one centre and all that you do must emanate from the same centre.
Let’s take people who gave their lives to something really worthy. Think of, for example, a revolutionary, a freedom fighter. Let’s take the Indian freedom struggle for example. Is it possible that a freedom fighter would do his day job, which is, striving for the country’s freedom and then return to the home, to a wife totally anglicized and in love with Queen Victoria and planning to settle down in London? Is it possible? No, it’s not possible.
But that’s what our folk wisdom advocates. They say, “No, the day job is just to earn the money that you would spend in the evenings and at night. That’s the only relationship between these two.” No, not true!
You are at the centre of your life. Everything in your life must be related to you and, therefore, those things must be very seamlessly reconciling with each other. If there are things in your life, things, objects, thoughts, people who cannot sit with each other, who cannot reconcile to each other, then life becomes a problem, no? Your boss wants one thing, your wife wants another thing and you can deny neither your boss nor your wife. So, there is a great inner strife, bit of Limerick Great!
Are you getting it?
Have one centre and let that one centre express itself in innumerable ways. Now, you are free to be whatever is possible, without worrying what would happen to the other aspects of your life, “Oh! If I devote too much time to my hobby, what happens to my girlfriend, because she’s the greatest demand on my time?”
There’s a great problem here. If you love badminton, it would be great to have a badminton player as your girlfriend, maybe. I’m not really prescribing something. I’m just presenting a scenario. At least, have someone who does not hate badminton. On one hand, you are in love with badminton, on the other hand you are in love with someone who hates badminton! How will you live? Won’t it be wonderful to date on the court? So, you are shuttling! Somebody would ask, “Were you dating or were shuttling?”
So, the freedom fighters we were talking of. We have examples., and we have examples from Bengal where there were couples as freedom fighters. Now, there is no mismatch, no conflict.
For any of that to happen, first of all, there must be a strong centre in life, a strong centre of wisdom, something that you are settled on, something that you can give your life to. And if you have that one primary love in your life, everything else gets peacefully settled around it. Then, you don’t have to worry about this and that.
Questioner: Yes, Sir. Thank you very much.
Acharya Prashant: Alright.
