Compare yourself only with respect to the real goal || IIT Kharagpur (2022)

Questioner (Q): How should I control my emotions so that they don’t become too extreme? For example, every time I achieve my goal I feel very happy, but when I fail I curse myself and start crying. So, how can I behave in a neutral way?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Remember the real goal. Whatsoever you have achieved is too little in front of the real goal, so there is no need to be too happy. And irrespective of how little you have achieved, there is all the potential to achieve the real goal, so there is no need to be too sad.

You forget the real thing, and you start taking small things as big. So, when you get those small things in your palm, you feel as if the entire world is there on your palm. It is nothing! It is a globe, not the world—worth very little. The celebrations are misplaced. Equally, irrespective of whether the little thing is a globe or a kid’s little plastic ball, the fact is that you are born to achieve the real goal. That is the purpose of your birth; otherwise you wouldn’t have been born. So, there is no need for any gloom or despondency.

Misplaced celebration is just as bad as depression. Misplaced celebration is foolish happiness. And depression—this might sound insensitive to some but I will proceed—is just foolish sadness.

You are never in too good a position as long as you are alive. Because you are alive, so the work is still incomplete. So, you can never be in so good a position that you start thinking that the work is complete, and you start partying and put a full stop to the journey. Equally, irrespective of how bad your condition is, you still have a chance—so you can party. So, what am I saying with respect to partying? I am saying, when there is a lot of temptation to party, remember it is not the time to party; and when you feel like sulking in your loneliness and weeping on the pillow, that exactly is the time to party.