We have just celebrated World Population day and by now we have completely desensitized ourselves to the fact that India is the world’s second most populated country. Sometimes we also take pride in stating that. We have almost forgotten that we are the victims of overpopulation and we have all faced the challenges of being citizens of this enormously populated country. Similarly, we are also unaware of the huge number of people that stay on our minds. Our mind continuously keeps thinking about someone or the other. Are our minds also populated to an unhealthy extent?
How many people dwell in our minds every single day? Right from the moment, we wake up in the morning to the dreams that we see at night, all our thought revolve around people. Who are these people, may it be our parents, siblings, children, friends, teachers, relatives, neighbors, boss, colleagues, clients, customers and the list is endless. We care about each one’s feelings, needs, expectations, demands, opinions, and also comments. How many of them really matter to us? Very few. We think of everyone and try to meet the expectations of each one. Especially women have a higher tendency of trying to fulfill each person’s demands at cost of their own needs. I think that’s what we are taught since childhood.
“What will others think of me if I behave so?” is the question that is most thought of. Every person is going to have a comment and also a counter comment, no matter what you do. We undoubtedly have to be considerate about some people and their opinions [like family, friends, guides,s, etc.) because we require them for our survival. But if the number of people that we focus on goes beyond our capacity, we are actually exhausting the resources of our mind to function well. We are crowding our minds and all the energy is lost in hovering over unnecessary people. This limits our mind from performing important tasks such as comprehending situations, thinking rationally and logically, decision making, and most importantly our creativity. That is why most creative people in the world are least bothered about what other people say of them. There are innumerable examples such as M. F. Hussain, Ernest Hemmingway, Archimedes, Salvador Dali, Sigmund Freud, and many more that would not have created benchmarks in their fields if they spent their lives bothering about what people thought of them.
It is essential to de-populate our minds so we can focus more on ourselves and those who really are important to us. Our mind is a tremendous store of energy. Let it all concentrate on you and make you more efficient, creative, and productive. Let’s make the most of what we have. India’s population may be beyond our control but our mind is definitely under our control.
