SWITCH ON THE ‘AC’ TO HAVE A COOL AND JOYOUS HEART

I was a mere teenager then and my great grandmother told me something which I will never forget in my life. She looked at me and said, “Son, when I look at your smiling face, my heart fills with peace. Never ever stop smiling“. While going through tough times in my life for the last couple of years, I keep wondering about this fact and keep asking myself, “Does my face really look the same now which she saw at that time of my life?”

There’s a man who comes to our office to repair our computers. He always says, “Chiradeep Da, you are always so calm and composed even when you have so much tension on your head.” I don’t know what he saw on my face.

I believe when we are negative about everything around us, we lose to have a joyous heart and acquire a cranky heart, complaining heart, and a heart full of bitterness. I have been dealing with people who are so unable to take things positively or assume negatively about people – what they say, how they say and why they say. Two things I have learnt in my life about situations and people I face in my life. I have learned to ACCEPT the situations and CONSIDER the people I encounter. And believe it or not, I find my peace and joy remain intact within me. I agree that I am not so calm and positive about everything. But most of the time, I stay calm and joyous while the world around me is in a mess.

This journey was not an easy one. I literally had to train myself over 30 years to be skilled in switching on this ‘AC’, that is Accepting and Considering in any given situation or while dealing with any kind of person I come across. Sometimes, I have found my ‘AC’ fuming, smoke coming out of it and getting out of order but the good thing is, I am always very quick to get it repaired for just to be able to stay on track, holding onto my inner peace and joy. To stay joyful I keep practising it, cultivating it on a regular basis.

In my study of joy, I have also noticed that joy is more complex than a feeling or an emotion. It is something one can practice, cultivate, or make a habit.

Pamela Ebstyne King

This habit of mine made me good at interacting with people making them feel safe and comfortable with me. They receive comfort and consolation from me and I receive immense joy making them comfortable and consoled. While striving for more joy, I continued to interact with people, give them comfort and receive the joy in return. Whether it is on a chat window of Facebook or WhatsApp or Instagram or over the phone or in-person, the more I utilised my skills of listening and comforting the people, the more I felt at peace and joyous.

Now if you ask me how do I manage to comfort and console the people I interact then I would definitely have to mention that it is not restricted to listening to their heartaches only but I try to walk a mile or two extra alongside them.

How do I do that???

I try to write a poem for them, I post a small note for them, make a poster or video for them to make them feel special, happy and valued.

And I can’t explain the exuberant joy that I feel deep inside my heart when I see them happy, comforted and smiling, acknowledging my little something that I do for them.

I have been struggling in my life in every way. If I would have held onto all the struggles and sufferings I went through and still going through then I would have been the saddest person on earth. But I had a problem of staying grumpy sad and with a long face. I wanted to be smiling and joyful all the time, proclaiming God’s grace for me and letting the world know He is always good to me. I accepted every situation that God took me through and considered all kinds of people without judging them. Yeah, I kept switching on the ‘AC’ to keep myself cool and joyous. 🙂

Stay Blessed!