Every day we are faced with situations and consequences of earlier actions and the circumstances around us. As part of our mental make-up, we have trained ourselves to take things in our stride and manage the result. However, very often we find ourselves overwhelmed. It is the thought of the result of the result that disturbs us and shatters our inner peace.

The initial result is a known fact. No matter how difficult, it is in the realm of the known. If we are not alert, the mind quickly moves into the unknown and starts building its own stories of what the result could lead to. Our inner peace gets broken with the fears and anxiety of the possible ‘result of the result’.

When a child breaks something, her fear is not the physical item that is broken. She is fearful whether this would lead to her parents getting upset, punishing her and maybe not buying her things in future. Our minds are no different. When we have a financial or a relationship setback, at one level our mind can see what is broken, and if it were poised, it would realise that there may be ways to fix things over a period of time. However, the problem is the mind quickly gets anxious about whether it will lead to a loss of reputation, what will people say, will some other relationships get affected, will I be able to manage a different lifestyle, what will happen if a sudden need comes up, or am I capable of fixing things.

Some of the concerns may come true, in all probability most of them won’t. It doesn’t matter because we have no control over that. What we can do, we must. What ‘may’ happen is fanciful thinking depriving us of our vital ability to do our best.

Some situations of life may pull us down temporarily. We need to manage that. Our undoing is not being able to manage the mind when it runs away from attending to the result, to worrying about the ‘result of the result’.

(Picture – Whistler, Canada)