" How to be "

‘How to be”

Gayle Foreman wrote this on a website. She is an award winning internationally best selling author. She asked this question in reference to Shakespeare. What if, she says, Hamlet was asking the wrong question? The idea is not just to ‘Be’ but how to be. Her statement intrigued me. Yes, the question is indeed ‘How’ to be.

We are born and we go through our life as if in dream. We go to school, fall in love, raise a family, travel and die. Our children remember us for some time and then they also get busy living their life. But is that it? How can a human life just end like this?

How many of us actually ‘live’? And by that I mean live a meaningful, happy and purposeful life where we get our fulfillment and we help others. We can all the m money we want, every luxury and we may still feel miserable. Celebrities often suffer from depression though they have the fame and money. Why?

It is how we live. Who we are inside? Are we at peace with ourselves or are we trying to fool ourselves the way we fool others by being seemingly happy? Do we accept ourselves as we are with all our fragilities or we do we have problems acknowledging our negative emotions?

If we are at peace, our behaviour towards others will be more compassionate, more tolerant and accepting. But if we are struggling within, our attitude towards this world will be contemptuous. People with self-acceptance exude calm and peace.

So do I mean that we just accept our destiny and not have any goals or work towards improvement? Not at all. On the contrary, if we accept ourselves as we are, we will be able to improve much more because we would know what to improve. If we know the root cause, the prognosis is always better. But we try to have Band-Aid solutions to most problems.

Remember the idea is not just ‘to be’ but how to be so we leave a legacy of a life lived with meaning, compassion and happiness. The posterity should see us a beacon of hope and joy.

So be it!!!