The lesser known abundance!

At the time of writing this, Sri Lanka is under a lockdown along with many other countries who are either under a complete lockdown or have imposed strict travel restrictions. All due to one virus which has changed how this world spins in matter of few weeks. COVID-19. The WHO has declared that it is a pandemic. In the year 1918 the world has gone through a similar pandemic which was known as the Spanish flu ended up taking 50 million lives! Must have felt like an apocalypse. It has passed! so will this Corona virus. Until then we just need to be patient and resort to simple ways of life.

In life coaching we constantly talk about ‘breaking patterns’. In brief, pattern break is when you are working towards a life goal, you put energy towards it and inevitably form new habits and behaviours along the time. A skilled life coach can see through this and break some of the patterns that are subtle yet detrimental to your growth. By doing so, the client propels in to his / her goal so much faster and more efficiently. As we all know, we are all on the clock!

So once in a few decades / century or otherwise once or twice in a life time the nature creates a major pattern break. This is how I see it although it is quite concerning at the time of this article, that we don’t even have a cure for this virus as yet. But look again, the entire world has been moving at such an intolerable speed towards developing our material life with very less credit towards our gifts.

Have you realised the lesser ( or perhaps never) known luxuries that you have surrounded yourself with. The public roads that you access, the tarmac that you drive your vehicle on are a super luxury! It is closed and you can’t access it. What if you had to walk everywhere instead of ordering a taxi with touch of a button . If you have been complaining that it was delayed for 5 mins, that the cinema had a queue to collect your ticket and the supermarket did not have that specific brand of bread you needed, now is the golden time to realise what an amazing luxury it is to have these facilities built for us because we can’t access any of it now. How do you feel looking back at your life?

The bank, the ATM, the supermarket, gas station, fruit shop down the road, all are your luxuries built to serve you. Imagine that you had to collect the fruits you want to eat from the farms or travel or walk with buckets to collect water for day to day use! All these are provided within easy reach and it is a luxury that you are born with. Not long ago but under a century if you were born in the 1920’s you will not have these facilities that I’ve just mentioned.

Now to the technology, I’ll just mention one – what if you must write letters on a paper and post in order to communicate with your loved ones, friends and family and await for their reply back on the post, instead of What’s app where you get to know that instantly?

Now is the time to change your perspective of ‘abundance’ .

In the recent past, the word abundance has different connotations to it. Abundance now may means if you have a luxury car, travel around the world, dine in fancy restaurants and buy expensive watches. These are what in my view you do to experience life when you can afford more. But it does not define abundance, as you already are born with a large vault of abundance where the chances are that if you are reading this on a smart phone, a tablet or a computer you can call yourself super rich!

I would like to use this lockdown to develop two major behavioural changes.

• Stop complaining altogether.

( Yes, 100%) You will realise how hardwired you have made yourself to complain and how shockingly frequent given a day that you do complain.

• Have a smile on your face when you commute, when you access public properties.

( Have you seen how grim people look while they await to be served in an air-conditioned shopping mall where you have just filled your cart with groceries from around the world?)

Develop these super human habits and you will liberate yourself! yes you may fail often and it is fine. This is novel to our behaviour! Attempt should be perseverance not consistency or you will be disappointed.

Toyoda the founder of Toyota automobile said ” I created Toyota car seeing how tired people look when they commute. So they can drive with a smile on their face”

Are we now?

Let’s reset this, shall we?

Stay put, stay safe and give thanks to everything in your life. Compile your list, you might very well be compiling it weeks to come, as it is a long list.