Pleasures of life

For nearly 25 years I woke up with a miserable back and neck pain, and I knew, I was not alone, several of my friends were experiencing the same. About three years ago, a conscious decision was made to invest in comfort and got the Tempurpedic bed; thank God for it. Last week in Atlanta, my brother in law Rasheed mentioned about his back pain… and it dawned on me that I have completely forgotten about my own back/neck pain; it is gone for good.

Sometimes, solutions are out there if we seek it. Nothing beats good night’s sleep and it is worth investing in a good bed.

Way back in late sixties, Gandhi had possessed me, and I slept on the hard granite slab not the smoothed one, but the rough one that is laid out in verandas of houses in Bangalore. At that time, it meant simplicity to me. At one time, I slept on a bare wood bench that was about a foot wide and five feet long, I had gotten used to it.

There was a time I could not live without coffee in the morning and a good cup of tea in the afternoon. Well, when I worked in the home building industry, I opened new subdivisions and all we had there was a trailer – and nothing else around. I could not make my tea or coffee and it drove me nuts. Then I decided, I was not going to be a slave to the tea or coffee and simply freed me from that slavery.

A few years back I resumed the coffee and tea again, but not as a dependent but as a joy and drank it randomly and at times I have gone for weeks without it. I enjoy it when I see some good tea. Yes, the color of the tea is crucial in its joy giving ability, visibility plays a great role in the quality of tea. Yasmeen's father apparently said that if the food is not good looking, it would not entice his palette, he was so right, I have to tell that to John Shore, my friend who ate some funny looking food and he is a good discoverer. Yasmeen's friends Noreen, Alina and Amber had made some outstanding, good looking tea that I enjoyed very much, and indeed I am longing for it.

What is life? You set the goals and work your butt off to achieve them, then the benchmark is raised, and you go to work at it again. The whole life is about setting ourselves up and working for it.

My good buddy shares the story of his wife; some twenty years ago, when they came to the United States they slept on the floor for a few months. She set a goal of her life to have a bed and $500 in the bank, that is all she wanted. She accomplished that in a few months, and then she raised the benchmark to have a leather sofa.

Is contentment important or are we going to get caught in the game of wanting and working for it? Think about it, we dangle the carrot ourselves and chase it.

We have the choice how we receive the comforts of our life, contentment must be a critical factor in figuring the comforts with a room for ambition.

Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker, writer and an activist of Pluralism, Justice, Islam, India and Civil Societies. He is a conflict mitigater and a goodwill nurturer offering pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. http://www.mikeghouse.net/