3 Dominant Paradigms
As a part of a particular activity, I was reflecting upon my dominant paradigms and these are the three I could relate to.
Having a full time job:
So much has been talked about having and leaving a full time job. Its definitely a dominant paradigm for me, so many times I have thought that am I doing a right thing by having a full time job? So many times have I been told that “Hey, if you want to do something of your own, you can’t do it with your job” but time and again I have never stopped doing things because of my full time job. I think having a full time job and finding time for all the things ‘I need to do’ is helping me a lot, it is something that has made a me learn so many things.
Primarily the fact also remains that, I love the job that I do. I get up and look up to the day of my office work and then there are also the things that I love besides my job, for e.g This circle that I’m a part of, MBL retreats and volunteering, Karma meals. I feel having a job has been a space holder for me rather than taking my space away. I have financial responsibilities towards my family, almost 70% of my salary goes in taking care of those things and if I won’t have a job, every month I will struggle in my head to make ends meet and I know for a fact that my family will suffer too. Having a full time job hence gives me that freedom and holds space for me so that I explore myself deeply through this experience.
Rituals at home :
If someone asks my parents about my take on Rituals and Religious festival celebration, you will easily find my dad getting uncomfortable about it, this was a thing at-least a year ago. Rituals are followed religiously at my home. A typical Vaishnav-Gujarati house where most of the things are still done by the books, especially the festivals and I used to be very rebellious. Until, the last Diwali, I questioned most of the things with ‘Why’s’ and I could see my parents getting uncomfortable with my questions. For the last 4 Diwali’s I know, I was made to sit and do all the pooja’s and rituals and I used to question everything. My dad sometimes used to get very upset and I always thought I was right in asking them these questions. This Diwali however, I did something different, I thought let me submit myself completely to the process, not for the rituals or punya but for my family, I did exactly as they said with 100% dedication and I saw big shift around me. Unlike every Diwali, my family was really really happy. And I wondered, how I missed all this over the years. So the underlying value for me was submitting myself for the greater happiness.
Understanding Money:
Another dominant paradigm for me, Understanding money has been for liberating for me. It definitely gets uncomfortable when the topic comes up. It is looked at like evil and probably the cause of all problems. I too believe that sometimes it the root for a lot of causes but over the period of time what I really understood was “The greed of money is root of evil, the need of money is not".
Understanding money has also helped me being grounded in the things I do.