Career and Anxiety || Acharya Prashant, at IIT-Bombay (2022)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: 17.10.2022, IIT-Bombay, Mumbai   Context: ~ What is Anxiety? ~ How to deal with anxiety? ~ How to decide which field to choose? ~  What is the importance of experimenting? ~ When should I settle down?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~  #acharyaprashant #anxiety #choices #decision #studentslife #jobs #work #iitbombay

Transcript

00:00So, I have this one question for you, how do you deal with anxiety concerns in your

00:09life?

00:10So, when you have to make some decision and maybe you are faced with some anxiety concerns,

00:17how do you tackle those?

00:18So, where is the time to devote to anxiety, where is the space to be anxious?

00:30If you are anxious about something, that thing is obviously important to you, else you wouldn't

00:36be anxious and if that thing is important, work, work for that thing, the thing is not

00:43only important but also stands incomplete, that's the reason you are anxious, correct?

00:50If it stands incomplete, work, bring it to completion.

00:55Somebody said action is the antidote to despair, action, don't just sit and brood, work and

01:03life will become intolerable.

01:07If you are not a worker, action is the central message of Bhagavad Gita, Arjun, no time to

01:17sit and weep, you have to do what is needed to be done.

01:23Think about a fellow who is being exhorted to kill his brothers, his relatives, the loved

01:38and fabled patriarch and so many other acquaintances, Arjun probably knows more than half of the

01:52corps of warriors standing that side and he is being told to fight.

02:01If he begins to think, there will be no end to thought.

02:10There must be a point when you start seeing the uselessness of further thought, ok I have

02:19already thought enough, now I am going around in circles and that's anxiety, what if this

02:25happens, what if that happens, A to B, B to C, C to A, A to B, B to C, C to A, it has

02:32become iterative, no point remaining within the loop anymore.

02:35So what do I do now?

02:40I act and action will provide me with something beyond my limited circle of thought.

02:52Then first of all there will be limited space to think, secondly even if I think the thought

02:56will have some freshness because the thought is now getting fed from action.

03:07Never tell yourself that you will start acting only when you are assured by way of thought

03:13of the right action.

03:17Thought by itself never comes to a conclusion.

03:21The nature of thought is self-serving, thought wants to roll on, thought wants to continue

03:32and thought can continue only if the problem that the thought is addressing continues.

03:38So it is in the interest of thought to let problems continue, which means you cannot

03:43end your problems by thinking about them.

03:49You have to act, that does not mean that you become thoughtless or mindless and you keep

03:56thinking aside, that simply means that you realize the limits of thought and if you can

04:01realize the limits of thought, your anxiety too will have limits.

04:07Not that anxiety will reduce to zero, but it will have limits.

04:13The limits of thought will become the limits of anxiety, act.

04:18So, if we have interest in more than one field and how should we choose one among them?

04:29Let's say if we think about it, I will do this, but then maybe after some time the mind

04:36diverts and feels like, okay, another thing I want to work on, then it keeps on hoping

04:45between them.

04:46So how to choose one between them, as well as should our choices be based on which field

04:54we can have more career opportunities or should it be based on what interests us more?

05:02If it's as simple as choosing between two shirts you seem to equally like, how do you

05:13make your choice?

05:14One of them has to be picked up.

05:16You go and put them on, right?

05:18That's why you have those fitting rooms.

05:21Try, wear each of them in turns and see which one fits you more.

05:31Thought cannot take you beyond a point in the process of decision making.

05:39After that point, you have to experiment.

05:43If you just keep thinking whether you should go for electrical or mechanical, this or that,

05:50and there are any number of choices that involve equally lucrative options, then you'll

05:58just keep thinking.

06:00Thought can operate only within the boundaries of what you already know.

06:07The data that you already have becomes the foundation of thought.

06:13So you need to go out and obtain more data for yourself.

06:19Just sitting and brooding will make you run in circles.

06:24It will not bring you to a conclusion out of the circle.

06:29If two things are there and that would be the predicament many here are facing, how

06:35to make choices, experiment, go close to your choices, touch them, feel them, live them

06:43for a while.

06:46Don't commit yourself to anything too quickly.

06:50Remain in the experimentation phase for as long as possible.

06:55Go close, very close, but only as close that would not make the closeness irreversible.

07:06Go close to something just as a spring is pulled towards something.

07:12The spring, if you pull it, would go in the direction of the pull, but would always retain

07:22the option to revert.

07:27It would ensure that reversibility remains.

07:33That's the way you should try out your options in life.

07:37This is your center, this is your center.

07:40From this center, you proceed towards all the choices that appeal to you.

07:48But make sure that the return journey is not blocked.

07:56That when you cross the bridge, the bridge is not burnt.

08:04It's obviously an uncomfortable feeling to be oscillating between options.

08:19But what's far worse is committing yourself to an unworthy option.

08:28Any kind of commitment is dangerous and irreversible commitments are life-threatening.

08:34Are you getting it?

08:38That's the reason the knowers have advised everybody, especially young people, to be

08:45first of all committed to that one thing that is called as freedom or truth or liberation

08:52or realization.

08:56They say that should be the thing you should be first and foremost commit yourself to.

09:03Commit yourself to the truth and all else will fall in place on its own.

09:14All else is dispensable with the position that only the pure truth means everything

09:24to me.

09:25Go out boldly into the world, dabble with everything, play, experiment, live with it

09:36for a while and you will find that you are not getting encaged.

09:46Be very very careful with your choices.

09:49In the moment of making your choices, remember to be free, remember to have fun.

10:04You are not obliged to quickly settle down.

10:09You are free to keep experimenting for a long while.

10:16There is no cut-off date.

10:23I am answering you and I am answering something beyond your question.

10:33Are you connecting with the answer?

10:37Don't be in a hurry, don't be in a hurry.

10:44You saw a friend asked about the choice of department at the time of counselling.

10:56And now he knows he cannot change his branch even if he wants to.

11:00And there are umpteen things in life that will become permanent fixtures that will stick

11:12so badly to you, you will just keep regretting.

11:19Your freedom is foremost.

11:24Freedom is foremost, full stop.

11:28And Vedanta exists to take us to the right meaning of freedom.

11:34Are you getting it?

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