The Escapist Tendencies of the Mind

Just imagine this. Adam is a hardworking employee of a reputed organization and he has put in years of hard work. He has received numerous salary hikes and promotions. He wakes up one morning and lets his idle mind run amok. He thinks about the great times he had when he was in college . He remembers the green pastures of his village. His mind fills with longing for returning to the halcyon days of his village life. He puts in his papers and resigns. He later regrets his impulsive decision.

In another city John regularly attends school. He has got decent grades and has been performing fairly decently in his academics. In the quite darkness of the night he contemplates on his life thus far. He just finds it boring to monotonously go through the everyday rigors of life. He craves for something interesting and exciting. He complains about life and its madness. He remembers his childhood days when he used to be with his friends and used to have a blast. He thinks about those days of fun and laughter. Tears start rolling down his eyes and he decides to quit school and decides to find his friends and reunite with them. He is engulfed with the desire to recreate the joyous moments of his childhood. He quietly walks away from school. Within a few days he realizes what a stupid decision he had made.

Adam and John have just fallen prey to what I call the 'escapist tendencies of the mind'. Life is a series of small changes that eventually brings about a sea change. A small change multiplies itself over the years and we see a total transformation. Life is filled with challenges and struggles of everyday life. We keep pushing ourselves for years and there comes a time when our mind gets totally stressed. It tries to escape from the struggle. It throws up images of illusory happiness. If we fall prey to this illusion we take some impulsive decisions. The key lies in understanding the tricks of the mind and not falling prey to this illusion. Many people in the past have pursued this illusion and later regretted. How many times have we heard people say 'Life at home was so much better'. The mind has numerous ways to trick us.

It finds a million ways to escape the present. We go to school and start imagining the fun filled college life. We sit in class and we are already thinking of going home. We start watching TV at night and we are thinking about class the next day. The mind is constantly in escape mode. It does its best to escape the present. Some people manage to exercise great control and focus for years. Even if we let our guards down for a moment, the mind deceives us. Beware of the escapist tendencies of the mind. There are bound to be times when our mind would coerce us to escape to greener pastures. Just savor the illusory joy and let it pass. The so-called green pastures are not green after all. It is just a picture to deceive us. The solution lies in cutting down the retreat zones. The retreat zones are the comfort zones that the mind loves to escape to. As long as these comfort zones exist, the mind races towards it. So the key lies in cutting out all the retreat zones. Jump into Enemy Island and burn down your escape route. This will ensure that the mind has nowhere to go but to use all its faculties for achieving its purpose.