Worry-ism

Apologies, it has been a long time since I write my last entry. Although it is slightly more than a week since I wrote my last entry, I am sure most readers would think I am slow, in my own standard.

Anyway, just want to share with you guys a story I read in the Sunday's Chinese Newspaper. There are two morals to this story. As for what are the morals of the story, I shall let the readers do a bit of contemplation. Again, this is a translated story so pardon the English Language. :) Here goes:

There once was a monk that ask his teacher a question:"What is spiritual practice?" His teacher replied:"Eat when it is time to eat. Sleep when it is time to sleep." Scratching his head, the monk ask his teacher again, "I eat when I am hungry, I sleep when I am sleepy, but how come I do not feel like I am in spiritual practice?" The teacher replied, "When people are having their meals, they usually do not concentrate on their meals, their thoughts will be all over the place, thinking about many things. When people are sleeping, they would think or even dream of things in their life. Thus when it is time to eat, they are not eating properly. When it is time to sleep, they never sleep well." The sentence "Eat when it is time to eat. Sleep when it is time to sleep." may sound simple enough to follow but it hits the nail at our worrisome nature. A lot of people when they are working, thinks of knocking off. When they have knock off, they things about the work they have left behind in the office. Ain't it true?

This is a story of a female friend of mine.

Her husband and her strike out together, setting up their own business. During work, she is always worrying about the kids that are studying at the kindergarten. So she would repeatedly make phone calls to the kindergarten to make enquiries her kids, to the point that the kindergarten staff knows her and gave her a nickname. She knows about this but she could not help it. But after fetching her kids back from kindergarten, after work, she has no patience in teaching them. She would raise her voice and scold them, to the point that her kids, who are already obedient, cries. And she often lamented about the affairs in the business with her husband, causing the atmosphere in the family to be quite 'heavy'.

This happen until to a point where her husband feel the need to communicate with her, asking her if she is stressed out and does she needed a rest. Coincidentally, her university friends is organizing a tour to the US, so her family encourage her to go for the trip to relax.

But the trip did not help her to relax. She still make repeated phone calls home to check out her family and business, even during the night time as well. (Probably due to time zone difference). Her body was with the tour group but her heart was still with the family. With that, she could not stand it anymore and came back home after two weeks on the road.

When she reached home, she exclaimed, "I miss you guys!" and ran to give her family a hug. The next day, after she came back, she went back to the normal routine of calling the kindergarten up, complaining to her husband when no one at the kindergarten answered her phone call. It was beyond the tolerance level of her husband, he scolded her,"Why worry so much? Does your worry benefit the kids? Do you know that the days when you are not around, we are so happy?"

His roar awaken her. She finally realise that being worried caused a lot of suffering for her family. She also realised that her worrisome nature has caused herself to be a mess, and burdened her family, causing her negative emotions to rub off on her family.

She finally realise she has to let go. The letting go principle is very important in work and relationships.

--The End--

Hope you guys like the story and derive something meaningful in it. I know I did. Cheers!