8/13/2019 To Enrich Your Life Dont Be Afraid of Unfamiliar Situations

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Nice article from Devdutt Patnaik, repeating NC's views on how to overcome obstacles..

This story comes from the Oriya Mahabharata by Balaram Das:

One day, Arjuna saw a strange creature in the forest, a creature he had never seen before. It seemed likea fusion of nine animals, its head was that of a rooster, its neck was that of a peacock, its back was a

bull's, it had a lion's waist and serpent's tail, and its four limbs were those of a human, a deer, a tiger andan elephant.

At first Arjuna thought that it was a monster. He raised his bow to kill it. But then he realized that simplybecause it was a stranger did not make it a monster. A creature that does not exist in human imaginationcan exist in the imagination of the cosmos. He lowered his bow and the creature raised its human limb, ahand, in blessing. The 'monster' was Krishna himself, checking how much patience Arjuna had forcreatures he did not recognize.

Often we come across situations that have no precedence, that do not make sense, that confound us.Our natural reaction is one of hostility. We want to shun it, or destroy it, and restore the familiar. Weconsider it a monster. But if we look at the monster with a different gaze: one with curiosity, seeking thefamiliar within the unfamiliar and a whole world of possibilities opens up.

Mark had lived all his life in New York City, a city that is designed as a grid. One can get from any point ofthe city to another by simply following intuition, logic or the road signs. There is no need to ask anyone fordirections to get to the destination.

So imagine his surprise when he landed in Mumbai, which is anything but a grid. In fact, in somestretches, he wonders where the road actually ends. He sees hawkers on pavements, pedestrians onroads. The flyover was not quite a flyover; it was home to a whole tribe of people who were a movingmarket of flowers and digital accessories.

This is chaos, he concluded. He wanted to run away back to New York.

But after two days of fear, he stopped and observed. He observed the macrocosmic chaos containedmicrocosmic order. He observed that people did get to work on time despite the traffic jams, with a little

adjustment. People of different socio-economic criteria were living in the same space.

Everyone seemed to have a mobile. He managed to get to his meetings but that involved asking fordirections from four different people. Deals were being struck, various languages were being spoken, fileswere being moved, money was being transferred, markets were abuzz and life was moving on. It was justdifferent.

Must every city be like New York? Must every city be like Mumbai? What is the ideal city? Mark realizedthat order takes many forms. And the absence of grids does not need to mean anarchy. The Navagunjarawas no monster, just an unfamiliar conglomeration of different familiar creatures. The problem lay in hisassumptions and expectations of how the world should be..

Here the question is not of developed vs developing or ordered vs disordered. The question is how to

take the unfamiliar things or situations when we come across them. Most of the time the only things wehate are the unfamiliar or uncertain things and never want to see them. However, life is never that wayand keeps them throwing at us time to time to give new experiences. When we are on a journey weshould not fear unfamiliar thing and instead expect, welcome and accept it. So better to be open tounfamiliar, embrace new way of life, places, things, relationships, knowing that we are entering intounfamiliar territory. Be ready to learn, be ready for a challenge, and be ready to meet someone that mightjust change our life forever. Make unfamiliar a wonderful learning experience rather than running awayfrom it. At first, it's unfamiliar but later it strikes root.

Don't be afraid of unfamiliar situations, paths or things as sometimes they're the ones that take you to thebest places to enrich your life. - Anonymous