How little presence of mind can make your life happier

One should always keep their switch ‘ON’, I’m not saying to keep your electrical switches ‘ON’ but to keep your mental and physical switches in ‘ON’ state or better to say in a running state. Do not switch it ‘OFF’, even when you are tired or when somebody or your boss scolds you. When you make your switch ‘OFF’, it is not only your switch but un-intentionally you are making many switches OFF. Always put a smile on your face even when you are in trouble. If you show sadness, others will hesitate to talk to you as they might think you are not in a good mood, and will ask you ‘Is anything wrong with you?’ Now, you may become even more sad and even the other person. So, you are making many switches OFF indirectly.

Take an example, first a funny one:

Once, Sukhi Ram was walking on a road and suddenly a bird shits over his head. Sukhi Ram smiled and took out his handkerchief and cleans his head. Dukhi Ram was watching all this and asked Sukhi Ram, why are you smiling when that bird shits on your head, you should get irritated. Sukhi Ram told, I thanked God for not making buffaloes fly.

So, there could be lots of persons like Dukhi Ram who wants to spoil your mood but you have to keep your head calm and keep it in ‘ON’ state.

When you had a bad day or quite a tiring day at work, do not keep your switch OFF while going to home. As when you will enter your home, your family members can easily read your face and will also feel that you are tired and may not talk much and you will feel more exhausted and tired. But, if your switch is ON, everyone would talk to you and will tell the incidents happened that day, kids may tell you some funny things, and this will help you to forget all bad incidents and you will feel afresh. Though, it is a bit difficult to always be in ON state but if you will start practicing it, you may not find it very difficult.

Sometimes, unknowingly, we make other person's switches OFF, by asking un-necessary questions or by telling something that the other person might not be interested in. Suppose, somebody bought a new car, and you ask about the mileage, power and some other stuff, till this it is all fine but if you will start comparing with some other car, and saying that you know the car our neighbor bought is really good and better than this; it is having that much mileage, pick-up is good, so you are making other person's switch OFF. So, one should avoid all this and try to make people feel happy.

When you enter your office in the morning, always say ‘Good Morning’ or ‘Hello’ to your colleagues with a smile. It starts your day with a positive note. And when somebody asks you how are the things going on, do not say “yah, just going on” (bas chal raha hai OR kat rahi hai), instead say “yah, everything is fine and good”. This will make you feel good.

Let us have another example from Indian mythological story ‘Mahabharata’ (hope everyone has seen it and remembers).

When Duryodhana fell into the pond of water, Draupadi from the top watched him, and laughed at him and said “andhe ka putra andha” (Son of Blind is Blind). This made Duryodhana switch/mood OFF and was the major cause of great Mahabharata. If Draupadi’s switch would have been ON, she would not have said all that.

So, always make your switch 'ON' and try to avoid these kinds of situations or Mahabharatas.

If you remember any situation, where your presence of mind helped you or could have helped tackle some major problem easily, do post it in comments section for others to read and get inspired from you.