Living like a joyful dolphin in a POD

We live the life of ‘water water everywhere but not a drop to drink’.

We are born with 80 to 90 years of time in this life, but we are always ‘BUSY’ and complain of not having time. There is abundance of space around us and we still constrain ourselves to small houses, crowded cities and complain of lack of space. We are born with the abundance of nature, but always complain of inadequacy of resources. Drinking water crisis, despite 72% of earth being water; energy crisis despite getting a whole year’s need of power in 1 hr of sunshine; Traffic jams everywhere while it’s a common sight of each person lugging his own SUV.

Technology holds the answer to a significant part of the above conundrum. Faster and cheaper travel might make it irrelevant how far you stay from the city centre. Solar energy that mimics chlorophyll would solve world’s energy needs. Pervasive Uberization enables us to move from ownership models to usage models.

But the other more significant part of the solution lies in a complete flip of our mindset – to acquire an ‘abundance mentality’. This thinking dispels petty thinking and hoarding of resources. It emphasises usage and enjoyment in the present rather than possession and ownership for posterity.

If you ask the question of who is more hungry – an animal or a human being, we’d tend to think that it’s an animal. But the truth is it’s the human who is more hungry. Because animal hunts only for its next meal, but man is not content even after he has hunted or gathered for him, his children and a few generations after. This overgathering has made him drift away from the fundamental sources of happiness and the art of living happy like a POD of dolphins.

POD: be ‘Playful’; connect with ‘Others’ & give urself ‘Downtime’

Playfulness, connecting with others, being a social entity and giving yourself the rest and relaxation – Downtime, that rejuvenates one for more playfulness and more connected living. This is where I think the humans have lost the plot and are sunken in misery and living in an endless rut of hamster in a wheel existence, Instead of living like how he is destined – with a joyful sense of abundance. When we grew up, somewhere along the way, we forgot our childhood gift of playfulness.

Abundance of time, space, resources and yet a feeling of shortage of everything. This is because of our desire to possess rather than use. Our desire to acquire rather than utilise. Our desire to hoard rather than enjoy. Our desire to save rather than savour. Our desire to change our environment rather than adapt to it.

Adaptability is the only life skill we need to live life happy like a POD of dolphins. If joy and happiness are a given, life’s purpose and meaning etc, will follow automatically. They don’t need to be obsessed over.

The above article inspired by this Ted Talk by Dr. Shimi Kang.