Managing mind with GPS

In this modern era of technology, we have brilliant devices to help us with our daily routine things. My smartphone tells me when it is time to leave for work and how much more or less time the commute will take that day. It also tells me when there is an event happening near me which I was invited to. It helps me stay connected to friends and family. It keeps reminding when is a friend's birthday or when the stock market crashes or when a major business news happens. One such another technology is GPS - Global Positioning System. Today, there are so many businesses running on top of it. Taxi services, online delivery, logistics and what not. I am sure the traveling feet like me can't imagine long drives without GPS. But the GPS I am going to talk about today is a little different one. I can probably call it "Guidance from Perceptions & Sensations". Do you really think there is some technology which can help us manage our minds? 

Let me tell you a short story.

Over the last extended weekend, we drove to Hampi for a getaway. Before starting from home, we started our GPS. It showed us the way and the time to the destination was 7 hours 36 minutes. We started chatting while enjoying our drive and somehow missed a left turn advised by the Google Assistant. But as you all know, our GPS is very intelligent. It quickly re-routed and showed us another way, which unfortunately led us to dirt roads and left us with nobody around. We landed in an unknown street in an unknown village. We lost mobile and data network. It seemed like there was no tower in that lonely deserted place. Suddenly, a streak of unfamiliarity and non-belongingness pinched us. Luckily, a very small habitat came. We could see a couple of people. But they were staring at us as if we have come from Mars. I remembered the uncertainty and insecure feeling deep in my heart and the grumbling feeling in my stomach when last I entered the interview room for a job I wanted like anything and finally couldn't get it. Well did anybody notice a similarity? An unknown road or an unknown result led to the same feeling inside me.

 
Thankfully, we had GPS with us on our phone. Thus, after a little struggle, we found our way to the highway. And so did a little knowledge in the second situation. It helped me sail through the turmoil of fear and uncertainty that time. 

Emotions are like roads. GPS is the knowledge. With the right knowledge, we can use the right emotion to take the right action. Just like a good GPS guides us to take the right road at the right time. A little knowledge of how to channelize our emotional energy in a constructive way can bring us on right track. For example, when anger takes over us, if we clean the house or wash utensils, our energy can be utilized in an efficient constructive way. We can take out the hardest stains on clothes or elsewhere when we are puffed with anger. Likewise, when sadness takes over us, we should go out and ask people how can we help them. And, do some service to others. This will elevate our spirit immediately and bring smiles to someone else as well. It is like when we take a wrong exit, GPS can help us get back to the highway. 

In the meantime in my story, our GPS has led us to the highway and soon we were enjoying the fields, the sunflower farms, the beautiful mountains and the coconut groves. If we pay close attention to our lives, we will find this is how most of our emotions are like, when we are happily sleeping, eating, chatting, working and enjoying. But somehow we remember only the exciting times in our life when it is scary, sorrowful, thrilling or something like that. To quote an example from my story, when friends asked me how was the drive, to my surprise, I ended up telling we lost our way and ended up in a weird place! Later, I felt all this took less than an hour out of  7.5*2 hours on the road, which is not even 7% of the total time on the road. This is exactly how we behave in our normal lives as well. But the knowledge of how our mind works can do wonders. This is the boat of knowledge, which everybody must have access to, especially when it is the storm times!