Liberated By Restraint

Who doesn’t like choices? I like options when I order a pizza. But does it enhance or mar my quality of selection? It depends on my knowledge of the given options and also the number of options I have. Suppose I have a thousand options, each infinitesimally closer to the other. To choose the right one is a serious mental exercise in order to get the pizza with precisely the right crisp, base, toppings and the fat percentage of the cheese I am selecting. It would probably burn more mental calories than what I would be consuming physically. 

Same thing happens when I am selecting the exact right Phone I want to buy. Too many choices hamper my ability to select the right one and start using, resulting in indefinite delay in buying a phone let alone the right one. Playing tennis also puts me in the same dilemma sometimes. Too much time for the next stroke inhibits my ability to select the right shot and I make errors more times, than when I do not. There was a time in my life when I learned how to lie. I could come up with so many options of lies to cover a truth. But too many choices for an answer obstructed my selection which could serve my purpose. The ability to lie had become a liability. When you have narrowed the one option, you have won. When you have too many, you have none.  

In my other article titled Enslaved By Freedom( http://asitgodbole.blogspot.com/2019/12/enslaved-by-freedom.html ) I have talked about how freedom is overrated and can be counterproductive if not used wisely.

The free will is the veil to protect the evil from your consciousness and conscience. You need to reveal the real you to you and refill it with self-determination time and time again. 

Sometimes when we restrict ourselves to the right discipline, we can do wonders. Let me share a few of my personal experiences. When I restricted myself to eating less, and eating right, I lost interest in consuming junk food after a while and I could taste something that is way more superior. The taste of good health. When I decimated my usage of social media and watching movies and random YouTube videos, I suddenly was blessed with a lot of time which I could use reading, writing, meditating and other areas of self-development. Previously whenever I had free time and no network, I used to get bored as hell. Now that I have stopped consuming digital junk, I almost never get bored and have no inclination to go that way. This is so counter intuitive yet true. I suddenly realized that there is a lot of potential in me yet to be realized. I can go on and on but I think I have made this point. 

Of course, the process is not easy and motivation can be a big factor to begin. Even though you know the benefits of the end-result, the quantum of effort and patience required can be overwhelming. Just like in a chemical reaction, the reactants must get the push of excitation energy to go to the transition state in order to become much more stable products. This requires a change in environment, belief in the process, powered by Will. Electrolysis of copper requires power too. But you will be purified at the cathode. Your laziness and other inhibitions will be deposited as Anode mud, and like di oxygen, thy soul shall be liberated. Only when you limit yourself, you become limitless. 

Enslaved by freedom, i got liberated in restraint,

Motion of Emotions is better when constrained

Blood doesn't flow without Arteries and Veins

Everywhere is nowhere,  mind needs the reins

Mind needs to change the wires in your brains

Hiring your body, admiring the lanes

Soon you will see the pleasure in the pain

Discipline thyself and you shall be unchained

I couldn't have written this verse without constraint

Look at at all my lines, all rhyme with strain