Where are you looking?

An old man was walking home late one night, when he saw his friend on his knees under a street light, searching for something.

“What are you doing?” he asked his friend.

“I dropped the key to my house” he said.

“I will help you look” said the old man.  After a few minutes of frustrated searching, the old man asked “Where exactly were you when you dropped the key?”

His friend pointed towards the darkness “Over there”

“Then why are you looking for it here?”

“Because this is where the light is”

This Sufi parable says much about human behaviour.  There are many who have developed the unfortunate habit of searching whatever they are looking for, in the wrong place.  The lighted area is symbolic of our natural tendency to look in the obvious place.

The classic case is of pleasure and happiness.  Happiness is found within.  Pleasure is found outside in the material world.  The average person pursues pleasure and, soon before he or she realizes, that its happiness that one wants.  The confusion between pleasure and happiness has its effect on marital relationships too.

We can look at pride and self-esteem in a similar manner.  A high Self-esteem produces calm where the person is comfortable with himself.  Pride on the other hand, takes us on a ride where one has to continuously feed off from external inputs.  Needless to say, self-esteem is found by knowing what you love, find empowering, or nourishing and doing it often i.e. within oneself.

There is a lovely quote which goes something like this “We go around the world searching, and then finally come home and find it”

Copyright – Nitesh Kotecha