Prelude
Broken according to the dictionary is a past participle of being separated into pieces as a result of a blow, shock, or strain. A person who is broken is a person whose feelings are separated, not enabling him to concentrate all his/her energy into any given task or situation. The things that given humans a blow, shock or strain are literally the things that are closest to our hearts. You can only hate a person who you know, you cannot randomly hate a stranger. Similarly, a random person cannot break your heart as they do not mean anything, only a person who is emotionally close to you can break your heart. Career, financial situation could be a reason for you being broken as well.
The solution is simple, to not take anyone or anything to the heart, right?
Broken
While being heart-broken is a shitty situation to be in, it is something that everyone in this world must go through. “I hope that you have at least one heart-break in life dear reader!”. Don’t judge me yet, let me justify my statement which you may have understood as rude or stupid, or both.
If given a choice between the two, would you buy a car made by Ramdin Automobiles or by Volkswagen? I am guessing Volkswagen. But we all know the Dieselgate scandal by Volkswagen, where the company created a cheat device to fake carbon emissions to be well within standards when tested. Why would you buy a car from such a charlatan company which cheated on its emissions and not from Ramdin Automobiles. Probably because Ramdin does not exist, it is something I just made up. Or is it because you know there is more to Volkswagen than one scandal; it is because you still trust the Brand. You trust it to fix the issue and bounce back and so they did.
What makes up a brand is all that makes up an individual. We are indeed creating our brand in this world, each one of us. When you are creating a brand, there will be hardships, there will be backstabbers, there will be fraudsters, there will be chaos, but the brand must endure. Character is this intangible brand that a person builds in ones life. Building a Character requires a fine blend of good bits and the bad bits. While the good bits help uphold shaky optimism, the bad bits should be able to bring you out of muddy pessimism. Optimism is often soluble in nature, depreciating as reality pours in. Pessimism is muddy in nature; does not let you go easily.
Humans in nature are more enduring and we can think and work in groups, have ideas and discuss, improvise and cascade the information through generations. This has probably led us to be the most evolved species. A child born in 2070 does not need to know how TV Video games were coded, they learn a more evolved set of knowledge bundles accumulated through the past generations.
The hardships that our forefathers have gone though to build the world for us, the journeys within every person is hardly ever spoken about but still widely understood. Collectively humans have shown that optimism can be rebuilt by materials that are not so easily shaken. This is what makes up the Human Spirit.
We are greater than just me. When a person is broken, help will be offered by humans, pets and things that are close to your heart. We just have to accept it. While accepting help to learn football is easier, to accept help when broken is far more difficult. Accepting requires acceptance of the situation and this post is all about being able to accept the situation. Only when we accept can we do anything about it. Most humans live in denial, some in denial of their financial position, some in denial of their identity, some are even in denial of even what they are underneath.
It is okay to take some time in denial; we are after all human and I admit there is an unexplainable sense of satisfaction in being in pain and denial. But it is important to accept situations before we slip into irrecoverable state of denial, like the state to the north of India and south of Russia. The sooner a person accepts situation and help the sooner they recover.
I would now go a step further and say that heart-broken people are more human, are stronger than the ones who have not been messed up in their life. If you were heart-broken that you did not get a bigger car for your 18th Birthday, trust me, you are not heart-broken yet. While people being in denial can be detrimental to collective human spirit, the ones who have been brave enough to put their heart out almost always overshadow the darkness.
The deeper the pain, the harder the blow, the greater is the strength after recovery. A person who was broken has a different perspective to life. While some go bonkers and live life on the edge thinking that nothing else can hurt them more, some turn more conservative and try not to be broken again easily. We need to learn from things that gave us away and be smart in our choices – so naïve, I know.
We have limited time and energy per day and we choose what to invest on. Broken people have determination to keep things off their heads and they often subconsciously are more productive when they have accepted the situation. I know a person who was once heart-broken, started preparing for marathons and in a matter of few months had completed several full marathons. If I had suggested the same to him when he was in a happy relationship, I highly doubt that he would take it so seriously.
Nobody: “You jerk, I have a question”
Me: “Yes please, shout”
Nobody: “Are you suggesting that it was good that he was heart-broken? Disgusted by what you just said. Do you think that people should not be in happy relationships to do such feats?”
Me: “Well, that is not what I meant. He could have done the exact same thing being in a perfectly happy state. The key here is, that he focussed all this anger and energy on the unknown. If he didn’t complete the marathon, he would probably be more heart-broken than ever before. He was subconsciously training so hard, harder than required as he did not want to be broken again.”
Nobody: “Ah well, that makes sense, you are not a jerk after all”
Me: “I am glad you understood, I’d be heart-broken otherwise”
Nobody: “haha”
Life has ways of pushing you into things that are meant for you. It is almost magical that you and I know each other, either in person or through the miracle of WWW. We just fail to accept the importance of being at a place at a given point in time. When we understand that we are a small aspect of a greater plan in the universe, possibly everything that happens with us is insignificant and for the natural evolution.
Humans share a collective consciousness, and this consciousness expands as more people are connected through physical or virtual means. We become stronger together and develop a shield which protects us from being hurt by the simpler things in life. The idea is to not be hurt for the same reason again albeit there are exceptions. We now have more self-help books and authors than ever before in history. Why? Because we have these people who have gone through hardships and hope that their methods could help another being avoid pain. The idea here again is that, when we are not deterred by the pettier things in life, we can concentrate on the bigger things. Things that matter in the greater scheme of things, which indeed brings along with it – success.
How to bounce back from the heartbreak and advantages of once being broken – in real life situations:
Work
Organisations at interviews are not looking for people who have perfect profiles. It is okay to experiment; it is perfectly fine to try out roles in your career which are offbeat. While it is important to head in the right direction it is more important to be sure that you are in the right direction. It is the ‘why’ that people buy and not the what of the story. It is okay to be broken in terms of your career and education. Be confident, be eager to learn and always, always stay humble.
A person once broken has an ability to get the team out of muddy situations. Only he or she shall know the fear of losing the difficulty in accepting it. While there is no substitute to hard work, they who want to make others’ life at work easier are the ones who truly succeed. Ones who have been through hardships before will know when anyone in the team is suffering and will do everything in their power to help.
They who know pain shall make sure that the people they know do not go through it.
Relationships
Relationships are a lot of work. I mean if you are dating someone at work, relationships are requiring more work at work as well (poor joke, I realized). A person who was once broken understand that they should not break another’s heart. At least that is how it is supposed to work.
You get sure of what you want after every relationship. Wait, breaking up again and again to gain this wisdom does not make you the surest person, it makes you dumb and insecure. Fun aside, no one knows who the perfect match is, probably the best match to you is a person who makes you comfortable outside your comfort zone. Be open to learn new things in a relationship, be open minded. Appreciate your partner’s choice, and maybe try to understand their perspective. A person who was once broken probably understands these perspectives and gaps that ruin a relationship better. You should feel blessed if you found your chords right in the first strum – be grateful.
Money
Money – the reason why we live? Uh well, maybe the reason is the experience that money provides us. Expensive holidays, great food, etc. Right?
It is amazing that everyone thinks they are not rich, even people in a Palm Beach mansion. It is because wealth is relative. Relative to your upbringing, to your friends and your experiences. If you are born rich – you are forever poor in your mind. If you have worked hard to get rich, then you are truly rich for those few months until you met someone richer.
It is easy to be heartbroken because of money. Because a man’s possessions own him more than he owns them. A slave is always broken. The shift in thinking must come in every person’s life when they have enough money saved up and are leading a good life. This shift does not mean that you stop being ambitious or stop from being more successful. The shift if from feeling like you ‘need’ more to ‘be’ more.
A person once broken knows what real failure feels like, so he or she ensures that they plan their finances, plan for contingencies and are probably risk averse. They still do want to rise higher and higher with each stride and this is just human nature. A person once broken knows how to define success – by experiences and the lives they have touched rather than material possessions. More the grateful you are, lesser the heartbreak.
I think the best conclusion is to give you some quotes from the broken. If these great people were not once broken, they would not have made such a great contribution to the collective consciousness.
“A man is worked on upon by what he works on. He may carve out his circumstances, but his circumstances will carve him out as well” – Fredrick Douglass. This one needs no explanation.
“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift” – Mary Oliver
“You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still – like air, I will rise” – Maya Angelou
“How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side too if I have to be whole” – Carl G Jung
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer” – Albert Camus
Fin.
Featured image credits: abhijith_juggernaut