Peace of mind is a luxury, and restlessness has become our normal condition. All talks are full of concern and finish with complaints. The cell phone display, the news bulletin, the office, the house—everywhere you look, you can see there is a cloud of anxiety close by. Economic growth, digital revolutions, and social progress—we discuss all these things, yet the very thing that continues to decrease is inner peace. It seems like we have created some kind of silent and invisible industry that produces stress and gives it out to every citizen free of charge.
Years ago, in a Punjabi film, actor Nanha had a catchphrase, "Oh tension, there is no one." He would blow away every difficult situation by saying this phrase, but today if we look around us, even at ourselves, we see tension everywhere.
We are talking about hard state, although our society has become extremely inflexible and rigid. Human peace is given great importance in the world, but in our country, whether it is government institutions or individuals, how can we destroy the peace of the people? In a film, an actress used to say this dialogue on everything, "There is some trouble." Here too, trouble is seen everywhere. Home used to be a place of peace. Now there is an atmosphere like a pressure cooker in homes. The bonds of love and unity are disappearing.
The generation before us, our parents, had not even heard the word depression. They lived within their limits by eating dry food. It was the duty of parents to maintain an atmosphere of peace and tranquility in the home.
After the marriages of their children, mothers-in-law and married girls were not obsessed with showing each other off. Today, it is a spectacle in every house that the quarrels between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law are turning the houses into tandoors. It reaches the point where the daughter-in-law is burned alive or a young man, fed up with this atmosphere, commits suicide. What kind of selfishness has become ingrained in our veins that does not let us sit still, we keep ourselves worried and do not let any opportunity to worry others pass by. This tension that starts at home spreads to offices, shops, markets, and streets. Today, everyone has lost the strength to endure, taking the life of another over a trivial matter has become the norm. There are quarrels everywhere, peacemaking has become a thing of the past. The sign of intolerance is that you did not open your mouth so that those who attacked you did not come out with swords.
When SP Adeel Akbar died in Islamabad, many stories were heard, but one thing was consistently said that he did it because of depression. Now it has become a common term to declare any person a victim of depression.
Not only depression, there are many psychological diseases that have taken hold of our society as a whole. The biggest disease is ego, I have seen many relationships break up in my life due to this egoism, once a friend of mine came to meet me, he was worried. When I asked the reason, he said, my daughter got married a few months ago and now she has come home, because her mother-in-law says she went on her own, now she should come back on her own, whereas we want her husband to come and get her, I said where is my in-laws? He said he is about two kilometers away from his house.
I said, "Shakour Sahib, what is this stubbornness that you are holding? If her mother-in-law is satisfied with her daughter-in-law coming herself, then she should leave her." He said, "This will only make her more arrogant, and it is also against our ego."
I said, "Is ego giving you comfort now for the pain you are going through? If you continue to escalate such a small matter, God forbid, this relationship will also be in danger. Say Bismillah and leave your daughter at her house. It will definitely yield good results." After my insistence, he agreed. Now when they meet me, they pray that the decision you made by breaking my ego was a great one and today my daughter comes to meet her husband whenever she wants. I know of another example in which two good, well-educated retired professors got married with great love for their children, but then got into a battle of egos that ruined not only the children's homes but also their lives. The result was that one's son went crazy and the other's daughter became a psychopath. What this means is that the most well-known industry in our society manufactures products that promote tension, anxiety and depression. Not only have we become self-sufficient in this, but if we want, we can also provide them in large numbers and quantities.
Can you say that there is such a thing as peace in our government institutions? A senior professor from a major university called me from Lahore.
She confidentially told me that a teacher has become a symbol of fear for female teachers, harasses them and then also worries them by making false applications. The worrying thing is that some male teachers also support her and do not allow any action to be taken despite filing a complaint against her. I gave them some advice on how to deal with such people within this system, but later, I kept thinking that even in a relaxed environment, there is tension instead of peace. Obviously, after this, such female teachers must also be depressed and with this depression they will also go home and the peace there will also be lost, this is not the case in any university or college.
Instead of harmony, there are groupings, fights and conspiracies against each other everywhere. As far as government departments are concerned, which are called the elite departments of society, their condition is the worst.
Often when I see a news in a newspaper in which there is a story of corruption or suggestions from an officer, I understand that his subordinates or cliques have shown their work. I have met a friend of an officer and asked him to When I go to the office, he always mentions that some office officials are conspiring against him, but I will not blackmail him. On the other hand, some officers create a tense and tense atmosphere in the office to suppress their fear. Look at the doctors, they get jealous of each other's private practices. There are many who hide the news of a doctor's wrong treatment. Tension spreads. If depression is spreading in the society and people are worried, then how is it surprising? We ourselves are sowing the seeds.
Ultimately, this epidemic can only be cured through attitude and not through medicine. We have to learn to be empathic, to forgive, and to be tolerant again—the human values that used to make our communities living and caring. The house would need to be a haven, not a war zone. People should be treasured in institutions, as opposed to power. The remedy to this original industry of tension is very easy: humility, patience, and the desire to listen. When all the individuals are resolute to give peace rather than pain, then possibly one day this troubled republic will learn what it is like to live in peace.
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