I am a public speaker and I frequently used the example of a hamster on a wheel to illustrate our tendency to get caught up in frantic activity while going nowhere.
Virtually everybody could relate to the example.
In fact, hamster-on-a-wheel has become shorthand for a meaningless life filled with unfulfilling action.
An alumnus of my program challenged me. “Professor Rao, the hamster isn’t trying to go somewhere. He is simply exercising and having a fun time.”
And there is a lesson here for you and me and everyone else.
We are going to die someday. Could be tomorrow, could be next week, could be decades from now.
For whatever reason – karma, destiny, happenstance – we are in our present predicament. We frequently feel that we are spinning helplessly because we want to get somewhere but are unable to. And a sense of futility arises.
Turn it around. Do the activity to the best of your ability but give up the attachment to any particular outcome.
The result you want may appear. Or it may not.
Focus on enjoying the activity and doing it to the best of your ability.
Your life will improve. You will be a hamster on the wheel that is having a rip-roaring time.
Peace!
