Someone else had a rude customer during their ‘on call support’ at work. One choice was to let the customer get lost behind the set of long winding formal processes and chase unending phone calls, the other was to let him vent and then help him out with the issue despite the rudeness.

Someone was now a caregiver for a dominating elderly person at home. After years of suffering oppression, now was a chance to show them how it feels to be humiliated. But then, the other choice was to keep quiet and just take care of them in the best way.

Someone else had the best opportunity to deal with a jealous neighbor who was in trouble. Their choice was to either let the neighbor face the difficulty and feel satisfied that Karma really works after all, or to be a proper citizen and go out and help them despite the past injustices.

By evening, I got a phone call which then snowballed into a full-fledged video conference, where everyone was talking at the same time and everyone was angry or upset. My friends had all listed their choices, and once the choices were in front of them, they were forced to abandon impulsive emotional responses and had to pick the ones which they thought was the right thing to do. And at the end of the day, they felt like losers, victims, and the proverbial doormats. They felt they were denied juicy chances to get back at the injustice that was happening or happened to them.

That night, I lay in my bed, worried if I had somehow broken up this beautiful group that had grown over the years. I surely did not want this to happen, and I decided to salvage whatever was left and get things back to normal. I had a plan by the time I dozed off.

The next day, I invited everyone for evening tea. I had all their favorite snacks ready, I had a list of fun games we could play, I had selected music that we all love, and I was fully prepared to erase any impression of the previous day from their minds. After setting everything up, I sat back and wondered if any of them would really turn up.

And turn up they did! Every one of them. We had tea, and we moved on to playing games, when suddenly someone said, “I did not know, doing the right thing would be so disturbing, what does your Krishna say for that?”
I really did not like the direction this was taking, but then, a question was a question, and I had to answer that, “Krishna says, if you do your duty, you will get purity of mind” I responded, as shortly as I could.

“Purity of mind is the last thing I would want, when I am in trouble or pain” came the blunt reply from Neelam.

“Then Krishna asks us to do it for His sake, out of our love for Him” I tried another direction. This was met with lot of eye rolling and booing.

“I don’t follow Hinduism, what do I do then?” asked Kavitha.

“Every religion or philosophy supports this concept, if you take stoicism for example, they talk about becoming virtuous, becoming the best version of humankind. I am sure Jesus is not against anyone doing their duty” I pleaded.

“I do not believe in God,” said Neelam. There was a shocked silence. I had no answer to this. I was feeling uncomfortable and was looking for something to say when Kavitha spoke up.

She said, “Hey guys, why don’t we play a game? As we have seen yesterday, the unappealing choice seems to be the right one. But we are all unhappy with the way the world would see us for making those choices. Our colleagues may think of us as weak; our relatives may take us to be fools; others may simply walk over us. But are we not tired of doing things for the sake of others? If the world would ill treat us for doing the right thing, let it! But we can reward ourselves for it. Let’s give ourselves one point for each of the unappealing but right choice that we make, let us collect points and celebrate the winner who made the greatest number of unappealing choices for the week!!!” This must have seemed like a novel thing to do, so it was met with a huge welcome and then everyone was back to their silly selves, and the friendly banter resumed and continued for the rest of the evening.

I was not sure, I really understood what was happening, but I was relieved that everyone was happy again, and there was no discomfort anymore. This group has always been our “happy place”, so, I was willing to go with the flow.

The next week was a whirlwind of messages. The game was on! The ladies were posting the choices they were making, and the ones who made the right choice, even though it was unappealing, got points. There were times when we made the wrong, impulsive choice, but we knew that the game would go on, and we would have ample opportunities to make the right choice the next day. By end of the week, there were winners, losers, handmade gifts and a whole lot of teasing for sure.

I was expecting the fervor to die down any time, but three weeks went easily by, and the game was on in its full form still. We did have our regular chats, we did have fun, but we realized our happiness had a wholeness to it. We had a sense of peace that was coming from within us. We were somehow quieter, and more confident than ever before. We still had our struggles to face, but there was dignity to our actions and reactions. We were no longer sleepwalking through life; we were fully conscious of the choices we were making every waking moment. No one in this group now feels that they don’t have choices in life. In the last few weeks, we have realized that no matter how tough our situation may be, we really do have a choice, and that is the key to our growth. To grow out of impulsive actions into a world of awareness and diligent living.