Life’s 80% suffering is imaginary as in most of the cases either stress, tension or anxiety is created in advance of a situation or a painful situation is not easily forgotten and one continues to suffer mentally for extra long time. These two factors constitute more than 80% of our suffering.

“Boss will fire me someday”, “Things may not work out as expected”, “Husband will scold me for the dent in the car”, “I may fail in my exams”, “I will not be able to reach my targets”, “I will miss my flight”, “There may be traffic jam on the highway” etc are the kind of painful thoughts mind emanates even before a situation arises and makes us suffer.

You have small altercation with your spouse who forgets about it after 30 minutes but you cannot forget for 3 days, you fail in achieving your targets and feel depressed for the next whole month even though you receive appreciation for your hard work, you remained upset for 2 days for missing your flight, after attending to your interview you doubt about it’s positive outcome and remain anxious etc. are some of the impressions mind is not able to forget easily thus making you suffer even though the event has passed and you can do nothing about it.

80% of life’s situations may not be in your control hence suffering by thinking about them in advance or suffering by not letting the mind forget about them is precariously dangerous for life happiness. In fact creating such painful impressions in the mind weakens your efficiency, productivity and decision making. It also has the power to recreate similar situations in future hence we must to get rid of this habit. Consciously work on these aspects for 15 days and you will find you are more at peace and your mind would have got reprogrammed for happiness rather than for suffering.

- Ramesh Jain