Be an 'Actor' of 'Emotions'

In Bhagawad Gita, it is said that life is a drama and we all are actors. Even Shakespeare reiterated the fact by saying “All the world’s a stage and all men and women are merely players”. These are used in different contexts to explain different concepts useful for mankind. Taking the thought further, from this analogy of life with drama, we can find some more useful concepts….

We should not be carried away by the success or failure. If we see great actors, they are never carried away by the success or failure. They stick to the basics of acting and fulfil the responsibility as an actor to continue to excel in their profession. Not getting carried away by any emotions and having good emotional intelligence is one of the qualities of “Sthithaprajnatha” described in Bhagawad Gita. Some actors who had spent a lot of money on luxuries in their successful days without thinking of future, faced a lot of problems in the days of failure. Thus, always predict the unpredictable and be cautious and save money for future also.

We should not be jealous about others’ roles and charisma. In a movie or drama, many actors act together, out of whom some may be veterans, charismatic and some might be not good at acting. But unless all the actors play their roles properly, the drama can’t be a success. We can observe that they don’t bring in the jealousy at all on the stage while performing. Each individual concentrates on their individual role and performance which adds value to the team performance. 

No blame game. Just imagine if a play is going on and an actor makes a mistake, we often see the other actors nicely manage to continue the play with perfect emotional intelligence and their concentration towards their role. Even they try to cover up the mistake done by the co-actor. It is all done spontaneously and effortlessly on the stage. This speaks of the team spirit and clearly explains we should not do blame game. It is quite often seen that many people blame others that because of his/her fault my work is getting delayed or I could not complete the work etc. This type of blame game has to be changed and mutual cooperation is expected as in the example of the play mentioned above.

Be passionate about our work. We can observe the amount of passion and dedication they show towards the art on the stage. So much of hard work they put in and many rehearsals to perform with perfection. We should get inspired by it…They respect their profession as God.

Teach the skills to the future generations to save the art. The sustainability of some forms of the art is missing already as those have not been transferred to the next generations. Thus, sharing the tacit knowledge and skills including the trade secrets to the next generations is the only solution to ensure the sustainability of the art of working.

As we are termed as actors, let us try to learn how to deliver different emotions with high emotional intelligence as per the scenes and situations of the drama….