Suppose we are driving through a remote area guided by GPS and suddenly the GPS connectivity gets lost due to a heavy storm. Not knowing the way ahead, we take several wrong turns at subsequent crossroads. When our GPS connectivity returns, we may understandably feel annoyed or even angered. But we won’t let our irritation incite us into smashing our GPS device. 

When going through life, especially when going through life’s tough phases, what keeps us on track is our inner GPS: Grateful Perspective Seeking. Gratitude, which can be said to be the tendency and the ability to look for the positive and to be ready for the positive, keeps us inspired to make wise choices when encountering life’s crossroads. 

However, sometimes life’s storms may cause such severe losses that we lose our inner GPS connectivity; we just can’t find any reasons to feel grateful. Driven by negative feelings, we may take unwise turns at life’s subsequent crossroads. Thankfully, like all storms, this storm of negative emotions is also temporary. When it subsides, we regain access to our inner GPS: we can again start seeking perspectives that ground us in gratitude. 

Tragically however, we sometimes destroy our inner GPS. How? By letting resentfulness replace gratefulness as our defining and driving emotion. That negative emotion clouds our vision so much that we grumble, fumble and tumble — we make existing adversities worse and we miss potential opportunities. 

Thankfully, we don’t ever have to destroy our inner GPS.. Gita wisdom offers us a philosophical worldview that reminds us that ultimate goodness always exists within the universe. Indeed, that timeless GPS — Gita perspective seeking — strengthens our timely GPS: gratitude perspective seeking. Bolstered, we don’t feel lost even amid losses. We stay content and confident (Bhagavad-gita 17.16), knowing that divine goodness will eventually guide us to a good place and responding to that underlying cosmic goodness with our good choices

One-sentence summary:

Even when we can’t avoid losses in our life, we can avoid feeling lost — provided we hold on to our inner GPS: Grateful Perspective Seeking. 

Think it over:

  • What is our inner GPS? How does it help us?
  • How might we destroy our inner GPS?
  • How can we avoid feeling lost amid losses? 

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17.16: And satisfaction, simplicity, gravity, self-control and purification of one’s existence are the austerities of the mind.

Facing losses but not feeling lost

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