Success vs. Joy
- LXXX -
My Struggle with Joy
Seven years ago, I made a conscious decision to stop practicing, and just playing a few tournaments. I had many reasons for what I did – emotional, psychological, material, and so on. But I could not leave the game. The need to be joyous overcame every other motivator. From my childhood, I have been obsessed with the joy my game has given me. I have been addicted to it. I have surrendered to it.
My decision to play billiards was intuitive, not logical. Till the age of 24, I had no aspirations of becoming a world champion. There was no pressure on me to perform. Nobody in my family was obsessed with anything the way I was with billiards.
The game is a form of meditation for me. When I am on the table, I am lost to everything else. There are no distractions, nothing else matters.
Along the way, I discovered the pleasures of concentration. I played. I experienced joy. There was nothing else on my mind. All that changed in 1992. Winning the professional world championship (my third world title) made me a public figure and all that goes with it. There were material rewards as well. I started wearing a Rolex and got myself a big new car. I started becoming easily influenced by other people, especially those who were rich and powerful.
With recognition and riches at the age of 32, came a corruption in lifestyle. It came insidiously but enveloped me. I started living my life in terms of measurable results and did not get exhilarated by joyous feelings. My concentration had been disturbed. With success came distress. My world had changed. The distractions that inevitably come with fame and success had enveloped me. The game was no longer the end but a means toward achieving the end.
The only redeeming factor during that illusionary phase of my life was the fact that I could still play billiards with utmost concentration. The moment I put my palm on the table, these distractions miraculously disappeared.
However, off the table, I was no longer enjoying myself. My life had become an intricate web of distractions with me firmly trapped in the middle. These self-destructive distractions ranged from wanting to build a house, to wanting to establish a business, wanting to make money and so many other new desires.
But the unkindest cut of them all was that everyone around me talked about my success, not my joy.
Briefly, I forgot about the joy I had experienced from the sport. Once again, I went through a phase of intense soul-searching and redefined my priorities. Soon enough, the answers started to reappear before me. I turned to the core within myself and again awakened to the joys of living for the moment. To me this is the only way to be.
I’ve quit my job this year and gone straight into a two-week Vipassana course to re-connect with myself. For more than anything else I want to rediscover the joy of living in the moment.
Joy is internal – Success is a creation of society. There is always a choice!