Top pet peeves

Name your top three pet peeves.

In the quiet battlefield of the everyday mind, Arjuna once asked Krishna,
“Why does my spirit rise with clarity, yet my body delays even when the path is simple?”

Krishna smiled gently and said,
“When the task stands ready before you, and success waits only for your hand, the mind creates a small cloud of illusion. It whispers, ‘Wait a moment… just three minutes more.’
This pause is not weakness, Arjuna—it is a test.
A subtle battle where awareness must lift its bow.
The moment you choose action over drifting, you rise above the illusion that tries to hold you down.”

Arjuna listened, and Krishna continued,
“Even the maps of the world may falter.
Sometimes Waze or Google will lead you through winding paths that are not yours.
But the map within you—the one built through experience—rarely makes a mistake.
When you trust your instincts on the road, when you know the turns, the lanes, the small signals that only a practiced eye can see, you awaken true alertness.
The correct path reveals itself to one who moves with awareness.”

Arjuna bowed his head, and Krishna’s voice softened as he spoke of the body that carries the soul:
“The body is your chariot, Arjuna.
If it bends without purpose, pain becomes its companion.
Slouching weakens not just the back, but the strength of one’s spirit.”

Arjuna reflected on this, thinking of his own life, and said,
“Krishna, my father—when his memory faded and his mind grew clouded—began to slouch more and more. I loved him deeply, yet I unknowingly picked up his posture. I bent the same way he bent. I thought it was natural. But now I see how that habit has followed me.”

Krishna placed a hand on Arjuna’s shoulder and replied,
“Love can make us inherit many things—some noble, some painful.
But wisdom gives you the power to choose what you carry forward.
Your father’s slouch was the weight of his condition, not a path meant for you.
When you sit upright now, when you breathe fully and lift your spine like a mountain, you honor him—not by copying his suffering, but by rising where he could not.”

Arjuna felt a quiet strength fill him, as though he had straightened not only his back but his entire being.

Krishna ended with a gentle truth:
“These small irritations and inherited habits you face are not burdens.
They are your teachers.
Through them, you learn presence, discipline, and mastery of yourself.
And in mastering yourself, you honor every soul that shaped you.”