Radical Changes Part I

Since as far as I can remember- my brother always used to tell me that I could only get things done my way at home, in front of him and my parents and that when it came to facing the world, all my stubbornness and false sense of power dissipates as quickly as a fart in the wind.

Ofcourse I disagreed.

But deep down, I knew he was right.

For most of my childhood, I wasn’t able to communicate with strangers. When eventually, I did converse with people and made friends- I would always agree to everything they said and do everything they did. Even worse is the fact that I would take their side even when they were wrong.

Recently, I did some soul searching. Why did I do what I did? What made me stand shoulder to shoulder with those who were wrong even after knowing that they were wrong? Why did I meekly agree to everything that these people said but always rebelled against whatever my true benefactors- my family members said?

And guess What.. I do have the answers. Finally.

As I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t the best person in the crowd that you could strike a conversation with. Oh! Leave the best, I wasn’t even the second best or the third best. In reality, I must have been at the very bottom of the pile.

Though I may have been at the bottom, but I am a human being, just like you are. And there’s a reason why we are called social animals, right? We all need other human beings in our life. People with whom we can share our joys and sorrows. People with whom we can share secrets and experiences. I guess, I wasn’t any different.

So when I eventually befriended someone, I would go all out- do everything to maintain that friendship. Hell, I would not think twice about quarrelling with my brother, just to hang out with some friends, supposedly to have some fun time (Sorry about those times Parv, I know you only did it out of concern for me).

As mentioned earlier, I am a human being. Just like every other human being, I also have a lot of expectations from people, whose expectations I fulfill. Yes, I know therein lies the problem. But I can’t help it. But why should I even help it? I never as much as lay my eyes on a thing which isn’t mine, but it’s my right to take what is mine and still, rather than snatching it, I patiently wait and expect that it will be given to me- fairly and justly. Oh boy, can I be more wrong?

I always thought that there is good in the world and that everything will be set right eventually. Atleast this is what happens in movies and fairy tales. Yet, I always overlooked the fact that I didn’t live in a fairy world. I live in a place where the law of the nature itself states- Survival of the fittest.

Who was I fooling then but myself by waiting for things to come my way as a matter of right?

I gave my time freely to just about anyone and everyone that I was comfortable talking with. Not just my time, I gave everything that I could give. Though I never expected anyone to return any of it, I sure expected the receivers to stand behind me, if not besides me when required. I expected the receivers to atleast refuse politely rather than bluntly ignoring me when I asked them to help me in my hour of need. I am sure this isn’t too much to expect.

Anyway, I don’t want to cry about it. I want to write about how a single day can change someone’s life utterly and completely, especially since quite a few people have told me that I’ve changed- for the worse.

Such days come once or twice in a lifetime. They transform your way of living. You become so much more mature in a matter of few hours.

My day of realisation came too and since then, there’s been no looking back. I haven’t exactly become the first cousin of Darth Vader or the second cousin of the Devil, but I have learnt to stand my ground, even at the expense of losing people. Anyway, they must have never cared, because if they did, they would come right back, just like my brother or a host of other people do everytime. These are the people, whom I cherish.

Ever since you experience the day of realisation, your outlook towards life changes. You develop a respect for others, knowing that they all fight their own battles, but at the same time, you don’t allow yourself to be berated by anyone. You demand the same respect that you offer to others. You learn to speak up for yourself, even if it ends up being sour because at the end of the day, people come and go, but your conscience stays. And a battered and bruised conscience seldom fares well.

You begin to empathise with others but you also understand that empathising is all you can do and that not every battle is yours to fight. Infact, as your perspective broadens, you realise that there are many personal battles that shouldn’t be fought, because they’re futile.

Just like you learn to choose your battles wisely, you choose people wisely too. You stop seeking attention of anyone and everyone. Infact, you abhor attention unless completely necessary. You realise that attention only brings chaos and nuisance.

You acquire new powers and skills which were hitherto unknown to you because now you don’t have to spend your time balancing people and your mind, wasted by expectations.

(To be continued on request, so do like and comment, otherwise I’ll never know whether or not to write part II. Till then cya😉)

Is stress required in life?

Well, most of the readers will obviously say a big NO. I mean, why take stress and bring home all the diseases which accompany stress. Only a fool would believe stress is not bad. And mind you, such fools do exist. 

I am one among them. Personally, I believe that stress is as important in life as salt is in food. Just as food without salt is useless, so is life without stress. It is in moments of stress and pressure that the mind functions optimally. In fact, it would not be wrong to say that stress acts as a stimulus for greater efficiency. 

Take any list which contains influential people. You will not find even one person in that list, who reached where he/ she is now before undergoing a period of stress and utmost pressure. There is an old adage which goes: every carbon molecule can get converted into a diamond, but very few, which take on the pressure finally become one. 

However, just as a lot of salt can poison the entire food, similarly, a lot of stress can harm a person. One should not keep on taking stressful tasks one after the other. Stress is just a part of our life, and yet we tend to make it our life. This can have  serious implications across various dimensions of life. 

To conclude, I would like to urge the fellow readers to remove the perception that stress has a very negative connotation. We must learn to use stress to our advantage. We need to learn, how to use it to navigate through unfavourable situations and turnaround our losses into our gains. And be very sure, this is quite possible. In fact, not just possible but rather probable! 
Happy Reading !! 

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Get Busy

We all want a carefree life, right?!
Some of you might be astounded by the stark irony between the title and the opening lines. Bear with me a little, you’ll understand and maybe even change!

Ever since our birth, we have been flooded with rules and regulations and various disciplines that we are expected to adhere to. And naturally, we being humans tend to revolt. We believe that we can live our life better by making our own​ rules rather than following a standard code of conduct set down by a fat, abusive thinker (hopeless imagination 😂) who could never see others happy because he himself was damned with melancholy for eternity.

Though we may despise rules, we have to understand that the very freedom which we value is because of the rigid rules that make it appealing. It is as simple as understanding that gold is precious because it is rare. No astrophysics required there. 

But then again, we are “humans”. The very term implies rebellion. This rebellion not just means savagery and war-like rebellion but also it refers to rebelling against our inner self, rebelling against the norms of the society and challenging the customs. And this rebellion was not engrained in us by a matter of chance. Infact, it was put specifically so that we could push ourselves to the limit. 

Name one single person who has achieved anything extraordinary without rebelling and challenging the norms. You won’t be able to because there ain’t any. Even a person climbing the Everest has to rebel against his bodily requirements of rest and sleep to create history. 

The bottom line is we need to challenge life at every step, if we want to transform. If one door closes, we need to find another. At times, we will have to make do with the windows too. And if even that doesn’t work, we will have to shatter some walls. 

If you want to be remembered, if you want to enlist yourself in the annals of history: GET BUSY – start revolting. There is nothing good about living a carefree life. To quote Swami Vivekananda, ” Get up and set your shoulder to the wheel. How long is this life for you? As you have come into this world, leave some mark behind. Otherwise, where is the difference between you and the rocks and the trees? They too come into existence, decay and die.”

Finally a dailogue from one the greatest movies of all time: 

You can connect and share your ideas with me on this blog itself or:

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Au revoir !! 

The Journey Within

We are all travellers in this journey of self discovery. Some realise it early in their life and take a sort of head start towards their their destination. However, with passage of adequate amount of time, each individual does rev up his engine and moves towards his calling.

There is nothing more to life than taking the first step- For what you dream and believe, is what you eventually achieve. You may not know what lies ahead but with just the right amount of faith, you will conquer it all. 

Imagine you want to travel from Mumbai to Delhi in your car. The road is challenging, has sharp turns and it is a moonless night. You don’t even know what lies 200 metres ahead because your headlight can only go that far. But that doesn’t prevent you from taking the trip, does it. 

You are travelling along with the faith that you can perceive any kind of danger from a distance of atleast 200 metres and act accordingly. And with this faith, you are able to cross the entire distance between the two places.

 Life is not a bit different. You may have grand plans for yourself. However, you fear to take the path towards fulfillment of that plan because you feel that you lack the proper way. There is no bigger lie that you can say to yourself than this.

Surrender yourself to the magnificence of the universe and set out on your path. The universe will conspire such that you reach your destination. Just remember to keep looking for the signboards on your path just as you would while travelling from Mumbai to Delhi.😉

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Purpose of Life

Every so often we ask ourselves – what is the purpose of our life? And however hard we try, we are never clear about what we want. People not only want what they don’t have, but also want more of what they already have.

Different people have different requirements and thus their purposes differ too. For example, a poor man has the main purpose of earning more money. Similarly, the rich man yearns for that extra hour of sleep. 

The fundamental defect of mankind is that there are very few people who aim for a balanced life. A life which encompasses comforts along with sensitivity towards needs of others and a spiritual bending.

However today, majority of homo sapiens are engaged in the rat race. Race which begins from when they are born and continues right until they die. This race traverses through school, college, work, family, oldage- inshort, everything that you can think of under the sun.

But, this is not our purpose. We are all destined for a greater calling. And despite being trained for the rat race and the rat race alone, some people have dared to train their ears(minds) to listen to their calling. This calling is faint but it is very clear.

It is imperative that we realize our potential and focus on our goals and priorities but not at the expense of our joy and happiness. We need to strike a balance between what we have and what we want. And, that I think, is the purpose of our lives.!

Do you agree?!

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Why do we fall?

There has been no person on this planet, since the day the sun first dawned upon humanity, who hasn’t fallen once. The Kings were dethroned and Dictators died. Governments were overturned and tyrants buried alive.  There are many variants in which people fall such as rise and fall, fall and rise, fall and keep falling, fall and rise and fall again. People are falling all the time –  from grace, from power, from prestige, and sometimes they simply fall on the ground while walking.😂

There is a universal truth that goes something like-try and try till you succeed and that if we keep practising, we will eventually succeed. And, till the time this world rotates around the sun, nobody can ever change these facts. This means that to achieve success, one has to fall and keeping falling until he eventually succeeds or gives up… And I can continue with this nonsense for as long as my battery dies. But we are not here for that .

The truth is- we fall because there is no one who gives us a firm support at times when we most require it. We fall because hatred and jealousies find their way between us and our support. We fall because we blindly believe- believe such false people who don’t want us to rise and shine. We fall because we weaken our strong old bonds for new attractive yet shallow bonds, so much so that the old bonds finally manifest themselves into no bonds.

However, all is not so grim as it appears to be. Falling has its good parts too. It is only during such testing times, that we are able to broaden our outlook towards life and living. We realise who our true well wishers are, the ones that really care.  Also, we are able to understand that life is not all butterflies and roses. Most of all falling gives us HOPE. And everyone knows it ‘ Hope is good thing, maybe the best of the things’.

Last but not the least- ” we fall so that we can learn to pick our selves up”.