Look who is talking...

Just because I’m talking to myself, it doesn’t mean I’m listening. It’s not that I ignore myself entirely, it’s just that some of the voices inside my head are not saying things that I want to hear anymore. In particular, I’ve stopped listening to the critical, scolding voice that tells me incessantly that everything I do is wrong.

It took me a lifetime to realize that I am essentially three people. Most people only know me for the person I present to the world, the person I pretend to be. This is the “me” that I want the world to see – an optimistic, confident and happy person. But this “pretend me” mostly tries to conceal another person – my negative self-image. And buried somewhere deep in my psyche is a third “me”, the real and authentic person I was meant to be.

But by far the most important thing that I have ever discovered about myself is that my negative self-image is not the truth. It is not reality.

Every day of my life, my energy was focused on a battle between the person I wanted people to see and my negative self-image. There was no hope for the person that was truly me.

For years, I soaked up emotions but never let them show on the outside. Feelings circled inside me in a loop of rage and fear, helpless to change anything. Everything I did was to prove that I was not worthless. But I failed. Inside, I was still the worthless child, desperate for approval, afraid to make loving relationships for fear of rejection and abandonment.

It is the same for most of us. Only by knowing that our negative self-image is not the truth can we begin to rejoice in the person we truly are, the person we were meant to be. To know that love does not automatically result in rejection. To know that we are not worthless, that we have as much right to be here as anyone. To know that the world would not be a better place without us.

Picture yourself as you know yourself to truly be. Not the negative self-image that other people gave you. And not the person you pretend to be. Picture yourself in every detail and imagine the incredible thrill of what it would be like to be the real you.

Don’t get to the end of your life knowing that no one ever knew who you really were. The real you is longing to see the light of day.

Break free...off the shackles

Sometimes people come into your life & you know right away that they were meant to be there, to serve some sort of purpose, teach you a lesson, or help you figure out who you are & or who you want to become. You never know who these people may be (possibly your roommate, neighbor, professor, long lost friend, lover, or even a complete stranger), but when you lock eyes with them, you know at the very moment that they will affect your life in some profound way. And sometime things will happen to you that may seem horrible, painful, & unfair at first, but in reflection you find that without overcoming these obstacles that you would have never realized your true potential, strength, will power, or heart.

Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by mean of good luck. Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness & sheer stupidity all occur to test the limits of your soul.Without this small test, whatever they may be, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight, flat road to nowhere. It would be safe & comfortable, but dull and utterly pointless. 

The people that you meet who affect your life, and the success and downfalls you experience, help to create who you are and who you will become Even the bad experiences are learned from. In fact, they are the most poignant ones. If someone hurts you, betrays you, or breaks your heart, forgive them for they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious when you open your heart. If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because in a way, they are teaching you to love & how to open your heart & eyes to things. Make everyday count. Appreciate every moment & take from those moments everything you could possibly can for you may never be able to experience it again. Talk to people that you have never talked to before & actually listen... Let yourself fall in love again, break free, and set your sights high. Hold your head up because you have every right too. Tell yourself that you are a great individual & believe in yourself.

For if you don't believe in yourself, it will be hard for others to believe in you. You can make your life anything you wish.....Create your own life & then go out & live it with absolutely NO REGRETS.

Most importantly, if you love someone tell him or her, for you NEVER know what tomorrow may have in store. And learn a lesson in life each day you live. Today is the tomorrow you were worried about yesterday.... Was it worth it? 

Crying isn't a solution. Smilling sure is...

Some people develop a strange inferiority complex which compels them to be jealous of anything and everything that comes across. They forget all good they have and start envying the limited goodness in others.

They sure as hell , cause harm to others but a higher harm is caused their ownself. In constantly objecting good in others they hamper their individuality and start running behind what others have. Along with spoiling the relation they ruin the feelings too by bringing in an element of pretention. They smile at whatever is shown to them and on the insides keep killing themselves with negative thoughts of being looked less then the other.

None is lesser then anyone. God creates no garbage , everyone has their own beauty. But if you can't be happy with your own life, you will just sadden it more by adjoining it with someone else's life. First love yourself, because unless you don't you admire yourself, you can't love someone else.

Disliking somethings in oneself is good that calls for betterment but hating everything in oneself is nothing but beginning step to self pity. The burden of which is too huge and follows throughout your life . Once you start reducing your worth in your eyes you start having illusionary evil thoughts for that other person in your mind. With a stage like this you might feel you are hiding your emotions well, but barely you realise. Emotions are like flow of water, they anyhow find its way to the sea. And when they get merged they loose their existence and real identity. They get defined by what others want to take them as.

In your such self devastation mechanism other person earns jealousy whereas you on the other hand only accomplish in sympathy . Mind it , sympathy doesn't work whole your life. Better sooner then never , stop feeling small about yourself . Live life king size . None wants to know what potholes you have in life. Constant complaining will just steal away well wishers of you. May be when you start celebrating even your failures , your life would turn out in a memorable party. The most amazing people you’ll ever meet are the ones who had life rip their guts out , but can still find a way to laugh.

Family - Encompassing life's journey...

Out of the many things that make us Indians very unique and different from the people of the rest of the world, family ties or bonds is right up there. Nowhere in the world (except perhaps some other neighbouring countries in the sub-continent) would this value be found so starkly different than in our place and among our people. Our concept of family is so vast and all-encompassing that what is generally nuclear for the rest of the world could look like an entire atomic structure of Uranium or Plutonium for us !

Even though we too are becoming more and more nuclear now, and breaking away from the traditions of joint family, the field and more so the influence of the extended family members run large among us that it is almost impossible for us to consider ourselves “out of our family” any time. And come any occasion or a festival, they all are there back again together. Marriages are often between families rather than between two individuals. Not only blood is thicker than water in most cases, even skin becomes thicker than leather, to weather many trials and tribulations, thanks to that one odd Bua here or an Uncle there or a few cousins and what have you! The problem gets compounded with the arrival of a bride into the system. Along with the added dimensions of her own kith and kin, she needs to now cope with the new “paltan” of her husband’s family and the equations have to be properly established, not to mention the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law equation that occupies the centre stage of it all. Most often the son (or the husband) is caught in between totally clueless among these dynamics for not “getting it” at all from anyone’s perspective, let alone his own. It is sometimes very funny to see that guys who take multi-million dollar decisions for their companies where they work, can’t take simple decisions on where to go for a vacation on Diwali or which all houses should be visited when you go to some place, without the “necessary blessings” from those who pull the strings. At times even such things as which dress to wear!

It is during such crisis, a job out of India comes as a big welcome relief for the newly-weds or even the much married! But then only for a brief while until we get to know the other side of the story across the seas, where the parents (irrespective of whether they are still together as spouses) maybe even living in the same town as their kids, but hardly spending any time with them. Old age people take recourse to showing affection to pets and live alone in a big house with just a dog to give company. In the movie “What a girl wants”, when Daphne (the American girl) comes to meet her British father in London and when she tries to hug her grandmother, the old lady says – “No hugging dear. I’m British. We show affection to dogs and horses only.” As we saw in the case of the Bengali couple who were arrested in Norway by the Child Police, even force feeding or sleeping with children in the same bed could land you in trouble in many places. So there is a cold distance or what they term as “courteous detachment”, that gets built in relationships there which could be quite suffocating for many Indians. The problem gets worse when one of the spouses die at an old age and the other has to live the rest of the life all alone. That is when we realise the value of our family ties back home here. The joy of seeing our people when we come home for every vacation rather than going to Hawai or Fontainebleau, notwithstanding the heat, humidity, traffic, cows and cow dung back home! Despite all the "other troubles" that we face, it is the sheer pleasure and warmth of meeting our own and the support system they provide specially in the times of difficulties and miseries, that we miss elsewhere in the world. There is an untold sense of security we get being amongst our own family members that becomes so much a part of our identity as much as a value.

We learn many things in that process - the art of adjusting, the skills of negotiating, the joy of sharing, the power of networking, the value of respecting, the support while suffering, and the strength in enduring. We realise how important inter-dependence is as opposed to parasitical dependency which is what made us look out for independence. If only the elderly too realise this and keep the right distance and give a longer rope to the young, the expectational burden that they put would not weaken the younger ones' shoulders. Many a times, the elders in the family simply forget that there is a fine line between what is intervention, which is required and what is interference, which is not required and over step that line. It is in maintaining that "safe distance" yet keeping the warmth of the relationships the balance would be struck.

Yet it is pathetic to see how we are losing our grips on this beautiful value and moving farther away from our dear and near ones many times because of a silly ego issue that is not worth a dime. Often a marriage against a parental wish, or a career choice or sometimes as silly as being nice to someone a particular family member hates, becomes good enough reason to keep us apart. Aged single parents move helplessly between one house to the other, as part of "sharing the burden" and sometimes get offloaded into some "home" where there are other such destitute elders. Worse, they are simply dropped off in Kumbh mela in Allahabad or Haridwar or Kasi. My mother used to say,"one mother can take care of seven children, but seven children together cannot take care of an old mother!"

This is heart rending. Specially for those who have lost their parents or are far away from them and cherish to be with their dear and near. Ask those who are living abroad what happens to them during festival times when they miss their own people, and they will tell us how gut wrenching it could be. While it is good to go nuclear and keep the "safe distance" and be independent, it is also equally important to recognise the uniqueness in these values that make us as true Indians and proud ones at that. Let us not lose them, and in the process lose ourselves. Bonds are meant to strengthen us, and not to get us "bound". That is the true meaning of Raksha bandhan. The bond of security. The bond of love. The bond that makes us whom we are.

You deserve better...

No matter how bad it hurts or how bad you feel, it's time to stop thinking about that person who played with your feelings, who took your love for granted, who never appreciated your care, who wasn't contented with what you could give him or her. 

You can't stay at that hurtful place anymore. You can't keep shedding tears over someone who doesn't deserve the love you gave. You can't keep feeling sorry for yourself and thinking if only you did more. You can't make them want the relationship because if they wanted they wouldn't have let go of you. You deserve better now. You deserve someone who appreciates all the good qualities that you offer. You deserve someone who won’t play with your delicate heart, you deserve someone who won’t be all about knowing your body, you deserve someone who will be serious with you and who will be with the fear of hurting you & losing you. 

Just like a cut on your hand will take time to heal, your broken heart needs time to heal as well. Many people before you, who thought they couldn't make it, have survived and made it. Just like they made it, you will make it too. Be strong and try to move on now. That’s not the end of your life. 

You will get over that pain you’re having right now and one day you’ll be happy again.

Being single...

Are you single? Are you tired and fed up of being alone? Do you feel lonely that your dear ones leave you all alone even though you could do anything to make her smile? Being single is not a bad thing; it's just a hard thing to go through and can play with your emotions and self confidence. But life is not all about a single relationship.

“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” ~John Allen Paulos

There are some important truths about being single. Being single gives you time to be by yourself, with yourself (finally some YOU time). The time to reconnect with yourself, a time where you can talk to yourself and debate all the questions that are bouncing in your head.

If you don’t let go of the past, you will never appreciate the present. You will always cherish those chweet memories with your dear ones, but you need to stop clinging to them to live for today and plan for tomorrow. Change can sometimes be good. Your past may be so beautiful to cherish but it is not much helpful to cry over the same thing again and again. You will have to accept your past and turn the pages of your life story to make it a happy one in the present.

Being single does not have to mean being afraid to love. Your heart may have been bashed, bruised and broken. But you don’t want to feel traumatized, as you may love again. Hopefully the next someone will treasure and treat your heart with love and respect. Someone, who will hold your head and look into eyes to see if you are really fine. Even if you’re single, you still have so much to appreciate. Being single is not the end of the world. There are other problems that are more depressing than being single—hunger and homelessness, for instance.

You’re not alone when you’re single; you still have family and good friends. If you are feeling lonely, talk to your family and hang out with your friends. Sitting on your own, in a darken room with the curtains closed will do nothing for your confidence and will make you feel more pessimistic. Get out there and socialize with friends and take your mind off being single!

Don't go searching. Some say that you don't find love, love finds you. What this old saying means is love isn't something you buy, it's something that is earned and discovered. We can't go in search of love as it won't last long if we do. It has to happen by its own. It must hit us, spellbind us, and turn life topsy turvy! It has to be with us always. That's true love. It will happen to you.

Actually you don't choose your love, it will walk through your door someday and make you realize the reason why god made you wait so many days with loneliness and tears. Be Happy and of course Keep Smiling :)

YES or a NO...

Right from your very young days, you are taught to say Yes to most of the things. Say Yes to religion, say Yes to the concept of existence of God, say Yes to what your parents think is right for you, listen to Obama when he says 'Yes we can' and some people even ask you to read that Shiv Khera's piece of shit called 'You can win' and think that it will change your life.

That little Johnny whose rhymes we sang, couldn't he have said 'NO' ?. Why couldn't it be Johnny Johnny 'No Papa' and the rhyme would have just ended there and Johnny wouldn't have had to answer two more questions and then open his mouth like an idiot and we wouldn't have had to recite that at all :)

Well, I don't know what role the upbrining plays specially in defining when a person needs to say 'NO'.

1. In the office, you get a mail at 6:30PM by your Boss. 'Can you please send this out in the next 2 hours, it's really really urgent.' Your office hours are from 9 to 6, you are already half an hour late, but most of us still reply to that mail, saying 'YES, it will be done, will send out asap'
2. Your wife tells you not to socialize with your friends who she thinks are creepy, the ones that you have grown up with and instead of taking a stand, you start avoiding them? Why can't you say 'No, they are my friends and I don't care how creepy they are'
3. Your parents tell you to take computer Science engineering when you are interested in may be an alternate career option, but you listen to them, why don't you say 'NO, I will pursue what I want, may be I will end up in shit, but I think I will be happier'

The main reason of saying 'Yes' is this inherent desperate need that is instilled in most human beings to 'PLEASE OTHERS'. You want others to think you are good, you want others to praise you, look up to you and all that. As they say, 'Duniya ka sabse bada rog, mere baare me kya kahenge log'. It's also the comfort factor that you get when you are a part of the majority and do what most people do. We also have the fear of the unknown, or why would more than half the honeymoons in India end up having the same 'Kulu Manali' destination and not Sarkhundi Pass?

It's not easy to do what you want, you might have to say NO to so many things, you have to say NO to comfort, NO to earning more money in the short run, say NO to routines, say 'NO' to being around with your loved ones, may be, say 'NO' to a better life that most people think and say they have. It might take ages to reach your GOAL, but through the journey you would have said YES to some magnificent things, 'YES' to travel. 'YES' to change, 'YES' to your ambitions and goals and through all this 'YES' to LIFE and that's the most important YES you have to say, EVER.