Write your heart out

She was waving her hands at me to bring me to the present, I was looking at her without actually seeing her.

“What happened to you? “ She tapped my shoulder to get an answer.

“Oh yeah. Nothing happened. I was just thinking  and … “ My voice trailed off again to distance.

“You always do this. How many times I have told you to tell me what’s going on in your mind” She said in the complaining voice.

“I am trying to write something different” I clutched the pen and looked at the blank paper staring at me.

“I am curious to know what will you write. Did you make up your mind on that? Is it story , poem or article? Oh wait, did you decide on the genre first? “ She sounded excited.

It was hard to say plain no to her , so I tried my best to come up with good reply “ I have something in mind But I can’t say it now. Be my reader to find out in future”

“You are being too much. Tell me so I can give my inputs to that” She said in the puppy voice.

I looked at her and asked her another question trying to avoid answer to this “What do you think to read, say I will write it for you”

She smiled at me and said “That means, You haven’t made up your mind on the topic or genre right? “

I sighed , Before I could answer she turned my face towards her and said “ Writer decides what to tell the readers and how to engage them with the story. Reader just follow the writer word by word”

She smiled and pointed towards the paper and said “Go ahead. I am waiting to read your story. Write a story which makes you happy”

I looked at her intently and started writing with a smile. Sometimes you need someone you are curious about what you write and also gives you the motivation to write something you love.

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Enable, don’t block

When we always do everything for our kids and parents, have you ever thought about the impact of that on their life? When there is a new technology which they have to learn but finding it difficult initially, Dutifully we come forward and do it ourself, without giving them an opportunity to learn. I don’t deny we are making their life easy. But At the cost of making them dependant on us?  After the first time, they don’t ever try to learn as we are there to do it for them.

This reminds me of an old story I had heard in my childhood. When someone is in suffering, don’t give them money, teach them how to earn money. Clearly, the former one just solves the temporary problem but the latter one solves their future problem also.

Keeping this in mind, next time teach them how to do the work, how to make it work. Be there, support them and supervise them when they try, But don’t do it yourself. Make them independent and eager to learn new things in their life. This is the correct way of helping them and motivating them to experience the thrill of doing things on their own.

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Block unnecessary thoughts

Imagine the situation where you keep on getting unnecessary messages or calls from a random person. You keep on answering or replying. Your frustration increase and adds a headache to your life. Same way, Now consider having unnecessary thoughts in your mind. You keep on thinking about it, you either justify it or resist it. Both of that simply drains your energy. Why not block it at the early stage?

Take calculated risk

When this pandemic started, I was staying at home all time due to the fear of getting affected, my mind was clouded with the possibility of all ‘what if’ situation. But I used to look out of the window and yearn for the day I will go out and enjoy the walk. Going out was a risk at this time. As the result, I was putting on weight and sad about not able to do anything.

One day, I decided I had enough of all this fear, I took enough safety measures and stepped out of the house. At last, I was able to feel the freedom from the restriction. I walked regularly and stayed fit and also happy.

This made me think about the similarity of this with our life. We have the fear of something bad happening in our lives and don’t ever take the risk. We try to stay safe in our comfort zone and only yearn to do something we love. Eventually, this adds depression in our mind and suck out happiness. Take a calculated risk, step out of the comfort zone which exists only in our mind.

Have you planned your year ahead

I remember reading this somewhere “New year is like a new diary to be filled”. That’s quite true though. In these 365 pages, we have the opportunity to add as many chapters as we like. We can try new hobbies to find our interest in it. We can find new friends to share our life’s secret. We can find our life partner to hold hands for the rest of our life. We can find a new job of our choice. We can read books from our reading list. We can travel to new places to enrich our experience. We can rewrite the old chapters in last year with a new perspective. Close your eyes and starts planning. Who knows you will end up collecting wonderful memories in this new diary!

Let’s not tag 2020 as bad memory

It’s a new year, a new beginning. Are you quite excited like a child opening the gift to find what this year has in hold for you? I am not going to deny, I am also pretty excited.  Before planning 2021, Let’s look back and peek at 2020 for a moment. I know it’s a tougher year for everyone, thinking it all again makes us sigh aloud. But come on, do you agree every tough situation also teaches us something when we change our perspective?

How simple our life was before pandemic? We worked hard in our job, to spend more on something meaningful like education or our future home, adding memories through the trips, shopping a lot or simply for time-pass like movies and snacks. We believed all this makes us happy or it keeps a healthy social circle.

After pandemic, everything changed upside down. Many people lost their job which they are holding dearer than their life. Many people couldn’t go out on a trip, frankly, living in pandemic itself was very adventurous. Many people didn’t shop, well there was no need for new dresses, pyjamas became our all-time companion.  But none of these stopped our life, it went on in the new normal way.

2020 has taught us many things we weren’t very eager to learn otherwise. Even when you put all your life in the job, it only took a few minutes for the company to lay you off when it comes to cost-cutting. We were living peacefully at home without partying or vacationing. We have realized the expense we were doing all were years like shopping or movie is not at all necessary to lead a happy life. It has highlighted the importance of savings for any emergency situation and also the possibility of not having a job. We got loads of time to spend with our family. Our new normal was like a wakeup call for everyone. 

Considering all these, if you rethink, 2020 has taught as much hidden good things and has raised many meaningful questions in our mind. Do you still tag 2020 as simply ‘unfortunate’ year?

Look around, get inspired

I read a book ‘simply fly’ about the air Deccan founder caption Gopinath. I was so inspired and mesmerized by the hurdles he has faced in life, yet we had succeeded in fulfilling his dream. This arises a question in my mind. We usually look at the person he has succeeded and get inspired. But he had succeeded because he had put on so many efforts and worked hard. Can we for a change look around the people in our life, who is working hard to achieve something and get inspired? We will also help them achieve it soon with this small gesture. Be inspired and also be a push factor for them. Instead of looking back at their life after success, be with them and make it worth a journey for them.

Conditioned living

Are we conditioned by society or surrounding to live in a certain way? We buy things shown and pushed to us through advertisement. We are happy with the things we get in our nearby shops, whichever the shopkeeper is keen to sell with offers. We are choosing the dress and fashion from people around us in the fear of standing out otherwise. We are studying the degree which promises more career opportunity in the greed of running ahead of the race. We are reacting or speaking in a certain way the people around us are comfortable with. Are we even living the free will?

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Good or bad

No good or bad thing happens in our life. There are few things happens which we filter out based on our convenience to either good or bad. Do you wonder why?
Consider that you are going somewhere, reached the railway station before the train’s scheduled time. you are waiting for a long time and train arrives on time and you think its good thing happened that day.
But consider the reverse scenario, you have to catch your train at 8 pm, the train arrives on time. You reach the station 5 minutes late. Now the same train and timing irritate you. you end up being frustrated and think its bad day.

Consider you are sitting near the window sipping your tea, reading a book and it’s raining heavily. You feel so excited and enjoy nature’s beauty.
But consider the revert scenario, you are going to the office in a two-wheeler, you have an important meeting. you already in a hurry and it rains, your dress is spoiled. Your mood is off and you end up cursing the same rain.
Before feeling bad about the things that happened, one second try to see the full picture. True that few things got happened, it need not be separated as the bad thing, just because we are not comfortable with that. Take a breath, Don’t spoil the mood. Sometimes things do happens, whether we like it or not.

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Mindfulness

I love chocolates and I know that I will be happy when I eat it. But don’t know why, When I was a kid I used to save the chocolate for the future. I kept it secure somewhere neatly wrapped up in its cover. For a few days after that, I would open the box and look at it with longing eyes and dream for the day to eat it. The idea of having the chocolate slowly turned from joy to constant pressure of saving it.  That thought of not having chocolate scared me, I tried to save more and more chocolates.  Few of my favourite ones got spoiled even before I eat it and day by day, I lost my willingness to have it.

             Now taking this analogy, think of happiness in your life. We sometimes dream of being happy.  But never allow the luxury of being happy to our self. We keep on saving that for some big event to occur in life.  What if that big event never occur suddenly in a day, and its collection of all the small things we overlook all these days Isn’t it scary? Smile and Be Happy, Celebrate the moment without waiting for the dream of a big event in life.

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