Tag: help

The red stain on the white sheet

Yes, it happened.
Not on my bedsheet.
Rather on the sheet of a meditation hall of a huge retreat center.

Yes, you read that right.

I had just had my dinner, and had gone to the meditation room to let go of what was in my head.
Little did I know I would let go of much more 🙂

Since I was menstruating, I thrust my kurta behind, before sitting on the floor – that had mattress covered with white sheet.

And when I got up, I left an imprint! A huge one!!
Surprisingly the kurta was stainless because it had been thrust back, it was through the leggings that the stain had escaped

Now I had two options:

I could tell myself: “Nishtha you have been menstruating more than half of your life, and you do not know even this basic thing of taking care?”

Or, I could get up and find for a solution.

I got up, and told the girl next to me (by disturbing her meditation) of what had happened, and she helped me out.

She suggested to keep my bag on one side of the stain, and she kept sitting on the other side. Meanwhile, she asked me to bring a wet handkerchief from my room to clean it.

I ran to my room. Changed. Got a handkerchief. Made it wet. Ran again.

Did the operation. Didn’t succeed.

Then she suggested, this time I keep sitting, and she will bring a bit of soap from her room.

In all this, the coordinator who was taking care of the premises started turning off the lights, and requested me to leave. I said I’m waiting for someone, and requested for ten more minutes.

He waited. Then said he has to come back early morning. So he insisted.
Then another girl next to me told him what the real problem was.
After which he became quiet, and waited.

Then came the face wash. And my handkerchief. With few drops of water from the girl who told the coordinator to wait.

And I rubbed and I rubbed. For ten full minutes. Post which it finally became clean.
Though the mattress was wet, but it wasn’t red anymore.

Lesson learnt: Take extra care going on, however, if you screw up, figure out solutions instead of screwing yourself up further.

Stranger stranger

This morning I posted a one-liner on LinkedIn:

You don’t know how much you can learn, until you sign up to learn.

Had two really weird comments.

Comment 1:

Comment 2 (Reply to Comment 1 by a stranger):

Thank you, to the wonderful community that stands for strangers and corrects the not-so-good others are standing for.

Thank you! 😊

It pays to NOT be the cool kid

Do you sometimes feel that your hard work isn’t validated?

Let me tell you a story of the cool kid.

It is easy to be the cool kid.

The cool kid does nothing significant.

The cool kid is just hanging around trying to look cool.

Does things that get attention of everyone.

Anything that escapes hard work and still brings in validation is what the cool kid lives by.

Except, that they themselves know they are hollow.

And that’s sad.

Because every effort of theirs is an attempt to look cooler by covering up that hollowness.

And in a sheer suddenness of move, the cool kid does something that they were supposed to do. When they do this, all of a sudden they become cooler. Because no one had expected them to do this!

Isn’t that a “virtuous” cycle?

Friends, we all come across “the cool kids” in every setup, in every work structure that we are a part of.

But you know what?

I have never seen a cool kid being trusted.

Or being entrusted with responsibilities.

Or even being looked forward to as a professional.

We can play around with colleagues. Because their validation was the first thing the cool kid was after.

However, rising higher is always preceded by hard work. Always.

Disturbing in Simla vacation

Couple of days back, I had an inpromptu plan to visit Delhi, where I live. (PS: I am in the last month of my stay at my hometown these days :D)

When I called up my landlord a day prior to my reach, he and Aunty were in Simla, for a short break.

Yet, here’s what Uncle arranged to do for me:
– Asked his brother in law to come home and take out my room’s keys to the kitchen, which was being used by the servant.
– Told the servant to clean my room
– Told the servant to make sure he opens up the main gate, as I wasn’t having the keys

All this, while vacationing.

They didn’t have to do that, yet they did. As a matter of fact, upon reaching my apartment, I texted Uncle instead of calling him so as to not to disturb them, thanking for everything. He replied with taking the help of the servant, if I needed anything.

Just wow!

But why are we talking about it?

Because in a lot of homes, it is considered taboo to get out of your way to help anyone in family, let alone tenants.
In a sad culture that has been instilled, it is thought that if someone is helping us, it should be with some ulterior motive.

And if that was not enough, kids are taught that they should never talk to strangers, let alone help them.

No wonder why that generation has grown up to become mentally ill generation.

That said, if you are able to read this, you have the power to parent yourself. What our parents and our culture did to us is bad, however, if we replicate that to ourselves, nothing could be worse.

So, help others out. It will not be a disturbance on your Simla vacation. Be the one who is a giver, and EVERYTHING else in life, will be well taken care of.

Helping and Asking for help

Part I: Giving Help

If you want to help someone else, make sure you’ve helped yourself.

If you think you are still doing them a favour, you are not.

People love to know they’re loved, only if they could feel you loving yourself.

Part II: Asking for Help

If you are asking for someone else’s help out of their obligation to do it for you and out of their inability to not do it willingly, probably you need to rethink your choices.

Conclusion:

The only way to have everything aligned on the outside is to align yourself from within. Nothing changes before that.

Why do we work?

The role of your work is to make someone else’s work easier.

If your work is built on letting others make their efforts, have we really made some good efforts?

Make an effort to reduce someone else’s efforts and their ease will serve as a blessing for you.