Tag: peace

Thoughts

Stories on the street

Each morning as I walk or drive for around ten minutes to go to my meditation class, there are countless stories to witness on the street.

Here’s the two I witnessed today:

  1. A man was standing with his cart containing buckets of pickles. That is what he would be selling whole day, to make a living. Here he was, standing in a corner, serving pickle in a small bag. He then called out to the trash collector to come, so he could have his breakfast.
    Such beautiful thing. Most of us don’t do philanthropy because we feel we ourselves don’t have enough. But it is only in giving, that we receive the most. You do not have to empty your bank accounts. A small act of care each day, is more than enough. If someone who makes his living selling pickles can do it, what excuse do you and I have?
  2. Another woman was brooming the road, with the broom taylor made for thick surfaces. It is unlike the one that we use in our homes. It’s streaks are thicker, which makes it easier to remove dust from there.
    As this woman was brooming the road, I noticed a strange thing: that I could not observe dust on the road. Yet, as she broomed, the dust became prominent in every movement.
    That was a beautiful lesson: around how the deepest things are not visible. It is only through tough scratching that they surface. So are the things in our lives. Our deepest pains are buried behind us cracking jokes, being on time, being addicted to work, etc. Only when a deeper pain comes that it brings all that is within – to the forefront.
    A wonderful reminder of how we pain brings the best in us.

That said, there is a third story as well – story of you and I – walking on the roads, streets, malls, etc.
We get the stories that we see. And we become them.

The question is: What do we see?

Life

Pre-weekend lessons of life

  1. Everyone is right. Even if we think otherwise.
  2. So are you. Even if you think otherwise.
  3. In case of an emotional outburst, spend time with a good book.
  4. You become whom you spend time with on Instagram. Choose that wisely 🙂
  5. The world is feeding you a template each day. What you do in your capacity to be a rebel defines who you are.
Happiness

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.

People

Does love die?

Love is like a plant, it is supposed to blossom.

In the initial years, it requires a lot of care to grow. If we are careful about that for at least a decade, it will automatically nurture itself later. Then it would become the strong tree, that gives shade and does not require much of nurturing.

But if we don’t nurture it in the start, it does wither. And slowly goes away.

Coming to the question: Does love die? Of course it does. When we don’t nurture the first few years with care and trust, be it in any relationship, nothing is left. If it is a relationship we cannot run away from, such as family, we learn to accept them – but there is hardly any connection. If there is a relationship that we can go away from – a partner, friend, business relationship – the best we could do for them is bless them!

Love, btw, begins with yourself. But that’s for another day.

Knowing Yourself

The best thing of 2021

I recently conducted an AMA on Instagram about the best thing that had happened to people in 2021 so far.

The responses were surprising.

While I had expected people to say things like got a new job, promotion, etc., most responses went with:

1. Started prioritising myself.

2. Taking care of what I want.

3. Took up yoga to for myself.

4. Moved to a new city.

5. Learnt to live on my own.

And so on and so forth.

Loved it! When people take care of themselves, they are able to take care of others more. Which isn’t true vice versa.

Looking forward to having more of them and seeing people get more powerful.

Self Love, Uncategorized

Pre-valentine post: Just quit!

I did not love myself at all, when I was in two toxic relationships:

  1. You’ll look good with this.
  2. Wear this, don’t wear this.
  3. Quit writing your blog.
  4. Quit preparing for CA.
  5. Just quit, just listen to me and I will love you.

I lol at myself how I was such a fool to call such instances “love”.

Anyway, those were idiotic steps on my part. But today I received a finalised video about a project that I’m working on. And life’s come a full circle!

Don’t know what would happen to this project, but I’m glad to have never quit and didn’t choose this kind of “love”.

If you have a choice between love and career, do they really love you if they don’t love your choice for your career?

PS: In the new project, I was looking exactly opposite of what these gentlemen wanted me to look like. Self love is super power! Happy Valentine’s Day peops! Hope you love yourself 🙂

Knowing Yourself, Life

It’s great that you’re not a laptop

My laptop turned ten this January. (Lol, looks like I’m talking about my kid. Haha, except that it is not my kid, I’ve just typed so much that it is just my therapist taking all the mental health issues outta me 😀 )

So, coming to the laptop.
It’s slow.
Can’t work on videos.
Since my work is primarily writing, we are still in a relationship.
But it takes time to download from and upload to the drive.
With too many tabs open, may even occassionally hang.
But it’s trying its best.

Here’s a fact: This laptop is a laptop. Which means it does not have a replaceable CPU. Which means it can only be replaced for a new one.

But here’s a bigger fact: You are not a laptop.
Your brain is not fixed.
You can change it.

Your body replaces itself almost every year.
You can change your body.

Your lifestyle isn’t fixed, no matter how trapped you are.
Your tiniest of changes can make the biggest of differences.

You are not a laptop.
Don’t live your life like one.

Emotions

The silent anger

There’s a wonderful woman I know of, who is living her life for a great social cause. She’s been doing this for the last thirty years, started at the age of seventeen.

She doesn’t get angry.
Always works to uplift people.
Cooks great food for them.
Listens to their problems.
Offers solutions.

All epic. Super-commendable.

But I can often sense hidden anger within her. Because the people she serves don’t live up to her standards.

That’s sad.

Because no one is going to live their lives as we suggest them to be, no matter how much good that suggestion holds.
As a matter of fact, if we force them, they might grow even more resistant.

The key is acceptance. And that is the entire journey all about. Acceptance that we can only guide them and bless them, everyone takes their own sweet time to get to a place of change.

Till then, they need our blessings.

The silent anger causes greater resistance.
And loss of trust.

Life

Categorically not right!

Some things are NEVER right, no matter what. Here’s some of them:

  1. Being cunning, instead of being truthful.
  2. Applying your sales skills to relationships instead of being vulnerable.
  3. Changing your word.
  4. Doing something which your kids/parents won’t be proud of.
  5. Not treating yourself with the same respect as we treat others.
Life

Comma, Full stop or question mark?

When we use a comma, the latter part of the sentence elaborates the former.

In case of an exclamation, there is surprise.

In case of question mark, there is dissatisfaction.

A full stop is the fullest way of expression. Whatever has happened, has happened. Be easy and bring a full stop to it. (Because other ways of comma, exclamation and question mark never generated a response anyway.)

Why not try a full stop now?

Try a full stop.

Truth be told

Apple is a statement

I was once in a conversation where an app developer for an android phone was listening to customer concerns. The app was a skill-development learning app.

One of the customers asked for the app being released in Apple App store, as they had an iPhone, while the app was available only on the Google Play Store.

The app developer remarked, “You own the iPhone man, you don’t need this skill development app.”

This statement made me think.
The app developer was right.

Not because I’m an iPhone user for almost six years now.
Not because I have something against the Android users.

Rather because Apple is indeed a statement.

It is not just a brand, it is a brand for those who have the money to afford it AND the personality to match to it.

It’s almost you can catch a rich non-Apple user and not-so-rich Apple user by the values they stand for. Yes there are exceptions to the rule where status game kicks in, however, most of Android users and Apple users have a lifestyle that defines their choice of brand.

For example, people with super expensive Android phones are the ones that despise iPhone the most. Whereas, iPhone users earning a mediocre income have nothing against Android users, because they know what they want is what their phone has.

Why are we talking about it right now?
Well, you know if you know!

Life

Lessons of life – 18 Jan 2021

Some life lessons that helped me today, might do that to you as well:

  1. Communicate. Don’t think this is obvious. People don’t love surprises, and so won’t we when we will realise our assumptions didn’t exist with them.
  2. People need love. Even when they give you hate. Once you get to this balance of giving them despite what they give you, you will be unconquerable.
  3. There is no black and white. Try looking for grey things, that will help you out.
  4. NOTHING can substitute learning from good books and knowledge each day. Each day.
  5. If you want to look and feel young, work yourself out! Same applies to the mind 🙂
Life

The idea of a happy life

When I had initially come home during lockdown, I had thought I would finally be happy when I will go back to Delhi.

I had thought I will be happy when I get my freedom, but it isn’t denied to me here either.
I had thought I would have good places to shop, but life is anyway being lived in the same pyjama since eternity:)
I had thought my parents wanted to stop me here forever, but they don’t, which makes me live here happily.

Don’t know when going to Delhi will be possible like before, but I am now starting to be happy with my dysfunctional family. Especially since opportunities to work and make money are infinite with zero compromise on my daily power naps and evening walks and morning workouts and what not!!!

We wait for an idea of the future hoping for things to get better, not realising it is getting created here and now – with what we think and what we do.

Happiness

Loving the sacrifice

Sometimes people say I sacrifice my Netflix and late night binge watching to rise early.
Or why do you workout and avoid all the junk foods?
Why don’t you work full time, and why is family time more important to you?

All these are sacrifices.

Sacrifices are good.
Because from those we create our destiny.

When we sacrifice Netflix, we create a destiny of peace and a good eyesight and a powerful brain.
When we sacrifice junk food, we create a destiny of a healthy and fit body.
When we “sacrifice” full work and spend some time with family, we create a destiny of joy and happiness.

It’s not sacrifice.
It is a creation of a happy future.

It is not a trade off.
It is creating a trade with yourself.

It is not lacking something.
It is accessing all that you have.

Sacrifices create happiness.

Emotions, Family

I hear you, sista <3

I had watched Big Boss Season 1.

After that, my intellect saved me forever.

However recently, I came across a Big Boss clip on Instagram, that made me think deeply.

Here’s how it goes:
The contestants are being allowed to meet their family. When Jasmin’s parents come, they force her to play her own game alone, and not with Aly. Aly was her friend and they both fell in love during the show. They show a slightly negative vibe towards her friend.

Maybe her parents are against her marriage with him, we don’t know.

But the way they told this to her made me think of two things:

  1. They could have refused for marriage when she came out, at least she would have her parents (which she does not have in Big Boss house) if not Aly with her. Har cheez ka sahi samay hota hai.
  2. For playing her game alone, this is how most parents tell their kids to do all their lives: Not to make friends. They will play on you. But you know what, trust others to the extent you cannot afford to lose. If you don’t invest, you won’t grow. If you invest too much to lose yourself, you will of course lose yourself. But advising a locked daughter to play alone and not “trust strangers” where anyway there are a lot of mental health issues going on, shows how much as a society we lack trust.

I feel for you sista.

This too, shall pass.

Honestly, I do not give any damn about her relationship with Aly because we don’t know what would happen when they both go out. But not making friends and playing alone is not how the game of life is played.

If you don’t get out of yourself, you’ve lost already.

Success

Starting from zero

All the influencers you follow, none of them were born with the followers they have.

Also, none of them is Shah Rukh Khan’s kid.

So, when you feel that they got “lucky”
When you believe that you just can’t “get there”
When you think others had privileges “you don’t have”
When self doubts starts encircling you
When success seems possible only by magic,

Remember that…

Everyone started at zero. Everyone.

If the ones who made it had something special, they had this:

  • Breathtaking consistency
  • Belief in themselves when the world was busy rebuking them
  • Trust that if it is possible for others, it is possible for them as well
  • Learning from failure
  • Learning from others’ success

And many more pieces of the puzzle that get arranged once you actually step into the pool.

Start from 0. You did so in school. See where you are now. Start again, for a different curriculum of life you want to be living for.

People

Are they really sorted?

There is someone in my circle who comes across as a very sorted, chilled out person.

They are least affected by all the hype happening at work or in someone else’s life, don’t respond to extreme events, and enjoy their work the most.

Very recently, someone in the group asked them what was the biggest personal lesson of 2020.

You’ll be stunned at the response!

“I realize I am the biggest source of stress in my life.” They went on to say that in the nine months of Covid alone, they had developed more grey hair than all the past years combined together.

It made me think. I always used to think of her as a chilled out, I-don’t-give-a-damn kind of person. Maybe they are that. However, just because someone doesn’t show it, that doesn’t mean they aren’t carrying a heavy load.

For some people, the very nature of not showing is their way of dealing with their load.

Aceeptance, not judgement, opens the doors of empathy from us to them, instead of we pigeonholing them as ruthless.

Each human is suffering, and the best way to save them is acknowledge it first, instead of judging them

Emotions

Happy when sad…

If we want to talk about the pains we went through, the list is endless.
And I understand, the pains were and are very real.

If we want to talk about the high moments of our life, the list is still endless.
Of course, we did work really hard to get there.

However, these are the extreme sides of human existence. They are somewhat the result of our inability to control the end results.

So is there something that we can control?
Yes, our happiness.

Happiness doesn’t mean celebration in an unfortunate event. It however does mean that you will stay stable and calm come what may.

When we are going through that break up, we can be happy because there were a few good things that came out of that relationship.
When we’ve lost that loved one, yes it is difficult, but wherever they are right now, would they be happy seeing you, an apple of their eye, suffer like this?
When we are going through lives’ biggest setbacks, do we have any idea that our nightmare is someone else’s biggest dream come true?

Perspective is what makes the entire difference.

This doesn’t make your suffering little. But the people for whom you are suffering would love to see you happy. Be happy for them.

And always remember, your happiness isn’t a sign of you not loving them. Your happiness is a sign of you loving them despite they had to go to another journey…

Career

One question I get asked a lot

One question that I get asked a lot is:

“How were you able to make your career switch? Did you not face any challenges? Did you fail? How did you bounce back?”

This blog, is an attempt to answer that.

Well, to give you a background, I am a Chartered Accountant by profession. Worked in the corporate for five years, and kept writing on the side because I loved it.
In 2020, I quit my job and took up writing full-time.

How was it possible?

Before how, let me address the question of why.

I used to work as an Internal Auditor. Which meant on any given day my high rating would be a function of how many errors and how huge errors I detected. It, in turn, meant that someone else had to screw up badly in order for me to perform greatly.

And I kid you not, I was great at my work.

Sometimes people were fired because of me, sometimes people were issued warning memos, and almost every single time someone else’s annual rating was adversely affected.

With all this going on, I was not very happy. If wherever you go, you are welcomed at a superficial level yet at a deeper level people wished I didn’t come or went away quickly. The money that we earn brings blessings. For me, it came at the cost of many people’s career. My career, no matter how legit, was someone else’s nightmare.

And with my love for writing, it was just nudging me daily to make that move.

So here’s how I quit my job and made a career switch:

  1. Started freelancing part time. I had already been creating my content – so initially that and a few cold emails served as a starting ground.
  2. Over a period of time and some force of luck (that always shows up when we do the good old hard work) when I got good clients + I managed to save a year’s worth of expenses, I made the move.
  3. The expenses that were saved are not used yet, thankfully, and will never be used as an emergency. But that cushion keeps you from making bad choices.

Simple. That’s it.

I did not know this would be the process, I just kept creating content without any direction of where it would go, and soon it did lead to some good places.

As far as problems that were concerned, I solved them the way I solve all my problems – by surrendering them to God. The results are never short of epic.

Try it out! And reach out to me to tell how it was 🙂

Thoughts

The usual boring stuff

Much of our lives is the usual boring stuff.

Extreme events – such as a job promotion, getting your dream client, getting that deal, your first pair of Nike’s, no matter how eventful – they’re extremely rare.

Which brings us to the boring stuff, and make the best of it.

How to make the best of it – no one can answer that for you, only you can.

But if you keep making the best of each boring day – trust me, you will have ideas to an extent of just extreme events.

Only one caveat: Keep working on your habits and the usual mundane stuff of doing the right things while watching someone else’s happening Insta feed.