Tag: people

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.

Self Love

Five tips from tears

1. Think in questions.

2. Don’t send that email.

3. Surround yourself with the right books.

4. Workouts are therapy.

5. Dance, baby!

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.

Art and Creativity, Success

Creativity and infidelity

Creativity is a weird companion.

Exactly 24 hours back, I was bursting with ideas to write blogs on.

Right now, I don’t know what to write.

Seems like creativity has been infidel to me and left me. Except that isn’t. Because creativity is a process. If you show up, it always does.

If you are reading this blog post till here, you know that creativity has kept up. Because I kept my promise of writing this post.

Creativity is always loyal. If we are.

Knowing Yourself, Process

Organ donation and our levels as humans

There’s a country where citizens become organ donors by default on attaining a certain age. It’s a law. They can choose to opt out if they want to, however, they will be in the last priority for consideration as organ recipients.

However, this is not possible in developing countries where there are fights on basic things like bank accounts or food and shelter.

There is nothing wrong or right. It is just the culture that pushes people to think certain way. It’s the reason why desis act like firangs in the countries of firangs. The culture gets it done from them.

This pretty much explains why we do what we do, and why is it impossible to change people without their prior choice or change of culture.

Someone who grew up in corporate culture does not know the nuances of starting up at all. Perhaps an eighteen year old knows more.
Someone who grew up in an Omkara apartment in Worli Mumbai won’t ever understand the nitty-gritties of arranging the basic things in most households.
Someone who meditates at dawn daily won’t love the culture of drinking till sunrise in Goa. They just aren’t that.

People aren’t wrong. They are just different. Simply due to changes in the people we are surrounded by.

While we cannot control whom we are surrounded by unless we make some drastic changes, we can always change whom we are surrounded by online.

Since humans spend a lot of time online, we have the choice to think like the people of the country where becoming an organ donor is mandatory.

We always have a choice.

Jokwa, Life

I have finally arrived 😂

I have been creating content for more than five years now.

It was only yesterday that I realised that I have finally arrived. I wrote a post on LinkedIn that said:

“Changing WhatsApp DPs often is a sign of an unstable mind.”

Lo and behold, what trolling comments I got yesterday! My first troll series 🙂

And the best part is, there were bigger number of likes for that post. That is the nature of goodness. It is always in bigger numbers, just that it doesn’t need any evidence to back itself off.

On that note, if you don’t feel offended, let me ask you: How often do you change your WhatsApp DPS?

Knowing Yourself, People, Self Love, Truth be told

Ooo, that was rude!

Someone said something mean to you. Someone dear to you.

A friend asked you to work for free for them, something for which you charge in six figures.

You did your 150% in a job and still your manager found flaws in your work.

All these things seem mean. And they are, undoubtedly.
The one on the other side has taken an extreme position without thinking of what you are going through or what efforts you would have put in.

They shouldn’t have done this. I understand.

However, the reality of life is that people will continue doing things or saying things that are mean or not tilted in our favour. That has been happening since eternity and will continue happening.

Will you allow yourself to be hurt every single time?
Will you allow them to take your mental space every single time?
Will you never show compassion towards yourself like you show towards others?

My friend, you are so powerful that you can bless even those who not only say mean things, rather are conspiring against you. Just don’t allow that trash to be accumulated in your mind and see the difference!

It will take hard work. It will require patience. It will ask you to be the best of yourself.
But being the worst version of yourself by getting affected wasn’t the best way to live your life either! Isn’t it?

Knowing Yourself

Don’t do it

Someone left a bike like this outside our building.

We leave our imprints wherever we go.

And it becomes a karma.

Imagine how many people are going to give opposite of blessings to such tiny aspects of what you do.

Earn blessings, not opposite of those.

Humour, People

My early morning hunt for blog posts :)

Remember how I wrote about a neighbourhood Uncle a few days back, and how he used to address me Moti?

Well, today morning we bumped into each other again, and what followed was magical! (Okay, not magical, yet surprising :D)

  • He didn’t address me like that
  • Which indeed made me talk to him for a while
  • And then he started his usual Uncle kinda talks to say: “When are you going back to Delhi (I would’ve told you if I knew the answer), “Do you have a vacancy for CA in Delhi (There are hazaar vacancies, however, this is not how life works bro); and my nephew in Ahmedabad is looking for a job (Will he really listen to a female helping him to search a job? – I’d love to help, if he is willing to be helped :D)

Chalo, the essence of this post was that now both that Uncle and me are away from our “addressing” me blatantly issues to the usual ones 🙂

Aal is well!

Knowing Yourself

My favourite one-liners

This is the collection of my musings while working, working out, figuring out life, and most of the times, showing up! Enjoy, and feel free to share 🙂

  1. Talent becomes latent when work doesn’t become hard.
  2. They don’t take care of you because they are too broken to take care of themselves.
  3. 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.
  4. Chill bro! This too, shall pass!
  5. Never leave yourself. Because others will do that to you anyway.
  6. If you are not cunning, you should be proud of yourself.
  7. Saying no to things that aren’t important isn’t a bug you have, it’s your feature.
  8. Sometimes the best moments get created when we are NOT recording videos of them. The happiness is living in the happiness.
  9. Poking fun at others is a sign of lack of self-honour.
  10. Playing revenge on mean people is becoming a photocopy of the one you despise the most. Why would you do that?
  11. People don’t get tensed because they are tensed. They get tensed because they’re in a habit of getting tensed.
  12. Just like laptop’s fan starts shouting when a lot of load is put onto it, so does our brain starts shouting when we expose it to a lot of load. Less is more, baby!
  13. If our follow-up email to a cold prospect could land us a client, imagine how our follow-up to a cold-blooded person might make them warm! Ego is indeed the enemy!
  14. Awareness is being aware of what’s good in you and what isn’t. It doesn’t mean endorsing what’s bad in you because you are “self-aware”.
  15. Our happiness is a function of how quickly we are able to bounce back from a mood-off.
  16. We spend our lives thinking about the correct thing to do, not realising not doing is the most incorrect thing to do.
  17. If we don’t pursue momentary pain, we sign up for a permanent one.
  18. Be hard on yourself so you could be easy on others.
  19. You’re a beautiful person if you take responsibility.
  20. You are the change you’re looking for.
Time

Few less-known ways of how we waste time

Here’s how we waste time (and where we shouldn’t):

  1. Checking social media for a minute and ending up wasting fifteen. Seven times a day.
  2. Thinking waste thoughts (no matter how much truth they hold).
  3. Stalking Virat and Anushka on Instagram.
  4. Thinking your parents did all the less-than-happening things to you, and you can’t change them now.
  5. Gossiping about that weakling in the group.
  6. Talking loudly (because it wastes energy, which in turn leaves less energy for important tasks which in turn, wastes energy).
  7. Watching Big Boss.
  8. Calling people (Bro, why do email and WhatsApp exist?)
  9. Listening to aunties chit chat
  10. Watching movies. (No matter how good a movie is, it keeps you hooked. Reading books is the rarest and the most precious gem of all. Always.)
Knowing Yourself

Whatever you do…

Whatever you do, others draw an example from.

Whatever you do, becomes the barometer for others to function.

Whatever you do, determines your state of mind.

Remember this the next time you’re going to take a step your intuition refuses to.

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

Success

The best hack to be peaceful

In the last week of 2020, I removed the email app from my phone.

Little had I expected, my screen time went down drastically.

So, going to continue that in 2021 as well. Even if there is an extreme news of me making it to the best seller list, I’ll be able to enjoy it when I am peacefully sitting in a place to read that email. Quick notifications aren’t a great place to celebrate.

Maybe will try that will WhatsApp soon:)

Emotions

Wouldn’t agree on this one…

I read somewhere that pain is just pain. Someone else’s intensity of pain doesn’t reduce your pain.

While most people may agree, I tend to disagree.

Someone else’s intensity of pain might be different from yours. And if we are unable to acknowledge that, it makes us more selfish and less empathetic.

If we are in pain and still can acknowledge someone else is in pain, we are truly a caring human being.

Process, Success

Easiest way to beat distraction

Do you often see yourself huddling with waste thoughts?

You decided to stay focused, and five minutes later you are scrolling endlessly?

Happens with you?

We would have read hundreds of texts and literature on how to change that, and of all those, one has been the most effective: To always keep listening to motivational audios or read such books. I personally have started doing it morning and evening, and the results have been way better.

Now stretching it to four hours a day while working on mundane activities.

Not because it will give me motivation to act, rather because we are accustomed to act in a manner consistent with what we hear and whom we spend time with. Since what we hear and whom we spend time with isn’t something wonderful in today’s world, why not start with doing it on purpose?

Any habit that we form on purpose is what we reap benefits of without waiting for. Always.

Jokwa

Some random jokes

Been sitting next to a new room heater. The RHS of me is in Mumbai now, while the LHS is in Delhi, while me sitting in Rajasthan.

***

Had gud+cashew as a mid meal snack. My fingers are greasy, helps with a smooth zoom out on the trackpad.

***

If you want to feel really hot, keep your laptop on your lap. 100% tried and  tested super effective technique!

***

How to distinguish an amateur from a pro?
A pro is someone who has enabled “Add Space After Paragraph” in a doc, instead of pressing “Enter” twice.

***

Desi culture is
Moms being okay with kids carrying
heavy bags of groceries or even suitcases

But not trusting them to lift a pressure cooker at home.

Tu gira degi!

***

That’s it folks! Worked whole day on it 🙂

Chalo, have a great Sunday!

Knowing Yourself

O yeah, that happens with me too!

O yes.

It is weird sometimes.

People behave in strange ways.

They act as if they don’t care.

And more than anything else, they tell you that you matter however, that is the last thing you see.

So, what to do?

Take care of yourself buddy!

The advice is real, the execution in takes all the effort. And if you are you, there is no one that can shake you.

Life

Love…

When we love someone, we don’t want to cry for them.
Because had they been around, they wouldn’t have liked seeing us cry.

Go live your life in the happiest version possible, in a manner had they been around.
Not because you are rejoicing that they went, rather because we want to let them know that in order to keep them happy, we will stay happy.

Our happiness is a token to tell them back, that we love them

Life

I have something to say

I want to say something to you:

Always be nice.
Even with the ones who are playing and plotting against you.
Because everyone is an irreplaceable parent or son or daughter of someone.

Everyone is fighting a battle we don’t know of.
And, we don’t know which one will be our last one.