Posted on by Nishtha Gehija

The manufactured definition of love

Love. Such a beautiful word.
We are born with it. We are not taught how to love. It is our real nature. We come along with it.

We smile at our family and strangers alike.
We talk to anyone and everyone irrespective of their colour or race.
We trust people for who they are.
We forgive quickly.
We are just real, with no judgements, no gossip, and definitely no need to control anyone.

This is who we are when we were born – real and untainted.

Then a terrible thing happened.
We realised the world does not function this way. The world is sadly living in a manufactured definition of love. 

Where we will be loved when we recite a poetry in front of our relatives.
Where we will be loved when we get certain percentage in schools and colleges.
Where we will be loved when we pursue a life choice that isn’t ours but of people who “love” us.
Where we will be loved when we agree to making “love” with a partner otherwise they will question our character.
Where we will be loved by our “friends” if and only if we gossip with them about other friends.

And if we do none of these and walk our own talk, we will not be loved.

Be like him.
Talk like her.
Look at what he has accomplished.

Words and people that were meant to make us rise, end up diminishing our self confidence infinitely. 

And then we wonder why don’t we feel the love we used to feel as a kid.

At this point, each one of us has two choices:

  1.  Fall for this manufactured definition of love, follow the norms others have laid down for you, and be someone who again gives manufactured love. But wait, you will have everyone there with you, to “love” you. Other than you.
  2. Be who you are, being respectful of others yet doing what you feel is right. Own your life, and take the steps that you want to take. It will be easier. But guess what? You will almost always be alone on this journey.

Most of us fall for the first one. Not because we cannot hear our inner voice. But because the external voices of manufactured love will stop coming to us if we love ourselves. And that’s scary.

Very few of us, very very few of us, who take the plunge to love ourselves, live a life of real luxury. There are roadblocks and hurdles at the start, but when you overcome them (and you always do), what comes out is You. Real You. Who is love. Not manufactured. Rather real love. And then solving all problems becomes a skill that gets compounded and works in your favour 🙂

Every single day, we have two choices – be the Real Love or fall for Manufactured Love. It is not a one-time choice. It is a daily choice.

The choices that we make daily, will determine how much real love we become.
And give to the people looking at us to show them how the world works.

Posted on by Nishtha Gehija

The reality of social media

You must have seen people partying on the beach on Instagram.
Or making teddy bears of snow.
And making you feel like it is your life only that is at loss.

Here’s a silent truth:
Someone I know personally posted a vacay pic of theirs, with a thoughtful caption and how happy they were truly being in this flow state of life. However, I know they are going through a really, really tough time. A super tough time.

It is great that they took a break, no doubts about that.

But here is what I want you to consider:

  1. Social media = away from reality. Almost always. Rather always.
  2. People show that they are enjoying because they have FOMO – they have also seen others showing their “happy” pics and would do anything to show that they are also happy.
  3. Our real nature is happiness. When we are away from it, we would do anything to get closer or appear closer to happiness. If we get close to real happiness, awesome! If we get close to faking happiness, our hole of sadness gets deeper.

Choose the form of happiness you want to live in. And the coolest of the coolest people, who are your (real) role models, they hardly share their vacay pics online with a “success-filled” caption. Because they know that real happiness is the remaining 350 days as well, when we are not on a holiday.

Read the above line again.
For yourself.

Posted on by Nishtha Gehija

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.

Posted on by Nishtha Gehija

The Quiz

Today I attended a quiz. Strangers quiz. Organised by Shakti Shetty – the Zomato copywriting guy. With random people. Just out of the blue. Because why not? Let’s make the full use of Zoom barabar Zoom.

Was fun. You had to connect the dots.

The fun lied not in knowing, rather in the process of figuring things out.

  1. He made a wonderful, neat presentation with questions and answers.
  2. Not only that, different slides used different templates.
  3. If you interrupted someone else, you lose your marks.
  4. Why I loved the quiz was because Shakti is as real as he could get. He doesn’t use stuff like “Thank you so much for all the love” or “I am so happy for the wonderful fun here” or “any internet mumbo jumbo that all of us ‘aspiring’ famous people have coined ourselves to.” Just human. Just real. A fan of his art (that is always visible in his words and Insta stories) for life.
  5. Most importantly, it’s such an amazing feeling to connect with strangers, forgetting all your worries of the world, and come together just to have fun. Something that we have forgotten in this rat-race of figuring things out.

Would be attending more in the future! Yayyy!

Posted on by Nishtha Gehija

Life lessons – 18 Aug 2020

1. Maturity in life is accepting that someone in family that was closest to you dome day, isn’t close anymore.

2. When you don’t check an email / notification immediately because it isn’t important, you become more powerful. (PS: 95% aren’t important.)

3. Speak your truth even when your voice shakes. The only person going to be with you from start of life to end is you, and if you don’t speak your truth, do you really want to live with a liar all your life?

4. Parkinson’s Law is as real as gravity.

5. Focus. Focus. Focus is the ultimate asset.

Posted on by Nishtha Gehija

The true measure of your bigness

We become big

on the day

we refuse to feel small

on small acts of people

who don’t know

they are acting small.

They perhaps know this much only.

And thus, are acting this way.

But if you become like them

in the process of teaching them a lesson,

you have lost the biggest lesson of your own life:

“To not to be like the ones who try to pull you down.”

Because in reality, they aren’t trying to.

They just know this much.

They just know this much.

Perhaps you also need to alter your perspective.

Posted on by Nishtha Gehija

What’s your weight?

This lockdown came along with gyms locked down.

Till March, I had reached a great weight resistance. Then began the workout at home.

Today I brought in weights from my old home, and lo, the resistance which I could carry initially wasn’t there. The reason, obviously, was lack of practice with weights.

In life, the more we continue to live with goodness, the more resilience we develop against what’s isn’t right – without losing on who we are.

If we remain where we are without increasing that quota of goodness, over time, we’ll lose it.

Over time, we will lose ourselves.

Posted on by Nishtha Gehija

Strong and happy. Maybe!

I want to put a strong and happy face and tell it’s going alright.

I also want to be grateful for the love and blessings that I have been blessed with.

I also want to do great and productive stuff.

However it just isn’t.

Family thinks I’m too lost. In reality, I am too lost.

They think I’m working too much. In reality, I am trying to work too much.

They perhaps believe I don’t care. In reality, can someone please care without conditions attached?

Will learn to deal with it, navigate it, fight it, tell myself it will be over.

And it will.

Till then, we may just learn to switch from spreading awareness to becoming the awareness.

Posted on by Nishtha Gehija

Forming relationships

Forming relationships is beyond connecting with people from LinkedIn to WhatsApp.

Forming relationships is just being the genuine human being that you are, without ulterior motive of collaborations.

When you do so, just because you want to give, what you’ll receive will come to you manifold.

Posted on by Nishtha Gehija

Is your education worth it?

Back in my school days, rather for the entire time of my formal education, I was a top scoring student.

  • How many of real world skills are dependent on the numbers you got?
  • Yes, your marks gave you a kick-start at the beginning of your career, however, did they decide your entire future? Never.
  • We all have countless examples of back-benchers who went out to do amazing things in life, then why do we still place so much importance on formal education?