Raw. Real. Unfiltered. Daily blogs. Often, less than 100 words
All of a sudden, I’ve enjoyed being with my family now.
Now that vaccine is almost there, now that there is a job to look up to, now that I’ll be back to Delhi somewhere by the end of winter, I’ve already started missing my parents.
They’re (not so much) weird for me, and I guess so am I for them.
This moment, is all you have!
As a line from one of my favourite songs goes: “Reh jayengi, yeh nishaaniyaan, rahein naa rahein hum! Aa jee le ek pal mein sau janam!”
While most of us have already named 2020 as the worst year ever, there are some incredible gifts that 2020 brought with it – something that we could have come into our lives had the pandemic didn’t occur.
Thus, 2020 in all its rights, is the year of these life lessons:
Isn’t it?
Flip rotis with patience.
Eat with patience.
Drink water with patience.
Warm-up and cool down with patience.
Also, be patient with yourself – because if being critical could help, it would have helped by now.
We all go through different layers of friendships.
Starting with school. Then college friends. Then friends in our jobs. Succeeded by our latest friends.
In all these stages, we have some “hello” kind of friends, some are good friends, and some become our lifelong friends.
And as much as we believe that our latest friends are our best friends (of course, they are the ones who pop up on our Instagram stories), the older the friend, the greater the understanding.
No matter you cry and talk about your boss with your latest friends, your college friends actually know where that is coming from.
No matter how much nostalgic we are with our college friends and our wonderful memories, our school friends do not need that – they are our by default psychiatrists and psychologists.
Every relationship gets stronger with the passage of time, of course, when it is nurtured consistently.
Time is power in friendships, and not investing that is losing on exponential rewards of love and belonging to a community.
Death has taken bigger toll on 2020 than we had ever expected.
It has become a daily feat to conquer instead of facing it at the end of the life.
However, when death comes with a possibility threat, it also comes as a reminder:
1. That if it comes to grab us, let it take us away with our happiness, instead of letting its fear take away our happiness.
2. That there are people who need our support and just our emotional presence. We can always be there for them, even if we are not around them. Let our loved ones know you care. Because you do. And because they need you.
3. This moment is all we have. We don’t know what’s next, however we do own what we have now.
Trust yourself, as much as you trust others.
Trust yourself more often.
Trust others more often.
Trust the pain, because it solely is responsible for making you enjoy the joy of life.
Trust your hard work, it never goes to vain.
Trust your parents, even when you don’t want to.
Trust your friends, they are there for you – anytime and any place.
Trust your work, coz it will go out into the world and do more good.
More than anything else, trust yourself. You have handled worse in the past. This too, shall pass.
For several months, I’ve been trying to change a habit of mine, which is: to not check work related WhatsApp messages and emails on Sundays.
However, despite multiple efforts, wasn’t able to get off the habit.
Same thing happened yesterday. I attended to work messages in the first half.
In the second half, I went to play badminton with my nephews and nieces. As a result, when I came back, still I didn’t open their WhatsApps. I didn’t have the urge in the first place!
It shows the power of physical activity on our mind, and how much controlling power we have.
No matter how important or urgent the work is, nothing is more important than the much-needed nothingness.
Kindness isn’t about being kind when you are supposed to.
Kindness is about being kind when you are not supposed to.
And you still do it, because that’s the right thing to do.
1. Make meditation non-negotiable.
2. So does workout.
3. Give yourself a gift for intermittent fasting on the internet for straight 30 days.
4. Spend time around kids.
5. Nature walks are the ultimate healers.
To never waste your time, schedule your days. Including the fun times.
Otherwise there are so many distractions that one day you will end up wasting not your time, rather your life.
What do you do when you are bored?
That is what will determine what you will do when you have all the time in the world.
Distracted can’t be obsessed. Obsessed can’t be distracted.
MS Dhoni announced his retirement today.
The sad pic of that semi-final match in WC 2019.
Sad we live in a society that makes a gem retire because he couldn’t get us to the Finals of the World Cup.
PS: How could we forget it was a team of 11 players on the field?
How could we forget we trusted him so much that we depended only on him?
I have never been a cricket fan. Never watch matches.
However, the next time someone doesn’t get the score you think they should get, don’t treat them like as a society we treated Dhoni.
You will be loved forever MS! For all the things you didn’t say 💖
The past few months of freelancing have been super fun.
Got some really amazing clients, and having the work I love.
Looks like a fairy tale, isn’t it?
Of course not. Because out of very few things that have worked out, there are 10X things that haven’t!
Applied for freelancing jobs that didn’t work out.
Cold emails that didn’t get responded.
And opportunities I was sure of getting didn’t come.
However, what did work out was engagement and relationships with the clients that I am working with right now.
No formula, no random tricks. Just success is directly proportionate to the efforts you put in.
The number game.
Today I wasn’t feeling good about my relationship with my parents. Somewhere I want them to talk about things that interest me.
However, later I realised that this is not the first time I have had the same emotions. Happened multiple times.
Till when would I allow myself to wallow in the same pain? Is my time so easy to be wasted?
So here’s what I did to keep me grounded:
• Made a gratitude list. My mood is my responsibility.
• Played a spiritual and practical video on YouTube while working
• Actually spoke with them. Because perhaps that is what they think of me.
That’s it. Problem solved. Rinse and repeat, the next time it occurs.
You reflected on something that you wanted to change.
And you decided to change.
The question is: Till when?
Not only for one day or two. What are you doing to make change stick?
Before forming one more new habit and failing at all of them and calling yourself a failure, create a plan for sticking to just one habit.
And then the next. Drop by drop. Dip by dip.
When did it actually happen?
When did I move from giving love to needing it?
When did I move from giving tonnes of acceptance to needing it?
When did I move from cheerful, super happy and full of charm kid to crying whole day?
Never have I ever waited like this. Waiting for this time to go away. Don’t know when. I have written positivity and power for eternity. Then why so much truth? Why am I documenting my rock bottom? Why?
I have no idea. Other than the fact that I want it all out of my system.
And also one more reason: The ones suffering from mental health problems are already strong. They have to muster the strength to get back up. So don’t think they need any help. They spread awareness on it so that more people could become empathetic towards each other and more cases of depression stop from coming. That is the only reason.
Yesterday was a day purposefully missed out on blog.
Played badminton with cousins after a really long time. Covid has brought all the memories of having fun with each other back.
Also attended two online classes of two people I admire a lot.
And said no to someone who has no sense of respecting someone else’s (and their own) time. Without letting them know. Felt great. Learnt better tactics.
Honestly I could have done that. But I wanted me time. Sadly, our society values and respects us only when we are “doing something” and not when we are chilling and spending time with family.
That’s sad. And we need to change it. How? A. By taking some me time. B. By not judging others when they take their own.
Society just doesn’t go for a bath and gets cleaner. We do it each day by what we do. And by what we choose not to do.
Boss.
The moment one uses this word, it comes across as someone who is dominating, trying to pull you down, and thinks nothing in your interest, only in the interest of getting work done.
While I have worked with several bosses over the past years, I understand getting a good one is merely a chance of luck. Otherwise we are all doomed.
When you have a good one, there may be times when you may still want to change parts of their personality.
Of course, you may be considering job switch or client switch (because the client is also a boss) or making any other move, there is something you can always change, which is: becoming more elevated in your state of mind.
This may sound like the most obvious answer.
Feeling bad and rejected because of boss? Make a more elevated state of mind.
Feeling resentful towards them? Create a more elevated state of mind.
Want to do gossip about them? Create a more elevated state of mind.
You may actually not want to do that in all these situations, and just go and deflate their car tyre as an easy option.
However, here’s the harsh reality friends: Unless you change your own attitude (no matter how good it is right now – remember, elevation 😇), you won’t have the power to change your attitude towards someone else.
By all means keep looking for a new job if this one doesn’t feel right for you.
However, in the midst, in the process of finding out a new one, is it really worth your time to spend emotional and mental energy on someone who probably doesn’t care? Perhaps they are going through a bigger life problem that you aren’t aware – and their behavior is simply a reflection of that problem. Maybe their kid is not as bright as you and that’s why they want to pull you down.
Perhaps none of these reasons exist and still they aren’t humanly nice to you. Everyone is fighting a battle we don’t know – not even about our immediate family.
To make the change outside, starting within is perhaps the first step. And the last one. And all the steps in the middle. Everything else will be taken care of.
No, no one would change because of that. But you won’t be losing yourself in the process of coping up or finding a new boss. That’s when, you become your own boss.
One, is of course, losing the weight – emotional and physical.
Two, is to remember you are the light.
Three, quite relevant, is to politely decline. Nothing, absolutely nothing would give you as much energy as not doing what you know you shouldn’t be doing.
I see a lot of parents of my generation who still teach their kids what to do and what not to do.
That’s the saddest thing to happen.
Because we are creating another version of ourselves.
And we won’t be doing it in the first place if we were proud of what we have become.
Our parents’ generation did not have as many privileges as we have.
Not using the privileges that we have, is probably worse than not having privileges.