Remember that frightening moment of your fall

Just recently in a situation where, about six months ago I would have been totally ill at ease, I found myself thanking the Almighty for the blessings he had bestowed upon me. This one of a kind reaction to the situation kind of surprised me and at the same time got me curious to find out the reason behind the same.

After reliving the last six months of my life in a split second, I was reminded of all the falls that I had taken in what I would rate as the worst phase of my life and of me constantly begging in front of the Almighty for no repeats as long as I live. At the same time I was also reminded about the bounty that the Almighty had blessed me with during this ongoing struggle, which included the gift of some extraordinary friends who I am indebted for life, some amazing life altering lessons, a green signal to some long overdue plans etc.

A few more introspecting moments later, I realized that the reason I had ended up thanking the Almighty was because I had learnt to appreciate and enjoy what I had rather than being upset over what I felt,I deserved to have. This was because the time I felt that I was out of my comfort zone, I was sub-consciously reminded of my struggle in the last six months and how comfortable I was now as compared to those times.

All I am trying to say to the readers of this post is that whenever u feel that things aren’t the way they should be and that life’s being unfair, In order to appreciate and enjoy all that you are blessed with, think of time when even you weren’t able to put money on yourself, the time when the world around you was falling apart, remember that frightening moment of your fall.

Dream on!!!!!

“Your every Monday ko diet pe jaa rahaa hoon waala type resolution!! Gimme a break bro”

This message from my sister in the midst of a time pass discussion got me thinking, that all of us at some point in our lives have made some plans which we are not able to execute no matter how hard we try. This is the most commonly occurring phenomenon in our lives and sometimes makes us feel like a loser, a good for nothing and so on. I would be lying if I say that the thought that, I am about to share with you guys was a member of my school of thought for a very long time.

Quite often when the most commonly occurring phenomenon occurs, we go into a negative mode and in order to ensure that we don’t feel the same pain again we say that “we will not expect anything ever”. In the process of expecting less we confuse the two terms “dreams and expectations” to be the same and stop dreaming as often we used to earlier.

We do not realize that this ability to dream is a gift and is something that gives us hope and also keeps us going in normal and the toughest of situations. The trial and error situations that we get into, while pursuing our dreams however big or small helps us ascertain what exactly we want in life and helps us get there eventually. One example to back my last statement would be of a person with a few failed relations in the past still dreams to meet “the one” and it’s this dream that makes him continue his search.

There is no harm in dreaming as it will not cause any damage in the time to come. So without taking more of your time and giving you all some time to think about what I have said earlier I will end this post by saying two words “Dream on!!!!!”

Fewer expectations = Lesser problems = A content and a happier life

As I have stated in a couple of my previous posts man is a social animal and constantly thrives to build relationships with the people around him. As this process continues the people involved in any kind of relationships also develop expectations that they expect themselves and the people involved to fulfill.

Fulfilling expectations and having your expectations fulfilled is a two step process and either one of the steps not being completed leads to problems. I will not quote any example as the list is infinite and all of you understand what I am trying to convey.

At the start, even I was not clear about the objective of this post as everyone was aware that having expectations was the cause of all problems. However it dawned upon me that even this problem had a very simple solution though not 100 percent foolproof.

The solution is that we should become self dependant (expect only from ourselves) in all the activities that we are capable of handling by ourselves and not depend on anyone for their presence, support etc. By doing so not only the completion of the activity will be on or before time, but also our peace of mind will be intact and we will be more relaxed and happier most of the times.

Thus the formulae for a more content and a happier life is : Fewer expectations = Lesser problems = A content and a happier life.

Identify the diamonds amongst the various pieces of coal

Happiness is a journey that begins in our childhood. As the years go by, man being a social animal concludes that more the people you have in your social circle the higher is your degree of happiness and security.

I was a firm believer of the above rule for more then the last two decades, however some reality checks in the last three months totally changed my belief. The horrifying experience of going under the surgeon’s knife and the on going recovery period post that made me realize that the above belief is not actually correct.

I realized that all our lives we spend investing in relationships which are not as truthful and genuine as we think they are. The lowest phases in our lives, though painful help us identify the genuineness of the relationships that we share with people and help us identify the diamonds amongst the various pieces of coal in a mine.

The people who help us stand when we are not able to do so on our own; the people who believe in our abilities even when we ourselves doubt them, the people who stay with us even after seeing us in our worst forms are the diamonds that we should separate from the bulk of coal around us. We should make constant efforts to polish these diamonds and make sure that they are shining to the best of their abilities when we are celebrating life.

All I am trying to say is irrespective of the fact that there is no guarantee that these people may be with us in the future taking into account the uncertainties of life, we should make sure that we do everything in our power to maintain our relationships with them and be there for them to the best of our abilities. We should always remember the fact that when it was dark, they chose to use their spark and shine to show us the way.

Life’s a Gift…. Enjoy it….

Quiet often with the experiences that we have had, all of us detest the life that has been given to us by the Almighty. By experiences I meant, something as minor as a job problem, an issue with a loved one or something as major as a health issue.

While facing these challenges we humans, build up a defense mechanism around us that we feel will keep us safe and no longer allow anyone or anything to affect us. An example of this would be to mould oneself to be totally materialistic and not emotional etc.

I too was headed the same way until a fortnight ago when I woke up post my surgery. Attempting to check myself thoroughly in that semi conscious state to see if everything was fine, the only words that came out were “O, Allah give me good health". Trust me at that point of time good health was the only thing that mattered. The correct blink of the eye, being able to stand on your feet, the proper movement of the various joints etc was more precious than anything else on the globe.

The point I am driving here is that very often while pursuing our worldly goals, we often forget how blessed we are with gifts whose value we don’t recognize, with the gift of people who love us and who pray for us and who we hurt because of our stupid beliefs etc. All of us have had our share of life defining moments and we should take a breather and regularly revisit that moment as they help us in realizing the true value of these gifts. By doing so we will get a chance to reiterate to ourselves that “Life’s a Gift…. Enjoy it….”

The moment when reality dawns and the illusions wither away....

Since the last couple of days I have been wanting to write about this particular thought that has been on my mind, however was not able to express it in words. The thought that I want to talk about is one which is common amongst all of us, the fear of that moment when reality dawns upon us and the illusions we live in wither away.

Let me try to explain it with the help of the a most common scenes from our films, the first one being where the guy in love dreads the moment when the girl of his dream will reply to his proposal. The second one where a girl forced into an anti-social profession fears the moment when she comes face to face with her family after years of separation.

It’s these similar feelings of anxiety, the fear of the unknown that occupy most of our thoughts and pose a road blocks in our life’s journey. A lot of time is wasted in clearing these blocks and the most amazing fact is that these blocks just don’t stop resurfacing. No matter how hard we try to make these road blocks disappear permanently, we just aren’t able to.

After a long walk on the path of self destruction because of this fear, I concluded that dreading and running away to avoid that moment of fear wouldn’t get me to that zone of peace that I was wishing to be in. The only thing that would get me into that zone would be to live that moment we dread and get an answer to our favorite question “what will happen if?”

Some of you may disagree and say that it wouldn’t be worth an attempt, however on the basis of my personal experience I would say that it does help. Even if the answer to that particular question would not be the one you expected, it does free your mind, your soul and enables you to explore new possibilities…..

So let’s explore the world of new possibilities and declare our freedom by living that moment we dread the most, that moment when reality dawns and the illusions wither away.

Have we started walking yet?

A learned scholar had once said “life’s a journey”.

In any journey, at the start we walk slowly, but once familiar with the path we increase the pace and eventually end up running till the time we reach our destination.

During the course of the journey each and every traveler comes across a zillion road blocks in various forms, however the default setting of crossing over any road block and continuing the journey takes us through. Some one has rightly said in a movie “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and it doesn’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.You or nobody, is gonna hit as hard as life. But it isn’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward”

Nearly at the end of the third decade of my journey, after encountering some road blocks, I was constantly telling myself that I am done running. However the other day while taking a breather from my self proclaimed run, I just happened to spot two ace runners. The first one was this lady who was trying to smoothen this rocky path she had walked on for nearly half of a century so that her son’s journey is easier. The second one being this deaf and dumb middle aged guy, who despite of his physical challenges was enjoying every moment of his journey to the fullest at a shopping mall with his loved ones.

These amazing people made me realize that though I had concluded that I was done running, the fact was that I hadn’t even started walking. The point that I wanna make here is that whenever, we “the travelers” feel that we are done running we should look around and ask ourselves a question “Have we started walking yet?”