Long time no see!

Well, to be honest, I was almost gone for-ever. I am beginning to gather all the remaining strength that I have and I am discovering the new will to harness more strength. I have let down people and in my mind I have let down people who no longer matter to me, they should not have mattered few years ago too, I was too blind to realize that back then.

Let bygones be bygones and whatever has happened can not be undone but the lessons learnt are worth tones of diamonds.

Will add events and stories with the passage of time and will definitely not stop writing anymore!

Standstill!

Haven't heard from you for a long time? Where have you been? How is life? These questions keep coming on the plate if you have people around and answers are always the same. As soon as you go through a difficult situation you will hardly find those people. Life goes on, philosophers say; they also say that if you are going through a good phase of life enjoy it to the fullest as that shall pass and if the phase is really bad then that too shall pass. I don't know which one is true or which one should I believe. Covid has not only taught me that isolation is necessary but it has also taught me that if you have fallen or if you are falling, only your limbs are going to help you.

Self doubt leads to such places which no one can ever imagine, it leads to depression and then finally you feel like you have been stranded and the world comes to a standstill. You and only you understand that struggle, struggle is not just dying of hunger, it has many forms. You feel as if you are stuck in the longest episode of sleep paralysis, you cry for help but no one listens.

Content!

We all have been planning, doing things as per the plan or design created in the mind every single day.Waking up, getting ready, off to office and doing the same chores and back to the burrow. The cycle goes on. In the midst of all these activities, few Instagram (or Facebook or whichever media it is) posts just to make sure that life is normal. An asylum has been built in which we are getting locked down and we are ignorant about that.

The world has become such a place where people judge you by the type or brand of clothes you are wearing or by the mobile phone which you are using. This is the same place where thousands of social media influencers or gurus have evolved who are teaching ways to lead happy lives. Are they teaching these things? Well, one more thing, I have not come across a single online guru who is either poor or middle class. Are they teaching ways to lead happy lives or are they actually teaching methods to become rich?

Well, if you have to judge a person, if prejudice is priority then judge by the virtues of sense of humor,intelligence, behavior and there are many more. Why these? Well, you can not find those in the super markets!

Is anyone really content? Today you buy a new iphone or the new trend in India which is one plus, you will be the happiest person for few days. Suddenly after 6 months a new model will be launched with better features and looks, will be content anymore? Life is all about changes and add-ons and accessories. The more you want them, the less content you will be.

In search of motivation!

I have always written blogs assuming that people go through the same things that I go through, but that can not always be true. Everyone has a story to tell and in no way possible those stories can not be same. Honestly, I am not the smartest person nor I am as smart as I pretend to be. There are times when I am completely lost and I try everything to find a way out. This feeling of getting drowned in a stream of unknown is the most haunting one and no one wishes to be there. Well, I have been there and I have survived a lot of times but still I have not managed to find a way to avoid getting into that spot again.

I have been working for more than two years now, I have not been doing what I was meant to do as far as my degree is concerned but I have been working and as a result I have chosen a lifestyle for me. I have become independent and somewhat supportive too, for my mother. Every now and then when I feel like quitting, only one thought stops me from doing that, "what about my freedom and what about my mother?" What about her? Will she approve of that or will she support? I do not know and I do not have the courage to face that situation too.

Now, why do I feel like that? Do you believe that whatever you are doing and wherever you are, you belong right there? If so then that is the best life one can have. I do not feel the same for me, I feel like something else is meant for me and the most disappointing feeling is that I do not know what is that. I am working on this, will definitely inform as soon as I DISCOVER what is meant for me.

If you feel the same then this 'I' is you and you should try to find and discover the same.

Procrastination!

Life is a combination of all the odds that you have ever heard of, ups and downs, highs and lows, losses and gains. However, sometimes life is more than just a combination of feelings and experiences, you might realize it late but when you do you find out that life has been an oxymoron of a kind and the more you try to undo that the harder to fail at that. Finally when you reach a point that you are confident that your understanding of life is absolutely correct you start procrastinating and you start waiting for the right time to come. Why not start now and wait for the outcome?

You are afraid now, after seeing everything and everyone around you, you are now afraid to take anymore risks. When you start procrastinating, you get more time to contemplate. Contemplation is good but if you keep on doing that for the same thing then you start twisting things to such an extent that those start to look ugly and you keep them behind.

Life is too small to think about taking risks, you are no king that you would be dethroned. Just go with the flow, say sorry when you have to, laugh always. If you are stuck somewhere, you will definitely find a way-out. Traffic does not stop forever. I have decided too commit more mistakes, learn from them, it is not the time to settle down. Water, when it settles down, either it gets polluted or it dries off with time, I choose to flow.

And now the story begins...

This year has taught me a lot of things and I have discovered a lot of me and I still think that much more is still left undiscovered. The best part of this year was that I was able to travel a lot, find new places and push through the limits. There are times when you are riding solo when you want to stop the bike and just stop. You become so tired of the same highway and the scorching heat that you want to quit. Would you quit or would you gear up and start riding again? The best thing about riding solo is that you will not be influenced by anyone to choose from the two options, the decision will be yours. Some people will quit, some will turn on the ignition and ride on while some will find a different route altogether. The last two options will take you somewhere and the first one will take you to where you used to be.

Life is no different. Either you have to carry on with the same route or you have to find a new one or else you will end up being where you used to be.

This will be continued...

Social media IQ !

IQ determines how witty a person is and who does not like to be with a witty person. You feel good when you are around witty people and you always tend to gain something positive. You feel the vibration around and a famous saying says," always surround yourself with people who know more than you," it definitely means something otherwise why would people say such things and remember too. 

Now, why IQ suddenly and social media IQ? People prefer social media IQ to general IQ now. There was a time when people did not even know what is the pronunciation of a meme and now it is all about memes and short facebook videos. Almost everyone is on facebook now and are actively using it as internet and data is available in plenty. Unlimited internet and calls are the new permanents but how many people do speak to each other now. The consequences, many, some are people are watching the same things and reading the same things, it's just that they are not wearing the same dresses otherwise everything is just the same.

Again, people read the memes and start discussing as they believe everything they see on the internet be it true or not. No one has time to check the validity of the news, no one even wants to check whether it is legit or not, but yes all of us make sure that we discuss those. The best example is those who don't even watch football they make sure that they discuss about the football team of Iceland, most of whom have a day job. How did they come to know that? The memes, what else! 

Yes, news channels cannot be trusted now, as all have become business houses for political parties and you can very well understand that by watching the trend of news they follow. One new channel will always telecast news which is anti-ruling party and the other new channel will show the positives of the ruling party. So, it is better to abstain from the news as you are not going to hone your debating skills by watching the news channel debates and the conclusion of those debates always nothing, save your time instead, read good books and there are many more things.

In a nutshell, the social media IQ is determined by the time you spend on social media and discussing those memes. Now you have to decide whether you want to have a greater social media IQ or you like to be dumb as far as the virtual world is concerned.

Life and a plate of rice and curry!

Your mom serves you a plate of rice with some curry and you have already been informed that there is no extra curry. In the beginning, you do not pay much heed to that warning and start enjoying the food. Soon you realize that not much curry with be left for the rest of the rice. So you start eating carefully, less curry with more rice. What happens next? You have enough curry for the end so that you can retain the taste without wasting the rice with just a little bit of management and compromise.

So, why this curry and rice story? Life is very much like the curry and rice. Only if you decide to adjust sometimes, the rest of the journey becomes fun. If you end up using all the resources and the money in the beginning, you will be left with nothing but dismay!

Sometimes people might even call you frugal or unsocial but they actually do not know the things which go on in your mind so let them think. Why think about what others are thinking? Plan for the bigger things, look at the bigger picture.

Life will be easy!

Whatever you do, you expect something out of it! You are working so you expect a good pay, a good environment and a lot of other things. You meet new people, you expect them to be good to you as you are generally very good. You lend someone something, you expect to get that back within the promised time. You expect you expect a lot! 

So when the things do not really work out as expected, you end up disliking things and slowly you stop believing in things like dreams and happiness. It becomes even harder when you fail to express yourselves.

The key to this is not to expect anything from anything that you do. That way you will have nothing to lose. As a matter of fact, anything that/which you will get will be served as a surprise on a plate for you.

You win or lose, it will not matter anymore as it had never been about the result, you had always wanted to be a part of the journey. This is what we have always been taught, participation is the main thing.

Participate, appreciate, do not expect, have a smile and life will be easy!

Photograph!

I have a habit of picking up new hobbies and discussing it with friends; while doing so this time, I had good listeners around me. So this time Ankit bought a Kodak camera for me as now I had decided to make a dark room for myself so that I can develop the pictures. I genuinely wanted to learn this new thing which is ages old and Ankit helped me a lot.

On a not so special evening, I started clicking pictures of Mitra and suddenly while clicking he said,'show me the picture once.' Both of us remained quiet for some time and then it came to me, how beautiful those days used to be when everything was not so instantaneous. We leave behind old things and habits so easily that we tend to forget the beauty of those things.

Pictures defined memories back then, pictures were not clicked for status updates or stories instead those were clicked to cherish those very moments. Photographs used to be the best form of surprise. Most importantly, cameras did not have an option to delete. Every picture of the camera roll was as important as the other one. You must have old albums at home, haven't you found a different level of joy when you go through those photographs.

We used to wait for the photographs for days and pen drives of Bluetooth could not transfer those pictures, it was not so easy and yet we desperately wanted to be a part of that transaction. We would protect the camera roll from light and what not. Limited pictures and many such limitations, still we enjoyed those days. With all those limitations and disadvantages compared to today's technology, don't you ever wish, just a wish, to go back in time.

New!

As long as you are not doing anything different you will not be able to find the meaning of new. You keep on doing the same errands everyday and finally after years you realize that you had never tried anything different and hence you have not learnt anything new. Is it really necessary to do that? Yes, it is! You are riding a bike and all you find is a straight highway with nothing but empty land around, it is obvious that the ride would turn out to be really boring after sometime, you need some curves, some hills, some valleys at least to make the ride interesting, isn't it?

Life is like a ride which does not become interesting without any difficulty in it. How long do you play a game with the same difficulty level in it? The only difference is that in life you do not get to set the difficulty levels. Whatever you get on the way you have to accept it or you have to find something new. New is you, every time you do something different you discover the new you and you would be amazed to know that you can do so many things, it would be unleashing your potential to do things.

Life is one and try to make the most of it before it gets too late to change ways!