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!

Is life a race?

" Life is but a race and if do not run, you will be like broken eggs", remember the dialogue from the movie 3idiots? How not to be a part of this race? Well, do not participate, just go with the flow and enjoy the present which is the best present life has given. Otherwise, every time you go out of your homes, you become a part of a race chased by someone or chasing something or someone instead. You do not have the time to look behind, forward and ahead.

Have you ever noticed something? On a normal week day when you are at your office, you count hours and wish the day was over soon and on the same day if you were on a vacation, somewhere on a hilly region, you would wish,'how beautiful would it be if that moment or that day would never end.' Life can be so funny at time and the worst part is you do not have control over it.

The best solution is to get lost and the only thing in possession be hope and nothing else that would consume you. A road that would run endlessly, no expectations and who so ever passes by would greet you and you would pass a smile. How beautiful would that world be! 

Ghosts!

Are you afraid of ghosts? Are ghosts real and if not why do people still believe in them? The truth is that ghosts are real and are not dead. I, you, he, she or they, everyone is a ghost for someone or the other. The only difference between the living and dead ghosts is that you can see them anytime. They vanish only when you want them to or when they stop seeing you. As long as you are the present for someone or some place you are alive and as soon as you are gone, you become a ghost. Generally we call it out of sight out of mind. A ghost is merely a memory which you prefer to share with others by siting across a candle lit table by creating a ghastly environment.

Do we really care about each other or we just pretend to? Every now and then someone from our contact is becoming a ghost and we do not even have the time to realize it. Are we really that busy? The positive thing about us(ghosts) is that we can be brought back to life without even performing Planchet. All you need to do is give a call and talk for sometime to give life to a character which might play a role in your life.

So pick up your phone and start bringing the dead back! 

It is your call !

Has it ever happened recently that you put your palm on your face and you wished that you could keep your eyes closed like that forever? When you look around and you realize that you are enclosed in a cage! The only thing under your control is the keyboard right in front of you not even your sleep.

It becomes too late until you realize that you are neck deep in the sea of depression. Surrounded by the feeling of unfulfilled aspirations and the monotonous routine.

Is it as bad as described above or even close to it? Then it is the perfect time to make a call! All you need is a vacation, away from the crowd and the faces and the facts. You need a system restart and what better way to restart yourself than a vacation, after all you can not come back from the dead. You are no Jon Snow. 

A vacation will let you think quietly in peace. You are not a machine that you will work endlessly. If you remain silent forever, doing the same thing day in and day out, silence will grow one day like a cancer. Get a hold of yourself and ask yourself, what do you want?  

Choice!

Life is full of choices, right or wrong, left or right, up or down, profit or loss. A small conjunction determines the impact of our choices in our lives but it is not always we who have the privilege of choosing as sometimes we are ought to do things which our mind does not permit to. Choices lead to disasters and sometimes can change your fortune.  

You wake up and you breathe and even if you are not awake you breathe, it is something you can not choose and you are fine with it rather you are grateful as you are able to live. Is there anything else for which you feel the same. To be able to do things that you love will never make you feel as if you need a choice. Life is not so easy either, everything is a package and comes with a but and a condition. If you are ready to accept it then well and good.

I am not ready, are you? Confused state is the best state one can be in! You find out various ways out and finding ways out does not make you an escapist, does it? Even if so, you own a skill. There will always be want for more and more can only be achieved when you have choices, be wise to choose one.

Who wants to lead the same kinda life for a lifetime! Inspire yourself before getting expired and leave a mark behind so that others' can follow, if not follow they can at least choose!  

Society today!

We are living in a techno-society, which is run and driven by technology and the fuel is networking. People believe in social networking more than actual networking.We are more comfortable behind our screens, have you ever realized what will you talk about with a person with whom you have been chatting for a long time? The virtual conversations have become so very real that we can hardly differentiate, lol and rofl have now become a common tongue, instead of laughing out loud and expressing the real feeling people choose to express that by saying lol, isn't it weird and half dead.

We have taken our virtual lives so seriously that it has become more important than our real lives, a Facebook password is more important than your ATM pin, you will find people knowing your ATM pin but a Facebook password would be hard to crack. A friend would not call you or text you but casual tag on a social networking site would make you feel special and you would feel as if that friend has not yet forgotten you. 

I don't think that we can come out of this and this is a fact which no one can deny and while there are many things going on, one of the most important thing is that our society has now formed several groups which intentionally or unintentionally wants to become like the other one. Every society for centuries has been divided into certain groups and that group is decided by the age group you belong to. If you are not able to realize the difference then parents might be able to explain you that. We might grow technologically stable in the coming future but a physical touch is something that will always be required.

Today, if you randomly ask a boy of standard 7 about some of the terms in geography or any other subject, chances of failing to answer are more but the same boy would have all the same updates about the world and India because he is also using facebook and instagram and whatsapp. Today a school boy is sharing communal posts on social media because he has realized that he has got the freedom of expressing but does know about all his rights and freedom? Does he know anything about the law?

We need to raise our voices, instead of pen being mightier than a sword, now let a post be mightier than a pen and a sword both. Let us ignite our positive thoughts and use our conscience to do the right thing at the time when it is required!

Optimism isn't enough!

Optimistic approach towards anything makes the thing doable but it lengthens the time. You sit back and when when you fail to proceed anymore, your own completely optimistic approach ceases you to find various other ways to succeed. On the other hand if you add a pinch of pessimism to your positivity you will be able to find out other methods too.

Optimism is enhanced by a set of examples of successful people. If we are supposed to follow our ideals and wait for the time to come then we will never be able to become examples, we will have to follow their path for a lifetime without even trying to pave one. If following successful people would make you successful like them, then there would have been hundreds of Ambanis and Tatas and Gates but we know only one or two of each. What made the difference? We have to discover that and then pave our own path.

Prefer to be pessimistically optimistic and it will do the trick!

Take a vacation!

Tired of doing the same thing everyday, watching the same faces and listening to the same voices? It is time to change things. You must have had a playlist in your phone, which now must have been replaced by some application. Whatever it might be but you do not want to listen to the same songs everyday, you keep on changing the tracks or shuffle the songs. You might be thinking, how can changing the playlist be compared to the routine, anything can be compare. Anyways, that was not comparison, it was a sort of motivation.

Everyone deserves a vacation in order to stop the self from becoming mechanical. We do not want to be mechanical, instead we want to be practical. If one thinks practically, he/she will know the importance of a vacation. A vacation which will allow you to stop worrying about the same things for some days at least. You will get an opportunity to see a true reflection and will be able to discover your own self.

Do not work so hard that you get sick and tired of it. You will reach one stage when escaping will remain the only solution, in order to avoid that shame please take the pleasure of a break or a vacation. There is more than ctrl+c and ctrl+v in life so let us all try it. Let us all make some affordable mistakes for which we do not have to pay huge prices as mistakes do sometimes pave the path to some unexpected events.

Name !

"What is your name boy?" The old man asked, but the boy did not want to respond and that increased the level of curiosity in the aged man. The grey haired man somehow collected all his will to go near him and approach one more time, he did not ask the same question. This time he said," ok! if you are not willing to tell me your name, no issues, do you mind if I go with you?" Finally, the boy got irritated and said,"I have no name and I do not want any company." The old man smiled and said, " son I do understand that you are disturbed right now and you want to be alone but people after spending sometime with me do feel relieved." 

The angry young boy with a frown on his face," Can I just stay alone for sometime! As soon as the bus comes, I will board it and leave, now you can leave!" The old man chuckled and said that everyone in this viscinity knows that no buses pass through this lane and it has been more than a year now. Okay! I lose said the boy and my name is Alpha. So nice to finally meet you Alpha said the old man. Call it coincidence or anything, my name is Omega, the old man introduced himself.

Alpha : I do not believe in coincidence but yes you are quiet irritating. I needed sometime to ponder and now you have jumped up to this place.

Omega: I might help you in connecting the dots.

Alpha: How can you respond in such a manner as if you can read my mind? Are you some kind of a supernatural being?

Omega: No son, it is just the grey hair that is doing the talking. I have observed and seen things. Let me guess why you are here! Must be because of the hardships of life and now that you are so exhausted, you wanted a break.

Alpha: Yes.

Omega: You want to go away, so far, that no one can find you and you do not have to be the same roddent of this experiment of life.

Alpha: Exactly!

Alpha: But how can you say it so easily! Am I  so transparent that you can read my mind so easily?

Omega: You do not have to be transparent to be understood. This is the same story for everyone, everyone is going through something or the other. That does not mean that all of them will have to run somewhere. If that was so then that somewhere would become similar to this place. I was not clear, was I?

Alpha: No!

Omega: Take an example of a tourist destination. People, not just a few but many, visit hill stations for vacations. What if, instead of vacation they completely shift to the hill stations, wouldn't it degrade the beauty of the hills for themselves.

Alpha: Now I understand.

Omega: You can choose to take a break but do not ever make a mistake of giving up. Think that you are strong enough.

Son! Son! Called an old man. The young boy was completely taken by soliloquy and then suddenly he realised that someone is calling him. He was a changed man now, that small moment turned him from a boy. He was now gentle in his approach. "When does a bus pass by?" Asked the old man. "Buses don't go from this lane sir,I will take you to the correct bus stop," boy explained the old man.

The boy now realized that he was talking to his conscience and now that he has understood the meaning, he will no longer need to go to that lane again. 

Diversification!

Diversification is a term generally used by multinational companies, but it is applicable to us humans as well. A company diversifies when it wants or needs to expand its wings and fly higher, similarly we can diversify too in order to expand our knowledge. We tend to do the same things on a daily basis and that kills the opportunity to gain more. We should start emptying our buckets so that we can gain more in the long run.

We get 24 hours a day out of which a fixed amount of 8 to 10 hours is spent on the chores which we perform to earn our bread and butter or to make ourselves able to get that opportunity to work, in other words that time is spent either in office or in schools or colleges. This is an era of matured people where there is no minimum age to gain maturity, people from the age of 10 to 40 are doing the same things. Most of the time is consumed by the internet which has no restrictions as far as the age is concerned. So, 14 hours are left for each one of us out of which 6 hours is enough for sleep. If we pledge to make a change or diversify, we can do or make a great deal of change in the remaining 8 hours.

This era needs inspiration, which is easily available but in the form of virtual reality. People prefer to watch motivational videos and then think and that is where the clock stops ticking as no further step is taken. We end up thinking and then finally get demotivated and on the very next instance play another youtube video of motivation. Does that help? Whatever we are watching or reading, we should try to inculcate those and try to apply those. Today people tend to learn more from the internet, so why not turn it into a positive. 

People are busy criticizing, criticism is good but it should be done in such a way that it encourages the one who is being criticized, encourage in such a manner that the person gets that force to work in a better manner. We pledge, make resolutions and what not but at the end of the day we end up doing the same thing. We have to stop moving in circles, a straight line is fine, a sine curve iis even better but not a circle as you end up in the same place again.

Change is the only thing that is permanent but we should prefer not to give it a circular direction as we can steer the change, change does not steer us, it should not rather.