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When we blame others for our failure, we miss an opportunity to build the strength of our character.       

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It’s understandable if one loses cool to safeguard life, belongings or dignity of one’s self and loved ones. However, there are times when we blame others just to let out our aggression or frustration. It serves a purpose, as the shortest route to short-term elevation of self-image is by vilifying someone.

This is not only wrong but also complete waste of an opportunity. After all, only by owning the failure can one build foundation for successes to come. We can’t deflect responsibility of what happened and hope to grow as a person. So, rather than dumping our angst, let’s give it a constructive outlet by…

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…using it to whet our wisdom and willow.

Don’t try too hard to impress people. It will take a toll on your self-esteem.      

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Well, we all try to impress people – sometimes because we ‘want to’ and sometimes because we ‘have to’. As ‘social animals’, it is a natural tendency born out of requirement of ‘acceptance’. And then there are demands of situations, occupation and other such understandable reasons for doing so.

However, the problem comes when we try ‘too hard’ to please or ‘be liked’ by going out of the way. That’s when the things take pathological proportions, and we begin to experience that restlessness for grabbing eyeballs for the reasons beyond the ones we wanted to ‘get noticed for’ in the first place.

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Let’s impress through ‘what we want to be known for’ and not because we want to be …known.

Some relationships are best left unanalyzed.      

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I have known both of them for years. Just when I think they are inseparable, they diverge. Just when I think they are incompatible, they unite. Just when I think they don’t care for each other, one of them holds the fort for the other. Just when I think they have matured, they fall out.

They keep leaving and coming back, saying goodbyes and then being a call away. They aren’t bonded by a bond with a name and they are least interested in naming the bond that binds them together. Well, when I last saw them, I asked her “Who are you of each other?” She smiled and said…

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“…the missing piece of the puzzle”.

Do not get so obsessed with a dream that it starts affecting your reality      

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Ideas can be really seductive. They can cast such a spell over you that you begin to chase one of them as if your life depends on it. It takes form of a dream…a vision…or an ideology. However, no matter how ‘great’ it sounds, it is at best an idea – an abstraction…a conception.

Well, I have no problems if this abstraction motivates you to take up a journey. But at times, an image of your future-self becomes so overpowering that you stop enjoying the reflection you see every day in the mirror. All you care about is that “One day, I will…” image. And that’s when…

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…that idea requires a reality-check – a comeback to sanity.

Don’t pack your schedule so tight that there remains no scope for an unexpected opportunity.      

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I know life is a tradeoff…and that you will have to lose something to gain something else…and that a bird in hand is better than two in the bush…and that you can’t have it all. Still, I will make my case – let’s not pack our schedules with activities just to placate the insecurity of seeming idle.

And I am not talking about ‘not scheduling’ your day. In fact, I have always been a great proponent of productively utilizing every day with planning and self-directedness. What I am questioning is our growing tendency to ‘be busy with trivial to look busy all the time’.

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After all, you can plan the efforts but not the ‘opportunities’.

Unresolved past makes your present bear burden of a ghost that didn’t die properly.      

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Past is past because it has passed, but what will you call a past that hasn’t passed? Yes, there are times when the past doesn’t pass, some part of it remains painfully alive. It lingers on… and keeps entering your present off and on.

And then, it becomes a constant struggle, to pull your present from the clutches of past, to rightfully own it. But the past doesn’t loosen its grip. The more you pull, the tighter it holds. You know what! This tussle won’t end until…

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…you do something in your present to give that past a redeemed future.

‘Planning to do something’ cannot be a substitute for ‘Doing it’.     

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There are a lot of planners out there in the world. They know all that has to be done, in impressive details. They talk with great gusto and complete conviction. Listening to them is a crash course in ‘how to win friends and influence people’, except ‘they never get down to actually do much’.

On the surface, it might seem that they were fooling you, but the fact is that they have been successfully fooling themselves, manipulating their own selves into believing that one day they will do it. As a result, they feel increasingly lesser guilt and greater pleasure in ‘talk their plans out’.

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Let’s not be one.

I shout because I suffer.     

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When I suffered in silence, you thought I was dull and glum. You criticized me for not being communicative. You called me names, and when I didn’t react, you again called me names. When I tried to explain, you either ignored, smiled with contempt, or just didn’t want to understand.

And then…I started shouting. Not because I wanted to intimidate, but because I wanted to be heard. I wanted you to know that I am suffering. But now, you think I have gone mad…that I have lost it…that I am no more reasonable, and hardly mature. Alas…you don’t understand that…

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…now I shout, not because I have something to gain. It’s actually a shriek out of sheer pain.

See life as a process of ‘continuous improvement’, not as standalone ‘failures and achievements’.

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Do not infer the state of your life after every experience. Neither the good ones make life absolutely good nor do the bad ones make it utterly bad. Experiences have to be seen in a composite manner, assessing them in relation to each other.

For this you will have to connect the dots, and you can’t connect them by sitting on one of those dots. You got to have a bird’s eye view, with entire landscape of your life laid out on a table while you look at it as if it weren’t your life but someone else’s.

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And for that objectivity, first you got to have enough dots on the paper.  🙂

Don’t trick yourself into believing that you are someone special who is ignored by the world. It’s a trap.

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“You are special” is a good thought, but it shouldn’t become an excuse for an inflated sense of self. After all, if everyone is unique, then there is no way to tell who is special. Thus, while we must maintain a healthy ‘self-image’ with high esteem, we shouldn’t do a con job to our own mind.

Well, most of us have an unduly unfair assessment of our abilities (too high or too low). To this typical creator’s bias, add some ego-pumping books or videos, and you have a perfect recipe for self-obsession. And then, if you aren’t acknowledged enough by enough of them, world seems to be an unfair place.

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You are not special. You are unique. And that should suffice. 🙂