www.sandeepatre.com

If you are struggling in life then… struggle properly.   

……….

Yes! Let it be pure struggle. Do not mix into it your personal complexes or deeply held regrets or low self-esteem or old grudges or a back-story that has nothing to do with the circumstances at hand. I mean, already you are being beaten, so why give birth to new enemies from your own mental womb?

Nope, you can’t afford that luxury right now. So, just stick to the fight you are currently a part of, and if at all you are getting crushed in the battle or are being completely outdone, please let it be a suffering coming out of the ‘ongoing onslaught’, and not a ‘past problem’ or a ‘future foe’.

……….

After all, you got to respect the pain you are earning from your hard work.  🙂

Sometimes, the ‘pain that comes with a scar’ lives on ‘even after the scar’.   

……….

As I waited in the lounge, a recent hit movie was playing on TV. It was about a profession that everyone lauds for ‘sacrifices’. As the credits rolled with a song, I sensed that the man sitting two chairs away from me was shaking his head in disgust. I looked at him and asked… “Any connection?” and he parted with the secret in the following minutes…

His father was from the same profession. He had gone for an assignment and had returned with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). During the day, as part of duty-demeanor, he would talk about bravery, and in the nights he would remain awake or wake up with a shriek…all sweating. He suffered for the rest of his life due to disorder and the ensuing medication. Moreover, he successfully passed on ‘depression’ to his kids as well.

……….

Then he paused for a while and said – “You know, it’s one thing to watch a movie or sing a song about it, and altogether a different thing to…‘live the consequences of it’”.

Everyone is in the game. Go, play it wholeheartedly. Oh! But do remember…‘it’s a game’.  

……….

If you will see anywhere for long enough, you will see a game going on – someone playing his moves and waiting for the other one to make his… someone ready to pounce upon a chance to even the odds of one-upmanship… someone wanting to have a foot in the door to then throw it open… someone calculating how best to use the new kid on the block before he knows he is being played.

Yes, everywhere, there is a game going on. Well! Now, you have two options. Either refuse to play it and incur a cost, or agree to play it and pay a price. In case you opt for the first, stay sane while you see others speeding past you. And if you choose the second, then don’t hold yourself back. Wear your masks, remember your lines, and do what the playwright makes you do.

However, even in the second case, do not let go of your authenticity… do not let the mask become your face… do not let your dialogues dictate your beliefs. Because if that happens, then…

……….

…even if you win the game, you will lose; as then… the game would have won over you 🙂

For a successful relationship, it is important to keep tracking the ‘change’.

……….

In any sphere of life, when two persons decide to partner, they decide on the basis of ‘who they are’ at ‘that point of time’ in life. But as I always say… “People are not events, they are processes”. So each of them changes with time, and thus, to keep that partnering going, both got to track the change.

Yes, you change with time, and so does the other person – in terms of situations, priorities, constraints, aspirations, nature. New people come in life, and with them come new equations. And amidst all this, ‘what you two share’ is bound to get affected for better or worse. So it’s crucial to keep looking. 

……….

After all, as long as you live… change is not a matter of choice, though ‘accepting it’ still is. And that’s where we mess it up 🙂

Never trust when someone says ‘I am there’, just see whether they were…

……….

As someone who helps people understand emotions and relationships, a concept I often discuss is – ‘No one is good or bad, everyone is good and bad’. Yes, there are times when a person who never talked to you talks for you, one you always found obnoxious rekindles your faith, one who has been your worst critic stands up to defend you, or a certified antagonist risks his own balance to pull you out of a rut.

And out there… standing on the sidelines is the sweet-talker you always considered a friend, one who promised he would be there for you forever, one who said she would back you up with her life, one who looked right into your eyes and said “you would never be alone”, one who had claimed to stay alongside like a shadow. You can see them all, right down the far end… witnessing your struggle with a blank face.

……….

Of course, this isn’t always the case. But, you know what… “You never know”. 🙂

Childhood was beautiful because we believed that all good things are here to stay.

……….

And then, in the process of growing up, we witness the transient nature of everything – we fall in love… then fall out of it, we make friends…then lose them, we buy things…and then forget where we kept them, we get success…then flunk hard, we make principles…and then trade them to make a living, we trust people…then find it nowhere, we dream…and then settle down.

And then, we realize that nothing is permanent. Life is just a game of cards. No matter how well you prepare for the game, the game holds enough cards up its sleeves to throw you off balance. And you have to live with the deal offered. And most of us are not comfortable with that suspense. Oh! So now, we’ve got the secret of why childhood actually felt beautiful…

……….

Yes, it was because, in childhood, we looked at the world not with hope, but with… curiosity. 🙂

Life is much bigger than a few events happening in it.

……….

Someone hurting you… someone leaving you… someone failing you… all these are events that can be really disturbing when seen standalone. But then if you look at the journey you have made till this point, that event is at best yet another in the series of all those events that you have taken in your stride.

Yes! You’ve been there before. And though it feels as if this is worse than all earlier ones, believe me, it felt the same way every time. So, see this event in backdrop of journey you’ve had, and you will marvel at sheer magnitude of life you’ve witnessed… and the sprawling vastness of all there is yet to be seen.

……….

So now… come on… flash that toothy smile and… get back to work. 🙂

The other day, someone asked me… “So what are you chasing in life?”

……….

What am I chasing?

Riches? Or respect? Or status? Or satisfaction? Or significance?

It’s even more painful when you don’t even know if the other person is even connecting to your pain.

……….

It’s a strange situation – You are pouring out your most personal feelings in front of someone. You are talking about your deepest dilemmas… those terrible traumas… a horrible helplessness… that repetitive restlessness. And when you lift your chin up and look at the other person’s face, there is nothing on it – just a ‘pasted expression’ of some sort.

And suddenly, you get shell-shocked. You feel many things at the same time – insecurity of trusting too much… embarrassment of opening up too quickly… regret of letting go too early… fear of being judged too harshly. You almost feel as if you got naked in front of an impersonator in the skin of a soul-mate. In those moments, you realize that…

……….

…when you share a part of yourself with someone, you actually expect a mirror on the other person’s face.

Taking yourself seriously has serious consequences.             

……….

If you take yourself too seriously then unknowingly you start getting blackmailed by people into living a life befitting the image they have built for you in their own minds. So, now you are just a puppet in their hands, but interestingly you never feel like that because you also secretly enjoy the image you are pitted against. And then begins the most laughable charade…

Yes! You now try to live a life that an ‘imagined character with your name and face’ lives in people’s heads. This charade is so intoxicating that you don’t even pause for a while to question the insanity of it all. After all, you are not that imagined character. Are you? But it doesn’t even occur to you because of all the importance you get for playing a second fiddle to your image.

Yes! It is this importance that feeds the game.

……….

So pause, and question the importance of… this importance.