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In life, most people never admit their flaws.   

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Some of them were never told about their flaws so they think they never had them. It was probably because people around them were either too doting, too considerate or too busy to mention them. Or for that matter, possibly people around them also had the same flaws.

Some of them deliberately avoid looking at their flaws because that makes them feel low and nervous. So they adopt a defense-mechanism of denial. This saves them from any emotional dejection, and also from any mental discomfort of working towards correcting the flaws.

Some of them name their flaws as their ‘style’. As a result, they develop an arrogant confidence about themselves. Consequently, people around them start getting intimidated and begin to accommodate. This lets these people believe that in life there is nothing like ‘flaws’.

And in all these cases, the common outcome is that people are never able to unleash their full potential or establish meaningful connections. What a pity…

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Yes! While seeing wounds in mirror, you can’t apply Band-Aid on the mirror and then…hope to heal.

In life, sometimes we are simply solving a wrong question. 

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Why is it always about… just one more room in the house, just one more zero in the pay-cheque, just one more promotion, just one more week of vacation, just one more hour of sleep, just one more degree on the visiting card, just one more chance to prove oneself?

Why can’t it be about… just one less dose of desire, just one less round of regret, just one less case of complaint, just one less hounding of harshness, just one less attack of anger, just one less tingling of temptation, just one less episode of envy?

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I guess latter is a better way to be more or less ‘happy’ 🙂

Good times don’t last forever. So, if you have tide on your side…keep sailing!   

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At times, fortunes change so suddenly that you are not able to even register what happened! Yes, in a day’s time, worlds come down crashing. It is as if a giant wave comes and takes away with it everything you had built, leaving the shore so calm and empty as if nothing was ever there. And you aren’t even sad or angry, you are simply…numb.

That’s why it is important to respect the vicissitudes of time, and live in resonance with it. So, if you are going through a good phase, don’t waste it. Avoid inflated ego, petty battles, bare-chested bragging, needless reshuffling, indulgent overthinking, misplaced ambitiousness or tempting distractions. Simply stay focused and keep giving your best.

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Because if the tide will turn, you will realize how you never heard a giant clock ticking up there.

Democracy is good only when people put ‘larger-good’ above ‘what’s good for them’

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Over the years I have realized that you can’t make people do even the right thing, because they have different definitions of ‘what’s right’, and those definitions are governed less by ‘what’s the best way to serve’ and more by ‘what serves them best’.

That’s perfectly understandable because of course everyone has a right to exercise one’s discretion and maximize one’s chances of addressing one’s priorities. However, problem starts when people are in a setup which puts them in a network of interdependence.

Because then…all of them can at best attain ‘good’ and can never reach the ‘best’!

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And then, full-form of TEAM becomes ‘Together Everyone Attains Mediocrity’ 🙂 

In life, there will always be negative ‘events’. But do not let them become negative ‘experiences’.

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I am a firm believer in the saying “experience is not what you come across. It is what you do with what you come across”. Yes! You may never have control over what happens to you, but more often than not, you can still have control over what you let it do to you. Thus whenever you go through something unpleasant, try to see it in a light that makes it look less dark.

See it as a learning you required at this point of time, a teaching that was long due, a cue for solving a problem, a hint for making a decision, a nudge from destiny towards a preordained route, or simply a message from the guy up-there that will make sense sometime down the line. So, a ‘negative feeling’ could be a natural first reaction, but a ‘positive inference’ should be the end-point.

This way, rather than growing cynical with every passing year, you will become a person who has…

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…been there…done that!

A peculiar feeling which most of us have is that…

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…we are happy, but not happy enough… we are successful, but not successful enough… we are known, but not known enough… we have come a long way, but not far enough… we earn decent, but not decent enough… we look good, but not good enough… we feel fine, but not fine enough… we are doing well, but not well enough…

Well! That’s not the problem. The problem is that we don’t understand that…

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…nothing is ever ‘enough’.

Where is my…‘me’?                   

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Have you seen it? Because I haven’t for a while…

Probably I forgot it at home when I had to be the ‘mature’ one to compensate for the stubborn ones around, or possibly lost it at the office when I had to align with others for maintaining stability, or maybe left it on the sofa when I was bearing the over-smart ones in the name of etiquette, or perhaps put it under the pillow when I got up tired and quietly began the day’s chores after a sleepless night wrestling with my own mind.

Yes! I guess it must be at one of those places, or may be a part of it at each one of them.

Well! If you find it somewhere then…

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…still please don’t bring it back…as I am trying to learn to live without it.

Sometimes…the feeling of love simply rises above concepts of time and space. 

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As I boarded the plane after conducting a 2-day training program, all I wanted was to doze off on my window seat…without overloading my senses with any new information from my surroundings. However, I couldn’t help but notice a family walking through the aisle.

A girl in her late teens came towards the seat next to me. She was with her parents. Her mother was sheepish and her father looked ill, with one tube hanging from wrist and another one attached to his nose. The girl and her mother sat next to me, and her father sat on the aisle seat of the other column.

The girl seemed awkward, embarrassed, concerned, irritated… all at the same time. It was understandable because her father’s illness seemed difficult and a relatively longer one, and at an age which only comes once in life, the role that she was playing for the family must have taken a toll on her.

And then appeared one of the crew-members! A good-looking boy in his early twenties – well dressed, well-behaved, and with an endearing smile coming out of genuine warmth. In short, just the kind of guy a girl would want to invite home to meet her parents.

That boy helped her father adjust the seat, helped her mother tie the seat belt, put the medical reports properly in a bag, brought two extra puke-bags for the man in case he felt nausea, and thrice helped her mother in ‘taking something out of’ and ‘putting something into’ a bag in the overhead compartment.

Suddenly the girl’s mood lifted. She started talking to her mother in a more loving tone, and asked her father in a caring way if all was well! And of course, she also could not get her eyes off that boy throughout the flight. With a smile that refused to go away, she kept looking at him every now and then, and gushed whenever he looked back at her or smiled back. She visibly looked…in love!

Well! As I got down the stairs of the plane, I was thinking about how there are times when we fall in love literally on the fly… with no desire to be loved back or to be in a relation… with a person whose name we might not know or whose number we can’t ask… for the positive vibes that we receive and the sense of security we feel in his or her presence.

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All we know is that for some moments we feel good… light… and beautiful because of that person.

And that’s enough. 🙂