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“If you are not happy with ‘what you have’ then chances are that you will never be with what you will ever have”   

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Most of the people I meet are just plain ‘restless’ – restless to reach somewhere…achieve something… match someone. They have a perfect idea of their imperfection.

They are sure that ‘who and where they presently are’ is not good; that that ‘illusory good’ is somewhere out there… on the horizon. And that, with an X amount of hard work and determination, one day they will reach there and will then live happily ever after.

You know what! The problem is not that they are in a race. The problem is that…

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…now, the race is inside them.

I have nearly never been overconfident; because I know that… “All that I am confident about will be over one day”.  

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The other day someone complimented me on being ‘down to earth’! I smiled, walked away, and winked to myself; as I know that it is less out of my goodness…and more because of an awareness…

Well! I have seen people known for their ‘calmness’ screw it all in one unwarranted fit. I have seen people known for their ‘wisdom’ messing it all up in one rush of adrenaline. I have seen people known for their ‘character’ falling prey to one good opportunity to lose it. I have seen people known for their ‘expertise’ averaging it all in one rough patch of health. I have seen people known for their ‘balance’ slamming it all hard during one relationship-trouble…

…actually, I have seen ‘too much’ to hold on to the illusion of ‘control’.

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So what keeps me grounded is the cognizance of all that is buried beneath the ground I am standing on. 🙂

“Don’t expect life to be fair. It is not fair or unfair. It is just the way it is. And it has always been this way. Even when you were not here.”

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The best description I have come across of the question ‘what is immune system?’ is that to see what immune system is, just see what happens to a dead body. Yes! Once you die, it only takes a few weeks for bacteria, microbes, parasites etc. to feast on your body until all that is left is a skeleton. And it happens because your immune system has shut down, and the door is left wide open…

Something similar happens even in life. When you are weak and fragile, you suddenly see things around you changing in unexpected ways. People around you start speaking with a different tone, pitch and volume. The whole treatment changes – you are taken advantage of, or even worse, for granted. Yes! You discover that you are lonely and have suddenly become everyone’s target.

Actually you are wrong. You have not ‘become’ a target now. You were always a target. It’s just that now you are a soft one.

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And, don’t you know that…“It is easy to chew a soft thing”. 

I always tell in my workshops…“Humans are ‘social animals’…only as long as they get good reasons to remain ‘social’”.

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The workshop was on ‘social intelligence’, and in the first half, we had talked about how our brain functions and shapes our behavior. In the break, as we sat for lunch, training manager said that he wanted to discuss a very peculiar behavior of one of his juniors…

This man is sincere, well-behaved, and in almost complete control of himself! Everyone likes him and people in office have hardly had any complaint with him. Naturally, the manager was interested to know more about this person, so he tried to find out more about his personal life. And what he got to know shocked him. This person, who is a perfect gentleman in the office, has many vices outside it. In fact the manager told me “He can be found at almost all such condemned addresses where he can go without getting arrested or killed”. And then he added…“A strange man! Isn’t it?”

Well! I had a good laugh and then said…

“He is not strange. He is very intelligent! Mark Twain had once said ‘Everyone of us is a moon. We all have a dark side…’, so does he. It is just that I suspect that his dark side is relatively darker than most of the people. And I guess he knows it well. Now, throughout the day, he stays the gentleman you all know, and thus that side of his remains suppressed and unacceptable.

So, during the day, a lot of suffocation builds up inside him. He risks being divided ‘into two’ inside his own self if he keeps living in denial of a part which is an integral part of his personality. Now, the only way for him to retain sanity is to be with such people in whose presence he doesn’t feel disapproval for his darker side – where he doesn’t find that part being condemned, damned, or even evaluated.

I think what you are seeing as ‘imbalance’ is a perfect strategy to balance an unbalanced human self.”

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Manager nodded in appreciation, and then added…“So, we shouldn’t stop him?”     

I said “No! Absolutely not! And don’t mind but actually I was hoping if…

…you could share with me those addresses.” 🙂

“Sometimes, problems don’t require the ‘best solution’. They just need a ‘new’ one!”

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Recently, I asked one of my former colleagues to mentor one of my dear ones. She was surprised because she herself considers me as a mentor and thus asked why I wouldn’t mentor the boy…

I said “You must have heard the story on why, in a circus or zoo, a huge elephant is tied to a small wooden peg hammered into the ground; and still he doesn’t run away because he had tried it when he was a baby and had not succeeded”.

She said “Yes! I have heard the story. But how come that explains your point?”

I said “In his case…I represent that small peg of his life”.

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Yes! Sometimes, when people need to make a fresh start, they need fresh faces around. Not because the old faces are not good, but because… old faces remind them of…their own ‘old-selves’.

“We think about it, joke about it, but sadly…seldom talk about it”!

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As those ‘moments of passion’ passed, the shared silence following the sensual storm was suddenly broken by his chuckle…

She wondered where that came from! He looked at her and smiled. She gave her a surprised look. He imitated the look. She chuckled. He held her hand. She caressed his face. He shared what he suddenly got reminded of and made him chuckle. She listened to it intently. She also chuckled…

And in the wee hours, they simply talked – without topic…without opinions…without discussion.         

Now, before you declare me frivolous, perverted or voyeuristic, let me come to my point…

When it comes to a couple, what characterizes or strengthens their relationship is not all that they do for those ‘moments of passion’ or during them. It is about what they do after those moments have passed. Yes! What couples don’t realize is that ‘the moments that come after they are done with chasing the hormonal-high’ offer the true opportunity for real togetherness – the one beyond physicality.

And that’s what defines ‘the future’ of ‘the love’ in ‘the relationship’.

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Well! You must be wondering who these ‘he’ and ‘she’ are, and how do I know them?

But you know what! It hardly matters who they are, because in any case, in those gentle moments of togetherness, they themselves lose their identities…and validate the proverbial ‘two becoming one’. 🙂

“Please don’t shout!” she said while pointing her finger at him…

…and immediately I realized why he shouts so often.

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Over the years, I have come across a lot of people who have been branded as ‘aggressive’. Blamed for sudden bursts of shouting and impulsive episodes of losing their cool, they are also known for blowing something out of proportions and then getting into a short ‘hysteria’ of uncontrolled barrage of words, while bringing other out-of-context points and old buried complaints out of nowhere.

However, what I have realized is that while some of these people have serious aggression issues, most of them have a different reason behind this syndrome. And it is that incidentally they have ‘got partnered’ or ‘are surrounded by’ persons who are at the other end of the spectrum.

In the name of being ‘calm and composed’, these other-end persons are actually plain cold; with their so-called normalness actually bordering on indifference. They are often unresponsive and tend to be inappropriately less-sensitive. In fact, their objectivity comes from unwillingness to take accountability or hardly any desire to look beyond themselves.

Well! Ironically, in our society, cynical indifference is more acceptable than involved anger. That’s why, when these ‘two types’ somehow land up together in a relationship or association, the second-type person mostly sets the definition of ‘normal’ behavior by his or her criteria. And from then onward, the first-type person has to live up to this lopsided definition.

And in this ‘pursuit’, which obviously and unfairly favors the second-type, the first-type keeps falling short.

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Yes! What second-types don’t realize is that the first-types don’t shout to cause pain… they actually shout because of it.