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When it comes to the matters of heart…“Everything takes a new dimension”!  

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It is strange yet true that…in relationships, you mostly remember the things you had planned but never did, and others mostly remember the things that you did but never planned.

They remember a word you had said, a smile that you had smiled, a look of admiration in your eyes, a pat on the shoulder, an instance when you had opened the door for them, a couplet you had quoted, an envelope on whose back you had written something, a spontaneous half-hug, a pen you never took back, an impromptu jig you broke into, or a moment of silence that you shared.

Yes…! They remember little things. And it’s because…

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… in the realm of relationships, “little things are… BIG things”. 🙂

“In life, mostly, your relationships are your own reflections”.                  

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In this world, people who are ‘purely good’ or ‘absolutely bad’ are very few. Most of the people are what I call the ‘if-then people’. And by ‘if-then people’ I mean that if you give them reasons to be good then they become good, and if you give them reasons to be bad then they become bad.

Well! Look around in your professional or personal domain or for that matter even in your closest relationships and you would find most of them of such type. And consequently, you will also understand that in life, all associations are essentially ‘give and get’. It is simple – give what you want to get.

But now you may think that someone in your life to whom you have given all the reasons to be good and is still turning out to be bad must be from ‘absolutely bad’ category. Right?? Well! No. Let me clarify…

There is very less chance that you would have an ‘absolutely bad’ person in your life. So, if you look closely, the one who you think is turning out to be bad even when you are giving him reasons to be good is actually an ‘if-then person’. It’s just that you have either ‘not identified’ his reasons correctly, or have ‘not given’ him enough of them.

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Yes! If you dig deep enough into your problems, at the root, you would find ‘You’. 🙂

“Tough times should make you tough…but not…‘hardened’”!                    

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At times, going through ‘hard times’ hardens you so much that you close your heart to anything that can melt it! You make it resistant towards every feeling…every emotion in the book. You take sort-of revenge from world by turning yourself into a robotic-being who is living in his watertight ‘self’– devoted to routine…focused on priorities.

You also develop a utilitarian view towards relationships. For you, everyone exists as a means to some end. This makes your smiles cold, your hugs loose and your eye-contacts short. Your laughter becomes superficial and your sobs become shallow. In short, everything about you lacks depth, intensity or wholesomeness.

Well! While such phase is required for one to get back to one’s feet after a hard knock, if it outlasts its natural duration then it becomes life-sucking. And person is reduced to an ‘on the fringe’ existence. So, never stretch such a phase after it has run its natural course…

So… “Go! Laugh, wince and cry… just don’t live it dry”!

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As years ago, Rajesh Khanna sang it right…                                                                             “Jab dard nahin thaa seene mein, tab khaak mazaa thaa jeene mein” 🙂

“Many couples start out as soul-mates and eventually end up becoming more like… room-mates!”                    

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At the start, every relationship seems to possess a spark that is hard to define…some sort of a ‘magic’. However, if you look closely, that magic is combination of two factors – the ‘connect’ that the two persons share, and the unique set of ‘circumstances’ they find themselves in. Now, naturally, the circumstances change over a period of time, and thus then onward the relationship heavily depends on the ‘connect’ between the two persons.

Sadly, this connect is hard to retain, and even harder to regain if lost. And without that connect, persons get pulled apart, and the ‘strain’ is palpable.

However, it is worth every effort to regain that connect, because that’s what provides the most important nourishment for a fulfilling life. And the good news is that the ingredients which are needed to regain that connect are quite simple – spending time with each other, giving undivided attention, seeing each other’s positives, bringing back the innocence to trust each other, and showing care & concern. Yup! That’s all it takes.

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Well! But here comes the bad news… “As people grow up, they become so complex that for them, doing simple things is no more easy”.

“In life, sometimes, the battles are not fought violently…but just… silently”! 

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The other day, I was buying fruits from a slightly elderly vendor. There was one other customer alongside. He was being a tad too choosy, and suddenly the fruit-vendor got visibly upset and said to him “I don’t want to sell it to you now. No! I really don’t! You go to another shop”.

Honestly, the man got caught off-guard, yet, in response, he used kinder words and even apologized, asking the fruit-vendor to forgive him and to not ruin the day for himself due to his act. The old man was defiant for a while but as the man remained insistent, he let him buy from his shop and by the end, even got mellowed down and also quite apologetic.

On our way back, the loved one accompanying me said “Well! The man really sacrificed his ego today”. In turn, I looked at her and said “He didn’t sacrifice his ego, he..defended it”.

I explained… “Had the man got angry or left the shop, the old man would have had it his way. But he didn’t let that happen. He didn’t let the old man decide how it would end. The old man might have started scripting the ‘beginning of the end’, but that man wrote the ‘end of the end’. And the best part was that the vendor could see the balance tilting in the man’s favor, but at no point did the man give him enough fuel to fight back. You could say that ‘man didn’t knock old man out, he simply evened him out. And he knows that too’”.

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Well! “Don’t mistake politeness for ego-less-ness, as often, it is actually its more refined form, which becomes the decider in the subtle games of one-upmanship”.